Former Maryland Gov. Ehrlich On The Baltimore Riots: 'Embarrassing For Our State And Our City'
Baltimore, Md. (CBS BALTIMORE) -- Former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich spoke with Ed and Steve about the ongoing Baltimore riots and political tensions in the region following the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.
Former Gov. Ehrlich said he was in Baltimore "less than 24 hours before all hell breaks loose here," and expressed his anger at the violence and vandalism that took over parts of the city following the funeral of Gray earlier this week.
"It's personal. I'm tired of this sense of we demand justice now, on our terms, indictment, the whole nine yards before all the facts are known," said Ehrlich. Everybody runs out and has their own story line, their own narrative."
Ehrlich reiterated that political motives have outweighed the facts of the case.
"Police, prosecutors, the system use facts. Let the facts – and facts can be very inconvenient as we know – but let the facts play out before everybody drives to their own political conclusion," he said.
"We don't know anything yet," he added.
"They conflate issues here. There's criminal justice reform, there's economic development, there's race relations, there's all these issues and people just throw them all in the same pot and talk about them as if they're a singular issue and they're not. They're very separate."
Ehrlich, a former Republican governor of the state, said that people need to "cool out a little" and let the system present the facts before people rush to judgment.
"But one issue is at the very denominator here which is the criminal justice system, how it works, investigations take time, and everybody just needs to cool out a little to see what the facts are."
"The system is flawed, it's run by human beings, nobody's perfect, we know that."
"The art of politics is supposed to be about fixing problems," said Ehrlich. but if we don't have a system that is neutral – that's not Republican, Democrat, left, right -- we don't have anything…we have mob rule, we have majority rule, whatever the majority wants. Damn the facts. and that's not what the country is about and not what the legal system is about."
The former Governor started off by talking about the Baltimore riots giving his perspective saying "it's a very tense situation and it has been terribly embarrassing for our state and our city."
