New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced that he has chosen New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to continue in her role leading the largest police department in the nation.
As a candidate, Mamdani vowed to keep Tisch — who was appointed commissioner by Mayor Eric Adams — in the role.
Pledging to keep Tisch on as police commissioner could be seen as a way to assuage voters’ concerns that Mamdani, a democratic socialist, would not take crime as a serious issue, and over his past statements to defund the police.
In a statement, he applauded Tisch for “cracking down on corruption in the upper echelons of the police department, driving down crime in New York City, and standing up for New Yorkers in the face of authoritarianism.”
“Together, we will deliver a city where rank-and-file police officers and the communities they serve alike are safe, represented, and proud to call New York their home,” Mamdani said in the statement.
In an internal email to the NYPD, Tisch said that being commissioner is “greatest privilege of my life, and I am proud to continue doing it.”
However, she acknowledged the differences that stand between her and the mayor-elect. On the campaign trail, Mamdani vowed to maintain the NYPD’s headcount, but shift some of its responsibilities to a civilian-led agency.
“Now, do the Mayor-elect and I agree on everything? No, we don’t,” she wrote “But in speaking with him, it’s clear that we share broad and crucial priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue driving down crime, and the need to maintain stability and order across the department.”
