Just 10 days into her tenure, new Police Commissioner Jessie Tisch found herself at the center of a maelstrom after a gunman shot dead a health care CEO on a Manhattan sidewalk. With the suspect now in custody, Tisch is correctly turning her attention to more structural matters, boosting better and smarter management.
Every commissioner ultimately seeks to make a lasting mark on the department and Tisch is the proper track to do some needed repairs. Her ordering of 500 officers to be transferred back to their permanent assignments as opposed to meandering off to unofficial reassignments is also a signal that any chummy informality is out the window. Our police officers are professionals and need to be treated as such.
This is a police department with the head count, arsenal and reach of some small armies, and the only way it can effectively be run is under a clear structure of accountability. Tisch, a respected administrator who’s proven to be effective at managing departments as disparate as Information Technology and Telecommunications and Sanitation, can be the right person at the right time to inject a little more transparency and responsibility into the force.
Tisch also named a slew of top aides: Delaney Kempner will serve as deputy commissioner of public information. Kristine Ryan will serve as deputy commissioner of management and budget. Yisroel Hecht will serve as deputy commissioner of information technology. Alex Crohn will serve as deputy commissioner of strategic initiatives. Steven Harte will serve as deputy commissioner of support services. That’s five deputy commissioners.
As we’ve pointed out before, the City Charter says of the NYPD: “The commissioner shall have the power to appoint and at pleasure remove seven deputies, one to be known as first deputy commissioner.”
Yet there has also been a first deputy commissioner and deputies for operations, community affairs, collaborative policing, department advocate, employee relations, equity and inclusion, intelligence & counterterrorism, labor relations, legal matters and also trials. Is Tisch going to abide by the Charter and keep the total number of deputies at seven or less? Either that, or change the Charter, but don’t ignore it.
Tisch is an expert in information and technology and under her the NYPD should beef up its public reporting arms, from the regular CompStat crime numbers to being more responsive to Freedom of Information Law requests to much more quickly releasing officer body-worn camera video when there is an incident or dispute.
Then there’s broader department accountability at the very top. Her predecessor, Eddie Caban, was seen as being too quick to axe even the potential for investigations into police misconduct, derailing trials even in cases where the Civilian Complaint Review Board found wrongdoing.
The CCRB certainly has its critics, but the commissioner must find a balance between stepping in when necessary and assuring a fair and transparent process to assure public trust in the department.
Tisch is at the helm after a tumultuous tenure that saw three commissioners come and go in quick succession. She has the ability to be the one that righted the ship on all these fronts.
Cleaning house at 1 Police Plaza
