Dozens of young children grilled Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch over the NYPD's plans to protect them from rising gun violence and what's it's like being a "lady" leading cops during a community event in Harlem.
"My name is Mariah," one girl said into a microphone in front of her peers and police officials at the Police Athletic League (PAL) on Thursday.
"I'm 11, and my brother is 13, and my question is, with all this gun violence going around, how can you make sure that all kids, no matter what race, no matter what gender, are protected?"
The question came as youth gun violence across the Big Apple has exploded to historic highs, with a staggering number of shooters and victims falling under the age of 18, according to NYPD data.
In 2025, 14% of shooting victims and 18% of shooters were youths, the highest seen since the city started tracking data in 2018, officials said last month.
"Protecting kids and keeping kids safe, in particular, is the most important responsibility that I have, and that we have at the New York City Police Department," Tisch said. "That is responsibility number one at the NYPD."
"By working very closely with community groups like the PAL over many, many years to make sure that kids find themselves on the right track and don't end up in gangs or with guns," is one way the department hopes to achieve that goal, the commish added.
The NYPD protects kids from gangs and gun violence by "making sure that police officers are in the places they're needed to keep everyone safe," Tisch said.
Tisch cited historically low shooting numbers citywide in January to the kids sitting on the gymnasium's floor.
One child asked Tisch how long she planned to stick around as the city's top cop.
"Keelan just asked me a great question, and it's a question that was on a lot of people's minds for a while, which is, how long do I want to be the police commissioner?" the commish responded. "And my answer to that is, l love my job."
Tisch, who has been commissioner for a year, admitted that she doesn't know how long she will keep doing her job under Mayor Mamdani, who in the past called for defunding the police, "but I love it, and I hope to continue doing it for a while."
Another questioner asked her how it feels "to be a lady police commissioner?" causing giggling among the cartoon-watching crowd.
"So I am a lady leading the police department," Tisch responded.
The mom-of-three then asked the children if they knew how many other women had led the NYPD in its 180-year history.
"Eight!" One child shouted.
"I am the second woman to lead the New York City Police Department, and the first woman to lead the New York City Police Department is my very good friend and my role model when I have questions about my job," Tisch said of Keechant Sewell, a former Nassau County detective who preceded her in the NYPD's top job.
"And I want to say particularly to all of the girls in the room, you can be whatever it is that you want to be."
Another child struck a more serious tone with their line of questioning for the commissioner: he wanted to know how the police deal with people who refuse to drop their weapons.
Tisch called the question "heavy" and deferred to Assistant Chief Victoria Perry, who stood at her side.
"So first we start with patience," Perry, who was in uniform, told the children. "We make sure that we tell them to drop the weapon, and we tell them multiple times and when they don't listen we have other tools that we use on our belts, which may be some mace, it may be a taser, and we stop them from using the weapon."
"What if they are Taser proof?" the child asked in response.
The question came the same week in which cops shot a 22-year-old man after his family called for him to be involuntarily removed because he was acting violently and throwing glasses against a kitchen wall in their Briarwood, Queens, apartment. He was left clinging to life on a ventilator.
But not all the questions were based in reality.
One little girl whispered her question into the police commissioner's ear.
"She just asked if the police shows are like real life," as Tisch turned to the audience of 8 to 10 year olds.
"And I have to say some of them are and some of them aren't," she offered, explaining that some retired cops work on TV shows to help make the fictional scenes more realistic.
"So some of them are quite like what you see in real life."