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Cuomo Prime Time
Protests Erupt Across U.S. Following Death of George Floyd; Atlanta Police Officers Fired for Excessive Force During Protests; Curfews Imposed, National Guard Called in as Protests Escalate in California; First Family Went into Bunker as Protest at White House Intensified; Minneapolis Police Chief Pays Respects at George Floyd Memorial. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired June 01, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You're not better than me, but both of us are better than this. Where are our leaders, telling people who have taken to the streets that they hear them, that they understand them, that they get the pain, they get the source of the pain, and that they're going to do something about that pain? Where is it?
[00:00:20]
And if they're not in public service to do that job, why don't they get the hell out? Because we're seeing, altogether, in one moment, what we need. And it seems to be nowhere.
Now, another flash point that is an outgrowth of the situation on our streets is in Atlanta, Georgia. The city's mayor there, announcing today that two officers involved in an incident during last night's protests have been fired for using excess -- excessive force against two college students. Three other officers have now been put on desk duty.
CNN just got the bodycam video from the incident. I'm told to warn you, it is disturbing. My position on these things is, you want to know the reality, you see the reality. Don't have me describe it to you. Don't get it offline. Watch it when you can, especially when we're lucky enough to have bodycam video -- video. Then you know what to think and feel. Let's watch it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put him down, put him down. Put him down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right there, right there. Right there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get him up. Let's go. Get him up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you all doing?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Listen, I don't know about you, but I want to see it. I believe in body camera footage. I think it shows police when they're doing their job, and it protects them from people saying that they did things that are wrong. And it protects citizens when things are wrong.
How many of these situations do not get to see for yourself, so the only reckoning you really ever get out of it is somebody is being accused of something, and people who don't want to be accused of something.
CNN's Martin Savidge is on the ground there for us.
Martin, what do we know about how this came so quickly that the officers were either fired, or put to desk duty?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's clear that all departments right now are under intense scrutiny as a result of what happened in Minnesota and elsewhere. And then on top of that, you have this tremendous unrest that is just occurring in all major cities.
So, the city of Atlanta became very aware of that video. I think initially what they saw was probably reports on local television, because there were crews. We were just 25 yards away when all of this happened. And so, the intensity of the moment and what they saw on television, they then took a look at what they saw on the body cameras, and the body cameras, of course, are just incredibly intense.
CUOMO: Martin --
SAVIDGE: Let me just tell you a little bit about what was going on at that time.
CUOMO: That's exactly what I want to know. Give us the context of what you saw before what we just saw.
SAVIDGE: Right. OK, so curfew went into effect around 9 o'clock last night, same as tonight, and what happens at the moment of curfew is when the real interface and altercation begins between the protesters and authorities.
And so, on Saturday night, that's about 30 minutes after the curfew has gone into effect, there is a large crowd that it gathered around CNN, and now they're now being pursued and pushed by the large police presence down the street.
And what happens is they get to the intersection here, the Waffle House, which is right by Olympic Centennial Park. There was still traffic on the street, and that began to be a real flaw and a problem. A lot of cars backed up.
At the same time, you had a lot of protesters and people that were still throwing projectiles, still interacting with police, and the police still trying to push them away and get them contained. All moving into that flow of traffic.
And yes, there were people inside of the cars. Some of them were taunting police. Some of them are holding up signs in protest, and that's when you had that kind of mix that turned into the melee that you saw. I'm not saying that excuses anything, I'm just saying that that is what set up the circumstance where suddenly, you have officers that have been pursuing people on foot now directing their attention to people who were in vehicles.
[00:05:08]
If anything was said, or what caught their attention initially, I can't tell you, because we couldn't hear over the sound of the crowd and the sound of the helicopters and the explosions of fireworks. But you can tell that something very intense was happening, and I have to tell you, Chris, I have not had the advantage of being able to see that video, because it's only just been released, and I can't see in the field.
CUOMO: Martin, thank you very much, brother. I appreciate you giving us the context of what was going on then. Thank you very much. Let us know what we need to show people, where you are right now. You and the team, stay safe. God bless.
Let me bring back former Philadelphia police commissioner, Charles Ramsey.
That's quick action, getting rid of officers for something that happened last night. What does that speak to, in your opinion, and what did you see on that video?
CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I'd have to watch that video more than once, because I was looking at it, and I didn't see anything that really would warrant that kind of action on the part of the officers. I might have missed something, I don't know. It's night, and you know, the first time I saw it.
But it had to be something there for the chief to fire them that quickly.
CUOMO: Yes.
RAMSEY: Chief Shields is -- he is a very good police chief.
CUOMO: So Commissioner, let me do this. While you're talking, I'm going to have them play it again. Yes, it is -- it is in all prudence that I tell you that this may be disturbing to you.
I think the reality should be disturbing to you, frankly. And I think you guys operate in the dark way too often. And if we're going to have body camera video, it's so rare that we get to see it as it is, which I think is a huge problem, but that's an argument for another day. I think you have to watch it. Otherwise, what's your basis for opinion?
So I'm going to run the video again. The commissioner and I will talk about it as he's watching it. You know, you were saying, there has to be something that drew them to it. You know, even them saying, Get your hands out of your pockets, Chief, you and I both know, once that taser hits you, I don't know how the kid was even able to move his hands, let alone, you know, do or not do anything told to be do when he's under charge. RAMSEY: Yes, the window is broken. I don't know if the police broke
the window, or if it was already broken or not. But in any event, I didn't see anything that warrants that particular action. And apparently, the chief didn't either.
CUOMO: The guy is still tasering him when they're all on top of him on the ground.
RAMSEY: I heard three different -- yes, I think I heard at least three different charges -- discharges of the taser. They cycle. They only run for, I think, it's five seconds.
CUOMO: Right, and then they carried him off, and then a guy gets up. The kid gets up, the college students, you know, young, one -- at least one or two appear to be brown-skinned, African-American or otherwise. And the college students, were told, they were saying, What are you guys doing? What are you guys doing?
You know, that is the circumstance, and we're going to have to see how it's explained.
Now, you know what people say is, Well, why don't they get prosecuted? And the reality is anything that's criminal is fireable, but not anything that's fireable is criminal. Right? That's a meaningful distinction. Yes?
RAMSEY: I would agree with that. I don't know if you had anything criminal there. But certainly, administratively, which is what we would classify, even if you're terminated, it certainly would warrant that.
And I applaud them for moving that quickly. And under the circumstances, it's probably best she did. Because, you know, if things like that just get -- just keep going on and on and on, and if you can take action, take action.
CUOMO: Right. Now, Commissioner, just so you know, I'm just getting some details for us here. Who sending it to me? All right. Here. Thank you, Steph.
So the two officers who were fired for using excessive force against two college students during protests in Atlanta Saturday night, both said they tazed the couple over concerns they were armed.
And look, I'll give them the best defense, Commissioner, though there seems to be a brown-skinned officer, you can just hear in his voice, the way he was saying, Get your hands out of your pockets, he sounded scared as hell, which goes to training, by the way, as you well know.
RAMSEY: Yes.
CUOMO: You know, you're trained to de-escalate and deal with those situations. He sounded like he was panicked.
The officer who tazed the male driver wrote, "The driver stated grabbing" -- sorry, "Driver started grabbing his right pocket area, causing me to use my ACW -- my taser on him."
The officer who tazed the female passenger said he gave verbal commands to the female to show her hands and stop resisting. He also wrote he heard officers say "gun" two or three times, according to the report.
Do this. Put us inside the head of a police officer and how, even if you are trained, the weakness of your humanity can take over in situations like this.
[00:10:06]
RAMSEY: These are chaotic situations. Everybody's nerves are on edge, and this's why it's so important as a leader, and to have your supervisors constantly check on your people, to make sure they're not getting overly agitated, overly excited, overreacting to situations like that.
I looked at that tape, and I really didn't see any of that. I certainly didn't hear anybody yelling, "Gun." Again, you play it over and over again. Maybe you start to pick those things up. That's the beauty of having videotape. But you know, I just didn't see where those actions were warranted.
Now, whether it rose to the level of termination or not, that's debatable. I don't know. I mean, I would have to really get into that case to determine whether or not I would have actually fired him. I would have pulled him off the street, definitely. But I don't know about the firing part. But there's something there. Otherwise, the chief wouldn't have done it.
CUOMO: No, I hear you. Let me ask you one other thing, Commissioner, and I'll let you get some sleep. Thank you and God bless the family for being with me tonight, Appreciate it.
So there is an expectation, when we see these scenes on the streets, that these are all angry African-American males. You know, these are angry black males. Whatever, you know, term people want to use and that's who's doing all this looting, and that's an excuse. They're just as bad as what they say they oppose.
My experience in these situations is, one, you've got a mix. You do have angry African-Americans, and often with good reason, and they're often joined by white and other race people from their communities, who join in their cause, who are doing the right thing, some who are doing the wrong thing.
Then, there is this added element that I'm happy is finally getting some attention, which is these agitator groups that you have. They're either wearing those Guy Faux masks, or they're anarchists, or they seem to come from somewhere else.
NYPD high-ranking source tells me the arrests over the last couple of days, one out of every seven has had a non-New York City address attached to them that they offered.
What has been your experience, and the reality of how people look at this one big crowd, and think everybody is there for the same reason?
RAMSEY: Well, first of all, everybody is not there for the same reason. Most -- most of the time at the protests that we've handled -- and I was in Washington D.C., where lord knows, we have a lot of protests there. Usually, it's always a pretty diverse mix of people. It's usually not all one of anything when you're talking about protests like this. I mean, there are some where, yes, you might get certain divisions like that. But anyway, it's not uncommon for it to be diverse like this.
And you do have that element that will mix into the legitimate demonstrators, even people that are yelling, screaming, holding up signs, I mean, that's all part of demonstrating. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But burning and looting, that's altogether different. And there is -- there is a group with a particular mindset, that they come there to commit those kinds of crimes. And I hear sometimes, I hear people try to make excuses -- well, you know, they're just upset. I don't know what breaking in a Footlocker or stealing gym shoes has to do with being in pain. I mean, that to me is just -- I don't -- I don't make the connection with that.
But I do understand people being very vocal, being very angry, being very upset, yelling and screaming at the cops. I understand all that. I really do. They've got to take it out on something.
But I do think it's a line there, where if it goes too far, then we really start to lose the focus that the legitimate folks are out there trying to make, and it's easy to write them off as just a bunch of criminals, or someone will say, Oh, they're thugs, or this, that and the other. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I respect protestors. If it hadn't been for the protesters in the 1960s, I never would have become chief of the Washington D.C. Police, or the commissioner of the Philadelphia Police. Those -- the sacrifices those folks made, on my behalf, the future, is what made a difference for me, and this will make a difference for the next generation.
CUOMO: All right. Commissioner, I've got to jump. I just want people to -- first of all, thank you very much. Commissioner Ramsey, one of the more decorated police chiefs in the country, D.C., Philadelphia -- He was in Chicago before that -- just said if it hadn't been for the protests that often got ugly and violent in the Sixties, he wouldn't have been where he was, because that's how he got those rights and those opportunities. They were hard fought for by a generation of people not that different than what we're seeing today.
God bless you and the family and thank you.
I'm not going to go to break.
RAMSEY: Thank you.
CUOMO: Let's go to CNN's Kyung Lah in Long Beach, California. Police there have been taking more extreme measures against people. What have you seen, Kyung?
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that group that I was walking with just a short time ago, ran into a line of police, and they have started firing rubber bullets at this crowd.
There was a very brief standoff, and the police made the announcement by bullhorn that they were in violation of the curfew, and that arrests were going to start immediately.
[00:15:00]
So what you're seeing now, most of that crowd appears to have left. You're looking at the police presence, as they're trying to get the rest of them to go home. From my vantage point, it's very difficult to tell how many people are left.
It looks like most of them have dispersed. But it did take the police firing into this crowd with rubber bullets to get them to go home.
But something I want to point out, is that they had been allowing them to march peacefully, and they were marching peacefully. This was not a group that was looting. This was not a group that was doing anything other than walking, marching and chanting. I didn't see any tagging of buildings. I didn't see any looting while we were walking with this group, and we walked with them for quite a long time.
This protest, which started hours ago, has largely been peaceful. This is the police now saying they've had enough. It is time to go home. The curfew is now an hour and 15 minutes in place. And they're clearly trying to clear the streets now.
CUOMO: Did you see anybody get hit by one of those plug bullets?
LAH: I did. I saw at least one person. And that person, who was hit in the calf, was limping away. But I didn't see anyone other than that person. Throughout the day in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) --
CUOMO: If you would zoom in --
LAH: -- I saw a number of people hit.
CUOMO: If you have your shooter zoom in on the median where the cops are, there's one of them on the ground. If you go straight in on his angle from now, there's a cop covering it. To the right, you'll see one of those plug bullets. They're blue, and they're, like, an inch and change across. I don't know if you see any on the ground by you. But even though they have a hard, rubber --
LAH: I don't --
CUOMO: -- rounded edge, they can really change somebody's day if they hit them, even off the ricochet.
LAH: In fact, I actually have some on me, because I have been picking them up throughout the day. I'm going to just show you really quickly. And then we'll give you -- show you back what's happening up here. In Santa Monica, this is what they were firing. You can see this hard plug here.
CUOMO: Yes.
LAH: This is -- this is very hard plastic. This is foam. It's a slightly softer substance. I can actually crush it in my hand.
But this, I'm just going to knock it against the mic. You can hear how hard it is. This comes at you, and the propellant is here at the bottom, this is going to hurt. This, especially if it hits you in the face or in the eye, this will absolutely blind you. So this is nothing to mess with. And, you know, this is what they were firing at that crowd.
And what you're looking at here, again, is the police in Long Beach, trying to get rid of the crowd. I have not seen them use tear gas. I have not seen them take anyone into custody as of yet. They are putting gas masks on.
OK, so yes, if you look at them, you see the officer taking his helmet off? And he's putting on his gas mask. So what that tells us is that whatever crowd is remaining -- and it's quite dark out here. I can see a small, small crowd in the distance. You know, that's a bad sign. They're going to start --
CUOMO: It looks like they're doing the opposite. It looks like they're taking the masks off, putting the covers back on for riot.
LAH: OK, they're taking them off now. OK. Hopefully, they're a little bit more calm-minded on this.
All right, Kyung, first of all, thank you. That was excellent and helpful and instructive. And let us know if the situation stays steady or not. You end the team stay safe, and thank you very much for showing us this.
LAH: You got it.
CUOMO: All right. Let's go to the nation's capital, Washington D.C., obviously an acute concern there. There's a lot of pressure on the White House. The president had been saying incendiary things. Certainly, if you've been listening with any kind of open-mindedness, certainly not helpful things.
And this is a country that is starved for leadership that can get people on the streets and who are upset at home, to understand that there's a reason to have hope in better days ahead.
Alex Marquardt is there. He's been in the thick of it tonight. What's transpired since we last saw you?
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, it is a polar opposite scene from when we last spoke, which was as the police, the various police forces, the number of different law enforcement agencies were essentially flushing out the -- what had become a violent protest out of Lafayette Park.
Let's set the scene again for our audience. Right there, in the distance, you can see the Washington Monument. And what you cannot see right in front of it, though, is the White House. The -- the American flag is illuminated on top.
So we are right at the edge of this park, which is where the protesters gathered throughout the day.
And Chris, in the past hour, all of the protesters had been pushed back. And it was really when we came on with you about two hours ago that was the real tipping point. There had been a growing tit-for-tat between the protesters and the police, but then they started setting fires.
[00:20:13]
There was a huge fire just on the other side of this church, St. John's Church, which is where president after president has attended services at.
There was a -- a fire in the basement, as well as another fire across the street in that utility building that you and I were talking about. And that is really, from what we can tell, the moment that the police, the U.S. Park Police, which is a federal police force, because that is federal land, along with the U.S. Secret Service, decided to push these protesters out.
So when we last spoke, there was tear gas. There were pepper spray rounds being fired. There were fireworks being shot at the police by the protesters. A protest that had really evolved and escalated very quickly and turned violent.
As those protesters were pushed out, Chris, they came out this way. This is the AFL-CIO building. That, of course, is the federation of -- the famous federation of labor groups. You can see, it got tagged up, and there was a large fire in the lobby building -- in the lobby of that building that, then, the fire department here in Washington had to respond to.
Right across the street, you've got the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Building. You can see that that is boarded up right there.
And then to the left of that, you've got the Hay Adams Hotel, which is one of the most expensive and famous hotels here in Washington.
So it is night and day compared to when we spoke to you an hour ago. But it is an extraordinary scene to see this area completely empty. Right there on the edge of the park, you still have a large number of police. We just spoke with them. They are -- they are U.S. Park Police. Some of them are mounted.
But because of the scale of the protest, Chris, they have -- they have called in reinforcements. It is, as we call it here in D.C., an alphabet soup of agencies that have gotten involved. The DEA, the FBI. I was just speaking to an FBI agent. They were there in full
camouflage in their armored vehicle. U.S. Marshalls have gotten involved. You've got U.S. Secret Service. You've got Department of Homeland Security on top of Metro Police from D.C.
So they were -- they are all responding to these huge protests, not just because of the scale, but because of where we are. This city is unique in that it is the nation's capital. It is the seat of the federal government. That is the home of the president of the United States.
And one thing we haven't mentioned yet, Chris, is because of the way of the protests that we've seen in the past few days, on Friday night, the president went down, and his family, his wife Melania and son Barron had to go down into a bunker under the East Wing, because the president's security detail had deemed the -- the protest to have escalated to a level where he might not be safe. So they spent just under an hour in that bunker before coming back up.
So Chris, this was night three of the protests. It's hard to compare. You know, whether this was worse than previous nights. But this was a significant night of anger, of frustration, of damage here. We've got D.C. Fire Department going past, which now appears to be over. There was a curfew put into place by the mayor of D.C. that -- that started at 11 o'clock. We are now more than an hour past that, of course. And most appeared to be abiding by it, or they are being forced to abide by it, because the police have completely pushed them back.
So these are -- these are empty streets, filled with all sorts of destruction and other things right -- just north of the White House -- Chris.
CUOMO: All right. Alex, thank you very much. You and the team stay safe.
I'm going to take a quick break here. We're watching what's happening all over this country. Curfews are in effect in more cities each night that this happens. Is it over for tonight? Probably not. Is it over in general? No.
Not until you see whether or not action is taken in this case of who killed George Floyd, the four police officers, three still not arrested, let alone charged. This case is going to be closely watched, and we're also waiting for some semblance of leadership that makes this country understand that there are better days to come.
Stay with CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:28:17]
CUOMO: You know, as you're watching this all over the country, whether it's the nation's capital or New York, or Atlanta, or San Francisco, or Long Beach, and of course, all emanating out of Minnesota. Remember, people will not like what they see. That is almost always the case when people take to the streets to fight against a system that they believe is doing things that are not American.
It's hard to please that same system. I mean, think about it. We don't like that they're not listening to the law and not following the curfew. Well, their issue is that following the curfew, following the rules, does not work both ways in their communities.
Or they're people who believe that that is true about minority communities. Yes, there are members of the majority, but they believe that America should treat everybody the same way.
So you're not going to have a protest of a system that the system likes. The problem we have here is, where are our leaders? Yes, you're seeing them locally. I have to say, the mayor of Atlanta certainly has been getting a lot of attention and for the right reasons, but where's the national leadership? Where are the people? This is a national story. Where are the national leaders saying, We hear you. We understand. The pain is recognized. Not just the symptoms of an illness that we refused to treat. We're just going to call out the symptoms, because we don't like them. Stop sweating from that fever of injustice. Where is that voice? Where are those voices?
I've got to tell you, it's not our job, but CNN's Sara Sidner is in Minneapolis. And I've had more people say to me tonight the conversation I had with you about what this is about and why it hurts so much, and what has to be addressed, was you know, soul feeding to them.
[00:30:18]
You're there to tell people what's going on and help them understand it. But the appetite, the hunger for people to understand that somebody gets it, and sees it for what it is, and says that it's wrong, is that strong. How has it been there tonight?
SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the place that they really are keeping as a sacred space. You're not seeing madness here. You're not seeing things being looted or burned. You're hearing people, you know, express themselves, chant, sometimes cheer, hold one another. Because this is the area where George Floyd lost his life.
And we have heard time and again from the people in this neighborhood. These are neighborhood folks, here. This is their space, and they do not want it desecrated. Because this is where he lost his life. And they want to make sure that they are honoring him and his family. So they don't want to see any kind of madness here.
And -- and they have kept it that way. There are flowers and people and a beautiful mural and folks that are out here given free food. And that's sort of what we're seeing.
But here's what we also saw, Chris. And I know you know this, because we just talked about it. That was one of the realest conversations I've had on CNN, I think, ever with -- with you.
We also saw the police chief show up. He came out here and, unbeknownst to me, behind my back as I was interviewing someone, he kneeled down and he prayed, right near the spot where George Floyd lost his life, just across the street in this huge area. And I think we have a picture of it --
CUOMO: Yes.
SIDNER: -- given to us by the Lewis (ph) family, who were -- They were there. And you see all the flowers. And he got on his knees, and he prayed. And then he stood up. And he started talking to people, because people started talking to him and telling them of their pain and their anger. But also, they talked to him about how they felt that the fact that he quickly responded with firing the four officers involved in this incident. They thanked him for that.
Now, I then showed up, and I said, I want to see if I can talk to him. And I did. And I asked him something about the charges and what was coming forward, because people are not satisfied with one police officer being charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. They want to see all of them, all who were fired for not following company policy, they want to see all of them, at least arrested.
And he answered me when I asked him, what do you make of what your other three officers did who have not yet been arrested? Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: You don't see a difference between what Officer Chauvin did and the three other officers who -- some of whom kneeled on, as well, but some of whom just watched. You see that all as the same act?
MEDARIA ARRADONDO, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE CHIEF: Silence and inaction, you're complicit. You're complicit. If there were one solitary voice that would have intervened and act, that's what I would have hoped for.
SIDNER: That is what you would've expected from your officer, yes?
ARRADONDO: Absolutely, and that did not occur. So to the Floyd family, I hope that -- that's my -- that's my response.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: So he said they're complicit, in other words, it was just as if they had done at themselves. They didn't stop it. They didn't try to do anything to stop it. They didn't say anything. They didn't call anyone. They didn't report what was going on, perhaps to their superiors, that they thought this was wrong. And so he said they're complicit.
I mean, I've never heard a police chief say something like that, because departments are very afraid of not only criminal charges of the people who work underneath them, but the civil lawsuits that often follow, even when the officers aren't convicted. Cities pay out millions, hundreds of millions of dollars because of these incidents. And so you don't want to hear the chief basically saying, yes, what they did was -- was complicit. It was criminal. CUOMO: Well, you don't want to -- you don't want to hear it, if you're
worried about cutting a check. But if you're worried about the community --
SIDNER: That's right. That's right.
CUOMO: Have impressed that there's transparency for leadership. There's certain things you can't put a price on.
Sara Sidner, one of those things we can't put a price on is your value tonight and every night that you do the job.
SIDNER: Thank you.
CUOMO: Stay safe. Take care of your team.
SIDNER: Thank you, Chris.
CUOMO: I'll check back with you.
I'm going to go to a break, but I just want you to know something. I'm not one of those people who's, like, going out of my way to drag politics into a situation. This is about politics. OK? Politics is going to decide what the tone, the tenor, the laws, the policy, the culture of criminal justice and administration of justice is about in this country. And you need leadership.
[00:35:12]
And I have to say, the president of the United States tonight, as I'm looking at his Twitter feed, OK, and that is his main mechanism. The idea of his leaving Twitter? He's not leaving Twitter.
"Law and order," five hours ago. "The United States of America will be designating Antifa as a terrorist organization."
If he's speaking to the fact that you have agitator groups that enter in here that are not up to good, that are malefactors. He's right, there are offshoots and people who identify with that group. They're part of it. There are a lot of others, too. Interesting he only mentions that one.
"Fake news!" It's a country desperate for understanding. Desperate for leadership that there can be better things. He doesn't like that you're seeing this and hearing it. He thinks it's bad for him. What does that tell you?
Then his last one: "Lame stream media is doing everything in their power to foment hatred and anarchy."
As we go to break, just think about this. You know what our job is. It's to show you what's going on. Give you context when it counts and help you understand the story so you can make your own decisions.
You elect people to lead, to do a job for you. What is that job in the situation right now? What does this country need right now? Now, whatever you think that is, you tell me how attacking the free press, which gives us an ability to see it, because they're not showing you the body cam footage. They're not showing you the body camera footage in Minnesota. They have laws. They have reasons.
All you get is what we can show in these situations, and you, too, with your cell phone video. Otherwise, who knows what would happen to Minnesota? Who knows what would happen in so many other cases?
Even the Ahmaud Arbery case, even though the guy who wound up taking the video is now part of the group being prosecuted.
What do we need from leadership right now? At a minimum, do we really need any energy spent on finding another reason to keep us apart?
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:40:39]
CUOMO: All right. We're showing you right now live picture from Portland, Oregon. We don't have anybody on the ground, but we have the camera there. And we are showing you what is obvious. People there have taken over a street, stopped traffic.
Sometimes the traffic is in support of the effort, so they're OK being there. I don't know the case here, individually.
That "A" sign in the circle over there stands for anarchy, by the way. And just to also, again, give a nod to how one group of people has very diverse elements.
What do we understand about what we're showing people right now in the -- from the control room? Is there anything you can tell me?
Nothing. All right. So again, coast to coast, we're showing you this. Portland, Oregon. Again, an outgrowth of a situation in Minnesota, but it reverberates across the country and not just with African- Americans.
You don't have to have brown or black skin to be disgusted by what seems to be an apparent murder by police officers of somebody over a $20 counterfeit bill.
It is disgusting on its face, and there was video that maybe we would have never gotten to see if citizens hadn't taken it. It's another part of the frustration here.
Body cameras are a very controversial thing in law enforcement and in legal theory. Why? Who cares? It's a very long discussion. There are obviously two sides to it.
There are laws in Minnesota that govern when it gets -- when it gets given to the public and when it doesn't. One of the good policy arguments about not releasing it in a case like this is that it loads the deck for an impartial jury, and people will remove the case to a different forum, to a different area and take it out of a community that really should have a jury of the peers of that community judging it. You can weigh that argument as you feel.
Others believe that the transparency is so important in these situations, because very often, they don't make it to a court of law. The court of public opinion becomes, therefore, very very important in understanding and calibrating our own culture.
Now, that takes us to the people you see on the streets and what's happening and why and by whom. All right?
I want to bring in an expert on this. Phil Mudd you've come to know as part of the CNN family. A former CIA counterterrorism official and, obviously, counterterrorism analyst.
Phil, we've talked about this before. A crowd looks like a lot of -- you know, a big group of people. But it doesn't mean they're all from the same place, they all have the same kind of face, and if they're all there for the same reason.
You say what you're seeing right now worries you, actually, in some ways, more than 9/11 did. Why? Explain.
PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I would say worried. I'd use another word. It makes me more nervous. I remember being evacuated from the White House right there from some -- near some of the scenes that we're seeing this evening on 9/11. I was a White House official then.
You know, there were professional concerns then. Obviously, going into 2002, 2003, but America was never disunited. In fact, if you remember, everything from polling numbers to how America celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden 10 years later, 9/11 was a unifying period.
I look at this, and I'll tell you one thing, Chris. A lot of Americans don't have passports. They don't see third world countries where the line between chaos and a working democracy is pretty narrow. Americans have the luxury -- and let me tell you, it's a myth. The luxury of believing that that line between chaos and democracy is a mile wide. It's not.
My bottom line about why I'm nervous is when I look at this, it makes me remember traveling overseas and remembering how comfortable Americans feel in believing that what we have today will last forever. I'm not sure it will.
CUOMO: What does that mean? Why not?
MUDD: Well, because if I walk down the street in an urban area I live in, we live in a myth that says every child is given a chance, every American is equal. The Constitution says that. The Founding Fathers say that. In the housing projects I live near, those kids will never have anything close to the opportunity they had -- that I had. They are separate and unequal.
[00:45:09] And until we accept that, that some people in this culture get a chance and some don't; some people get abused by police officers -- I never will -- we're going to have a problem in this country that might get worse.
CUOMO: The idea that that truth becomes mitigated when the minorities, the aggrieved, take to the streets and break the same laws they say they want upheld, there are a lot of different ways to answer that.
MUDD: Yes.
CUOMO: One of them is that, don't blame all the bad things on the same people who are protesting outrage against their community. There are different factions. There can be agitators. There can be malefactors who take advantage of legitimate grief and pain. How true is that?
MUDD: I think that's true. And in fact, you know, to get personal, every single person I -- every single person I've spoken with in the past few days has shifted from talking about the virus to talking about this, every single one.
And I've been -- I guess this is a plus side. I've been surprised at how every person I have spoken with has been able to separate out this sort of somewhere between disgust and discouragement about things like breaking into stores to steal T-shirts and the fact that there's a recognition, separately, a recognition that this country is not an equal country.
I think there is a conversation to be had that's being damaged by property crimes going through these demonstrations. But the conversation I'm hearing is among friends. And these are mostly white people. It is still focused on saying, we have a separate and unequal country. And regardless of whether there's property crime here, regardless of the mix of people, anarchists, et cetera, involved here, when you see that photo and that video that we saw a few days ago, you've got to look at the mirror. And my friends are doing this and saying, we cannot -- we can't live like this.
CUOMO: Yes. Look, the truth is the minorities can't change the culture and the systems that don't treat them fairly and don't give them the opportunities that you were outlining earlier. Only the majority can.
MUDD: Yes.
CUOMO: Only those with the power can. And that is the reality. And it always has been, and we haven't faced it up the way we need to.
Phil Mudd, thank you for always coming straight. I haven't seen you in a while. God bless, be well.
All right. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll take you around the country, show you the state of play in America. Stay with CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:50:45]
CUOMO: All right. Let's do a quick check out in California. Long Beach, CNN's Kyung Lah is there.
What's the latest?
LAH: Things have calmed down considerably after a tense standoff with that group of protesters we had been walking with.
What you're seeing now are the police line. That's -- I should say, is the police line. You can see law enforcement gathering, really starting to relax after several of those protesters we were marching with were taken into custody. They're in violation of curfew.
We should point out, Chris, that when we were walking with them, we did not see them do any tagging. We didn't see any violence from them, but they were in violation of curfew.
There was an announcement by police here. Those officers you're looking at for them to disperse. And the ones who did not were taken into custody. Largely, though, Chris, we did see them leave.
As far as looting here in Long Beach, there was some looting. And I spoke to some of the people I was marching with, asking them, So what happened? How did this happen?
And they're blaming bad actors in the group that; they do not believe that the protesters who we were walking with, and largely, the majority of those protesters throughout the day, for hours here on Long Beach, were not involved. And from what we could see, that appeared to be the case, at least with the ones we were marching with.
Certainly not the case in as far as widespread looting in Santa Monica. Something we saw a lot of. Blocks upon blocks of businesses had their windows smashed, and a lot of merchandise taken out of those stores, Chris.
CUOMO: The National Guard is supposedly on their way there. When you say that it wasn't the protesters, what does that mean? How do they delineate between protesters and what else?
LAH: That's what they're telling me. I did not personally see who was alluding here in Long Beach. What they are saying is that it is almost as if they're the cover for bad actors to come in and to steal stuff and to damage items in the city.
So that's what they are referring to. That the people who have come here to protest the police, to talk about systemic racism. To talk about the persistent issues affecting black America and people of color in America, that they are not the ones who are going in and looting.
That's what they are telling me, and at least the ones we were marching with, that certainly seemed to be consistent with what we were seeing here in Long Beach. CUOMO: Kyung Lah, thank you very much. If something happens in the
next few minutes, you know how to get me. Otherwise, I hope it will be safe and quite for you and the team. God bless and be well.
Let's take a quick break. When we come back, I'll give you a round-up, let you show -- show you if there any hotspots, anything we have to pay attention to together tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:57:31]
CUOMO: To help you understand what's happening right now, we'll show you what has been going on coast to coast. Americans standing shoulder to shoulder, and going head to head often, with law enforcement.
All with one universal demand. Well, not all. The ones who were there to fight against what is growing out of the Floyd murder is racial injustice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CHANTING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are gathered here to call on our racist president.
It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is our duty to win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is our duty to win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is our duty to win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is our duty to win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will vote. We will not let the same people keep doing this to us. This ain't even the first time this year. This ain't the first time this month. This ain't the first time this week.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Another firework right there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's nothing funny about this! Somebody lost his life! Women are losing their lives! We're getting killed! We can't breathe!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No justice!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No peace! UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No peace!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No peace!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No racists!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No peace!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No peace!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No peace!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Remember, the question for this country is what will make this stop? Not just tonight, not just tomorrow, but so that we don't wind up here again. That's something that can't just be about minority communities.
It has to be about this country finally recognizing its best self. Realizing its destiny of what it was always meant to become. When majority and minority no longer have a distinction that is found in law.
I am Chris Cuomo. Thank you for joining me tonight.
