New York City's new top cop: Jessica Tisch sworn in as NYPD commissioner
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The NYPD has a new boss who will lead the nation's largest police force while aiming to drive down crime.
Jessica Tisch was sworn in as the new police commissioner on Monday -- and she is the fourth under the Adams administration.
Tisch is a longtime public servant and no stranger to city government -- she has most recently led the New York City Department of Sanitation.
Tisch, 43, the Harvard-educated scion of a wealthy New York family, has worked for the city for 16 years, holding leadership roles in several agencies. As sanitation commissioner, she became TikTok famous when she declared in 2022, "The rats don't run the city, we do."
Her first job in city government was in the NYPD's counterterrorism bureau. As planning and policy director, she helped shape post-9/11 security infrastructure, deploying mobile radiation detectors and helping develop a digital information-sharing tool with instant access to surveillance cameras and license-plate readers.
As deputy commissioner for information technology, she spearheaded use of body-worn cameras and smartphones, transformed 911 dispatching, introduced a gunshot-detection system and worked with the city's transit agency to make police radios work in the subway.
Tisch will now be at the helm to tackle issues that the city faces as the 58th leader of the NYPD.
She becomes the second woman in the department's history to lead the force. Keechant Sewell left in 2022 and was reportedly frustrated that Mayor Eric Adams wasn't letting her call the shots.
Edward Caban resigned this year and is under federal investigation and Tom Donlon has been at the helm on an interim basis.
Former Commissioner William Bratton says Tisch will succeed if there is a clear pathway for her to do so.
"I think she's going to do a great, if the mayor lets her," Bratton said. "I think it's quite important that the mayor make it quite clear what he wants and gets out of the way and lets her do it. I think that was the issue with his previous three commissioners... and that's why he had three previous commissioners."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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