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Witness Describes Violent Protests in Charlotte; Violent Protests Continue in Charlotte News Crews Covering Protest In Firing Line. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired September 22, 2016 - 02:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:00:36] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. Great to have you with us. We'd like to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause, in Los Angeles, where it is 11:00 a.m.

We are following breaking news in Charlotte, North Carolina. For the second night, protesters have clashed violently with police. The crowds are starting to clear now but the situation is still ongoing. One person has been shot, critically wounded during the demonstrations. Police say the victim was shot by another civilian, not by police. Four officers have been hurt. These protests were sparked by the police of an African-American man on Tuesday.

Let's bring in Boris Sanchez who is live in Charlotte this our. He is on the line -- on the line is Ronnie Karioke.

Heard the National Guard has been moving in. Tell us more about what you have seen the past few hours.

RONNIE KARIOKE (ph), WITNESS (voice-over): Thank you for having me on. I saw a lot of stuff going on uptown in Charlotte. First off, there was this giant line of police officers in riot uniform just creating human barricades to keep people from getting in to this safe zone going on. Everywhere you went there was broken glass, people protesting, even protesters protesting other protesters, like people against what some of the other people were trying to say. All around, kind of hectic. Go a couple of blocks and it was the same thing. It was really wild out there tonight.

VAUSE: Can you point to any one thing that may have triggered the violence?

KARIOKE (ph): I'd definitely say it was due to the death of Keith Scott yesterday. Last night was actually much worse than tonight. But I'd say that was the catalyst that started everything going on tonight. Definitely for the most part people were kind of angry toward police tonight, I could see. They even started to throw things. Some people started to throw water bottles at police officers and that was met with tear gas and rubber bullets they shot back. Luckily, I wasn't hit by anything. Me and my friend were down there but we left pretty OK. Yeah, there's definitely people like really up in the officers' faces getting belligerent.

VAUSE: How would you describe the reaction by the police when the protesters, as you say were up in their face?

KARIOKE (ph): It was very, very calm, very cool. Like I said they only ever retaliated when they were like attacked first. I talked to one of the officers. I asked how he was doing. He said he was just doing his job. He didn't want to be out there but had to be out there. It really wasn't much they were doing against anyone out there, but more of like trying to keep everyone under control and making sure no one was too wild out there tonight.

VAUSE: I understand you are back on campus now. What is every there saying about the protests.

KARIOKE (ph): I got back an hour ago and people said why were you out there? It is crazy out there. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Most people were concerned about a shooting, I guess another person was killed -- but not killed, but in the hospital tonight. People wondering about the shooting and how the officers are treating the rest of us out there, just trying to watch and see what was going down.

VAUSE: Ronnie, how quickly would you say the peaceful protesters actually left the scene leaving behind the demonstrators looting the buildings and, you know, carrying out the violent acts?

[02:05:11] KARIOKE (ph): They were in two separate locations. Where I was, it was mostly peaceful. I'd say that the majority of the people there were holding signs and some were singing, praying. Of course, there are always those that want to cause trouble and that led to the tear gas and stuff.

The looters were further down the street. They were usually on their own. I saw a man break a bus window for seemingly no reason. Yeah, they weren't exactly going down hand in hand but a good walking distance away from where the peaceful stuff was going on.

VAUSE: Ronnie, we will leave it there.

Ronnie Karioke (ph), who was on the street, witnessed the violence firsthand.

Appreciate you calling in. Thank you.

Boris Sanchez has been covering the violent protest since it began, about eight hours ago now.

Boris, we have been keeping an eye on the street corner where you are. It seems police have been trying to clear out the last of the demonstrators.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. We are looking at the last demonstrators here, least in this area. At my count there are nine of them across the street from us. As I say that, several are leaving. A handful left a few moments ago and had choice words for officers blocking the street. Down there you still can see riot police moving down the street. They pushed us off the corner a while ago asking us to get out of there. There were a couple dozen people on the corner. They moved down that street. I'm not sure where they are now.

It is clear this is dying down, not just in numbers but in intensity. It was truly a rough night for the city of Charlotte. What began as a dramatic emotional dialogue outside of the police station, eventually evolved in to ugliness and people being very cruel to each other. I saw several camera crews, several reporters threatened. One of them assaulted. My colleague, Ed Lavandera, was pushed to the ground by a protester. I saw several people picking up things and throwing them at police as they were arrested.

Obviously, we mentioned a number of people hurt. There were four police officers, at least four police officers injured tonight and a civilian badly, badly hurt that was right outside of the hotel where things really hit a tipping point and then rapidly descended in to chaos from there. The SWAT team officers went inside of a hotel. Hundreds of the protesters tried to follow them in. They started to bang on the glass. Then the officers came out and the confrontation is when we first saw the tear gas being used and started to see people becoming physical. There were quite a few people that locked arms between the protesters and the police urging for peace. At one point, the protesters started to snatch them away, and they broke the chain and things escalated quickly from there. That's the moment when there was a loud bang right in front of us. Moments later, there was a man on the floor, people tending to him. I spoke to one woman who had a video of the young man on the ground bleeding profusely.

There was also misinformation. A lot of people reporting things on social media that turned out to be inaccurate. We got a tweet from the chief of police saying specifically the young man hurt was hurt by another civilian and not a police officer but there were people on the street yelling they killed another one of us. There was a fear that police were targeting people and a deep level of mistrust, John, between the community and police. Obviously, being presented with something as cut and dry as what happened in the situation. They still wouldn't believe the chief of police when he was trying to explain the situation to them.

It speaks to what we are facing here, a frustrated and angry community taking out their aggression sadly on a city that for my estimation wasn't prepared if they are violence tonight -- John?

VAUSE: Boris Sanchez joining us live in Charlotte.

Joining me now in Los Angeles, CNN's law enforcement analyst, Steve Moore; also civil right attorney Areva Martin.

Steve, from a law enforcement view, when these protests escalate like this, when they go from peaceful to violent, can you put a finger on something that may have happened.

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: The triggers are usually individuals. During some protests in Seattle a few years ago, they were using paint balls to identify to other officers the leaders in the violent part of the protests. It's not necessarily a moment, as much as it is certain individuals that turn a protest in to a mob.

[02:10:12] AREVA MARTIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: What we have seen in a lot of these protesters there are some bad actors that actually travel in to cities.

VAUSE: They come prepared.

MARTIN: They come prepared. They have an agenda and their agenda is to be disruptive and create this violence. As I sit here and watch the protests, what is disheartening to me, those people, those bad actors step on the message of the protesters. We are spending our energy and time talking about the violence and it doesn't leave much time to talk about the root issues, the causes and how to get to solutions. I know it is important to talk about the violence. I know that police officers have been injured and businesses were destroyed. This is just about the murder of Keith Scott. This is happening because African-American men around the country, and we've so many of these viral videos, so many of these shootings. This isn't just about one shooting in one town.

MOORE: By the way, I disagree with the term "murder." We don't know. That is jumping to conclusions. That's what we don't want to do.

But I agree with Areva in that there are people that come in and destroy these things, destroy peaceful protests. I was heartened by some of the protesters locking arms, trying to stop the violence there. I think that cooler heads need to wait this out. We may disagree on a lot of things but one thing we agree on is we'd rather talk about the issue and not the revolt.

VAUSE: Areva, to Steve's point, the investigation is just getting started. Did the protest get ahead of itself?

MARTIN: Let me say something about the word "murder." A murder can be a justifiable homicide. It can be a homicide but the question is whether it was justified, whether the police officer meets the standard established by the supreme court in that seminal 1985, Tennessee v. Gardner case, whether there was a threat of harm to the officer at the time the shot was fired. We have to talk about transparency and accountability. That frustration we see tonight and that we have seen in Ferguson, Baltimore, and so many cities is because the communities of color don't believe police officers are held accountable.

VAUSE: One of the problems is there is an investigation ongoing, as you say, but there's also the video cam and dash cam video which police had outright refused to release. If that backs up their case that the shooting was legally justifiable, shouldn't they have done that, Steve?

MOORE: I agree. If Mr. Scott had a weapon and refused repeated attempts, repeated orders, as police say, to drop the weapon and lethal force was used on him, then I think the police should be even quicker to, for their own benefit, to release it. You know, I understand what you are saying about murder. I think it

is a radioactive term. I prefer to say there was a life taken.

MARTIN: I think the issue, again, we're not able to spend a lot of time focused on is how do we get to solutions? The African-American, communities all over the country, this isn't just a black issue but an American issue. I hate when you go to social media. If we are going to solve this we have to come together.

MOORE: You can be both camps. You can be pro-police and pro protesters.

MARTIN: Absolutely.

VAUSE: Should the attorney general get involved in this?

MARTIN: I think depending on the investigation of these shooting in every situation is a good thing because the trust isn't there. The community doesn't trust the local law enforcement. They don't trust the policing authorities that are likely to investigate the case. We need an accountable body. We need a body the community has trust in order for them to believe we are making progress and moving forward towards eliminating. I don't know how many of these videos these shootings that we can take as a country.

VAUSE: Steve, I see you nodding in agreement.

MOORE: I agree, but not that I agree as many shootings are non justifiable. I recognize that a bunch of them are. But I think body cams, independent investigations, that people trust by a third party will solve a lot of this. It's not because I don't distrust personally the Charlotte Police Department. But some do. So why don't we get a third party? It's like an airliner crashes. United Airlines doesn't investigate it. The NTSB does.

VAUSE: OK, thanks so much. A really good discussion.

MOORE: Thanks.

VAUSE: Thanks, John.

[02:15:08] VAUSE: Appreciate it, Steve, Areva.

We'll take a short break. When we come back, another night of violent protests in Charlotte, North Carolina. When we come back, we'll tell how journalists got caught up in the chaos.

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(WEATHER REPORT)

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VAUSE: Welcome back. One person is in hospital in a critical condition after shot during violent protests in Charlotte, North Carolina. Police fired tear gas to try to disperse the crowds. They set fires in the street and smashed windows throughout the city. At least four police officers have been hurt demonstrators threw rocks and bottles. The protests started on Tuesday night after police fatally shot an African-American man.

News crews covering this protest have been in the firing line, including our Boris Sanchez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(GUNFIRE)

[02:19:52] BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Anderson. Basically, we were following the crowd to this part of downtown. At one point, people got agitated. Trash cans thrown were thrown from the top of the mall. And then they were trying to damage these vans. So far, they have put out --

(GUNFIRE)

SANCHEZ: Oh, wow --

(COUGHING)

SANCHEZ: They've put out pepper spray. People are running from it.

(SHOUTING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, get out of there.

Get out of there.

SANCHEZ: So as you can tell, the situation is out of control. Just to give you a look at where the police line is right now. You can tell from the debris in front of me. Things quickly got out of control. And they are doing what they can to disperse the crowd but it is very difficult. It is difficult.

(GUNFIRE)

SANCHEZ: Oh, OK.

They clearly want us out of here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Joining me now in Los Angeles, criminal defense attorney, Brian Claypool; and social commentator, Segun Oduolowu.

So, Segun, first to you, community leaders, also the family of Mr. Scott, they spent most of the day appealing for calm, appealing -- pleading for quiet and peaceful protests. Why did those calls go unanswered?

SEGUN ODUOLOWU, SOCIAL COMMENTATOR: They go unanswered because of the frustration people free. I agree with Areva. She was just on. You -- You can't watch what is going on, that violent rioting, that's not protesting. That is mob mentality. But what's the cause of it? The root cause is the frustration of another person shot by police. I don't care what the color of the cop, but the blue uniform and the fact they have not released. If the shooting was so above board, release the tape.

VAUSE: Brian, to that point, if you are a civil rights attorney, you would want to see the tape straight away. Why wouldn't the police release it to try to avoid the issue?

BRIAN CLAYPOOL, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Great point. Segun has a great point. If that vindicates the police department, then we would have seen that tape by now. That tells me that maybe there's something in the tape that may create even more outrage in the city of Charlotte and that's why it hasn't been released.

VAUSE: We keep seeing the protests -- black men keep getting shot and we see the violent protests that follow. Are people desensitized to this?

ODUOLOWU: I this I they do. This is what bothers me. This is my 20 year high school reunion. I grew up in northern Virginal, south of the Mason-Dixon line, with white, black, Hispanic kids, everybody. It is sad and scary to think my future kids won't be able to play with the people I grew up with because we haven't progressed. 25 years ago, we watched Rodney King beat in the streets and now we're watching a black person die by cops almost every week. Think of this, since Colin Kaepernick started his protest, 15, actually 16 black people have lost their lives due to cops. You can read in the "Huffington Post." It is scary. You ask yourself, what now?

VAUSE: Brian, how much of this is racially motivated or just because of bad police training? How much is justified.

CLAYPOOL: It's probably all -- two of the three. First two you hit. Look at the shooting in Tulsa. I think his name is Crutcher.

VAUSE: Yeah, Terence Crutcher.

CLAYPOOL: There's a police officer in a helicopter saying that looks like a bad guy.

ODUOLOWU: What made him bad?

CLAYPOOL: I hate to tell you, but he was African-American. That's why he's bad. Racial profiling is a major fundamental problem. It's been existing for 20, 30 years. Second problem, you look at these shootings you have seen in the last six months, year, two years, the biggest problem are police officers who are too aggressive. The most fundamental training tenet is take a position of cover when you are approaching a suspect. Look at all of these shootings deaths.

VAUSE: If you look at the law, North Carolina is an open-carry state. If Mr. Scott had a gun, he could have been legally entitled to have a gun and he didn't have to point it at police for them to believe they were in imminent danger, which justified them to shoot him.

ODUOLOWU: Right.

CLAYPOOL: Exactly. The standard is an objective police officer, not subjective. It is what an objective police officer believes are they in imminent fear of great bodily harm. The family says it is a book.

(CROSSTALK)

CLAYPOOL: Huge difference. Don't you think the video would solve the problem?

VAUSE: Absolutely.

But let's go to the protests for a moment. When they turn violent like this, many people ask the question, how are they helping their cause by looting stores, jumping on cars, causing so much damage.

I want to play for you what the mayor of Charlotte said to CNN about a few hours ago.

I thought we had that sound byte. Basically, she was saying this is destruction, a small group of people who essentially take away from what the vast majority of protesters are trying to do, which is look at the real issue.

ODUOLOWU: First of all, with all due respect to the mayor, how about you enact some laws and transparency within the people that are paid to protect and serve? How about we just put that right there on the table? Why is it that the people that are typically shot by the police look a certain way? If you don't want those people to be protesting, to be looting and rioting and nobody does. It diminishes the cause. It makes it difficult to justify any rational conversation but let's see our police officers and politicians address real issues. Let's forget about what side of the aisle you are on, what color you are on. Let's see if we can come together and realize this is an American problem in American cities.

[02:25:44] VAUSE: 25 people shot by police in North Carolina this year. In Charlotte, four of the six people shot dead by police are black. Is that typical for a big American city, or is there a systemic problem unique to Charlotte?

CLAYPOOL: I think that is typical of cities across the country. You have seen it.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: Defense attorney, typical.

CLAYPOOL: It is not isolated to Charlotte, John. This is a subculture we have created within police departments nationwide. It is a mentality that police officers have. Just so you know, officers have a continuum of force they are supposed to follow. It starts with a baton, an asp baton, and then mace and then to rubber bullet and then maybe a taser and then a gun. That's the last resort. It seems to be the first resort with black folks. ODUOLOWU: Listen, this is what riles me up. You go in to black

barbershops, and I'm hearing rational black people say, we might as well say we are terrorists, because if you are in a conflict with police and you are a terrorist, at least you will live. If they see I'm black -- I might as well say I'm Cecil the lion, because I won't get shot. We are black men, 6 to 7 percent of the entire United States population. In Charlotte, we are two-thirds of the people shot by cops this year. That's madness. It's madness.

VAUSE: Are you worried about going to Virginia?

ODUOLOWU: I'm worried every time I walk out of this studio and get many I my car. When I take the jacket and tie off, I'm no longer on TV. I'm just a guy in a car.

CLAYPOOL: There was a lady at the protest that said that. One CNN commentator said, why are you out here if you heard that someone else just got shot in the head. She is like, what are you talking about, I could be at my house, walking to the grocery store, I'm a black woman, I could got shot anywhere. That was chilling.

VAUSE: We will leave it at that.

Brian, Segun, thanks so much for being with us.

ODUOLOWU: Thank you.

CLAYPOOL: Thanks, John.

VAUSE: We'll take a short break. When we come back, we will go to Charlotte and hear from one of our reporters who was attacked during these protests.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:31:30] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. You are watching CNN's breaking news coverage. I'm John Vause, live in Los Angeles. It is 11:30 here.

Breaking news out of Charlotte, North Carolina, a state of emergency is in effect after a second night of violent protests. Four police officers have been hurt. Police say a person shot another civilian, who's now on life support. Protesters are furious that a police officer shot and killed an African-American man on Tuesday. The family of Keith Lamont Scott said he was unarmed. Our correspondents have been caught up in the chaos, as well. Ed

Lavandera never saw what was coming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're trying get various people, agitators out of the crowd and these other people came in --

(CROSSTALK)

(SHOUTING)

LAVANDERA: Yeah, yeah. We're fine, Anderson. Just someone taking out their frustrations on me.

(CROSSTALK)

(SHOUTING)

LAVANDERA: We're going to figure out what to do here. Give us a second, Anderson. We will figure it out and come back to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Let's bring in Boris Sanchez who was caught up in the violence in Charlotte earlier tonight.

Boris, right now, it seems the only people on the streets are the riot police.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. Looks like the very last handful of protesters have finally left. It is past 2:30 a.m. local time. Protests started 6: 30 last night outside of a police station. Things moved from there. Think went over to a park where there were some peaceful demonstrations. The crowd began growing and when we got downtown things escalated and got out of hand. We are not allowed to walk down in that direction but there was a wall of SWAT team officers lined up, pushing people out of the area. There were several dozen protesters. The last we could find here in downtown Charlotte. They were angry. At one point, things were thrown at the police. Several arrests were made here the past hour or so.

But earlier in the night it pails in comparison to what when my colleague, Ed Lavandera, was pushed to the ground. I saw a photographer and his producer seemingly assaulted. When I looked over, they were on the ground. The man was incapacitated and had to be off the street.

The protesters were angry, not just going after the media or after police, at one point, going after each other. We saw one young man who was hurt, who's in the hospital now on life support, aside from that in were four police officers that were also injured.

Aside from all that, a tremendous amount of property damage, looting and destruction, debris all over the street. Several fires were set. Several hotel caretakers were punched and assaulted by protesters that went inside.

As of right now, it appears that things have finally gotten calm, once again. But the real question now is, how do police officers approach this tomorrow when you consider -- when you consider that they may install a curfew, when you consider that initially when things got underway downtown there were simply not enough officers to deal with the size of the crowd. As the night passed they got reinforcements and, obviously, they were able to handle the situation, but there were some hairy moments.

It will it will be interesting to see how the city handles it tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a curfew and more police officers out here downtown proactively waiting for the potential of more crowds to show up -- John?

[02:35:26] VAUSE: Boris, behind you, that appears to be the National Guard? Because the governor has declared a state of emergency and deployed the National Guard. Is that the situation there right now?

SANCHEZ: That was actually not the National Guard. That is a local SWAT team. It appears, again, as people have left they started to wind the scene down. So we have started to see several official vehicles move out of here. Because of the incident with the civilian and the destruction, this is still an active crime scene. There will be a lot of areas like this street that will be shut down as investigators move in and try to piece together what happened.

I can tell you specifically in the case of the civilian protester that was hurt there were a lot of people with their cameras out. We have seen that all night, people broadcasting live or taking video. I guarantee officers will want to look at some of that footage to figure out what happened to that young man, specifically, and to continue to try to find some of the agitators.

The people that weren't here peacefully, that destroyed property and assaulted other people and threatened so many of the people that came out here initially to demonstrate their displeasure with the justice system in a peaceful way and not make it as ugly as it turned out to be -- John?

VAUSE: Boris, we'll leave it there. Boris Sanchez putting in some long hours there, giving us the latest from Charlotte.

Thank you, Boris.

We'll take a short break. When we come back, even before the violence in Charlotte, the police shootings were dominating the presidential campaign. We will tell you where the candidates stand in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:40:12] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. The governor of North Carolina has declared a state of emergency amid violent protests in the city of Charlotte. One person is in a critical condition after being shot by another civilian. Rioters threw rocks and bottles at police. At least four officers have been hurt. Demonstrators smashed the windows of many buildings including a hotel where they attacked two employees inside. The protests started Tuesday night in the wake of a police fatal shooting of an African-American man.

And Boris Sanchez, our reporter on the scene, spoke to a public defender trying to calm down the situation in Charlotte.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOUSSAINT ROMAIN, PUBLIC DEFENDER: Can't lose anymore lives, man. I'm a public defender. I can't represent anymore people. We don't need more people to die, no more arrested. We need to stand and do it the right way. People are hurting. People are upset. People are frustrated. People need leaders. I'm not trying to be that leader but I'm trying to prevent people from being hurt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The police shootings are playing a big role in the U.S. presidential campaign. During a town hall on Wednesday, Donald Trump was asked how he would handle violence in the black community. He said he would bring back a controversial policy known as Stop and Frisk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would do Stop and Frisk. We did it in New York. It worked incredibly well. And you have to be proactive.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically. You understand you have to have -- in my opinion, I see what is going on here and I see what's going on in Chicago, I think Stop and Frisk. In New York City, it was so incredible the way it worked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Hillary Clinton, though, had a much more restrained response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's still much we don't know about what happened in both incidents. But we do know that we have two more names to add to a list of African-Americans killed by police officers.

We are safer when communities respect the police and police respect communities.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Joining me now, social and political commentator, Jasmyne Cannick; and Republican strategist, Luis Alvarado.

Thanks for being with us. I know it's late.

We haven't heard from Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton specifically about the violence that's happened in the last couple of hours in Charlotte. Is that surprising? Should be have heard something or not?

LUIS ALVARADO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It's surprising because now we see a more controlled Donald Trump. A few months ago, we would have been seeing a Twitter attack, a misstep somewhere. I think he's become more disciplined as we get closer to the election.

VAUSE: Jasmyne, should we have heard from one of the candidates or should they comment in the morning?

JASMYNE CANNICK, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Maybe someone took Donald Trump's cell phone, so maybe he hasn't been able to tweet. But I think I saw one or two tweets from him about them being safe or cool, but I'm sure we will hear from them together.

ALVARADO: I think we have to. The situation brought it to the forefront. Both candidates don't want to deal with this situation. They probably had messages they wanted to push out. And this is going to bring the message back to what's happening in our hometowns.

VAUSE: Because they have been talking about violence and police shootings. They did it earlier in the day.

Donald Trump talked about the victim in Tulsa. He said he seemed like a good guy and I think he questioned the actions of the police officer. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Hands up. He was doing everything he was supposed to do, everything. And a young policeman shot this man. I don't get it. You can come -- I don't care where you are coming from, there was something really bad going on.

UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: Saw it he had his hands up.

TRUMP: I don't know if she choked. His hands were high, he was walking to the car, put his hands on the car. Maybe she choked. Something really bad happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Jasmyne, that seems to be different Donald Trump than what we have seen for the last couple of months. How do you explain the change?

CANNICK: We were all moved by what we saw in terms of the video of the Tulsa shooting. So I definitely understand that, but when it comes from Donald Trump I don't take it too seriously because not long after that he talked about wanting to make Stop and Frisk a national policy. I'm confused. You look at Tulsa and other shootings, Stop and Frisk, you know, plays a role in all of that, as well.

VAUSE: I want to talk about Stop and Frisk. This was a practice carried out by the NYPD, the New York police. It was hated by the African-American community. It was ruled unconstitutional by a court.

CANNICK: Yes, it is.

[02:45:03] VAUSE: The current mayor of New York said Trump's policy was appalling and ignorant of history. How does this policy fit in with the outreach to the African-American community?

ALVARADO: Well, I think the African-American community will see it as insincere.

CANNICK: We do.

ALVARADO: As do the Brown, the Latino community. The reality is it comes with style and Donald Trump and how he is trying to present his policies. When you listen to him talk he sounds like a commentator at a corner conversation, not a presidential candidate. Second what he is saying brings in to question how his thought process works when he will put a policy together. What he is telling me is he talked to Rudy Giuliani and this is what they agreed this is what the nation need. We need someone with more thoughtfulness.

VAUSE: Donald Trump has been a bit different from what he said in the past and what he is saying now. When you look at his website, there is nothing about reforming police practices but a lot of support of the police. He has said in the past that police need to be tougher and crack heads.

CANNICK: Couple of things. Donald Trump has never been big on substance. He talks a big talk but doesn't have a lot to back it up. Two, Donald Trump needs to take several seats. When you talk about wanting to outreach the black folks and African-American voter and say you want to bring back Stop and Frisk, something found unconstitutional, the only thing I can hope he says next is he wants to bring back slavery, so I can make sure all of my people do not vote for him.

(LAUGHTER)

ALVARADO: The good thing is, from my side, there are great Republican elected officials who are actually doing a great job and have separated themselves from the Donald Trump candidacy. They are going to be judge differently than Donald Trump is being judged.

VAUSE: On the other side we have Hillary Clinton. She called the police shootings of these two African-American men unbearable but didn't explicitly blame for the police for what happened. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Every day police officers in our current are serving with extraordinary courage, honor and skill. We saw that again this weekend in New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Our police handled those terrorist attacks exactly right. And they likely saved a lot of lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So, Luis, again, a shift in her position, especially when you compare it to the Democratic convention a couple of weeks ago. Blatant politicking?

ALVARADO: You have to play politicking. I think there's another third element that nobody has discussed. I haven't heard it all night. It is not just the police but the police unions and how much they play a role in the same way that teachers unions play a role when a person of trust seems to blatantly violate that trust, yet there is a mechanism that protects them from any type of retribution or being removed from that portion. So the system is what also needs to be considered here. Are they being effective? Are they part of the problem or a solution to actually finding common ground for all of us to find some peace?

VAUSE: Jasmyne, last word on Hillary Clinton's new policy position, if you like.

CANNICK: New policy position. I was pleased with what Hillary said. I wouldn't expect anything different from her. I agree with her there are thousands of officers that do their jobs and they do their jobs well every day. It's unfortunate that once again in America we have a week where we have two shootings. Next week, what are we going to have?

VAUSE: I think everybody agrees there are thousands and thousands of police officers who are doing a very good job in dangerous circumstances.

ALVARADO: God speed to everybody.

VAUSE: Luis, Jasmyne, thank you for joining us.

CANNICK: Thank you.

ALVARADO: Thank you.

VAUSE: We'll take a short break. When we come back, a police shooting has triggered violent protests. A state of emergency in state in North Carolina. We will recap the latest from Charlotte, North Carolina, in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:53:32] VAUSE: Welcome back. 11:53 on the west coast. It is 2:53 in Charlotte, North Carolina a state of emergency has been declared after a second night of violent protests. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds. At least four have been injured and officials say one person is on life support shot by a civilian in now on life support. The protests erupted after police shot and killed an African-American man on Tuesday. CNN has been following the story all night from the start of peaceful

protests to the moments when they turned violent.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(CHANTING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer, why can't you, as a captain, hold this officer the accountable for what he does?

SANCHEZ: It started as a peaceful protest outside of the police department. Things were what tense but there were conversations had. At this point, you can see the people are kicking tear gas at police officers who are sending it right back.

They started shooting tear gas. The crowd of people broke up and we are running from the scene. So there were agitators getting pulled in by police. A couple of people started to sit down. But police grabbed one and that's when everything went out of control.

(SHOUTING)

[02:55:15] ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They were trying to get various people agitators out of the crowd, and other people came in to try to grab the people.

(SHOUTING)

LAVANDERA: Yeah. Yeah. We're fine, we're fine, Anderson. Just someone taking out their frustrations on me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're throwing tear gas at you and me. That's what happened earlier. Why did you get tear gas? Why did I? If we responded in a way that was frustrated and upset, telling America this is enough, it doesn't mean I'm violent, man. It means I've had enough.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thanks for watching, everybody. I'm John Vause.

Rosemary Church picks up our breaking news coverage after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:00:009] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.