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Uneasy Peace in Baltimore. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 29, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:02] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: She's so awesome.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, NEW DAY: All right. So now they're putting out flash bangs right now.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Black lives matter.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At this point, it's somewhat of a standoff in terms of those who are still out here not wanting to go home, at least not yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please, please, can you all -- can you all go home? You all see what's about to go on.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My understanding is, is you've got some of the same organizers now going back in these communities to try to clean up in the aftermath of a handful of criminals and thugs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not the right word to call our children thugs.

TOYA GRAHAM, YELLED AT SON DURING RIOT: That's my only son. And at the end of the day I don't want him to be a Freddie Gray.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And good morning, everyone. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm live in Baltimore. And here in the city that curfew has kicked in. An uneasy peace taking hold.

Nearly an hour after that 10:00 p.m. curfew, police fire smoke canisters and pepper bullets and chase away a mostly peaceful crowd. A mere 10 people placed under arrest. That's compared to more than 200 the night before.

The "Baltimore Sun" calling the mood an "unsettled peace." The unrest here inspires protests at other American communities from coast to coast. And in the middle, Ferguson, Missouri. Hundreds gather under the watchful eye of police. It was here last summer that the killing of an unarmed teenager ignited nationwide anger, and debate over police treatment of African-American men. Now the big difference between Monday night and last night here in

Baltimore was self-policing. I was there at President and North Avenue. I was watching clergy and community members linking arms, creating this human barrier between police and the protesters. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody, this is a peaceful march. Everyone, keep it that way.

COSTELLO: What are you guys protesting?

REV. CHARLES NEAL, PASTOR: We realize there is a curfew at 10:00, we want to keep some distance between the people and the police officers. We want to keep this rally peaceful. That's what we want. We don't want anything else. And we've been doing a great job all day long.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want justice for all the future Freddie Grays out here. We can't riot and we can't loot. And that's (INAUDIBLE). I'm just saying it's not going to change anything. It's not going to change anything. It's misguided frustration is what it is. That's what it is. We need to get to the root of the problem, and now all eyes on Baltimore City, now they're watching us, I'm sorry it had to take a tragic negative event to get our eyes on Baltimore City. But now they're watching, let's give them something good to look at.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's disperse peacefully. We can do this. I know we can. I have faith in my Baltimore. I know my people are going to show them. We're going to show the world what kind of city we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And as you can see those community leaders and other people who just lived in that neighborhood linked arms and they pushed people back until they went home. They took a stand and it worked because there's not much violence reported in that particular area of Baltimore.

Also in another part of town people rolled up their sleeves to clean up the wreckage of the fires and the looting.

CNN's Athena Jones is in another part of Baltimore with more on that.

Good morning, Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. That's right. We're in Gilmore Homes. This is a housing project where Freddie Gray was arrested several weeks ago now. But just a short while ago, not too far from here, we were in that intersection where so much has gone down over the last couple of nights and it looks dramatically different today than it did in the immediate aftermath of Monday's violence.

The CVS that was looted and burned out has now finally been boarded up. That wasn't the case this time yesterday. Also the debris that was littering the streets is almost all gone. We saw the cleanup efforts yesterday. Dump trucks having to come several times to take away, to haul away trash bags filled with the debris there. So the community really stepping up to try to clean up the city. One woman telling us, you know, we're embarrassed by what happened Monday night. We can do better than that.

And we want to make sure that we do do better than that. But things really are returning -- at least looking like they're returning to normal. At that same intersection which was shut down this time yesterday, we saw school buses go by. Baltimore city public schools are now reopened. The kids are back in school. They're having -- we're told principals and teachers put together activities that will help the kids talk about and learn about -- learn from, I should say, the events of the last couple of days especially Monday. There are also counselors on hand.

COSTELLO: All right.

JONES: So things are beginning to get back to normal now.

COSTELLO: Athena. Athena -- all right. I'm sorry to interrupt you with a great part of that story from Baltimore. Hillary Clinton is talking about the violence that took place here earlier this week. Let's listen.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Shot in a park in Cleveland, Ohio. Unarmed and just 12 years old. Eric Garner, choked to death after being stopped for selling cigarettes on the streets of our city. And now Freddie Gray. His spine nearly severed while in police custody.

Not only as a mother and a grandmother but as a citizen, a human being, my heart breaks for these young men and their families. We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America. There is --

(APPLAUSE)

There is some profoundly wrong when African-American men are still far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes, and sentenced to longer prison terms than are meted out to their white counterparts. There is something wrong when a third of all black men face the prospect of prison during their lifetimes.

And an estimated 1.5 million black men are, quote, "missing," from their families and communities because of incarceration and premature death. There is something wrong when more than one out of every three young black men in Baltimore cannot find a job. There is something wrong when trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve breaks down as far as it has in many of our communities.

We have allowed our criminal justice system to get out of balance. And these recent tragedies should galvanize us to come together as a nation to find our balance again. We should begin by heeding the pleas of Freddie Gray's family for peace and unity echoing the families of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and others in the past years.

Those who are instigating further violence in Baltimore are disrespecting the Gray family and the entire community. They are compounding the tragedy of Freddie Gray's death and setting back the cause of justice. So the violence has to stop. But more broadly, let's remember that everyone in every community benefits when there is respect for the law and when everyone in every community is respected by the law.

(APPLAUSE)

That is what we have to work towards in Baltimore and across our country. We must urgently begin to rebuild the bonds of trust and respect among Americans. Between police and citizens, yes, but also across society. Restoring trust in our politics, our press, our markets. Between and among neighbors and even people with whom we disagree politically.

This is so fundamental to who we are as a nation and everything we want to achieve together. It truly is about how we treat each other and what we value. Making it possible for every American to reach his or her god given potential regardless of who you are, where you were born, or who you love.

The inequities that persist in our justice system undermine this shared vision of what America can be and should be. I learned this firsthand as a young attorney just out of law school. At one of those law schools that will remain nameless here at Columbia.

(LAUGHTER)

One of my earliest jobs for the Children's Defense Fund, which David had mentioned I was so fortunate to work with Marian Wright Edelman as a young lawyer and then serving on the board of the Children's Defense Fund, studying the problem then of youth, teenagers, sometimes preteens incarcerated in adult jails.

[10:10:21] Then as director of the University of Arkansas School of Law's Legal Aid Clinic, I advocated on behalf of prison inmates and poor families. I saw repeatedly how our legal system can be and all too often is stacked against those who have the least power, who are the most vulnerable. I saw how families could be and were torn apart by excessive incarceration. I saw the toll on children growing up in homes shattered by poverty and prison.

So unfortunately I know these are not new challenges by any means. In fact, they have become even more complex and urgent over time and today they demand fresh thinking and bold action from all of us.

Today there seems to be a growing bipartisan movement for commonsense reforms in our criminal justice system. Senators as disparate on the political spectrum as Cory Booker and Rand Paul and Dick Durbin and Mike Lee are reaching across the aisle to find ways to work together.

It is rare to see Democrats and Republicans agree on anything today but we're beginning to agree on this. We need to restore balance to our criminal justice system. Now of course --

(APPLAUSE)

It is not enough just to agree and give speeches about it. We actually have to work together to get the job done. We need to deliver real reforms that can be felt on our streets, in our courthouses, and our jails and prisons, in communities too long neglected.

Let me touch on two areas in particular where I believe we need to push for more progress. First, we need smart strategies to fight crime and help restore trust between law enforcement and our communities especially communities of color.

There's as lot of good work to build on. Across the country, there are so many police officers out there every day inspiring trust and confidence, honorably doing their duty, putting themselves on the line to save lives. There are police departments deploying creative and effective strategies --

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to step away from this. This is Hillary Clinton speaking at Columbia University. I got to take a break. I'll be back with much more in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:40] COSTELLO: In many ways, this week has been a wake-up call, not necessarily for Baltimore but for outsiders. Now acutely aware of the problems facing the city, on a personal note, I love Baltimore. I have a home here. And before I came to CNN, I worked as an anchor for WBAL-TV. I'm also very aware of the social economic and racial tensions that are now playing out on the national stage.

In a new op-ed for CNN.com I write this, "There's something about Baltimore that gets under your skin. And I will wait and hope and pray Baltimore's better nature will win the day. I hope what's happening here will be the tipping point for the nation. Maybe because of this, this frustrating moment, we'll finally realize the rioting is not only about alleged police brutality or racial profiling but about hopelessness."

Now it's important to note that hopelessness does not excuse violent behavior but it does help explain why things happen.

Joining me now to talk more about this, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Sunny Hostin, and Doni Glover, he's the author of "Unapologetically Black." He's lived in Baltimore for nearly 50 years. He's also the publisher of Bmorenews.com.

Welcome to both of you. Thank you for being here.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Doni, I want to talk about the hopelessness some in this city feel living in these poverty stricken neighborhoods. Explain why that hopelessness might erupt into violent behavior. DONI GLOVER, PUBLISHER, BMORENEWS.COM: I think the politicians have

neglected Baltimore's east and west side for decades. I'm 50. I remember when Northern Patterson Park -- I remember the riots of '68. That area has not been touched in my lifetime. The same on the west side. And so we only see politicians quite often in these areas as you see right now at Penn North when something -- typically around an election, so now that this riot is going on or the riots, now you see people who should have been there all along.

COSTELLO: You know, I was -- I was at North and Pennsylvania last night. And a young lady came up to me and she gave me a tongue lashing for a good half hour. Very passionate. Because I had called the people who looted the CVS idiots. Now I still think the people who looted that store are criminals. I want to make that clear and I don't think violence is the answer.

But she was trying to explain to me why I shouldn't have used that word. She said, you know, I live in a neighborhood where I have no voice. I have no money. I have no power. Nobody cares about me. How else am I going to, like, get your attention but through this?

HOSTIN: Well, that's interesting that you say that because, I mean, Martin Luther King said that after the '68 riots. Right? He said rioting is the language of the unheard. And I think it's very easy to sort of name call and very easy to call people thugs and idiots, that's sort of the low hanging fruit because we can all agree that rioting and looting in your own neighborhood doesn't make a lot of sense.

But the bottom line is I think we have to look at the more nuanced issue which is why do people feel the need to do that in their neighborhoods to get attention. And I think that is because people have been unheard.

When you look at the poverty rate in Baltimore, when you look at the unemployment rate in Baltimore especially for people the ages of -- men, young black men, the ages of 18 to 25, it is a catastrophic statistics. And that is why I think -- not to excuse the behavior but that is why we see this hopelessness and this desperation. And I think we also see it because policing in these neighborhoods historically are very -- it's very aggressive.

[10:20:10] And so when you have that distrust between a community that is poor, that is unemployed and that is being overly policed, what else do you expect to see?

COSTELLO: And I think -- I think that many people in the nation lose focus of what it's like to live in such a community. I was standing there, talking to this very well-spoken young lady, in my cute leather jacket. And I was going to leave that neighborhood and go back to my nice little home in New York City. And you know, I felt that. And I don't know what her experience is like. There's no way for me to know.

GLOVER: They closed the recreation centers in these neighborhoods. They closed down the schools. There were four recreation centers closed on the other side of town, East Baltimore. Recreation centers. They closed swimming pools in the middle of a heat wave.

I don't have a problem with you calling them idiots but let's also call the politicians who have ignored these communities, the communities they show up once every four years, let's call them idiots also.

COSTELLO: And I think the other problem here in Baltimore is, you know, you say recreation centers have been closed. Swimming pools have been closed. At the same time, huge tax breaks have been given to businesses to move into the city of Baltimore. And the areas that are being developed here are places like Harbor East where the wealthy people live. And that creates --

GLOVER: People think the riots have changed West Baltimore. The face of West Baltimore that is the face of it before the riots. So when the cameras come in, you're seeing the depression and -- have you ever walked by a block of vacant houses, the smell, the stench? And then you put coke, dope, crack, all throughout these neighborhoods and aggressive policing, they broke the boy's neck.

HOSTIN: And I think, you know, to your point about this inequity, I lived in Baltimore for 10 years. I started my legal practice here. And I'm from the South Bronx. So I know what it's like to live as a child in a very poor neighborhood. And I will say one thing that I did feel when I was here in Baltimore is this inequality, this racial inequality. I felt the economic inequality. You know, just driving through the neighborhoods it felt very much like in apartheid state.

GLOVER: Yes.

HOSTIN: Yes. In the sense that you could go to the inner harbor and have a beautiful lunch at this really upscale restaurant and then drive through people -- drive through neighborhoods where people were starving. And today in the United States, is that something -- is that a place where we should be?

So that, I think, is one of the root causes of what we saw and that's something that needs to be addressed.

GLOVER: And don't forget the politics. This is a nine to one Democratic town. They put signs in the last gubernatorial election that said in the black neighborhood, Upwardly Mobile, Liberty Heights, vote for the Democrats. Are you serious? That is the best you're going to tell grown people? The last thing on North Avenue of significance is Coppin State, the Republicans, Ehrlich, spear throwing for Gingrich, according to the old people, put 100 million at Coppin State. Why did Democrats, particularly black Democrats ignore Coppin State and HBCU?

COSTELLO: Interesting. OK. I got to leave it there. Thanks to both of you. I really appreciate it. Because I think this is an important conversation that we must have. I mean, the answer is just not to go -- clearly the answer is not to just go arrest everybody. Right? Clearly the answer is not that. So I think it's important that we discuss the underlying issues and talk about them honestly. And look at ourselves. And -- I don't know. At least that's what I'm trying to do.

Thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

Check out my op-ed at CNN.com/opinion. Let me know what you think on my Facebook page. Facebook.com/carolCNN. And as always thank you so much for your comments.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:27:37] COSTELLO: On Friday, Baltimore police said they plan to give prosecutors their investigation reports. Six officers have been suspended with pay and a police spokesman tells CNN there are two indications officers involved in Freddie Gray's arrest did not follow police protocol.

Our justice correspondent Evan Perez is following the investigation.

Do we know anymore about what this report has in it?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't know exactly what's going to be in it. We know that the police say that the investigation isn't complete, Carol. We know that they say they're going to keep working on it. However, they are sticking to their deadline of Friday to turn over the evidence of what they have, what they have completed to the prosecutor and the state attorney's office.

The state attorney is going to be the one that makes a decision on whether there are charges that are forthcoming. And you know, that could be anything from, obviously, you know, murder or, you know, any charges related to the death or perhaps there's some way they can find something to charge them with related to not rendering aid or the way they treated him after he was arrested.

All of that is on the table. I'll tell you what, though. Today there's conference calls going on in city hall, in the police department. They're trying to figure out how to prepare for Friday because out on the streets, you know, I was out there yesterday, a lot of people are expecting that, A, there's going to be charges announced, which is not going to happen. Not Friday at least.

And they also are trying to figure out how to bring down the expectations of the public because this is not a clear cut case no matter what we think from -- the few seconds of video that we have.

COSTELLO: So why are they -- why have they publicly said they are releasing this report then?

PEREZ: You know, I think they made a lot of early missteps. I think they wanted to try to give the public some idea that there was a timeline they were working on. They wanted to release a little bit of information but they also wanted to try to preserve what they can for the prosecutors and so that's the issue they're facing. Now they've created some kind of expectation that they're going to have to manage between now and Friday. COSTELLO: Evan Perez, thank you so much. I appreciate it as always.

Of course the big question we've just been talking about that what will happen here in Baltimore when the investigation reports are released and we come to find out that there are no charges being filed or, I mean, shouldn't we know more?

I want to bring in former TV judge, attorney Glenda Hatchett.

Hi, Judge Hatchett.

GLENDA HATCHETT, FORMER TV JUDGE: Good morning, Carol.

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

HATCHETT: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Do you think that -- I'm so glad you're here. Do you think that police should release some of the information that's in that report to the public on Friday?

(END)