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Thirty One Arrested In New Ferguson Clashes; Teen's Parents Want Peace, "Justice"; Does Obama Use Holder To Talk Race For Him?; Conflicting Accounts Of Killing

Aired August 19, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPTAIN RON JOHNSON, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL: -- Molotov cocktails. It is criminals who throw Molotov cocktails and fire shots that endanger lives and property.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Don Lemon who spent much of the night amid the clashes. Good morning, Don.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Carol. Remember two days ago, actually last week, when people were so excited that Ron Johnson had taken over and he had this new nonviolent approach, and then somehow that went wrong and he explained to us last night what happened in that press conference and then in a live interview really into the wee hours with myself and with Jake Tapper.

He described that criminal element as he describes it there, people who are just coming in or people who are part of the community who just want to create chaos. We did see some of that, but we also saw some of the violence really being in at this investigated by the -- instigated by the huge police presence. It felt like we were in a militarized war zone.

It was unbelievable. I want to show you here. This is what we needed last night actually to survive. At some point last night, our crews were overcome with tear gas. Tear gas was sent into the crowd by the police officers on the scene.

At one point, I donned a flack jacket because right in front of me, someone was shot. They were pulled out of the car, Carol, and taken to the hospital. He had a towel wrapped around his hand and there was blood coming off of him.

They pull up and said my friend has been shot. Someone has been shot right in front of us and then not long after that, someone -- the police came over and said, listen we need you guys to get out of here. We're in fear of your safety.

And we were whisked off to another location a quarter of a mile down the street. It was unbelievable to witness and to see people in the crowd, journalists having to deal with tear gas and we were among them.

COSTELLO: Is there any change of tactics that will go down tonight on the police part, on the police's part?

LEMON: I think, Carol, police are reassessing it every single moment. As you know, we had been at that QT, the Quick Trip, the one that had been burnt out just, you know, a week before, right after the shooting death of Michael Brown.

They moved us down to a location that they deemed just for the media and then all of a sudden they decided it wasn't safe for us to be there. I think part of the strategy was that they wanted the media there because they wanted, you know, as much light as possible.

They wanted people to see and they thought maybe people wouldn't react the way they did the night before in front of cameras, but then as the night started to progress last night, they realized that maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

That part of it, before in front of cameras. As the night progressed, they realized maybe it wasn't such a good idea. That part of it, the safety for the journalists and people involved, but also the optics of it, because again it looked like, you know, we were in Iraq or Afghanistan.

And so we -- all of those things were unfolding, happening live on television. Many of the police brass that we have spoken to over the last week came up to us and say we appreciate the jobs you are doing. We are absolutely with you, but we want you to be safe.

But we need you to get out of here now because we need to get the situation in hand. We need to get a control on the situation, to gain control of the situation.

We need you to move down to the police command center where we feel that we can keep you safe and we want to get everyone here off the streets.

COSTELLO: All right, Don Lemon reporting live from Ferguson, this morning. Thanks so much.

Also new this morning, we're hearing from the parents of Michael Brown. During an appearance on NBC's "Today" show they appeal for justice and for peace.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLEY MCSPADDEN, MICHAEL BROWN'S MOTHER: We won't let it distract us to the point where we lose focus. We have to remain focused and we have to remain strong and the violence needs to stop. When justice is prevailed, then maybe they will regain their trust in the locals, but right now, it's really out of control.

MICHAEL BROWN SR., FATHER OF SLAIN TEENAGER: We need to keep the focus on Michael Brown, Jr. That's who we need to keep the focus on, Michael Brown, Jr. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Michael Brown's mother and father say only justice will bring the peace that is so desperately needed.

At the White House last week, President Obama also urge calm in Missouri and beyond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: To a community in Ferguson that is rightly hurting and looking for answers, let me call once again for us to seek some understanding rather than simply holler at each other. Let's seek to heal rather than to wound each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The president's words have drawn sharp criticism from supporters who feel he isn't saying enough or doing enough, like why not visit Ferguson himself. The White House says Obama's presence would divert key law enforcement resources to protect him instead of helping to maintain peace on the ground.

Some of the observers note that the fact that the president is sending Attorney General Eric Holder to Ferguson could be a very clear sign of how the president truly feels.

Joining me now CNN political commentator and Republican strategist, Ana Navarro and Democratic strategist, Chris Kofinis. Welcome to both of you.

CHRIS KOFINIS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Thank you.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: Hi, Ana. Thanks for being here. Ana, Eric Holder has been known for talking bluntly on race in the past. Famously saying this in his first major speech as attorney general. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and we I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Has Eric Holder become the president's proxy when it comes to race? Because as "Politico" points out, Eric Holder says the things the president cannot.

NAVARRO: I think he definitely is in this administration the person that takes lead on this race issue, but also let's remember that this falls under his tent. The autopsy, the investigation of police. That's going to fall under DOJ, under his Department of Justice, so there is a logical reason for him to be the one on the ground.

If he strikes the tone that President Obama has been striking, of calling for healing instead of wounding, for understanding instead of hollering. I think it's the right tone. I think the community is wanting and thirsty for more national attention and leadership.

There seems to be a vacuum of leadership in Ferguson. If Eric Holder can fill it, great. If not, it is something that President Obama I think should consider doing himself.

COSTELLO: Chris, do you agree, should President Obama go to Ferguson?

KOFINIS: Well, I think you have to kind of do this in steps. You clearly you have an investigation, you have a lot of obviously emotion and anger and frustration in terms of what's going on. The investigation is ongoing.

So sending Attorney General Holder there to make sure that the investigation is being done and done right, I think is appropriate. Now, what's clearly happening is, you know, the violence that we are seeing at night now, this has been going on now for days.

At some point, this has got to be addressed and I think you got to give it a little bit of time to see how the public responds once the investigation is complete, but, you know, I think with respect to the president speaking out about it, think it's a decision he has to make.

This notion that he's criticized if he does it too early, he's criticized if he's done it too late, I think he has to decide whether it's the right thing for him to talk about and to do.

My advice and my counsel would be, you know, wait until the attorney general comes back, see where the investigation is, but for him to address it in probably a lengthier way is going to be something he's going to need to do at some point.

COSTELLO: In a column titled "Why Obama won't give the Ferguson speech that his supporters want. If Obama's speeches aren't as dramatic as they used to be, this is why, the White House believes a presidential speech on a politically charge topic is as likely to make things worse as to make things better.

When Obama gave the first race speech, he was a unifying figure trying to win the Democratic nomination. Today, he is a divisive figure who needs to govern the whole country. The White House never forgets that.

So Ana, the president spoke out on Trayvon Martin on the arrest of a Harvard professor at his own home. Yesterday, though, he said he has to be careful he isn't pre-judging what gives?

NAVARRO: Well, first, I think, that last point is true. He has to be careful because, yes, the DOJ does work for him. What he said is I don't want to tip the balance. I think that is a very strong point.

At the same time, I would tell you, you know, he's got to look, I think President Obama has got to look deep into his own heart. He's not standing for re-election again. He's got to do what feels right and the White House cannot give up on him being a uniting figure.

They cannot just accept that he has become divisive and doesn't wade into things because he's divisive. He has got to continue being that guy who gave that speech at that Democrat convention where it wasn't one America or another America. It wasn't a black America or a white America.

If he's got a legacy to leave, this could be it, and I think he cannot give up on trying to do as much as possible, even if there are liabilities. He's damned if he does. He's damned if he doesn't. This is a unique historical opportunity and also a unique historical burden on President Obama. I think he should take it.

COSTELLO: Chris, there's no doubt that President Obama can speak in a compelling emotional way. I remember during the election when he gave that speech on race, people were crying. He has that in him so why not share?

KOFINIS: It's a very fair question. I read the piece. I don't necessarily buy his rationale. Somehow the notion the president who is not up for re-election can't, you know, wade into difficult issues, I think is divorced from reality.

Crises and tragedies bore significance in their own type of momentary greatness for presidents. It's not always the greatest moments that you want to seek, but you can seize it. The president has a unique opportunity to talk about issues that a lot of us because of his background.

Because of what he's gone through and what he's seen, you know, can't do with the same kind of emotion or resonant so the notion that he shouldn't do it because if he does, he's going to divide the country. Here's the news bulletin. The country is divided, politically, racially.

This is something that calls for presidents and leaders to address. I'm not going to criticize the president for not doing it right now, but the reality is there will be a time and my guess is probably sooner rather than later that he should do it.

Because this is something that is clearly going on. It's not just about Ferguson. It's about the state of American politics in the country itself, and I think it's something that we need to be really serious and honest about that this is not something that we want to fuel to make worse, that this is something that we need to actually address.

COSTELLO: Ana Navarro, Chris Kofinis, thanks for a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

KOFINIS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM -- the arrests mount and tensions soar. Is the Ferguson Police Department doing all the right thing as the nation watches? We'll talk to a law enforcement expert next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: Michael takes off with his friend. They get to be about 35 feet away, and you know, Darren's first protocol is to pursue. So he stands up and yells, freeze. Michael and his friend turn around and Michael starts taunting him, what are you going to do about it?

You are not going to shoot me, and then he said all of a sudden edge started to bum rush him. He just started coming at him full speed and so he just started shooting and he just kept coming. He really thinks he was on something because he just kept coming. It was unbelievable. It ended up -- final shot was in the forehead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That was a new account of Officer Wilson's side of the story. It emerged on radio in the public spectrum. A woman identifying herself as Josie phoned into a local St. Louis radio station claiming to know what Officer Wilson had told police.

A source with detailed knowledge of the investigation says what Josie says matches with what Wilson told investigators. That the massive teenager bum rushed the officer and then the officer fired in self- defense. Of course, that's far different from what neighbors who say they witnessed the event describe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": You say his arms were up. There's an account from this woman who called into the radio show who claims that the officer is saying Michael Brown was rushing the police officer. Is that what you saw?

PIAGET CRENSHAW, WITNESS: No, at no time did I see him move toward that police officer. He may have taken one centimeter of a step forward before he was gunned down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Richard Weinblatt joins me again. He is a former police chief and now the dean at Ivy Tech Community College. Welcome back, sir.

RICHARD WEINBLATT, FORMER POLICE CHIEF: Thank you. Nice to be back, as always.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here.

WEINBLATT: Unfortunately under these circumstances, though.

COSTELLO: Yes, definitely so. But we appreciate your expertise. That's for sure. What do you make of such wildly different versions? WEINBLATT: Actually, that's pretty common in police work. Witnesses notoriously come up with different versions. That does not necessarily mean they are lying. It could be the different perspective they have as far as a vantage point.

It could be that their perspective is colored by their own personal experiences. There may not be any malice in their stories, but everybody sees it from their own vantage point. That's why the forensic, the scientific stuff is so important and then you put that together with the witness statements.

COSTELLO: So this case might be brought to the grand jury in Missouri as soon as tomorrow. All of this evidence gathered so far will be presented to this grand jury and then the grand jury will decide whether to indict this officer.

In your experience, how difficult is it -- well, that's not really the right way to phrase the question? How often do officers get indicted under these circumstances?

WEINBLATT: Not tremendously often, and I know that for some people they are going to say see, I told you, and other people are going to say see I told you from a different vantage point.

But the fact is courts have made it very clear that the officer's actions have to be judged and it's a 1989 court case, particularly at the Supreme Court level that outlined that. The officer has to be judged based on what he or she reasonably knew at the time that they use force whether the deadly force or any other type of force.

That's the prism that we have to look through. We can't use hindsight as 20/20. We can't come up with a lot of things they wouldn't reasonably have known or perceived at that time.

So when grand juries are looking at this stuff, that's the way they have to look at it and there's some benefit of the doubt. The good news is you are seeing more and more of these body cameras, more and more of these dash cameras that are really becoming definitive evidence. Pictures speaks a thousand words and we are having more and more DNA.

COSTELLO: I want to go to the benefit of the doubt part because that might inflame people, right?

WEINBLATT: Sure.

COSTELLO: If the grand jury gives the officer the benefit of the doubt.

WEINBLATT: Right. And when I say that, OK, please don't misunderstand me and think that I'm saying well, that's it, it's a slam-dunk. It's the officer because I'm the first one to admit that officers do make mistakes. Sometimes purposely. Sometimes by accident. That happens.

Just like any business. You are going to have some bad apples, but that's what this process is for, is to figure that out, and I don't want to see a rush to judgment, either against Michael Brown or against Officer Wilson. I'm looking at it and saying there should be justice for all and it should be done methodically and the process should work its way through.

COSTELLO: Last question for you because I just find this interesting, the small city of Ferguson has hired a PR firm, and part of me thinks that's a good idea. Part of me thinks it's a little too late. What do you think?

WEINBLATT: Part of me that you are right on both counts. Look, clearly, you know, I think they were probably well-meaning in many ways. I'm sure the police chief wants to mend the community, but this became bigger. It became bigger than even the governor or the captain the Missouri State Highway Patrol can handle. This is a rough one.

You are almost damned if you do or don't no matter what you do. It was rapidly changing. The officers were constantly changing their tactics. That's normally actually. They need to be reassessing their actions, they need to be bringing in extra help or a PR firm to help them know what they say and sometimes whatnot to say and just to kind of keep quiet.

COSTELLO: Richard Weinblatt, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

WEINBLATT: Thank you, Ma'am. Still to come in the NEWSROOM. The shooting death of that unarmed teenager, Michael Brown is reopening wounds of families who suffered the same tragedy. I'll talk to the parents of Sean Bell to get their perspective next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: For a ninth straight night, violence erupts in Ferguson. What's lost in all of this chaos is Michael Brown's death. Was it another sad case of police brutality or a justified shooting?

Sadly those questions had been asked many times in the African- American community. In 1999, Amado Dialo was shot by police 19 times. He was unarmed. In 2000, Patrick Dorisman, an unarmed security guard was killed by New York police.

In 2004, Timothy Stan's bury was killed by police in Brooklyn. That list also includes Sean Bell who was killed by police on the day he was to be married.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Sean Bell was 23 years old on that November day in 2006. In a few hours, he would be married, but at 4:00 a.m., Bell and his friends were celebrating at his bachelor party at a strip bar in Queens. What they didn't know was that police had that bar under surveillance.

They were investigating complaints of drugs and prostitution. After Bell and his buddies left the bar, some kind of argument broke out. Police fearing one of Bell's friends had a gun opened fire on Bell's car.

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: I'm a police officer. There was shots fired.

COSTELLO: Fifty shots in all rang out. One detective fired his gun 31 times. When it was over, Bell was dead. His friends seriously wounded. None of them were armed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Now, the officers involved did go to trial. All were acquitted, but the city of New York settled a civil case for some $7 million. That's just a sad fact that Bell's parents now have to live with. William and Valerie Bell are with me now. Thank you so much for being with me. I appreciate it.

William, your son's case drew national attention and outrage and protests. As you watch what's happening in Ferguson, what goes through your mind?

WILLIAM BELL, SON SEAN WAS KILLED BY NYPD IN 2006: It's just bringing back too much memories. It brings back to how my son was murdered. I say murdered he didn't have a weapon neither. You know, and he was shot 50 times into the car.

I look at it -- it's hard to explain the feeling because it's a rough situation when you see the whole thing all over again. It's like what's going on here. What are we doing to ourselves and what are the departments doing for your young people?

They are murdering our people for no reason. You know, and they are saying it's justified. But I must say this is my opinion only. I would say this. If they put the policeman in jail that did these wrongs, I guarantee they wouldn't be doing this because they know they got to suffer too.

We got to suffer the rest of our lives, but these police officers, they get off of vacation the rest of their lives.

COSTELLO: Valerie, as you watch Michael Brown's mother going through this, what would you like to say to her?

VALERIE BELL, SON SEAN WAS KILLED BY NYPD IN 2006: My prayers and thoughts are with you. Keep your head up. Keep the faith. I'm sorry that the looting in your hometown because that's giving your son a bad name. Keep his memories. Don't forget what you did with him while he was growing up.

Stay strong and I pray that they stop the violence because this is making things look bad for him, which I feel in my heart that he wasn't a bad young man because he was supposed to start college on that Monday.

COSTELLO: As you well know, your child is also put on trial during these tragedies.

VALERIE BELL: He sure is. They put him on trial to make him look bad, which is not right.

COSTELLO: William, you were telling me before how shocked you were about the looting going on in Ferguson.

WILLIAM BELL: Yes, that part, I do not understand. You are tearing up your own neighborhood. Why are you doing this? You are creating a problem. Actually you are doing something that is not related to the problem. Because you are tearing up a neighborhood for what reason? You are stealing stuff.

Why are you doing this? This is not solving the problem that we have. You are not going to -- how you say it -- you would not get a solution to it by doing this. You are going to make it worse.

COSTELLO: It's hard to understand that people are coming in from other cities and they are according to police they are committing crime, but for what purpose? Is it because of Michael Brown? Is it part of their own agenda? What is it?

WILLIAM BELL: They have their own agenda. That's the way I look at it. You come from a different city, you come in there and stealing and looting and shooting, and you know, creating chaos. There's no reason for that because, you know, this man is gone.