Although neither the New York Police Department nor the federal Department of Justice have issued statements on the subject, the have been numerous reports that in a meeting yesterday Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to keep federal troops out of New York City. President Trump, after sending troops to patrol Washington, D.C., said he planned to send them into other U.S. cities including New York City. Trump said he wants the military patrols in order to combat crime but his some of his critics believe he wants to use the troops to intimidate U.S. citizens and would be using military patrols in connection with the 2026 mid-term elections.
The reports say that Tisch and Bondi met for 30 minutes.
Earlier this month Tisch announced that in the first seven months of 2025, New York City saw the fewest shooting incidents and shooting victims in recorded history. During the seven-month stretch, the city recorded 412 shooting incidents and 489 shooting victims, compared with the previous all-time lows of 426 in 2017 and 522 in 2018.
In the transit system, crime dropped by 8% in July, to its lowest level for any July in recorded history, excluding the Covid-period of 2020-2021. So far this year, crime in the subway system is in its third consecutive year of decline. Housing crime declined by 15.8% in July and retail theft fell 14.4% in July and is down 11% for the year.
It’s reported that Tisch also emphasized to Bondi that the police department has been using drones in crime fighting and described the use of other technology as well as police teams to go after users of motorized scooters who drive on sidewalks and double-parked vehicles.
Trump on August 25 signed an executive order to create special National Guard units that can be mobilized for “ensuring the public safety and order.” Trump already sent the military into Los Angeles and Washington and said that the next cities to be targeted for military deployment could be Chicago, Baltimore and New York. Trump has not proposed sending military units into Republican-controlled cities even though some of them have crime rates much higher than those of the Democratic-controlled cities he has targeted.
