Carson: Baltimore unrest wasn’t ‘a racial issue’

by Elliot Smilowitz - 05/16/15 7:23 PM ET

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson decried the framing of recent Baltimore tensions as race-based in a speech at the Iowa Republican Party’s Lincoln Dinner on Saturday.

“I don’t think it was a racial issue,” Carson said. “The mayor of the city is black … many in the police force are black.”

{mosads}Carson, a 2016 Republican candidate for the White House, said he was tired of “divisiveness” in politics.

“Not everything is a Democratic or Republican issue,” he said.

Violent unrest emerged in late April in Baltimore after Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, suffered a severe spinal injury while in police custody and eventually died.

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