The Billionaire in Charge of the Cops

Jessica Tisch can have the job as long as she wants

More than a few people are surprised to learn that the new commissioner of the NYPD is not a swaggering Irish Catholic ex-cop but a 43-year-old Harvard-educated mom who has never walked the beat. Jessica Tisch is so unlike every other prior police commissioner that it can be difficult to process how we got here. Mayor Eric Adams, to his credit, had broken the NYPD’s glass ceiling and appointed the department’s first female commissioner at the start of his term. Gender aside, though, there was nothing unusual about Keechant Sewell’s rise. She had a lengthy and decorated career in law enforcement, serving in nearby Nassau County. In 2020, she was promoted to become the NCPD’s chief of detectives before Adams tapped her to run the NYPD.

There is no law enforcement role, outside of perhaps FBI director, more coveted in the United States than NYPD commissioner. New York police commissioners are inordinately powerful, commanding a de facto standing army of more than 33,000 officers and a counterterrorism unit that rivals a small nation’s in terms of reach, sophistication, and blunt force. NYPD commissioners, on their own, can become quite famous. Tisch already snagged national attention for the Luigi Mangione manhunt. Bill Bratton, who served under Rudy Giuliani and Bill de Blasio, was on the cover of TIME Magazine in the 1990s, which helped to trigger his fallout with the ego-mad Giuliani. Ray Kelly, who was David Dinkins’ police commissioner and later ran the NYPD for all 12 years of Michael Bloomberg’s mayoralty, was something close to a household name in New York. At times, he was a rumored mayoral candidate. Police commissioners tend to treat their departments like fiefdoms and are less accountable to mayors than other agency heads. When I covered de Blasio a decade ago, I found Bratton’s clout to be rather remarkable. De Blasio was, technically, his boss, but Bratton never behaved that way. Eventually, he walked away, and de Blasio seemed quietly grateful to be able to appoint someone else.

Tisch is Adams’ fourth police commissioner, following an interim and the man he much preferred having run his NYPD, Edward Caban. Caban resigned as corruption clouds swirled and was gone just before Adams himself was indicted on federal corruption charges in September. Tisch, at the time, was a commissioner of the Department of Sanitation, where she was charged with overhauling city rules around garbage disposal and trash pick-up; she gained a bit of viral fame for calling out the rats. But NYPD was always her dream. Under both Bloomberg and de Blasio, she had held various civilian roles at the department, including Deputy Commissioner for Information Technology.

Adams, an ex-cop, did not want someone like Tisch running his police department. He needed cronies like Jeffrey Maddrey, who was forced out over sexual misconduct allegations, to hold power, as well as Caban, who barely lasted a year. Tisch is an independent operator. It might seem strange that a female Harvard alum—someone who went to school with Pete Buttigieg, Ruben Gallego, Jared Kushner, and Matthew Yglesias, among others—suddenly has the power to undertake a mass purge at the police department, ousting dozens of Adams-linked NYPD bosses and netting a fast endorsement from the Adams-aligned New York Post. Tisch is plenty intelligent and competent, sure, but there are probably other capable Harvard graduates floating around who would like a crack at running the most important police agency in America.

None of them, though, are a Tisch.

The daughter of James and Meryl Tisch, Jessica Tisch belongs to one of the wealthiest families in the United States. Yes, that’s the Tisch of NYU Tisch and the Tisch who co-owns the New York Giants. Forbes estimates the Tisch family is worth at least $10 billion. Jessica is the granddaughter of Larry Tisch, who along with his brother Bob acquired Loews Theatres in 1959 and built the company into an insurance, hotels, energy, and packaging colossus. Unlike other members of her family, Jessica has never been overly interested in the business. She has spent most of her adult life in the public sector, working under three different mayors. Though she’s never indicated so publicly, she probably wouldn’t mind being mayor of New York herself one day. And given that another female ex-Sanitation commissioner with infinitely less personal wealth came within 10,000 votes of becoming mayor in 2021, Tisch has every reason to think her chance will come around. Michael Bloomberg spent as much as $100 million to win himself another term. If Tisch is less liquid than the self-made Bloomberg—she does share her fortune with a larger family—there’s little doubt she can self-fund a mayoral race or, if she chooses to play it “fair,” tap the pocketbooks of the nation’s wealthiest people to fund her campaign.

Tisch is a bit of a cipher. Unlike Bratton and Kelly, who was voluble enough to once pleasantly chat with me for over an hour, Tisch has granted few lengthy on the record interviews. Bratton and Kelly were each associated with contested policing philosophies—broken windows and stop-and-frisk, respectively—whereas Tisch has never had to articulate how she believes policing should be conducted in New York. De Blasio was a liberal reform mayor and Bloomberg was a tough-on-crime mayor; Adams, reeling from crisis to crisis, brays about law-and-order but has few law enforcement policies to tout. He is worried about securing that Trump pardon in time to dodge a corruption trial he will probably lose in April.

For two reasons, then, Tisch can do what she wants at the NYPD. The first is Adams’ damaged political position. He is unlikely, at this point, to win another term in office, and most of his leverage has leaked away. In the next few months, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the mayoral candidates commit to keeping Tisch as commissioner, given her experience under three different mayors and the backing of the Post, which can torment any Democrat at will. The other reason is more straightforward: money. To mess with Tisch is to mess with one of the richest people in the world. Few politicians want to do that. If Adams has any hope of survival, it will be convincing the city’s business and real estate elites to support him against a left-wing challenger who gains momentum. Halting Tisch’s purges or straining to get a few more pals into top NYPD posts would ensure these billionaire donors shun him for good. They don’t trust him and they don’t trust the progressive left. Even de Blasio understood this dynamic; it was why, without question, Bratton was his first choice to lead the NYPD. As he sought to implement universal prekindergarten and other social safety net priorities, he hoped to placate the real estate and Wall Street financiers with a police commissioner who spoke their language. Bratton certainly did.

Tisch, for now, will have a year with Adams—or another mayor, if Adams is forced to resign. She’ll have a freer hand to run the department than any police commissioner in modern history. Beyond ousting the Adams flunkies and the outwardly corrupt, she will be able to impose her will on the department in almost every manner imaginable. It doesn’t matter if the rank-and-file roll their eyes at a Harvard mom—and a Jew— telling them what to do. No mayor will stand in her way. What, though, is her will? This is a question no news organization, so far, has been able to answer. How does she imagine policing? Where does she want to end up? Tougher questions will come. Even money won’t insulate you from them.