Surely you don't think some press announcement by a governor is sufficient to place millions of people under house arrest without due process, indictment, arraignment, etc.
My memories of the 1968 riots are pretty fuzzy; Wilmington Delaware was under National Guard occupation for longer than any other city in a US state since the War Between the States, but it was basically in the black areas of downtown, and I was a kid out in the burbs. The main effect was armed soldiers on streetcorners, plus nighttime curfews at least at the beginning.
But this wasn't a press announcement by the governor -
this was a press announcement by the state terrorism czar
saying that if anything bad happens he'll be able to control it,
and it's the governor's job to make sure that the
State Police and National Guard don't do anything stupid like
listen to him if he decides to announce that he's in charge like Al Haig some day,
while letting him rattle his cage now to keep the Bush League PR Machine happy.
