Jessica Tisch sworn in as latest NYPD commissioner

Jessica Tisch was sworn in Monday as the NYPD’s new commissioner, the fourth top cop to assume the role during Mayor Adams’ first three years in office.
During the ceremony in an auditorium at 1 Police Plaza, Adams praised Tisch — who was named Sanitation Department commissioner in 2022, the job she held until Adams last week tapped her to lead the nation’s largest police force — as “someone who understands what it is to lead.”
Tisch took the oath of office as her two sons, Larry and Harry, nephew Max and mother Merryl, stood with her. Merryl Tisch held a family Bible on which Tisch placed her left hand.
Adams scoffed at criticism that Tisch, 43, has never been a cop, insisting “a good manager can manage anywhere.”
“I believe policing is the noblest of professions, and I see my job as getting them the tools and the resources and the support that they need to do their important work on behalf of New Yorkers,” Tisch told ABC.
In her first act as commissioner Tisch attended roll call at the 48th police precinct in the Bronx.
Tisch is no stranger to the nation’s largest police force — she has worked in the past as a civilian NYPD employee, first as a counterterrorism analyst, then later as Deputy Commissioner of Information Technology.
“I push back on anyone that believes she had to wear a police uniform to take the department to the next direction,” Adams said. “She can wear any uniform and accomplish the task.”
Tisch started her morning at Sanitation Department headquarters on Worth St. in lower Manhattan, then walked to 1 Police Plaza with a cadre of Sanitation chiefs.
She said her first swearing-in, as NYPD intelligence analyst on Oct. 1, 2008, took place in what she called “an oversized closet.”
But she said the words she swore to back then, “to faithfully discharge the duty of,” mean more to her today than ever.
“I have tried my hardest, and I have asked others to do the same on behalf of the people of this city,” she said. “Sometimes it’s good enough. Sometimes there are even moments of greatness. Other times you miss. But when you miss you wake up the next day, and you go after it even harder.”
Tisch returns to a vastly different landscape, one dominated by Adams, who has played an outsized role in major Police Department decisions. He has also been indicted on federal corruption charges— and even if he is ultimately acquitted Tisch could be out of a job if the mayor is not reelected.
While shootings and murders continue to drop, the city is plagued by continued unprovoked attacks and a sense among some New Yorkers that they don’t feel safe, regardless of what the numbers show.
Police sources say they expect Tisch to require top brass to tone down their aggressive social media posture that has seen them criticize judges, prosecutors and reporters.
Tisch succeeds Interim NYPD Commissioner Thomas Donlon, who was involved in a high-profile kerfuffle with a top deputy commissioner at the New York Marathon earlier this month but otherwise kept a low profile since his Sept. 13 swearing in, lauding cops on social media but not granting interviews and deferring to other brass at press conferences.
Donlon’s predecessor, Edward Caban, resigned Sept. 12, just over a week after the feds confiscated electronics from Caban and four other top Adams administration officials in a coordinated early-morning operation that is part of a sprawling federal probe. Caban’s lawyer has said the feds have assured him Caban is not a target of the probe.
Many inside NYPD Headquarters at 1 Police Plaza, as well as outside observers, believed Caban, the city’s first Latino police commissioner, wasn’t fully in charge, with Adams and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks often calling the shots. Banks himself resigned last month.
Adams’ first police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, the first female top cop in city history, faced the same skepticism. She resigned in June 2023, with police sources saying she had grown tired of City Hall interference.
Tisch noted, however, that Adams gave her the “independence” as sanitation commissioner to make bold changes.
Former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton — one of three former commissioners in attendance, along with Raymond Kelly and Dermot Shea — said Tisch will need that independence as the new commissioner, noting his boss, former Mayor de Blasio, allowed him to pick his team of chiefs and other supervisors.
“Jessie, because her understanding of this department and the city has the unique ability,” Bratton said. “She’s not new to the place. She’s got a big head start.”
In her speech, Tisch didn’t announce any new initiatives but promised New Yorkers the NYPD would continue its “foundational work to make you safer, make you feel safe and to improve the quality of life across the city.”
Tisch, a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Business School, did not take questions from reporters after the swearing-in. Her family is worth about $10 billion, and she has
relatives who sit on the board of trustees of the New York City Police Foundation.