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New Details About Dallas Gunman; Dallas Chief Calls on Nation to Support Police; Police and Protesters Clash After Week of Violence; Facebook Reveals Clues to Dallas Gunman's Motivation; Family Speaks About Slain Dallas Police Officer; Black Father and Son Write Letters on Police Shootings; Mexican President Says No Way Mexico Will Pay for Trump's Wall. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired July 10, 2016 - 17:00   ET

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


[17:00:01] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know there's a lot of emotions, there's anger. There's frustration, there's hurt, there's outrage. And we understand that. And we certainly respect the right people have to gather peacefully, to protest peacefully, and we're going to protect that right. But at the same time we're not going to tolerate any violence. We're not going to tolerate any lawlessness and we're not going to tolerate the destruction of property. So I'm very proud of the fact that when you look around what's going around this nation today, and you see the violence and the protests that are being taking place in other parts of this country, not only the injuries towards law enforcement but injuries towards those protesters, that's not happening here in Baton Rouge, and we certainly don't want it to happen.

So we have the people here in place to handle any contingency that may come forward. And I'm very proud of the way all of these agencies have worked together. I thank the governor for his leadership because he's been a big part in bringing us all to the table and allowing us to do our jobs.

Thank you.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And there we have it. Authorities speaking live this Sunday evening in Louisiana in the wake of the protests there last night. Dozens and dozens of arrests. We'll continue to monitor this press conference as it goes on.

We have a lot to get to. It is the top of the hour. 5:00 p.m. Eastern this Sunday evening. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. So glad to be back with all of you. What a week it has been, what a week for this country.

Let's get to all of it right now live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

A battered nation mourns with Dallas as terrifying new details emerge on the sniper who killed five police officers and wounded seven others. The killer wrote messages in blood, taunted police officers all throughout the standoff. Also he demanded to speak to a black negotiator. Dallas Police Chief David Brown tells CNN in an exclusive interview with our Jake Tapper today that the killer was planning a larger attack. President Obama we now know will visit Dallas on Tuesday. He will

speak at a memorial service there, and people across that city today showing their support, their love, for their city's finest. The men and women who protect them every day.

Two patrol cars covered with flowers and messages of love as Dallas tries to heal. Our Ed Lavandera has the latest on this investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Micah Johnson improvised his way through Thursday night's attack with deadly precision. Dallas Police Chief David Brown says the killer drove a black SUV through downtown streets to get ahead of the marching protesters and quickly found a way to shoot at officers from inside El Centro College. The unsuspecting officers on the ground were essentially trapped in the crosshairs of Johnson's firearms.

CHIEF DAVID BROWN, DALLAS POLICE: They went a funnel. They ended up being a fatal funnel there. And then the suspect continue to move and shoot from different angles at -- from the high first position down at street level and then back up to the high first positions that -- at really diagonally, almost triangulating our officers with his rapid fire.

LAVANDERA: Brown says the killer used a shoot-and-move tactic, changing locations and shooting from different directions in rapid succession. Perhaps the kind of training he learned during his time in the Army and wrote about in a journal about combat tactics found in Johnson's home.

BROWN: We don't normally see this type of moving and shooting from criminal suspects. We're convinced that the military-style was a plan and that he had practiced this.

LAVANDERA: In a revealing interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Chief Brown also provided chilling new details about the final moments as Dallas police officers cornered the killer inside the second floor building of El Centro College. Officers were exchanging gunfire with him.

BROWN: At the scene where he was killed, there was some -- he wrote some lettering in blood on the walls, which leads us to believe he was wounded on the way up the stairwell on the second floor of the El Centro building, and where we detonated the device to end the standoff, there was more lettering written in his own blood.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: What did he write?

BROWN: We are trying to decipher that. But he wrote the letters "RB".

TAPPER: RB?

BROWN: And we don't -- RB, yes. So we're trying to figure out through looking to get things in his home what those initials mean. But we haven't determined that yet.

LAVANDERA: At this point, Micah Johnson is engaged in a two-hour standoff. Chief Brown says the negotiations were going nowhere. While shooting at police officers, Johnson told police, he would only speak with a black negotiator and remained in control, yet delusional at the same time.

BROWN: And he just basically lied to us, playing games, laughing at us, singing, asking how many did he get, and that he wanted to kill some more and that there were bombs there so there was no progress on the negotiation.

[17:05:04] And I began to feel that it was only at a split second he would charge us and take out many more before we would kill him.

LAVANDERA: That's when Chief Brown says he asked the Dallas police SWAT team to come up with a creative and safe way of ending the standoff.

BROWN: We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was.

LAVANDERA: Brown says the killer was hidden behind a corner. Snipers could not get a clear shot. The decision to use a robot armed with C- 4 explosives has been criticized by some law enforcement analysts, but Chief Brown says he would make the same call again.

BROWN: You have to trust your people to make the calls necessary to save their lives. It's their lives that are at stake, not these critics' lives who are in the comforts of their homes or offices. So, you know, that's not worth my time to debate at this point. We believed that we saved lives by making this decision. And, you know, again, I appreciate critics. But they're not on the ground and their lives are not being put at risk by debating what tactics to take it.

LAVANDERA: This week Chief David Brown will prepare to attend the funerals of the five police officers. The turmoil he sees brewing in communities across the country is something he desperately wants to see end.

BROWN: The law enforcement community is hurting. We're all grieving, not just here in Dallas, all over the country. And words matter. And we need to hear that you appreciate what we do for this country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: What an interview. That was Ed Lavandera reporting from Dallas.

And this week's violence exposed gaping holes in our nation's fabric. Anger, mistrust, and fear between citizens and between police, between people of different races, between generations, young and old. The violence comes as this nation grapples with the debate on racial disparities and use of force by police officers.

How do we all come together? How do we heal as a nation? I'm sure this has been a conversation at your dinner table. It has certainly been one at mine. So let's keep talking about. Let's bring in our panel.

Retired LAPD police sergeant, Cheryl Dorsey, is with us from Los Angeles. Political commentator Ben Ferguson who lives in Dallas, very much a part of that community, and Gregory Thomas, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. He will convene a large number -- a big group of police chiefs next week to talk about this and a lot more. So let's get right to him first.

Thank you, sir, for being with me.

GREGORY THOMAS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF BLACK LAW ENFORCEMENT EXECUTIVES: Sure.

HARLOW: I just want to talk first about your friendship with Chief Brown. That was an extraordinary interview this morning that all of us watched with Jake Tapper. Tell us about the man who is trying to heal this community now.

THOMAS: Well, Chief Brown is a member of our organization NOBLE, as we're called through the acronym, and I had a chance to spend some time with him in the recent two months prior to the incident in Dallas. In particular, we were together at the White House for a meeting as the president and his senior leadership convened to discuss the need to be more transparent with data when it comes to your community because most of the data we're talking about is data that's housed inside police departments, right?

And he was one of the police chiefs that volunteered to step forward and decide to do that. To be more transparent. And his words exactly as he spoke to the group that's assembled is that it's not my data, it's your data, as a community.

HARLOW: Right.

THOMAS: And that's the person that he is. And we also spent some time a month later in Phoenix, Arizona, together on a panel to discuss police community relations. So I know him to be a man who's focused on keeping his community safe. He's a native of Dallas. He's also a forthright commander and a very honest commander. So I'm not surprised that he's leading the way he is right now.

HARLOW: And you know, he went -- he went through his own personal tragedy.

THOMAS: Sure.

HARLOW: His son killed a police officer and was killed by a police officer. And when he was asked about it he didn't want to talk about himself. He wanted to talk about the men and women in blue, the men and women who serve this country. And he said words matter. We need to know you're with us right now. That struck me. What was your reaction?

THOMAS: It's true. I mean, we have to get past this moment right now. Again I want to call it what it is, a moment. I'm not saying it's a snap moment. It's a lot of years put together in context.

HARLOW: Right.

THOMAS: But at this point right now, as I mentioned on a couple of other discussions I've had, if there's going to be a discussion about having two sides here, we need to put the gloves down, and put our hands out and grab each other and hold each other now for forward movement.

HARLOW: Put the gloves down and put our hands out. Well said.

Cheryl Dorsey, let me -- let me bring you in here. Your experience serving in the LAPD. I mean, you wrote about this and you said we need to have a real discussion about race relations. And you called this the systemic institutionalized racism in police departments. And you say there has to be legislation to change things. What -- what do you mean? I mean, what law can change things?

CHERYL DORSEY, RETIRED LAPD POLICE SERGEANT: Well, I think for those errant officers and understand that they are the minority.

[17:10:03] And so by and large most police officers come on the department for the right reason and do the thing day in and day out. We saw that in Dallas. But for those who don't, they find themselves capable of hiding under the shield of a police department through the police officer's Bill of Rights.

And so I understand that police unions are very strong and it's going to take legislation to change that and have these officers who commit policy violations and/or break the law that end in deadly force suffer some of the culpability, some of the accountability in the circumstance that occurs because of their bad choice.

HARLOW: Ben, I thought of you immediately when the attack took place in Dallas. It is your home. You are a proud resident there. You also come from a law enforcement family.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

HARLOW: What do you think the people of Dallas need right now? What moves this conversation forward as we look forward to the president speaking there on Tuesday?

FERGUSON: Well, I think first you have to look at this police force. And this police force is an incredibly diverse police force. Almost 50 percent of all the police officers are African-American. You have a police chief that's African-American. And I think one of the most important things that he said was, I don't and we don't feel like we have the support of the American people in the community. And we got to work and we need to feel that, we need to hear that.

The police officers that I saw yesterday and the day before and the ones I've talked to on the phone, majority of them are African- American. They said they feel like it's open season on police officers. There's been so much rhetoric that has been so anti-police because of the actions of less than 0.1 percent of the police force. And there is a changing mentality in this country especially among

young people that police are not good guys, that they are the bad guys. And we've seen so much of this conversation take place. You look at these cops that died this week in Dallas, they had nothing to do with what happened in Baton Rouge. They had nothing to do with what happened in Minneapolis. They had nothing to do what happened in Ferguson or in Baltimore.

HARLOW: So --

FERGUSON: And their point is this, the reason why their lives are at risk in Dallas when they're hundreds of miles away from any of these places where this happened is because there has been a change. And we need to hope and pray that this is a different day moving forward. Instead of being so much anti-police rhetoric that people realize that hey, there are men and women that put a badge on that come to you -- as one of them said to me, he came home and his son said, dad, will you please quit and just go get a normal job?

HARLOW: Let me bring Charles Blow in here. If you haven't read it, I hope you will. "A Week From Hell," the name -- the title of Charles Blow's piece in "The New York Times." Really well said. And thank you for being here with us.

You call it an ambient level of terror. And you say that's what we're living in right now. And you right, "We seem caught in a cycle of escalating atrocities without an easy way out."

You spoke earlier this week to one of my colleagues about the young man in Louisiana who was killed and the man in Minnesota who was killed, and you said, they look like me. As you process all of this and speak to your -- speak to your own child about this as you wrote about, how do we dig our way out?

CHARLES BLOW, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, I think there are a lot of things colliding all at once. There has -- there is a moment that's happening, particularly in black America where there's kind of a reclamation of history and people -- that a lot new kind of research, a lot of new literature, allowing people access to a varied history of oppression in America. And part of that oppression was that police sources were used as an instrument in that oppressive force.

And so you have that kind of reclamation of memory kind of colliding with this new kind of technological advance that allows people to see a present day manifestation of what they believe echoes what they're learning about their own history. So they have kind of this awakening moment and these two forces are kind of colliding and creating a really kind of fertile ground for a lot of rage and anger and people demanding a certain amount of change. And I think that that is a real phenomenon. And it's not an easy one to get past because you have the impulse to want to be heard.

HARLOW: But it's also an opportunity, isn't it? I mean, fertile ground for actual change and opportunity. And you write about your child and you said your college-aged daughter hugged you and said, I'm scared. Are you scared? How do we make it better for her?

BLOW: Right.

HARLOW: And those younger than her.

BLOW: Well, two things kind of have to happen simultaneously. Right? There is -- there's a legitimate grievance, if you can put it that way, that these young people feel that they are the recipients of the historical grievance that they have inherited at a historical disadvantage because of those grievances and they want to just express that. That's number one. And number two, they want the present system to change in a way that they don't have to relive what has happened to their fathers or their grandfathers or grandmothers or mothers, and they don't want to have that cycle continue to tumble forward into their lives.

[17:15:13] And so I think we have to acknowledge both things are happening simultaneously, that they want to get this thing off of their chest and they feel like they're kind of submerged in this present moment, what feels like an echo of something that happened a long time ago.

HARLOW: Thank you all for being here, Cheryl, Charles, Gregory, Ben. A lot more to talk about in the hours ahead. Thank you all. We appreciate it.

Coming up next, you will see the entire exclusive interview with Dallas' police chief, David Brown. Tonight you will not want to miss that beginning to end only right here on CNN.

Also ahead for us tonight, people in cities across America taking to the streets but police in Baton Rouge say protest scenes are not always what they appear. We will explain what do they mean by that ahead.

Also letters between a father and son in the aftermath of the death of two black men at the hands of police this week in Louisiana and Minnesota. This is a conversation about race in America that you need to hear. They will read part of their letters to one another to you live right here.

And later --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA ZAMARRIPA, VICTIM'S SISTER: My brother loved his country and his community. So I guess this is just his way of -- showing -- just -- I just can't wrap my mind around it. It's just so unreal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: An unimaginable loss. For the first time we are hearing from the family of one of the fallen Dallas police officers. Their emotional interview is ahead.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back. More protests today in the nation's capital, more planned tonight in Boston and New York, over the police shooting deaths of two black men last week. Nationwide last night protests were mostly peaceful. But more than 260 protesters were arrested last night in Baton Rouge, Atlanta, New York, Chicago, and St. Paul, Minnesota.

[17:20:07] Right now those are images from last night. Earlier you were seeing live images from some of those protests right now in Washington, D.C.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, that is where you saw some of the worst violence. Activists shut down I-94 for a few hours. Some threw bottles, bricks and fireworks at police, injuring five officers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF TODD AXTELL, ST. PAUL POLICE DEPARTMENT: Last night really was the first time in my 28 years as a police officer that I have observed the level of violence that was directed towards our public servants. The public servants that are there to protect all of us in this room and all of us in our community.

And it's really a disgrace. And protesters last night turned into criminals. I'm absolutely disgusted by the acts of some. Not all, but some.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: And I do want to note, we have an updated figure, 21 officers, not five. 21 officers in Minnesota injured in those protests last night. After several hours police restored calm. I-94 did reopen around 2:30 in the morning.

Let's talk more about all of this in a national context. Baton Rouge City Councilman LaMont Cole joins me now. He's a former president of the Baton Rouge chapter of the NAACP.

Thank you for being with me, sir.

LAMONT COLE, BATON ROUGE CITY COUNCIL: Thank you for having me.

HARLOW: I want to get your reaction to a statement we just got from the Baton Rouge Police Department after they held that press conference just a few moments ago talking about the protest, calling it sort of two separate protests there last night. They said the protest organized by local community leaders which marched from city hall to the steps of the state capital yesterday evening was very peaceful. No arrests were made.

"We would like to extend our gratitude to those local community leaders. The protests last night at the Baton Rouge police headquarters organized by individuals from outside our Baton Rouge community resulted in 102 arrests." There really in this police press release separating the two, saying

there were peaceful protests by people from Baton Rouge and very -- you know, protests that were not peaceful from outsiders who came in and that led to more than 100 arrests. What do you make of that?

COLE: Well, I think that what we're seeing is that the people are angry and people are frustrated and in both protests people are protesting the way they think is best in order to serve the people based on their frustration and anger.

I also think that everyone is working towards solutions. And so while some protests may differ in how we protest, I think that everyone is working towards solutions for what we see going on in our city.

HARLOW: Are you concerned about what they're pointing to as outsiders coming in and turning what was a peaceful protest into something it's not? That seems to be what they're saying.

COLE: Well, I'm more concerned that we have a system in place where rules without relationships lead to rebellion. And whether the outsiders are people who are protesting on -- from Baton Rouge and not from Baton Rouge, there needs to be a conversation about the relationship that exists between law enforcement and the black community.

What we're seeing is we don't have a relationship. There's no conversation happening between law enforcement and the black community. And now we're seeing people act out based on what they're feeling.

HARLOW: So let's talk about some of the specifics here. Obviously, this hits home for you. You know Alton Sterling's aunt. She reached out to you right after he was killed.

COLE: I know her very well.

HARLOW: And I know she reached out to you right after --

COLE: Yes, ma'am, I know her very well.

HARLOW: Right after he was killed. What is the message does she and her family want America to hear right now?

COLE: Well, their message is simply this. They want justice for Alton Sterling. They want to see something happen to the two officers involved in the case. They want people to continue to protest until justice is served. But they want people to do that peacefully. They want peaceful protest. They want to see it happen peacefully. They don't want any violence because violence is what has led to losing of their family member. So they don't want to see any violence. And they don't advocate for violence.

But what the family does, and particularly Sandra Sterling because that is who I have been in contact with every single day. What she's advocating for is that there be continued pressure on the police department to get this particular situation right. Based on the video that we've seen, get it right. Make sure that the appropriate charges are brought to the two officers. This is not an indictment, nor does she want an indictment on law enforcement as a whole, particularly law enforcement here in Baton Rouge, but what the family does want, they want justice for their family member.

HARLOW: Before I let you go, we heard Charles Blow from "The New York Times" earlier in the program call this fertile ground. And you can see that two ways. You can see that as something that turns increasingly negative or something that leads to real, positive change in this country. What is this moment in your mind?

[17:25:02] COLE: In my mind, this is a moment for both parties to come to the table. There has to be clear representation with open minds from law enforcement and there has to be clear representation from the black community at the table to have a real meaningful conversation about what is happening, what are the frustrations that we have as a black community with law enforcement, what are the frustrations that law enforcement have with the black community, and then we have to start working towards real solutions, real policy changes and real reform.

HARLOW: Councilman LaMont, thank you so much for joining me. Councilman LaMont Cole, appreciate your time tonight.

COLE: Thank you so much for having me.

HARLOW: Of course.

Coming up next here, new details about the Dallas gunman and his past, that includes frequent visits to online hate groups, possible plans for a larger attack, we've now learned. We'll have a report from CNN's Drew Griffin ahead.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. And we are learning more about the man who went on that murderous rampage in Dallas on Thursday night killing five police officers and wounding seven others. Earlier the city's police chief spoke exclusively to our Jake Tapper and he said that Micah Johnson was plotting a larger attack.

[17:30:01] We also know that the gunman had an extensive online history that included visiting hate group Web sites.

Our senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His Facebook page was covered with Black Nationalist symbolism. The Black Liberation flag, his photo fist raised in a Black Power salute.

CNN has been speaking with a former friend of Johnson, who says the Dallas police killer was disturbed not just by recent police killings of black men, but on the history of violence against his race.

Johnson repeatedly viewed the videotaped police beating of Rodney King, the friend told CNN. And he knew everything about the history of Martin Luther King's assassination and the teachings and murder of Malcolm X. And through his electronic fingerprints, it's clear Micah Johnson was visiting, liking, and absorbing messages that could have inspired him not just to hate but to strike.

The friend, who wants to remain anonymous, says Johnson was a good black man with a little bit of an anger problem.

(On camera): That combination of history, pride and anger is visible when you scroll through Micah Johnson's Facebook likes.

(Voice-over): Captured by CNN, they show the shooter visited and liked a multitude of African-American groups, Black Lives Matter, African-American History, Alternative Afro Centric news sites, the New Black Panthers, sites devoted to covering the experience of blacks in the United States. But you also come across these -- groups that espouse more than just black awareness or empowerment, but hate and violence.

The African-American Defense League is one of them. Shortly after news broke of a black man being killed in Baton Rouge this week, the AADL posted then deleted this call to arms, "Calling on the gangs across the nation, attack everything in blue."

The postings are similar to what led to this nationwide alert issued by the FBI Thursday, a warning to all law enforcement that attacks on police were being called for with images so graphic of cops being killed CNN has chosen not to repeat them. One shows an artistic version of an officer's throat being cut, similar to ISIS-style propaganda.

J.M. BERGER, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Certainly they're putting out incendiary content and there is somebody who is inclined toward violence is reading that, they may fixate on that content as the reasons to take action.

GRIFFIN: J.M. Berger studies extremist groups for the George Washington University. He knows the FBI is monitoring sites like these and while he says they haven't risen to the level of actual terrorists, he's troubled where the sites may be headed.

BERGER: So, you know, we don't see the same kind of enforcement action against white nationalists and black nationalists that we see against jihadist groups and that's probably going to be an impending problem for us. What we do see is that extremist groups of all types are getting on the Internet more. They're exploiting the lessons -- they can learn from ISIS' success.

GRIFFIN: Almost like a page from the ISIS playbook, domestic hate sites are making Micah Johnson a martyr. This from the site devoted to the teachings of Elijah Mohammad, "Rest in peace," the site declares of the murderer. "He stood up to injustice."

Drew Griffin, CNN, Dallas, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Drew, thank you very much for that.

Coming up next, you will not want to miss this. For the first time the family of one of those officers slain in Dallas is speaking out for the very first time. Our Rafael Romo sat down with Officer Patrick Zamarripa's mother and his sister. You will hear from them firsthand what they want everyone to know about the son and the brother that they loved so much. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:37:05] HARLOW: Welcome back. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM this Sunday evening. And we have seen the pain of the families of the two black men who were shot and killed by a police officer just in the past week. Now two family members of one of the fallen Dallas police officers is speaking publicly for the first time about their loss. 32-year-old Officer Patrick Zamarripa was one of the five Dallas police officers and transit officers who was killed by that gunman on Thursday night.

Our senior Latin American affairs editor Rafael Romo sat down, spoke with the mother and sister today. And he joins us now from Dallas.

I can't imagine how emotional the interview was, but it's so important to hear their voices. To hear from them how they want people to remember the son and the brother that they loved. What stood out to you the most?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Yes, Poppy, it was a very difficult interview to do because the family, the Zamarripa family, is just so close. And it's just so sudden that it was very difficult to hear from them, the pain they're going through, and the family tells me that ever since Patrick Zamarripa, or Patricio as they know him, was a very small child, he always wanted to be a police officer. That's what he always wanted to be, they said.

And he comes from a family who has served proudly in the Armed Forces in the United States. His grandfather, Larry Martinez, served in the Korean War. His sister, Laura Zamarripa, served in the Navy, and Patricio himself, at the age of 17, joined the U.S. Navy and served three tours of duty in Afghanistan. Then he comes back home to Texas and joins the Dallas Police Department seven years ago.

The police department just behind me. And after serving his country for so many years so proudly, it is very hard, as you can imagine for the family to understand why he had to die in such a horrific way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIE ZAMARRIPA, VICTIM'S MOTHER: I screamed. I said no. No, not my baby. Not my Patrick. They told me, yes, that it was him. But it can't be. L. ZAMARRIPA: Yes, he survived three deployments, and then to come

home and happen at home, but, I mean, my brother loved his country and his community. So I guess this is his way of showing just -- I just can't wrap my mind around it. It's just so unreal. But I just came home and tell him that everybody wants to know about him.

[17:40:06] V. ZAMARRIPA: When he was a little boy, he always talked about becoming a police officer. That was his dream. As far back as I can remember.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: The Zamarripa family now making funeral arrangements. I asked both Valerie Zamarripa, the mother, and Laura, their feelings about the man who shot their son. And what they said is that they feel saddened for the Johnson family because they're also experiencing a very sad loss, and it is a very difficult moment for them as well.

And Poppy, listen to this. Patrick Zamarripa was going to turn 33 years old, August 15th. He had a 2-year-old daughter and his fiancee, Christy, and they were planning to get married in the short term. Back to you.

HARLOW: It breaks your heart. 2-year-old daughter left without a father. But incredible to hear the family say, Rafael, that they feel pain as well for the gunman's family and what they're going through. Pretty remarkable. Thank you so much.

And Dallas grieves its lost officers, the Assist The Officer foundation or ATO has established a fund to try to help the victims' families just like that family that you just heard from firsthand. If you want to help, you can go atoDallas.org. Again that's atoDallas.org to help the families of all of these officers who were slain on Thursday night.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:45:05] HARLOW: Two black men dead at the hands of police officers leading to nationwide protests and unrest and across this country black fathers are having very difficult conversations with their sons about the events of the past week. These are not new conversations, but they are conversations that are sparked again because of the events of the past week.

The heartfelt letters between one father and one son about just this made their way into the pages of "TIME" magazine this week. As I read them and our team read them, we were incredibly stuck. We wanted them to join us on the program and they're with us tonight.

Eddie Glaude, Jr. chairs the Department of African-American Studies at Princeton University. He's the author of "Democracy in Black." His son Langston is a rising junior at Brown University. He majors in Africana Studies. Thank you both for being here. We appreciate it very much. And I

know you brought your letters. And I want you to each read the excerpt of your letter that struck you the most, that stands out to you the most, starting with you first, Professor.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR., CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Sure. Thank you for having us.

"Dear Langston, I thought of you when I saw the son of Alton Sterling weeping at a press conference. It was the latest of a string of haunting public rituals of grief. The police had killed another black person. His cries made me think of you. It seems ever since the murder of Trayvon Martin -- and you were only 15 then -- that you've had to come to terms with this pressing fact, that police can wantonly kill us and there seems to be little or no protection, that even I can't protect you."

HARLOW: And Langston, what did you write back to your father?

LANGSTON GLAUDE, RISING JUNIOR, BROWN UNIVERSITY: "Funny. I, too, find myself wishing that I were a kid again. The world seemed so much simpler back then. But then I remembered Tamir Rice. I remember Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Aiyana Jones. I look at the faces of countless black bodies piling up in our streets and I remember my own experience with police officers as a kid. The struggle must continue for our future's sake."

HARLOW: Professor, let me begin with you. Listening to those letters, you said in yours that you wish that your son, Langston, was 7 years old again. Why is that? And why did Alton Sterling's death drive you to write this letter?

E. GLAUDE: Well, you know, I saw Alton Sterling's 15-year-old son weeping at the press conference, and it reminded me of my own child. And you know, combine that with Diamond Reynolds' extraordinary 4- year-old child having the resources to comfort her, it just made me think of my own son, and I just said that it would be better if he was just home, if he was with us. We could at least make sure he was safe. Because when he was 7, he was so cute, you know. He could -- he was fixing his own cereal. You know, we were watching Sponge-Bob together.

He wasn't that maddening teenager that he became. And you know, he was just my man. You know, he liked me still. But then, you know, typical of my child, when he wrote back, he reminded me that Tamir was 12, that he was a kid, and that adolescence, childhood isn't a safety -- a safe space, necessarily.

HARLOW: And Langston, you described in detail in your letter being afraid for the first time as an activist when you received your first threat online and you wanted to run to your father and you say you constantly ask yourself, what would my father do? So what do you think your father would do at a time like this?

L. GLAUDE: Well, my dad will for sure fight for what he believes is right. I know for a fact that he would try to do everything in his power to do whatever he can to fight on behalf of black folks and black people suffering everywhere under the hands of police violence. I know that he would do what he thinks is right and that alone pushes me to do what I think is right, so -- yes.

HARLOW: Professor, you named your son after the poet and the activist Langston Hughes. Back in 1932 he wrote this, "Justice is a blind goddess, is a thing to which we black are wise. Her bandage hides two festering sores that once perhaps were eyes."

That was written now more than 80 years ago. What do you think Langston Hughes would say about race relations in America today, someone who you named your son after?

E. GLAUDE: Oh, he would still be fighting, fighting the good fight, claiming that America has yet to live up to its ideals.

[17:50:0010] We named him Langston. We named him after Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison because we wanted -- every time he said his name that we wanted him to understand the wind beneath his wings. That he comes out of an extraordinary tradition. James Baldwin called these folks spiritual aristocrats, folks who have endured the unimaginable and still can walk straight up, walk with dignity and pride.

And here we are in 2016 trying desperately to make sure that a world that seemingly despises our children, that that sense -- that that belief doesn't seep into their souls. That the rage that I see in my son, and he's angry, I know you are, Langston, that that rage doesn't darken his soul and take away that beautiful smile of his. So Langston would still be engaged in this amazing critique of how fallen America is.

HARLOW: And to you, Langston, listening to what your father says and listening to what President Obama said just this weekend, he said that America is not as divided as it may seem right now. Tonight, sitting where you're sitting, do you feel that? Do you feel hope?

L. GLAUDE: I feel hope for sure, and the hope definitely lies within the thousands and thousands of students and people in my generation, the young folk who are pushing for equal justice, who are pushing for police accountability, who are pushing for police to be held accountable for overstepping their bounds and for many of the acts that are being done.

That gives me hope. That for sure gives me hope. And I want people to keep pushing. I want people to keep calling for justice and equal rights. So.

HARLOW: Eddie and Langston, thank you very much for joining us.

E. GLAUDE: I love you, Son.

L. GLAUDE: Thank you. I love you, too, Dad.

E. GLAUDE: Thank you.

HARLOW: We'll be right back.

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HARLOW: Welcome back. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

From day one, day one, of his candidacy, Donald Trump vowed to build a wall between the United States and Mexico and to have Mexico pay for it. Well, today in a CNN exclusive interview with Mexico's president, he responded to those claims.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA GPS: So Donald Trump's main policy promise, the one he began his campaign with, is that he intends to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, along the border, and he intends to get Mexico to pay for it.

PRES. ENRIQUE PENA NIETO, MEXICO: There's a way to have Mexico pay that wall, but any decisions inside the United States is a decision of its government.

ZAKARIA: But under no circumstances would Mexico pay for that wall?

PENA NIETO: There is no way that Mexico can pay a wall like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Joining me now CNN political commentator and Donald Trump supporter, Scottie Nell Hughes.

[17:55:01] Scottie, it's great to have you back -- to be back with you. Thank you for joining us. The wall.

SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Welcome back, Poppy.

HARLOW: Thank you. It's so nice to be back with everyone. The wall. You heard the president there. He said no way are we going to pay for this. So can Trump still stump on this?

HUGHES: Absolutely. I mean, fine, he can say that, and Mr. Trump, as president of the United States, can say, you know what, the $24 million a year that people in America send back to Mexico, illegals that America send back to Mexico, those just won't go through. $24 million in the Mexican economy probably will make a big difference. Also, you look at trade tariff, visa fees --

HARLOW: But are you saying Trump will be able to twist the president's arm? To twist his arm to say, you can't send that money back, you know, if you don't pay for the wall?

HUGHES: Absolutely. I mean, like the president said, if you sit there -- if you're in America, he decides who does America just like the president of Mexico decides what he wants to do within Mexico. I mean, here's what's interesting about this. You're talking about a man right now that the average Mexican actually does not make near that. I think their minimum wage is something like $5.60 an hour, and that's if you've been working for one year or 40 years.

So he's sitting here telling us -- and he was right in his interview. One million people cross illegally every year back and forth. And that is OK. That is what we want. But right now we have 11 million immigrants crossing over into the United States that is costing us $113 billion per year. That's $113 billion we could reinvest in our communities right now, in education, in economic development. Exactly what we need. Immigrants right now, illegals can actually get on our health care system. Americans can't even afford to get health insurance, yet illegals are able to do it.

HARLOW: Scottie --

HUGHES: Yes.

HARLOW: I'm getting the wrap but I need a yes or no very quickly. If it were only that the United States had to pay for the wall or there would be no wall, should we build it, yes or no?

HUGHES: Absolutely, because in the end we'd still save money if we keep the illegals from coming over here.

HARLOW: You heard the president of Mexico telling our Fareed Zakaria no way we're paying for a wall. And the wall debate continues.

Scottie Nell Hughes, thank you very much.

Coming up here in just a moment, you will hear a critically important interview. The entire exclusive interview with Dallas Police Chief David Brown. He sat down for an extended conversation with my colleague Jake Tapper this morning. You'll want to hear it. It's next right here.

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