New York Mayor Eric Adams named Jessica Tisch, the sanitation commissioner, to head the New York Police Department, the nation's largest police force. It is the latest shake-up in an administration that has been rocked by federal investigations and resignations. Adams' appointment followed the resignation of Edward Caban on Sept. 12 and the appointment of Thomas Donlon as interim commissioner, both of whom are under the scrutiny of federal investigators.. Tisch ,43, is a former deputy police commissioner who once oversaw technology at the department is part of the family that owns the Loews Corporation conglomerate and co-owns the New York Giants. “I need someone who can take the Police Department into the next century,” Adams said. “I need a visionary.” Tisch has run the Sanitation Department since April 2022. She never has been a beat officer — the police commissioner is a civilian post — but has held positions throughout city government. The Sanitation Department has its own police unit with 300 officers.
Tisch told Adams, “I’ve watched with pride over the past three years as you’ve driven down crime in many categories to prepandemic levels, both in our subway system and on our streets, and I know it has literally taken blood, sweat and tears." Tisch has a reputation as a demanding boss unafraid to rethink government. She holds three Harvard degrees, including an M.B.A. and a law degree. She will take over a department that has about 55,000 civilian and uniformed employees, and that has been closely linked to the mayor, a former captain. Several Adams associates have been appointed to top positions and some have made headlines for tangling with reporters, insulting political leaders who have criticized the department or being accused of abusing their authority. John Miller, a former deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, said Tisch was a tough leader who would require subordinates to run the department effectively. “She can rub people the wrong way, but she gets things done,” he said. “And when you’re in a government bureaucracy, getting things done means getting people to move faster than the accepted pace of bureaucracy.” Miller cited her role in the creation of the Domain Awareness System, which assimilates data from several surveillance tools — license plate readers, closed-circuit television streams, facial recognition software and phone call histories — and uses it to identify people.
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