point. we canceled leave for all our police officers so they're deployed on the stroets as we speak. each shift is fully staffed. we called in outside resources from all over the state of maryland to give us an assist here. we're not going to tolerate this. our priorities right now is to restore order in the city. our priorities right now is officer safety and the safety of the community. thank you. >> council president. >> good evening. i'm deeply saddened by what's taking place in the great city of baltimore. this reminds me of 1968 when the riots took place through the assassination of dr. martin luther king where people were destroying their own stores and properties in their own community. this is unacceptable. this is not what freddie gray's family wanted. they asked there be no protests marches, or anything of that nature today. the organizers of those marches are not participating in what's taking place today. as the mayor has stated these are thugs who are seizing upon an opportunity to show their anger and their distrust and their from us frustration at the police department. this is not the way to do it. we have the department of justice in here along with our state's attorney that's doing the investigation of this murder or killing, whatever you want to call it. some are saying a murder and some are saying a killing. but we have to let the department of justice and the state attorney's office do their job. we can't rush to judgment. a lot of people are saying let's, you know get this answered now. our job is to get it right. it's your job as the media to report that. and i just want to say this because i'm heart-broken and disturbed about how the news media are focusing on the negativity of this city and looking at the great things going on in the city. we have young people out there protesting peacefully but you're not focusing on them. you're focusing on those that are burning down buildings and rioting throughout the streets of baltimore. show the positive people who are out there trying to stop these folk from doing this. these are not the people that live in winchester that are out there looting and burning down the stores. these are people that are not even connected to the community, so the media needs to make this clear. it is not the people living there or the people who live in gilmore homes. these are opportunists out there destroying our city and we're not going to tolerate it. i thank the mayor for asking the national guard to come into baltimore so that we can get some order and some peace in our city. justice will prevail. we cannot resort to violence and destruction of property. >> thank you very much council president. before i take questions, i would like to hear from councilman scott and open it up for questions. >> that you had madam mayor. i'm not going to be as nice as everyone else. i'm simply pissed off. this is the city i love and chose to dedicate my life to and we cannot stand idle thugs, whatever you kate middleton want to call them. cowards ruining our city. if you're an adult participating in this you are ruining the future for these young people. i'm calling on every able man and woman who wants to stand up to get out there and get in between these folks. when we leave here i'm going out there and stand tall for your neighborhood. we cannot let this be a repeat of 1968. the neighborhood they're in right now has still been burned down from 1968. this is what we have to implore upon these people. the young people are showing frustration. they're still our yuj people. we have a lot of work to do with them and this is going to be the starting point for that. we'll have a lot of healing to do but we cannot continue to let this go on. we have ignored them for too far long. adults have to step up and be adults and take control of our children and future. >> thank you. i'll open it up to questions. >> reporter: madam mayor what about people saying you waited five hours all day before you make your first announcement about what's going on inside the city? >> well we've been managing the situation. i understand there's a call for -- that there's -- you have to balance doing the work of managing and doing press events. the police department throughout the day has been putting out information. i've working to make sure we manage this. there's a lot of moving parts, and i wanted to make sure i was dedicated to that before we came out and spoke. >> also at this particular team it's in the 7:00 hours. look at the monitors behind you. this is your city you ran for to become mayor of. are you proud of it tonight? >> i'm proud of the people from the community who have come out to say they don't want this anymore. people are marching right now to bring calm to the community. there are people who want so much for there to be peace and to protect the values of our community. i'm proud of them. i'm also very concerned because what i'm seeing is not -- it's just not acceptable. i shouldn't -- i went to one of the elementary schools near the -- in the western district gilmore elementary school this morning. i talked to some fourth graders, and the first question the young lady asked me is why are people trashing my neighborhood? i didn't have a good reason. i didn't have a good answer for her. it is so frustrating that people think that this makes sense, to destroy our community, when we know that those people who live there that are already hurting are the ones that pay for them. >> reporter: [ inaudible ]. what do you think of the criticism today? >> i'll say the blatant mischaracterization of my words was not helpful today. i was asked a question about the property damage that was done and in answering that question i made it very clear that we walk a -- we balance a very fine line between giving protesters -- giving giving protesters space to protest. what i said is in doing so people can hijack that and use that space for bad. i did not say that we were accepting of it. i did not say that we were passive to it. i was just explaining how property damage can happen during a peaceful protest. it is very unfortunate that members of your industry decided to mischaracterize my words and use it as a way to say we're inciting violence. there's no such thing. >> reporter: [ inaudible ]. >> absolutely not, absolutely not. i've never said anything to that fact. absolutely not. what we did was manage a peaceful protest in the best way possible and when it got violent and destructive, we responded to that. we have an obligation to protect people's first amendment rights. we also understand through the best training and best practices that we have to do everything we can to de-escalate. those were the tactics that were deployed yesterday. did people exploit those tactics or that space that we gave that we facilitated to have peaceful protests for bad? yes, we did. we didn't endorse it. i didn't -- we don't endorse it and we didn't allow it. we went in using best practices to -- >> >> reporter: you don't think it's a mistake? >> to allow a protest? >> reporter: for the de-escalation strategy? >> any other questions. >> reporter: what is the plan as night is falling? >> as i mentioned, we have the juvenile curfew for 14 and under that's 9:00 p.m. we will be enforcing it. 14 to 17 is 10:00 p.m. we will be enforcing it. tomorrow there will be a citywide curfew as i said 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. in the morning. let me be clear. what that means is if you are -- if you don't have -- if you're on the streets, it will be for two reasons. medical emergency or you're going to work. that's it. >> reporter: any updates on the police officers who were injured, seven were injured and one was unconscious? >> okay. go ahead. >> unfortunately, at this point 15 police officers are injured. the 15 two are still being hospitalized at this moment. the others have been released with minor injuries at this point. >> reporter: do you know how those officers were injured, the two hospitalized how were they injured today? >> what we know right now preliminarily is objects, bricks bottles, i'm not sure exactly specifically what it was, but it was flying debris that caused injuries. >> reporter: did they have helmets on? >> some did and some did not. >> reporter: how many people were involved in this? >> i can tell you around dismissal time of schools and the mondamin hub we saw an excess of 75 to 100 school-aged kids that were causing a lot of problems up there. the majority of the officers that were injured in the incidents that occurred around that hub was coming from like i said flying debris and from what we can tell it looked like it was school-aged kid. s s the good thing is we have a lot of video that we're easily able to track them down and find out who is responsible. >> reporter: didn't your department know on social media that this was going to happen? i mean everyone knew that mondamin mall was mentioned on social media and that the students were planning on meeting there. could more have been done by the department to stop this before it went got out of control. >> we monitor social media, and we knew there was a mention of something to occur there. we predeployed, so we were out there before dismissal time. >> reporter: are you satisfied with how the department handled response at mondamin looking back? >> i'm not happy that 15 officers were injured at this point. i'm not happy at all. could we have done things differently? we have to sit back and really assess that but right now, like i said the 15 officers were injured and two are still hospitalized. it's unacceptable. >> reporter: any ballpark figure? generally speaking how many people you pulled off the streets through all of this? >> prior to me coming over here was about 27 arrests. that was about maybe 30 minutes. >> reporter: moving forward, what role will the national guard play in assistance with the police and how do you see all of this ending? it certainly seems from what we've seen today this looks virtually impossible to stop. i know it's not, but it appears that way. how do you plan on getting ahold of this whole situation. >> in a couple of ways. first, the national guard will be deployed in collaboration and cooperation with the baltimore city police department. there are several ways that they can be used and we will determine that. it has not been determined yet. wungs once we get the xrakt number deployed we will make a determination how to best use that number to provide backup and support for the baltimore city police department. with respect to to how do we get to order, let's be clear. you know the council president and i share the frustration of the negative images shown of our great city. we're going to use all of those images who are destroying our city accountable. so once people start getting arrested for the looting, for the destruction, i think they will understand that this is not a lawless city. the thugs and the -- you know -- i'm at a loss for words, because it is idiotic to think that by destroying your city that you're going to make life better for anybody. and after we -- as we start to review the tapes that we have from our own police video as well as what we're able to see from the different outlets, we will be holding people accountable. >> one more guys. >> reporter: this afternoon one of the leaders of the peaceful protest made a public call throughout [ inaudible ] and is that sort of an indication that you were open? >> anyone who wants to add to the calls for peace in our city is welcome. if reverend sharp tonton wants to come and parents want to encourage their children to act within the law. i met with young people this afternoon, young people that want peace and justice. they were giving their own suggestions on how young people themselves can have a voice and try to add a sane message, a message that says we don't -- it's not in our name that you are doing that -- that you are destroying our city. anybody who wants to be a part of sending that message, i welcome it. >> mayor, thank you guys. >> thank you. >> we're working that out with school police -- i mean with the school system. thank you very much. >> that was baltimore mayor stephanie rawlings-blake. you can see darkness is falling in baltimore tonight. we learned a number of things from the mayor. first of all, there will be a curfew that begins at 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. in the city of baltimore. it's going to last at least one week. we've been told that the police department in baltimore is fully deployed. that all police leave has been canceled. the large police force is out on the street but the governor of maryland has declared a state of emergency and activated the national guard. in all of this it follows a day of violence. the governor is expected to hold a news conference in just about an hour and wrel bring it to you live. the unrest is after the funeral of freddie gray an african-american man who died in police custody. all afternoon we saw rioters clash with law enforcement and several officers have been injured and 15 officers were injured today. two are still in the hospital. police cars were set on fire. protesters threw stones and bottles and looted stores. they set a drugstore it looked like a cvs ablaze. the situation is extremely tense tonight with hundreds of officers reportedly on their wane to maintain the peace. john terrett is on the ground with more in baltimore. john. >> reporter: yeah. john good evening. it's a very tense baltimore this evening, and it's only just turning dusk now. it probably looks quite dark on the television shot but there's still a lot of light around. i think people are worried what will happen to this city when darkness finally comes. in the last couple of minutes we learned a lot about what's going on here from the mayor of baltimore, stephanie rawlings-blake who said that too many people that spent a lifetime building up this city only for a bunch of thugs to tear it down. brandon scott, who is a second district councilman here in baltimore, went even further. he used an expletive. he's really angry calling on parents to rein in their children and to stop behaving in this way. he said what's happening here isn't the criminal element of baltimore is taking advantage of the situation that is escalating over the past couple of hours. what you're seeing on your television screens is not the people of santown where freddie gray lived who protested peacefully but this is other people agitating and jumping on the bandwagon. he called on them to stop. >> let me ask you this john. based on what you saw through the afternoon, it appears from the pictures we see that things have calmed down some. is that really what's happening on the ground there? >> reporter: well i'm not sure that is the case. i'm afraid that what we have now is a situation where the police might have rather lost control of certain groups of these protesters who are now running around the city. irng that what happened in the early part of the afternoon midway through at the mondamin mall, that's where the young teenagers from the schools first turned out. they were surrounded by police in riot gear and it was the presence of that riot gear say many local people that angered those students and kind of spread from there into areas all over western baltimore. the burning of the cvs that you see, that took place just a couple of blocks away from where i'm standing at the moment. within the past few minutes we have seen local faith group leaders marching there in a display of unity and faith trying to help to calm things down. >> yeah. we have congressman elijah cummings, who is marching with faith leaders, calling for peace as the mayor suggested earlier. she's calling on all the leaders of baltimore to come out and push peace tonight. our del walters has followed this story from the studio. you worked in baltimore. you know this town. give me your reaction to what you just heard the mayor say tonight. >> i heard the mayor talking, and one of the things that was interesting is that so many people are trying to make sense of what happened today. the best way to describe it is a slow boil 30 to 40 years in the making. as people watched "the wire," who are those people? those people exploded today. it's an confluence of a poor education system a race crisis in america, a jobs crisis in america. the unemployment rate among young african-american men we have reported over and over again. it hovers around 30%. that particular neighborhood in baltimore has one of the highest poverty rates in the city and has been like that for the last four decades. >> aren't there neighborhoods like that all over the country for the last 30 years in detroit and brooklyn and washington, d.c. >> one by one we see ferguson. we have watched detroit and other cities explode, and we keep asking the same question and come back to the same issues over and over again. >> so we have 15 police officers injured tonight. how -- i mean the big question tonight is whether or not this city is really going to explode, right? >> that is something that nobody can answer. i think that is why you heard john terrett say that things in baltimore tonight are tense because that part of the city nobody really understands because it is that part of america that we choose to drive by. there are neighborhoods in that city, john that i would wager a lot of people when you go through the neighborhoods, you lock your doors. let's remember there are moms dads grandmothers and aunts and uncles and children living there trying to make sense of a world that doesn't make sense to them. >> it harkens back to ferguson. we're watching live pictures of a car burning there as the protesters walk by. in ferguson the national guard was called out. we thought that police and fire and the national guard were going to protect businesses but instead it didn't happen. i mean clearly the city has -- by the way, the other thing that sort of strikes me is this is an african-american administration. >> that's what i was going to say. when you talk about baltimore, the difference between baltimore 40 years ago was 40 years ago you might have had a white mayor and a white chief of police locking up african-american men. >> not today. >> 40 years later you have and you heard the mayor say we're going to find these people. the question isn't whether or not they're going to find these people. the question is what are they going to do when they lock them up to stop in from happening 40 years from now? >> so who bears responsibility? in ferguson the white mayor was blamed. who gets the blame in baltimore for this and the administration? >> we don't want to hear the answer to that question because it harkens back to all of us. a young african-american presidential candidate named barack obama campaigned on a theme of hope. the first thing he said was there is a crisis in this country where the rich are too rich, the poor are too poor. there was a class crisis. nobody wanted to address the issue of rebuilding the unfra structure giving people that may have been throwing a brick a job. >> we want to remind people that at the half hour we expect the governor of maryland to hold a press conference and talk about the state of emergency in baltimore and the national guard called out. earlier with del and tony harris they talked to justin fenton following this story on the ground. here's what he had to say. >> earlier in the day there was a flyer going around on social immediate that announced a purge. this is a reference to a movie that came out a few years ago where there's no laws for a period of 24 hours and you can do anything you want. frankly, this goes around every now and then. there's a thing, and we see it. people forward it to us and say, are you aware of this? is this real? police tend to boost up the presence downtown and it usually doesn't turn out to be anything. today the same thing went around and because of the climate here police took it very seriously and alerted all the downtown businesses and institutions to send their employees home early. and where the so-called purge was supposed to start was the mondami mall i mondamin mall in west baltimore near two large high schools. it's a transportation hub where many students catch buses to go home. there are not yellow school buses in baltimore. kids ride public transportation and so purge or not, there was going to be a lot of kids at that -- in that area at that time when school let out. the police had an incredible number of officers in riot gear and pretty quickly they started to chant and throwing rocks at the officers. i was there, and i really can't tell you what led to the unrest that followed. i saw on twitter the police department said that a police car was vandalized and an officer was injured about a mile south. i ran down there as quick as i could, and there's no other words other than chaotic. >> that's a reporter on the ground in baltimore. dante is the executive director of the million hoodies movement for justice. he's been watching these events unfold as well. dante, give me your reaction to what you heard from the mayor. >> wow. i'm a little triggered. i think for one there's a bit of respectability in the mayor's comments in using the term "thug." >> she said that she won't let the city be destroyed by thugs. >> yes. if you ever watch any issue around even davis or anything there's always a loaded language that's used in terms of terminology of thugs. i think it's very important to think about how that language was used deliberately and why it was used deliberately. >> why was it? >> i don't know. i think that's a point that we need to examine and look further in right? i think that it was specifically used in -- >> the other term she used was coward. the people that burned down the drugstore and looted the cell phone store. the people that she described as tearing down businesses in the city of baltimore. >> so again, i think she used these words to a select group of people. this is in response to the real fundamental problem, right? we have gone 15 days without an apology or any type of statement from the police department around freddie gray's death, right? >> so this is about freddie gray? >> it's not just about freddie gray. let me finish. we haven't heard anything within the 15 days so this is the condition we're in right? so the same point. we're at a moment in this country where we're looking at policing practices and patterns all over this country. there's heightened tension everywhere. so i think when we see it here we also see remnants of ferguson, missouri. i've been on your show a couple of times in october and in august reporting around this. so we're seeing very similarities around how the mayor is covering here and baltimore as well as in ferguson. >> all right. dante, stand by a second. we're going to take a quick break. we've going to have the coverage of the governor's press conference coming up in just a few minutes, and our live coverage of the protests and the violence in baltimore continues after this. just because i'm away from my desk doesn't mean i'm not working. comcast business understands that. their wifi isn't just fast near the router. it's fast in the break room. fast in the conference room. fast in tom's office. fast in other tom's office. fast in the foyer [pronounced foy-yer] or is it foyer [pronounced foy-yay]? fast in the hallway. i feel like i've been here before. switch now and get the fastest wifi everywhere. comcast business. built for business. >> al jazeera america, weekday mornings. catch up on what happened overnight with a full morning brief. get a first hand look with in-depth reports and investigations. start weekday mornings with al jazeera america. open your eyes to a world in motion. this is al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler. we're waiting for the governor to talk about the rioting in baltimore. we're going to take a look. is this a press conference we're expecting? it should happen in a few minutes. these are live pictures from the streets of baltimore. among the people in this crowd, congressman elijah cummings calling for peace on the streets and other faith leaders that are there. can we turn up the volume just a little bit? [ singing ] >> the moon is coming up over baltimore, and these people march for peace, and whether or not there will be more violence? >> i think we may have seen a flash point. i hope we saw a flash point that may have flashed and died down as cooler heads have prevailed. you see the faith-based leaders taking to the street of baltimore. i'm struck by so many of these young people that we saute to the streets today. i was a professor at dewey state university for seven years. most of my students hailed from those neighborhoods, and this is ha they told me. it's telling. 95% addition this is not an compassion rags of my students knew more than one person shot and killed. keep in mind that during that period when they were growing up for every person shot and killed there were tone people wounded. most of them knew four or five people shot and killed. most of them have parents locked up. when we talk about incarceration incarceration, that's the anger in the streets. it in no way excuses what we saw today, but it explains why it was such a flash point. >> in fact 15 police officers were injured and two are in the hospital tonight. richard wineblatt is a former police chief as well as a dean at ivy tech community college. richard, give me your reaction of what you've seen today? >> it's very upsetting, john. it is a tragedy for everybody. for the gray family for the good folks of baltimore and there's plenty of good people there. and for the police officers. i mean they are in a untenable situation. they are outmanned, outgunned. the city leaders should have seen this coming and should have been the officers properly equipped and backed up. you don't talk about deploys the international guard now. they should have been staged and already with plans made. you don't try to figure out -- we'll figure out where they will be. the mayor says that. i applaud the mayor for calls them thugs. the guest is there quibbling with the language notwithstanding, but those folks are thugs. you burn down in your own community. in 1968 lott and trenton and parts of newark new jersey never recovered from that. that is just a terrible situation. unfortunately, the police officers many of whom are good. it does not excuse bad police conduct, by the way, that you and i have talked about before. good police are now caught in the middle of this and they're in a untenable situation. >> i want to talk a bit about the untenable wags. you say if there's better planning and that if the city leaders had gotten organized, more organized than they were told. don't these things just suddenly pop up? you can't always make sure that you know where you're supposed to be in order to stop a riot? >> i'll agree you don't know exactly where you're supposed to be and i'll applaud what the chief of patrol, the colonel said a little bit ago in the press conference. they did monitored the social media and had people in play by the maul there, because they knew it was coming. they should have had more and after john you saw what happened in ferguson. you saw what happened in other cities where it's happened. you knew there were going to be some flash points and a floosh point like a funeral is an obvious one. therefore, we should have more folks in place. >> let me challenge you on it. what we saw in ferguson was a lot of military equipment, and police lined up. some people thought it wasn't necessary and had that happened in baltimore, couldn't it have been worse? >> i don't think so but i think what happens is john, what i'm saying is you don't necessarily have it waving it in people's faces, bullet you have it there as you heard me say a few minutes ago staged and ready and your plans are in place already. fnlt if not we have to figure out how many we get and put them. they should have known that already and worked with the governor eights office in advance. now we have a history over the last six, eight months where unrest gets created again, and do we want 1968 revisited? >> i don't think anybody does for sure. richard wineblatt. thank you very much. i want to turn to the live picture of the press conference. we're still waiting for the press conference. the governor of maryland is expected to sfeek in a few minutes. as soon as he does we'll bring it to you live. president obama has been monitoring the event from the white house, and it comes on the day that loretta lynch was sworn in as attorney general of the united states. mike viqueira has been following that part of the story. mike. >> reporter: john you're absolutely right. an immediate challenge for loretta lynch, the first woman, african-american to be the attorney general of the united states. she met with president obama on her first day shortly after being sworn in by joe biden today at the department of justice. obviously, this unfolding and escalating situation in baltimore is at the to which of the list. the president spoke with the mayor. we just heard her conduct that press conference. stephanie rawlings-blake about the ongoing situation in baltimore. the president assured her he was monitoring the situation and offering to help in any way that he could. valerie jarrett is the confidant and consequence lor to president obama spoke with a couple of people today. larry hogan is among them. we stee that we are waiting now for an appearance from governor hogan. he's the newly minted republican governor only in office for a few months now. he too, faces an immediate challenge here as the unrest and chaos erupts on the streets. valerie jarrett speeming with representative elijah cummings who had a high profile role in baltimore. it's from baltimore, of course. officials in washington at the white house certainly monitoring the situation at the department of justice. unfortunately, they've had a lot of recent experience with this kind of phenomenon and unrest on the streets of ferguson to staten island and new york city and elsewhere. we're waiting to see if they have anything else to say tonight, but they are watching it closely. >> i was going to ask you whether or not there was a lid at the white house or whether the president could still speak tonight? >> we do not expect the president to speak tonight. as far as we understand it there's a lid for uninitiated. the white house will tell the press when it they do not expect to make more news tonight. they called it putting a lid on the nusz. the white house is watching the situation. unlikely we'll hear from the president, but we'll wait and see. >> mike vickqueira at the white house. we are waiting for the governor of maryland to speak in a few minutes. we'll bring it to you live and have more from baltimore after this. this. hi everyone. this is al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler. this is a live picture from the headquarters of the state emergency management in maryland. we're waiting for governor larry hogan to speak. the state national guard has been called out. we're also understanding that a curfew from the mayor of baltimore has told us that there's a curfew that begins at 10:00 p.m. until 5:00 in the morning in baltimore. that's going to go on for a whole week is what they've announced. so we're waiting for this press conference. in the meantime i want to bring in del walters again following the story. these are pictures from earlier. i want to emphasize that because so far this evening as the sun went down the pictures we've seen have been a peaceful protest, right sf. >> so far so good this evening. it appears that the sun went down and the violence levels went down as well. i was listening to the policeman, you know talk about it and quibble over the issue of the word "thugs," and that is part of the problem. which is that there is -- we here at al jazeera give voice to the voiceless, and the voiceless in this case are those people that belief that they have no voice at you will. as we were talking on the break, you have never seen a riot take place in beverly hills, california or palm beach, florida or tysons corner virginia or upper east side of new york. there's no reason to riot. we can talk about what we need to do as far as enforcement is concerned, but until we get to the root causes of why it flashed, it will flash again. >> jason down is the attorney for freddie gray's family. he's on the telephone tonight. jason, we have him live. jason, good to have you on the program. our condolences to the family. this was a difficult day. give your reaction to what you've seen today. >> reporter: well the family certainly is not condoning any violence. actually the family explicitly requested no violence. fredricka gray the twin sister of freddie gray specifically asked the community not to engage in any acts of violence because the gray family is keenly aware of the fact that violence will not help. in fact violence will only lead to more violence. so what the gray family is asking for is there be no violence. they appreciate the support and protesters, but the difference between the protesters and the rioters, they are not asking for riots or looting. they're asking for just peaceful protests. >> obviously the protesters didn't listen to the gray family. why not? >> reporter: well this is a community that is frankly fed-up fed-up. it's specifically the voice of the unheard and the language of the unheard, as dr. king famously said. right now you have a group of people that feel marginized and feel like their voigs voices aren't herd. while we play this into context, we don't condone the violence but we have to play is in this context but this is happening in a community where the voices haven't been heard. this is the result of decades and decades of treatment of unfair treatment on the part of the police department. >> i don't want to wear this question out, but you have an african-american mayor, and all the people who are at that press conference are african-american who are in leadership positions in the city of baltimore. they were elected by the people of baltimore, who are a majority of african-american. so why aren't their voices being heard? >> if you look at the police department and look at historically the fact millions of dollars have been paid out to victims of police brutality, obviously, their voices have not been heard. now is a time for the leadership to step up. now is the time for the leadership to make sure that our voices want community's voices are being heard. so what they could do in this situation is release information as to how freddie gray's spinal cord was severed. that's what the community wants to know. so instead of just having talking points after talking points, at this point the community just wants answers. >> we've got a state of emergency in baltimore. the governor is getting ready to speak. what do you want to hear from governor hogan tonight? >>le with frankly what we want to hear from any government official is how the government plans to get to the bottom of freddie gray's death. mr. gray's family just frankly wants answers. they don't the to make a political statement. they want to know what happened to their loved one, and anything that the state of maryland can do to help get to the bottom of how freddie gray's spinal cord was severed the family wants that. >> national guard could quell the righterers. rioters. >> you get any sense they will give you new information soon? >> no the information -- we're still waiting for information, specifically information such as were there radio runs in this case? in other words, were there recorded communications between the police officers involved? we want to know what those recorded transmissions exist, and if so they can be disclosed right now today because they shouldn't change. nothing should be altered, so that's one piece of information that could be released right now today. what the gray family is looking for is a transparent investigation. >> we watched this unfold. as we see what is unfolding in baltimore right now, is there a sense that after today, after freddie gray is over and done with that it won't happen again when there is another freddie gray? >> i'm sorry. i didn't catch the entire question. >> the question is what happens when there's another freddie gray? in other words is this going to be the end of it if they give you full accountability, or will it happen again when there's another incident like we saw happen with freddie gray? >> reporter: unfortunately, what we're seeing here in the community right now is the fact that freddie gray is not an isolated incident. this is not only happening in baltimore. it's happened in baltimore before but it's happening all across the country. so right now no there's no confidence that this is the ovenl freddie gray. this will be the end of police brutality against members of the black and brown community here in baltimore. what we are hoping for with regard to this specific case are answers to what actually happened to freddie gray. >> obviously, you're speaking for the family tonight, and your calls to try to quell the violence. is there anything else that the family plans to do in the next 24 48 hours to try to drive that message home? >> reporter: the family has spoken. their voices have been heard. fredricka gray went on television and specifically requested that there be no violence. i think that's very clear right now. the gray family wants no violence. what the gray family wants is answers, and so at this point right now the gray family has asked the community not to engage in any acts of violence. >> what do you expect to happen tomorrow? >> reporter: what we hope is the government releases more information as to the state of the investigation in this case. we hope for a more transparent investigation as each day passes. that's what we're hoping for. >> the family has asked there not be any violence and yet there was violence. is there a sense among yourself and the family members that these two incidents are connected or that they were separate incidents where you had a group of people simply seizing on the opportunity to do something that they wanted to do for quite some time? >> reporter: well i think that there's been -- the frustration in the community has been simmering for quite some time. >> i'll interrupt you right now because we have governor hogan coming to the press conference. thanks again. >> reporter: sure. sure. >> just recently i spoke with the president of the united states. identify also been in communication with the mayor of baltimore, with the president of the maryland senate and the speaker of the house. we're here in our emergency operations command center which is now activated. all state agencies are actively engaged in this situation. we partnered with baltimore city and all other agencies in maryland as well as neighboring states. this evening, as a result of the serious violence and looting, which has led to the destruction of property and put innocent marylanders at significant risk i have declared a state of emergency at the request of baltimore city. this order deploys the maryland national guard in order to help restore order and to end the unrest that we witnessed today and tonight. i've not made the decision lightly. the national guard represents a last resort in order to restore order. look people have the right to protest and express their frustrations but baltimore city families deserve peace and safety in their communities. these acts of violence and destruction of property cannot and will not be tolerated. i strongly condemn the actions of those who engaged in direct attacks against innocent civilians, businesses and law enforcement officers. the resources of the state police and the national guard have already been deployed in support of all law enforcement in the city. they will exercise discipline restraint and provide the support necessary to ensure safety and to bring law and order to baltimore city. we've got our entire team here. i'm going to turn the podium over here for a moment to colonel william pulasi who is the superintendent of our state police and then we will hear from general linda singh who is the adjunct general of the maryland national guard and also clay stamp who is the director of the maryland emergency management agency where we are tonight. i'm going to start now with the colonel of the state police and then we'll be happy to take your questions after everybody has spoken. thank you. >> good evening. as the governor said i'm the superintendent of the state police. the governor's actions today are huge. we have been here a long with many of our allied law enforcement, over 500 strong since wednesday working with the city of baltimore in various capacities helping to maintain as much order as possible. as you've seen many groups continue to splinter and move around the city of baltimore looting, committing crimes in certain areas, setting places on fire. our mission has been and will continue to be the preservation of life and of property. i have had conversations this evening with commissioner batts. he certainly understands the scope of what happened and we're coming in with additional forces to assist. the governor's declaration of the emergency record is big in that it allows us to branch out further. we've already put out a request for up to 500 additional law enforcement from the state of maryland regionally to come out and provide assistance. but through an emac request which we will talk about in a little bit, we put out a request for up to 5,000 law enforcement from the regional area in the mid-atlantic to assist us as well. we are asking that they be equipped with the necessary equipment for their own personal safety as well as to assist us in deploying things. you know kind of a plan in the next few hoirz is to work with other local law enforcement leaders and divide up the city into certain sectors, which we will they know go sector by sector trying to protect starting with the hottest areas first, which wait for that briefing from bpd right now and work in concert with the national guard as they come on board to maintain security of those areas. at this time that's all i have. >> now we turn the floor over to clay stamp, who is the direct orr of the maryland emergency management agency. >> thank you, governor. ladies and gentlemen, the governor has been clear from day one. we activated this past saturday at his direction to integrate our actions with the city of baltimore as they debt with this situation. we've had over three -- over 400 state policing agencies in the city working with them. today turned another chapter and the governor declared a state of emergency after the mayor of baltimore declared a stalt of emergency. that means they've exceeded their capability and need help from the state of maryland to move in and support their efforts to curb the situation. what you see here is a full court press. you see representatives from across the agency swps volunteer agencies that bring the full weight of the state government to deliver resources to achieve the governor's goals which are clear. we will be working diligently in our different sections that are activated, transportation support support, law enforcement and health and medical and human services and through planning logistics and operations we will achieve the necessary results we need to achieve the governor's directive. i'll turn it over to governor hogan again. thank you, sir. >> before we take your questions, we trn the podium here over to general linda singh from the maryland guard. >> the guard is activated this season and we have a full mrement in the state which means up to 5,000 troops can be put onto the streets to actually protect property and people. i would highly recommend that we all go in and take cover for the night and actually go to sleep and get some rest and let things settle down so we can restore order to the city. we're going to be out in massive force, and that means that we are going to be patrolling the streets to ensure that we're protecting property. we're in a supporting mode to if there are questions about martial law, this is not martial law. at that point the military takes over and we're not at that point. we're in support of the police department and we will take our direction from the police department as in where we go out and support. thank you. >> at this time we'd all be happy to take any questions anyone might have. any questions? [ inaudible question ] >> well i heard about some of the officers that have been injured. i haven't heard the exact medical status but is there anybody else that can address that? you probably have more up-to-date information than we did. the last report i had was 7 police officers were injured. it's something, as i said earlier, that won't be tolerated. it was one of the factors in us deciding we had to get in there and provide some support. i can tell you that. we'll let you know as soon as we -- does anybody have any other updated information on that? we'll try to get you the answers. >> reporter: governor who is? charge and more directly where the resources are going and ma to do next? >> well the city has asked for us to take over. currently the state police superintendent is in charge. we'll be in direct communication with the city with the mayor, with the city police and general sigh will provide backup assistance and we will have police from other states in the region. >> reporter: whether we put out the -- declared the state of emergency, the national guard was coming in. a lot of the response we got was, finally. what took so long? what was the tipping point for you that made you declare that? >> we declared a state of emergency and i issued the executive order less than 30 seconds after it was requested by the city of baltimore. it didn't take long at all. i signed an executive order almost immediately as soon as we received the call and called the president. there was no delay what sovr. we've had this emergency operation center activated since saturday. we've had hundreds of state police on the ground and every single state agency and local agency out of the cooperation already for the entire week. i've been in daily communication with the mayor and others in the city and our entire team has been involved from day one. frankly, this is a baltimore city situation. baltimore city was in charge. when the mayor called me which quite frankly we were glad she finally did, instantly we signed the executive order. we already had our entire team prepared, and in fact i had already called general sigh earlier in the day and to be prepared to call up. we were in the second floor of the statehouse in constant communication and we were trying to get in touch with the mayor for quite some time. she finally made that call and we immediately took action. >> reporter: governor do you think you should have gotten involved earlier and acted earlier? >> i know the city has done everything in their power to get it under control. i don't want to question what they're doing. they're all under tremendous stress. we're all here on one team. i want to thank the mayor for all of her involvement. we're just happy that we're all on the same page and able to help each other at this point. >> reporter: can you tell to us what the national guard [ inaudible ]? >> i'll let the general talk about the subjects that she can. the natural guard will provide assets and work as backup to the state police and the other police agencies. so as she said we haven't taken over. it's not a situation where they're in charge. we roll some assets into the city and we have equipment and manpower to help us get the situation under control. i'll let general sigh talk about the assets they have and will use. some are there and some take a while to call up and come in. it will grow as we bring in folks from various counties around the state as we call up the guard members and as we get support from other states. we're going to get as much as we can there this evening. >> if i could talk to that real quick. one of the challenges law enforcement has had is the moving. we've been able to go in and move and stop certain areas and move in. as they constantly move around they outnumber us. i can tell you my ask of the national guard is to allow us to come in and whether we clear an area, hold that area. we need everybody to be done as safely as possible. they need the proper equipment to defend themselves to secure themselves from rocks and bottles thrown at them. they want to hold certain critical areas that we believe we need to hold. >> that is absolutely correct. just to add, if you want to get into the specifics of vehicles we're coming in with up armored humvees. humvees. the goal is once we have those areas secured by police, we will come in and pro

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