Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced that NYC Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch will continue to serve her responsibilities, as she leads the largest police department in the country.
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 was seemingly a way to ease voters' concerns that as a democratic socialist he would not take crime seriously after 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 the "greatest privilege of my life, and I am proud to continue doing it", while also acknowledging that she and Mamdani share some differences.
Tisch was appointed commissioner in 2024 by Adams and is an 18-year veteran of public service.
She began her career in public service in 2008, working in the NYPD's Counterterrorism Bureau, and prior to leading the NYPD, she presided over the city's Sanitation Department and the Information Technology and Telecommunications Department.
New York City recorded 377 homicides in 2024, its lowest number of killings since 2020, according to data released from the NYPD in January.
However, the city recorded its highest number of felony assaults, 29,417 attacks that involved or threatened serious injury, in over two decades.
