The Obama administration has reached out to celebrities with Baltimore ties and asked them to play a role in helping to ease tensions in the city, a White House official confirmed Thursday.
The administration has contacted sports figures such as Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony, who played basketball at Towson Catholic High School, and Ray Lewis, and asked them to play a role in the community, which is still on edge following the riots on Monday.
Both men had a visible presence in the city on Thursday. Lewis, the former linebacker for the Ravens, and members of the team visited schools in West Baltimore. Anthony was seen with protesters marching from Penn North to City Hall.
The behind-the-scenes involvement by the White House comes as some have questioned President Obama's decision not to visit the city following Freddie Gray's death and the subsequent violence. White House spokesman Josh Earnest reiterated the administration's position that a presidential visit would redirect police resources away from where they are most needed: the city's streets.
"The fact is that in those scenarios, there is significant police presence required to respond to whatever significant event has occurred in that local community, and the president's reluctance to draw resources away from that immediate response is the reason that he doesn't often go right away," Earnest said Thursday.
"Now, I don't have any -- I don't want to leave you with the impression that in a week or two, we're going to wait for things to calm down, the president is automatically going to go," he added. "That's not the current plan. It could be added to the schedule, but that's not the current plan."
Two officials from the Justice Department have visited Baltimore: Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division, and Ronald Davis, director of the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office. The department is investigating the Gray case.
The White House also sent a delegation to Gray's funeral that included Baltimore-native Broderick Johnson, assistant to the president and Cabinet Secretary.