Rawlings-Blake received criticism for her handling of the 2015 Baltimore protests that were prompted by the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015. Several days of peaceful protests escalated into violence in the late afternoon of April 25, 2015. After about three hours of violence, looting, and destruction of property throughout the city, Rawlings-Blake requested the assistance of the Maryland National Guard. Two days later, on April 27, as unrest continued, she requested that the governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, declare a state of emergency, and on April 28, she asked for further assistance from the National Guard. Rawlings-Blake was criticized for waiting too long before asking the state for help. Hogan claimed that she did not return his repeated phone calls for two hours after the riots started on April 25 and that he could not enact a state of emergency or deploy the National Guard without a formal request from the mayor. On April 28, Hogan said he didn't want to "second-guess the mayor's decision" and that he knew "she was doing the best that she could".