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Protests in Chicago. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 09, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

LORI LIGHTFOOT, CHICAGO TASK FORCE ON POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY: One of the things that we have to wrestle with -- and we have already started that process -- is better and more proper engagement between the police department and the city and the citizens that it's sworn to serve and protect. That is mission one.

At the end of our process, if we haven't set the foundation for trust and accountability and transparency, so that people in the neighborhoods, people who are affected by policing every day have confidence that when they call for police, they're going to get somebody who understands who they are and is respectful and is discharging their responsibilities in the right way, if we don't accomplish that, then we will have failed in our mission.

I am confident that we will get there, because we are going to be addressing fundamental issues, accountability, supervision, training. We are going to be making specific recommendations on an early warning system for those officers who don't do their job the right way, that we intervene in an individual way at the earliest possible point, and if we can't turn them around, that we turn and show them the door.

That's a critical part of what our mission is. There are a number of other issues that we're going to take on, one of which is coming up with a proper, nuanced policy on addressing the release of videos. In this age where videos are everywhere from camera phones to on buildings and so forth, people want to know, is there a video and what does the video show?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Right.

LIGHTFOOT: But we want to make sure that we balance that -- go ahead, I'm sorry.

HARLOW: No. It's just, Lori, I would like to ask you about that point specifically. I'm glad you brought it up, because we did hear this morning Mayor Rahm Emanuel apologize for taking frankly 400 days for this video to come out and for this officer to be charged with first-degree murder.

We still don't know why, though. He didn't say why it took so long. Can you shed some light on that for us?

LIGHTFOOT: Well, my understanding is that part of the decision-making was giving deference to both the state and the federal criminal investigations that started really early on after the shooting that happened back in October of last year.

As I was saying, it's important that we give people answers and we show videotapes at the earliest possible point.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Right. Do you know why this video wasn't released for so long? Do you know why?

LIGHTFOOT: Well, what I'm saying to you is, I think there was a decision to give deference to the state and federal investigations that were ongoing.

The U.S. attorney's office came in fairly early on and said that they were going to open up a grand jury investigation. And clearly the city and no civil authority wants to be in a position where it is compromising the integrity of a criminal investigation.

But the mayor himself has said, the longer the videotape remained undisclosed, the more the mistrust built. One of the specific things that the task force has taken on and we have already started discussions about this is looking at best practices examples from other cities, so that we can have a policy that meets both the public's interest and request and demand to know, what -- is there a video and what's on it, balanced against making sure that we don't compromise the integrity of either a civil investigation or, in this instance, a criminal investigation.

HARLOW: When did Mayor Rahm Emanuel see the video, the dash-cam video, of the shooting death of Laquan McDonald?

LIGHTFOOT: I believe the mayor addressed that question several weeks ago. He saw it around the same time that the public did.

But the issue isn't, what did the mayor see and when did he see it? The question is, what's the policy? Did we execute on the policy? Do we need to change the policy? And how do we balance those competing interests that I just spoke about?

HARLOW: So, let's talk about some of the steps that have been taken so far. Right? We have seen the police -- the Chicago P.D.'s increased use of body cameras. We have seen a reshaping of leadership. We have seen a change at the top of IPRA, the independent body that does these investigations.

We have seen something that -- from Ferguson to Baltimore to Chicago, there's been a lot of talk of community policing and how important that is, to know the community you are policing, cops on the beat. We have seen a little bit more of a focus on that in Chicago.

For you, from your vantage point, what is the biggest thing, what is the number one thing you think needs to change in Chicago on the policing front and the community relationship front?

LIGHTFOOT: Well, we have got to reinvigorate the trust. Chicago really was the start of community policing. We perfected community policing.

But, clearly, in the intervening time period, there's been a disintegration of the trust between a community and the police officers and we have got to rebuild that trust. There are communities in other city that absolutely need the police to be successful. They need them to understand and protect them against crime and violence that rages in those communities.

But we have got to bridge that gulf that has developed in trust. And that's, I'm hoping, one of the things that coming out of our process we are going to start the process of rebuilding. We're already involved in engaging the community in the work that we're doing explaining to them what our mission is. But there's more work to be done and we intend to do that.

[15:05:06]

HARLOW: Lori, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you very much.

LIGHTFOOT: Thank you.

HARLOW: All right, top of the hour. I'm Poppy Harlow, in for Brooke Baldwin.

I want to get straight to our Ryan Young, who is on the streets of Chicago in the heart of this protest that is amassing.

Ryan, can you hear me?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I certainly can.

Look, we were inside the mayor's press conference. We heard about everything that was going on here. We ran outside. We saw about 100 students run into the Thompson Center here and officers barricade the door.

So we're going to step outside and show you kind of what's going on right now. This is the door they blocked. And, as you can see, police officers are keeping a line here where they're showing -- they want to make sure that no one else comes into the building.

We will walk closer to the protesters. The protesters that we have seen today are a lot younger. They look like they're high school students. They're being led by several people who are walking through the streets. They're blocking traffic.

But just in the last, I would say, two, three minutes, they all ran to these doors right here. We saw some pushing and shoving of officers as they tried to get into this building. They had a short protest on the inside. When the rest couldn't get in, they were pushed all the way back out. Now they have spilled out to this direction.

So, we will walk you a little closer to show you what's going on, on the street. Basically, what's happening is they are blocking traffic now in front of City Hall. Hold on one second as we walk through this. That's the front of City Hall here in Chicago.

You can see the signs and everyone is moving into place here, Poppy. This has been a very fluid situation because it seems like they just take off running at any moment to sort of block traffic and to make sure everything is backed up.

I heard from one of the officers call for some tactical units, so we have more officers coming our way now to sort of make sure the streets are safe. But all traffic is blocked from this direction as of right now.

HARLOW: Ryan, stay with me, stay with me.

Rosa Flores, also our Chicago correspondent, on the ground, Rosa, what are you seeing?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Poppy.

Well, we have been following these protesters for a while now. You can see it's a fairly large group. I can tell you that there's a lot of people who are very angry about what's going on here in Chicago. I was just inside a courtroom earlier this morning where a judge decided that in the case of Cedrick Chatman -- he's another black teen here from Chicago, that that shooting video was not going to be released.

And so they are calling for the mayor to release that video as well, because we're not just talking about the Ronald Johnson case, we're not talking about just the Laquan McDonald case, but also this other case.

Now, from talking to people there, I can tell you that they were saying, you know, Mayor Rahm Emanuel at City Hall is asking for transparency, he is asking for accountability, yet in a courtroom just a few blocks away, city attorneys were denying access to this particular video.

And so here we go again. We see more marches in the city of Chicago asking for the resignation of the mayor, is what a lot of these people say. A lot of the signs that we have here are calling for that. And those are also some of the chants that we're hearing here in Chicago.

Now, these protesters are continuing moving throughout the city, Poppy, so we're going to be doing that with them to get their part of the story.

HARLOW: Rosa, let me jump in and just ask you. I'm really interested, Rosa, because you have been reporting on this throughout from the release of that Laquan McDonald video to now. Can you just tell me what some of the protesters are saying? What is the number one thing they want from their city, their police force, their leaders?

FLORES: Well, just to show you some of the emotion here, some of these people are very, very emotional, Poppy.

From being in this community and talking to some of the folks here, they have told me it's difficult to be black in this city because of what they experience. And so those are some of the emotions. They want to make sure that both blacks and whites can be treated equally in this community and that they can be a part of this community and enjoy the city of Chicago just like everybody else.

Now, I would like to talk to one of the protesters here, so you can give us a sense about today.

Why are you here today specifically?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm here because Rahm Emanuel said some outrageous damsel in distress crap on the news today, which we're not having that.

You know what I'm saying? You covered up a videotape, and we want you fired. And not only that. Anita Alvarez must go, no matter what.

[15:10:01]

FLORES: Now, I have got to ask you. I know that there's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of -- we're going to keep on moving here. Sure.

Thank you, sir. Sorry.

If you can keep chatting with me a little bit, because I know that there's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of anger out here. I know that there's another video, the Cedrick Chatman video. And I heard that some people were asking for that video to be released as well as. Have you heard about that case? Are you following that case also? Are you asking for that video to be released?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're asking for all the videos to be released. You know, enough is enough.

I haven't heard about that video yet, but, unfortunately, I'm going to do research. If you're talking about the young man who was Tased to death in a hospital, I have seen that video, and was extremely, outrageously pissed off about it.

And I believe that all of these people who was murdered by police needs to find justice.

FLORES: Now, one more thing. I know that -- you can keep walking with me. I know that one of the things that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was asking for was police accountability.

He was calling for transparency. He said, you know, the buck stops with me.

Do you accept that? Would you like for him to stay and try to fix the problem?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course not. You know, we already know what he can do behind closed doors. He can hide videos. And we're not having that. We don't want no mayor in our city who can hide videos under the rug like that.

And then you have the state attorney, Anita Alvarez, who can make someone look so much as a criminal in front of national TV. That is outrageous, you know? So we are going to do this all the way to New Year's. We're going to bring this protest into the New Year's, until all of those videos is out to the public.

FLORES: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

And, again, Poppy, I'm going to flip the camera over here, so you can see that people continue to walk the streets of Chicago asking for change -- Poppy.

HARLOW: And you heard him say, we're going to do this all to the way to the new year. We want change.

So much to discuss. Rosa Flores will stay with these protesters to bring you their stories live.

We are going to take a quick break. Much more live from Chicago. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:46]

HARLOW: All right, breaking news out of Chicago.

You are looking at protests amassing in the heart of the city in the middle of the workday there, all after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel gave a press conference this morning, and he apologized for the investigation into the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

He spoke again this afternoon, directly addressing those protesters. He said, basically, I own it, this happened on my watch. He said Chicago needs a -- quote -- "painful and honest reckoning."

We have reporters on the ground in Chicago.

I believe -- are we going to Marty Savidge?

All right, Marty Savidge, to you. What are you seeing, Marty?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're actually at the corner of Michigan Avenue, right by Millennial Park. You may remember that from just a couple of weeks ago, where protesters tried to tear down the lights and decorations of the Christmas tree.

This is a protest that began around the noon hour. It has all sparked as a result of the ongoing investigations and accusations of police violence, but this one specifically was talking about demanding that the mayor resign, Rahm Emanuel. He has found himself in the middle of a political storm on top of a legal crisis in this city.

And it appears that, initially, it was one which he was not quite ready for. Today, he gave a very strong speech in city council, but for these people here, that doesn't seem to be enough, despite the commitments that the mayor made.

This has been peaceful, but it has been disruptive. It is going through the main thoroughfares in the downtown areas of the city of Chicago. Of course, it's a workday. And then, on top of that, there are also many shoppers down here as well. So, they have been blocking the streets.

Police have been trying to hold them at least at bay in the sense of keeping the side streets open for traffic, so it's been both a traffic nightmare, as well as a nightmare that City Hall probably didn't like to hear it as well.

There was a time that they all surrounded City Hall, but to try to defeat the police, they continue to be on the move, Poppy. And they only stop for a few seconds in one place and then move on again, blocking the city streets -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Marty, thank you very much, Martin Savidge in the middle of it all for us. Stay with me.

I do want to go to our Jeff Zeleny, CNN political reporter Jeff Zeleny, who worked for years in Chicago.

Let's talk about the political side of this. You keep hearing protesters say -- you heard Martin say there are these calls for Rahm Emanuel to be ousted, to be fired.

First of all, politically, that's not how it works. So, walk us through that. And then walk us through just Rahm Emanuel as a leader, someone who today stood in front of city council and said, look, this happened on my watch, I take responsibility. Where do we go from here?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, this is an example of someone who knows how to execute a crisis, communicate...

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENY: ... a crisis situation.

HARLOW: All right, Jeff, stay with me. I have got to go to Rosa. Sorry. Stay with me, Jeff. We will get to the politics in a minute.

ZELENY: Sure.

HARLOW: We're seeing sort of a scuffle break out on the streets of Chicago.

Rosa Flores is there -- Rosa.

FLORES: Hi, Poppy.

Well, we are just feet away from where the scuffle is. We're bringing you these live pictures, the confrontation between some of the Chicago protesters and Chicago police. Now, what police are doing right here, they're holding protesters

beyond Michigan Avenue. So, they're pretty much holding traffic to make sure that these protesters don't go onto one of the major avenues here in downtown Chicago.

[15:20:05]

And so, you know, we have seen this before in some of the other protests that have happened, where protesters get up close to police. And so far, there's been, in the past, in the past few weeks, a few protesters get arrested because of this.

Now, there are a few protesters here who maybe can give us their account.

As we're seeing these pictures of some of the protesters being stopped by police, have you protested before?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

The whole time we're marching around the city of Chicago, peaceful protest. That's the way it's supposed to be. But they cut off our march. They're the one that actually create a confrontation by cutting us off. If they allow us to peacefully protest, how we have been doing the last two hours, this confrontation doesn't happen.

FLORES: Thank you, sir.

Now, that's one account of one of the protesters, what they are saying, because they have been walking down the streets of Chicago peacefully demonstrating, asking for the things that you have heard before, the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. They also want the Cook County state's attorney to also step down.

But, right now, it looks like the situation just calmed down, Poppy. The police still holding protesters from moving into Michigan Avenue, and from what I can see, Poppy, you can tell that these protesters are still trying to confront the police, and protesters still trying to break that line, so they can get onto Michigan Avenue.

And based on the picture that you're looking at right now, you can see that it looks like protesters are breaking through. And they're -- so, what's happening right now is that protesters have broken through that line of police. And you can see we're crossing Michigan Avenue right now.

And they are crossing over towards Millennium Park and also turning onto one of the major avenues here in Chicago, the Michigan Mile. So again, Poppy, a lot of emotion here in Chicago as people ask for justice, they ask for politicians to step down, as they look and ask for justice, transparency, police accountability.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: And, Rosa, Rosa, let's talk about just why this happened today, in your opinion. We saw Mayor Rahm Emanuel speak in front of, right, the city

authorities this morning, apologized, say, I own this. Then we just heard him address reporters at a press conference, saying, what do you say to these protesters?

Why is this breaking out today, do you think?

FLORES: Well, from talking to some of the protesters, they say that words are not enough. They actually want the mayor to step down, and they said, yes, you have asked for police accountability, you have asked for transparency, but it was under his watch that these videos were not released, the video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald, the shooting of Ronald Johnson.

And so there's a lot of anger. People are angry, and they want change in their city. Now, what you're seeing right now, Poppy, is, they're asking for a circle. We have seen this before. What some of these protesters do is, they create a circle around one of the major avenues here in Chicago, and they block traffic on both sides, and sometimes they chant, sometimes they sit down and have a sit-down on the street.

And that's what they have been doing historically in the past few weeks to demonstrate, again, to demonstrate peacefully, to demonstrate and ask for change in their city.

HARLOW: Rosa Flores, thank you very much. Stay with us on the ground.

We have our correspondents across the city of Chicago. We are staying on this story.

Quick break. We're back on the other side with more from Chicago.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:24]

HARLOW: All right, we're continuing to follow breaking news out of Chicago.

We will get that picture up for you again in a moment, because there are -- there, you see very big protests amassing in the heart of Chicago in the middle of a busy workday there. We have correspondents across Chicago for you with the story of what the protesters are saying, with what lawmakers are saying and why this is all happening today.

Ryan Young in the middle of it.

Ryan, what are you hearing?

YOUNG: Well, Poppy, we're right in the middle of it. I want to show you the crowd just standing right in the middle of Michigan Avenue.

This is -- they're stopping traffic. People are trying to get through. The police department has allowed them to create this circle, because, at first, they were going to try to block folks from having the circle. But that now has happened.

I want to show you the sign as well, though. People are carrying signs like this one showing cases from the past where they want this spotlight to be on, because, obviously, you can see people are still carrying their pain.

There's lots of people who have been in the neighborhoods fighting for quite some time who want to see change.

When you see the crowd like this, look, you have been a community activist for so long. What does it feel like today to see everyone doing what they're doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm very proud of these young people, because they're expressing their outrage with the system.

They are not pleased with the speech that the mayor gave. The mayor said "I'm sorry" and basically kind of gave the message that we're supposed to trust him with -- with all of the authority.

We really want input in the selection of the new superintendent. We also want a real independent civilian police review board that's independent of him.

Listen, this particular board that he has in place now, over the last few years, has 400 complaints from police officers. Only four have been sustained. It is a joke. We need -- we need an overhaul. And he didn't speak to that.