NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch pledged on Monday to do everything in her power to stop any move by President Trump to federally take over New York City law enforcement, stating that she is “revolted” at the thought of it.
The comments came during a Citizens Budget Commission Breakfast in Midtown on Sept. 8 — hours before Trump’s Justice Department announced a renewed immigration crackdown in Chicago, a city that Trump threatened on social media to go to war with over the weekend before walking back the threat.
Tisch did not hold back when it came to the notion of the National Guard, at Trump’s potential order, filing into the streets of the Big Apple — saying she detests any militarization of the city’s streets.
“As a lifelong New Yorker, I am revolted by the idea of the militarization of our streets,” Tisch said. “As long as I have the honor of serving as the Police Commissioner of the city of New York, I will be very clear with anyone, with all of you, with the Attorney General, with whoever wants to talk to me about it, about the fact that the NYPD: We’ve got this, we don’t need, or want the federal government’s help here in that way.”
Tisch pointed to recent crime statistics that show that New York has seen a record low in shootings citywide for the first eight months of 2025. From January through August, the department recorded 489 shooting incidents with 611 victims — the lowest in recorded history, next to 2018, when police reported 502 shootings with 612 victims.
The NYPD also said overall crime fell 6.7% in August compared with the same month last year. She added that she believes that the NYPD is perfectly trained and equipped to deal with crime, something the military is not.
“New York City police officers are the best trained in the world, and they are certainly the best at what they do. And, in my opinion, they have things under control. Look at the numbers that we just went through. Crime is trending in the right direction,” Tisch said. “The National Guard, God bless them, they’re not trained to handle street crime in New York City. They are trained on a lot of things, which happens to not be one of the things that they specialize in. So, one of the very major concerns that I have around this topic of deploying the National Guard to New York City, or big cities across the country, is that it will introduce an amount of chaos and disorder and confusion that will be counterproductive.”
Tisch did say she is willing to work with the feds — but by stopping the flow of guns, not by filling the streets with soldiers.
“I’ll tell you what we could use from them: they could shut down the gun pipelines. I could take more federal prosecutors,” Tisch said. “I would take many more gun cases federally if we had more federal prosecutors. Let’s focus on the right type of partnership with the federal government; the National Guard happens not to be that thing.”
She also added that she will do everything in her power to prevent a federal takeover.
“I hope and expect that that will not occur on my watch in New York City,” Tisch said.
