BALTIMORE — Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who has come under withering criticism since riots tore through this city in April, announced Friday that she would not seek re-election next year, saying she wanted to focus “on the city’s future, and not my own” as Baltimore prepared for the racially charged trials of six police officers in the death of a 25-year-old black man, Freddie Gray.
The announcement — a day after a judge ruled that the officers would be tried in Baltimore and in the same week that the city announced a $6.4 million settlement with the family of Gray — took Baltimore by surprise. It throws wide open a crowded race to succeed Rawlings-Blake, 45, who said she had been thinking about, and praying over, her decision for two months.
Looking somber and with her voice quavering at times, the mayor insisted she could have won. But Rawlings-Blake said she had concluded that she could not run the city “with the context of everything being seen through a political lens.”
The mayor, a Democrat, is leaving elective office just as her national star is rising; this summer, she became the first black woman to head the U.S. Conference of Mayors. But her tenure in Baltimore has been rocky, especially since the unrest that followed Gray’s death after he suffered a spinal cord injury in police custody. The death set off a wave of looting, arson and violence — the worst riots the city had seen since 1968.
Still, several Democrats were already trying, and Friday’s announcement may prompt more to jump in. Three have formally announced their candidacy: Sheila Dixon, a popular former mayor who was forced out of office in 2010 because of a scandal; state Sen. Catherine E. Pugh, who ran unsuccessfully against Rawlings-Blake in 2011; and Carl Stokes, a longtime member of the City Council.