Mayor Rob Ford says he suspended family friend Dave Price as his director of operations and logistics because Price “made a mistake.”

But Ford refused to say anything more about the one-week suspension (without pay) that he handed Price on Tuesday.

Price anonymously called a Toronto Sun reporter to complain about a headline on a story about him and refused to identify himself.

The headline was on an article that identified Price — a longtime family friend and the mayor’s former football coach — as “Dave,” a frequent supportive caller to the mayor’s weekly Newstalk 1010 radio show before he joined the mayor’s staff in early April.

The story was about the fact that, before he was hired, Price called the weekly Newstalk 1010 radio show co-hosted by Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, at least six times.

Introduced by the Fords at various times as “Dave from Etobicoke,” “Dave from Scarborough” and “Dave from Georgetown,” Price lauded the Fords and in stinging terms attacked light-rail transit and other initiatives they opposed.

None of them mentioned that he and the Fords had known each other for roughly 30 years and that Price had once coached Rob Ford in football.

“I'm not going to get into personnel issues,” Ford, asked about the suspension, told reporters in north Etobicoke after kicking off a city blitz against illegal postering of bus shelters and other public property.

“Dave is a very hard worker and we all make mistakes — he made a mistake, that’s it.”

When asked why he was able to quickly identify Price’s voice on the Sun reporter’s tape of their Tuesday phone conversation, but on the radio show never identified Price as an old friend and not a random caller, Ford turned and strode away from reporters.

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According to the Sun, Price called the reporter Tuesday afternoon from a blocked number and said it was “wrong” to say a staffer “pretended” to be a caller on the show.

He reportedly laughed when asked if he was Price, and said “No,” when asked if he was “Dave from Scarborough.” When asked if he was denying that he had made the calls to the mayor’s show, he said the headline was wrong and hung up.

Ford listened to a recording of the conversation and apologized for his staffer’s actions, the Sun reports. The mayor’s office later confirmed the suspension.

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CBC Radio reported Tuesday that when the mayor’s office learned the identity of “Dave,” they put a stop to the calls. But the Fords never said on-air that the caller had been a friend since their high school days.

Most callers to the show are supportive of the Fords. A woman recently revealed that she got on air to ask a critical question after lying to a Newstalk 1010 call screener that she was going to laud the Fords.