O’Malley: Baltimore rioting ‘a huge setback’ for city

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a likely 2016 presidential contender, said the Baltimore rioting that has gripped national attention this week was a major blow to the city and its ambitions.

“It has been a huge setback,” O’Malley said on CNN’s “The Lead” when asked by host Jake Tapper what he would say to those from early-voting states watching the situation unfold in Baltimore.

{mosads}“What I say and what I’ve been saying to my neighbors all around the city is that, look, we’re going to come back. This is a setback. It’s one of our darkest days,” O’Malley continued.

Rioting rocked the city earlier this week, leading to more than 200 arrests, a number of torched buildings and cars and the Orioles being forced to play in an empty ballpark, out of safety concerns. 

O’Malley was heckled on Tuesday when walking the streets of Baltimore, where he served as mayor from 1999 to 2007, over the tough-on-crime policing policies pushed during his term. 

O’Malley brushed off the jeers in his interview with CNN, noting he was twice elected mayor of the city in which he said no one asked for a decreased police presence during his tenure.

“We’re all responsible,” O’Malley said, noting he campaigned for mayor on a message of better policing, accountability for police and expansion of drug treatment.

“Progress rarely moves in a straight line, and sometimes we have setbacks. Very few of them have been as heartbreaking to all of us who have done so much over these years to make Baltimore safer,” he said.

O’Malley had cut short a European trip to be in Baltimore after violence erupted over the death while in police custody of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, with details still emerging.

O’Malley contended that Gray’s case served as a flashpoint for broader issues facing the country. 

“There’s something deeper going on here in our country, and that is the anger, the seething anger, that people feel when they’re working harder, falling further behind. When they’re marginalized by a brutal economy. When they see no hope for themselves, no hope for their kids,” he said on CNN.

O’Malley is widely expected to join Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who announced his White House bid Thursday, in challenging front-runner Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. The former secretary of State declared earlier this month.