A new era of policing is set to begin in the Mamdani’s Big Apple, and already there are positive signs—if you are a criminal.
Among the flurry of moves New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani made during his first days in office was to rearrange the mayor’s office. He made a subtle change, buried in his second executive order, to have NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch report to Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan instead of himself.
While this isn’t quite a demotion as some have said on X, it does likely indicate that the Tisch—who is highly regarded as an effective administrator—will have a smaller role in the incoming administration.
It means that the mayor and police commissioner will no longer have direct briefings, a practice that was established after 9/11 to ensure that the mayor and NYPD closely coordinate not only on issues of crime, but counterterrorism.
It must be noted that Mamdani has vowed to eliminate the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, which was not only created as a counterterrorism unit but now additionally manages riots and unrest in the city.
When Mamdani announced in November that he would be keeping Tisch at her post, it was seen as a possible sign that he was willing to moderate once in office. It was hard for Mamdani to do otherwise because it was one of his bigger campaign promises.
The difference between Tisch and Mamdani is stark. Manhattan Institute crime expert Rafael Mangual highlighted the difference between them in City Journal when the announcement was made. Tish has backed the Strategic Response Unit, opposed the recent bail “reforms,” and generally seems to back “broken windows” policing that transformed the city for the better in the 1990s.
Mangual then noted that many would question how such an arrangement could conceivably work. It looks very much like it won’t.
In the last year, NYPD has stepped up some of its most effective policing methods to positive results. For instance, crime in Washington Square Park dropped by 65% after the NYPD began 24-hour-a-day patrols at the beginning of November.
And that’s not all.
Under previous Mayor Eric Adams and Tisch, crime saw a significant drop across the board in the last year. It was far from a perfect record, but it suggested that the city was getting back on the right track after the serious crime spike of 2020.
It’s folks like Mandani who insisted on defunding the police that caused the spike to begin with.
If Tisch is sidelined, it’s hard to see the effective policing policies that led to a reduction in crime being maintained.
Mamdani said in his inaugural address that he would govern as a “democratic socialist.”
Socialists do sometimes grow fond of the police sometimes, but usually only when they become pawns of the party deployed to crack down on political opponents rather than street crime.
Mamdani’s transition team made it clear that he plans on reversing course on crime and going back to the leftist ideas that made it spin out of control in New York.
It’s bad news for the remaining people of good sense living in and visiting the city.
