Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on C4



Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Thursday Baltimore’s strategy for handling reaction to the end of the first officer trial in Freddie Gray’s death “clearly worked,” as the city looked ahead to how the cases against the six officers charged in Freddie Gray’s death and arrest will proceed after the first mistrial.



Rawlings-Blake spoke on the WBAL C4 radio show hosted by Clarence M. Mitchell IV. She is also slated to appear on MSNBC.



Callers phoned into the radio show with compliments – a sharp break with how the city’s performance was judged in April. But Rawlings-Blake continued to face questions about a $6.4 million settlement paid to Gray’s family, as well as the riot gear sported by police in the spring.



Rawlings-Blake said Judge Barry G. Williams has been “fair.”



“There’s nobody that can say that the deck was stacked for either the prosecution or the defense,” she said.



On the same radio show on Tuesday, Gov. Larry Hogan asked why there was not more “uproar” over the rising murder rate.



“Where are the people protesting the 330 people murdered?” he said.



Mitchell said those comments sounded similar to Rawlings-Blake’s own pleas for people to step up as crime has escalated.



“I’m not suggesting at all that people aren’t concerned … My plea has always been for more engagement,” Rawlings-Blake responded.



“The challenge when you don’t spend a lot of time in a place …[is] sometimes you don’t see the complexity,” she added, also suggesting Hogan’s knowledge of the city is informed by media accounts and time spent in Baltimore for photo ops.



Rawlings-Blake said she hoped Hogan’s “very obvious conclusion” will come with a better offer of state support. She said her administration has been working to reform the police department.



“We haven’t hidden from the challenges,” she said. “This takes time.”