BALTIMORE — Residents of neighborhoods hit by rioting and arson turned out Tuesday morning to begin clearing their streets of debris as hundreds of rifle-toting National Guard members began deploying here, lining one of the city’s main thoroughfares and taking up posts around a police station in western Baltimore that had been the scene of earlier protests.
At Pennsylvania and West North Avenues, where a CVS drugstore was looted and burned, residents with donated brooms were out in force. State police troopers in riot gear were lined up in a human barrier across the intersections, and a crowd of peaceful residents gathered, singing and chanting.
One of those with a broom was Clarence Cobb, 48, who lives in the neighborhood and came on his bike. “It don’t make no sense,” Mr. Cobb said of the damage by rioters. “It’s comes to a point where you got to take pride in your own neighborhood.”
After surveying riot-scarred parts of Baltimore, Gov. Larry Hogan vowed Tuesday that “we’re not going to have another repeat of what happened last night,” promising a much heavier presence from the police and the National Guard.
“Criminal activity will not be tolerated,” Mr. Hogan said at a noon news conference. “We’re going to be sure to bring in whatever resources are necessary.”
In addition to the city’s own 3,000 officers, “we’ve got a couple of thousand” Guard troops and officers from other agencies, including the State Police, the governor said, and “the Guard is calling up another thousand who will be here by tonight.”
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, facing questions about the speed and strategy behind Monday night’s police response, said the “armchair quarterbacking and second-guessing” were understandable.
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