BOSTON — Boston Police Patrolmen's Association president Larry Calderone told Fox News on Thursday that Mayor Michelle Wu deserves no blame for the response to Sunday's mob attack on a lone Boston officer in Dorchester.

That is not what the facts on the ground suggest.

Calderone said, verbatim: "The blame is not with the mayor. The blame is with the City Council." He credited Wu with "budgeting for and hiring roughly 100 officers a year during her time in office." He then pivoted to demand that the Council condemn the Dorchester attack — a demand two councilors, Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy, had already publicly answered.

The problem with the framing is the executive branch.

Who actually runs the police department

Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox is the mayor's appointee. The department reports to the mayor's office. Every strategic call — including Cox's decision to stay silent on the Dorchester attack, the department's weekend staffing choices Calderone himself flagged, and the "safest major city in America" talking point the mayor has continued to use — runs through City Hall.

Calderone also directly criticized BPD's own weekend staffing on Fox News. "For some reason, this weekend, the department did not put any extra bodies out," he said, adding that BPD "ran below their own minimum standards."

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That is a critique aimed at the commissioner Wu appointed and continues to keep in position — which makes the "blame is not with the mayor" line harder to reconcile.

Why the union president may be softening the blow

Wu has a documented history of responding poorly to public criticism from Boston Democrats.

In March, Wu skipped the annual St. Patrick's Day breakfast in South Boston after learning it would be hosted by Sen. Nick Collins — the state senator who had helped kill her commercial-tax bill
In May, Wu's office reportedly instructed Commissioner Cox to skip a City Council public-safety hearing on the department's staffing crisis — Cox's second Council no-show in six weeks

Politically savvy Boston observers may read Calderone's Fox News framing as strategic. The BPPA and Wu's office are in the middle of ongoing negotiations over hiring, overtime, and department funding. A union president openly attacking a mayor known to personalize political disputes risks losing budget items and leverage.

Redirecting the political heat onto the Council — which has no direct authority over the police department's day-to-day operations — may be the safer play for the union in the short term. Whether it accurately reflects where the responsibility for the Dorchester response actually sits is another question.

What Calderone got right

Calderone was right about at least two things. The officer at the center of Sunday's attack — Officer Jesse Kennedy — was alone when he tried to disperse a crowd of 100 to 150 people. And the department did, by his account, run below its own minimum weekend standards.

Both of those facts point at the mayor's executive branch, not the Boston City Council.

Where the pressure sits now

Whatever the union president said Thursday, the political pressure is not going away. Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy have publicly demanded accountability. The mayor has continued to use the "safest major city" framing. And the commissioner she appointed still has not spoken publicly.

This is a developing story.

Boston police union president Larry Calderone defends Mayor Wu on the Dorchester officer attack: "The blame is not with the mayor. The blame is with the City Council"

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