O'Malley: Baltimore unrest a 'heartbreaking setback'

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said on Sunday the unrest in Baltimore has boosted his motivation to address economic marginalization and that it would be a central theme of his expected Democratic presidential campaign.

“It has to be central,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in the wake of protests and riots following the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore police custody.


O’Malley, who was Baltimore’s mayor from 1999 to 2007, rejected House Speaker John Boehner’s contention that liberals have been applying their solutions for urban poverty for 50 years and failing.

“We haven’t had an agenda for American cities probably since at least Jimmy Carter,” O’Malley told NBC host Chuck Todd. “We have left cities to fend for themselves.”

Boehner (R-Ohio) had pointed to the continued struggles of Gray’s Baltimore neighborhood, even after a government-led effort at urban restoration had poured $130 million into the area to build schools and homes and provide job training and health care, as evidence that spending money on big poverty-alleviation efforts had not succeeded.

O’Malley rejected Todd’s suggestion that plenty of money has been available to help inner cities, calling $130 million “a spit in the bucket” of what was needed to address systemic poverty and decrying the Republican speaker’s “crocodile tears.”

The former governor defended his record against critics who blame his tough-on-crime approach as mayor to contributing to strained relations between Baltimore residents and police, citing the drop in the city’s violent crime, incarceration and recidivism rates and his efforts to effectively decriminalize pot possession and other minor transgressions.

“This has been a heartbreaking setback for an otherwise remarkable comeback,” O’Malley said.

The frustration spilling forth in Baltimore, he said, stemmed from systemic issues in American society. “The problem is the fact that we’ve built an economy that’s leaving … so many citizens behind,” he said.

If he announces for president as expected later this month, O’Malley said he still would do it in Baltimore. “I wouldn’t think of announcing any place else,” he said.