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Cops Versus Citizens: Who Decides What's Fair? Chokehold Video Versus NYPD Officer's Testimony; Video Shows Garner Sprawled on Ground; No CPR Treatment in Chokehold Death; Mistrust Growing Between Americans, Police; Obama Taken to Walter Reed Medical Center

Aired December 06, 2014 - 17:00   ET

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

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone, thanks for joining me. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. Five o'clock here on the east coast. We are talking about three cases of unarmed African-Americans dying at the hands of police. These stories gripping the nation.

Right now all three police officers are walking free. For the next hour, we will examine the evidence and break down crucial video frame by frame. We will ask our experts what does equal justice look like? From Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland to New York, the cases are sparking a national debate on policing, power, and race.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW (voice-over): Those who died cannot tell us what happened from their point of view. In New York 43-year-old Eric Garner gasped "I can't breathe," his neck in a cop's chokehold. In Cleveland 12-year- old Tamir Rice was holding a toy gun when a cop fatally shot him and the case that sparked this year's anger, unarmed teen Michael Brown gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: No justice.

PROTESTERS: No peace.

HARLOW: For some the cycle of outrage is becoming all too familiar.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: They keep having these deja vu moments. They're doing the same thing. It's not okay for me to just maybe die for no reason or for a small reason.

HARLOW: Do people have different rules for people of different races? How much force should people unleash on unarmed citizens? Can we trust police to police themselves? Eric Garner's grieving daughter watched this video of her father's final moments over and over again. She, says the real problem goes far beyond race relations. Listen.

ERICA GARNER, DAUGHTER OF ERIC GARNER: This is not a black-and-white issue. This is a national crisis. It's about, you know, the police and abusing their power.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HARLOW: All right. Let me introduce our panel. Former police Officer Rashid Abdul Salaam, a security specialist and also a private investigator. Also former police Officer David Klinger. Defense attorney here with me in New York Midwin Charles and retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael Bell who joins us from Wisconsin. He is a father who knows about losing a child to police gunfire. His 21-year- old son was gunned down in his own driveway. Thank you, all, for being with me. Let me begin with this.

Erica Garner who is the daughter of Eric Garner, her comments, all right, let me read you her comments. She said, quote, "this is not a black-and-white issue. This is a national crisis." Rashid, your response when you heard that?

RASHID ABDUL-SALAAM, SECURITY SPECIALIST: Well, obvious with the number of incidents that have occurred, we have to be concerned with it. One of the things that jumps out to me when I look at this as being a former law enforcement officer and having graduated from the police academy in 1985 which starting my law enforcement career in 1983 just the directives and the definition of my job description was different now. Now it's called law enforcement. When I came into the profession we were called peace officers. And so when you start looking at it from that perspective it sort of changes your perspective on how you should approach this particular profession.

One of the things that we did many times as a patrol officer we had HBO, handle by officer, one thing that you -- I see that's very prevalent with a lot of officers, they judge or they gauge their successfulness by the amount of arrests that they make. And making an arrest isn't the ultimate -- this isn't the be-all, end-all of police work. If you can handle a situation by handling the situation by the officer and resolving the issue, this is, in fact, what the purpose of a peace officer -- this is what your purpose is.

HARLOW: So, David, let me go to you. I mean, you were a Los Angeles police officer. Looking at this, do you believe that that racial bias and abuse of power are significant problems in police departments across the country?

DAVID KLINGER, FORMER LOS ANGELES POLICE OFFICER: I think that there's always going to be a problem with some officers who have racial bias, but my experience has a cop in Los Angeles and also in Washington is the vast, vast majority of police officers don't look at people in terms of Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, whatever, in terms of I'm going to treat this person this way and treat that person that way. They read the situation. They react. They respond. And I would agree with the previous commenter that police need to understand that they are peace officers, but everyone else also needs to understand that there is a law enforcement component to policing by definition. It is police officers that enforce the law.

And so, being able to understand is this a situation where I can calm things down, talk people through things, or is this something where I need to make an arrest, that's an important issue. But well beyond that is the issue of what are the types of laws that the cops are called upon to enforce. And so, I think that's part of what we have to have our discussion about. Why in the world do we have laws against people selling cigarettes because it is rooted in a $6 or $7 a pack tax because the city wants to collect revenue? Similar to one of the problems here in St. Louis County is that some of the police agencies their primary -- or major revenue stream is tickets. That's wrong.

HARLOW: Let me go to Michael Bell joining us from Wisconsin. First of all, I'm so sorry for your loss of your 21-year-old son. No one can know that pain unless they've gone through it. We're showing our viewers a picture of him as a young man and a graduate on the screen now. Your took your anger, your frustration, and you said you've said all with the local police department for a million and three-quarters settlement, but you wanted to change the law and you did. Tell me about that.

MICHAEL BELL, SON KILLED BY POLICE OFFICERS 10 YEARS AGO: Well, first off, as I can -- I can understand the family pain that Eric Garner's daughter is going through. She's watching this video over again and I imagine your own mother or father or child being killed on video and have to watch it over again. I remember the day that the D.A. showed the dash cam video of my son getting out of the car and being manhandled by the police officer. I mean, I was in shock. I was a deer in the headlights. And so -- and I didn't do it so much out of anger. I really did it out of love for other people's children and love for my own son itself. I mean, I was anger that they did this and they tried to do this to our family but I really knew that if we changed the system here we could improve it for everybody and that's why we fought for ten years and Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to mandate on a legislative level that police can't review themselves.

HARLOW: Yes. And I want to talk about that with Midwin Charles looking at this from a legal perspective. What do you make of that, the idea of changing laws state by state where police really cannot police themselves where there have to be a completely separate body?

MIDWIN CHARLES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think it's a good idea. I think anyone who looks at the sort of situations and think that police policing police makes good sense. It's questionable. How is it that that police officer who is investigating another police officer won't have some sort of inherent bias --

HARLOW: But you do have grand juries independent of police like we saw in both the Michael Brown and the Eric Garner case.

CHARLES: Right.

HARLOW: Those are not being policed by police.

CHARLES: No, not at all. But I think with respect to the law that we were talking about that was just passed that has to do with having people --

HARLOW: Internally.

CHARLES: Internally. Exactly. So, not internal affairs. But, no, I don't necessarily think that we should do away with grand juries. What we need to do away with is what we're seeing across America is where certain people who are facing grand jury investigations are treated one way, ie, police officers, and then everyone else gets treated a different way.

HARLOW: What do you mean?

CHARLES: What I mean is the man in which the prosecutor put on this grand jury proceeding both for Officer Darren Wilson and Officer Daniel Pantaleo here in New York is incredibly different. The average grand jury proceedings does not get to listen to so many witnesses. It doesn't last so long. You don't hear exculpatory evidence which is evidence that sort of exonerates the person. You just don't do that, 99.9 percent grand juries --

(CROSSTALK)

Yes, they kind of indict almost quickly.

HARLOW: All right. Stay with me, the entire panel. We'll going to take a quick break. We'll be back and we're going to talk about a lot more. Lots to discuss, including the questions surrounding the last moments of Eric Garner's life. We're going to show you the video in full because it will give you a perspective that a 20-second clip won't.

And later a federal pro backing the death of a 12-year-old boy, this boy Tamir Rice, finds a shocking abuse of force in the Cleveland Police Department. My panel weighs in on that and what it will take to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: "I can't breathe." This has been chanted by many protesters. They're the final words of Eric Garner after a New York City police officer put his neck in a chokehold. At this very moment crowds are chanting I can't breathe across the nation from New York to Pittsburgh to California. Four days ago a grand jury decided not to the indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo who was filmed using a chokehold on Garner back in July.

Our Randi Kaye breaks down that video frame by frame and compares it to what we know about Officer Pantaleo's testimony before the grand jury.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): During his two-hour testimony to the grand jury, Officer Pantaleo made this bold admission, yes, he told the jurors, he heard Eric Garner's pleas saying, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe." This was the moment captured on video.

ERIC GARNER, PUT IN CHOKEHOLD BY POLICE OFFICER: I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. KAYE: Pantaleo isn't talking but his lawyers Stuart London confirmed

to "The New York Times" some of what his client told the grand jury. He was the jury's last witness, according to his lawyer once he heard Garner struggling to breathe Pantaleo testified he tried to disentangle himself from the suspect as quickly as it could. But it's not that clear-cut on the video. It appears the officer keeps his arm around Garner's neck for at least eight seconds after Garner's first muffled gasp for air.

GARNER: I can't breathe.

KAYE: That's the Officer Pantaleo in the green t-shirt with number 99 on it. Watch. He removes his arm but then uses both hands to press Eric Garner's face into the pavement. The officer keeps pressing long enough for Garner to repeat at least five times "I can't breathe." The officer reportedly testified that since Garner could speak, it suggested to him he could also breathe and there's more. Officer Pantaleo's lawyers said his client told the jury that he attempted to get off Garner as quick as he could. Again, look at the video. At least 16 seconds passed between the time Eric Garner hits the pavement and the when officer removed both his chokehold and his hold on Garner's head.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Randi Kaye reporting. Randi, thank you for that. Let me go straight to Attorney Midwin Charles hearing Randi's report and talking about seemingly discrepancies in what you see in the video and what the officer testified. The grand jury saw all of it. What do you make of it?

CHARLES: They did. I don't know. It's incredibly surprising. You can't look away or look at this video, first of all, and see a man lose his life and think that this was not extreme, that this was not excessive. I think we all know that police officers can use force when their lives are in danger. But when you look at that videotape it doesn't appear as though any of the officers on that tape were facing any imminent threat, that their lives were in danger. Eric Garner was not armed. Eric Garner never made a move to harm any of the police officers, so that's what makes this all the more difficult to understand.

HARLOW: What some would say and I would like David to respond to this being a former police officer. "A," would you seeing what you've seen and, again, we have not heard the grand jury testimony, it's not public.

KLINGER: Right.

HARLOW: but would you keep this Officer Pantaleo on your force and also did you read some of his actions as resisting arrest? Because he did not put his hands behind his back and say, okay, arrest me.

KLINGER: Right. I think that your previous guest made one slip and that is that police officers are permitted to use force to overcome resistance less than deadly force. I think that's an important thing. So now the question becomes what is going on --

CHARLES: But it must be reasonable.

KLINGER: Oh, absolutely.

CHARLES: It must be reasonable.

KLINGER: Yes. But I wanted everyone to understand that police officers are allowed to use force even if there is a less-than-deadly threat against them. I think that's important. And so the question then becomes, was this reasonable? And trying to understand what goes on when someone has a physical crisis in terms of what leads someone to die, you need to get someone who is a pathologist, someone who's an m.d. that really understands this. But what we do know in law enforcement is that unfortunately in scuffles all across the country with all sorts of different types of force, less than lethal, i.e., non-firearm suspects sometimes die and it's always awful and it's always tragic because it's always unintended and getting to your question, should he stay on the force? I haven't read the grand jury testimony. I haven't interviewed everyone and I think there needs to be a thorough investigation internally so NYPD can make their decision because one of the things that goes on is NYPD has policy. If he violated policy that's separate from the law.

HARLOW: So, we know Bill Bratton a commissioner at the NYPD is investigating, the Justice Department is investigating but the public probably never see what the grand jury saw. Rashid, what is your take on this in terms of where that line is in terms of being excessive?

SALAAM: Well, let's look at this situation and let's look at the technique and let's talk about the physical part of that confrontation. First of all, the technique that that officer was -- should have been trying to apply is called the rear neck restraint. One of the components of applying the rear neck restraint is the person or the officer applying it, you have to -- you must be or should be the equal size or taller than the individual.

HARLOW: And he's not.

SALAAM: To properly apply that, because if you properly apply it you are basically protecting the person's windpipe and you're putting the pressure on the side of the neck to the carotid artery and if you apply it properly then this person is going to lose consciousness within eight to ten seconds and then that person's body weight falls upon you. Then there's a follow-up technique where you're supposed to fall back, take this person down to the -- to the ground and then at that point you're able to restrain them. But let me back up, first of all, you're taught in what -- what should be going on that makes it necessary for you to apply the rear neck restraint. It is applied to a combative person.

HARLOW: Yes.

SALAAM: There wasn't a combat -- there was no combat going on right there. HARLOW: That's an important point. Sorry to interrupt, but I do want

to bring the councilman in to get his take on this, Councilman Jumaane Williams joins us now. Can you respond to what we just heard from Rashid because there are some pretty stunning statistics that I want to put up here for you coming from the civilian complaint review board for the NYPD, it received 219 chokehold complaints between July, 2013 and the end of June of this year. That's eight out of every 100 complaints filed against the NYPD. What does this tell you?

JUMAANE WILLIAMS, NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMAN: Well, just remember that the chokehold was banned in the police force about 20 years now, so it's just amazing that still those complaints are coming. I think we call it here in New York City seatbelt hold which is what he was trying to apply. That quickly turned into a chokehold. But what I get afraid of doing sometimes is we find a way to go to every minutia of these cases to find a way to make it okay. But there is seems to be a pattern whether it's from LA to New York City of unarmed black, usually men dying. And each case seems to get worse than the other.

When Ramali Graham, when the police kicked in his house and followed him to his bathroom and shot him unarmed in front of his grandmother and his six-year-old brother, I was like, wow, we got one here. There's no way you can get past this. And that we didn't get an indictment here. And then I saw this video from beginning to end in its entirety in a much bigger frame than we have ever seen and the cameras that they want to put on now and still you get no indictment. And there's nothing there that anyone can say was -- should have been summary execution.

HARLOW: So, Councilman, I'm glad you brought up that video, we're going to show it to our viewers in full, on the full four minutes, so they have attempt to see it. Also Michael Bell, who's with us as well from Wisconsin. We'll going to get it from him and his personal experience of the father losing a child in the next break. I do want to play you this video shot by another bystander it shows what went on in the moments after the deadly struggle between Garner and police. We've enhanced the audio, we have subtitled it, so you can hear the confusion and what the crowds that are gathering were saying. We'll going to play that for you in full. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back, I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. I'm going to show you a video now shot by a bystander that shows New York City police reacting after Eric Garner was taken down. I want to warn you the videos we're about to show you are very disturbing. They show a man in the last moments of his life but they're also very important. And just so you know what you're seeing there will be a clock running in the top left corner that is the time from when the tape started to roll so you know how long it went on. Look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Where is the ambulance?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Please call an ambulance. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Where is the ambulance?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Back up! Back up!

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Ma'am, can you back up please? We're trying to give him some air. We're going to get him an ambulance, all right?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: You need backup, you all get him on the floor, you got him on the floor and you're talking about backup. You hear this? Now they're trying to get him an ambulance after they harassed him, slammed him down, NYPD, understand? This is going viral right here. It's going viral right here. NYPD harassing people with no reason. He will do anything at all. Going viral. Now they want to step back, they want to try to get him an ambulance after being rob, throw him to the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right and the next clip this picks up as EMTs arrive and place Garner on a gurney. Again, let me warn you this video is disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(VIDEO PLAYING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Sir, EMS come on, we're trying to help you, right? We're trying to help you. Get in the stretcher, all right?

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Why nobody did the CPR?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I did nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Because he's breathing.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: He's breathing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Our panel has a lot of questions about that video. They weigh in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. We're back with our special panel, our special coverage on police power and race.

We just watched a video showing Eric Garner laying on the ground for minutes after a police chokehold was applied. Emergency responders appearing not to do much in those minutes to help Garner until they were finally able to move him onto a gurney. All four emergency responders were suspended without pay immediately after Garner's death. Since then, two of the medics were cleared. They returned to duty. Two technicians were temporarily reassigned. Let me go to Mike, a parent.

The perspective you have as a parent, who lost their child at the hands of police gunfire, when you watch that video, for minutes of him laying on the ground, what is your reaction?

LT. COL. MICHEL BELL, U.S. AIR FORCE, RETIRED & LOST SON TO POLICE SHOOTING: Well, first off, I didn't see a lot of empathy in the crowd. I don't think it's a black-and-white issue. I believe it's a blue issue. I think what your viewers don't understand is that immediately after Pantaleo went back to his precinct that the union attorneys met with him and started conversing with him on how he needs to frame the incident.

Our own experience here in Wisconsin, there was pro-police consultants that came into our area and briefed the police chief on how to discredit these type of videos. Essentially, they're trying to say this don't believe what you're saying listen to the great wizard behind the curtain. It is my understanding there's no had tech fix to a cultural and systemic issue.

HARLOW: You know, obviously, I wish that we could have Officer Pantaleo on to hear from him directly.

But since we don't, let me go to you David Klinger, a former police officer.

Looking at that video, you've got other officers there as well as EMTs, you heard people in the crowd saying where is the CPR, why wasn't CPR applied? We're told that he died not there but later at the hospital, so it's unclear how he was breathing at that point in time, but he wasn't responding. What should have been done by the EMTs or the officers that were there?

DAVID KLINGER, FORMER LOS ANGELES POLICE OFFICER: I wasn't on the scene and I'm not an EMT so I can't comment on that. But from a police perspective, one of the things I don't understand -- and I've talked to several colleagues around the country and they don't understand -- the typical situation with someone in a respiratory or type of distress is you get them seated. When you do a takedown and get somebody on their face, what you want to do is get the hand cuffs on and get them off their belly, on their side, and that creates a much better plane for breathing. Why that wasn't done, I have no idea.

But one of the things I think we have to understand is this was not just the one officer putting his arm around the individual. This appears to me to be to be a systemic failure of the officers in terms of how they together managed getting this individual into custody and then the aftermath of taking him into custody. That to me is the linchpin here.

HARLOW: Midwin Charles, do you agree with that point because it wasn't -- the focus is on Officer Pantaleo but it wasn't just him who was there taking him down. MIDWIN CHARLES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY & CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well,

the focus is everyone that you see on the video. And one of the things that I take away from that video, which is very disturbing to watch, is that everyone on that video is a professional. They are all trained. They are all skilled. They are all experienced. So to see how they handled this situation as though they were -- this was the first day on the job is surprising. I think we have to ask ourselves, as Americans, is this what we want, is this what we expect from police officers and emergency response people.

HARLOW: All right. So we have heard that New York City, we know, is retraining all of their officers.

As a New York City council member, what do you want to see changed in the training as it pertains to a situation like this?

JUMAANE D. WILLIAMS: COUNCIL MEMBER, NEW YORK CITY: Well, one, I also want to say we have no proof he was actually selling cigarettes. We've taken that as a fact.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: In the past he had been -- he had done that --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HARLOW: -- in the past. And you are correct. They suspected that he was doing it at the time.

WILLIAMS: So we don't even know if the stop was legal at the beginning because there's no paperwork to back it up.

HARLOW: What do you want to change in the training?

WILLIAMS: The training, which is nothing to sneeze at, but we need to see things that are going to happen today, so the training, one, I think they already know you shouldn't use a chokehold. And I think they know they shouldn't be sitting on people's heads. So hopefully, throughout this training, they will get more training I guess on how to respond to these issues. I also think they know and that they don't pose a danger to themselves or the other officer or anyone around them. They should wait for somebody else who has command and control of the scene. They didn't do that. I think the mechanisms are there. What I'd like to see today is accountability. Most people want to see accountability, that when an officer does something like this wrong there's accountability.

HARLOW: Rashid, to you as a former police officer, do you agree with what the councilman said? And seeing from what you saw, do you think Eric Garner was breathing on the ground?

RASHID ABDUL-SALAAM, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR & FORMER POLICE OFFICER: Actually, what you can see was there was no urgent care for Mr. Garner. And no one was recognizing his humanity. And you have -- there was a lack of sympathy, empathy. What I saw, just a slither of apathy in how they were dealing with this man. As the previous guest said, every one of those people were professionals. And, no, police officers aren't EMTs but all of them have basic emergency medical training to deal with breathing and pulmonary procedures to make sure that the airway is clear, someone's breathing and that their heart is beating. So they have the training to where they could have dealt with that situation. They didn't even see it fit to see the decency and the humanity in Mr. Garner to remove the handcuffs from the man at that point. It's just --

(CROSSTALK)

ABDUL-SALAAM: -- it's just -- it's inexcusable to me.

HARLOW: All right. Stay with me, the entire panel.

We'll talk about the bigger issue here, and that is the lack of trust growing in communities across America between police departments and community members.

Also, police and their job, to protect and to serve. Where do we go from here? How can things get better? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back. I'm Poppy Harlow, in New York.

Joining us again our panel with this special coverage on police, power and race. People are angry after Ferguson, Missouri; New York City; Cleveland. How do we police the police? How do we bridge the gap between police officers and the people they serve and protect?

Let me go straight to Rashid. He's a former police officer now, also a security specialist.

Basic question, but I think so important for moving forward, what is the single most important thing to do to improve relations between police and civilians?

ABDUL-SALAAM: Community involvement from the perspective of the community's identifying, preparing, and mentoring applicants from our communities to go into the police department academies, to get involved to serve our communities. For the departments, the in- service training. I would like to see the federal government regulate, standardize training to the extent that these departments would have to be in compliance to be accredited if they're receiving any type of federal assistance with those departments so that we could have the standardized training throughout the nation similar to that -- what the federal -- the federal law enforcement departments are required to do.

HARLOW: So, one thing that has been talked about a lot, importantly so, I think, is these body cameras. Officers wearing body cameras. Some say that they are not really necessarily the solution, right? Because the officers can put them on and decide when to turn them on or not.

But I want to listen to what Eric Garner's daughter said about this. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERICA GARNER, DAUGHTER OF ERIC GARNER: My dad died on national TV on a camera. He still didn't get justice. So what's justice going to do with these body cameras but promote more killing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Councilman, your reaction to that? I mean, we've seen when body cameras have really helped, but she has a point.

WILLIAMS: The only thing we would have seen with a body cam was less of what we saw now and probably less information.

HARLOW: Why? These other videos would still come out.

WILLIAMS: But we saw a wide array of what was going on. The body cameras I think are very specific to what they're showing and I'm not sure we would have got all the information we got here.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: But do you think the body cameras are a good approach?

WILLIAMS: As part of a broader perspective, yes. The thing with police we cannot forget about too often we have to deal with the police culture, period, but too often we are sending police in black and Brown neighborhoods to do a job a lot of people have to do. I say that because these communities -- and I say because of race have been neglected on many levels generationally. Always we hear the communities want the police, they ask for police. But they also ask for better housing, they also ask for more jobs and they ask for their school system not to be crumbling and they ask for their streets to be cleaned. If we can't hear those cries, why do we always hear the cries of the police? If we don't fix those other things and we only send police to fix them, we're setting ourselves up for more failure.

HARLOW: Michael Bell, in Wisconsin, let me go to you.

After you lost your son to police gunfire, you worked to change the law and the law changed now. Wisconsin is the first state in the nation to mandate at a legislative level that police-related deaths be reviewed by an outside agency. Can you talk to me about the tangible effects so far, what you've seen?

BELL: We had three parts to our bill. We got part two passed, which is external investigation of a police-involved death. I think the nation needs to look at Wisconsin. We're going to go back and try to get those other two parts of our bill. But, you know, the day that Governor Walker signed our bill, our family and a number of other families who had lost children to police officers walked in, and there were the directors of five police unions standing and shaking our hands and we were shaking our hands back. We worked with them. Police need to be a part of the solution. There are great cops out there but they're the quiet majority right now. Again, there's no tech fix to a systematic or cultural issue. The camera is going to help but there are other things. We'll release it shortly in an article on "Politico" article coming out very soon and we'll share with the nation what we learned over the last ten years here in Wisconsin.

HARLOW: All right, Michael.

David, let me get to you here.

As a former police officer, do you think there needs to be a change on a federal level on how police-related deaths are investigated?

KLINGER: Not necessarily. The rule for the federal government should be to start collecting data on situations where police officers kill people, situations where police officers shoot people who survive and situations where police officers discharge their firearms and miss. That's something that at the federal level the feds can do a very good job at.

What I think needs to happen and this is related to what others have talked about in terms of a cultural shift is get police officers to think differently in terms of how it is that they approach situations. In terms of how it is that they interact with people. And without getting into the weeds of the theory, to make a very long story short there's efforts afoot to try to get police officers to think more safely. Not just for their own safety but for the safety of the citizens that they're dealing with and if officers approach situations with that at the forefront of their mind, many of these situations that spin out of control won't spin out of control.

HARLOW: That coming from a former police officer.

Midwin, your take, final word on this. How do we rebuild respect in a relationship which in many cities right now is broken?

CHARLES: Well, I think there's several ways that we can do that. One is we should have police forces that reflect the communities that they are policing, so recruitment is one.

HARLOW: Do you mean more -- do you mean in terms of race?

CHARLES: Of course. Absolutely. There should be more people that are reflective of the community that they're policing. Because a lot of these police officers come from communities that are not like the communities that they're policing so there's a bit of a disconnect in terms of understanding that community. And so once you have that sort of approach at the onset, it tends to build up a wall -- a barrier, rather, a wall, where the two communities, you know, police officers and the community don't get along. So that's one.

And two is we need to see more, a sort of a push from leadership, of police and mayor and city officials, in making sure that the communities come together. In other words, they're great cops. We're not saying that all police officers are bad. There are excellent, wonderful cops --

HARLOW: There are.

-- who do their jobs and risk their lives every single day. They should step forward. They should be at the forefront.

HARLOW: Thank you to all our panelists. I appreciate it so very much.

Coming up next, President Obama making a surprise visit today to the hospital for treatment. We're going to talk about it with our Sanjay Gupta, next.

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HARLOW: A quick update now on President Obama. He made a brief trip to the hospital this afternoon. The White House motorcade headed to Walter Reed Medical Center where there were diagnostic tests done. A White House spokesman revealed the president had been complaining of a sore throat. After a really quick 28-minute visit, the president's physician blamed the symptoms on acid reflux.

Chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me by phone.

Sanjay, what do you think this means? How serious is acid reflux?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, acid reflux, in and of itself, is something that can be pretty easily treated. A lot of times, it may just be dietary changes. Sometimes you want to give medicines to reduce the amount of acid in the stomach. You know, the president has a history of smoking in the past. We are told he has quit but that can be a risk factor as well. So if he is still smoking at all, he would be told to absolutely stop, because that could be worsening acid reflux. But it can be controlled.

It sounds like, at the White House itself, they brought in an "ears, nose and throat" doctor into the White House and they placed a scope down the mouth and looking at the back of the throat to see what was causing his discomfort. Typically, you just do that by sort of anestheticizing the back of the throat, putting an aesthetic spray in the back of the throat, sometimes a sedation as well. We don't know what he got. Based on what they found there, they were concerned enough to go ahead and get a CAT scan as well.

HARLOW: Right.

GUPTA: They want it went an emergent CAT scan but did order it.

HARLOW: And, Sanjay, isn't that unusual, to get a ct scan for something like this, or is this just an abundance of caution because this is the president?

GUPTA: I think it's the latter, Poppy. What I would say. Typically, if somebody had -- one of my patients, if you're pretty certain it's acid reflux, you would give medicines for acid reflux and see if it goes away. If it didn't go away, the symptoms did not go away, then, you know, that would prompt a scan. But it sounds like he was both diagnosed and then further evaluated with this CAT scan the same day. And it could be because we're talking about the president of the United States.

HARLOW: Right.

GUPTA: You get a CAT scan out of an abundance of caution to make sure this isn't something else, cancer or something else causing difficulty with swallowing. So that's typically why it's performed.

HARLOW: All right. Sanjay, thank you. We know you're going to stay on top of this, as will we at CNN, this evening and bring you more as we have it. Appreciate it.

Stay with us on CNN. Big lineup, 7:00 eastern, the CNN special report, "Deadly High: How Synthetic Drugs are Killing Kids," and catch three episodes of "Somebody's Got to Do It," 8:00 eastern right here on CNN.

I'm Poppy Harlow. Thank you for joining me this evening.

"SMERCONISH" begins after a quick break.

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