Gov. Larry Hogan walked up to a half-dozen young black men in a West Baltimore market Thursday afternoon, and delivered his best sales pitch.
"Monday night was bad, right? The city was burning," the governor said. "All the looting, that's not helping the Freddie Gray cause. That's not helping us seek justice. You have got to help us convince your friends and neighbors, people in the community. We've got to do this peacefully."
Harry Collic, 22, nodded.
"If the justice comes," he said, "the peace will come."
As the new Republican governor walked the Avenue Market in Upton, Hogan repeated his request to any business owner or resident who would listen.
"You got to help us keep it calm, OK?" Hogan told Borndavid McCraw, who runs a youth empowerment program.
"You got to help us get our voice heard," McCraw answered.
"We're concerned about the weekend," Hogan said. "A lot of people want to demonstrate peacefully, but other people want to cause trouble. We're not out of the woods."
Residents listened, but wanted something in return: What he would do to offer them more jobs? How would he make sure people had opportunities? What was he going to do about the closed recreation center? The businesses burned and looted?
"I know that you're at nearly 50 percent unemployment," Hogan told one man. "We've got a lot of long-term problems. Right now, we're trying to get the city safe, make sure we don't have any more homes and businesses burn down."
To another man, Hogan offered the same refrain. "This weekend, we're just trying to keep the city safe. We can't fix all the problems right now."
Two days of relative calm in the city has led to calls to lift the 10 p.m. curfew, but Hogan told residents that he didn't want people to get comfortable because Saturday had potential for unrest.
"There's lots of radical groups and professional agitators from all around the country coming here with intentions to cause destruction and to cause violence," Hogan said in an interview, though he declined to elaborate on which groups he meant.
"There's also elements here in the city that fired up on Monday and burned down businesses and homes and injured people and looted stores. Together, that's a dangerous combination."
As a mob of television cameras trailed Hogan down Laurens Street, a resident shouted after him, "One thing governor! We need a playground and a basketball court!"
Hogan waved, and kept moving.
He told a television camera, "Today, the discussion has shifted to the bigger picture of how do we solve all the problems. … My focus is on protecting the citizens of Baltimore and making sure we get through this weekend."
Sun Lee, who works at Kim's Wireless on the corner of Laurens Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, told the governor he felt the city's leaders had failed his neighborhood, and the governor needed to solve Baltimore's economic woes.
"I can promise you this: We're going to do everything we possibly can," Hogan said. "Be patient. Help us keep the calm. Help us enforce the curfews."
In tasseled loafers and a blue pinstriped shirt, Hogan sipped from a blue snowball and posed for photos with the owners of a nearby beauty shop. The air smelled charred from the burned, boarded-up business next door that residents said had been one of 15 structural fires lit Monday.
"What is this about?" asked Ronald Epps, 69, as he watched Hogan shake hands and make promises to work on long-term solutions.
"This is nothing as far as I can see," Epps said. "There have been plenty of politicians who come through from time to time. They never change anything."
Hogan handed the snowball to an aide, climbed back into his black government SUV and drove away to his next stop in Jonestown, ready to implore more businesses to tolerate the curfew for a few more days.
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