BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) -- Security experts said Baltimore Police and city officials were ill-prepared for the violence that erupted in that city on Monday.
Former Boston Police Chief Dan Linskey said Baltimore Police had too late a start to effectively control crowds of rioters than began to spread out of control along the west side of the city.
"There should have been a regional response planned with regional partners, there should have been officers standing by," Linskey said.
Linskey oversaw BPD's response to the 2004 riots in Boston when a young college co-ed was killed during violence after the Red Sox won the pennant.
Linskey said among the lessons learned – not only to pre-stage officers in areas normally prone to crowd activity, but also to start with a "soft" approach that has officers in plain uniforms mixing in amongst the crowds and having conversations with them.
"You also need to be able to very quickly turn it into a tactical response, keep those assets out of sight and have them respond very quickly, should the tenor and tone of the crowd change," Linskey said.
Earlier Monday, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told reporters she expected officials to give rioters a "bit of space," which Linskey called an unwise move, telling Fox 25 it was important to have an aggressive response to any kind of violence.
"We learned that you might want to deny a crowd," Linskey said. "It is a bottle of gasoline and a lighter away from someone being killed."