Ben Carson, on Way to Baltimore, Says Gray's Arrest 'Went Wrong'

Presidential candidate Ben Carson, who Thursday is on his way to Baltimore to meet with faith and community leaders to discuss the city's issues, told CNN that whether it was intentional or not, "something went wrong" during the arrest of Freddie Gray that resulted in his death.

"This young man that was relatively healthy went into police custody and ended up dead," Carson told "New Day's" Chris Cuomo. "Obviously something went wrong, you know, whether it was intentional or not, that's another issue, and I think our justice system is equipped to figure that out."

Carson, who also appeared Thursday on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program, told Cuomo that he is concerned, both as a Baltimore resident and as an American, about what is happening in the nation's inner cities.

"I should first of all say, I have had lots of interactions with the Baltimore police and the vast, vast majority are wonderful people, and that's the case with police across the country," Carson told Cuomo.

But still, the appearance of hiding and not being forthright caused much of the rage that led to the violent rioting after Gray's death, said Carson.

"I want to go back to what is really happening," Carson said. "People, I feel, have lost a significant degree of hope, and, you know, they see an opportunity to loot and fill their pockets and they don't feel like they are going to get that opportunity in a legitimate way. Those kinds of people are easy to manipulate."

Carson told Cuomo that he also believes State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who has come under fire for filing charges quickly against six police officers in connection with Gray's death, acted quickly "because she was sitting on a powder keg and needed to do something to calm the situation down."

Further, he said he doesn't think that all six police officers did something wrong, but "somebody did something inappropriate ... probably during the arrest process, considering the kind of damage that was done to the spinal cord, some inappropriate pressure was applied to the spine by someone, and I am sure they did not intend for that to be the outcome, but that did happen."

Carson also said that most of the people who live in east and west Baltimore are decent people.

"You remember the day after the rioting, a bunch of the Baltimore men came out and formed a barrier between the crowd and the police to prevent further violence?" he told Cuomo. "We need to concentrate a lot more on those individuals and what they are doing rather than the few who are instigators and create the trouble.

"I don't think we can characterize the whole city or community on the basis of those people."

Carson told "Fox & Friends" that it's important to "recognize that we're all in the same boat.

"To those of us who are in the nicer part of the boat, we have to understand what's going on with those who are not in a nice part, and perhaps learn how to invest in them."

Carson, who grew up in poverty in Detroit, added that an investment in Baltimore's inner-city community is an investment that will "pay a lot in the long run," but he isn't talking about more "government programs where we throw money at people."

He also said it's also important to develop relationships between communities and their police departments.

"That's another thing that's going to help tremendously with police community problems," Carson told Fox. "If we get the police in there early on so that when little Johnny encountered a policemen for the first time, it's a pleasant encounter and he develops a different impression of who the police are. Because, in fact, if you stop and think about it, what would our communities be like if there were no police?"

Carson said he expects to talk in Baltimore about some of his own experiences, and that before his retirement, he spent a great deal of time in city's emergency rooms and saw the carnage there.

"We need to talk, not so much about who causes all this, but, rather, what can we do to stop it?" Carson said on Fox. "What can we do to empower people? What can we do to bring business and industry back into the area so that people have hope again?

"You know, we have seen a change, but we've seen a lot of hope lost."

Watch the Fox video below.

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