Baltimore's mayor came under criticism on Tuesday for a slow police response to some of the worst urban rioting in the United States in years with shops looted, buildings burned to the ground and 20 officers injured.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said he had called Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake repeatedly Monday but that she held off requesting the National Guard until three hours after violence first erupted following the funeral of a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody on April 19.
"The mayor of Baltimore had the city of Baltimore police on the ground. Quite frankly, they were overwhelmed. All the rest of the (boots) on the ground came from us," the Republican governor said the day after declaring a state of emergency in the largely black city.
The death of Freddie Gray gave new energy to the public outcry that flared last year after police killings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, New York City and elsewhere. For nearly a week after Gray died from a spinal injury, protests in Baltimore had been peaceful and the mayor said she wanted to avoid a heavy-handed response.
After a night of looting and arson that burned 19 buildings and left one person in critical condition, largely peaceful protesters amassed in front of police lines. One burst of violence by a lone man was met by police with pepper spray, sending protesters scattering.
"They tore the city down last night, and today we're trying to rebuild it again," said Perry Hopkins, who formed a line of men from the community separating police from the crowd.
Volunteers armed with brooms cleaned up debris from burned out and looted buildings in the city of 620,000 people, where schools, many businesses and some government offices closed until security improved.
President Barack Obama said he spoke to the governor and mayor to urge them to stop the violence. "There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday," said Obama, who spoke at length about Baltimore at a news conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. "It is counterproductive."
'DELICATE BALANCING ACT'
Obama also said the problems in places such as Baltimore were not new and need to be addressed by everyone.
"We can't just leave this to the police," Obama said, adding that "we as a country have to do some soul searching. This is not new. It's been going on for decades."
Captain John Kowalczyk of the Baltimore City Police Department said the number of police injured since Monday rose to 20 and 235 people, including 34 juveniles, had been arrested.
Acrid smoke hung over streets where violence broke out just blocks from Gray's funeral before spreading through the city. Police initially looked on but did not interfere as rioters torched vehicles and later businesses.
Looters had ransacked stores, pharmacies and a shopping mall and clashed with police in riot gear in violence reminiscent of rioting in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 after authorities declined to indict a white police officer who shot dead an unarmed black teenager.
Mayor Rawlings-Blake, an African-American and Democrat who grew up in the city 40 miles (64 km) from Washington, D.C., imposed a one-week curfew but stressed the need to respond in a way that did not incite more violence.
"It's a very delicate balancing act, when we have to make sure that we're managing but not increasing and escalating the problem," Rawlings-Blake, 45, told reporters on Tuesday.
Baltimore police captain Kowalczyk told reporters that as the violence increased, older people were involved.
"When we deployed our officers yesterday, we were deploying for a high school event," Kowalczyk said. "I don't think there's anyone in the country that would expect us to deploy with automatic weapons and armored vehicles to an event with 13- 14- and 15-year-olds."
Police in Ferguson came under intense criticism last year for quickly adopting a militarized posture, using armored vehicles, showing heavy weapons and using tear gas.
NO FANS ALLOWED AT BALLGAME
Some Baltimore residents criticized the mayor on social media, while security experts said the city should have been more prepared for an outbreak of violence.
"With the circumstances as tragic as they were with Mr. Gray, I think it's fair for the city to have expected something serious," said Michael Balboni, a former senior homeland security and law enforcement official in New York.
Gray was arrested on April 12 while running from officers. He was taken to the police station in a van, with no seat restraint and suffered the spinal injury.
Six officers have been suspended, and the U.S. Justice Department is investigating possible civil rights violations.
The National Guard said it will have 2,000 troops on the ground in Baltimore by the end of Tuesday and could activate 3,000 more if needed by Wednesday. Neighboring Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the District of Columbia were sending in hundreds of law enforcement officers to assist.
The security crisis disrupted the city's daily routines. In a rare move, the Major League Baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox will be played as scheduled Wednesday but closed to the public.
Chicago activists also prepared for a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Baltimore outside police headquarters on Tuesday evening, while the "Black Lives Matter" group planned a protest in Minneapolis for Wednesday evening.
Copyright Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.
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