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New Day

Texas Man Speaks Out About Confrontation With Police; Minneapolis Police Rarely Disciplined After Complaints; Mark Zuckerberg And Wife Slam Trump Over Incendiary Rhetoric. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired June 12, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:20]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Every week it seems we wake up to a new viral video of a violent encounter between police and black people.

You may have seen this one. It's of a 21-year-old man -- it's his arrest in Midland, Texas in May. At one point, as you can see, his 90- year-old grandmother burst from the house to try to help and confront the police. The situation escalated, culminating with the grandson and grandmother on the ground as neighbors rush out to try to stop the police.

CNN's Ed Lavandera has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TYE ANDERS, ARRESTED AFTER CONFRONTATION WITH MIDLAND, TEXAS POLICE: Why stop me? Why stop me?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Tye Anders stepped out of his car in Midland, Texas, the 21-year-old was surrounded by police officers, some with their guns drawn. The situation quickly intensified as witnesses gathered around.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).

ANDERS: I'm scared, I'm scared.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): On May 16th, Midland police say Anders ran through a stop sign and then made extreme attempts to elude police before pulling into the driveway of his grandmother's home.

POLICE OFFICER: Exit the vehicle now.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Almost six minutes after Anders parks the car, the young man emerges, holding his hands up in the air and visibly emotional. The officers try to get Anders to move toward them.

POLICE OFFICER: We're not going to shoot you.

POLICE OFFICER: We just need you to listen to us. We need you to stand up and walk back towards our vehicle.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): A bystander recorded the scene. You can see at least six officers have now arrived as the witnesses try to tell police Anders is terrified by what's happening.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's scared. You all have guns on him. He's black. Do you all not see how many black people are getting shot?

LAVANDERA (voice-over): A few minutes later, Anders' elderly grandmother, walking with a cane, comes out of the house and stands next to her grandson as the commotion escalates.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) somebody black out here, bro.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): A few officers move in to handcuff Anders, who remains on the ground, and that's when the 90-year-old woman falls over her grandson. It's unclear why the elderly woman fell but she falls as one officer is swinging his leg over Anders to finish handcuffing him. But it doesn't appear that his leg touches the woman.

The young man's attorney says the grandmother was forced to the ground by overzealous officers. Midland police say she appears to lose her balance.

TYE ANDERS' GRANDMOTHER: Let my child alone. Let my child alone.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Tye Anders was arrested and placed into a police car. He's been charged with evading in a motor vehicle while police attempted to detain him.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: I had a chance to sit down and talk to that young man and his attorney about what happened next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: When you pulled into your grandmother's driveway after they had been following you, they pulled guns out. And so were you -- were they telling you to get out of the car? Were you afraid to get out of the car? What happened then?

ANDERS: I was afraid. I was afraid to get out of the car. I was -- I was so afraid to get out of the car. I just -- I'm afraid (crying).

CAMEROTA: I don't blame you, Tye. I'm so sorry that this is emotional. How could it now be -- everything that you just went through? I'm sorry that you're feeling -- what are you feeling right now as we even talk about it?

ANDERS: OK, I'm hurt. Like, I'm in pain. Like, I cry every day. I think about it every day. Like I've got it on replay in my head every day.

Like, you just hurt -- you just hurt. Like, you just hurt, you know?

CAMEROTA: I do -- I do know. I mean, I think that a lot of people know what trauma feels like where afterwards you keep replaying it.

And so, when they had their guns drawn, of course, you didn't want to get out of the car at that point. But at some point, you do, with your hands up. And for some reason, even that wasn't enough. Then what were they telling you to do?

ANDERS: Like, I got on the ground on purpose so they wouldn't -- like, I had my hand shown and like, I seen this on video. She was like put your hands up, and my hands was already up, you know?

And it's like -- it just like hurts me. My hands was already up and he was like put your hands up. And it's like put your hands up. My hands has been up, you know?

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, what else were you supposed to do? You had your hands up, you were on the ground.

I want to bring in your attorney to ask what he knows about this.

JUSTIN MOORE, ATTORNEY FOR TYE ANDERS: What we do know, given from the Midland Police Department's police report from that incident, is that the officer who pulled over Tye was following him for almost 30 minutes without him alerting Tye with his overhead lights like he's supposed to when following him. So we have an officer that was stalking a young man for half an hour.

[07:35:00]

And ultimately, when he turned on his lights, Tye pulled over immediately. The officer never walked up to his window or asked for any type of identification like officers are trained to do. So I think that would give any young, black male in this country a heightened sense of awareness.

CAMEROTA: And by the way, I should let people know that I think part of the reason that Tye is also traumatized is because this wasn't the first brush that he had had with law enforcement. According to Tye, he has had other aggressive instances where he was pulled over.

Here's what the police say about this particular incident that we just watched on video.

They say, "The Midland Police Department attempted to initiate a traffic stop on a male subject for failing to stop at a stop sign. Once the vehicle was stopped, officers repeatedly directed the suspect to exit his vehicle. The suspect refused to cooperate with officers."

Your thoughts on their statement?

MOORE: Well -- so, the Midland P.D. did not find it to be peculiar and interesting. They released a bodycam rendition that had their narrative associated to it, so it was in caption form. And immediately when the video started, it stated that you will not see a traffic violation occur on this camera footage. That's very interesting because we know that cameras have been provided to police officers to justify their actions on the field -- or in the field, and that there's nothing that corroborates this traffic violation. That means it did not exist.

CAMEROTA: Tye, one of the stunning moments of that video is when your grandmother comes out of the house. What did you think when you saw your grandmother coming out?

ANDERS: She's just trying (INAUDIBLE). Like, she was praying for both of us -- me and the officers.

CAMEROTA: And then at one point you -- when you were on the ground, Tye, your grandmother fell -- fell over. Do you know what happened there?

ANDERS: I'm not sure. I was already on the ground. Like, I didn't see her fall over.

I'm like, awe man, my granny is on the ground -- like, granny is on the ground. Like, why is my granny on the ground? Like she's just so fragile to me and I'm like why is my granny on the ground?

Like, she's 90. Like, why is she on the ground, you know? Like, she's just -- she's just so fragile to me.

CAMEROTA: Yes. How's she doing now, today?

ANDERS: She -- she's not good. Like she remembers -- she remembers. Like, every time I go over there she remembers.

Like, she calls me Baby T. She's like, Baby T., you OK? Like, she's just real worried about me.

And then she's like well, you're just (INAUDIBLE). Like, she has -- she has -- she do has dementia and like every time we bring it up, she automatically remember -- remembers it, you know?

CAMEROTA: Mr. Moore, what now? What is the plan? What are you looking for from the police department?

MOORE: Well, we're looking for an apology, first and foremost.

Also, we would like Tye's felony charges to be dismissed. As it currently stands, the Midland district attorney is pursuing felony charges against Tye for evading arrest. There's nothing on the video footage that shows Tye evading arrest.

CAMEROTA: Tye, what's going to make you feel better?

ANDERS: I just hope I get my charges dropped. I mean, it's hurt. I'm really hurt. I just want my charges dropped. It just -- I want my charges dropped. A felony -- a felony -- like a felony? That's crazy. It really is crazy. (END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: We will continue to follow that story.

Still ahead, CNN uncovers the Minneapolis Police Department's history of complaints and inaction.

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[07:42:50]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Minneapolis police are rarely disciplined when complaints are filed against them. Derek Chauvin is a prime example. The fired officer who pinned George Floyd to the ground with a knee to his neck had 18 prior complaints filed against him and just two reprimands.

CNN investigative reporter Drew Griffin has been looking into these numbers. Drew, what have you learned?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER (via Cisco Webex): First of all, John, it's hard just to file a complaint against a Minneapolis city police officer, as many studies have found. And if you do file a complaint, it's almost a guarantee nothing will happen.

If you crunch numbers like we did over the past seven years, you'll see there have been 2,013 complaints. Of all those complaints, just 31 have ended in anything that's called serious discipline. Most of them have been found with no discipline at all. That's about 1.5 percent. That is really, really low according to other cities around the country.

And you mentioned Derek Chauvin and his record. There's a lot of problem officers with a lot of long records, not only Derek Chauvin with 18 and just two with serious discipline.

His partner that night, Tou Thao, had six complaints against him. Zero ended in any kind of discipline. That's despite the fact that Thao was involved in a lawsuit in which a guy who wasn't even being arrested has his teeth kicked out.

These officers, John, are well-known on the streets. In fact, one community activist who tracks these complaints said her first reaction when she heard Derek Chauvin was involved with George Floyd's death was "Oh, him."

These warnings are out there and they have been known to Minneapolis for a long time, John.

BERMAN: Yes, known to Minneapolis and known inside the department. In your report, you say even a former police chief was frustrated at not being able to discipline officers or even find out their history. Why?

GRIFFIN: It's a union contract that really prevents the metering out of discipline and certainly, the firing of bad officers. You know, we did talk to that former police chief. The city says look, a lot of these cases are handled with coaching

instead of discipline -- 300 cases with coaching -- and most of the complaints are low-level. But it's hard to determine what that actually means, John.

[07:45:05]

And certainly, there's no transparency in this. In fact, that same former police chief said if even one of her officers had been quote- unquote "coached for bad behavior," even multiple times, she would not even know it.

So it's really a problem of accountability. But they are now, they say, trying to fix it -- the Minneapolis Police Department -- John.

BERMAN: Happening in plain sight though for a long, long time.

GRIFFIN: Yes.

BERMAN: Drew Griffin, thanks so much for being with us.

Congressional Democrats demanding answers from the FBI. They want to know why U.S. government spy planes were flying overhead at protests after George Floyd's killing in Washington, D.C.'s highly-restricted airspace.

A small Cessna Citation circled the White House 20 times on June first. Government watchdogs fear the planes were used to track protesters and even capture cell phone data. The plane was one of several aircraft piloted and unpiloted that CNN has tracked over protests in Washington, Minneapolis, and Las Vegas.

CAMEROTA: New overnight, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife are slamming President Trump in a letter, saying that the president's quote "incendiary rhetoric" on the social media platform has left them quote "deeply shaken and disgusted."

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan joins us with more. This is a shift for them.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN POLITICS AND TECHNOLOGY REPORTER (via Cisco Webex): Hey, Alisyn. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg getting criticism from all sides from within his own company.

And last weekend, scientists who are funded by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative -- that's a charitable foundation that Mark set up with his wife Priscilla -- spoke out. And they wrote a letter to Zuckerberg saying that they really thought that the work he was doing on Facebook was undercutting his charitable work.

Zuckerberg responded along with -- in a joint letter with his wife that CNN obtained, and here's what it said.

He said, "We are deeply shaken and disgusted by President Trump's divisive and incendiary rhetoric at a time when our nation so desperately needs unity. This is an extraordinary painful inflection point in our nation's story, particularly for the black community and our black colleagues who have lived with the impacts of systematic racism for generations."

And it went on that "Although the charitable foundation and Facebook are entirely separate and independent organizations with different missions and teams, we do share the same co-leader." That, of course, being Zuckerberg.

Facebook's policies are not the decisions of the CZI -- the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative -- as an organization. And nor will Facebook policies ever dictate how the foundation approaches its work.

Now, we have heard from one of the scientists who signed that initial letter raising concerns to Mark Zuckerberg. His name is Jason Shepherd. And last night when the letter was -- began circulating publicly, he said this response from the Zuckerberg -- Zuckerberg and his wife, the leadership of the foundation -- has -- is deeply concerning.

He said the response is tepid, promising no real action from Facebook. And he said that I know that Zuckerberg does not sign as Facebook's CEO.

So, Mark Zuckerberg has said in public Facebook posts that he did not like Trump's posts. Obviously, this language is a bit more direct. So, you know, it will be interesting to see how this evolves.

But, Alisyn, worth remembering that even though as Biden and everybody has and continues to slam Facebook, the Joe Biden campaign spent $5 million on Facebook ads last week. So it just goes to show you that Facebook is going to play a critical role in this election for the good and possibly, the bad.

CAMEROTA: That is very good context, Donie. Thank you very much.

Well, the president, as you know, often goes on the attack, but there's one word we have not heard him say in weeks. A reality check is next.

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[07:52:40]

CAMEROTA: From the NFL to the E.R., a former pro football player is going beyond the call on the front lines on the fight against coronavirus.

CNN's Brynn Gingras has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): By the time Dr. Kameno Bell has made it to the couch to watch T.V. with his three girls, he's already put in a full day in the emergency room at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Like other E.R.s across the country right now, most of the patients he treats has the coronavirus.

DR. KAMENO BELL, E.R. PHYSICIAN, HACKENSACK UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, FORMER ILLINOIS RUNNING BACK: The volume of critically ill patients has been unprecedented.

GINGRAS (voice-over): Bell thrives in the high stress, pressure- filled days this pandemic brings. Before he wore scrubs his uniform was a football jersey. Bell played for the University of Illinois. He was later drafted to the Miami Dolphins. He jokes it eventually became an easy decision to leave football.

BELL: Well, you get cut three times for the same team, you know, somebody from above is saying yes, you're being hardheaded, you know.

GINGRAS (voice-over): He pursued a career in medicine. His teammates now doctors and nurses battling this disease. Hackensack Medical says it's seen more than 2,000 Covid-19 patients since the pandemic started.

GINGRAS (on camera): What's that been like for you?

BELL: Well, they look like me and then -- with no other medical issues -- and then I see how critical they are. They're not -- it's like it could happen to anybody.

GINGRAS (voice-over): It came close to happening to him. Earlier this year, Bell treated a patient who later tested positive for Covid-19. He was quarantined in his basement away from his family for a week but didn't catch the virus. Now, the basement is where he goes after every shift.

BELL: Before I can see the family I have to come down here and decontaminate.

GINGRAS (voice-over): The job comes with serious risks to Bell himself, to his family, and never held the fanfare that a professional football player might receive until now when every night he's celebrated for his work on the front lines by strangers and by former teammates like two-time Super Bowl winner Howard Griffith.

HOWARD GRIFFITH, TWO-TIME SUPER BOWL WINNER: Each and every day he leaves the house to go out and helps strangers and he's continued to embrace that. And that's really who he has been for his entire life. He always wanted to help other people.

[07:55:02]

GINGRAS (voice-over): Those tears, motivation for Bell as he battles his toughest opponent yet.

Brynn Gingras, CNN, Hackensack, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Putting it all on the line. Good for him.

So the word socialism used to be a big part of President Trump's attack vocabulary, but he's pivoted away from that recently. So, why?

John Avlon has your reality check. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: President Trump's political strategy has always been based on negative partisanship. It's a two- part play. First, he demonizes Democrats to fire up the base while trying to convince just enough swing voters that he's a proudly politically incorrect counterweight to liberal extremes.

Now, for the better part of a year, those attacks could be summed up in one word, socialism.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Socialism destroys nations. Really, the Democrat Party is the socialist party and maybe worse.

AVLON: But the "S" word has basically disappeared from Trump's vocabulary in recent months. Check it out.

In the last half of 2019, Trump used the word socialist or socialism more than 100 times on Twitter or in speeches, according to the folks at Factbase. In January, he used the "S" word 30 times; February, 34 times.

But then, things fell off a cliff. Trump invoked the boogeyman of socialism only four times in March, one time in April, and a grand total of zero times in May.

What changed? Well, Joe Biden beat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and attacking Biden as a radical left-wing socialist just doesn't pass the swing district smell test. The approval of nearly $3 trillion in Covid-19-related relief under team Trump's watch has added additional headwinds.

Now, the aid in bailouts under the Trump administration and the GOP- controlled Senate have already far surpassed those that there were passed under Bush and Obama combined. In fact, the total U.S. debt is expected to pass $25 trillion, an all-time high that surpasses 120 percent of GDP -- levels unseen since the Second World War, according to a "USA Today" analysis.

So, maybe the socialist hit just isn't the right fit for the times, but none of this means that Trump's essential strategy of negative partisanship is going to change. It's just going to pivot to different targets.

Calls to defund the police are manna from heaven for the Trump campaign. They want a fight on the ground of white fears. And they'll blow past the fact that Biden quickly disavowed such a policy push while unveiling a police reform agenda instead.

Now, progressives will argue, as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser tried to explain to Anderson Cooper, that it's really a matter of semantics.

MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER (D), DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: As I've listened and read, I think most people are saying that they want reform and that they want good policing. AVLON: That's no doubt true, but then say reform because words matter and the word defund is handing another political weapon to Donald Trump that he'll use to distract and divide.

Now the good news is is that Americans are experiencing a long-overdue sea change in their awareness of how police are much more likely to use excessive force against African-Americans.

But the president's self-inflicted wounds are also severe. He's at a 38 percent approval rating with 57 disapproval in the latest CNN poll. He's underwater with every age group and down to 37 percent support among Independents who he won in 2016.

This is the cost of Trump's play to the base negative partisanship as president. But the fact he's abandoned his socialist attacks, at least for now, shows some awareness that Joe Biden's nomination and the combined impact of Covid-19 and the economic crisis have got him backed into a corner.

And that's your reality check.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Our thanks to John for that.

NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You're seeing Republicans and Democrats try to hammer out some kind of answer for the demands for police reform. There is an executive order in the works at the White House.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The idea of someone that would have a chokehold when somebody is handcuffed or others, there should be severe consequences.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We will not rest until it becomes the law. We will not rest until the changes are made.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By October one, they now project that nearly 170,000 Americans will be dead, killed by Covid.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: We are seeing the appearance of additional infections, particularly in the areas that are opening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

BERMAN: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. And we are waking up to big changes -- changes taking place across the

country that have been decades and decades in the making. Changes that are now coming, seemingly, in a wave in just weeks.

A Republican-led Senate panel approving a plan to remove Confederate names from military bases. The city of Louisville vowing to ban no- knock warrants, blamed for Breonna Taylor being fatally shot by police. More and more members of Congress, including the top House Republican, coming out in support of a ban on police chokeholds.

The country group Lady Antebellum making a big change -- changing its name to Lady A, saying they're embarrassed they didn't realize the word's association with slavery.

Big policy and cultural shifts, but one person seems to be mostly standing still -- that's the president.

END