Boston police tweet about Auerbach called ‘tone-deaf’

Boston police faced heavy criticism for a now-deleted Black History Month tweet that celebrated a white man.

The original post on the department’s official Twitter account Sunday was in honor of the late former Boston Celtics coach Arnold “Red” Auerbach. The department tweeted that it was paying tribute to Auerbach for being the first NBA coach to draft a black player, start five African-American players and hire the NBA’s first African-American head coach.

The tweet, accompanied by a photograph of a statue to Auerbach at Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace, was deleted less than an hour after it was posted. Democratic Boston Mayor Marty Walsh on Monday called the original tweet “completely inappropriate and a gross misrepresentation of how we are honoring Black History Month in Boston.”