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By: Ilana Siyance
On Monday morning, Jessica Tisch, a longtime public servant, was sworn-in as the NYPD’s 48th commissioner. As reported by the NY Post, Tisch vowed to improve New Yorkers’ quality of life as she took the oath of office during a ceremony at One Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan. “The police exist to eliminate fear and disorder… and they do a damn good job of it,” she said. “We will continue to do that most important foundational work to make you safe, make you feel safe and to improve the quality of life across the city,” she told New Yorkers.
Tisch is the second woman in the city’s 179-year history to hold the position of top cop and the first woman of the Jewish faith to assume this responsibility. She replaces interim commissioner Thomas Donlon, who stepped in this September following the resignation of Edward Caban. She is the fourth commissioner to be named by Mayor Eric Adams in his three-year tenure. Adams had first named police commissioner Keechant Sewell, as the first female to ever hold the job— but she abruptly resigned after a year, citing tension between her, then-Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phil Banks and the mayor himself.
Tisch, 42, a Democrat, most recently served as head of the city sanitation department since 2022, and previously as Commissioner of NYC’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications from 2019 to 2022. She has held several civilian positions within the NYPD, including being appointed Deputy Commissioner of Information Technology for the NYPD in 2014, spearheading their launch of body cameras and smartphones, and working with the city’s transit agency to make police radios work in the subway. She is the scion of a wealthy New York family, born the daughter of James S. Tisch, Chief Executive Officer of the Loews movie theater chain.
Her mother, Merryl Tisch, is the former chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents. Tisch, a Jew whose maternal grandfather was a Rabbi, earned her B.A., MBA and law degree from Harvard University. Her parents, her husband Daniel Zachary Levine, and her two sons were all present at the swearing-in ceremony on Monday.
The new commissioner has not yet picked a new staff and is still getting settled into her 14th-floor office at police headquarters, per the information provided in a PIX11 report. Adam’s praised Tisch as a “battle-tested leader,” touting her tenure as Sanitation Commissioner and her previous 12-year civilian stint with the NYPD’s information tech department. “I need someone who is going to take the police department into the next century. I need a visionary. I need a person who can look at how we do everyday operations, and do what she has done over at the Department of Sanitation and other fields where she has provided service.” Adams said, adding, “The prerequisite to prosperity is public safety.”
According to The Post report, three former police commissioners, Ray Kelly, Bill Bratton and Dermot Shea, who Tisch had previously worked under, were in attendance at Monday’s ceremony, cheering her on. They expressed confidence in her ability, despite not wearing a police uniform. “I don’t think Jessie needs any advice from me,” said Shea. “She know what she’s doing. I think she’s going to be great for the city,” he added. “She’s going to wrap her arms around public safety and she’s going to improve morale.”
