Mamdani’s Decision to Retain NYPD Commissioner Tisch Sparks Progressive Backlash

Criminal justice reformers question choice to keep billionaire police chief with history of ICE collaboration

A Controversial Retention

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s decision to retain billionaire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has become one of the most contentious moves of his transition. The choice has disappointed criminal justice reformers and raised questions about whether Mamdani will truly challenge police power or accommodate it as previous mayors have.

According to investigative journalist Spencer Ackerman, Tisch’s record includes documented collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement despite New York’s sanctuary city laws, aggressive expansion of surveillance infrastructure, and decisions that critics say prioritize the interests of the wealthy over ordinary New Yorkers.

The ICE Collaboration Problem

The most serious concern involves Tisch’s NYPD providing sealed arrest records to ICE, circumventing sanctuary city protections. In the case of Leqaa Kordia, a 32-year-old Palestinian woman from New Jersey who participated in Columbia University’s Gaza solidarity encampment, the NYPD gave ICE her arrest record after charges were dropped–records that should have been sealed under state law.

ICE claimed it was investigating Kordia for “money laundering,” but as The Barbed Wire reported, this was merely ICE’s attempt to misrepresent her wiring cash home to relatives in the West Bank. The magic words allowed ICE to cross the sanctuary city bureaucratic border into cooperation with the NYPD. Kordia has been held at ICE’s Prairieland, Texas detention facility since March 13.

When confronted about this at a May press conference, Tisch defended the decision: “In the case that you are asking about, the member said that they were seeking information on this person related to a money laundering investigation, and that is fairly standard for us, and so the information was provided.”

Legal Aid’s Concerns

Attorneys and immigrant advocates were stunned by this collaboration. Meghna Philip, director of special litigation at the Legal Aid Society, told the Associated Press that “the intention of the sanctuary laws is to protect against this kind of collusion and pretextual information sharing.” Philip warned The City that it raised the “potential for wide-scale violations of the sanctuary laws by the NYPD.”

Kordia was not the only victim. In April, The City and Documented revealed that the NYPD was involved in the February arrest of two young men on gun charges that were dropped but got them sent to CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious torture prison. They were able to do so thanks to federal-local law enforcement task forces–most importantly, the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force that unites the NYPD, FBI, and ICE.

The Domain Awareness System

Tisch’s major legacy at the NYPD is the Domain Awareness System, a surveillance architecture that WIRED describes as one of the largest of any major city. Costing $3 billion, the Microsoft-based surveillance network includes tens of thousands of private and public surveillance cameras, license plate readers, gunshot detectors, social media feeds, biometric data, cryptocurrency analysis, location data, bodyworn and dashcam livestreams, and other technology blanketing the city’s 468-square-mile territory.

According to a recent lawsuit covered by The Intercept, the cameras on the streets can see into people’s bedrooms. Domain Awareness synthesizes collected imagery along with many other inputs to help the NYPD “build profiles that construct the activities, religious and political affiliations, and thoughts and beliefs of millions of people–and stores the information indefinitely.”

Notably, this massive surveillance system didn’t prevent Luigi Mangione from allegedly killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and escaping the city amidst 24/7 news coverage.

Disciplinary Decisions Favoring Officers

Tisch used her first major disciplinary decision to clear Lt. Jonathan Rivera, who killed 31-year-old Allan Feliz during a car stop in the Bronx in 2019, over the objections of the Civilian Complaint Review Board and even an NYPD judge. According to The City, this set a troubling precedent for how she would handle officer misconduct.

Currently, Tisch faces decisions on officers like Omar Habib, a repeat offender who remains on modified duty while awaiting criminal trial for choking someone out, and Wayne Isaacs, who killed Delrawn Small during a 2016 road rage incident in Brooklyn. An NYPD administrative judge has recommended dismissing all charges against Isaacs because he was off-duty during the killing.

The Personnel Choices

Tisch immediately undermined narratives of her incorruptibility by making John Chell, Jeffrey Maddrey’s protege, chief of department. In 2008, Chell shot 25-year-old Brooklynite Ortanzso Bovell in the back and lied about it, according to a civil suit that found Chell’s actions to be intentional. He rose through the ranks without consequences.

As chief of patrol under Commissioner Edward Caban, Chell introduced policies allowing police to drive more recklessly on vehicular pursuits, resulting in an unprecedented number of crashes. He also established the Community Response Team, which ProPublica quoted a source saying reported “directly” to City Hall. Former Commissioner Thomas Donlon’s lawsuit alleged the CRT was established “to harass, injure, and violate the rights of civilians, particularly in communities of color, with no regard for constitutional safeguards.”

When Chell retired last month, many saw it as evidence that Tisch had been complicit in questionable policing practices throughout Adams’ mayoralty.

The CCRB Chairman Resignation

Just days after Mamdani’s victory, Civilian Complaint Review Board chair Mohammed Khalid resigned following a smear campaign by the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. The PBA’s assault on Khalid was widely seen as a proxy attack on Mamdani, who had spoken on the campaign trail about making the CCRB’s disciplinary decisions binding on the NYPD.

Khalid quit because the PBA president “can brazenly lie about me without consequence,” according to The New York Times. The PBA’s victory sent a clear message to the incoming mayor: the police union would not accept increased civilian oversight, and they had the power to destroy anyone who tried to implement it.

The De Blasio Precedent

Critics point to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s experience as a cautionary tale. De Blasio, who won his election largely by opposing stop-and-frisk, tried to compromise with the NYPD by restoring Bill Bratton as commissioner. In December 2014, when de Blasio simply acknowledged that he had to teach his black son “how to take special care in any encounter with police officers,” hundreds of officers turned their backs on him at a funeral.

It was an open revolt predicated on the cops’ demand for both the impunity to kill and silence from the city’s political establishment. De Blasio’s mayoralty never truly recovered. As Ackerman notes, “Not only was the mayor uninterested in restraining the NYPD, he would not challenge its willingness to exercise political power.”

The ICE Challenge Ahead

With President Trump threatening to send ICE agents into New York City in force, the question of NYPD cooperation becomes critical. The best-case scenario under Tisch is that the NYPD stands aside. The other scenario is that the commissioner who has collaborated with ICE in evading sanctuary city laws continues that collaboration.

Many fear the NYPD under Tisch might give ICE access to surveillance cameras and databases–information sharing that is the entire point of Joint Terrorism Task Forces. This would render New York’s sanctuary city status meaningless precisely when immigrant communities need protection most.

The Progressive Critique

Spencer Ackerman argues that “the crisis of ICE is creating a new politics of security in this city. Regular New Yorkers, the sort we saw stand up to ICE on Canal Street, are more afraid of a masked nativist kidnapping force massing outside their homes than they are of the crime-ridden Fear City that the Post and others always say will come from electing everyone left of Mike Bloomberg.”

From this perspective, Mamdani has a chance to champion a different kind of security politics–one that addresses people’s justified fears of ICE rather than their irrational fears stoked by 9/11-era rhetoric. By keeping Tisch, critics argue, he’s missing that opportunity.

The Counterargument

Defenders of Mamdani’s decision point to political reality. The mayor needs Governor Hochul’s support for his tax agenda and cannot afford to alienate establishment Democrats. Replacing Tisch would have triggered immediate confrontation with the NYPD unions and potentially Hochul herself, who publicly urged Mamdani to retain the commissioner.

Some also note that Tisch is competent and experienced, having worked at NYPD since 2008 in various roles. Her previous position as Sanitation Commissioner demonstrated her ability to manage large city agencies. The question is whether competence in management compensates for concerning policy positions.

What Happens Next

As of mid-November, Tisch and Mamdani had scheduled a meeting but had not yet spoken. This makes Mamdani, the winner of the biggest municipal political victory since 1969, a supplicant to the NYPD–right where the NYPD wants him.

How this relationship develops will significantly impact Mamdani’s mayoralty. If he allows the NYPD to operate without meaningful oversight, particularly regarding ICE collaboration, he risks betraying the immigrant communities that were central to his coalition. If he attempts to impose oversight later, he may face the same rebellion that crippled de Blasio.

The decision to retain Tisch may prove to be either pragmatic bridge-building or a strategic surrender that haunts Mamdani’s entire term. Only time will tell which interpretation is correct.