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New Questions Raised on Freddie Gray Death; Baltimore Curfew Provides Second Quiet Night; Super Bowl MVP Ray Lewis Visits High School. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 30, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:04] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. Christine Romans, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

In Baltimore, there was calm in the streets, but little common ground. This morning, there are wildly different accounts of how Freddie Gray suffered his fatal injury while in police custody. The relative of one officer involved in the arrest says Gray's spinal cord injury happened during that initial scuffle, but "The Washington Post" cites a police document claiming Gray hurt himself.

We'll explain that in just a minute. But first, a second night of curfew, a second night of peace on Baltimore streets. Protesters obeyed that 10:00 p.m. cutoff and peacefully went home. But other demonstrations inspired by the mysterious death of Freddie Gray led to dozens of arrests, more than 100 people arrested just in New York City, as the nationwide momentum seems to build by the day.

Now to the vastly different versions of how Freddie Gray suffered his gruesome injury. These new accounts come from those closest to him in those final critical moments, but they're contradictory. First, a relative of one of the arresting officers believes the injury initially occurred during Gray's arrest, before he was put into that police van.

Here's about a minute of Don Lemon's interview with that woman who does not want to be identified.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: What did he say happened?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He believes that whatever happened to Mr. Gray happened before he was transported.

LEMON: According to your loved one, what took so long to get medical help?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They don't know. They don't -- they have not discussed that with us. What took so long. We didn't ask what took so long. I think the officers that chased him and handcuffed him and had him on the ground, and he said that he was hurting, I think that they should know that he needed medical attention. Shouldn't that be their call to make?

LEMON: Is the department racist? Do you think this was racist?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a fair question. Are there some bad apples? Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. Before we get to that other version, I want to show you something important that's going on in Baltimore City right now. Something that many people have desperately wanted and it's the presence of Ray Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens great. He is in the city of Baltimore right now. You see him. Our reporter there, Ryan Young, walking beside him. Hopefully Ryan will be able to get us a short interview with Ray Lewis.

He's walking the streets of Baltimore, trying to calm things down, and it's very important that he's here. He's very well respected in those communities that are affected by this. And of course, as you know, that police report is going to be turned over to the prosecutor's office tomorrow, and everybody's fearing that something violent could happen, because there will likely be no charges filed because the investigation is not complete.

Ray Lewis could help calm things down, and I'm sure many in the city are glad that he is there. When we get that interview with Ray Lewis, of course, we'll put it on the air.

OK, now to that other version of events that I was talking about. "The Washington Post" this morning is citing a leaked police document. It quotes a prisoner who was also inside that police van that delivered the injured man to the jail. Now this prisoner could only hear Gray, he could not see him, but he says Gray was banging against the walls of the van and that prisoner also believed that Gray was intentionally trying to injure himself.

CNN justice reporter Evan Perez is following this investigation.

Tell us more, Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You know, Carol, as if there wasn't enough mystery and confusion already about what happened to Freddie Gray in this police van, this only adds to it. This prisoner, this prisoner who was picked up during really the final couple of minutes before he was taken to jail, we're talking about a six-block drive, between the time this prisoner is picked up and the time they arrived in jail. And according to him, he can hear Freddie Gray banging and thrashing on the other side of this partition.

He couldn't see him, and so it's interesting to know how this prisoner who's still in jail, by the way, has come to believe that Freddie Gray was trying to injure himself. Now the family of Freddie Gray says that that's impossible for them to know. They say that he probably was seeking, trying to get attention for his injuries, trying to get attention, medical attention, so they don't believe this. And they don't believe he was trying to injure himself intentionally.

COSTELLO: All right. Evan, I also heard that you have new information on the fire at the nursing home under construction. Tell us about that.

PEREZ: That's right, Carol. The ATF arrived on the scene, their national response team arrived at this senior housing center, just a couple of miles up the road here from city hall, and what they're going to be doing is gathering evidence, trying to figure out how this fire was set. There are going to be at seven different scenes here in the city, including the CVS there at North and Pennsylvania Avenue.

And a couple of these scenes, you know, there's a potential here for attempted murder charges, simply because people were inside the building when these fires were set, according to investigators. So, right now, they're going to start to work. The next couple of days, they'll be collecting evidence. They believe they'll be able to solve these and they believe they'll be able to bring federal charges against the people who set these fires -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Evan Perez reporting, thanks so much.

I want to talk more about this "Washington Post" report, because frankly, it just doesn't make much sense at the moment. Here's what we already know. Gray was arrested on April 12th. At 8:39 in the morning, police tackled Gray after he took off running. We know that. 8:42 a.m. Gray asks for an inhaler because he told police he couldn't breathe and he had asthma. At 8:46, the van carrying Gray stops. He's described as irate. And at 9:24, paramedics are called. Now between those times, Gray asked for medical attention several times.

Would a man who asked for medical attention really be trying to intentionally harm itself?

Let's talk about that with former New York City police commissioner, Bernard Kerik.

Good morning, sir.

BERNARD KERIK, FORMER NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So what does this sound like to you?

KERIK: Confusing right now. I think, you know, we have -- as I've said since it started, I think we have to wait until the investigation is concluded. The interesting thing for me is this information just came out about the guy in the van that overheard him trying to injure himself. When you watch these videos, it looks like Gray is in distress already. You know, he's having a hard time getting up. Unless he's just limping up himself -- and look, some guys do that.

I initially watched the video and thought, he's in distress. Why didn't they sit him down? Why didn't they call the medics then? When you look at the video now and you're watching again, you see him basically stand up on the back of the van. That's what it appears to be. Maybe he was limping up. Maybe he didn't want to be in custody. And a lot of times, what happens is, when you grab these guys, they'll limp up so you let go, you let go, they run.

COSTELLO: Right.

KERIK: You know, so you don't know what's happening.

COSTELLO: I understand. And even if you have a spinal cord injury, it depends on where it is. Sometimes you have partial functioning of your limbs. But we won't know that until the autopsy report.

KERIK: We won't know it until the autopsy comes out. You're not going to know, you know, I really want to know who the other person is, this so-called report --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Who's on that van.

KERIK: You know.

COSTELLO: So let's take a look at the van because it's partitioned, right? So this person inside this police van with Freddie Gray could not see what was going on at all. He could only hear what was going on.

KERIK: Right.

COSTELLO: And he said that Eddie (sic) Gray, he was thrashing around and he believed that Freddie Gray might have been trying to harm himself.

KERIK: Look, you know --

COSTELLO: I would be suspect of something like that if I was an investigator.

KERIK: Well, you have to be a suspect. You know, went did he give the statement? How did he give the statement? You know. Is he looking for some benefit for himself?

COSTELLO: You know he gave the statement to a police officer who was -- it was on a warrant and the warrant was for the -- one of the police officer's uniforms. So that's where it came from.

KERIK: Yes, I think we're going to have to wait. And I think let the grand jury do their job. Let the investigators do their job. It's going to come out. You know, I think just time will tell.

COSTELLO: So I think that the big concern, though, is you have these leaks and tomorrow the police are going to turn over their investigative report to the prosecutor's office and with every leak, comes another chance that it will rile up the community --

(CROSSTALK) KERIK: You know, I heard that today. I heard this thing about the police are going to turn -- the D.A.'s office should be involved already. I mean, if this was New York city, D.A.'s investigators are already involved in this investigation. They have to be in some manner. So I find it hard to believe they didn't know about this information, this report, whatever reports there are. That's -- the D.A.'s office is going to be involved immediately, in New York city, it is, anyway.

COSTELLO: Yes. And the D.A.'s office has its own investigation going on right now, so --

KERIK: Right.

COSTELLO: But it's likely nothing will be made public and that's normal, right, and the community needs to learn that.

KERIK: It's normal, right.

COSTELLO: I'm going to go to an elementary school in Baltimore, because the Baltimore Ravens' coach, John Harbaugh, is speaking with elementary school students. And I mentioned before that Ray Lewis is in town. So let's listen in for just a second.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my freshman right here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A freshman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. He hung up on me.

COSTELLO: Actually, he was going into that elementary school. We saw John Harbaugh doing that. That's what we saw, right? Producers? Yes. OK.

[10:10:08] So Ryan -- Ryan Young, our CNN correspondent, is still trying to get ahold of Ray Lewis. Oh, there you are. You popped up. Tell us more.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm here, yes. Actually, we walked over from the elementary school here to the high school. Now you see some of the football players actually talking with the high school football players here at Frederick Douglas High School. They're having an impact. In fact, this is one of the coaches here. I'm going to walk right over, just want to ask how the Ravens players and the coach show up and address your players. Tell me why that's important.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's important because they are the leaders for our youth and everybody brings the NFL player, to see the support of all the mischief and all the things that's going wrong, to give them a positive insight on how to do things the right way. YOUNG: To see coach standing here with these players and how inspired

they were, when he said, come train with us, come lift weights, what was that like?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's like a dream come true. Everybody -- we were fortunate enough to be at Ravens Stadium twice this year, twice within the last few years for the championship round, but just the feel of being able to lift weights with the guys, being able to see the facilities, to be able to be under the pressure of the guys that they look up to.

YOUNG: Awesome. Now look, now you can see Ray Lewis has walked over, he's taking pictures with some of the players here. This has had an impact. We've seen all day, coach and Ray use some strong words with these young men. Basically trying to inspire them to make sure they're pushing forward and working hard.

Coach -- you can see them meeting hand to hand with everyone individually. This is happening right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How you doing?

YOUNG: And you can see everyone has been having a good time. Look, we saw them hand out food, we saw them hand out supplies.

Carol, this is going on right across the street is the mall that the National Guard and police have been protecting. No one's thinking about those days of the trouble because now everyone's focused on what's going on right now. The quarterbacks meeting the coach right here live.

So, Carol, some positive impact happening in the community with sports.

COSTELLO: And if I would guess, I would guess Ray Lewis and John Harbaugh will be doing more than just talking at this one high school, as you said, Ryan. This is only a mile away from Mondawmin Mall where the protest started in earnest a few days ago.

YOUNG: Without a doubt. And you know, this -- we have walked over here, just in the last -- we didn't know they were coming to the high school. They started at the elementary, all of a sudden, the coach looked over at us and said, we're going to the high school, are you walking with us? I said, yes, sir, and now we ended up here. Right across the street, you can see the police officers, but you can see coach -- Coach, we happen to end up being live here and just wants to make sure, talk about the impact. You said football definitely has a way of inspiring people in the community.

JOHN HARBAUGH, HEAD COACH, BALTIMORE RAVENS: To me, it's all about -- this is what it's about. It's all about high school coaches and high school players and high school football. This gentleman right here, the head coach at Frederic Douglas High school is going to have the biggest impact in this high school of any teacher in this building. Because he's going to be this guy that's leading these young men. And these young men are going to be the catalyst for good in this high school.

YOUNG: You and I walked over here, we talked about how sports helps to give men discipline and the idea of having discipline leads to success in life. Can you talk about that just a little bit?

HARBAUGH: That's just what you talked about. And you're exactly right. I mean, discipline is the key, right, guys?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

HARBAUGH: Football is hard and tough, right. It's not always fun, but at the end of the day, you get through a good football practice, you know you've accomplished something. It teaches you obedience, it teaches you to do your job, it teaches you to take care of your teammate, to lift one another up. To be what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Consistent.

HARBAUGH: Consistent.

YOUNG: Who's one of the leaders here on this squad?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both of us.

YOUNG: Tell me why it is important to see these guys come down here and ask you guys to come train with them?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything is just -- everything that's going on right now, it's just helping us out, getting our bodies together and all that.

YOUNG: When you saw this community go through the pain that it went through, does it make you feel good that Baltimore's coming together now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

YOUNG: Tell me what you think.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I think it's good they came to show us how important our school is, how important the football team is to the community. And show that we can do better than what we're doing now.

YOUNG: I appreciate you guys, young leaders, appreciate it. Thank you, man, appreciate you.

Obviously, coach is going to walk through the school and talk to some of the other students. Ray Lewis is here. We're going to talk to him in a minute. But, Carol, obviously you see the impact it's already having. They walked from an elementary school all the way over to the high school. They did that on their own.

COSTELLO: All right.

YOUNG: They've already offered to bring them all to the weight room and have them train. COSTELLO: OK, Ryan, you go get Ray Lewis. We're waiting for that.

Thank you so much. I'll break away from Ryan's report for just a second and -- all right, Ryan, I'm going to let you get back to work.

And I want to ask you, Commissioner, about Ray Lewis coming back to Baltimore, because, you know, he's retired. He's come back to Baltimore to talk with young people. Tell us how important that could be.

KERIK: Well, it's extremely important. I've heard him talk over the last several days. He put out a video nationally. It was very -- you know, very specific, get out of the streets. Don't do what you're doing. Violence is not the answer.

[10:15:08] For him to go to these schools, whether it's a grammar school, whether it's a high school, kids are going to listen to him. He is a role model that they will listen to.

What do they need? Respect, discipline, understanding of the community. You know, work together as a team. All the stuff the coach was just talking about, they're not going to listen to anybody more than they will Ray Lewis. So for him to be there, I think it's phenomenal for the community, it's phenomenal for these kids, and I think it will be a big, big help. And I think there should be other people out there like him.

COSTELLO: Absolutely, Commissioner, thank you so much for being with me.

KERIK: Thank you.

COSTELLO: I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Baltimore police giving their findings in the Freddie Gray investigation over to state prosecutors tomorrow. Well, it's going to be a big test for the woman in charge. We'll talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. You're looking at live pictures from inside Frederic Douglas High School in Baltimore, Maryland. This high school only about a mile away from Mondawmin Mall, where the protests began. Ray Lewis is about to speak to the students. You see John Harbaugh up there, the coach of the Baltimore Ravens, and I believe that's the football coach of Frederic Douglas.

And Ray Lewis is in town to sort of calm things down, to give the city a pep talk. When he begins speaking -- we don't know when exactly he's going to start, but I'm going to keep an eye on this for you.

So let's listen to John Harbaugh for just a second.

[10:20:07] HARBAUGH: Glad to be here. It's great to be here. So excited to come here this morning and talk a little bit about the city that we are. We are the Baltimore Ravens. We feel like we carry the heart of

Baltimore with us. Everywhere we go.

(CROSSTALK)

HARBAUGH: New York, everywhere we go, we feel like the heart of Baltimore with us.

COSTELLO: There's a big echo in this auditorium, which is making it difficult to understand what Coach Harbaugh is saying. So we're going to get back to that. We're going to go to Athena Jones, she's in another part of Baltimore with more about the city's reaction and the curfew.

Hi, Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. While the curfew has been credited with helping keep the peace and the calm here on the streets of Baltimore, a very calm night last night, but it's also beginning to come under some fire.

We're here on a busy commercial strip in East Baltimore. Some of these stores were looted, but others are reopening. We've seen one or two open every few minutes. People rolling up those gates, those roller gates. That's fine for these stores, but if you are a restaurant, a bar, a nightclub, even a 24-hour gas stations, they're all being affected by this 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. curfew, put in place Tuesday night, expected to last until next Tuesday.

We spoke with the Chamber of Commerce president who said that businesses like that are being affected very, very negatively. They are losing money, and that's why there is some discussion about potentially ending the curfew early. "The Baltimore Sun" reported that the mayor's office is considering putting an end to that curfew before next Tuesday.

Our own Chris Cuomo asked the mayor about that on "NEW DAY" this morning. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE, BALTIMORE: I have made no decision about lifting the curfew. We re-evaluate it on a daily basis.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, NEW DAY: Because you get that message that sends to the community, too, right, is that --

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Absolutely.

CUOMO: They can't be trusted to live their own lives?

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: That's not -- well, that shouldn't that send that message. What it's saying is, we want peace in our community and we're going to do everything that we can to ensure that we have peace moving forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: So you heard her say, we're re-evaluating that on a daily basis. That echoes what Governor Larry Hogan told me yesterday when I spoke with him. He said, they're going to do everything they can to make sure that the streets are going to be truly safe and calm. They're going to use all the resources that they need until they're sure of that. That includes, of course, keeping this larger law enforcement presence out on the street.

We're still seeing guard troops and the like out on the streets of Baltimore. So they just want to make sure that the violence and destruction on Monday night are far in the past and aren't going to be repeated -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Athena Jones, thanks so much.

I want to take you back to Frederic Douglas High School in Baltimore right near that Mondawmin Mall where the protest began. Ray Lewis is now speaking on stage in the auditorium there. He said that, you know, this type of alleged police violence is not just a Baltimore problem, it's a problem everywhere in the country, but Baltimore must rise above it.

Let's listen in.

RAY LEWIS, FORMER LINEBACKER, BALTIMORE RAVENS: And if you want to really deal with us, every man on my back can tell you, it's going to take a whole lot to deal with us. That's what the city's built on. Grade, it's the number one (INAUDIBLE). After your relationship with God. Friends, that's the next thing in order. Keeping our city right, that's the next thing in order.

You don't care what we built, because nobody going to put it back together but us. That's it. We all what we got. The message is very simple, man. What we just saw, what they say is tragedy in Baltimore, we have an opportunity to change Baltimore. Everybody sitting in this room. I got kids, I got daughters, I got sons. And I'm trying to teach them to understand the power of social media, the power of how you use it.

My daughters, when they walk in my house, every one of my kids, I got -- they walk in my house at 10:00 p.m., I (INAUDIBLE) --

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to jump away. We can -- I'm sorry about the audio quality, but it's the best we can do at this moment. But you get the gist of what Ray Lewis is saying and it's a wild reception by the audience. And he's talking to these young people in an attempt to calm things down in the city of Baltimore. Young people listen to Ray Lewis.

Whether you like it or not, it's a great thing that he's back in the city of Baltimore. As you know, he's retired. He doesn't live in Maryland any longer but he came back. He came back to calm the city and that can only be a good thing, because as you know, tomorrow, the police will hand over its initial investigation to the prosecutor's office. So let's talk about that for just a bit. Marilyn Mosby, the D.A., has

only been the state's attorney for Baltimore City for just a few months. Soon she will face what is likely to be the biggest challenge of her tenure.

[10:25:14] Tomorrow, Baltimore police are expected to give her their findings in the investigation into Freddie Gray's death. It will be Mosby's decision whether to charge any of the officers involved.

Joining me now to talk about this, CNN legal analyst, Paul Callan and Mark O'Mara.

Thank you so much for being here.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Morning.

COSTELLO: First of all, I just wanted to pick your brain about Ray Lewis being back in the city of Baltimore, Paul. Am I right?

CALLAN: Yes, absolutely. Yes, I think it's a good thing for the city. Anybody who has public, you know, recognition and is trying to say the right things to calm the city down, you know, how can we criticize that? It's a good thing.

COSTELLO: And it's probably the prosecutor's pretty happy about that, right, Mark?

MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think the prosecutor is looking for whatever help she can get. It's a very volatile situation. She's got some tough decisions to be made over the next couple of weeks or month or so when she gets the investigation from the police. So I think anything that she can get to get more community support, some positivity to counteract some of the negativity over the next couple of weeks is what she's looking for.

COSTELLO: And it's a tall order for her because she's new to the office, right? She's only been in office for five months. She's 35 years old. What? You said she had five years of experience, right?

CALLAN: She's walking into a firestorm, in a -- you know, in a case that the whole country is watching. Yes, she's five years of experience, sort of as an assistant state's attorney, assistant district attorney. She worked for a large insurance company as a field attorney for them, and then she managed to win the district attorney's office. And this will be her first big test of a major, major decision.

COSTELLO: OK. Let's pause and we're going to go back to Frederic Douglas High School and see if the audio is any better and listen to Ray Lewis addressing students here.

LEWIS: -- character and self-awareness. Self-awareness to understand who you are. Because if you don't understand who you are, you don't know who you are. And you're going to wake up every second of your life brand new, somebody outside (INAUDIBLE). How many people by a show of hands is honest enough to say that every time you get up in the morning, the first thing you do is pick yourself up?

(CROSSTALK)

LEWIS: Show by hands how (INAUDIBLE). How many by a show of hands (INAUDIBLE). How many by show of hands (INAUDIBLE).

Every day you work out, and I look at him and say, how many (INAUDIBLE), I got 2,200 of those. So I'm trying to figure out if (INAUDIBLE). Trying to change my life. What am I waiting on? Somebody that can give me a hand. Ain't no more handouts. If you want to do something, you got to go down it, man. That's what this town is about. That is about (INAUDIBLE).

If you want to make real change, be an example. Every time somebody sees you be different. That's what challenge is. Don't make people -- let me tell you something. Trust me when I say this, be careful to put your trust in man. Because to put your trust in man. Because it will come back to haunt you one way or another. But also, the only way something going to get done, if you do it, you do it, if you do it, and if you do it.

That's why they say, that's why they it takes a village to raise your child. Because it's hard work raising a child raising a child. Ask me. At the same time trying to keep my babies focused on what life is really about. Life is really about God, family, and love, man. That's what life's about. Life is about walking with your chest high and integrity in your heart. Because you're built to do something else and you're not defined by what people want to report.

And I've heard the bad things said about me. Every time someone seeks bad about me, I cringe and every time they see me, they see a different creature. Every time they see me, they see me changing somebody else's life.

Baltimore, we got a rare opportunity now, because all eyes on us.

(END)