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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Chicago's Police Chief Fired; Chicago Officer Who Killed Teen Out On Bond. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 01, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:02] RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And wanted to go after the mayor a little harder, they wanted to know the information that he knew about this case. They wanted to basically know exactly when that-- he saw the video for the first time, and if you woke up today in Chicago, and got the "Sun-Times" this was the article that was on front of the paper, was basically said that Garry McCarthy should go.

And he's going to attend during tourist not only in T.V. on radio talking about. Why he felt his still have the confidence of the mayor. And obviously that didn't work out. But there are series of questions here that have nothing to do with this superintend, to actually have a longstanding background in the city where there's a mistrust between the community and the police force.

I was recently in a barbershop, the other day my barbershop and people were joking about the time they had been beaten by the police officers, so you have a understanding that people don't have a trust for the police force, but they desperately think they need them because obviously all the gang violence in the city, they should look. They want to see that solve but they also want to see people held accountable.

We talk to Gerry McCarthy about why this officer wasn't fired. He said, "He can't fire people at will, that kind of contract to set up." So you can hear frustration from both sides. People want to sit at the table and have a conversation about what's going on in this community, they're not always having it, that's why he saw thousands aod people walking from the street, Up and down Michigan Avenue, voicing their concerns about what happened.

Honestly people in tears just talking about the idea that a young man could be shot 16 times, and then video held for 400 days without any action, and then all of a sudden like dominos all of this has been happening over the last week coincides with this, and now we know this is what's going to happen. But I can tell there's a lot of people were upset with the mayor. Don't forget he was in a run off election with first in the city. People are pointing to that office and wondering what's going on up there.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Cedric Alexander, if you could come in. It's very fortunate to have your voice today both as the President of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, but also as a former police chief yourself.

You just heard what Ryan Young has said. Chicago has been plague with violence, hundreds of death, gun violence, crime in the street. There is a palpable community that wants tougher policing to re-discourage of that city. There is a community that said, back off of the tough policing when you might have the wrong guy.

This is a position you've been in, where is the win here? Is it a no win situation no matter. What kind of fresh eyes you bring in?

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, DEPUTY COO OF PUBLIC SAFETY, DEKALB CO, GA: Well, it's a very tough position for any chief right now particularly in this country to be in. for any chief particularly in this country to be in, because what you're trying to balance is good policing and community trust, and oftentimes as well, too, where we have very tough communities that are plagued with crime, officers have to go in and often times, you know, very tough communities they may have to engage in an event that end up in someone losing their life.

Look, this case with Mr. McDonald is inexcusable as far as I'm concerned. So let me say that publicly. That was a very bad optic it looked horrible, and no kind of way look justifiable. I think most Americans who looking at that video would say that, but Chicago also has a much larger problem a longer systemic problem. For the mayor today to let go of the superintendent of police there, that was his decision, and I'm quite sure he had upon drove with that. But it goes much deeper than Gerry McCarthy.

There's a bigger problem and Ryan just spoke to it. The fact that it took 400 days for this information to be exposed with a court order, and in addition to that, at the course of this investigation, and in Chicago, if I'm not mistaken, they have independent civilian investigators that do police shootings. So who all saw this video, and at what point did the state attorney there see it and had to say, wait, hold on a minute, there is very wrong in this video. That doesn't take 400 days to do. That doesn't take that type of investigation, so the questions that are being raised by the public are very fair questions, because the mayor is going to have to do more than just fire McCarthy quite frankly. He's got to answer some very tough questions himself politically, and also the state attorney that no one has mentioned here today, she has to answer some tough questions as well too.

So Chicago is a tough city, it has real tough problems, but if looking across this city, many (ph) by cities both large, small and mediocre size have the same kind of challenges, but we're going to have to find a way to balance good policing along with community corporation as well to playing a part in their own public safety. And let me add one other thing, as well, Ashleigh, in terms of the task force that the mayor has put into place.

In May of this year, President Obama exposed to the country, the 21st century task force report. If you go to the report, it has six pillars, it covers accountability, it covers procedural justice, it covers everything that the mayor is talking about.

[12:35:08] You don't need to reinvent the wheel, what you need to do is pick up that 21st century task force report, go through it and look at the 59 recommendations, see what's relevant to your community there in Chicago, and make use of it. It's great that he put this wonderful and very selective and very a reputable panel together, that is great, but what I would encourage them to do is take a look at the 21st century task force report.

And right there in Illinois itself, you have Sean Smoot who is the chief council for police benevolent there in the state of Illinois who has done a fantastic job on that panel I served with him on. Great resource along with Tracey Meares who is a full professor at Yale, spent time at the University of Chicago, she knows people there, great people that served on the task force that could be very helpful to them in terms of moving and advancing law enforcement right there in Chicago.

BANFIELD: And you being so intimately involved in the process, I want to keep you after the break, if I can, Chief Alexander, because I want to ask you about the succession of the police chiefs over the last year or two. This is at the top of my head, that we had seen either fall in by a firing or stepping down, with stories that are similar or connected to something similar as what is happening in Chicago. And I want to get your reaction to that in a moment.

And Ryan Young, we're going to keep you as well, to keep an eye on what's happening in Chicago right now after that bombshell announcement from the Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel that he has asked for the resignation of the superintendent of police Garry McCarthy in that city.

And Coming up after the break, I'm going to be joined live by the National NAACP President Cornell Brooks, who himself hasn't intimate role not only in that town, but the town he's in right now Baltimore where a police officer is standing trail, accused excessive force and more.

We're back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:31] BANFIELD: Welcome back, everyone. We've been following the breaking news out of Chicago. The mayor taking to the live airwave just a short time to announce that he has requested the resignation of his superintendent of police in that city Garry McCarthy. All of this is following the 17-year-old who was shot to death by a police officer, the 17-year-old armed with a knife. The police officer armed with a gun, and the video that's been seen over and over and over again, but not before 400 days passed between the death of that young man Laquan McDonald and the arrest and the charging of Jason van Dyke, the officer.

I'm joined live now from Baltimore by the President of the NAACP Cornell Brooks, and back with us live from Atlanta CNN Law Enforcement Analyst, and former Chief himself of a police force Cedric Alexander, he was also part of the President's task force on the 21st century policing.

Welcome to both of you. Cornell, if I can begin with, you have heard as you were standing by, ready to go live that this is the announcement made by the Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, he cited the need for trust and transparency as his reason for asking for that resignation, but he did not say that he was displeased with the job that Garry McCarthy had been doing. Is this enough of a step to help this community move toward some kind of mitigation from the violence and the frustration that has been seen and might be seen in the future?

CORNELL BROOKS, PRESIDENT & CEO, NAACP: It is a step forward, but we got to be very clear, a change in personalities, and character, and leadership atop the Chicago police department is stepping the right direction. It's necessary, but not sufficient. The problem is longstanding. Where you have police department that operated its own domestic Guantanamo in terms of a base in which people's rights were violated. Where we have generational police misconduct, and police brutality, where we have a climate and culture of policing that a bridges the right of American citizens in one of American's greatest cities.

It is necessary, but not sufficient to have a change in leadership. We need far more than that. This task force, again, a good step in the right direction, necessary but not sufficient. Governor Deval Patrick, excellent choice as senior advisor, to someone I know since my days at the justice department where he served as the nation's chief law enforcement officer with respect to civil rights, good. But not sufficient. Because those recommendations can only validate what is long known and as the chief has lifted up previously, many of these recommendations are likely to come forward are already in the president's 21st century police task force report. They are there.

We know from the scholarship of Tracey Meares what constitutes a good police department, that practices community policing. The point being here is the answers are long known, the question is long known. Our challenge is having a mayor, having a police department willing to match the answers to the questions, and the questions before us right now is will we have a police department that is accountable, and has transparency, that operates with integrity and treats the citizens of Chicago with respect and dignity and understands profoundly that Black Lives matter, all lives in fact matter and certainly the life a 17- year-old young man.

[12:45:17] BANFIELD: So to that end, Cedric Alexander, jump in, before the break, I asked you to contemplate the notion that we're seeing police chief after police chief either stepping down, or being fired, or being required to step down. I'm thinking back to Stanford, Florida, Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, now Chicago. The question I have for you are these the effective ways of dealing with the problems, are these sacrificial lambs or baby with the bathwater, or some critics say or are these the kind of steps that will make the kind of changes these communities are seeking?

ALEXANDER: Well, I think for one, you have to look at each city very differently because a circumstance is have similarities, but they also have differences as well, too. It is very tough to be a chief today anywhere in America in any city, it is a very, very tough job, particularly the scrutiny that police departments are coming up under, because here again, as I stated earlier, Ashleigh, when you are trying to balance good public safety along with communities that maybe very challenged for a variety of reasons, economically, lack of education, you name it, it certainly makes it -- those are the communities that are asking for the most police service, and those are the communities oftentimes where you probably going to have some engagement that is not going -- an engagement that's going to creating some controversy in those cases.

So each city is very different in that regard. But I think important thing here to remember is this, right now at this moment, Chicago police department must function as a police department. It still has to provide good public safety, and in light of what has occurred, that police department, I truly believe is going to go out there and do their job everyday and we have to hold them up still because they still provide the police service in that community, and in addition that community is willed to, and I think that Mr. Brooks would agree, is also going to have to be able to support their police department as we go through this very turbulent point in the city. Because there's a lot of thing systemically, historically that's going to have to be addressed in that city, but to just say it is this chief's fault, and the problem is over, I agree with Mr. Brooks, that is just the beginning.

And because other people have to be looked at, and anyone who had their fingerprint, Ashleigh, on having knowledge of this video being there and did not take any responsibility to put it out there for the public are just as responsible as they are accusing McCarthy to be.

BANFIELD: Now we're talking about a lot of people. I mean, there has been a list of those involve in the processes.

ALEXANDER: Absolutely, you're talking about a lot of people.

BANFIELD: If transparency is the goal, here they'll have to scrutinize very heavily.

ALEXANDER: That's right.

BANFIELD: Cornell Brooks, I want to you dovetail if you can for me please on the notion that Cedric Alexander just talked about the challenges that some communities face. I don't need to explain to anyone least of all you who has just come from Chicago, who just was arrested after protesting what happened to Laquan McDonald yesterday in Chicago. I'm showing the photograph of the Tweet you sent out of you and your colleagues basically in the police van having been arrested.

BROOKS: Yes.

BANFIELD: The question I have is there is an effect that has been dubbed the Ferguson effect. Many people are arguing over whether it's real or whether it isn't, but it has been cited by executives as high as colleagues of President Obama in the highest levels of the federal government as being real and as being a problem. The problem being at police officers are pulling back out of fear that they are the next officer who becomes the poster child for excessive force, et cetera, and causes a city to divulge into chaos. In a city like Chicago, they cannot afford the Ferguson effect. It is a city perhaps most of all in this nation that cannot afford a Ferguson effect, but what has happened today, is there any chance that this could actually cause a very strong Ferguson effect in Chicago?

BROOKS: Well, first of all, most criminologist in the country don't stand behind the Ferguson effect in terms of being able to establish that this effect is in fact operational, but he's what we know, there is a police misconduct effect. We know that when police officers engage in misconduct, where they brutalize the lives, the well-being, the bodies of the citizenry that they are charged with protecting, people are less likely to participate in the safe protection and the safe guarding of their communities. We know that they less likely to trust the police department, less likely to come forward as witnesses.

[12:50:03] What we do know also is that when police department treats the citizenry with respect, they engendered trust, people will to come forward as witnesses, and bring forward testimony, and held prosecution, ensure that they're safe, that their communities as well as police department and police officers are in fact safer.

And so, we can count on the very people that are in the streets of Chicago demonstrating for justice Whitney Chang (ph) on the same people to work with police departments to ensure that their neighborhoods are well patrolled and protected, but we got to be clear here, the police department has to operate with integrity, that means being honest honest, being transparent, treating people with a sense of dignity, you do those things, you engage the people in the act of public safety and protection.

We know this, because scholars were attested to it, we know this will practical experience, we know this in terms of best practice and we know it from the President's own 21st century policing report, as well as the work of the NAACP in its report in titled "War and suspect."

BANFIELD: Cornell Brooks, it's great to have you. Thank you for taking the time. I know you've had a very busy two days, so thank you for this. We appreciate it.

BROOKS: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Cedric Alexander as always. One of my favorite guess and you're always invited back.

ALEXANDER: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Thank you, to the both of you. Appreciate it.

Coming up next, that Chicago police and who was charge with murder for firing those 16 shots at 17-year-old young man, is now out of jail and fee on bond. So, how do our court decide, which murder defendant deserve to be out on the street instead of behind bars as they await their ultimate trial?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:57:10] BANFIELD: He's charged with first-degree murder after fired 16 shots at a 17-year-old boy, and now Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke is out on bond. Here he is leaving his imprisonment for six days. The judge set his bail at $1.5 million, and he met it. That allowed him to go home to his family, his wife and his two children.

For the legal view on this, I want to bring in CNN Commentator Mel Robbins who CNN Legal Analyst and Defense Attorney Danny Cevallos. I want to bring the news into this today, because there's been very public, you could call it a firing, it was a request for a resignation of the police superintendent specifically about this case and what perceive to be the cover-up of this case. Danny Cevallos, does that taint the Chicago jury pool, because Baltimore is picking a jury right now, and 149 of the 150 people being asking so far if they know about the settlement in the case, and know about the settlement in this case. And there's been a settlement in this case too.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The mere fact that a potential juror is aware of some publicity or some fact in the news isn't enough to render the juror incapable of serving on the jury, and instead, the test is whether or not even despite the knowledge that they're able to base their verdict on the facts of the trial, and ignore the facts out of the trial.

Now, that is as difficult, because it requires us to be aware of our own biases, and frankly, we're just not always personally aware of our own subtle biases. So in the mere fact that a juror may be aware of the settlement, maybe aware that a police chief was asked to step down, it might affect as juror eligibility but it's not a per se bar by any stress.

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR: I think it's going to get harder to pick a jury Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: You do.

ROBBINS: Because of this. However, by the time they get to trial, the case is going to be so focused of the moments leading up to the shooting, the moment of the shooting, that it is not going to be relevant around the settlement they're not going to be thinking about. I think they're going to be thinking about...

BANFIELD: Is it mitigated by the bond? I mean, he got out of bond doesn't that tell the community the opposite.

ROBBINS: As apparently not.

BANFIELD: Apparently he's not so dangerous, and a flight risk?

ROBBINS: No, no, no.

CEVALLOS: No.

BANFIELD: No.

ROBBINS: He is not a flight risk, he's never been arrested. He doesn't have criminal record. He has a family. He's represented by the union.

BANFIELD: But to Michael Pfleger wasn't let out and he's facing first- degree.

CEVALLOS: The presumption in Illinois is that all dependents are bailable, unless and this could be the case. Unless the potential imprisonment is life, but even then if the defendant can show that he should still be let out, because there is not really clear evidence that he did it. He maybe entitled to bail, and in Illinois the penalty for first-degree murder currently is 20 to 60 years.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

CEVALLOS: It's not automatic life unless you get and enhancement.

BANFIELD: Well, it's different.

CEVALLOS: There you go.

BANFIELD: All right, guys thank you. I have to leave it there because Wolf Blitzer is coming up next and, you know, I'm not going to walk when you're done. Thanks you guys.

CEVALLOS: Have a good one.

BANFIELD: I appreciate it. Danny Cevallos, Mel Robbins. Thank you both and thank you everyone for watching.

[13:00:01] I'm going to turn the helm over to Wolf. And he begins right now. Thanks for watching everyone.