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Baltimore Reels after Looting, Violence; Volunteers to Clean Up Aftermath; Baltimore Mall Closes Out of Fear of Riots. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired April 28, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:29:41] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I would say -- if they're guilty of that, I would say, yes, they are.

FARAJII MUHAMMAD, RADIO HOST: Yes because the fact is out of all of this stuff that's happened, we're not seeing young people killing one another. We're seeing greater unity between The Bloods and the Crips, between various communities. Let me just say this --

COSTELLO: I talked to more than one person who bring in the Bloods and the Crips and congratulate them for the way they acted. But these are violent criminal gangs.

MUHAMMAD: At the root. At the root -- at the very --

COSTELLO: You really want them part of the movement?

MUHAMMAD: Absolutely. Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Really?

MUHAMMAD: Because all they have to do is be exposed to some great guidance. All they have to do is be exposed to those brothers and sisters that are going to take that same energy -- if you have the energy to destroy, you have the energy to restore and to build.

And so that's what we're doing. That's the work we're doing on the ground level. That's why they're part of it. These are young men who have the strength to stand up and not be afraid. And what we saw last night, there was this talk about credible source and all of those things that they're going to take out law enforcement. Those brothers and the Bloods, the Crips, the BTS -- they were right there on the front line with us trying to keep the peace in the neighborhood.

COSTELLO: So who are the people? I mean there is Security Square Mall shut down because there's some credible threats there. They can't take a chance on that. Who are those people that is forcing that to happen? I assume they're young people just like the young people who shut down Mondawmin Mall who were inspired by this movie Purge which is about a day of anarchy granted to the citizens each day and supposedly they were acting that out.

MUHAMMAD: Sure, you know. And I'm familiar with the movie. I don't know all the time that -- here's the other part about this that young people today just need to understand that this is not a movement. This is real life. You have the National Guard out here. You got all of these resources, military-wise coming into the city.

At this point we need to make sure that young people are not seeing it because I don't want to see the loss of life when it comes to young life. And I'm sure that there is some anger there. There's years of anger. This just didn't happen overnight. It certainly didn't happen over the past ten days.

So there's years of feeling of oppression that's caught up in there -- it exploded in that ugly way but at the same time this is part of our movement. This is the moment. We need this moment because you need a dark period before you can get to the light.

But what we're seeing at the end of the day, Carol, is that we're going to see an emerging crisis. Baltimore will never be the same. I hope that's the way it is. I'm hopeful and I see young people are going to be really on the forefront now of justice and social change in the city.

So as ugly as this is, I'm going to accept it, we're going to move from it but we're going to most importantly grow from it.

COSTELLO: The word peace in your organization, P-E-A-C-E, right?

MUHAMMAD: Yes, we bring in peace to the communities left in pieces.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much.

MUHAMMAD: Carol -- thank you so much for your time.

COSTELLO: Appreciate it. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:36:15] COSTELLO: New this morning, 500 National Guard members are here in Baltimore and hundreds more are on their way. Their mission: to keep the peace and prevent a flare-up of the city's worst rioting in decade.

Also this morning, a new measure of the chaos: police say the violence and rioting that spilled into the overnight hours has led to almost 200 arrests. At last check 144 vehicles were torched and left to burn on Baltimore streets and some 15 buildings burned, that includes businesses and a church and of course that old folks home, that senior citizens' home that was under construction.

At least 15 police officers have been injured, many by rocks and other debris that was thrown. At least six of the injuries are described as serious.

Some streets in Baltimore look like a war zone still this morning. But after a night of riots, fires and looting more than 2,000 Facebook users vowing to hit the streets and clean up the aftermath. CNN's Athena Jones joins me now with that side of the story. Good morning, Athena. ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning -- Carol. That's

right. There was an organized cleanup effort organized over Facebook that was set to start, we believe, around 10:00 a.m. But when we came over here to one of the hardest hit intersections here in West Baltimore, people -- we saw people who had been out cleaning already since 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning -- all ages, young and old, different races.

We saw a woman who had her five-year-old grandson with her and she said she wanted to show him what he should do, train him up in the way that he should go so he can be a good example. She said she was leading by example.

I can show you we're outside the burnt out CVS here. You can see it here. We've seen young children and older folks sweeping up since early this morning. And I want to play for you a bit of two interviews we did with two people who have been out here cleaning up. One young woman talked about why it was important to come out. That's followed by a 15-year-old boy who also talked about what this meant to him to help out.

Go ahead and play that sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAQUICHA HARPER, BALTIMORE RESIDENT: I am a resident of this area. I think we owe it to ourselves to do better and to be more, you know. And so I said I'm going to get out here and I'm going to lead by example.

SULAIMAN ABDUL-AZIZ, BALTIMORE RESIDENT: I felt disappointed because a lot of that could have been -- it could have been avoided if people would have started thinking before they would have done all that stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And so that's the kind of thing we've been hearing from the folks who have come out to help out, to clean up. The young woman that we just played that sound bite from, she talked about how important this CVS/Pharmacy was. The mayor echoed those remarks as well saying that they worked hard to get CVS to invest in this neighborhood, to come and be on this street corner. This is a CVS that not only provides usual drugstore stuff but also groceries for some people. It's a store that's very important to the community. So these people that we've been speaking to say it's heartbreaking to see it destroyed in this way.

But Carol, this is the flip side of last night. This is the positive news coming out of a very negative night last night. You have members of the community eager to come out and help out -- people as I mentioned of all ages and a lot of children we've seen as well who want to be a part of delivering a positive message, a message of pride about the city of Baltimore -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones, reporting live for us this morning -- thank you so much. It's nice to see those young people out cleaning up after what went down last night.

[10:39:50] One of the most shocking things I think for all of us is how young some of these rioters were especially at Mondawmin Mall -- that's where the protests began. And those kids were throwing rocks and concrete blocks at police and breaking out police car windows. Some of them looked to be about 12 or 13 years old. Many of them had their faces covered. Other kids, of course, were older.

Take a look at this video that's gone viral. This is a mother who discovers her kid is right in the middle of the trouble and as you can see she's not happy. She's chasing him off the streets and probably telling him to go home. You can imagine that mother's frustration but she made her kid leave, no doubt about that.

LZ Granderson joins us now to talk more about what happened in Baltimore last night. Welcome LZ.

As you watch this video of this mother chasing her son off the streets, what goes through your mind?

LZ GRANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Mother of the year. That's what goes through my mind. I do not advocate generally- speaking, you know, beating the crap out of your kids as a form of discipline, but in that situation she very well could have saved her son's life. So to that mother and mothers and fathers like that -- that's what goes through my mind.

COSTELLO: That's right. She wanted to find out where her kid was. She went out and she found him and she took care of business, right?

Of course, many other parents did not do that.

GRANDERSON: I thought that might have been my mama for a second. I thought that was my mama for a second. She might have done that.

COSTELLO: Yes, my mother would have done the same thing. I know.

Let's go back to these protests at Mondawmin Mall. That's the most shocking part about this to me because some of these kids that threw rocks at police looked to be what -- 13 years old. Supposedly were inspired by this movie called "The Purge" and the movie is about like a day of anarchy that's granted to citizens to go out and do whatever they want. But it had to be more than that that caused these kids to act in this violent way.

GRANDERSON: There are two different conversations that we need to be having at this moment or at the very least two different ones. The peaceful protesters who are very concerned about decades and decades of police brutality from the Baltimore police department -- that's one stream of conversation. And then there's what do you do about rioter and looters who don't seem to be politically motivated, who look just to be opportunistic trouble makers and sometimes misguided kids who are let out of school, had nothing else to do and saw this group sort of behaving badly and decided to join in for whatever reason. Those are two different conversations that sort of came together on our cameras but shouldn't be handled together because they really aren't connected.

COSTELLO: Look, I would hope that not many 13 and 14 year olds across this country would say hey what a great idea. Let's go throw concrete blocks at police. What's going on there?

GRANDERSON: I think if you really take a look at some of the trends that's been happening on social media with fights that are being happening and young people seeming to record it. There was a knockout game that we talked about maybe a couple years ago with young people being involved and that being recorded. So there is this element in terms of using social media to sort of celebrate, you know, bad behavior among young people.

With that being said, what happened in Baltimore isn't solely about one movie. It's not about hip-hop. It's about a long -- decade's long police brutality relationship in terms of minority in that particular community.

You know, right over at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, there's an exhibit by Jacob Lawrence called "The Migration". And even from the 1940s, the 1940s, you have young black men, Jacob Lawrence was 23 years old at the time, painting images of police brutality from the 1940s. You go to the 1970s with Richard Pryor and Marvin Gaye talking about police brutality.

Now we're looking at the Oscars. There they are John Legend and Common on stage talking about "Glory", one day when it comes. We've been having this conversation much longer than when a movie was produced.

COSTELLO: And you know what we're really good at? We're good at talking about it, but we're not really good at finding real solutions. Because we can figure out how to control the rioters, right, but we can't figure how to fix the underlying problems like lack of education, poverty, no jobs, no hope.

Because if you go into some of these communities in the city of Baltimore and you stand on a corner, you can just feel the hopelessness and that's not a police problem, that's a deep problem that we all need to solve.

GRANDERSON: Absolutely. You know, Dr. King talked about one of the biggest dangers in terms of this equality that we're all seeking is apathy, you know, particularly at that time. I think it was 1963, he wrote about the moderate whites and how there's like a level of apathy that you're more interested in keeping things calm and peaceful than maybe getting aggravated and agitated to actually change things to have what we consider true peace which is a real balance and equality that everyone feels that they're participating in the larger society.

[10:45:00] We've had this apathy now for a long time. And you talked about, you know, the lack of education and employment and opportunity. But there's also a real bad criminal justice system that we have been sitting on top of and not really aggressively attacking. It started to really fester to the point in which states can no longer fund the sort of incarceration rates they've been doing. But also we're just missing so many men who could be contributing positively to society if we just approached criminal justice in a much more equitable and intelligent way.

So hopefully, hopefully, this begins more of that conversation about what do we do about our unjust criminal justice system, in addition to the poverty, in addition to the education and, of course, the sense of apathy.

COSTELLO: I don't know. Maybe this time will do it. Who knows?

LZ Granderson -- thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

GRANDERSON: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A state of emergency remains in place in the city of Baltimore. The National Guard has been called in. At least 500 National Guardsmen now helping Baltimore city police in every way they can. You can see them actually standing behind me. Some of them are showing their weapons. Some are not. They'll be ready to serve in any capacity that the city wishes.

We also have word that Security Square Mall has been shutdown because of some kind of threat. We're not exactly sure what it was but Security Square Mall in West Baltimore has been closed down and there are some federal offices near Security Square Mall that house Medicare and Medicaid. Those federal employees have been sent home for the day.

[10:50:02] Again, we're not clear on what the exact threat was but no one is taking any chances in the city of Baltimore in light of what went down last night.

I want to talk about Baltimore in kind of a positive way. I know that's difficult to do the day after, you know, 15 structures were burned down, 200 people were placed under arrest, 15 police officers were injured by violent rioters.

But I do want to talk about the perception that the nation has of Baltimore because I'm sure that business owners and the tourism industry here in the city of Baltimore are concerned about that.

With me now is Jack Tomalis. He's the associate publisher of "Where Magazine". Thank you so much for being with me -- Jack.

JACK TOMALIS, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, "WHERE MAGAZINE": My pleasure -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So there's a state of emergency in Baltimore City.

TOMALIS: Yes.

COSTELLO: You're a guy in charge of selling the city. How does that make you feel?

TOMALIS: It's a little harrowing right now as far as the tourism is concerned especially with a lot of the small businesses that are involved in the tourism industry here in Baltimore. We've got a lot of things that are really unique in this city that you're not going to find anywhere else and they are dependent upon tourists and people coming in.

We have such a rich culture of history and arts, sports, and just overall involvement in the city. It's kind of difficult to see what's happening in terms of the few people who are walking around in the harbor.

COSTELLO: It must be very difficult because the Orioles game was canceled last night. And the Orioles game scheduled for tonight might be moved to Washington for safety's sake and play where the Nationals play.

TOMALIS: Right. But these are actually short-term issues that we're going to be dealing with as far as tourism is concerned. In the long-term, we still have the rich group of things that people can do around this city.

I mean Orioles are great -- I love the Orioles. I'm a big fan. Ravens -- the same way. But we also have things like the American Visionary Art Museum which is right around the harbor and we have things that bring people in outside of those two events. So over the next two or three days, we may see some of that shortages of people coming into town but over the long-term I think we're going to be ok.

COSTELLO: Doesn't it frustrate you though when violent acts occur because it feeds into this perception of Baltimore that it's a city full of crime and we're familiar with shows like "The Wire" and Baltimore like homicide --

TOMALIS: Right.

COSTELLO: What is that show called?

TOMALIS: "Homicide Life on the Streets".

COSTELLO: "Homicide Life on the Streets".

TOMALIS: Right.

COSTELLO: Right. So you're well aware of that and the perception that gives to the nation about what Baltimore is about.

TOMALIS: right. But we also have other things that are filmed here in Baltimore like "House of Cards" and "Beat" (ph) that were filmed here in Baltimore but they actually depict things that happen in the States.

COSTELLO: I know but you're like getting past that and then something like that happens last night.

TOMALIS: Yes. And unfortunately a lot of it is kind of the perception of what the city is with "The Wire" and the popularity of that TV show and the eternalness of that show on things like Netflix and home video and things like that. But if you get out of those neighborhoods where those TV shows take place, or supposedly take place, and you get into areas like Fell's Point in Canton and Federal Hill in Mt. Vernon, you're seeing a completely different part of Baltimore, you know.

We have such history here with the home of the Continental Navy for example over at Fells Point, we have the Star-Spangled Banner over at Fort McHenry. Those were all --

COSTELLO: One of my favorite places.

TOMALIS: Yes. And it's gorgeous. And if people go out and they see these different parts of the city, they understand that Baltimore is more than what you just saw last night or what you saw on Saturday. It's really a vibrant city that does support its own.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for being with me. I appreciate it.

TOMALIS: My pleasure -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I must say this is a particularly beautiful time of year in the city of Baltimore. The cherry blossoms are in bloom. The (inaudible) are bright -- it's just beautiful so, I don't know. I hope Baltimore really does turn a corner. I just think it's important to point out how great this city really is.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:55:22] MAYOR STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE (D), BALTIMORE: And I also spoke to someone here who knows how hard we fought to get a CVS in this neighborhood and to destroy it when this is the only place so many people have to pick up their prescriptions. They do health checks here.

We just announced a major health initiative with the CVS and to take that away from our community. We know -- everybody knows we have a city with great needs and there are many that are struggling. What happened last night made sure that more people are struggling and that more people have needs and those needs are going to go unmet because of what was destroyed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you move as quickly as you should have?

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: I understand that from the outside you don't know -- you can't see everything that I see. You don't know all of the different moving pieces. I know that in order for me to respond, I have to do the work. While I have an obligation as the chief spokesperson, I also have an obligation as chief executive and that work needed to be done.

We worked very swiftly. It's a very delicate balancing act when we have to make sure that we're managing but not increasing and escalating the problem. And you know, I think there will be a time to talk about all of the different things that were going on that we were responding to but at the end of the day it is very important that we respond to the situation as it was on the ground.

There's always going to be armchair quarterbacks that have never sat in my seat that see things differently. But this isn't the first emergency that I've had to deal with. I know that you have to put in the work and manage the crisis on the ground and that's what we're doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Of course, that's the mayor of Baltimore city defending herself after many critics say that she didn't handle things so well and that's why really the riots broke out last night and why a state of emergency is in place today and why the National Guard has been called out. There are 500 National Guardsmen here right now. 1,500 -- there 5,000 law enforcement officers from across the state converging on the city of Baltimore to make sure rioting doesn't happen again this morning.

The ATF has been called in because 15 structures were set on fire. Those police officers, six of whom were seriously injured, remain in the hospital this morning. We're going to continue to cover this throughout the day on CNN.

But I would like to thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND BOLDUAN" after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: You see right there -