Obama calls for 'soul searching' in wake of Baltimore riots

As National Guard troops responded to rioting in Baltimore, U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday there have been too many troubling police interactions with black citizens across American in what he called "a slow-rolling crisis." But he said there was no excuse for rioters to engage in senseless violence.

Obama said those in Baltimore who stole from businesses and burned buildings and cars should be treated as criminals.

"There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday," Obama said. "It is counterproductive. When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting, they're not making a statement. They're stealing."

The president was speaking at a White House press conference with the Japanese prime minister the day after violence broke out in West Baltimore after the funeral for Freddie Gray, a black man who died in police custody under mysterious circumstances. At least 15 police officers were hurt and nearly 200 people arrested in Monday's disturbance.

U.S. needs 'soul searching,' Obama says

Obama said the case should prompt some "soul searching" in America about communities where young men are more likely to end up in jail or dead than completing school. He said solutions should involve early education, criminal justice reform and job training.

A demonstrator has his faced washed off after police reacted with pepper spray when items were thrown at officers outside a looted and burned CVS pharmacy in Baltimore on Tuesday. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

Obama said officials should not just pay attention to these communities "when a CVS burns" or when "a young man gets shot or has his spine snapped."

Obama said rioters distracted from days of peaceful protests focused on legitimate concerns "over the possibility that our laws were not applied evenly in the case of Mr. Gray and that accountability needs to exist."

Obama said he can't force police departments across the country to retrain their officers, but he can work with them and help pay for body cameras to improve accountability.

"In those environments, if we think that we're just going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there, without as a nation and as a society saying what can we do to change those communities, to help lift up those communities and give those kids opportunity, then we're not going to solve this problem," he said.

"And we'll go through the same cycles of periodic conflicts between the police and communities and the occasional riots in the streets. And everybody will feign concern until it goes away and then we go about our business as usual."

Orioles close Wednesday's game to public

Meanwhile, in Baltimore, which lies a mere 60 km northeast of D.C., the streets were calm, but authorities remained on edge against the possibility of another outbreak of looting and arson. The city was under a 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. ET curfew, all public schools were closed, and the Baltimore Orioles said their Wednesday night game against the White Sox would be closed to the public.

"We're not going to leave the city unprotected," Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan vowed during a visit to a West Baltimore intersection where cars were burned and windows smashed the night before.

Mayor urged calm

State police and law officers from other jurisdictions joined Baltimore police in patrolling the streets Tuesday. National Guardsmen in riot helmets with face shields surrounded City Hall, standing behind bicycle-rack barriers.

It was the first time the National Guard was called out to quell unrest in Baltimore since 1968, when some of the same neighbourhoods burned after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Maryland National Guardsmen patrol near downtown businesses in Baltimore, Tuesday, a day after looting and arson erupted. (Patrick Semansk/Associated Press)

As firefighters doused smoldering fires around the city, many lamented the damage done by the rioters to their own neighbourhoods.

Hundreds of volunteers helped shopkeepers clean up as helmeted officers blocked a stretch of North Avenue in the neighbourhood where Gray, 25, was arrested earlier in this month in a case that has become the latest flashpoint in the national debate over the police use of deadly force against black men.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake tours the city Tuesday in the aftermath of Monday's rioting. (Matt Rourke/Associated Press)

Hardware stores donated trash bags and brooms, and city workers brought in trucks to haul away mounds of trash and broken glass.

With schools closed, Blanca Tapahuasco brought her three sons, ages 2 to 8, from another part of the city to help sweep the brick-and-pavement courtyard outside a looted CVS pharmacy.

"We're helping the neighbourhood build back up," she said. "This is an encouragement to them to know the rest of the city is not just looking on and wondering what to do."

CVS store manager Haywood McMorris said the destruction didn't make sense: "We work here, man. This is where we stand, and this is where people actually make a living."

15 officers hurt, 200 people arrested

The rioting started in West Baltimore on Monday afternoon — less than 2 km from where Gray was arrested — and by midnight had spread to East Baltimore and neighbourhoods close to downtown and near the baseball stadium.

Marchers from the 300 Men March arrive at Pennsylvania Avenue and and W. North Avenue in Baltimore. (Steven D'Souza/CBC)

The rioters set police cars and buildings on fire, looted a mall and liquor stores and hurled rocks, bottles and cinderblocks at police in riot gear. Police responded occasionally with pepper spray or cleared the streets by moving in tight formation, shoulder to shoulder.

At least 15 officers were hurt, including six who were hospitalized. There were 144 vehicle fires, 15 structure fires and nearly 200 arrests.

The same community they say they care about, they're destroying. You can't have it both ways.- Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

"They just outnumbered us and outflanked us," Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said. "We needed to have more resources out there."

The rioting was the worst such violence in the U.S. since the turbulent protests that broke out over the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old who was shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer.

"I understand anger, but what we're seeing isn't anger," Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake lamented. "It's disruption of a community. The same community they say they care about, they're destroying. You can't have it both ways."

Officials criticized for delaying response

State and local authorities found themselves responding to questions about whether their initial response had been adequate.

Rawlings-Blake waited hours to ask the governor to declare a state of emergency, and the governor hinted she should have come to him earlier.

People clean up a CVS drug store Tuesday that was looted and set on fire during clashes with police on Monday in Baltimore. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

"We were all in the command centre in the second floor of the state House in constant communication, and we were trying to get in touch with the mayor for quite some time," Hogan said at a Monday evening news conference. "She finally made that call, and we immediately took action."

Rawlings-Blake said officials initially thought they had gotten the unrest under control.

Maryland National Guard spokesman Lt. Charles Kohler said that about 2,000 members would be deployed through the day and that the force could build to 5,000.

We are going to be out in massive force.- Maj.-Gen. Linda Singh, Maryland National Guard

"We are going to be out in massive force, and that just means basically that we are going to be patrolling the streets and out to ensure that we are protecting property," said Maj.-Gen. Linda Singh, adjutant general of the Maryland National Guard.

Also, State police said they were putting out a call for up to 500 additional law enforcement officers from Maryland and as many as 5,000 from around the mid-Atlantic region.

Gray was arrested April 12 after running away at the sight of police, authorities said. He was held down, handcuffed and loaded into a police van. Leg cuffs were put on him when he became irate inside. He died of a spinal cord injury a week later.

Authorities said they are still investigating how and when he suffered the injury — during the arrest or while he was in the van, where authorities say he was riding without being belted in, a violation of department policy. Six officers have been suspended with pay while the investigation continues.

While they are angry about what happened to Gray, his family said riots are not the answer.

"I think the violence is wrong," Gray's twin sister, Fredericka Gray, said late Monday. "I don't like it at all."

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