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At This Hour

Police Release Officer's Name in Ferguson Shooting; Slain Teen Was Suspect in Strong-Arm Robbery

Aired August 15, 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: Hello, everyone. I'm John Berman.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm Michaela Pereira. We want to get straight to some news that is developing by the moment.

BERMAN: @ THIS, we have learned the name of the officer involved in the shooting death of Michael Brown, the officer who pulled the trigger identified as Darren Wilson.

PEREIRA: Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson announced the officer's name just a short time ago. He surprised a lot of people by implying that Brown might have been a suspect in what he typified and called a strong-arm robbery.

Let's listen to the chief.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF THOMAS JACKSON, FERGUSON, MISSOURI, POLICE: I want to give you a little timeline of what happened on August 9th. At 11:51, there was a 911 call from a convenience store. A further description, more detail was given over the radio, and stated the officer was walking toward -- the suspect was walking toward QuikTrip.

Our officer encountered Michael Brown on Canfield Drive. At 12:04, a second officer arrived on the scene, immediately following the shooting, and at 12:05, a supervisor was dispatched to the scene.

The officer that was involved in the shooting of Michael Brown was Darren Wilson. He's been a police officer for six years, has had no disciplinary action against him. He was treated for injuries, which occurred on Saturday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: So that's the information that the chief provided, providing very few detail about this alleged strong-arm robbery. He passed out information packets to the press that were gathered there, and CNN and our crew on the ground is going through that information as we speak.

We do have our Ana Cabrera reporting live from Ferguson. Also, our legal analyst Danny Cevallos stands by. Ana, I think we obviously have to start with you. You had a chance to look at this information. You're combing through the information that was given out by police. I know there's a lot going on at the scene where you are right now.

Talk to us first about what you are learning.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: First, let me tell you what we've uncovered in these documents that we were provided. We've learned a lot more information about that reported strong-arm robbery that happened, not at the QuikTrip, where I am, but at another convenience store in this general area, we're told.

What we learned from the document and the officer who made that incident report was pretty detailed. What that officer who made the report says happened was that Michael Brown, identified by name in these documents, and his friend Dorian Johnson, also identified in these documents as the suspects in this alleged strong-arm robbery, came into the convenience store and that they tried to take some cigars without paying for them.

And when they were confronted by an employee at the store, saying, hey, you need to pay for those cigars, according to the report, Michael Brown grabbed the shirt of this employee and threw him up against a display rack and then left the convenience store with those cigars.

So that is the scenario or the situation that happened at that strong- arm robbery. Once that 911 call was dispatched, that's when officers were responding, and according to the person who made that 911 call, the suspects in this strong-arm robbery were headed near the Quick Stop or in the direction of the Quick Stop -- or QuikTrip, excuse me -- where I'm currently standing, just a couple of blocks away from where Michael Brown eventually died.

The officer who took this report, again, named Michael Brown as the suspect in that robbery, the strong-arm robbery that allegedly happened and connected him to the officer-involved shooting that happened, again, a few blocks away, Michaela.

BERMAN: And they have released pictures also from inside that convenience store where they allege that Michael Brown did rob those cigars worth about $40 or a little bit more.

Also in this report, if you read through the documents, they say that, in the course of this whole incident as it played out with the ultimate shooting, some four to six shots were fired.

Let's leave that aside for a second, Ana, because what we're all waiting for today, the one piece of information that to some extent has been obscured with this new information about the alleged robbery, the name of the officer involved in the shooting, what more have we learned about him?

CABRERA: Well, Darren Wilson is his name. He is a six-year veteran of the Ferguson police department, the police chief telling us that he didn't have any disciplinary problems or actions taken against him since he has been a Ferguson police department officer.

He told me the other day, he's very broken up about what happened, that he is really, really horrified by not only his own actions in taking another person's life, but what he's seen happening in the community, the anger, the distrust, and so forth.

We know he has reportedly been taken to a location where he is secure, and those safety precautions have taken place, John.

PEREIRA: I know that Don Lemon is going to join us in a few minutes time from now to give us more of a sense of the mood going on where he is, but I hear a lot of chanting going on behind you.

Set the scene of how things have changed in the last hour or so where you are.

CABRERA: So many people have called this QuikTrip the ground zero of the protest, and we've seen a lot of protesters move into this area since that press conference. In fact, a lot of residents were on scene when that press conference was taking place, and so there are groups of people behind me.

Unfortunately, they are obscured by another news crew's screen just over my left shoulder here, but they are assembling peacefully. They have been marching and chanting, and just in the last maybe ten minutes or so, we saw the highway patrol captain, Ron Johnson, arrive here on scene to engage in dialog with these protesters.

And it was really interesting to hear that conversation. As he was talking to them, he was also addressing the media, and what he basically told the protesters is that he is going to take a group of them up to a press conference that's supposed to happen here within the hour -- or at the top of the hour -- with the Missouri governor as well as the Missouri state highway patrol and that these protesters will be a part of that conversation.

One last important point to make here that so many of these people on the ground are saying is, even if Michael Brown did rob a store, that does not mean it's justified for an officer to shoot and kill him for that reason alone, Michaela and John.

PEREIRA: And that is a point that many people are feeling right now.

Ana Cabrera, big thanks to you. We're going to check back in with you about the situation where you are, shortly.

BERMAN: Nevertheless, there are questions about how it might affect this case and the investigation and whatever legal issues may follow.

I want to bring in CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Danny Cevallos. Danny, I have to say I have a lot of questions about this.

First of all, it's fascinating that we have a lot more information about the alleged robbery that we do about the alleged shooting itself. Leave that aside for a moment. Why do the facts about the robbery or how do the facts about the robbery relate to the ultimate shooting from a legal standpoint?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So the facts about the robbery, I think we're going to find will create that probable cause.

Now, you can focus on the $40 of cigars and whether or not he had a weapon at the time of the robbery, but the real focus should instead be on that gives them the reason to stop and investigate these two gentlemen who are walking down the street.

If -- the real fact and focus on if there was physical injury to the police officer, now we're talking about self-defense, and it's a two- step analysis. That robbery gives them the probable cause to stop. A robbery is a robbery.

We can debate about strong-arm, but it is a crime of violence, so the police then if they have probable cause to stop, and a suspect resists arrests and threatens the officer, then -- and this is hard for a lot of people to follow -- but legally an officer can shoot and use deadly force on a fleeing felon.

The Supreme Court has addressed this issue. If the suspect is threatening violence and has actually hurt the officer, even if they're in flight, there is legal authority for the proposition that an officer may use deadly force to apprehend a felon even if they are fleeing.

PEREIRA: And this is why we wanted to bring you on, because there's so many legal twists and turns in this in all of these new developments.

Now the question, though, is -- and maybe you can't even answer this -- is why now? We've had five days of unrest, Danny, and I know the investigation takes time, and I know there's things that take time to come to light, a lot of people they had to talk to on the ground, eyewitnesses, et cetera.

But it seems it casts a suspicion on the transparency of this investigation by releasing this today and not four days ago.

CEVALLOS: Government should be transparent, but even the Sunshine Laws recognize that in police investigations, some information needs to be kept private at least for a certain amount of time.

But consider this. If you are the police commissioner, you are the head of the police department, and your officers and all the evidence points to the fact that this was a very justified shooting, perhaps law enforcement in this case said let's wait a few days until we put together a dossier, a compelling memorandum and collection of evidence that shows conclusively and puts to bed without any doubt.

But, you know, maybe they never realized or anticipated this appearance of not actually impropriety but the appearance of impropriety and how the public would view this sort of silence.

We didn't know that they were preparing some massive collection of evidence to show this was a justified shooting.

At the same time, there may be enough evidence now to assuage some of our concerns about why were these gentlemen stopped to begin with.

BEERMAN: But, Danny, again, because there are two -- if you listen to the witnesses who have been talking to us over the last few days about what happened near that police car, there was an altercation, according to these witnesses, at the car itself, shots fired at the car itself.

According to the witnesses, Michael Brown was hit at the car itself. He then turned walked away some 20, 30 feet with his hands in the air, and then, according to the witnesses, shot again.

So does the robbery matter? Does it matter? If he robbed some cigars, so what, can you shoot a man with his hands in the air?

CEVALLOS: It does matter, John, and here's why. You know, people are looking at this and essentially saying, this information, yeah, but still. Yeah, it means a lot.

This initial robbery now changes the original story, and it casts a lot of doubt on the credibility of this young man's friend whose story is that they were just minding their own business and they were accosted by police --

PEREIRA: But there were also eyewitnesses, Danny, that caught the video, you know, the woman that was up in -- that caught the video from her cell phone.

CEVALLOS: Sure. But that initial report of a robbery creates the probable cause to initiate a stop. This is no longer a case of two gentlemen just walking down the street minding their own business.

If there was that initial p.c., then the stop is good. Once the stop is good, and if they then resist arrest and even threaten serious bodily arm, then an officer, yes, he can shoot a fleeing felon in the back as he's trying to flee.

It's shocking to a lot of people, but the courts have ruled on this.

BERMAN: If in fact everything you say here is true, then Dorian Johnson would have been an accomplice to the robbery. Why did the police wait several days to reach out to him in the first place, Danny?

PEREIRA: That's a good point.

CEVALLOS: You know, that is a really good question. It's a question I have. It's a question a lot of us have, but simply going on what we know now, yesterday, we didn't appear to know that they were suspects in a strong-arm robbery. Now we know.

It's not enough to say, yeah, but still. It means a lot. It gives the police that probable cause to make -- the reasonable suspicion, I should say, to make that initial stop, and what happens from there, obviously, will be disputed.

It's no surprise that the -- on one side, we have eyewitnesses that say, including his friend, that say that's -- we were minding our own business, and of course the police version is going to be that this was a good stop, and they are not going to be even close to the same story. Ultimately, we're going to have to decide credibility.

PEREIRA: The big question is a lot of people are going to say, does it justify this young man's death?

Stay with us, Danny. We have a whole lot more to talk about. We're going to take a short break. We'll be back in a flash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: We're back covering the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, and the news we received just a little more than an hour ago from the police there. They say that Michael Brown was a suspect in an alleged robbery of cigars at a convenience store before he was shot and killed by a police officer.

We're joined again by criminal defense attorney Danny Cevallos. We are also going to bring in Mo Ivory, host of "The Mo Ivory Show," also an attorney.

Mo, we've been talking to Danny. Danny tells us in his mind this news about the alleged robbery changes the equation some. It would give the police probable cause to stop Michael Brown and if he was fleeing after an altercation with the officer, as the police no allege, it would give the police legally reason to shoot that young man in the back. What do you make of that?

MO IVORY, HOST, THE MO IVORY SHOW: I don't agree at all that it would give them reason to shoot in the back. I do think it gives them reasonable suspicion to stop him and question what is going on. Whenever you have a suspect, and you have a reasonable suspicion that they could be the person, then you would stop them, you would question, you might even arrest at that point.

But it doesn't seem that that is what the officer was doing at all. The first thing he told them was get the F onto the sidewalk which was followed by a physical altercation. If he was truly there to find out if they were suspects, why didn't he question them, why didn't he ask them to get on their knees, put their hands in the air, in the middle of the street. A natural procedure that an officer would take if he was going to try to figure out if in fact these are the two suspects I had just gotten a phone call about.

I don't think at all that that is going to fly in court, but I will tell you, Michaela, when you ask the question, why wait so long? Why didn't they come out with this information in the first, second, third day? It was because they were putting the stories together. That is why. The police took five or six days to put this story together, to make a foundation for what they are going to create as this man's defense. Because I think what they do know is that an arrest is going to happen. BERMAN: An arrest of the officer?

IVORY: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: So, Danny, to this notion that I can't seem to get away from, does the punishment fit the crime? I mean, you talk about the fact that this was a big young man, and if it was indeed him seen on this footage, he was shoplifting, essentially. And he might have pushed somebody around in the store. He then ends up dead on the street, and I think a lot of people in the community, certainly in Jefferson, are having a hard time connecting those dots saying police might have been right to stop him if this was indeed a suspect in this robbery. But at the end of the day the young man is dead for stealing cigars.

CEVALLOS: Yes. Look at our analysis. It's a little flawed. You yourself said the word shoplifting, but if you shove people that becomes robbery, and that becomes a crime of violence. And Mo's analysis is certainly interesting but it isn't the law. It actually -- they have the reason to stop him and if you don't just adopt what Michael Brown's friend says completely, which Mo apparently does, if you believe him hook, line and sinker, no problem. But I have to suspect --

IVORY: Three people corroborated that story.

CEVALLOS: Hold on. The police officer's version is not going to be that he said get the F off the sidewalk. Actually it is completely inconsistent with the police officer following up on probable cause that a robbery has occurred. What I suspect we'll hear is that the police officer was stopping them, just as Mo indicated they should, investigating, and if an altercation resulted, and if the officer was actually threatened with serious bodily arm, then it changes the analysis and the officer becomes authorized to use deadly force. These are all rules that we've known for a long time. That's why the suspected robbery, if it actually happened, changes the contour significantly. You cannot dismiss it. It changes the entire story.

IVORY: Well, it does change the investigation, it does change what we are learning about it, but all of those ifs have not been substantiated. You said if this happened, if that happened, --

CEVALLOS: Well you just said that it didn't change anything.

IVORY: -- there have been three people who have said, and corroborated -- it's not just Dorian Johnson, the gentleman who is now also a suspect, will be considered a suspect in that shoplifting, it's not just that he said that. There are other witnesses that have said the same thing about the force --

CEVALLOS: It's not a shoplifting. It's a robbery.

IVORY: Alleged robbery. Let's give that the benefit of the doubt, first of all. Alleged robbery. That three people have --

CEVALLOS: Put alleged in front of everything, but it's not shoplifting.

IVORY: We will find out more about it. All of those --

CEVALLOS: They still have a reason to stop. We will. But if there was a robbery --

BERMAN: Danny, let Mo finish. Mo, go ahead, finish.

IVORY: I want to make the point that just -- I am applying the law, first of all. And then second of all, all of those ifs are what need to be found out, so you cannot then make a conclusion that the officer was acting in the proper manner if we don't have any answers to all those ifs that you mention. There are a whole set of witnesses that say completely differently about the way that it happened.

So does the fact that after Michael Brown put his hands up, the officer continued to shoot, that is still a point that can be found to be criminal in this case? If he had the right to make that initial shot, if he even had the right to make that second fleeing shot, he certainly didn't have a right when he turned around and put his hands up, if in fact he was the suspect, to continue shooting him and killing him, because the truth is he might have been able --

CEVALLOS: Allegedly Mo. Don't forget allegedly.

IVORY: All right, Allegedly. He might have been able to survive those first two gunshots. He died from all of the multiple gunshots. So we still have a far, far way to go before we can say that this officer was justified in any way and had the right to do what he did when he stopped him.

BERMAN: I got to say, I didn't think it was possible but they seem to have raised more questions today than they answered in Ferguson, Missouri. Mo Ivory, Danny Cevallos, I hope we get a chance to talk to you again. Because there are still so many questions to discuss here. So much going on in that town with the racial tensions. And I do not think the news today is necessarily going to help.

PEREIRA: No. It's interesting, because the mood there shifted overnight when we saw the change in command, change on the ground. We saw the mood shift to one that was more calm and peaceful. Let's take a look at that after the break, what the mood is like now after this press conference from the chief of police there.

BERMAN: And let us know what you think. Many of you already have. Again, pro, con, otherwise. There's a lot of stuff going on. I want to know what you make of it. Send us a message on Twitter or Facebook.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New information, and a whole lot of new questions, @ THIS HOUR on the shooting death of Michael Brown. The officer who pulled the trigger has finally, finally been identified as Darren Wilson.

PEREIRA: Yes. Six-year veteran with the force there. Ferguson police chief, Thomas Jackson, announced this officer's name. He also, and this was quite a bit of a bombshell for most of the people that were gathered there, he implied that Brown might have been a suspect in what he called a strong arm robbery in a nearby convenience store. I want to bring Don Lemon who has been there over night in Ferguson. And you have been watching, it is so interest because just this morning on New Day we were sort of reflecting on what a different night it had been over night with the change in command there on the ground. Calmer attitudes, people a little more respectful of the police, and the police a little more respectful of the protesters. Yet I wonder what this news has done to the crowds that are gathered there.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST, "CNN TONIGHT": And listen, let's be honest, about the robbery part. I would say the strong arm part, that would be, if you want to classify that, as a bomb shell. But there had been talk all along, from the very beginning and some of it, I would imagine, coming it from the police department, some of it from witnesses, maybe the guy at the convenience store, that what had precipitated all of this was some sort of, something that happened at a convenience store. The stealing of something. Initially they said it was candy or what have you.

So most people thought that something like that may have come out. The strong arm part that is a bit of news here. But as you can see, people have been reacting. More protesters have been coming back out. People have been walking up to us, asking us what is going on. And it appears in their estimation that it is convenient now, the revelation or the revealing, of this information. But here's what's interesting, is that you cannot push the police for information and for transparency and when the information comes, then you cannot say okay, I don't like the information, maybe you shouldn't release it right now. If you want transparency, if you want the information to come out, then information is what it is.

BERMAN: But, Don, they are being very transparent about what happened in the convenience store. There still hasn't been a great deal of transparency except the officer's name, which we do now have five days later, still not a lot of transparency about the shooting incident itself.

LEMON: Absolutely right. But there is in this particular incident, this is the report that we have now, the incident report, that is the incident report from the convenience store, the convenience store robbery or whatever happened there with the videotape. So there is another incident report, or police report, that is referenced on this report and the number is on it.

But here is what we did learn from that, right? We did get some information about the shooting from this, because it's saying, in trying to track down whoever it was they believed is in this video, they say it was Michael Brown. That they canvassed the area and once they came upon Michael Brown and Dorian Johnson, they say that there were four to six shots fired.

So remember, you know, as of an hour and a half ago, people were saying how many shots were fired, what's the officer's name? We know the officer's name. We know how many shots were fired, at least four to six. Not a confirmation as to the exact number until a full report is released, but there is more information coming out, and John and Michaela, you guys know, we have covered stories like this before. It's sad that we have to do it, but there's information always comes out incrementally where you learn one thing, and you learn another thing, and another thing.

But here's the thing that I think most people should probably pay attention to. Remember in the Trayvon Martin thing where the attorneys argued you have to pay attention, what happened in those 90 seconds that we didn't see? I think it's going to be the same thing in this case. Did the robbery play into this or does it only matter what happened in those minutes or seconds during the confrontation between Michael Brown and the police officer?

BERMAN: That is the discussion and that discussion has certainly changed just over the last 90 minutes. It may change more in a little bit, Don.

We do expect to here from Ron Johnson, the highway patrol chief, who is overseeing the situation now.