That's a great explanation.
I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt unless they give me reason not to. In watching what the mayor said, I believe that her INTENT was to imply that it was unfortunate that in giving space to people to protest peacefully, they also left space open that non-peaceful people took advantage of and used it to commit mayhem. I think the general tone of her remarks at that time is consistent with that meaning, but that it didn’t quite come across the way she intended it to.
That said, if she were a Republican white male, the media would hammer him incessantly over saying something like that, no matter what his intent was.