Stephen Murphy looked relieved that he wasn’t in the scrum in Suffolk University’s Modern Theatre. Getting up to leave after the end of the mayoral election’s first televised debate, the City Council president looked over as reporters and campaign aides jostled for space on the floor. “I could’ve used my gavel out there,” he quipped, referring to the raucous nature of the debate. “I don’t think anybody won.”

The debate – sixty minutes of it on television and the last half hour streamed only on the internet – often resembled a floating cartoon cloud, fists and feet emerging here and there, the faces obscured.

Afterwards, Dorchester state Rep. Martin Walsh admitted he was expecting more of a volley his way. “There wasn’t much of an attack on me, per se.” And then he launched one of his own, aimed at District Attorney Dan Conley: Walsh said the prosecutor has not recognized “that we have a problem with gun violence on our streets.”

Conley said Walsh was mischaracterizing his remarks. “Gun violence is down in our city and convictions are up,” Conley said, standing in the Modern’s lobby. “And that’s important for people to know. I know that it benefits some candidates to alarm the citizens. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have gun violence in our city. Of course we do. But it’s down 35 percent in our city over a six year period and that’s good news. But more needs to be done and I’m the only candidate in this race with any public safety experience.”

More, from the State House News Service, on the debate here. Stonehill’s Professor Peter Ubertaccio, who attended the debate, gives his take on NECN.

There are two weeks left until the Sept. 24 preliminary.

THE DAY AHEAD: City Councillor At-Large John Connolly announces a public safety plan and a “Homicide Accountability Project” for Boston. The announcement is set for 9:30 a.m. at Woodrow Ave. and Wollaston Terrace in Dorchester. District 5 Councillor Rob Consalvo does a meet-and-greet with voters at the Sherill House senior center in JP at 2:30 p.m., then another one at the Harborlight senior center in South Boston. He heads to the Coalition for Community Groups forum at Roxbury Community College at 5:30 p.m. before heading to the NAACP voter from at the Kroc Center in Dorchester. District 8 Councillor Michael Ross’s schedule includes a 9:30 a.m. meet-and-greet with seniors before a boat cruise outside the World Trade Center; a 10:30 a.m. Environment Massachusetts press conference at LoPresti Park in East Boston; a noontime Fenway Senior Center visit in Roxbury; nearly two hours, starting at 2 p.m. at East Boston senior centers; and a 7:30 p.m. voter meet-and-greet at Merengue Restaurant on Blue Hill Ave. City Councillor At-Large Felix Arroyo hit a Dunkin Donuts on Blue Hill Ave. in Dorchester earlier this morning. He heads at 9:30 a.m. to talk to seniors at the Mildred Ave. School before their boat cruise, then a 1 p.m. Globe Lab Debate at the newspaper’s Morrissey Blvd. headquarters. At 3 p.m., he will be at the Convenant House in Brighton. He will also attend the 7 p.m. NAACP mayoral forum.

NO ENDORSEMENT IN WARD 5: Ward 5 Democrats, who held their endorsement meeting last night as a pair of debates were underway several blocks away, declined to endorse in the mayoral preliminary.