Alveda King, niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke say Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake may have encouraged rioting that broke out Monday on the streets of that city.
"I've made it very clear that I work with the police and instructed them to do everything that they could to make sure that the protesters were able to exercise their right to free speech," Rawlings-Blake said in a Saturday night press conference.
"It's a very delicate balancing act, because while we tried to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well."
King said she doesn't know what the mayor meant to say, but blasted the quote in an
open letter on Monday.
"In the 1960s, 1963, the Children's March, we were calm, we were orderly, we were prayerful, and so we knew how to demonstrate peacefully," King said Monday on
Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto."
"No one has instructed these young children."
She called the mayor's comment "an invitation to destroy," adding, "If she is the head of the city, she should be thinking, and I don't believe she is."
"When I heard the comment by the mayor I thought, has this mayor lost her mind? She's basically sanctioned a riot," Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke told Cavuto.
"Thuggery and rioting, looting – it's felonious behavior. There can be no daylight between what proper behavior is in these situations, socially acceptable behavior, and criminal conduct. Once the rocks and bottles are being thrown, all bets are off."
Clarke said police should be aggressive and assertive, and should send a message to rioters and looters, "you are going to lose and we are going to win."
Protesters are angry about the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old who died after his spine was broken during an arrest.
Clarke said protesters should give the investigation time. He said there are equal problems when a determination is made too early.
"You're going to get claims you rushed into this and just rushed over it to get something out here, and then people aren't going be happy as well," he said.
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