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At This Hour

Police Criticized for Lack of Response in Ferguson; Businesses Paying the Price in Ferguson; Michael Brown's Parents Get No Justice; How to Heal Ferguson

Aired November 25, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

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ROBERT WHITE, PRESIDENT, CLERGY UNITED: As much as they talked about their tactics and as much as they talked about they were going to protect our community and protect our citizens, that did not happen.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That was a pastor from the community.

There are new questions this morning about how events did manage to get so out of hand last night, the looting, the fires, the chaos. And now some religious leaders -- you just heard from one -- and community activists say there was not a strong enough police presence, at least in the right areas, to keep everything peaceful.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Police have three and a half months, roughly, to prepare for last night. How did things go so terribly wrong?

We should point out again, nobody was killed. This is an important thing to point out. We're not told of any serious, serious injuries.

Let's turn to former New York City police commissioner, Bernard Kerik.

I think that's an important point to bring up as well.

Sir, I know you were criticized back -- you criticized, rather, back in August the response as being too heavy handed, that Ferguson police, it was --

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BERNARD KERIK, FORMER COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: The initial response, right.

PEREIRA: The initial response was too heavy handed. You said, no, a heavy hand was needed. But some will fast forward to last night and say, where were they? Businesses were burned, stores were looted, cars were burned. There was no presence there that, a lot of our reporters said, on the ground. KERIK: Michaela, you know what I relate that to? People are afraid

to do their job. This is driven by the media. It's driven by the community. It's driven by the critics. A lot of these police officers and people that are out here trying to protect society, they want to protect society, but they're being criticized constantly for doing the job they're doing. And I think last night -- I wasn't there. I can't say. But from what I saw, you cannot allow people to act like savages. You cannot allow people to act like animals. If I was police commanders today, I would be going through videos from last night and I'd go around and start sucking up all those people that were out there doing this destructive damage. You can't torch buildings. You can't shoot guns into the air.

And this all relates to the grand jury returning a no bill. This is insane. They wanted justice, justice has been served. They've gone through the process. That's what the process was. But the problem is you have people that were out there last night. They said they were going to do this whether he was indicted or not. It didn't make any difference to them and they did exactly what they said.

BERMAN: It's interesting. You blame the media for law enforcement, in some cases, not doing their job or being afraid of their jobs. I've heard the media being blamed for inciting the demonstrators to get violent. I've seen the media blamed for a lot here. Media didn't set any buildings on fire.

KERIK: But you know what --

BERMAN: Hang on, Commissioner. The media also -- it isn't our job to patrol the streets to keep people from burning down a building.

I do want to talk about the constructive here, what to do next, what we can learn from what went wrong. Let me ask you about the announcement itself, the 9:00 at night announcement. To a lot of people, that strikes them as pure lunacy. After dark. You give people hours and hours to get themselves ramped up. Was that the right call?

KERIK: Last night, I sent out a message. First of all, I think the prosecutor did an excellent job on his explanation of the return of no bill of indictment. I think he did an excellent job on getting the information out to the public. I disagree with what time it was done. I think it should have been done 9:00 this morning, the first sign of business this morning. The protesters, normally, they've come out in the evening hours. I would have done it -- I would have waited until this morning. I think he may have feared that it would have leaked out through the night. I don't know. I don't know him. I don't know what his position is. But personally, I would have rather seen it come out this morning because, as you guys have been reporting, there aren't any protesters out there today. The streets are calm. And they seem to light up like the goblins at nighttime. So I would have rather seen it this morning myself, personally.

PEREIRA: Bernard Kerik, thank you so much.

The concern is what tonight holds. I know the family will be speaking a short time from now, and we know that their voices will be added to ours in urging calm instead of chaos.

Thanks so much for joining us.

BERMAN: Right now, blessedly, there is calm in Ferguson after that night of chaos.

PEREIRA: Ahead, Michael Brown's family will address the community. We'll bring those comments to you when they happen.

But also, we want to talk about what happens next. What does the future hold for the community? What happens with Officer Wilson? There's so many questions yet to be answered.

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PEREIRA: @THISHOUR, police in Ferguson, Missouri, are reporting more than 60 arrests, arson, burglary. We have been told six people have been treated for injuries, according to a hospital spokesman.

BERMAN: But the amount of damage, the material damage is just shocking this morning, damages to businesses, damage to property. All these people, small business owners, paying the price for the chaos that happened overnight.

PEREIRA: And, remember, that means people will be put out of jobs.

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PEREIRA: There will be blight in the community, in a community already struggling.

BERMAN: I think it's an important view to get. I'm sad, in a way, that we're bringing it to you now.

But I'm happy to have Jason Carroll because this is so important to see the damage that was done.

Jason, walk us through it.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What a change to see today versus last night. Take a look. You can see behind me this is what's left of a beauty supply store here on West Florissant. Next to it, you have a Laundromat still smoldering. We're told folks came out here, looted this place and set it on fire. We saw so many fires. If you look in the distance there, at the corner of West Florissant and Chambers, the street is blocked off. To give you a point of reference, about two miles south of the street that you're looking at right now, that's where Anderson Cooper was reporting last night from the command center. It's blocked off now, that big chunk of West Florissant. We're told it is an active crime scene. They're not allowing anyone into that area. So many business owners coming back now and finding nothing but rubble and a burned-out mess. People also coming out here trying to clean up what they can. It's heart wrenching for the small business owners like the owner of this beauty supply store. Today, it's about cleanup and also just trying to figure out what happened here. A lot of people I think expected there to be unrest but a lot of

people we spoke to did not expect this, did not expect it to be worse than what they saw out here in August. People trying to figure out how now to move on as a community.

John, Michaela?

PEREIRA: Yeah, we were talking about the fact that Ferguson has had its share of economic and financial and employment issues.

It's interesting, earlier this morning on "New Day," we heard somebody there, particularly the activist community, one of the pastors of the church, we heard from him a short time ago, voicing frustration that police didn't do more to protect those businesses. And interesting, Jason, I know St. Louis chief, John Belmar, during his press conference early this morning, he said police tried to move their cruisers and other vehicles in an attempt to save businesses. Did you hear anything confirming that on the ground?

CARROLL: Well, I can tell you this, the police were definitely more measured -- that would be an understatement -- in terms of how they responded to people out here. I heard one law enforcement official last night simply say that once they saw so many people moving in and trying to cause so much damage that, at one point, they literally just backed off and let people do whatever it is they were going to do.

I can tell you, from being in this crowd, it was much different than what we saw out here in August. In August, when I was right here on West Florissant, there were pockets of people causing unrest. Last night, a much, much different story. More than a pocket of people causing unrest. There was a vast number of people who were out here wanting to do damage -- Michaela?

BERMAN: Looking at these pictures, Jason -- they must be looking at them also -- do you get the sense they don't want to repeat this again given just the awful damage that's been caused?

I think Jason is having a hard time hearing me, given the sound. We want to thank Jason Carroll showing us these pictures of the businesses, the stores, the peoples' lives that were upended last night in the chaos.

PEREIRA: To a lot of people, it doesn't make sense that your rage turns you on your own community but, as Chris Cuomo said earlier today, anger doesn't have a conscience.

BERMAN: No. And again, there were people remarking cops weren't there protecting the buildings. Maybe they should have been.

PEREIRA: Firefighters were having a hard time.

BERMAN: That may be so, but they didn't light the match. So there's a lot of blame to go around.

PEREIRA: Fair point. Fair point.

All right, we want to turn to our legal analyst joining us in studio. Lisa Wayne is a criminal defense attorney.

We wanted to, Lisa, if we could, focus with you instead of what happened yesterday, but sort of the aftermath of what happens now. In terms of a measure of justice, I mean, I don't think any of us are going to forget the look on that mother's face. There's -- she doesn't feel there's justice for her son. Her -- Michael Brown's father doesn't feel there's been justice for their son. What are the next steps for them? Is there legal recourse for them?

LISA WAYNE, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY & CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I just want to say that having done this for a long time that the one thing that sticks with me with victims' families, with defendants, is that vengeance is not closure. That is so important here because, even if this officer had been indicted and people felt like this was the right thing to do, it doesn't give you closure.

BERMAN: It doesn't bring your son back.

WAYNE: It doesn't bring your son back.

PEREIRA: Sure does not.

WAYNE: And the other thing that we know is you don't want the wrong person to go to prison just to be -- to make up for past things that have happened, and so this community to me has reacted so much and they're angry, but it's because they're reacting in the disparity that's taken place. They don't see other defendants being given the benefit of the doubt like Darren Wilson did. They don't want them to go to prison, we don't want him to be indicted if he didn't do this, but the heightened scrutiny he was given, give it to all defendants. There should be disparity. And I think that's what this community is reacting to.

And so in moving forward, I'm hoping people are going to say, give us the benefit like this. If someone points a finger at my child or my son or my daughter, give heightened scrutiny to this. Look at the cases just like this. We know it doesn't happen. And I think that's what people are reacting to. It's not fair. We don't want an innocent person to be indicted but it's not fair the way you did this?

BERMAN: In terms of the legal avenues available, there's still a federal investigation.

WAYNE: Still a federal investigation.

BERMAN: The bar is very, very high there.

WAYNE: It's very high. So if you're looking at a civil recourse or a 1983 action, that's you violated my civil rights --

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WAYNE: -- that's going to be a tough one to overcome, too, particularly based upon the transcripts and the physical evidence in this case. You know, last night, I said this, I said where this went wrong to me

is, when I'm reading the transcripts and, yes, I see the physical evidence and Wilson could come in and say that obviously Brown was the initial aggressor, that he felt intimidated. There was one statement he made that he felt like a five-year-old trying to get a hold of Hulk Hogan. OK, I get all that. But what happened is the interaction on that sidewalk in that moment. It could have been avoided. The way that he interacted with these kids -- you know, I don't want to, in hindsight, say this is what you should have, could have. But why did he need to get into this confrontation over a pack of Cigarillos? It could have been avoided. So that's that mind-set and that's that implicit bias that this community is reacting to, because if he had been a white kid, would his interaction have been different with him? That's hard.

PEREIRA: Lisa Wayne, we see so appreciate your tone, your message, and for joining us here.

I want to turn and bring in our L.Z. Granderson. He's a commentator here with us on CNN. Also Joe Hicks is joining us now.

Gentlemen, first, I want to make sure you both can hear us OK.

L.Z., it's interesting because I think one of the conversations that's going to be had for the coming weeks and months is how do we change the dialogue, the narrative, the reality on the ground in Ferguson, given this? Because a lot of people are feeling frustrated, like Lisa said. A lot of people are feeling justice wasn't served. How do we begin the healing process, L.Z.?

L.Z. GRANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Despite the images and the damage that was done last night, I believe that the healing process and moving forward has begun on a multitude of levels. And this is why. You see the burning buildings, but what hasn't been shown a lot were the people who were trying to calm the crowd down, who were talking about alternate ways in which they can address the disparity in terms of racial profiling, in terms of the arrest, in terms of being pulled over by police officers. You've seen artists using their gift from God to create messages of peace within Ferguson. You've seen a lot of these things that have told me, as someone who's been here multiple times, including last night, that there are a lot of people in the city of Ferguson who are looking at ways to change what has created a really, really disgusting pattern for the past 20 years here.

BERMAN: Joe, you've been an activist for a long, long time.

We're joined by Joe Hicks also.

Martin Luther King said a riot is the language of the unheard. I think that may help explain what happened last night. I don't think it justifies what happened last night when you see these buildings burned, these cars on fire, these lives upended. I'm wondering what your feelings are when you were watching these fires overnight?

JOE HICKS, VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNITY ADVOCATES, INC.: Well, I was probably as distraught as anyone was to watch people burn their own community down. But in this case, it wasn't necessarily people from that community. I think a lot of people from Ferguson stayed home. You had the revolutionary Communist Party in the streets out here. You had the Occupy Wall Street people who flew in from all over the country to be there. You had the New Black Panther Party in that city, all intent on not healing rifts, as you will, if that city but operating a political agenda. They're not concerned about healing. And much of the national black leadership that I've heard is not particularly interested in healing and moving forward. They are using this as part of the political agenda. That's unfair to people who now have to struggle with the aftermath of what's left after these people get on the planes and fly back to their respective cities. So it's really unsettling.

And I've heard a parade of people, both from there in Ferguson and across this country, saying that they wanted the justice that they demanded. They could care less about what the grand jury said. They wanted the kind of justice they demanded. That's not how we do things in this country and I think there are a lot of people that are very unsettled by what they've seen over the last day or so.

PEREIRA: L.Z., it's an interesting point he makes about the folks from Ferguson stayed home. But when those folks all leave, Ferguson is left to Ferguson. And that community has had its share of struggles with poverty and unemployment. I'm really glad you highlighted some of the positive things that are happening there. But there's going to have to be more in the coming days.

GRANDERSON: Absolutely, and I just want to also make sure that's included in that group of people that were here to cause chaos, I also heard multiple people in the crowd talk about, "Look out for the KKK," and "Be careful when you go back home from these protests because they're out there as well." I wanted to make sure that group was also included in the conversation in terms of people flying in and perhaps causing chaos.

There are things that I believe the federal government can do. One of the things that the NAACP has pointed out -- I certainly agree with -- that the Department of Justice has about $400 million in grants that it disbursed around the country to the police departments. If we can tell them to find ways in which you can have more diversity training, sensitivity training, de-escalation training, making sure that police officers have body cameras so there are less questions and more transparency available. There are things we can do to move forward, not only in Ferguson but across the nation. Because this isn't just a Ferguson problem. There are 70 police departments around this country that arrest black people up to 10 times more at the rate of any other race. This isn't just about Michael Brown and Ferguson. This is about a nationwide problem that needs to be addressed collectively and not just isolated.

BERMAN: Joe, L.Z. makes many eloquent points about the discussions we need to have. I'm interested in what we can do by tonight, what we can do to make sure more buildings aren't burned down, how we can get more leadership --

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PEREIRA: There's an urgency to this.

BERMAN: -- on the ground there, how we can get more leadership out of the community. Does the president, who's going to Chicago today, does he need to consider going or saying something again?

HICKS: I don't think so. That's not what's going to really help here. The people who are doing all the damage last night aren't going to listen to the president or the attorney general, although he's not been particularly helpful in terms of the messages he's been delivering.

But we talked about the National Guard being deployed, we heard about the preparations. It's not like it was a secret that this was going to be taking place. Where is the National Guard? Why aren't they protecting business -- many of those businesses are owned by black people in that community and other people in that community. Where is the National Guard that's protecting that community from the thugs and others that have come to destroy it? I appreciate the uplifting message I'm hearing from your other guest here. But I'm saying, right now today, we need to secure that community for the good people that live there. That means protecting lives, protecting what property that they can't burn down and violate yet again tonight.

PEREIRA: Joe Hicks, L.Z. Granderson, thank you both. We appreciate your comments.

Want to turn back to Jason Carroll, who's on the ground in Ferguson. He's taking a look at some of the reaction and how it played out last night.

You've been moving around the community. You've been in front of some of these buildings that have been burnt to the ground. Firefighters not able to get to them. Some of them having to flee while their hoses were still left on the ground.

CARROLL: Yeah, it was just too dangerous last night. Obviously, at one point, Michaela, fire officials got into this area here on West Florissant where we are and then started hearing gunfire and, for their own safety, had to pull out.

This is a different vantage point from that building I showed you last time. This is what's left of that beauty supply store. On the other side of it, show you a little bit more of what was burned on this side here. It was a Laundromat. And the store behind it was looted as well. That area behind West Florissant is blocked off. It will stay blocked off throughout the day and into the night. It is now an active crime scene. As you know, there are several businesses that were burned there. A lot of business owners coming back and just wondering what happened.

PEREIRA: A lot of us are wondering what happened.

Jason, we appreciate you very much.

That wraps it up for us. I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman.

Coming up after a break, we'll hear from Michael Brown's family. They'll address the community reaction. And I think they'll address their own personal reaction, sometimes measured, sometimes not as much. Ashleigh Banfield will have that live at noon.

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