Jessica Tisch accepts Zohran Mamdani’s offer to remain New York police commissioner

By Gloria Pazmino, CNN

New York (CNN) — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday that Jessica Tisch accepted his offer to stay at the helm of the nation’s largest police force.

The announcement secures Mamdani’s highest-profile appointment as he prepares to take office in January.

It will require significant compromise from both Tisch and Mamdani, who have expressed different views on policing and public safety. Mamdani, who has been previously critical of the police and once supported defunding the department, apologized to officers during his successful mayoral run. Tisch, known as an technocrat, has pushed to roll back criminal justice reforms and expand neighborhood policing.

“Leading this department is the greatest privilege of my life, and I am proud to continue doing it,” Tisch wrote in a letter to the NYPD that was obtained by CNN. “Now, do the Mayor-elect and I agree on everything? No, we don’t. 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. We also agree that you deserve the city’s respect and support.”

For weeks, it remained unclear whether Tisch, who was appointed to the department by Mayor Eric Adams, would accept to stay in the role after Mamdani publicly committed to keeping her on the job during the last mayoral debate.

It was a final-hour effort by Mamdani and his campaign to show how much he was willing to compromise and appeal to city voters who remained skeptical about his campaign, particularly among older and more moderate Democrats.

Tisch abstained from commenting on the race for mayor or Mamdani’s politics during the campaign. Last week, Mamdani and Tisch held a meeting, but it remained unclear if he had secured a commitment. Gov. Kathy Hochul, one of the chief supporters of retaining Tisch, said she was confident Tisch would stay.

Tisch, heiress to the Loews family fortune, is a career public servant who previously served as commissioner for the sanitation department and the city’s chief technology officer. She is highly regarded in government circles and was appointed to the job following a string of high-profile corruption scandals that rocked the department under Adams’ administration.

In the last year, Tisch has overseen a record drop in the city’s crime rate, a reduction in shootings and homicides, and an effort to remove thousands of illegal guns from city streets.

Joint appearance

Mamdani and Tisch appeared together Wednesday at the Fallen Heroes Memorial in Lower Manhattan. The pair walked around the site while Tisch pointed out the names of officers recently killed in the line of duty. They were joined by a small group of officers who shook hands with Mamdani as he asked about their time in the department.

“I appreciate the moments I just shared with Commissioner Tisch and a number of officers here with us to pay our respects to NYPD officers who lost their lives in the line of duty and to learn a little bit more about the names that some many New Yorkers have come to know, the heroism and the families they left behind,” Mamdani told reporters after the visit.

Tisch declined to answer questions and told reporters she wanted to keep “politics out” of the discussion.

“I’m sure there will be plenty of time to discuss all of that,” Tisch said, praising Mamdani for choosing the police memorial as the site of their first public appearance. “To me it is very meaningful that he asked to come here as our first public venture to visit the memorial.”

As part of his campaign, Mamdani proposed creating a “Department of Community Safety,” which would shift focus away from the NYPD for certain emergency calls like responding to people in mental distress, domestic violence calls or the homeless. Mamdani has said the calls would still rely on police when necessary, but he has described the effort as a move that would allow police to focus on fighting serious crime.

Following his visit, Mamdani suggested Tisch was on board with his proposal.

“It’s untenable for officers to be asked to respond to respond to the 200,000 mental health calls they receive every year, to be tasked with the responsibility to deal with the mental health crisis, the homelessness crisis,” Mamdani said. “The commissioner and I share a belief in the fact that in order for police officers to be able to do their jobs we also need to create a Department of Community Safety to be tasked with those responsibilities.”

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CNN’s Mark Morales contributed to this report.