In the first major speech of her presidential campaign, Hilary Clinton called for a new balance in the nation's criminal justice system following the death of Freddie Gray, backed the idea of body cameras for police and condemned rioters inciting violence in Baltimore.
"What we have seen in Baltimore should -- indeed, I think, does -- tear at our soul," Clinton said during an address at Columbia University.
"We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America," she said. "There is something profoundly wrong when African American men are still far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes, and sentenced to longer prison terms than are meted out to their white counterparts."
The address came as Baltimore remains on edge after violence erupted in the city following the funeral of Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died after he suffered a spinal-cord injury in police custody. The speech also marked one of the first signs that issues of race and tension with police will play a role in next year's presidential election.
The speech gave Clinton a platform to address a theme that one of her potential challengers -- former Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley -- has long had to himself: Police strategy. In early primary states, O'Malley frequently discusses his executive experience and the sharp reductions in violent crime that took place during his time in City Hall.
But the long-simmering tensions in Baltimore that have now come to a light are also bringing old questions to the surface about how O'Malley achieved that success. After cutting short an overseas trip this week in response to the violence in his hometown, O'Malley was heckled in the streets for the "zero tolerance" police strategy he adopted as mayor.
More than 100,000 people in a city of 640,000 were arrested in 2005, leading to a lawsuit that the city settled for $870,000 in 2010.
Clinton didn't mention O'Malley -- and her discussion of broad policy was directed at the national level, not at Baltimore specifically. Still, much of what she said echoes themes that African American leaders in Baltimore have been sounding for years.
"There is something wrong when trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve breaks down as far as it has in many of our communities," Clinton said during the speech. "We have allowed our criminal justice system to get out of balance."
Clinton called for an end to the violence in Baltimore.
"But more broadly," she said, "let's remember that everyone in every community benefits when there is respect for the law, and when everyone in every community is respected by the law."
O'Malley's aides did not immediately offer a reaction to the Clinton speech.
