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More Coverage of Events in Ferguson, Missouri; Discussing the Available Information in the Case

Aired August 15, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The big news today, of course, here in Ferguson, the community has finally heard some of the information that they were demanding, the name of the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown last Saturday. But the community and the world in general has also learned that Ferguson police say Michael Brown was a robbery suspect. He allegedly stole cigars in what police call a strong-arm robbery at a local convenience store. This is some of the surveillance video.

What we still don't know, of course, what precisely happened between the time - you're watching the video right now and that's allegedly Michael Brown - between the time Michael Brown was reportedly stopped by the police officer Saturday and the time he was killed and that officer is Officer Darren Wilson. Now, some Ferguson residents tell CNN that they feel the surveillance photos don't necessarily prove anything.

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TAPPER: Many are now asking does the punishment that Brown ultimately faced that night fit the alleged crime either way. And is this news of course, many wonder, taking away from the larger issue at hand - the deadly shooting of an unarmed black man. These are sentiments being expressed very strongly here in Ferguson. Here with me right now is John Gaskin. He's with the St. Louis chapter of the NAACP, he is also on the board of the National NAACP. First of all, Mr. Gaskin, what's your reaction to the release of this surveillance video from the convenience store at the same time as the officer's name was released?

JOHN GASKIN, ST. LOUIS COUNTY NAACP: Well, for us that's a problem because typically here locally when these types of events occur, the first thing you see on the evening news is the surveillance camera of the alleged action that took place.

TAPPER: Sure, it's always on the local news (inaudible), yes.

GASKIN: Absolutely. But to wait four days almost to release this kind of information at the same time that you release the name - it's almost as though it's an approach from local law enforcement to justify what happened to this young man. Which is completely unacceptable, it's, I believe it's a tactic to allow people to - to cause people to - lose sight of what has happened here and the number of times this young man was shot, and we're not going to fall into that, and I believe you all as the media aren't going to fall into that either.

TAPPER: Well, let me play devil's advocate for a second, sir -

GASKIN: Yes.

TAPPER: Which is, if that was Michael Brown on the video, certainly we all wish he were alive and well today. But the police could argue - look, this wasn't just some guy that was stopped, this was somebody who was wanted for a strong-armed robbery, and that could, at least in the eyes of the police, be used as a defense of the officer in terms of his state of mind. So, you're not questioning the release of the video, you're just questioning the release of the video right now?

GASKIN: Absolutely.

TAPPER: OK.

GASKIN: Absolutely. And even - say that is him, say that is Michael Brown in there - they said really a strong-arm robbery. He had no weapon on him. You know, from our contact with - our close contact with - St. Louis County Police Department - there were numerous gun shells found at the scene of the accident.

TAPPER: Right.

GASKIN: You know, even if he did steal this tobacco product - a $1.25 product stolen? Does that really warrant somebody to be almost executed, really, in the middle of the street? That's unjustifiable.

TAPPER: What's also interesting is that when Captain Ron Johnson, who is the State Highway Police official put in charge of security here when the governor basically gave a huge vote of no-confidence to the St. Louis County Police and the Ferguson Police and put the highway police - the State Highway Police - in charge of security here. And people at home, if they don't know that's the State Highway Police here in Missouri, it's not - they don't just do traffic and highway, they also do investigations and murder investigations and all sorts of investigations. That's basically the state police agency. Captain Johnson said he did not know that this was going to be released by Ferguson Police, which seems to me a little bizarre that the Ferguson Police wouldn't say, hey, gentleman in charge of security for the neighborhood where there's been a lot of tensions - buy the way, we're going to release this.

GASKIN: Well, I was here this morning doing an interview right before where the police chief was over there. And it was like a circus act. The media out here were like - are they going to release it now? We just got a call from Ferguson - they're not going to release it. Are they, are thy not? They've got to get organized. Nobody has time for fun and games during this critical time, and them - first of all I commend Mr. Johnson for the amazing job that he's doing and his courage - but for them to have not communicated with him properly? That's unacceptable. And that says a lot about the state leadership versus the local leadership here on the ground. That says that they really don't care.

TAPPER: And last question for you. The Justice Department doing an investigation into what happened that day - the St. Louis County Police doing an investigation. The NAACP I'm told is also doing an investigation.

GASKIN: Absolutely. We're - not that this officer's name has come out, we can also do our due diligence to talk to some folks on the ground to find out what was his area that he patrolled? What kind of officer was this? You'll be able to get a real good glimpse from the people here on the ground if they had a lot of respect for this officer or if he was someone that was pretty problematic to them. Just because no action has been taken against him, doesn't mean that that qualifies him as a great police officer.

TAPPER: All right, thank you so much. John Gaskin with the local branch of the NAACP. Brooke, back to you.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Tapper, stay with me because you had a great interview - I mean not just with Captain Johnson - you were really pushing the governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, on a lot of what's happened there over the past six days. So, you know, speaking of transparency, we're going to play a little bit of that, we'll also talk to an expert on police transparency and then what does he think about Ferguson's police chief. Why did they wait five to six days to release this new information as of today? Also ahead, we'll have that interview - Jake Tapper and the governor of Missouri. Stay here.

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BALDWIN: You're watching CNN, I'm Brooke Baldwin and we want to stay on the story in all these new developments that are unfolding out of Ferguson, Missouri. We've seen new pictures, new video of who - Ferguson Police say was in fact 18-year-old Michael Brown.

We've been talking about this alleged strong-arm robbery, and then we have of course been talking about the death of this 18-year-old from last Saturday. What we don't know much about is the officer who shot and killed him. We finally - six days later - learned his identity. He is 28-year-old Darren Wilson, been on the Ferguson police force for six years. What else do we know about him? Let's go to Ed Lavandera is a

correspondent for CNN based in the Dallas bureau - he's been trying to dig on that for us. He is just outside of the Ferguson Police Department. But, Ed, you went to this man's neighborhood. Were you able to talk to people? What do we know?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well as you might imagine, a lot of people in his neighborhood shell shocked over what is going on. He lives in another suburb of St. Louis, about 25 miles or so from Ferguson. And many of the neighbors that we spoke with this afternoon - and we're still in the early stages of trying to gather as much information as we can - but several neighbors that we spoke with today say that they had been seeing a great deal of police presence in their neighborhood since last weekend. And then they started slowly kind of putting things together that this was the neighborhood and the area where Darren Wilson lived and his connection to this shooting. Several neighbors told us that they noticed that he left his home two

days ago. We knocked on the door, there was no answer there today. Many people in his neighborhood, Brooke, -- very reluctant to speak with us - very nervous about the attention that this will bring on their neighborhood, worried about any kind of possible retaliation. But one neighbor we spoke with said that his grandson would spend some

time swimming in Darren Wilson's pool with other kids in the neighborhood there. They described as a quiet guy, so you know, still very early, but, you know, it was interesting because clearly there was some sense that things were on the move, and what we took away today from speaking with these neighbors is that there was that police presence there in that neighborhood for several days after the shooting -

BALDWIN: Yes.

LAVANDERA: -- took place last weekend and then two days ago - or two or three days ago or so - Darren Wilson left the neighborhood and no one really knows where he's at - at least in that neighborhood from what we were told.

BALDWIN: Heard from the police chief that - they said he is in the area. But to your point, no one knows and probably understandably so, given the potential for retaliation or even worse. Ed Lavandera, thank you so much for trying to get a little bit more on Officer Darren Wilson for us today. Coming up next, as we mentioned a moment ago, the governor of Missouri talked to Jake Tapper just about an hour ago about today's developments, and Jake pushed him - definitely pushed him on a number of issues. So, hear that interview - do not miss that. Next.

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BALDWIN: All right, let's get right to it and bring you back out to Ferguson, Missouri and my colleague Jake Tapper who - Jake, I washed your exchange back and forth. You had - not only the governor of Missouri Jay Nixon, but you had Captain Ron Johnson. But it was the interview with the governor I really want to focus on, because, you know, you talked about the investigation, you pressured him on a couple of different points. And I'm glad you brought something up - you really pushed him on something of his past politics. I was reading about this last night, and how looking back over the years, -- how do I say this? - he hasn't exactly been beloved by the African- American community.

TAPPER: That's right, and there are a lot of people here in the community of Ferguson that expressed regret, shall we say, that Democrat governor Jay Nixon was not exactly quick when it came to publically discussing what happened both on Saturday with the shooting and then the violence and the protests afterwards, and then the militaristic response of the local police. So, his response and the feelings about him in the community are not in a vacuum, so I did ask Governor Nixon about that just a little while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) TAPPER: Governor Nixon, I'm sure it's no surprise to you that a lot

of members of the African-American community are not your biggest fans. It goes back - as far back as I can tell - to '92 when you campaigned against desegregation in this state. Do you think that you have work to do when it comes to talking and conveying your appreciation of their frustrations -- with the African-American community - in this state?

JAY NIXON, GOVERNOR OF MISSOURI: Well we've all got work to do as a society. It's not just about me or anything - I mean, as a society as we see from this (AUDIO GAP), there are protests going on all around the country, all around the world for what's happened here in Ferguson. This is a large chasm that needs to be joined, and I prefer not to personalize it. I've got a lot of great friends in these areas, we've made a lot of progress. And I quite frankly think that the operational changes that I ordered yesterday had a big effect last night at getting both safety and peace, and we're going to continue to work to make sure that stays the same.

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TAPPER: That's the old Missouri two-step, there, Brooke. Because Governor Nixon - as I pointed out earlier - a Democrat - did not really want to talk about the fact that in '92 he opposed the desegregation efforts -

BALDWIN: No.

TAPPER: -- and when he faced reporters earlier today - right before that interview - and Captain Johnson invited members of the community to come forward and ask questions too - boy, there were a lot of angry Missourians. I'm sure I'm botching that word, but a lot of angry residents of the state of Missouri who had lots of tough questions for Governor Nixon, Brooke.

BALDWIN: The Missouri two-step. Tapper, you tried. Good questions, good reporting. We'll see you at 4 o'clock eastern and at 3o'clock your time for the "The Lead." Thank you very, very much. Again, just to hammer this home, a lot of people frustrated. Ferguson Police waiting almost a week to release this video, to name the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. Again, this video, according to Ferguson Police, say - the guy right there in the red hat - that was Michael Brown. They call this a strong-arm robbery. Why release it today? We'll talk to an expert on police transparency, next.

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BALDWIN: Police in Missouri saying this surveillance video, released just within this past hour, is indeed - right there in the red hat - they say that is Michael Brown. They say this video shows the 18- year-old rough-handling the clerk who was trying to stop him as he walked out of the store with unpaid box of cigars. Joining me now, Merrick Bobb. He is president and CEO of the Police Assessment Resource Center. Mr. Bobb, welcome.

MERRICK BOBB, PRESIDENT AND CEO, POLICE ASSESSMENT RESOURCE CENTER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Question number one - if you were Ferguson Police, why not release this information day one?

BOBB: That's a very good question and I think it should be released day one. I think that the best police chiefs in the country - the wisest ones - recognize that as much information as possible needs to be put out as early as possible, and I would advise that the information that was at hand and the information that's coming out in dribs and drabs would have been much better off released early and often.

BALDWIN: With the dribs and drabs, I know that, you know, that police chief stood there this morning, only said X, Y and Z, and then released this, you know, these pages and pages of documents to members of the media to almost put the dots together themselves. I understand from the St. Louis County prosecutor that they haven't wanted to release much more information just because they don't want to taint witness testimony down the road. Can you help us understand that from a police perspective?

BOBB: Well from a police perspective, you certainly want to get all the witnesses and all their statements down, including the statement of the involved officer. The best practice in this area is to do that immediately. To go out immediately after the event, canvass the neighborhoods, get all the witnesses down on tape, and then conduct an immediate interview of the sworn officer to get his or her story about how the shooting happened. And if you do that immediately, you won't have to worry about slow leaks over time.

BALDWIN: What's the biggest piece of information you would like to see? To have released to the public?

BOBB: Well what I would like to - what I would like to see ultimately is a full, fair, thorough and dispassionate investigation of this incident by responsible authorities. I think everybody needs to take a deep breath and calm down a bit. This is a tragic incident from a variety of different perspectives, but we need to learn the facts and we learn to facts in a dispassionate way. So I think the duty on the part of the police is to release as much information as possible.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BOBB: The duty on the part of others is to wait, see that information assessed before drawing conclusions. This is many ways has been a tragedy of errors.

BALDWIN: To your point, at least we know there are three parallel investigations happening, hopefully to get to the heart of the matter, to get to the truth. You have St. Louis County but you also have the FBI and the Department of Justice. Merrick Bobb, thank you so much.

BOBB: Correct.

BALDWIN: And I'm getting information now from the Control Room. The Ferguson Police chief will be talking in a matter of minutes. We'll be right back.

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