BOSTON — Boston City Councilor Erin Murphy on Tuesday released a formal written statement rejecting Mayor Michelle Wu's "safest city in America" framing, calling on the mayor and every member of the City Council to condemn the Dorchester attack on a Boston Police officer, and demanding that hiring and retaining more police officers be treated as "an urgent priority."
The statement, titled "Is Boston Really the Safest City?", came after a lone Boston Police officer was surrounded by 100 to 150 people at a Dorchester street takeover and pelted with trash and open containers of alcohol as he tried to make an arrest. It is one of the sharpest public rebukes the Wu administration's "safest city" talking point has received from a sitting councilor.
Councilor Erin Murphy's written statement, released Monday. (Source: Office of Councilor Erin J. Murphy.)
What Murphy said
"The recent attack on a Boston police officer must be condemned clearly and without hesitation by every elected official in our city," Murphy wrote.
She said officers "put themselves in harm's way every day to protect our neighborhoods" and deserve "the confidence that city leaders will stand with them when they are attacked."
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The strongest lines in her statement were reserved for the mayor's signature line:
"We also need to stop hiding behind the claim that Boston is the safest city in the country," Murphy wrote. "What does that title mean when residents in too many neighborhoods are witnessing violent crime and telling us they do not feel safe? Safety is not a slogan or a ranking. It is whether people feel protected in their neighborhoods, on their streets, and in their homes."
The staffing message
Murphy did not treat the Dorchester attack as an isolated incident. She placed it, as the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association has, inside a broader staffing crisis.
"Boston needs more police officers," she wrote. "The department has been understaffed for too long, leaving officers stretched thin, working forced overtime, and responding to dangerous situations without enough support."
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She closed by calling on the mayor and every member of the Council to condemn attacks on police, support all first responders, and "make recruiting, hiring, and retaining more Boston police officers an urgent priority."
The company she keeps
Murphy joins a small but growing group of Boston officials speaking publicly on the department's staffing and the mayor's framing. City Councilor Ed Flynn has publicly demanded City Hall stop calling Boston "the safest city in America" after a week that included multiple shootings and a triple stabbing. BPPA president Larry Calderone has said publicly that officers were "lucky to be alive" after the Dorchester attack and warned the Council: "Before a cop gets killed."
Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox has issued no public statement on the Dorchester attack. Mayor Wu has continued to use the "safest major city in America" framing throughout the month.
The mayor is expected to face growing public pressure on the framing as the BPPA continues to push back — and as more councilors, including at least one at-large member with citywide reach, publicly break with the administration's line.
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