When President Obama finally spoke today about the riots in Baltimore, he attempted to strike a balance between condemnation of those committing violence in the streets and criticism of the police who are also sometimes guilty of misconduct. He was also right when he noted that the problems in our inner cities are bigger than the discussion about police misconduct or racial prejudice. But these exemplary statements must be placed in the context of an event in which the nation witnessed portions of a major American city in the hands of a mob while police cowered or retreated. What stands out most as the citizens and police of Baltimore try desperately to take back control of their city from looters and thugs is the failure of those in authority to protect them. And responsibility for that failure extends from a mayor who wished to give the rioters the “space to destroy” as well as a president and attorney general that have at times sent a message to the nation that a war on police was understandable and even justified.

Let’s start by saying that protests about the death of Freddie Gray while in the hands of the police were justified. Every time a person suffers an injury, let alone, a death as a result of police action, it should prompt a serious investigation. But, like the reactions to the death of another young black man in Ferguson, Missouri or the man who died as a result of a choke hold from a policeman in Staten Island, New York, the effort to spin a narrative of police oppression seems more of an attempt to contrive a false narrative of oppression than it is a genuine response to what may well have been a criminal act by a cop.

But just as police need to know they will be held accountable if they misbehave, so, too, must those who enable or foment violence against the police and the communities they serve be judged by their actions.

What appears to have happened in Baltimore is a complete breakdown of authority that may well have stemmed from a statement made by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in which she said that, “we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.”

While Rawlings-Blake claimed her words were distorted or taken out of context, that is nonsense. The inability of the mayor to control the situation only encouraged the violence to persist and spread. If the police lost control of parts of West Baltimore, the responsibility for this disgrace starts with the mayor. Once police allow lawbreakers to get away with minor violations or to flout the authority of the government, the breakdown of all law and order is not far behind.

It is true that peaceful protesters outraged about the fate of Gray don’t deserve to be lumped in with the thugs and criminals who rioted. But as much as those protesters deserve to be heard, it can’t be forgotten that in this incident as in the previous ones involving allegations of unjustified police violence, the voices of authority who assumed without any proof that these incidents were evidence of racism played a not-insignificant role in setting the tone that led to attacks on police and even looting.

The point is, it is appropriate for politicians to denounce racism and to demand investigations into questionable incidents. But, as we learned in Ferguson, it is possible that some of these alleged instances of police misconduct might turn out to be not what they appeared to be when they were first reported.

That is why it is so important that the response of public officials to anti-cop protests should not be so equivocal as to encourage rioters to think they will be given “space to destroy.”

The consequences of the effort to indict police even before we know the facts about specific cases can be seen this week in the streets of Baltimore just as we saw it in Ferguson last year. Gray’s death deserves a rigorous investigation and if police are judged responsible, they should be severely punished. But what we should also remember is that it is a short leap from some of the specious rhetoric about racism lying beneath every act of the police emanating from civil-rights groups and politicians to rationalizing or minimizing violence against police and innocent citizens by rioters.