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Missouri Governor Slammed; Michael Brown's Church Burned; How Do Police and Communities Work Together Going Forward?; America's Busy Travel Day

Aired November 26, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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


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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: More than 2,000 National Guard troops are now on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri, more than triple the number present when violence broke out on Monday night. The Missouri governor, Jay Nixon, boosting the number, calling the unrest, quote, "unacceptable", and vowing to make Ferguson safer.

But the governor's actions are coming a day late according to Ferguson's mayor and Missouri lieutenant governor, Peter Kinder, who in an appearance on a local radio show wondered if Governor Nixon's actions may have been dictated by the White House. Here are some excerpts from that interview.

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PETER KINDER, MISSOURI LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: The mayor of Ferguson, James Knowles, is a friend. He was calling, asking for anyone in state government to help because of what he claimed was a complete abdication of responsibility by Governor Nixon. This was a desperate reaching out by Mayor Knowles while his city was burning. And the National Guardsmen were being held back.

It is so inexplicable. It is so hard to understand why the governor would not deploy the forces that he had at the ready, that he had mobilized, and I have this question. Is it because he was leaned on not to send them in, leaned on by the Obama administration and the Holder Justice Department?

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COSTELLO: OK, so let's talk about this. CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson is here and CNN political commentator and host of "Huff Post Live" Marc Lamont Hill joins me as well.

First of all, I have to explain something about the lieutenant governor and governor in the state of Missouri. They're elected separately, which means the lieutenant governor could be a Republican and the governor can be a Democrat and that holds true in Missouri. I don't know why they do it that way, but they do.

So, Ben, I'll start with you. So although the criticism may be just, Ben --

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure.

COSTELLO: At this particular time, is it really wise to go on the radio and slam the governorship, or the governor (INAUDIBLE) for their actions?

FERGUSON: Well, I mean, what -- the other option is to say nothing at all, and I think his duty is, when he's elected by the people of his state, and when you have the mayor of a city saying we desperately needed help here, the National Guard was at the ready and not used, he has an obligation to talk about this. I think he had an obligation not only to talk about it, but also to make sure that the next night, the next night and the next night they do have the protection needed. And he had more than a dozen businesses burned down, police cars being burned. We could all see this throughout the day as it got later and later, this was boiling and it was going to boil over. And you would think the governor, who's already dealing with protests and seeing what could happen just when the shooting took place, he would have said as soon as anything happened, as soon as a business is looted, as soon as we see a police car on fire, National Guard, you go in full on and protect the community, and he did not do it that entire evening. It's a fair question to ask.

COSTELLO: It is a fair question to ask, but should the question be asked of the governor himself, Marc?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. I mean, I think, first of all you asked why it's political structure in Missouri is such that the lieutenant governor is elected separately and they can be in different parties. I mean that partly speaks to why this critique is coming so publicly and in the fashion that it is.

This has all become a political football, whether it's bringing the Justice Department and the Obama administration into the conversation, or whether it's publicly critiquing the governor. That's not to say that he shouldn't critique the governor if there are missteps made. And I agree that Governor Nixon made extraordinary missteps and I think the biggest thing he did not do is impose his will and make sure that decisions didn't come at 8:00 p.m. but maybe came at 8:00 a.m. the next day. And the reason why I'm bring that up -- and the reason I'm bringing that up is because, you know, the fact that he did that is not in step with what the Justice Department would have wanted or what the Obama administration would have wanted. Clearly he's not in their pocket. He's making his own decisions and he may have just made a bad one.

COSTELLO: But here's the thing -- here's the thing, Ben.

FERGUSON: Yes.

COSTELLO: Ferguson is like this tinder box. They need their leaders to come together, work together --

FERGUSON: Yes, but --

COSTELLO: And here we're seeing it in real time that the same old crap is happening again. FERGUSON: Well, and I think that's where part of the political

correctness came in. Remember all of the controversy over what people thought the police in Ferguson and the state police, the state troopers were too heavy-handed in their response when we had the initial phase of rioting and looting that happened after the shooting took place. And so I think the governor, more than likely, had in the back of his head, I don't want to get criticized for that this time.

But as soon as you see an obvious explosion, you have to protect the businesses and the citizens and not let it get out of control. And what you saw from night one was, you have now people that were emboldened and empowered to keep doing the same type of activity. So he sent them in, but he sent them in late. I mean this is one of the biggest failures of a governor that I've seen in recent history when everyone around the country knew what was about to happen and then while we were watching it unfold, there was still no response from this governor. It was a terrible day for his administration.

COSTELLO: And I can't disagree with you, because it's for sure the governor made some mistakes in preventing this violence.

FERGUSON: Yes, it's terrible.

LAMONT HILL: I agree the governor made -- I'm sorry.

COSTELLO: Oh, go ahead, Marc.

LAMONT HILL: No, I agree, the governor made some mistakes, but we're still buying into this militaristic logic that says we can arrest our way out of projects (ph), we can weaponize our way out of projects (ph), we can arm our way out of the problem.

FERGUSON: What would you do then?

LAMONT HILL: It's not -- I'll tell you, Ben, if you let me finish. I think what we should do is, you set better strategy from the beginning. For example, you don't tell people they're free to march and protest, and then block the protest within 10 minutes. And I was standing there. I was standing there on the ground on South Florissant when this happened. Within 10 minutes of the decision, police had already blocked off the streets. Again, violating -- operating in bad faith. You don't make the announcement at 8:00 p.m. It was almost as if they were instigating battles.

And then, when you do protect neighborhoods -- and then when you do protect neighborhoods, you protect all neighborhoods. You don't protect South Florissant and middle class businesses and leave West Florissant and black owned businesses to burn. What you do is you have an organized response, you have a principled response and you have a daytime announcement. This -- I mean you don't -- admittedly, I'm not a law enforcement expert, but I do know that if you're scared of rioting and looting, you don't make an announcement in the dark.

COSTELLO: Last word, Ben.

FERGUSON: Look, I -- I agree with you on the late night announcement, but you don't -- you don't have the right to go and loot, steal and rob just because the announcement comes late at night, and you don't have the right to loot and rob and steal because a street is blocked down when you can see that things are getting out of control. You have to abide by the law. And when the governor sees that people are not going to, you're the governor of the state. You have the National Guard. You're the only one who can make that decision and you make it ahead of time, so as soon as it gets crazy, you shut it down and he didn't do it.

COSTELLO: All right, I'm going to have to leave it there. Ben Ferguson, Marc Lamont Hill, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the violence in Ferguson has been blamed mostly on anger over the failure to indict Darren Wilson. But one of the buildings burned this week was Michael Brown Sr.'s church and Brown's pastor believes Darren Wilson supporters are responsible. We'll talk about that, next.

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COSTELLO: Michael Brown's parents wracked with grief facing heartbreak -- one heartbreak after another. First, months of waiting after their son was shot dead by Officer Darren Wilson back in August. Then Monday's announcement that Wilson would not be indicted. And today, a reminder their anguish continues as they spoke out on CBS this morning.

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LESLEY MCSPADDEN, MICHAEL BROWN'S MOTHER: How could he be -- we couldn't even have my son's organs donated. You understand that? That's wrong. They know that's wrong.

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COSTELLO: And now, amid two days of violence, another blow to the family. Michael Brown Sr.'s church gutted by fire. The church's pastor, Carlton Lee, joins me now live from Ferguson.

Good morning, pastor.

REV. CARLTON LEE, MIKE BROWN SR.'S PASTOR: Good morning, Miss Carol. How are you?

COSTELLO: I'm good. Thank you so much for being with me on this cold morning. Tell me about the damage to your church.

LEE: Carol, from what I was told on Monday night is that the structure is no longer sound. It's completely burned out. So we're just now just trying to figure out where to go from here as a church family.

COSTELLO: Who do you think is responsible?

LEE: Well, I've had 71 death threats against me since I became very vocal about this issue. Of course, I'm going to stand with the members of my church. We are family. And so the first (INAUDIBLE) press conference that I did I believe was 30 days after Michael Brown Jr. was murdered and from there we've been receiving death threats ever since. And so I believe that -- I believe that it came from the people who were threatening my life.

COSTELLO: And what did those people who threatened your life, what were they angry about?

LEE: They were angry because I called for the arrest of Officer Darren Wilson. They said that I did not allow justice to, you know, play its course. They also said that I was a hate pastor, and they wanted to take all of the hate pastors like me, put us all in one -- in one place and set us all on fire.

COSTELLO: In fairness, we don't know who's responsible for setting fire to your church and we have to keep in mind, too, that some of the businesses were burned in Ferguson by who knows who, right?

LEE: Right. Right. I mean we just don't know. But from where my church is at, it's on West Florissant. It's less than a mile away from ground zero is what we've been calling it here in Ferguson. And nothing else was burned on this side. Everything else was burned, you know, towards ground zero, and headed further north. Where I was headed, nothing ever happened over there in that area. Nothing.

COSTELLO: Are authorities investigating the fires? How is that -- how's the investigations going?

LEE: They came out yesterday. I talked to a bunch of people, ATF. They said they think they know where the fire started at, and they're investigating from there and they told me they would get back with me if they came up with anything. They also told me that the process could be very long because they have, I think he told me, like 28 fires that they had to investigate and possibly more than that. But I think he said so far they had investigated other 20 and they had like eight more to go.

COSTELLO: Have you talked to the Brown family?

LEE: Yes, I talked to them -- I talked to Michael and Calmina (ph) yesterday. We were together at the press conference. I'm calling Michael as soon as I get through doing the interview here, just to talk to him and let him know how proud I am of him. I've seen the interviews that he's been doing this morning. So, yes, I'm going to talk to him again a little bit later.

COSTELLO: Do you see -- like it seems like Ferguson will never heal, but it must, right? So how does that start?

LEE: I think the healing process starts with us having the appropriate dialogue. I've encouraged every young person, every mid-aged person, every older person that I've come in contact with to get more involved civically. Get involved with your legislation. Get involved with your local government. Acquiesce yourself with it a little bit more, because I believe that as a people, we have been disenfranchised from being around or from being more active in politics and I think that's effective change that needs to come as if everyone is a little bit more political savvy, if you will. So that's what I'm really urging everyone to do.

But I'm also urging everybody -- one of the ways that we can heal is, we have to listen to each other. We have to listen to each other. Even if I disagree with you, I still can listen to you and we can agree to disagree. And I believe that that's something that we really need to see in this day and age in order for us to heal and to move on. It's one of the things that we're doing at the church, losing everything that we have, we're listening to the needs of the community, and we're going to rebuild. We're going to rebuild.

COSTELLO: Pastor Carlton Lee, thanks so much for being with me today. I appreciate it.

LEE: Thank you very kindly.

COSTELLO: I'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: As you well know, protests have sprung up across the country. There are many people angry at police, no longer willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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CROWD: Don't shoot!

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COSTELLO: And while it's easy to say that's too bad, they had no choice, police have to work with communities to effectively do their jobs. There must be trust, and that's a tall order right now.

LeBron James, the basketball great, put this image on his Instagram account after the grand jury announced his decision. It's Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin with their arms around each other. This image has gone viral.

There are also high-profile cases of alleged police brutality that were caught on tape, like the incident in Staten Island this summer when Eric Garner died after police put him in a chokehold. His death was ruled a homicide.

So again, with these images out there, how do police departments across the country regain trust? Joining me now to talk about this, Cedric Alexander, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and Anne Bremner, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor. Welcome to you both.

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, PRES. NATL ORG. OF BLACK LAW ENFORCEMENT EXECUTIVES: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Cedric, we're hearing incendiary things from both sides. On one side, we hear F the police. On the other side we're hearing your communities are crime ridden, what do you expect? It's become an us versus them sort of thing. Isn't that dangerous? ALEXANDER: Well, let me put it this way. We're going to figure out

in this country, and starting right there with Ferguson, as to how police and community are going to have to find a way to communicate. There's a process that's going -- that's taking place right now, post this announcement. However, in the very, very near future that there's going to have to be a sit-down conversation in that community and other communities across this country as well to how police and community are going to have to engage and have a trusting dialogue.

And I've said this a number of times on your show before. That community in Ferguson is not going anywhere and neither is the police department, and that's going to be across this entire country. So we got to find ways in order to sit down, in order to communicate and talk and trust each other.

COSTELLO: So, Cedric, where does the ultimate responsibility lie?

ALEXANDER: The responsibility lies on both parts. The police department, which in many ways are the enforcers -- we are the enforcers of the law. We have a leadership role that we play in communities, and the leaders in those police agencies, not just in Ferguson but across the country, we have to be the ones that extend an olive branch.

And also you have leadership in communities. And those community leaderships, whether they be in the clergy community, whether they be in the civil rights communities, in universities, colleges, wherever it happened to be, in local neighborhoods, on main street, they have a responsibility as well to meet their local law enforcement halfway and to sit down, have communications, and come up with different creative ideas that maybe have never been explored before in terms as to how we're going to work through whatever difference there may be and become a community of one. That's the only way we're going to get through this.

COSTELLO: A community of one, that is a tall order. So, Anne, is there any figure out there who can lead? A community leader or police type for someone in the government? Who?

ANNE BREMNER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, it's going to have to be all of us. And all the police, of course, can look at the president, we can look at the leaders in police departments. But this was 90 seconds, Carol, of an incident that's affected 90 cities in which we've seen protests and of course our entire nation. So we need complete transparency in these cases. So it's going to have to be system wide. It's the people, it's the policies, and it's the practices. And we needed to know what happened in this case a lot earlier than now.

COSTELLO: And don't we have to be careful about what we say, Anne? Is it helpful when police come out and attack communities? Or when protesters throw urine-filled bottles at police officers?

BREMMER: Well, absolutely. And I think we have to understand, police officers are people, too. I've defended departments from Chicago to Seattle to Portland, and when I respond to officer-involved shootings, I respond at any hour, I've yet to see an officer who didn't get emotional or cry. I mean, they're people, too. And we need to meet in the middle somewhere, because this is very divisive, this case. But we all want solutions. And I think the solutions come from transparency and understanding but working together, all of us, and that means all of us in the U.S., not just Ferguson.

COSTELLO: Cedric, you work with police departments across the country, I just wondered is there a police department who's doing the right thing? Is there a community throughout that we can see as exemplary?

ALEXANDER: Absolutely. Absolutely. There are a number of police agencies in communities across this country that for a long time have had long-standing and trusting relationships, and a number of those agencies are out there and they exist today.

COSTELLO: Give me an example.

ALEXANDER: Well, I mean, you can look right here in my own community, in Dekalb County. We have elected officials, we have appointed officials such as myself. We're very engaged in the community. Community is very engaged with us, right down to the last police officer that's hired, so that when we have differences or conflicts we're able to sit down and engage together.

But just not here in Dekalb; you'll find the same thing in the city of Atlanta. You'll find it around the whole metro Atlanta area. But you will find it across this country.

So out of the 177 cities that you all reported last night that were having some type of protest, let's remember something. In each one of those cities, a lot of these cities there are great relationships there's going on, because most of those protests, quite frankly, were very peaceful. And the few that created the problem, they were extracted or arrested. And that came with the assistance and the help of people who lived in those communities and who work closely with police.

But in regards to Ferguson itself, that's a community that is at ground zero; they're not going to be able to do it by themselves. Community policing, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice and Ron Davis and his office, are willing and ready to go in and are in there doing an incredible job trying to help them work through this. But right now, it's very tense. But in very short time all of us, including NOBLE and other organizations, we're all going to have to help Ferguson and other communities like Ferguson, because you've got to be able to exist together. You've got to have police. You've got to have community. And we've got to figure it out -- and we will figure it out -- but it will take some time.

COSTELLO: I like your positivity, I do. Cedric Alexander, Anne Bremner, thanks to both of you.

BREMNER: Thank you.

ALEXANDER: Thank you. COSTELLO: I'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: You're probably busy loading your car. Well, our correspondents have loaded their cars and of course their luggage and we're just wondering who will get to their destination first. Erin McPike and Brian Todd are joining the big Thanksgiving travel rush today. They're going from D.C. to New York City and back. Erin's going by plane; Brian is driving.

So let's head to the roadways first. and, Brian Todd, he's on I-95 just south of Baltimore. What's it looking like, Brian?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, it's a pretty nasty day here along I-95. Just pulling aside Baltimore and we're going to show you what our cameras here are capable of doing. First, out the dash cam, we're going to show you some of the traffic here along -95 as we head toward the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. Traffic not too bad but weather is really an issue. It's supposed to be kind of rainy east of 95 and snowy west of 95. A lot of accumulations of each, and that means that any travel along the I-95 corridor, which is the most heavily trafficked areas, one of the most heavily trafficked areas in the entire country, is going to be dicey this morning and throughout this evening.

And you see outside our dash cam, you see some of traffic; it's not too bad right now. But we're going to show you some of the capabilities here of our multicamera roving weather and traffic vehicle. We're going to pull over here and our photojournalist, Jeremy Harlan (ph), and I are going to get out of the vehicle. This enables us to kind of show not only what's going on in front of us but what may be going on behind us here.

Jeremy's going to step out with me. Here we go. We can see how bad the weather is right here and you can see some of the traffic volume over here as we -- as some of the vehicles approach. Now, about 41 million Americans are expected to take to the roads this holiday weekend. That's a big increase from years past. Gas prices are at a five-year low, so expect a lot of traffic. And this winter storm called Winter Storm Cato is already starting to make things nasty. I can feel a little bit of hail, some kind of a combination of snow and rain already starting to hit us here on the road.

So, Carol, this is going to be nasty. Now we're going to toss to my colleague Erin McPike, who's at Reagan International Airport, trying the to brave that part of this commute.

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I feel sorry for Brian, I really do feel bad for you, Brian, because we are here at Reagan National Airport. and if you look here, there are really no lines at all. I in fact have a Global Entry Card to get me into the TSA pre- check quick line but I'm not going to use it because I don't want to have a leg up on Brian -- not that I need it.

Now, when I checked in this morning, I checked into this U.S. Airways shuttle gate right there. There was no real line there either. And the woman who was working that gate said she's been working that same ticketing counter for 16 years; she has never seen it go so smoothly. But there is a new system in place. They have a lot of new kiosks in the ticketing area upstairs. And there were long lines here at 6:45 and 8:45 but they moved them through very quickly.

Looks like it's going to be a pretty easy trip to New York for me today, Carol.

COSTELLO: I think you're going to win, Erin. I do. And Brian Todd, be careful out there. Thanks to both of you.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

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