Lynch faces Baltimore riots on Day 1

Attorney General Loretta Lynch barely had the chance to settle into her new office at the Justice Department before she was asked to take up a racially and politically charged topic: the violent and escalating riots in Baltimore.

Lynch assured her new boss, President Barack Obama, Monday that she was monitoring events in Baltimore and that the DOJ stood ready to help, the White House said in a statement.

Obama spoke earlier with Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who has struggled to contained protests that turned ugly after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of a spinal injury on April 19 while in police custody.

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