Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declared on Wednesday that he has made the final decision to keep Jessica Tisch as police commissioner. However, it remains unclear if the city’s top cop wants to remain at the helm under the new mayor.
Appearing on Good Morning America the morning after declaring victory as the Big Apple’s 111th mayor, Mamdani stated that he wanted to keep Tisch on top of the NYPD because of her efforts to stamp out corruption.
“I’ve made my decision to retain Commissioner Tisch. I’ve done so because Eric Adams had stacked the upper echelon of the NYPD with incompetence and corruption. She came in and tackled and started to deliver accountability and reduce crime across the five boroughs,” Mamdani said.
While the second-youngest-ever mayor-to-be says he is decisive in his decision, Commissioner Tisch has kept a tight lip about the situation.
When amNewYork reached out to the NYPD for comment, a spokesperson referred us to previous comments made by Tisch in which she refused to dabble into city politics.
“As I’ve said many times, it is not appropriate for the Police Commissioner to be directly involved or to seem to be involved in electoral politics,” Tisch said.
Still, this has not stopped members of the department from internally speculating on what exactly her next moves will be.
Some police insiders, speaking anonymously to amNewYork, believe Tisch has established a strong track record for herself through record-low crime numbers and suggest that she may have aspirations to run for mayor herself in the future.
Other sources within the department speculate that they do not believe she will stay because her ideals and religious background do not align with Mamdani.
On Wednesday morning, Mamdani held a press conference in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, where he was again questioned about his conversations with Tisch and whether he felt he had convinced her to stay.
“I look forward to having conversations with her on that very subject,” he added.
Although he has made several public overtures that he wished to keep Tisch as his top cop, he has not publicly stated that he has spoken directly to her about it, or if she had informed him of an agreement to stay.
amNewYork reached out to the Mamdani campaign, asking whether the mayor-elect has spoken with Tisch since announcing, in an Oct. 22 New York Times report, his intention to retain her as the city’s top cop. We are waiting for a response.
