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Grand Jury Decides Against Indictment In Eric Garner Case

Aired December 03, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Danny Cevallos, I want to hear your voice as well. As a lawyer, you hear both of these women with very different perspectives. What say you?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: We need, first, we need to stop calling this an illegal chokehold. It's -- obviously, it has been banned by the New York police department but it's not illegal in the state of New York. It's not a criminal chokehold. And that's important because the biggest problem is the disparity between police policies throughout the nation in fact and the actual law. And when those are not aligned together, you have exactly this problem. So while the officer may have done something that was not within department policy --

HOSTIN: Police are not allowed to use choke holds in effecting an arrest.

(CROSSTALK)

CEVALLOS: You used the word illegal and that, the grand jury is looking not in front --.

(CROSSTALK)

CEVALLOS: Well, you used the word illegal.

HOSTIN: We're talking about excessive force.

CEVALLOS: The important thing to understand is that it is not an illegal chokehold. It's not outlawed by the state of New York. They are not looking into whether they followed proper police procedures. They are looking into whether or not a crime was committed.

Now, remember, police --

HOSTIN: They look as to whether there was probable cause --

CEVALLOS: To believe what, Sunny? To probable cause --

HOSTIN: To believe that a crime occurred, excessive force.

CEVALLOS: Thank you. All right. So let's back -- thank you for making the point for me. So the question is, was a crime committed? Now, whether or not this officer violated applicable procedure and it is true. HOSTIN: That's part of the analysis.

CEVALLOS: This choke hold has been banned for 20 years. That's true. However, other departments across the United States have not banned it. And in fact --

HOSTIN: We're talking about New York.

CEVALLOS: They teach it.

HOSTIN: We're talking about New York.

CEVALLOS: Sunny, do you understand the difference between illegal and against procedure? I just need to make sure you understand that before we go on.

HOSTIN: I understand it very well. I understand it very well.

CEVALLOS: That's what the grand jury is doing. They are looking into whether or not that's legal or illegal.

BALDWIN: So continue. Continue with the process. Continue with how they -- we're not inside. We may because of what happened in New York versus Missouri, we may never actually see the testimony, correct, Danny Cevallos?

CEVALLOS: First of all, we need to understand it is Missouri is the Haley's comet of grand jury. We'll never again find out what happened in a grand jury the way we did in Ferguson. This -- most grand juries are completely secretive. Even the defense attorneys never find out for the most part unless it's some exception what was said or testified to in a grand jury. We may never know how the prosecutor ran it.

And I will concede this. Look. We saw in Martin, Missouri, prosecutor sometimes have a bias. After all, it's what we pay them to do. They have plenary discretion to make those judgment calls to charge or not charge. And it really will depend on how the prosecutor presented this evidence to the grand jury. I have no doubt that if the prosecutor really wanted an indictment, probably they could have gotten one. On the other hand, if they did not --

HOSTIN: Of course they could have.

CEVALLOS: Sunny, agree with you there. I mean, I see it on the other side all the time.

HOSTIN: Do we need more than the video?

CEVALLOS: But the problem is, Sunny, but what you need to understand, Sunny, the fact that the prosecutor has a bias is part of the system. Prosecutors are designed to have bias. We give them and the word is --

HOSTIN: They are not designed to have bias.

CEVALLOS: Absolutely they are. They have plenary discretion -- Sunny, you're a former prosecutor.

HOSTIN: That's right. It's not about bias.

BALDWIN: OK, let me jump in because -- hang on to all of you. We're now hearing from the police officer, Officer Pantaleo who has not been indicted according to the Staten Island grand jury. We are going to hear from him after the quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin here as we have been following for, really, more than an hour now, the decision not to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo and in the case involving Eric Garner when he was accused of illegally selling loose cigarettes back in July on the street in Staten Island surrounded by police officers. You see the video. You see him being taken down. And according to police, resisting arrest and he ultimately died.

These 23 grand jurors in Staten Island had to determine if a crime had been committed on behalf of the police officer as to whether or not that police officer would be indicted. We have learned they have decided not to indict this officer. We know that the mayor here in New York will be speaking about this specifically in the next hour. Stay tuned for CNN for that. We'll take it live.

We're also hearing from this police officer himself via a statement. So let me just glance down and I'll read this for you. This is from police officer Daniel Pantaleo. He said this.

I became a police officer to help people and protect those who can't protect it themselves. It's never my intention to harm anyone and I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner. My family and I include him and his family in our prayers and I hope they will accept my personal condolences for their loss.

Let me read you one more statement. This is from the PBA president, the Patrolman's Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch says this.

While we were pleased with the grand jury's decision, there are no winners here today. There was a loss of life that both the family and the police officers will always have to live with. It's clear that the officer's intention was to do nothing more than to take Mr. Garner into custody as instructed. And that he used the takedown technique that he learned in the academy when Mr. Garner refused. No police officer starts a shift intending to take another human being's life and we are all saddened by this tragedy.

I sat down with NBA all-star Charles Barkley yesterday, intention initially to talk to him about his thoughts, many of which have been controversial to some, about the grand jury decision in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. But we were talking about the roles of police officers. And I asked him specifically about Eric Garner. Keep in mind, this is before we had any idea how this grand jury would decide. This is what Charles told me.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BALDWIN: Let me go back to the notion of white cops killing black people. What about the case we're waiting for results to come down from the grand jury for Eric Garner? It's one thing in Ferguson. There's some audio. You see the video. You see these cops surround him. And he ultimately -- with the homicide, he dies.

CHARLES BARKLEY, ALL RIGHT,-STAR NBA PLAYER: Sure. I don't think it was a homicide.

BALDWIN: What was that? It was a chokehold. You see it.

BARKLEY: Well, I think the cops were trying to arrest him and they got a little aggressive. I think excessive force, you know, something like that, but to go right to murder, when the cops are trying to arrest you, if you fight back, things go wrong. That doesn't mean -- I don't think they were trying to kill Mr. Garner. You know, he was a big man. They tried to get him down. I don't see how you go to murder in that situation.

I tell you, it went horribly wrong. You know, some people might criticize that that's just them. But we can argue excessive force and things like that but to go right to murder, I don't believe that. I just think that we're giving the cops a bad name and it's really unfair. Because it wasn't for them, it would be crazy out here.

BALDWIN: You know, I'm hearing so much from different people, friends, people who come on my show, African-Americans, saying listen Brooke, you know, I was taught at a young age, I have different rules than you do when I deal with police. And there is a lot of getting that off people's chest right now because of what happened in Ferguson. There's a lot of anger, there is a lot of frustration. What can we as a country do with this energy right now?

BARKLEY: Well, first of all, we can open a dialogue. And I think that's probably what I did was open a dialogue. Look, in fairness, there are some black people out there who are crooks. And when the police come to your neighborhood, it's a tense situation. The only time you interact with cops is when things are going wrong. That's the only time we ever interact with the cops.

But first of all, we as black people, we got a lot of crooks. We can't just wait until something like this happens. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror. There's a reason they racially profile us at times. Sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes it's right. So to act like we hold no responsibility for some of this stuff, is disingenuous.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Charles Barkley there, sitting with me. You can watch the interview in its entirety. Go to CNN.com.

But let me just bring more of our guests back in to discuss through some of what he said. Boyce Watkins, the founder of yourworld.com, Angela Rye, former executive director of the congressional black caucus and Tara Setmayer with 'Real News" on the Blaze.

Welcome to all of you.

And Tara, you listened to Charles. You've listened to our greater discussion about Eric Garner. Your thoughts?

TARA SETMAYER, REAL NEWS: Well, I think Charles Barkley makes some very reasonable and honest observations that no one else really wants to have in this conversation. What he's saying is absolutely true. But because emotions have run so high, because you have some race agitators out there that have bigger agendas, no one lets us hear the fact of what is going on. No one wants to consider the other mitigating factors that contribute to the circumstances often times. We do not happen in a vacuum.

What happened with Michael Brown, didn't happen in a vacuum. You know, Charles Barkley was honest enough to say he didn't know some of the facts about Michael Brown being in the car or the fact that the blood splatter show he came back toward the officer or that there were black witnesses who corroborated Darren Wilson's story.

He said, you know, the media didn't really report on those things. Yes, there's a certain responsibility here to make sure that the facts of what happened went on -- were told.

BALDWIN: He told me he didn't want to talk about it until the grand jury's decision was made public because he wanted to read. He said that's a problem with a lot of our society that a lot of us jump to conclusions and we make up our minds.

SETMAYER: We make snap judgments and then you see what happen -- it fulgent this kind of mob mentality where the facts don't matter anymore and then policy and decisions are made as a result of that. And that's when things become dangerous.

And I think what Charles Barkley, the point that he was making, I think is fair. It's a fair and reasonable point to make.

BALDWIN: Angela, you are shaking your head. Weigh in for me.

ANGELA RYE, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS: On the whole thing, I think I want start with Charles Barkley who said that there are times where it's OK to racially profile and times where it's not. It's never OK to racially profile. There's nothing about this Eric Garner situation that makes it a justifiable homicide. That officer did not act justifiably.

I know that in this country at this point we have law enforcement officers that fully believe that being black is crime and violent enough. It's not. And it's time-out for that type of policy shaping and making.

The president spent his Monday with young protesters from Ferguson. He spent his Monday with faith leaders and law enforcement officers and those protesters trying to figure out how we get to yet, how we make this country better for everyone here. Not just for the folks who wear a uniform, but for the folks they are so-called supposed to be patrolling. It's becoming overtly violent. We have watched this go downhill from

Trayvon Martin when, at first, it was justifiable because he was just an ordinary citizen who was afraid and now we see this Mike Brown case and now Eric Garner. It's getting progressively worse. And it is 2014 and it is long after the civil rights act and it's time to see very, very different consequences. This is over the top.

BALDWIN: Making all your points just because I was sitting there with them, Charles said -- he didn't say it was OK to racially profile. He just said there's some basis in racial profiling because there are some bad apples everywhere.

SETMAYER: He said sometimes it is OK and sometimes it is not.

RYE: We do it with terrorism. So I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: So you think an 8-year-old child should be profiled -- I mean, it's OK for them to be patted down in an airport or 90-year-old grandmother? I mean, they profile for a reason. There's data behind it.

RYE: It's not OK to racially profile anyone. I don't care if you are suspected of terrorism.

SETMAYER: There's a reason behind it.

RYE: No ma'am.

SETMAYER: We don't live in a perfect world.

RYE: Exactly. And you're not making perfect sense. What I'm telling you is --

SETMAYER: Yes, I am. Ninety percent of the crimes committed by a certain amount of people, then it make sense to you those are people you're going to profile.

RYE: You are getting your statistics from O'Reilly factor. You're on the wrong channel.

SETMAYER: The FBI uniform crime report.

RYE: That's self-reported data. And as you, people --

SETMAYER: From police departments.

RYE: Exactly.

SETMAYER: So, you're questioning the FBI uniformed crime report now.

(CROSSTALK)

RYE: Listen to what I said.

BALDWIN: You look perplexed listening to this back and forth. I would love to hear from you.

BOYCE WATKINS, FOUNDER, founder of yourworld.com YOURWORLD.COM: Well, you know, I think that what we have to start off is we have to realize what message we send with this non--indictment in both cases.

Basically, with Eric Garner case, what makes it incredulous is that we're basically saying that you can kill a black man in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses on camera and not even have a trial, not a conviction, not even have a trial. I mean, what kind of message does that really send particularly to young black people? Because you can't get into this whole idea that he was a criminal. He might have been selling stolen cigarettes. Obviously, we know that's not worth the death penalty.

But then also, you have to ask yourself, OK, this interaction, it did go bad. But racial profiling is where it all began. Because understand this. You have wealthy white guys right on Wall Street that are stealing billions of dollars. They are carrying cocaine in their pockets. But guess what, they'll never be convicted of those crimes because police aren't following them around and asking them what are you doing here? Why are you here? Who are you with? Where are you going? What are you up to?

And so, the fact is that what we have to really be concerned about as a country right now is that we have gone beyond the days where you can kill black people and not have black people respond. Black people are now fighting back. Black people are no longer afraid to speak up and stand out. And I think that that's something that really speaks to the idea that the president and Congress have to create some sort of modification in the law so that equity is in existence for everybody because we know that's not the case.

SETMAYER: But where is all these righteous indignation with black on black violence? And this very important. We are -- you say black lives matter. Don't know you what me. This is the truth. Where are these riots and where is this righteous indignation with kids that are mowed down in Chicago every day or on the streets of L.A. or here in New York and Brooklyn or south Bronx? Where are marches there? That's where there's a significant problem. There's not a wide range of --

WATKINS: I live in Chicago where there's a lot of violence and we have lots of marches.

SETMAYER: More than white cops killing black kids. I have news for you.

WATKINS: (INAUDIBLE) is consistently involve and his father, Michael (INAUDIBLE). There are tons in Chicago fighting against black on black crime. But police brutality is a second issue. We have to deal with that issue.

Look. My dad was a cop. I know there's -- I have respect for good cops. But I also know that many officers end up thinking they are above the law, they sometimes think they look, if you don't do what I say, then I have the right to do whatever I want to you and we know police brutality is very real.

You should not have a segment of the population that is afraid of the police. But if you go talk to many black men, I'm talking about good, law abiding young black men who would never hurt anybody, many of them are afraid of the cops. Why do we have that in existence in this world because these laws were never designed to protect people of color in the first place. That's something you have to deal with. So, stop lying to yourself.

RYE: The black on black crime thing is a false equivalency argument there. You know that. You know black on black crime has gone down over the last 20 years. I'm not going to let you do this without facts.

SETMAYER: And you are still who are more unlikely to get to shot as a black person by another black than you are by a white police officer.

RYE: Tara, at the end of the day, what I'm not going to allow you to say is number one, these people are rioting. This is righteous anger display by most of these people. You are not going to get to say -- I'm sorry, I said by most of the people, the folks who are sitting down with the president were not the looters. They were the organizers who were peacefully protesting. You don't get to say here that there is a huge problem with black on black crime that people are not working diligently every day to address. It's not true and I'm not going to let you lie to me today.

BALDWIN: So how do we -- I'm sitting here and I'm listening to all three of you, and I respect each of your perspectives, but the yelling and the emotions, how do we take all of this, this frustration and the anger and the energy and it's the same question I asked Charles Barkley, and I would love to ask all three of you, how do we move this forward?

SETMAYER: We have to have an honest discussion to move forward.

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Boyce.

WATKINS: You have to be honest. And if you want to understand the anger and the outrage that I'm seeing everywhere just imagine how Americans felt right after 9/11. Think about this. Somebody's killing your children, what parent and what human being is not going to react emotionally when they know they can't send their child to store for skittles and iced tea without some possibility that they are going to come back dead. That is a very serious reality for so many black families in America.

So, you know, I will say this, that the good cops that are out there, they want to deal with this problem as much as the rest of us do because we don't want to live in a society where everyone is afraid of the police, where everyone hates the police, where black kids grow thinking the police are bad.

But if you don't deal with this, if you continue to turn a blind eye to all these homicides, then you are going to have what actually could become a race war on your hands. We've got to be very, very careful. SETMAYER: Well, part of that is because people are trying to say that

the majority of police officers, white police officers are going out here with a target on young black men. That is just not the case. That is not the case.

Are there bad officers? Is there police brutality, yes, that happens and that is not the majority of the case. The majority of police officers are good people who protect and serve with honor in this country and I don't think we should continue to cast as Persians on police officers as if they're some kind of brutal force that wake up every day saying how are we going to target black people. That is just not the case and that discussion, that part of it is not helpful.

BALDWIN: That is part of what Charles Barkley was saying to me over and over and over when we were talking yesterday is a lot of police officer friends, black, white and I think one of his points was he was frustrated because a lot of people were critical of some of his words that he's had a lot especially when he sat down and talk to me, and he was saying why can't we among the African-American community agree to disagree. And he was saying to me, why are people, you know, throwing out words like Uncle Tom, calling him Uncle Tom, telling him he's a sellout, telling he is a traitor instead of disagreeing to disagree?

RYE: Well, Brooke, I think one of the things that you have to recognize here is this really is a matter of life and death so you have these high emotions that you reference because people are forgetting to take this all of the way back to the most basic principle and that is common humanity. I don't know how anyone can watch that Eric Garner video and not hear him say over and over again. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

WATKINS: I can't breathe.

RYE: Like just think about the fact that this is somebody's father. That is somebody's son and just because he looks a little bit different than you and he might be a little bit bigger, that does not give you the right to take his life. It doesn't.

SETMAYER: I don't think anyone is advocating that. I think anyone who looks at this video sees this as a tragedy. But we also have to realize it did not happen in a vacuum. We were not the grand jurors, we were not in that room, we did not -- it does not rise to criminality.

RYE: That is why it's a problem that has to be addressed.

SETMAYER: And that's why we have a criminal justice system and a grand jury system.

RYE: That is broken.

SETMAYER: And we have laws. We can have that discussion, but I don't know that it is based on race.

Look. Again, there were 23 people in that grand jury who heard evidence and testimony and had a criminality level that we are not sitting here and having to do that. We are having an emotional discussion. They had the process. They were in the jury room and did not rise to criminality. Perhaps, maybe they can pass a law that makes that chokehold illegal. But right now, it's not and it did not rise to the level of criminality. Should they discipline that officer? Probably, yes. Should he be fired, probably, it looked like excessive force to me. But he was resisting arrest. So we also have to look at situations where your own personal behavior --.

WATKINS: We can't say that Eric Garner was really resisting arrest.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Final thought, Boyce. Go ahead, Boyce.

WATKINS: Eric Garner threw his hands up in surrender and he kept saying I can't breathe, I can't breathe. I think that what you really saw was what consistently happens where a big black man just by his mere existence is seen as some sort of threat. And it really goes back throughout history. Black men have been seen as these big, scary, barbaric animals that don't feel pain. They need to be put down when they get out of line.

And so, really, when you look at with the criminal justice system, anybody who says that our system is not incredibly racially bias side out of their mind. They need to go read the thousands of academic studies that black men are more likely to be stopped and frisked, they are more likely to be arrested, they are more likely to be convicted, they receive longer sentences when they go to prison.

So the reality is that Eric Garner's experience resonates with millions of people because millions of people have either gone through it or they have relatives who have gone through it and many of them who are relatives in prison right now for things they did not do. That's a reality and we got to deal with that.

BALDWIN: All right. On that note I appreciate every single one of you, Boyce Watkins, Angela Rye, Tara Setmayer, thank you all very, very much.

Coming up next, we will end with going to church so to speak. We are going to talk to the pastor of Michael Brown, senior, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: In the final moments I have with you I want to bring in Reverend Carlton Lee, he is Michael Brown Senior's pastor. He had a church in Ferguson, Missouri. That church in Ferguson, Missouri was torched in the wake of the looting and some of that in Ferguson.

Reverend, I so appreciate having you on.

REV. CARLTON LEE, MICHAEL BROWN SR.'S PASTOR: Thank you so much for having me.

BALDWIN: Let me just take a -- after that last couple of minutes. I mean, I know you have been listening to that. And just as a man of God, I am wondering how you heard it.

LEE: Actually, I was on my way to the studio, and I got a call from a very good friend of mine, Dr. Jamal Bryant, and he said listen, there a no-indictment in New York. I pulled my car where I couldn't believe it didn't. I got the breaking news to come across from my CNN app.

BALDWIN: Because of what happened, the non-indictment here in New York and the non-indictment in Ferguson, Missouri, the -- it is incredibly raw and in talking to so many people about this, it seems so much more just about each of these cases. This is symbolic of what seems like years of frustrations and injustices.

What is your message in the 60 seconds I have to all of the people watching, perhaps demonstrating, taking to the streets tonight, what would you like to tell them?

LEE: I echo one of the members of my church, what they say, Michael Brown, Senior. And that is everything we do we need to do it in peace. I want everyone to know that even in a time like this, we must band together, we must stand together and must unify ourselves together and that our voices be heard. We can do this peacefully and amicably. So we must do those things.

And then I also ask that we all could take those times to pray for the families of these victims. They're experiencing great and grave loss at this point in time. We're at a pivotal place in history and we must find ourselves praying.

BALDWIN: Reverend Lee live in St. Louis, Missouri. Thank you so much, here we are in the wake of news here in New York in Staten Island, this grand jury decided not to indict the police officer involved in the death of Eric Garner.

I'm Brook Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me here on CNN. I will be back tomorrow.

In the meantime, stay right here. Jake Tapper and "THE LEAD" start right now.