Boston Mayor Michelle Wu walked into the second-floor operate corridor of the Boston police union’s Dorchester headquarters Thursday to a hero’s welcome.
She shook fingers with the cops and EMTs assembled, after which hugged the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Affiliation’s president, Larry Calderone.
“ It’s such an honor to be right here,” she mentioned as she acquired the union’s formal endorsement for re-election. “To look every one among you within the eye, and from the underside of my coronary heart, to say thanks.”
“We’re the most secure main metropolis in America due to your efforts,” she mentioned.
Wu is beginning to ramp up her first mayoral re-election marketing campaign, and the endorsement is the union’s first of an incumbent in three many years. It marks a hanging political transformation for a candidate who as soon as referred to as for slashing the division’s funds and abolishing its intelligence heart.
Now, Wu “is a buddy of legislation enforcement,” Calderone mentioned Thursday. “I can not say sufficient great issues in regards to the mayor subsequent to me.”
Calderone pointed to the newly minted $82.3 million police contract, which incorporates 9% wage raises over 5 years, retention bonuses, and new instructional incentives.
The contract additionally included what Wu recognized as priorities, like reforms to the disciplinary system and opening some site visitors security assignments to civilians.
“ We had been in a position to ship what I imagine is the very best contract within the historical past of our nice group,” Calderone mentioned. “ And on the finish of the day, within the final waning weeks earlier than I used to be in a position to convey this settlement again to our membership, it was as a result of the mayor and I had been in a room, hammering it out with each other.”
The endorsement from the town’s largest police union shocked many political observers in Boston. However Wu’s shift away from a few of her extra hardline progressive stances on policing started earlier than the ratification of the brand new contract.
In 2023, for instance, Wu sparred with the Metropolis Council over federal grants for the Boston Regional Intelligence Heart, the police division’s intelligence-gathering arm. The middle has been recognized to surveil activists, and runs a gang database a federal courtroom as soon as referred to as “erratic” and constructed on “unsubstantiated inferences.”
Regardless of her pledge to abolish the intelligence heart and dismantle the gang database whereas campaigning, as mayor, she muscled $3.4 million in grants by means of the council after members had first rejected them.
The intelligence heart and Boston Police Division “function in a considerably completely different surroundings at this time,” Wu wrote in a letter to the council on the time, pointing to new management and a collection of council-approved reforms.
As a councilor, Wu had referred to as for a 10% minimize of the police division’s funds. However as mayor she vetoed funds cuts to the division.
“I feel it is simply actually regarding to see somebody do a 180 on numerous policing points,” mentioned Fatema Ahmad, government director of the Muslim Justice League, a Boston-based civil liberties group.
“Many group members have been upset that she did not comply with by means of on the insurance policies that she was advocating for as a metropolis councilor and advocating for throughout her marketing campaign,” she mentioned.
Wu’s Democratic opponent within the upcoming mayor’s race, philanthropist Josh Kraft, additionally criticized Wu for accepting the police union endorsement.
“This marks an odd flip of occasions for Mayor Wu, who simply three brief years in the past bragged about her refusal to just accept donations from cops and police unions,” his marketing campaign mentioned in a press release. “Over his 35 years of group work, Josh has at all times partnered with and supported legislation enforcement.”
A spokesperson for Wu’s marketing campaign mentioned the mayor is “proud” to have labored with cops and management “to ship unprecedented reforms by means of the police union contract and to strengthen group policing.”
The marketing campaign mentioned Wu wouldn’t reject donations from police unions and officers this yr.
Kraft is making an attempt to coalesce constituencies upset with Wu’s management, like residents against bike and bus lanes, actual property builders, and factions of the Irish Catholic and Italian “outdated Boston” political institution.
“The patrolmen’s endorsement goes to chop into that,” mentioned Jerold Duquette, a political science professor at Central Connecticut State College who research New England politics. “That is what makes it such an excellent endorsement.”
Duquette mentioned the endorsement exhibits that native politics are nonetheless predominantly transactional, fairly than ideological: the union was pleased with the collective bargaining course of and its ensuing contract, so needs to work with the mayor once more.
Wu “has created that partnership sufficiently effectively that they are truly doing one thing extraordinary to help her political profession,” Duquette mentioned.
The police endorsement comes at an opportune time for the mayor, who has been referred to as to testify in Washington this Wednesday over what Republican legislators name the town’s “sanctuary” insurance policies.
Earlier this month, President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, lashed out at Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, and threatened to convey “hell” to the town. Homan and Home Republicans are searching for extra cooperation from native legislation enforcement to detain immigrants with out authorized standing.
Calderone, the union’s president, acknowledged his beforehand adversarial relationship with Wu whereas talking to reporters after the endorsement announcement.
“What has modified? The mayor has change into the mayor,” he mentioned.
“She is aware of you may’t defund the police division. Nobody needs to reside in a lawless society. All people needs civility, and she or he’s delivering that,” he mentioned. “And we’re backing her up on that promise.”
