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At This Hour

Violence Overnight Again in Ferguson; Witness Says Police Shot Teen as He Ran and When He Turned, Arms Raised; Longstanding Racial Issues in Ferguson; Yazidis Evacuation Effort Looks Less Likely

Aired August 14, 2014 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: A U.S. ground mission in Iraq is looking less and less likely, but more air strikes are possible. So which is it? Is the U.S. drawing down or just getting started?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: It looked like a war zone in suburban St. Louis overnight. Violence erupted once again between police and those protesting the police shooting of an unarmed teen.

BERMAN: And we were so familiar with the comedic genius of Robin Williams. Now we are learning more about his pain, pain another TV and film star knows all too well, with us this morning, actress Patty Duke.

Hello, everyone. I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: Yes, you sure are. That makes me Michaela Pereira

Those stories and so much more ahead @THISHOUR.

"Hands up, don't shoot," that's the rallying cry spreading nationwide as protests intensify over the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.

The fifth night of demonstrations has now been the fiercest.

BERMAN: Parts of Ferguson, Missouri, looked, in fact, like a battlefield.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There it goes. They're firing onto the crowd. Ouch!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Officers launched tear gas canisters, flash bombs, possibly rubber bullet nears the crowd of protesters. They say the protesters threw Molotov cocktails

You can see the chaos there. It is crystal clear.

Our local affiliate says two officers hurt, 16 people arrested. PEREIRA: Journalists trying to cover the chaos, themselves were swept

up in it. You're looking right there at a news crew from al Jazeera. You can see a tear gas canister erupt in front of them, forcing them to run.

Now not long after that, police officers -- you can see them. Look at this. They're taking down their equipment, their lights, and point the camera down towards the ground.

BERMAN: Police detained two other journalists as well, one from "The Washington Post," the other from "The Huffington Post." You're looking here at their video.

They were working on the story from a nearby McDonald's. They say they were charging their computers and cell phones when a SWAT team showed up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All this went down, as you can see, in less than two minutes. There were not any protests within two blocks of us. I would love an explanation from the police department about what the eminent risk to our safety was, to be forcibly removed from a McDonald's while we were trying to pack up our bags

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a situation we were trying to record what was taking place and the extraordinary attitude the officers had toward all the people in the establishment, while we were complying with their tightly time-regulated rules for trying to get our things packed up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: These reporters were both released about 45 minutes later. No charges filed.

The parents of 18-year-old Michael Brown, they've been calling for the protests to be peaceful. Their attorney Benjamin Crump say the parents and protesters only want transparency from police, transparency right now they say they are not getting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR MICHAEL BROWN, JR.'S FAMILY: These people saw in that community what happened to this child, and they saw his body laying out there on the ground for hours, and it was very troubling because many of these people know this family.

And they are asking themselves, if it could happen to him, it could happen to my child and it is very troubling, especially with no transparency.

They will give the fact and say officers injured, but they won't even tell the family how many times their son was shot. Now how is that fair?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: There's a great sense of frustration there. The question, that family get some of the answers that they're looking for today

We want to head right to Ferguson right now where Ana Cabrera is there on the ground. She's there outside the police department doing some great reporting and some -- you've gotten some great interviews for us.

Do we know before you give us some of that information, do we know at all about the plans for the chief or the police department to meet with the parents of Michael Brown today or any time soon?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We do believe they are expected to meet today. In fact, the police chief here of the police department of Ferguson, Tom Jackson, telling us that he is going to be meeting with at least the mother of Michael Brown, along with representatives of the NAACP as well as a representative of the U.S. Department of Justice who's part of the community relations team, who's also here on the ground in Ferguson.

He didn't tell us a time, but he says he welcomes that discussion and he also welcomes ideas from those who have dealt with these situations like the U.S. Department of Justice to try to bridge the gap and erode some of the distrust that has now developed in this community.

BERMAN: At night there, because we see some demonstrations and protests during the day and things look peaceful.

We keep on hearing that the vast majority of the people protesting are doing so peacefully, but how do things spiral out of control after dark?

CABRERA: It's hard to know what comes first, the chicken or the egg. It's one of those situations where police tell us that they are there in their riot gear with their weapons, and in order to keep the peace and prevent it from getting out of control, like we saw on Sunday when there was a lot of looting that took place.

Last night we're hearing some new information about exactly what went down when that unrest took place. In fact, the police, we're told, fired perhaps on the protesters with this tear gas and those flash bangs before the protesters then responded with force.

This is coming from one of those protesters who was arrested last night. He is a St. Louis alderman. We've talked to him on our air in the past several days as he has been on the scene recording, trying to document what is happening at these protests.

He was arrested last night. Listen to what he has to tell us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONIO FRENCH, ST. LOUIS ALDERMAN: I was out there with the protesters. I had been out there about two hours. And while I was out there, a guy who lives behind the QT, he lives in the neighborhood, told me that police told him that they wanted everybody off the street at 9:00. That's not some information they had told everybody else, so I actually tweeted that about 25 minutes before 9:00.

And, sure enough, as 9:00 approached, all of a sudden, the police got on the megaphones and said, this is no longer a peaceful demonstration. Everyone should go home or go to their cars.

I didn't know -- I didn't see any provocation for that

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And we've heard that from multiple protesters.

We talked with a state senator out there over the last several days. She has said those same things, and she is urging not only community leaders but state leaders and federal leaders to now get involved, saying actions speak louder than words and that community here needs help in order to come together.

PEREIRA: I'm glad to hear those voices adding, you know, that part of the conversation to the mix here because there is, you said, as night falls so much rage there

We know that the story and Ferguson have been a focus of social media attention as well. In particular, I want to talk about the online hacking group Anonymous.

They have been following this story from the very beginning, and they've kind of tried to insert themselves in this a little bit. Tell us about this so-called "Day of Rage" they're calling for.

CABRERA: Well, they've called for people around the nation to protest today, they say in solidarity with the protesters here in Ferguson, to try to make those voices of the protesters louder, especially when the protesters feel their voices are trying to be oppressed by the law enforcement in this community.

But, as you mentioned, Anonymous has in some ways, people feel, been maybe fueling the fire in all of this discussion with some of their posts on social media. They've come out posting the address of the police chief of the St. Louis police department that's investigating this case that was not directly involved with the shooting death of Michael Brown.

They've brought up numerous times numerous names of officers who they say they believe was the officer involved in this shooting. In the past it's proven to be wrong, we've been told.

Again, we don't know the identity of the officer, so as their stuff comes out on social media, people have been jumping on it, and it's creating fuel for the people who are angry in this situation.

And so it's interesting to see how all of this is playing out and providing part of the conversation as we continue to see unrest here in Ferguson, Missouri.

BERMAN: Ana Cabrera, who's been there for us, thank you so much for your reporting. Stay safe out there because we do know right now that it is an issue --

PEREIRA: Sure is.

BERMAN: -- for reporters on the ground.

While we wait for the police to release details about what happened to Michael Brown, we are getting more information from witnesses.

Look at this. This is cell phone video obtained by CNN that shows officers keeping one of the teenager's family members away from the body.

Remember, that body remained on the street for a long time, several hours after the shooting.

PEREIRA: The witness who took the video on her cell phone tells us the struggle began at the police car window with Michael Brown trying to pull away from the officer. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIFFANY MITCHELL, WITNESSED SHOOTING: As I pull onto the side, the kid, he finally gets away and he starts running.

As he runs, the police get out of his vehicle, and he follows behind him shooting. And the kid's body jerked as if he was hit from behind, and he turned around and puts his hands up like this.

And the cop continued to fire until he just dropped down to the ground, and his face just smacks the concrete.

Even when he turned around and put his arms in the air, he was then overkilled, shot multiple times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Look, this is important information and what could be important testimony.

We spoke to our legal analyst. Jeffery Toobin says, if Michael Brown had his arms up, no matter what happened in the car first, then that is a serious, serious incident and also possibly a crime for the police officer shooting the man.

PEREIRA: Yeah. Absolutely.

BERMAN: I want to put the situation in perspective in the context of what's going on in Ferguson.

Ferguson is in St. Louis County. It's a predominantly black community now with a mostly white police force. Only three of the city's 53 officers are African-American. The police chief, the mayor, they are both white.

PEREIRA: According to the recent census, Ferguson is 67 percent black and 29 percent white. In 2013, 483 African-Americans were arrested, 36 whites.

Let's bring in attorney and radio host Mo Ivory in D.C. -- hello, Mo -- and professor and historian Jelani Cobb in Ferguson. Thanks so much, Jelani, for joining us as well.

Mo, I want to talk about these statistics. I hate dropping statistics, except these ones are indicative of a situation that is going on in Ferguson, essentially an invisible wall between blacks and whites there.

MO IVORY, RADIO HOST, "THE MO IVORY SHOW": Sure, and that would really go to why there's such an insensitivity between these two community, meaning the police and the citizens.

If you think to yourself that, you know, look at those numbers of the number of African-Americans that were arrested versus the number of whites that were arrested, I mean it's staggering, and that really is important in thinking about the mindset of the police as it relates to the citizens that they're supposed to protect.

So I mean, I feel like all of these -- all of this information, you know, just really helps us to put into perspective why there is so much animosity between the citizens and the police in Ferguson.

Even the mayor a couple days ago said that, you know, he's been running unopposed, that that must mean that people are supporting him. That's not what that necessarily means. When you win an election and you're unopposed, that doesn't necessarily mean the people are supporting you. That means that you won by the few people that came out to vote.

And certainly that is a problem in the African-American community that we are not, you know, standing up to run for office or trying to deal with that problem, but that does not mean that you've been sanctioned as a great mayor because you got -- you ran and it was unopposed.

There's a problem in Ferguson, a racial problem, that has got to be addressed and it is fueling and feeding the problem that's going on right now.

BERMAN: Jelani, Professor, I'm thrilled you're there. From the outside it looks like there are actually several things going on right now.

There is the anger over the shooting the other night. There is the overarching frustration that mo is talking about, the racial frustration there.

And now I think what is sprouting up are these deep-seated concerns about civil liberties. You have what many critics are calling the militarization of the law enforcement officials coming to face the protesters there.

This all seems like a very dangerous soup right now.

JELANI COBB, PROFESSOR AND HISTORIAN: It really does, quite honestly. One thing that I will say and that people consistently wanted to get across to me yesterday, I was out talking with community groups, went to a local restaurant called Kathy's Kitchen, which is near here, and I talked with some other community activists, and one thing that people wanted to get across was that there are a cross-section of people really upset about what happened with Michael Brown.

And so I passed the protests yesterday that was mostly if not entirely white. So people bristled at the idea of this -- of the concern about the issue breaking down along solely racial lines.

That said, when you talk to those same people, they will say that there are dynamics that make them quite uncomfortable about the way the political structure here works, with a disproportionate lack of African-American representation, not simply in the city council, where five of six city council members are white, in a city that's 67 percent black, or that there's never been a black mayor, the fire chief is white, the police chief is white, and so on.

But also, when you talk to people here, they're concerned about just economic opportunity, believing that African-Americans have been shut out of possibilities here, and those things are really at the bottom, kind of the bedrock of what's going on here as well.

When I talked with a man yesterday by the name of Ahmed -- Malik Ahmed, runs an organization here called Better Family Life, which has been here three decades, and he said that what we saw erupt here has been 15 or 20 years in the making, and it's kind of ongoing economic issues as well.

PEREIRA: Professor Cobb and Mo Ivory, I want you both to stay with us. We want continue our conversation about what we can do about this ongoing situation in Ferguson, racial divide seemingly in our nation. Stay with us, we'll continue the conversation.

BERMAN: We want to know what all of you think. A lot of you have been tweeting us during the show. Some friendly, some not so. But you know what? We like it all.

PEREIRA: That's the interweb.

BERMAN: Give us your opinions, tweet us, send us a message on Facebook. Please, good, bad, ugly, want it all. We'll be right back.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

L.Z. GRANDERSON, CNN COMMENTATOR: I don't see anyone from the libertarian or Republican movement who talk about small government and overstepping American citizens' rights coming to the fore, either on camera or social media, to talk about this situation. You want to appeal to minority voters this is how you do it. Don't just come to the aid of white people that are being under siege by the government. Come to the aid of Americans being under siege by the government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: That was L.Z. Granderson a moment ago. Not too long ago with our colleague Carol Costello.

Let's bring back Mo Ivory and Professor Jelani Cobb. It is interesting, we are having this conversation, all of us here, and John and I, you and I have been talking about this and you don't agree with what L.Z.'s assessment is necessarily.

BERMAN: I think you are starting to see more libertarian leaning conservatives come out and say things about the use of police power right now, and the militarization of police. You are. Justin Amash, the Congressman from Michigan, came out with a statement. Ted Cruz, who with you wouldn't necessarily always call a libertarian, came out with a statement criticizing the attacks on the presses so far in Ferguson. So you are starting to see it. I suspect you will see more, in fact --

PEREIERA: But what about on the ground. I'm curious if ,Professor Cobb, you've seen more community leaders down there trying to help and urge calm and have conversations. Because the fact is you've talked about the tension in that community having been around for several decades, but I'm wondering if the city leaders have a sense that something really is amiss in their city and that something needs to change?

COBB: Yes. One of the things that you heard consistently when you talked to people, I talked to people in different parts of town yesterday, one of the things you heard consistently was a kind of disillusionment with the black political power here. People believe they have little very leadership and some of the leadership they have might be in effectual.

So, yes, that is something that people have articulated. What I saw yesterday were many grassroots people, clergy members or community organizers, who were out trying to keep the crowd calm and to appeal to people to not let this tip over into something violent.

BERMAN: Mo, I've been surprised, part of me has been surprised we haven't heard more directly from Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri, part of me has been surprised we haven't heard more from the White House. I know the President put out a statement on this, but given how this has, in some cases, deteriorated over the days, part of me thinks that more White House, at least, verbal involvement might be helpful.

IVORY: Part of me agrees with that completely. And, I mean, especially since President Obama is on vacation right now, it just kind of makes people feel like maybe he should come forward and say something. He did absolutely issue the statement about, you know, speaking with Eric Holder about it, but it's so inflamed right now, I just think that his power and his calmness could help the situation if he were to have a press conference. I hope that will be coming up soon or that he will visit Missouri or whatever. But I'm disappointed at the governor. Because I can't imagine, and you

cannot take race out of this, but I can't imagine that if it were a white male, a white boy laying in the middle of the street for hours, gunned down by a police officer, that it would have taken him five days to end up in Ferguson. I just can't understand that.

That is why it is so important for us to hold our political figures in our town, in our state, federally responsible for what they do with their power. This is ability coming from the top down. Nothing is going to change in America if there are not consequences for what people do. If the power structure from the top up, not from the bottom up. We can't begin to say, well, what we'll do next is train Ferguson police officers to have more sensitivity. No. It starts with the police chief, it starts with the people that are in power, it starts with them being accountable and having consequences when the people under them or their department, you know, becomes a disarray.

That's what we don't see. We don't see people held accountable for black death. Until that happens, things will never change.

BERMAN: Mo, I want to say, literally within the last minute we were talking ate this, I just saw this cross our system here. The President will be making a statement at 12:15 from Martha's Vineyard. I don't know specifically that it will address the issues in Ferguson. I would be surprised, frankly, if it does not.

PEREIRA: Can I also add just one little note we got, that the Ferguson police chief says that anonymous, the hacking group, the on- line hacking group, is wrong on the name of the police officer they've been tweeting out. This shows you that there's a lot going on in this story, there's a lot of stuff coming to light that has to be checked and double checked. CNN has been committed to not releasing that name until we were able to confirm, but this is a changing story by the minute.

A big thank you to Mo Ivory and Professor Jelani Cobb. Thank you so much for sticking with us this hour.

BERMAN: Ahead for us @THISHOUR, the U.S. has authorized nearly a thousand troops to go to Iraq since early June. Nearly 1,000 troops. What is the mission now? How will these troops be used? Might they be used to take on ISIS more directly?

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PEREIRA: All right. We are awaiting, at about 12:15 we've learned the President is going to speak. Obviously, there are a number of issues that the President needs to address right now. Obviously, the ongoing situation in all parts of the world, Middle East, in particular, but right now we also want to know what he's saying, and what he's thinking, about the situation that we've been watching here in Ferguson.

BERMAN: In fact, officials are telling CNN he is likely to address the situation in Iraq and Ferguson. Again that's at 12:15. Let's focus now on the situation in Iraq because we've learned

overnight from military officials that the idea of an evacuation effort, a major effort to evacuate the Yazidis that are trapped on that mountain, that effort is looking less likely because they say it is, frankly, less need. They say that most of these people have been able to get off the mountain safely, partially because of the success of U.S. air strikes, partially because of the Kurdish militia, partially because a corridor opened up and they were able to escape toward Syria. So a ground operation, an evac operations, looking less likely.

Bring some special guests we can talk it over with. We have out military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona. Steve Bucci, director of Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, at the Heritage Foundation.

And we'll start Rick, since you're here with us, we've been talking about what a massive effort it was going to be to begin with. I guess there's some what of a collective sigh of relief that some of this has fleshed out differently and that they have found, the Yazidis have found a way to seek refuge. But still, there are thousands still on that mountaintop that need help.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Right, but these food supplies are adequate. They said there are a lot of palates up there of food and water that have not even been opened yet. So they have the food that they need to survive. And that is a good thing.

PEREIRA: But it the threat from ISIS imminent for them? Because that is a concern too.

FRANCONA: ISIS does not seem to be interested in going up the hill after them, and that is a good thing. Not having to take them off of there by air is a really good thing, because those helicopters, the ospreys, tilt rotor, they would have been operating within the threat envelope, a lot of these manpads, those shoulder fired surface to air missiles. So this is a good situation. If the others want to leave the Kurds have set up a corridor for them to get down. They can take 1,000 off at night they say. That's good. One of the special forces team members said some of them actually want to stay up there. So, you know, each to their own.

BERMAN: It is hardly a good situation. We should make that abundantly clear. We just learned that some 15,000 are transiting through a refugee camp in Syria. Many have their lives turned up side down and have nowhere to go.

Steve, there is one aspect of this I want to ask you about. One of the reasons they're saying now they don't need to mount this evacuation effort is because of the success of U.S. air strikes against ISIS.