Baltimore mayor meets with Maryland lawmakers at White House

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and a trio of Maryland lawmakers were at the White House on Wednesday to meet with senior administration officials in the aftermath of the violent protests that rocked her city. 

Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D), Ben Cardin (D) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D), who represents Baltimore, huddled with White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and other top ranking officials to “discuss ways in which the administration can continue to serve as an active partner in supporting local priorities following the recent unrest in Baltimore,” the White House said in a statement.

{mosads}The officials pledged to work on “expanding opportunity in Baltimore and in communities across the country.” 

Also participating in the meeting were Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, and Broderick Johnson, who leads the administration’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative to aid young minority males.

The meeting came as President Obama grapples with how to address tensions between law enforcement and minority communities resulting from a string of police-related deaths of young black men, including Baltimore’s Freddie Gray last month. 

The president was in Connecticut to speak at the United States Coast Guard Academy’s graduation ceremony on Wednesday and did not attend the meeting.   

Earlier this month, Attorney General Loretta Lynch visited Baltimore and met with Rawlings-Blake and other officials after a prosecutor charged six police officers involved in Gray’s death.

Rawlings-Blake praised Obama’s decision to ban the transfer of some military hardware from the federal government to local police departments. She noted her city’s department has not accepted such equipment. 

“We’ve seen what has happened in other jurisdictions that have had an immediate militarized response to public unrest, and we have seen how that has led to days and days of looting and unrest,” she said this week, according to WBAL. “What we saw in Baltimore was much

While attending the Preakness Stakes last weekend, the mayor said she was ready for the city to move forward from the unrest surrounding Gray’s death. 

“Like me, the rest of the city is ready to exhale … and enjoy what we love about our city,” she said, according to the Baltimore Sun.

This story was updated at 5:27 p.m.