Former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) said Saturday better parenting from fathers may have prevented riots earlier this week in Baltimore.
“If more fathers would have been in those homes the first day those kids congregated and all the trouble started, and said, ‘You know what? There’s a way to do this, let’s do it right, let’s not go torch things, we need to protest, we need to dissent, we need to do what we do, but not this,’ maybe we wouldn’t be in the jam we are right now,” Ehrlich told the Boston Globe.
Ehrlich was reacting to Friday’s announcement that six Baltimore police officers will face criminal charges in the death of Freddie Gray. He added that “the timing” of that decision was “somewhat surprising.”
{mosads}“The thought was that the prosecutor would take time … to do her investigation, determine the facts, look at this report and determine how to proceed,” he said of Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s handling of the Gray case.
Friday’s ruling that Gray’s death was a homicide calmed Baltimore after periodic riots launched earlier this week. The fact Gray was black, Ehrlich argued, had shifted debate over his passing from police brutality to race.
“It shouldn’t be about race but it is, because this is America,” he said. “Race is just there. It’s just there.”
“It’s frustrating,” Ehrlich added. “It should be about the police practices in this city and not about race.”
Mosby charged Officer Caesar Goodson, the driver of a transport van carrying Gray, with second degree murder on Friday afternoon.
Five other officers are additionally facing charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to assault and false imprisonment.
The charges came violent demonstrations over Gray’s funeral on Monday.
Police announced Tuesday that they had arrested 235 people for looting, vandalism and other criminal activities during the protests.
Gray, 25, was initially arrested April 12. He died on April 19 following a severe spinal injury suffered while in police custody.