The New York Post wants to crown The “Savior” Jessica S. Tisch for a murder decline it has not scientifically connected to any identifiable Tisch policy. That is not analysis. It is political cheerleading.
Who authorizes this political garbage?
The New York Post editorial board now wants the public to believe that The “Savior” Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch and the NYPD have “worked miracles” because murders and shootings are down for the first half of 2026.
The raw numbers may be real. But the conclusion is not.
A decline in murders does not prove that Jessica Tisch caused the decline. A press conference does not prove causation. A police commissioner taking credit does not prove causation. An editorial board applauding her does not prove causation.
If the Post wants to claim Tisch “worked miracles,” then show the evidence.
Identify the policy.
Identify the implementation date.
Identify the control group.
Identify the variables excluded.
Identify the criminologist, statistician, criminalist, or peer-reviewed study establishing that a particular Tisch policy caused the reduction in murder.
Otherwise, this is not public-safety analysis. It is campaign literature.
The problem is obvious to anyone serious about crime data. Crime does not rise or fall because a newspaper likes a police commissioner. Homicide trends are affected by many variables: gun markets, retaliatory violence, gang dynamics, weather, deployment patterns, clearance rates, prosecutorial decisions, incarceration patterns, demographics, economic conditions, community behavior, and randomness.
There is also regression to the mean.
That matters because the NYPD’s favored public-relations model is to identify high-crime areas after a spike, flood them with officers, then take credit when those areas drop the following year. But when you select locations because they recently spiked, many will fall on their own because last year’s spike included bad luck, short-term volatility, and small-sample noise.
That is not anti-police rhetoric. That is statistics.
John Hall, a retired police professional and National Institute of Justice LEADS Scholar, recently made the point directly in analyzing the NYPD’s zone strategy. His conclusion was blunt: the NYPD’s zone numbers are exactly what regression to the mean predicts. According to his analysis, even simulated “zones” with no special deployment showed sharp drops after being selected based on prior spikes. In other words, the act of selecting the hottest blocks can itself manufacture impressive-looking declines.
That does not mean police deployment never matters. Hot-spot policing can work. But serious evaluation requires a counterfactual. You must compare targeted areas against comparable non-targeted areas and separate the actual deployment effect from the decline that likely would have happened anyway.
The Post does none of that.
It simply takes a drop in murders, hands Tisch a crown, and calls it a miracle.
If policing could magically stop murder through one commissioner’s preferred policy package, there would be no murders. There would be no shootings. There would be no robberies. There would be no subway violence. There would be no need for press conferences celebrating partial reductions while serious crimes continue.
The public deserves evidence-based policing and evidence-based reporting.
Until someone can scientifically connect a specific Tisch policy to the murder reduction, this “miracle” talk is exactly what it sounds like: political propaganda wrapped in an editorial.
About the Author
Eric Sanders is the founder and president of The Sanders Firm, P.C., a New York-based law firm focused on civil rights, immigration, employment discrimination, police misconduct, and other high-stakes matters. A retired NYPD officer, he brings a rare inside perspective to the intersection of government power, public institutions, enforcement discretion, and constitutional accountability.
Over more than twenty years, Eric has counseled thousands of clients and handled complex matters involving police use of force, sexual harassment, retaliation, systemic discrimination, immigration consequences, and related civil-rights violations. His immigration practice focuses on family petitions, green cards, citizenship, removal defense, humanitarian protection, waivers, appeals, and complex status issues. He graduated with high honors from Adelphi University and earned his Juris Doctor from St. John’s University School of Law. He is licensed to practice in New York State and in the United States District Courts for the Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of New York.
Eric has received the You Can Go to College Committee Foundation Humanitarian Award, The Culvert Chronicles 2016 Man of the Year Award, the NAACP—New York Branch Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks “Keeper of the Flame” Award, and the St. John’s University School of Law BLSA Alumni Service Award. He is widely recognized as a leading New York civil-rights attorney and a prominent voice on evidence-based policing, institutional accountability, equal justice, and rights-based immigration advocacy.
