The New York City Police Department has to be feeling cursed these days. Having barely recovered from the dark years of Bill de Blasio and still emerging from the chaos of the Eric Adams era, the NYPD now faces the daunting prospect of reporting to democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. But don’t bet against the men and women in blue. They are remarkably resilient—and they may have a secret weapon in their experienced and savvy commissioner, Jessica Tisch.
The NYPD had a notoriously fractious relationship with de Blasio during his 2014–2021 mayoralty. De Blasio publicly stated that his own children feared interacting with cops, and he slashed the police budget in 2020 to cater to progressive activists. The department’s antipathy to de Blasio was fierce and undisguised; officers turned their backs on the mayor when he spoke at a slain police officer’s funeral in 2015.
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But the NYPD’s tussle with de Blasio may have been just a preliminary bout compared with the looming conflict with Mamdani. While de Blasio’s politics were mostly a matter of political convenience and his own tone-deafness, Mamdani is a proud and dedicated socialist. For years, he backed defunding the police. He described the NYPD as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” During the mayoral campaign, he temporized, arguing for downsizing and replacing the NYPD in many instances with a Department of Community Safety.
The knee-jerk assumption among many Mamdani critics is that the mayor-elect will be a disaster for the NYPD. Commentators predict a wholesale exodus of officers, with younger ones heading out to more police-friendly jurisdictions and senior ones retiring en masse, resulting in a huge spike in crime.
But don’t underestimate the NYPD’s collective strength. Officers in mid-career aren’t going anywhere. They’re locked in by seniority, wages and benefits, pension qualifications, and an old-fashioned desire to do their job.
In addition, New York’s police unions traditionally have stood up to political nuttiness. The 30,000-plus members of the department represent a formidable obstacle to the mayor-elect’s more wild-eyed plans. The cops have a constituency, too, in the many lower-income New Yorkers who voted against Mamdani and who would suffer the most if his pro-crime proposals get implemented.
The rank and file also can count on the backing of Commissioner Tisch. Tisch knows the ins-and-outs of city government. She worked her way up through the administrative side of the NYPD before being elevated to commissioner in charge of information technology; she then did a top-notch job running the unglamorous but vital Department of Sanitation. Tisch knows people and systems, and she knows where both the bodies and the trash are buried in Gotham. Mamdani is a neophyte, with a few terms as an ineffective state assemblyman and a reputation for protest, not problem solving.
Before the election, Mamdani pledged to keep Tisch on as commissioner—though he made the announcement before talking with her. Tisch may decide to stay on, make peace with Mamdani, and try to protect the NYPD. Or she might conclude that leading the department under a Mayor Mamdani is a disaster waiting to happen. Either way, the ball is in her court. Mamdani may be wondering whether Tisch will be an election opponent four years from now, and whether he would rather see her cause trouble inside the administration’s tent or outside of it, to paraphrase an old Lyndon Johnson formulation.
However you choose to look at it, the brawl is on: in one corner, a tyro democratic socialist who takes a dim view of police; in the other, arguably the best police force in the United States, charged with defending the nation’s largest city. Whom are you rooting for?
Tom Hogan has served as a federal prosecutor, local prosecutor, and elected district attorney. He currently is a law professor.
Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images
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