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Don Lemon Tonight

Protests Break Out Across Ferguson; No Indictment for Officer Darren Wilson

Aired November 24, 2014 - 22:00   ET

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


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: That the testimony, witness statements, the evidence will be released as soon he finished his statement tonight.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I thought of his statement in two parts. The first part was an extended whine and complain -- complaint about the news media and social -- and social media, which I thought was entirely inappropriate and embarrassing and just really an undignified given the circumstances.

I did think it was appropriate for him to go through the evidence. But frankly, it was hard to follow. And I think a lot of us are going to have to go through the evidence itself and see whether his conclusions are justified.

Clearly the evidence he thought was the most important was that there were certain witnesses who saw Michael Brown charge, that was his word, I wonder if the witness used the same word, charge at Officer Wilson. Michael Brown, whether there was that aggressive move because that really -- his entire conclusion was hinged on that. And he clearly discounted some witnesses and believed others.

And I think it's going to be very important to see whether the physical evidence and all the other evidence supports the conclusion that this shooting was the result of aggressive action by Michael Brown. That's what he believed. Let's see what the evidence says.

COOPER: Mark O'Mara, what did you take away?

MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think we can bring our own biases or prejudices to review of the evidence or the process and complain about it. But the reality is, we now are going to have the evidence to look at and to review. We still don't know. But one thing that was utterly significant to me is we had talked about this before. If in fact Mike Brown came back, what now seems to be 25 feet back towards the officer, that was the time that was most significant and that's where Wilson probably perceived the threat.

And if that was accurate, that it was a 25-foot comeback, then that's going to be probably the most significant piece of evidence that we heard about tonight that we haven't heard about before. And there's going to be another 1,000 of those snippets of information to look at in the discovery. So let's wait until we get to it.

COOPER: I should also point out that we have teams of people standing by to go over the witness statements, to go over the evidence, and obviously start to go through that very carefully and start to bring that to you as soon as we can process it to the extent that we can. Certainly we'll see some of that result this evening. A lot more of it tomorrow as well.

Mark Geragos, I'm wondering your thoughts.

MARK GERAGOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, anybody who thinks that there was going to be an indictment here I think is -- saw exactly what all they needed to see. This is not what happens. This is a parody of the criminal justice system. This is a prosecutor who punted this case to the grand jury. I will guarantee you -- I haven't seen it yet. I'll make the statement right now. I'll bet you his two assistants did not ask for an indictment.

He showed exactly what his predisposition was. This was a foregone conclusion. This was a rigged game. This is exactly the result he wanted. And that's how he did it. So the idea that somehow --

COOPER: Mark --

GERAGOS: I mean, anybody who's been a prosecutor who's been in the system knows the system are rigged --

COOPER: Mark, I've got to -- I've got to interrupt you.

Mark, I've got to interrupt you. I just want to go to our Jason Carroll, who's standing by, by the Ferguson Police Department.

Jason, what's going on where you are? I'm not hearing Jason Carroll. Is he on air?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, I hear you. Anderson, I hear you. Just had a few tense moments --

COOPER: Jason Carroll, can you hear me?

CARROLL: We've walked --

COOPER: We've got you, Jason. Go ahead.

CARROLL: Yes, Anderson. I hear you. We -- we just walked down the street here and the crowd got violent. They -- first they found a police car here. They destroyed one car. Then moved over to another car. And started to try to destroy that car as well. Police came through in riot gear. They moved us through the area and moved up the street a little bit more. So things starting to get out of control at least just right here in this specific area where we've been standing.

You know, they've been throwing rocks, bottles at the police as we were standing here as well. At this point, as you can see, the crowd is still a little bit unruly. One car trying to get out of here. This car, some windows broken out. I saw one of the demonstrators putting lighter fluid on one of the police cars that was here as well before riot gear -- officers in riot gear finally came out and said we're moving the crowd, get out of the way. At one point we were on the street here, it sounded like we heard

something like gunfire. That could have been people just shooting up in the air. But obviously some tense moments. But I do want to also say that there were a number of demonstrators here in the crowd who have been trying to police themselves, trying to get the agitators to stop throwing bottles, trying to get those people to stop doing that.

So there have been some demonstrators out here, Anderson, who've actually tried to stop the agitators from doing what we saw out here just a few minutes ago.

COOPER: And I want to go to Don Lemon.

Don, explain where you are and what you're seeing.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: We're standing right across the street from the Ferguson Police Department, Anderson, and just a couple of seconds ago we heard a gunshot, one gunshot. We heard about four or five earlier as the prosecutor was making the announcement. But just the one that happened just a couple of seconds ago, people started running this way, and there were a couple of police officers in the crowd, and they're still sort of moving around here.

But again, we heard -- we have heard gunshots this evening. A couple during the prosecutor's announcement, Bob McCulloch's announcement, and then just about maybe a minute, two minutes ago just before you went to Jason Carroll we heard a gunshot and then people started scattering, and now they're moving back and we're watching people on -- on top of the roofs of car -- the tops of cars.

And obviously there's the smell of marijuana in the air as well. But again gunshots here. But police are on the scene. From our vantage point that's what we're seeing -- Anderson.

COOPER: OK. I want to go back to Jason Carroll.

Also, Jason, if you can still hear me, what is your location? Where in Ferguson are you?

CARROLL: Well, I'm -- the same street that you've got the Ferguson Police Department on. I'm just further down from where Don was simply because the crowd broke off after the announcement was made, shortly after the announcement was made, started heading down the street.

You can see right over here, we're just going to remain from a safe distance from where this police car is here that they've abandoned, that they started throwing rocks at, started punching out the windows, again, putting lighter fluid on the police car that you see here.

After the announcement was made, Anderson, here's what happened. Michael Brown's mother was here in the crowd. She became overcome with grief. They escorted her out very, very quickly. Shortly thereafter, some of those who were in the crowd, some, started throwing bottles, rocks at the police in front of the Ferguson Police Department. They tried to rush at one point. That's when the officers came out in riot gear. Shortly thereafter you had some of those who were in the crowd whose

job it is to police those who are out here, to police the demonstrators. Demonstrators essentially policing themselves. They stopped the crowd from moving forward. Then we heard the gunshots. That was down the street here where we are now. That's where the crowd broke off, ran across this police car that you see here, what's left of it. They held them right over here, right behind the police car.

Then when they started throwing more rocks and bottles at the police, at this point that's when the police moved the crowd back a little bit. The crowd started to disperse just a bit. So you can see obviously a lot of emotion. A lot of anger out here as well. A lot of the peaceful demonstrators that we saw up the street here decided to leave at one point just because they felt as though it was getting so tense.

It is tense. People have been yelling at us here. But we're trying to do our best to report but also keeping a safe distance from some of the melee that's happening right here at our location.

COOPER: And, Jason, we're about a minute away from President Obama making a statement. Do you have a sense of how many people are in the crowd around you? Because earlier, around the time of the announcement, there were several hundred, maybe as many as 500 or more people. How big is the crowd right now where you're at?

CARROLL: I would say it's hard to judge. Show around here. We can see there's about 100 people gathered around where we are. You can hear police now making an announcement that the people here have unlawfully assembled. They are asking everyone to clear the street.

Again, they're making that announcement. That announcement coming from down here where we are. Where they're asking everyone to disperse. And so we'll see if that's going to happen, Anderson. I can hear more car windows being broken out where we are right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of the street and disperse immediately or you will be --

COOPER: And Jason, we're going to break away right now to hear the president. We'll come right back to you.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As all of you know, a few minutes ago the grand jury deliberating the death of Michael Brown issued its decision.

It's now come that either way was going to be subject of intense disagreement, not only in Ferguson but across America. So I just want to say a few words suggesting how we might move forward.

First and foremost, we are a nation built on the rule of law. And so we need to accept that this decision was the grand jury's to make. There are Americans who agree with it and there are Americans who are deeply disappointed, even angry. It's an understandable reaction. But I join Michael's parents in asking anyone who protests this decision to do so peacefully.

Let me repeat Michael's father's words.

"Hurting others or destroying property is not the answer. No matter what the grand jury decides, I do not want my son's death to be in vain. I want it to lead to incredible change, positive change, change that makes the St. Louis region better for everyone."

Michael Brown's parents have lost more than anyone. We should be honoring their wishes.

I also appeal to the law enforcement officials in Ferguson and the region to show care and restraint in managing peaceful protests that may occur. Understand, our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. They've got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law.

As they do their jobs in the coming days, they need to work with the community, not against the community, to distinguish the handful of people who may use the grand jury's decision as an excuse for violence. Distinguish them from the vast majority who just want their voices heard around legitimate issues in terms of how communities and law enforcement interact.

Finally, we need to recognize that the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation. The fact is in too many parts of this country a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color. Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country. And this is tragic because nobody needs good policing more than poor communities with higher crime rates.

The good news is, we know there are things we can do to help. And I've instructed Attorney General Holder to work with cities across the country to help build better relations between communities and law enforcement. That means working with law enforcement officials to make sure their ranks are representative of the communities they serve.

We know that makes a difference. It means working to train officials so that law enforcement conducts itself in a way that is fair to everybody. It means enlisting the community actively on what should be everybody's goal, and that is to prevent crime. And there are good people on all sides of this debate as well as in both Republican and Democratic parties that are interested not only in lifting up best practices with -- because we know that there are communities who've been able to deal with this in an effective way, but also who are interested in working with this administration and local and state officials to start tackling much-needed criminal justice reform.

So those should be the lessons that we draw from these tragic events. We need to recognize that this is not just an issue for Ferguson, this is an issue for America. We have made enormous progress in race relations over the course of the past several decades. I've witnessed that in my own life, and to deny that progress I think is to deny America's capacity for change. But what is also true is that there are still problems and communities of color aren't just making these problems up.

Separating that from this particular decision, there are issues in which the law too often feels as if it is being applied in a discriminatory fashion. I don't think that's the norm. I don't think that's true for the majority of communities or the vast majority of law enforcement officials. But these are real issues. And we have to lift them up and not deny them or try to tamp them down. What we need to do is to understand them and figure out how do we make more progress.

And that can be done. That won't be done by throwing bottles. That won't be done by smashing car windows. That won't be done by using this as an excuse to vandalize property. And it certainly won't be done by hurting anybody. So to those in Ferguson, there are ways of channeling your concerns constructively and there are ways of channeling your concerns destructively.

Michael Brown's parents understand what it means to be constructive. The vast majority of peaceful protesters, they understand it as well. Those of you who are watching tonight understand that there's never an excuse for violence, particularly when there are a lot of people in goodwill out there who are willing to work on these issues.

On the other hand, those who are only interested in focusing on the violence and just want the problem to go away need to recognize that we do have work to do here and we shouldn't try to paper it over. Whenever we do that, the anger may momentarily subside, but over time it builds up and America isn't everything that it could be.

And I am confident that if we focus our attention on the problem and we look at what has happened in communities around the country effectively that we can make progress not just in Ferguson but in a lot of other cities and communities around the country. OK?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mr. President, will you go to Ferguson when things settle down there?

OBAMA: Well, you know, let's take a look and see how things are going. Eric Holder's been there. We've had a whole team from the Justice Department there. And I think that they have done some very good work.

As I said, the vast majority of the community has been working very hard to try to make sure that this becomes an opportunity for us to seize the moment and turn this into a positive situation. But I think that we have to make sure that we focus at least as much attention on all those positive activities that are taking place as we do on a handful of folks who end up using this as an excuse to misbehave or to break the law or to engage in violence.

I think that it's going to be very important and I think the media is going to have a responsibility as well to make sure that we focus on Michael Brown's parents and the clergy and the community leaders and the civil rights leaders and the activists and law enforcement officials who have been working very hard to try to find better solutions, long-term solutions to this issue. There is inevitably going to be some negative reaction, and it will

make for good TV. But what we want to do is to make sure that we're also focusing on those who can offer the kind of real progress that we know is possible. That the vast majority of people in Ferguson, the St. Louis region, in Missouri, and around the country are looking for. And I want to be partners with those folks, and we need to lift up that kind of constructive dialogue that's taking place.

All right? Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Will there be federal charges, Mr. President?

COOPER: Well, President Obama there has been speaking. Obviously, you can see on the other side of your screen the situation getting -- well, tense to say the least. We've seen tear gas being fired, armored personnel carriers, armored vehicles moving into position. A lot of those vehicles were positioned by the command center where I am. We saw them pulling out a short time ago.

Clearly the St. Louis County Police say that there has been some instances of looting. Reporters have heard shots being fired. Our Jake Tapper is standing by.

Jake, where are you and what are you seeing?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, THE LEAD: We're on South Florissant right outside the police headquarters. The crowd began marching down the street after it became clear that there was not going to be an indictment handed down by the grand jury, as Jason Carroll reported earlier.

It got violent down the street with a police car, the windows of it were smashed at one point. The crowd tried to overturn the police car. Some trucks, police trucks started driving up the street telling the crowd to get out of the street that they were unlawfully assembling by being in the middle of the street.

People in the crowd, most of them were not being violent, but a number of them were. And some of them began to get bricks. Our cameraman was filming one of the guys with bricks, who came over and he almost smashed the camera with the bricks. They began smashing the windows of a Chinese restaurant down the street that police began -- when the crowd started to try to overturn the car, they really began to fire a lot of tear gas.

And that's what's been going on as the streets have been cleared. A lot of us have been fired upon with tear gas. We need to invest in a better gas mask, by the way. We'll put that down on your expense, Anderson. But in any case, that's what's -- that's what's been going on. And the crowd is still there, still confronting the police.

COOPER: Jake, we're going to take -- come back to you very quickly. Our coverage is going to continue for a long time tonight.

I want to hand over our coverage from Ferguson to "CNN TONIGHT" and our Don Lemon -- Don. DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson, I can tell our viewers that we're

not exactly sure what's going to happen in this hour. As you can see, I'm wearing a gas mask just in case. A number of our people here have been tear gassed. But we're not sure if it's the police or what's going on.

But there are angry protesters that are surrounding us. There are lots of police officers. We're seeing police officers over -- behind us. They changed their stance after there was gunshots. There were some windows that were blown out.

I want to bring in some of our very own staffers here. Sara Sidner, of course you recognize her. You've been here, what, two months covering this. And then Jason Kovarik is her producer. You were just tear gassed.

What happened?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We were. What we saw were people throwing things towards the police. And then suddenly the police kept saying disperse, stop throwing things at our vehicles, disperse. Suddenly we saw people taking over a car and moving it back and forth. It was a police car. They broke out the windows. The car was going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth as they were pushing it.

And eventually the police basically shot out the tear gas and it just went everywhere. As it does in this kind of situation.

LEMON: And Jason, you're red-eyed as well. You got tear gassed.

JASON KOVARIK, CNN PRODUCER: Red eye. I mean, at one point they just fired a little bit of tear gas into the immediate crowd there. And you could feel it.

LEMON: Yes.

KOVARIK: We advanced back, thinking we would get into some breathable air.

LEMON: Yes.

KOVARIK: At some point in time the tear gas came from all directions. They had the whole street tear gassed. And it just -- it overcame you.

LEMON: I'm glad you guys -- you guys have water. And again, we have our staffers, our security people here hit by tear gas as well. You can see if you come in -- what's your name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tim.

LEMON: Tim. Tim has been hit by tear gas. And again, as the president -- just as the president was speaking, I was here with Van Jones. Van Jones and I standing her listening to the president. The president said none of that's going to be accomplished by throwing bottles and almost on queue a bottle --

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: A bottle went over there.

LEMON: Went over to us.

JONES: I do want to say that you have -- down there you have some stuff that's going on. The vast majority of people back through here have been very peaceful. But it's that same thing again. You have a small number of knuckleheads who are out here causing the problems.

LEMON: Yes, absolutely. Stand by, Van. Stand by, everyone. I want to get now CNN's Chris Cuomo out in the crowd.

Chris, with the protesters, what are you seeing where you are?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, NEW DAY: Hey, Don, there's about to be another standoff here now. The protesters are stopping the police vehicles from coming down the street that leads down to where you are. They have been firing tear gas. We got hit with it before. Luckily, there's a lot of wind tonight. So the gas is dispersing. Here's the gas coming again.

Hold on, guys. Hold your position, Ken. They're shooting the gas right now. You can see we're going to have to move because once it hits us you know how that feels. The police are saying that this is unlawful assembly.

LEMON: And we can smell it.

CUOMO: They're not allowed to be here. If not they're dispersing it. And they're using the gas. Here come more canisters now. Here come flash bangs and canisters coming right up at us. We're going to have to move back here in a second. There's a big volley now of it. A couple of dozens. We don't know what that sound was. There was some gunfire before. They're throwing the canisters back from the crowd, back towards the officers.

This is what happened a few minutes ago. It's a way of dispersing people.

LEMON: We're good, we're good. So Chris, can you hear me?

CUOMO: Can you still hear us, Don?

LEMON: So, Chris, so again, if you come to us where we are now, you can see that the gas is coming this way.

CUOMO: I get the gas right now.

LEMON: Protesters are coming here. There's a woman near us who has been injured. And again, people are being overcome with tear gas.

(COUGHING)

CUOMO: And we are as well. If we can get some water. I want to go now to CNN's Jason Carroll. Jason is out in the crowd. Jason, what are you seeing?

CARROLL: Don, same thing. We're on the back end of where the officers were. We got hit with that tear gas once. So I know how that feels. But now we're on the back end. You can see where the officers are. They've formed a line here on the opposite side of the street, and they are slowly moving forward. As they do, they are firing tear gas in that direction.

As we've been down here on this end you can see one of the police cars here that the protesters banged -- smashed the windows here. They were throwing bricks. Many of the bricks. This is what they were throwing at some of the police cars as they were -- demonstrators were coming through the street here. But you can see the line of officers now.

They've cleared the demonstrators out from this point. They're slowly moving in that direction. This is as far as we can go because of the tear gas situation. They are slowly moving up the street, slowly firing. As they move and proceed. Again, slowly clearing people out of this back area with the hope of finally getting the protesters who have caused so much of this damage in this particular area out of the area.

Excuse me, it's difficult to -- it's difficult to talk out here with some of the tear gas that's been drifting. I've counted one, two, three. Another police car down there that was destroyed by some of the protesters who came through here as well. They were also smashing some windows as we heard here, as they were moving through this particular area.

There's a lot of anger, as you can imagine. This is not what Michael Brown's family wanted to see. This is the opposite of what they wanted to see. They had asked for the past several days for people to be non-violent. But as that announcement came down, the grand jury's decision, and Michael Brown's mother was here as they moved her through the crowd as she was so upset, the crowd then became very upset.

They rushed the officers who were lined up in front of the Ferguson Police Department. There were those who were in the crowd, demonstrators, actually, who wanted to police themselves, who were trying to tell some of the agitators in the crowd to stop, to stop throwing things, stop throwing the bricks, stop throwing the bottles. Clearly they weren't listening -- Don.

LEMON: I need an IP. I need an IP. I need someone on the phone or something. Just give me -- what's the number of the control room?

CARROLL: I also want to tell you a little bit more about what we've been seeing down here because you can see the officers. They continue to move slowly up the street. Continuing to keep those who are causing the problems off the sidewalks. An announcement came down saying that if you were on the street you would be arrested. We saw several arrests take place right here right now where I'm standing just a few moments ago as they were dealing with some of these demonstrators who were coming through here.

This is a close-up look now at the police car that we saw from St. Louis County a little earlier. I actually saw one of the demonstrators pouring lighter fluid on one of these police cars. They lit a fire over here. Not too far from where this police car is. They quickly were able to put that fire out. But as you can imagine, it's been tough to see something like this happen in this -- in this community.

This is exactly what so many people here did not want to see happening in their community. They did not want to see the violence here. But again, so much anger from so many of the people here in the crowd. So much disappointment. Even though a number of people whom we spoke to over the past several days, several weeks, did not expect the grand jury to reach a decision favorable to Michael Brown's family.

So -- but it's still to hear it, and I think a lot of the people who were in the crowd just simply became overcome with a lot of anger. But as you can see now, a lot of people here have been cleared out of the area. You can see the officers continuing to make their steady movement to the crowd now.

And just to give you an idea, the vantage point of what we're doing, we're now walking back towards the Ferguson Police Department at this point. While the tear gas in the area has started to dissipate, that's certainly good news. Because it's easier obviously to breathe. So what they're going to do is they're going to move through the crowd and what they're going to do is they're going to try to isolate those who are causing problems.

They've got night vision on. They've been able to watch some of those who are throwing from over on the sidelines, throwing bricks, throwing bottles. They're going to try to isolate those people, make those arrests, try to clear the area.

CUOMO: I'm going to take you back up the street a little bit more, if we can. As we try to move through here as quickly as we can, because now it seems like the officers have finally gotten a hold of the situation, as they've moved now back in front of the Ferguson police department. I'm going to ask my producer here, Jim (ph). We're still doing this, correct? OK. So, we're going to keep walking up here, as you can see, some of those wearing gas masks, some of the protesters, as they're now moving back toward the front of the Ferguson police department. A line of Ferguson police officers also from St. Louis County, police moving forward here as well, now they've confronted another car here in front of the Ferguson police department. This is what we saw initially, you can see a number of Ferguson police officers still standing where they were when the announcement was made. They're still standing there in riot gear, still holding their position. As you can see, right over here we've got a barricade up that has not been challenged, but now we've got a line of police officers with who are now meeting up with the very few demonstrators that are left out here in front of the Ferguson police department. I'm going to move up through here just a little bit more, you can see where the line is here, some of those in riot gear, a number of officers here, we sort of ended up now in the middle. I'm going to try to make my way up through -- sorry about that, sir. We're going to try to make our way up through the middle of these officers to where this crowd --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got, you've got to stay out. You've got to give us some room OK?

CUOMO: Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you give us some room, please?

CUOMO: You got it, you got it, so they're asking us to give them a little bit of room, we're going to let them do their jobs. How are you, sir? We're going to move around the other end try to give you another vantage point up here. Why don't you show right over here, see what they're, what they're dealing with here. Small group of people that the officers now have, have -- surrounded up here where, were we are right in front of the Ferguson police department. But I have to tell you before there were hundreds of people who were gathered here in front. Hundreds, now, they seem to have dispersed.

All right now, it's Van Jones and I are here. You can see the police have assembled. This is where they decided to stop. This is where all the heavy police vehicles they have shot a lot of tear gas. We've been told, Van, as you know, that they weren't going to do it. Let us broadcast, OK? We've been told they weren't going to be using tear gas. There's a lot of tear gas used. Some flash bangs were used. They were using bean bags to disperse the crowd. The crowd was not ready for it. It was certainly effective dispersing it. But we weren't ready as well. You got it up here we were down where it was starting.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: We, we were -- people were trying to broadcast. We got hit. The tear gas was really, really serious. Saw a lot of people fell down. Security grabbed some people and pulled them away. But it was a really, really tough scene here. I don't know what was going on. But I know that -- you know, I was crying for help. I saw a lot of people that you guys see on TV crying for help when the tear gas hit.

CUOMO: They were -- they're shining a very bright light at us right now. They were trying to overturn a police car. They were throwing rocks at the police car. They started to send some signals out, one, that this was unlawful assembly. They were saying, you're not allowed to be in the street here. And the crowd wasn't dispersing. That's when the tear gas started. They used some bean bags to stop the people from overturning the police car, which had been really destroyed by them.

JONES: Yeah, well now, there were some real serious knuckleheads, and that part made a lot of sense. Once they started stampeding people back up, once you had people stampeding back up, the addition of the tear gas I think made things a lot worse for a lot more people.

CUOMO: Well, it's certainly damaging. But it did disperse the crowd, I mean, one of the risks for us when you're covering this is you wind up being too close to situations. And again, the police have made their line here. I can't see them because they're shining a very bright light in our eyes right now, but behind that is a line of police. They are armed, but they are not brandishing the weapons right now. Frankly, they haven't needed to, because, they dispersed everybody so rapidly with the tear gas. Don's back now. People had to spread out and go -- we're not hearing, we're just broadcasting. We lost, we lost IFB, they're trying to dial us back in.

LEMON: We're fine. We got a little overcome.

CUOMO: The tear gas came -- let us broadcast.

JONES: He's fine. He's fine.

CUOMO: Again, the situation right now is that the police have stopped here right in front of the fire and police station. I don't know why they're shining this light right at us right now. But the crowd has largely dispersed. It's reassembled down the street. There's a fire burning there right now. It is quiet back down at the other side of the street where this happened. But it seems to be a storefront, Don, if you can see there, Van, what that is that's burning.

JONES: Yeah, that, that --

CUOMO: They're trying to wire us up.

JONES: Yeah, so there seem to be flames at that end of the street. We're not quite sure what it is. We're going to get Don back in. Don, of course had on his gas mask when the tear gas hit. But I don't think it was enough for him.

LEMON: No, it wasn't...

JONES: It didn't work.

LEMON: It wasn't tight enough. Can you guys hear me now, in the control room? I can hear you if you talk to me, yeah by the way. So again, they -- the police officers sprayed -- or threw tear gas into the crowd. Some of it got us. We will try to get to another location. We heard gunshots on the scene as well. Chris, you were overcome with tear gas as well. We had protesters around us who were angry. Many of them just want to be heard. And we're getting confirmation from police that there have been gunshots. As we were dispersing here, we went to some of the storefronts in the little shopping area where we are. The glass is bashed out over here, Chris. And this --

CUOMO: There's a whole line of stores down here. People were saying in the crowd these are black-owned stores, why are you doing this to black-owned businesses? At first, some members of the protests were trying to stop it. Protesters are coming down --

LEMON: They're moving us. A woman in the crowd --

CUOMO: There's a woman in bad distress. They're bringing her down...

LEMON: There's something.

CUOMO: They're trying to get help from the police officers. The police officers are taking her -- tear gas. LEMON: Tear gas.

CUOMO: There's tear gas just dropped right near. It's going to get very bad here if we don't have masks. They're throwing it back. There are a lot of bean bags being shown, tear gas. We'll go to Susan Hendricks and try to -- scene.

SUSAN HENDRICKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Chris Cuomo is there live in Ferguson. And what you're looking at is the aftermath of the grand jury deciding not to indict Officer Wilson. You heard that news about an hour ago from now. And wow, look at it there, the tear gas was dispersing. You heard our very own Chris Cuomo there saying, this is going to get bad. We have Jake Tapper there live in the field. I believe we can hear him. Jake, are you there?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I'm here. We're standing outside beauty world. I think we're -- I'm here. Can you hear me? This is Jake.

HENDRICKS: Yes, I thought you Jake. This is Susan. Go ahead.

TAPPER: Hey, Susan. So, we're standing outside this store on South Florissant beauty world, which somebody has broken into. And we've been watching people running in and out and stealing things. This gentleman here is trying to keep people out. There are a lot of calls from people walking by saying why are you doing this? This is not what it's about. Similar to what Chris I think heard down at the strip mall down the street. But people are running in and out. And now I think there's a fire down the street. Still moving and pushing off South Florissant, telling people to disperse. As you can see, there's glass all over. Glass all over the streets here, watch out, watch out, glass all over the streets as all these businesses have been smashed. Some of them have had things stolen, a lot of them as you can see, are empty lots, but a lot of violence, a lot of vandalism here this evening. There's some sort of fire going on down the street right here. So we're going to walk up there to see what's going on. Police are still pushing down the street in their vehicles, telling people to disperse. See down there, people are running away. Here we are it's a local law firm that was smashed, vandalized in other place. In most of these instances it doesn't appear that there was theft, just vandalism. Here's the fire that's been burning out, it's in a trash can. I guess that's good news...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smoke and mirrors, ladies and gentlemen! Smoke and mirrors...

TAPPER: That's what constitutes

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smoke and mirrors.

TAPPER: Good news -- that's what constitutes good news here, is that it's not a building that's on fire it's just a -- trash can. But in any case, obviously, this night has turned to state the obvious quite violence. With arrests and a car overturned. Lots of vandalism on South Florissant. Let's get out of this smoke area. A lot of people here obviously very upset with the news from the grand jury. I'm sorry? Come over here and tell me what you're upset about.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Violent.

TAPPER: Come over here and tell me what you're upset about. What's your name?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm angel.

TAPPER: Angel, what are you upset about?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm upset that this girl just had a heart attack down here. Five, six people carrying her body, they tear gassed the girl. They threw gas on the girl, on top of her body, she passed out. And they start throwing tear gas at the crowd. We're tired of this, and y'all should have seen this coming. Y'all should have seen it coming, now it's here, United States, stand up with us.

UNIDENTIIFED MALE: What's up with state?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, hey, people would...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stand up.

TAPPER: Someone got in my ear and told me that the -- police are saying that it's not tear gas, it's smoke. I don't, I don't -- I can't speak for everything at fire. But there's definitely been a lot of tear, tear gas fired. Let's go to Chris Cuomo. He's down the street.

CUOMO: If you can hear us, there's active gunfire here right now, Jake. They fired some canisters of tear gas. There's a return of small arms fire. Probably handguns right where frank is showing you the picture right now. It's in response to tear gas this center, but obviously, not a reasonable response. The police still have their main line. They've repositioned themselves behind their vehicles. They're giving themselves some different orders right now. They're telling us to move from here right now, Jake, so we're going to move to a safer area. But as you can see, there 4444are some open fires down here on one side of the street, they've put out the store front fire down at the other end of the street. Right now we're okay. There are a lot of police cruisers down by that fire. We believe it is a police vehicle that has been lit on fire. The police are firing bean bags.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That just to be told to shut it down.

CUOMO: And we're going to move out of this position right now so the officers can do what they have to do to control the situation. OK, so Jake, back to you.

TAPPER: All right, back to me. Yes, so what I can tell you right now is this car just pulled over with some people that obviously have been tearing gassed and very reacting as one does when one is tearing gassed. A lot of us experienced it earlier today. They were driving and they just pulled over to -- throw up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They shot in the car.

TAPPER: The tear gas was shot into the car?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Into the car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: hey, we need a medic over here.

TAPPER: Wait. Come over here for a second.

HENDRICKS: Jake Tapper is there. Obviously, a valid of situation. I do want to bring in Michael Brown family Attorney Ben Crump and get his take on this. Ben, so glad you're with us. First of all, how does Michael brown's family feel about the grand jury decision, and do they know what's going on there, the violence?

Do we have Ben, Ben Crump any with us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he down here?

BENJAMIN CRUMP, BROWN FAMILY ATTORNEY: I'm hearing, yes.

HENDRICKS: Ben, this is Susan Hendricks. Do you have me? With CNN, in Atlanta, Ben, do you got me? -- Ben Crump, are you there? -- Ben, are you there? -- All right, we're going to go back now. There's obviously technical difficulty. We will speak to Attorney Ben Crump shortly. I do want to go back to Jake tapper, who's in the thick of it all in Ferguson, Missouri where the violence is in full force there. Jake, what are you seeing now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jake.

TAPPPER: Well, we're here still on South Florissant, and there's a gentleman who has passed out in the middle of the street, and there's a crowd going around him and -- we're not really exactly sure what happened specifically. What happened?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tear gassed.

TAPPER: He was tear gassed untold by somebody here. The tear gas obviously can cause quite a violent reaction in your body when you get tear gassed. So a bunch of people who were down South Florissant and who were tear gassed are coming up here and having reactions to it. Hold on. I'm being told something by my producer. Yes? Don lemon, we're going to go to you now, wherever you are. Where are you and what's going on?

LEMON: We're by the police department, and I would urge you, Jake. It's good -- good to see you reporting out there, but if you can be -- just be as safe as possible. My entire crew, Chris Cuomo, Van Jones, and I, were all out standing in front of the police department, and several tear gas canisters went off in front of us. As we look at these pictures of the burning cars and the police in tactical gear. We were ushered out by our security and also members of the Ferguson police department. And they're telling us to get to a safe area. The smoke was so thick that really we could barely move. And to be honest I made my way back to the safe area and really just sort of, excuse me, collapsed on the ground, it was really hard to believe and it's unbelievable. This is reminiscent of what happened back in August. But this seems to be even more severe. Again, as we're looking at a car on fire there, and appears to be an explosion at this car, really not far from the police department on South Florissant near the Ferguson department. Again it is all erupted into chaos. Security people have moved us into a safe place. As we look at these tactical pictures. And I know my colleagues are out there on the street, but it can happen in just a second where someone can be injured. We heard several gunshots go off, near at even though the police were right -- around us fortunately, many of our crew members are wearing bulletproof vests, and we're also wearing gas masks. But as you saw, I'm not sure if you guys saw on television, even with our gas masks on, we found it very hard to breathe, it's virtually impossible because, that tear gas even comes through the gas mask and has nothing to do with how secure it is it still you're breathing in that air it and it chokes off your oxygen and chokes off your breathing. So, we made it to the safe area, but again, all these pictures, this erupting here in the St. Louis area.

In Ferguson, as we look at pictures from around the country, there's -- what appears to be a peaceful protest happening in New York City, as opposed to the very violent one that's happening in Ferguson, Missouri. People around us screaming as one woman was had to -- it was brought right near our cameras. According to people in the crowd again, this is unconfirmed. There were -- she had a heart attack. I'm not sure if she had a heart attack, if she was overcome by tear gas or what. But they handed her off to police and police I would imagine are taking care of her, and taking her to get some sort of treatment. My colleague Susan Hendricks, standing by at the CNN center in Atlanta. And Susan, as we look at these unbelievable pictures -- as a matter of fact, we're going to go to Ben Crump now. Ben crump of course is the -- as I'm tossing to you, Ben. I'm hearing gunshots in my location, even though we're at a safe area. Ben Crump is the Michael brown family attorney. Then it's awful to see these pictures, the people are angry.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: So, Benjamin Crump, the Brown family attorney. With it's -- but apparently, he can't hear us. I need to tell you what's going on around me. Listen, it's very disturbing to see what's happening. Again, we're bringing -- Chris Cuomo is now in our safe area. We have a safe room here in the area. We're hearing some gunshots. I'm going to interview Chris Cuomo. Chris is in our safe area with us. Chris, what happened?

CUOMO: All right, so what they're trying to do is establish a line of control outside. That's what some of the officers told us. They were demanding that we pull back. And what we noticed is there is open gunfire coming from back behind our position right now, and they're firing tear gas, bean bags, shotgun shells. People -- a lot of kids out here, the woman right now. We saw a woman who seemed to be in some sort of cardiac distress. They ran with her toward the officers. The officers actually opened their defense line and brought the woman in. There was then some handgun fire as that was happening and the officers shot bean bags, shot tear gas. There were a lot of kids out there also. Don, people brought their kids to the protest tonight. And those kids had to be gotten out very quickly. This is a lot of tear gas. You were here the first time around. When I got here, the tear gas was very sporadic but it was really heavy out here. We've been gassed several times. No one was ready for it.

LEMON: I think what's interesting is the closer you get to the police department, Chris, the thicker the tear gas got and they were setting it off right in front of the police station. And I think obviously they want to secure -- excuse me where, where they are, but I believe the bulk of the protests were right in front of the police department. And I -- do we need to go to Susan? OK. Were going to go to again, my producers are here in the safe room and they're speaking to the producers in the control room. And again, Jason Carroll, I know that you're out there and I know Jake Tapper's out there. I want to know what's going on where you are. But please be safe. What are you seeing where you are, Jason Carroll?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, as you know, I was just down the street from where the Ferguson police department was, where I saw that police car destroyed, where they were throwing rocks and bottles at night, you can see it's on fire. One of the demonstrators has poured lighter fluid down there in that area. They've moved us up here. That police line that you had heard Chris Cuomo talking about, steadily moving up the street. Here you can see where they've gathered here now. Just a little earlier they were lobbing tear gas canisters up in the direction here to the north. And that's because, we had heard they had suspected there was suspected gunfire coming from that particular area. So what they decided to do was lob some tear gas canisters in that area to disperse what little bit of the crowd is left here. It's amazing to see that now, there's -- virtually, few demonstrators says -- a few strugglers here in the area, you can see their firing some more tear gas, they're now as we speak. We're going to stay on this side, having been hit once with tear gas, that's an experience you do not want to repeat. They're still throwing tear gas here in this particular area where we are. Very few demonstrators left at this point. What they're trying to do is and what one of the officers told me is, I'm going to isolate the bad guys, I said, we're going to move through here, we're going to do we need to do, he said do what you need to do but get out of our way. And so, we've been standing here over in this side, as they continue to lob tear gas canisters up here to the north of where we are. Once again, that's because there was a report of suspected gunfire coming from that particular area. So, they're going to continue to focus on that particular area, you can see the officers over here, they're standing their ground at this point while further down the street, there's a line of officers who are continuing to move down steadily, slowly, isolating, isolating those who are causing problems to try to get them, eliminate them, get them off the street. Don?

LEMON: All right. And Jason, how -- this has been going on since really just before the president began speaking. And Jason, I'm not sure if you were able to hear the president. The president had some really pointed words for protesters not only in Ferguson but for all over the country really, Jason, and I have to tell you, as soon as the president was saying none of the issues that has to do with police and the community, that's not going to be solved, he said, by throwing bottles, and as soon as he said that someone threw a bottle. So Jason, continue on, what is going on with the car fire that's near you? Are you able to talk about that?

CARROLL: Well, sure. And first, what's sad about that is, so many -- those words unfortunately were not heard by so many of the people as you know who were down here on the street. Simply because, there was so much panic when people started throwing rocks and throwing bottles and then the crowd starts to move away unfortunately, the president's words were lost on some of those who were down here. Further down the street here, you can see there is a vehicle still on fire, I think what's going to happen is based on what we were told earlier, the officers want to remain as safe as they can be in terms of doing their job. So they're going to continue with that line further down the street, slowly make their way to where that vehicle is burning. And in the interim they're going to try to isolate those people who we told you about, the troublemakers. I'd like to get even further at this point but, this group of officers right over here, one in particular made it very clear that if we moved any further we would get arrested. I want to be able to stay out here, continue to do our jobs and you not wanna get arrested, so we're going to stay where we are right here at least for now. But, in terms of what the officers are dealing with, there are even -- what we've seen, there are some masked protesters that we've seen, demonstrators that have been out here, some of those who have walked by who have been bent on causing some trouble. They're trying to isolate those people, get them off the street, while also trying to put out that vehicle fire. Don?

LEMON: OK, Jason. Jason, I need to jump in. Jason, be safe, we're going to keep your pictures up. I want to get now to the Brown family Attorney Ben Crump who's on the phone right now. Ben, can you hear me?

CRUMP: I can, yes.

LEMON: Ben cross (ph) in. You can. It's sad that all this is happening --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: We know that the family has -- we know that, that, that protesters are upset. But, can you talk to us about what we're witnessing here?

CRUMP: I don't see what you're witnessing, Don, but I can talk to you about the family and their wishes. They wish that people will not be violent, people will be constructive, that people will be peaceful, as they've asked all along, they want change, Don. They want to -- not just make noise. They want to make a difference.

LEMON: Yeah. And I'm sure the family is probably somewhere witnessing this as well and this is not what they wanted. Initially, then I heard they wanted a 4 1/2-minute moment of silence before the protests start, and -- specifically, they said no violence. Unfortunately, that did not -- that is not playing out, at least here in Ferguson and the president as well, saying that this evening. But I have to tell -- I have to tell you, Ben, the people who needed to hear what the president was saying this evening probably did not -- were not able to hear him because they were not in front of a television. Instead, they were out here, many of them, not all of them, but you know, rioting and having tear gas thrown at them.

CRUMP: Well, hopefully, we can reach them through social media, through you out there on the street corner. We've got to find a way to reach them to say what we need now is people to be disciplined and dignified so we can try to address these real serious issues that keeps claiming our children's lives. The Michael Brown and the unknown Michael Browns are crying out from the grave saying, we have to change this system that let people kill them and they are not held without consequence. That's the serious...

LEMON: Yeah.

CRUMP: Conversation we have to have, Don.

LEMON: Yeah. All right, Benjamin Crump, thank you very much. We appreciate you joining us here on CNN. If you're just joining us here on CNN, we want to tell you that we are live here. The reason we're not in front of a camera is because there has been chaos. And the pictures that we're looking at now, are from the Ferguson market and liquor, and this is, I believe the same store where those cigarillos (ph) were stolen with Michael Brown, the videotape of him and Dorian Johnson in the store having an altercation...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: With the store owner. And correct me if I'm wrong, producers, is this, I this looting at this particular store that we're witnessing live? This was storage as you can see is on West Florissant and again, we are -- we're not outside because, there has been some rioting, some looting. Tear gas has been thrown. Water bottles, we witnessed being thrown at police and police retaliated with tear gas. And our security people, as well as the Ferguson police department moved us to what we have here as a safe room. But unfortunately, many people who are out in that crowd, women and children, as Chris Cuomo witnessed as many of our correspondents and anchors have witnessed, they would have been overcome with tear gas. And again, this Ferguson market and liquor store -- listen, I believe, just from looking at the pictures, one would assume that that store is being looted. Sadly, all of that does not really help the cause of the protesters. It really deflects the attention from what the president spoke to tonight. Really what -- the Prosecutor Bob McCulloch spoke up tonight. Bob McCulloch acknowledging that there were issues with police and with the community and that -- unfortunately, the death of Michael Brown would open up conversation at least for people to start a conversation and to possibly come to some sort of consensus as to how to deal with this situation. But, listen, there's no way to describe what you're seeing on your scene -- on your screen, as just utter chaos, an embarrassment really, I would say, for the brown family, for the peaceful and law-abiding citizens of Ferguson and this country, and my producers are cuing me here as we're watching people loot this convenience store, this liquor store. I want to go now to CNN's Jake Tapper, who is out in the crowd with more. Jake, what are you seeing?

TAPPER: Hey, Don, how are you? Well, we're right near the -- were right near the Ferguson police department, and you can see all the big police trucks, the line of police officers in their riot gear standing there blocking. We've heard anecdotally that the shots that were fired -- I think earlier tonight, Chris Cuomo was in the area, and you too as well, Don. We're fired from over there, so there's a lot of concern about being in between up the street and over here where the police are. And -- I'm trying to see if I can get a good camera angle here. But the police car that's in flames, you can see flickers of it down the street here. Can you see -- let's get -- let's get over here. Hang on one sec.

LEMON: I can't see it.

TAPPER: And I'm told that we're looking at pictures also of looting of the store where this whole thing began, Ferguson liquor. But there you go, there's the St. Louis -- I believe the St. Louis county police car that earlier tonight was vandalized and then set on fire. You can see the flames just piercing the sky. It's a conflagration. And obviously, police and state troopers wearing their riot gear, standing here in front of the city of Ferguson police department and municipal court. As violence has erupted in Ferguson, not unexpectedly but disappointingly, after the grand jury failed to deliver a verdict of -- against Officer Darren Wilson. Now, we're being told the news, fire trucks are coming out, so we're told, that we're going to get out of the way of the fire trucks -- watch out there. It began peacefully enough earlier outside, Don, as you know, with the crowd gathering outside and listening, coming together for the verdict. But then, passed -- as time passed and it became clear from the prosecutor, things changed, Don Lemon, back to you.

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