Gov. Larry Hogan says the Maryland National Guard has begun demobilizing the 3,000 troops brought into Baltimore after rioting broke out last week. He says that process will take about three days.
Hogan said Sunday that the state of emergency won’t be lifted until the last of the National Guard has left. He says he and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake spoke and they agree that it is time to get the community back to normal again. He says lifting the curfew is a good idea.
“It’s been a really rough week,” Hogan said. “But let’s get back to normal in the city and get people back to work and back to school and get people coming back into the city to visit the shops that were really devastated this week.”
Hogan says the city lost 200 businesses to rioting. He says many were minority-owned business and some of those did not have insurance. He says even those businesses that were not damaged lost business during the unrest of the last week.
Hogan spoke after attending mass with his wife, Yumi, at a west Baltimore church on Sunday, a day when he was calling for unity and reconciliation.
