Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Baltimore's beleaguered mayor who garnered national attention in the wake of Freddie Gray's death, made a surprise announcement Friday that she will not seek re-election in 2016.
Rawlings-Blake, 45, has been criticized for the way she handled the riots in April over the death of Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in
police custody, The New York Times reported. But even so, her decision not to run surprised many.
In a press conference at City Hall Friday, Rawlings-Blake said she has been considering her
decision for two months, according to the Baltimore Sun. She said she wants to focus in the future on healing Baltimore and reforming its police department.
"It was a very difficult decision, but I knew I needed to spend time, the remaining 15 months of my term, focused on the city's future and not my own," she said.
Re-election would be "time that I would be taking away from my current responsibility to my city, to the city that I love, the city that I took an oath to serve," she said, according to The Times. "And because of that, I have made the decision not to run for re-election."
On Facebook, Rawlings-Blake added to what she said at the press conference, telling followers, "As I work with the U.S. Department of Justice to reform our police department, as I fight for more recreational opportunities for our youth, as I seek to attract new businesses and new investments to Baltimore, I do not want every difficult decision to be evaluated, questioned and critiqued within the context of how it affects a political campaign."
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