Return to Transcripts main page

At This Hour

Ferguson Calm after Nights of Protests; Holiday Day Could Effect 30 Million; What Does Officer Wilson's Body Language Reveal; More Than 170 Protests after Ferguson

Aired November 26, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Live pictures right now from Ferguson, Missouri. That is one of the buildings that was set ablaze after the grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown. That set off the protest which is Monday night were violent.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Police moved in quickly to prevent the violence from escalating. Some protesters flipped over a police cruiser and set it on fire, but with the huge National Guard presence, it was much calmer overall than what we saw on Monday. Protests, of course, not only going on in Ferguson.

BERMAN: Later this hour, we'll look at the nationwide reaction. Because if you were watching last night, you saw protest after protest, demonstration after demonstration.

PEREIRA: Mostly peaceful.

BERMAN: Absolutely. All over the country. I guess 170.

PEREIRA: Something like that.

Can we also point out that we heard, anecdotally, of people saying that protesters were standing in front of the businesses in Ferguson, arm in arm, sort of essentially protecting them from being looted and destroyed? Some of the people on the ground in Ferguson, that's an important story to mention.

BERMAN: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: Because people have a right to protest. Violently and destructively, not.

We want to turn to a story that is a concern for so many people. Some 30 million people from North Carolina all the way to Maine, just in time for Thanksgiving, a messy storm full of snow and rain. Look at the travel delays. Anything in red, that's a concern. We know that this is going to be the busiest Thanksgiving travel week since 2007.

Can we show you Virginia? Yeah. Hi, Virginia. We apologize.

Already seeing so much snow you're going to have to get that snow blower out earlier than we expected. This is from Bent Mountain on the edge of Roanoke.

BERMAN: Virginia is for lovers and skiers, now, apparently. This is what Washington, D.C., looks like right now. You think there was gridlock already? Now the travel delays in D.C. and other east coast airports could be up to six hours long.

PEREIRA: How about New York City?

BERMAN: New York City is facing up to four inches of snow.

PEREIRA: That's right around Central Park. You don't realize it. I'm kidding, it's not.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: That's the Poconos. They're going to get it much, much worse. They could see maybe a foot. In New England the most important region in the country also will be hit hard by this storm. They can see up to a foot of snow.

PEREIRA: 30,000 people could be affected.

Our Rosa --

BERMAN: That's 30 million. Not to fact check you there.

PEREIRA: Add a couple zeros.

Rosa Flores is on the ground in Charlton, Massachusetts, just an hour west of Boston, and she's probably thinking let these two wrap it up and get to me because it's freezing cold outside here.

Tell us about the conditions where you are, Rosa, you poor thing.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The temperature has been dropping. It was a toasty 39 degrees about two hours ago. It's dropped to about 32 degrees.

Take a look around me. This is the type of snow we've been seeing for the past two hours. Not much is sticking, as you can see, very little. Especially on the roadways. This is the Massachusetts Turnpike. These are the westbound lanes, all these folks headed towards New York. You can see smooth sailing right now. But let me tell you something, we just saw a tweet from state police, all of these folks, their speed limit going to drop from 65 to 40 when they get to Springfield and all the way to New York because there's a lot more snow as you head west.

John and Michaela, if there's an M.O. for this storm, that's it. The further west you travel, the more snow you'll see at this point in time.

Back to you.

BERMAN: There's a line here, and when you cross that line, it's ugly. Lots and lots of snow. PEREIRA: I thought you were thinking of an M.O. as an excuse not to

attend that troublesome relative's Thanksgiving feast tomorrow, Rosa. I know that's not you. You'll be there with the people you want to be with.

Thanks so much for that report.

We should tell you, though, that the concern is, of course, with some of this travel while all the people are looking to get on flights to head to those last-minute flights across the country, something like 200 flights have already been canceled according to flightaware.com.

Can we show the map one more time? Are we able to do that?

We lost it.

BERMAN: The map went away. Snowed under.

PEREIRA: Washington, New York, Boston, all of that corridor. A lot of delays.

BERMAN: 200 flights isn't a lot unless it's yours.

PEREIRA: But remember, it replicates.

BERMAN: Cascade effect.

PEREIRA: Thank you very much, John. I appreciate that.

BERMAN: Speaking of the weather, there's so many people in so many places, racing to get home for the holiday, I don't want to tell you you're too late, but you probably are.

Brian Todd is in a race of his own. Brian Todd is hitting the road to New York and he is battling against Erin McPike, who is flying from Washington, D.C. --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Well, he was there. I think he went to get a Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

BERMAN: That was Brian Todd who, moments ago, was racing by car --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: That has worked out brilliantly.

BERMAN: We will check with either the seat or the real Brian Todd later in the show to find out how this ends.

PEREIRA: We'll check in with them.

All right, also ahead here, we're going to talk more about Officer Wilson's interview. We talked about his words, but now we want to talk hadn't his body language. Does what does that say? We'll take a look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Officer Darren Wilson shared his account of the events leading up to the shooting of Michael Brown. He says he felt fear and he believed he was doing his job, and if he had to do it again, Officer Wilson says he would not do things differently. He also said he would have done it all the same way if Michael Brown had been white.

BERMAN: Now, finally, we know so much more about what he said and we've seen him speak now in this interview with ABC, so how does he look in this interview? How does he sound and what does that tell us?

Let's bring in body language expert, Tonya Reiman.

Tonya, I want to start with his voice here and what happens to it. Listen to this clip.

TONYA REIMAN, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER. DARREN WILSON, FERGUSON POLICE DEPARTMENT: There was like a five-year-old holding on to Hulk Hogan. That's just how big this man was.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC CORRESPONDENT: Hulk Hogan?

WILSON: He was a very large. A very powerful man.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You're a big guy.

WILSON: Yeah, I'm above average. I'm 210, 215. But from what I've heard, he was around 290.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We were talking about this a little while ago. Michaela was asking me, his voice cracked and people noticed that.

REIMAN: His voice cracked a lot. You need to realize we don't have a baseline for this gentleman so that could be his normal verbal pattern.

BERMAN: Sounds like Peter Brady.

REIMAN: Exactly. We don't know. Typically, if we don't have a baseline and we're just talking about general bodily language, that would be indicative of somebody feeling shame, anxiety, something along those lines.

PEREIRA: It could be the stress of being in a live interview.

REIMAN: All of these things could be. All of the red flags we see here are definitely indicators of somebody experiencing anxiety and although people keep saying he's robotic, he is, but that's because he's practiced so much. The red flags still seep out of your body.

PEREIRA: We'll get to that well-rehearsed and robotic aspect in a second.

Let's play another piece of sound here. He doesn't really move a lot, speaking to the robotic aspect. Let's look here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Some of the witnesses have said they thought you were out of control, that somehow you had snapped.

WILSON: Uh-huh. That would be incorrect. There was never -- the only emotion I'd ever felt was fear, and then it was survival and training.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Repeating the word "incorrect" several times, actually.

REIMAN: We do that for several reasons. Number one, it's because we've practiced so much so we want to make sure that we keep consistent with what we said. And typically, we do that because we want you to believe it. If repeat it, you know as a child -- if you repeat something over and over again it becomes true.

BERMAN: It's also bureaucratic speak. If you know cops or military, they speak in big bureaucracy --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Affirmative.

BERMAN: They use words we don't use in the world.

REIMAN: Yes, yes. That's just part of their normal speak.

BERMAN: What about the affect, what about the stillness in some cases? I want to play a little bit of a clip here and talk about his movement or lack of movement in some cases.

REIMAN: Right.

(VIDEO)

BERMAN: All right, so there's no sound here, but what you see is you see him moving. This was one of the only times he was moving.

REIMAN: He -- typically, during this entire interview he stayed in what I called non-verbal lockdown. That means pretty much, if I don't move anything then nothing will seep out, nothing will leak out. But what we find is when you're holding that tight, when you don't make movements, things do come out anyway, and it makes you look more anxious because now we're realizing you're not moving enough, and it's not a normal -- you're not being a normal gesticulator. As we talk, we use our hands to emphasize, to frame what we're saying, and that helps me to get the words out and absorb the information I've given you.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: He doesn't move. He's told this story a number of times by this point, sitting down with Stephanopoulos. We know we told it to his supervisor. I'm assuming he spoke to investigators through the course of this investigation.

Take a listen to this. Get your reaction to this notion that he's had to tell the story before.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILSON: Can I shoot this guy? You know, legally can I? And the question I answered myself was, I have to. If I don't he will kill me if he gets to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: It's interesting. We had one of the attorneys for the Brown family on on CNN a little earlier, and he seems to think that this is just sort of a well-rehearsed sort of accounting of what happened. He's had a chance to get his story straight.

REIMAN: Right. That is part of what happens. It's just what you're looking for is normally this is the way it happens. You feel something, then you show it, then you speak it. And that's how you know something is natural. When somebody's practiced it too much and it's so flat -- and you see, his official ex the whole time, it's just the flat, neutral expression. There's nothing there. So when you feel it and then you show it and then speak it you know it's a natural pattern. There's pieces of this interview where he's not doing that. Especially during the time where he's not making any movements whatsoever. So this is how you know it's rehearsed.

BERMAN: Just because you're well rehearsed doesn't mean you're not feeling something, just that your body is committed to repeating again and again and again without thinking.

REIMAN: He felt a lot of things. If you watch, we saw shoulder shrugs, we saw extended eye closure, which tells somebody, "I'm really uncomfortable." He did inward lip rolls. When you see, that's somebody saying I stick my tongue out and then I pull back in, that's saying, I really don't want to have this conversation.

In addition to that he did hard swallows. Anybody who's in this interview is going to be anxious so there's a very fine line between someone showing anxiety --

(CROSSTALK)

REIMAN: -- and somebody showing deception. So the cues here all indicate he was feeling anxiety, high levels of it.

PEREIRA: It's a very different perspective.

Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it.

REIMAN: Thank you.

PEREIRA: Thank you, Tonya.

Ahead @THISHOUR, from New York to California, more than 170 protests break out after the grand jury's decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson. Why does Ferguson resonate so deeply? We'll take a look a little bit at the history of mistrust.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The frustrations that we've seen are not just about a particular incident. They have deep roots in many communities of color who have a sense that our laws are not always being enforced uniformly or fairly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Well, it's not just Ferguson. Outrage over the grand jury's decision prompted protests from coast to coast. We saw more than 170 cities participate nationwide.

I want to show you the scene outside CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Students from Clark, Morehouse and Spellman Colleges led hundreds of marchers across the city, at one point blocking interstate traffic. They're protesting ended after nightfall in the neighborhood where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was born.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: We are not for violence in any way, shape of form.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That was a student from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CHANTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Hundreds of students took part in the campus march for justice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STUDENTS: Hands up, don't shoot. Hands up, don't shoot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: A refrain we've heard numerous times, "Hands up, don't shoot." That was a protest that was not as peaceful in Cincinnati. A rally there shut down interstate 75. Police moving in, handcuffing protesters, warning protesters to move off the highway or get locked up. In fact, more than a dozen arrests were reported.

BERMAN: What we did see overnight was truly remarkable. In 170 cities, we saw protests, some of them spontaneous, people taking to the streets and marching, mostly peacefully, to make a point that this represents something to them bigger than just Ferguson.

PEREIRA: Bigger, yeah.

BERMAN: We want to talk about that right now. Joining us right now is Susan Johnson Cook, former advisor to President Bill Clinton, former U.S. ambassador for International Religious Freedom, and god daughter to Coretta Scott King.

Thank you so much for being with us, Ambassador.

SUSAN JOHNSON COOK, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR FOR INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM & GOD DAUGHTER TO CORETTA SCOTT KING: Thank for having me.

BERMAN: When you listen to what President Obama has said, he tried to make the point. He goes, I'm not going to get into the details of what's going on in Ferguson, there are legal details why he can't do that. But we need to acknowledge that this is something real. There is a real feeling in African-American communities around the country that there is not equal justice.

JOHNSON COOK: I call it really American judicial apartheid, where you have a minority that are desperate and they're taking over a majority population.

You know, as a mother of two African-American sons, and I find myself now at Christmastime and Thanksgiving, not talking about getting home safely but saying, if you're stopped, these are the things you need to do. As black males, their lives aren't valued in America. It's hurtful.

My first calls Monday night were from men, ranging from ages 79 down to 20, men who had lived, some of them, in the segregated south and thought we'd seen the worst of it and say, we're reliving this all over again. We call it the apartheid system of America.

PEREIRA: It's a really interesting proposition, what you're talking about. I know there are going to be people that this conversation will fall on deaf ears with. Because they will say, I just don't understand why folks can't just get over it and move on. Can you help lend some perspective, historical perspective to the struggles and the mistrust and the frustration of equal access? Can you help with that?

JOHNSON COOK: We thought the Civil Rights Act was going to end it all. Integration was supposed to be a new beginning. But people don't change, people's hearts don't change. You find that manifested. The protests that are going from New York to the west coast are people having a place to vent. We haven't had a place in America to vent since the civil rights movement. You see older generations and younger generations marching because they thought this was kind of over. We thought that integration --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: It's 2014, right?

JOHNSON COOK: It's 2014, but mothers of sons and daughters who are black and brown fear for their lives constantly. So my prayer is, Lord, guide them, guard them and direct them. It's not just doing well in school, but also to protect them.

PEREIRA: But it's also about working together, right? These communities -- there needs to be cohesion and conversation, not just between law enforcement, law enforcement and the community in Ferguson, but there need to be grander and bigger-level conversations.

JOHNSON COOK: I was police chaplain in New York City for 22 years. One of the things that needs to happen is you have to have people inside the department that reflect the community. Community policing was introduced by Lee Brown, and then they left with it. But you have to have people that reflect the department and the community within the department. But you have to have both sides at the table. It's not just the police department saying, we're coming to you. But it has to be community leaders.

One of the things I'm hopeful about is the faith leaders in Ferguson are saying that we're presenting safe sanctuaries so people will have a place to at least come to gather. We don't have many gathering places in our country. So it's sparked a movement. You need protesters to say, we're not taking this. But you need people inside the departments, law enforcement particularly, to say we're ready to sit with you and have a conversation with you, not talk to you, but have a conversation with you.

BERMAN: You worked as a police chaplain for many years. I know a lot of cops and a lot of forces who really do want to have this conversation and are having this conversation. It's not like every police officer in the country is ignorant to the fact that --

JOHNSON COOK: Absolutely.

BERMAN: -- there's something going on in communities?

JOHNSON COOK: You look at Ferguson's law enforcement force and their elected officials, and it really is a minority of minorities on the force. But I think you look at systemic racism within the police departments, there are issues. When I used to counseled officers who were Latino and black, who were retiring with supposedly the same benefits of those who were white, there were always differences. You look at systemic racism -- even as an ambassador that I experienced at the State Department. My last week on the job, one woman said, everyone knows the State Department is not welcoming of African- Americans. I was like, what? So you're looking at years and years of systemic racism. But I also speak as one who was part of the president's initiative on

race. When President Clinton in '98 introduced that, he said, we have to look at the multi-ethnicity of America. It's not just white and black anymore. There are all kinds of people coming in. And we have to have that conversation. He tried to put race on the table. It was kind of squashed. But now race is on the table and we have to deal with it.

PEREIRA: It's how we proceed here from, understanding awareness, relationships before there's a crisis.

JOHNSON COOK: Before a crisis. And some training before there's a crisis.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

Ambassador Susan Johnson Cook, a pleasure to have you here with us.

JOHNSON COOK: Thank you so much for having me.

BERMAN: Very nice meeting you.

Another story we're following, we learned a short time ago that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had heart surgery. She had a stent put in. She is now recovering. The 81 year old was admitted to a Washington hospital last night after experiencing discomfort during routine exercise.

PEREIRA: She had a procedure known as a coronary catheterization to address a blocked artery. She is due to be discharged in the next 48 hours. We send our well wishes to her.

BERMAN: Ahead for us @THISHOUR, Thanksgiving is upon us. So is a nor'easter. That's a tough combination, folks. Our Brian Todd moments ago --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Is he back in the car now?

BERMAN: When we come back, he'll tell us how the race on the roads is going. PEREIRA: Steady there, fellow, steady.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: @THISHOUR, I mean at this very hour, some 46 million Americans are traveling for Thanksgiving, or at least trying to. Among them, two strong CNN reporters.

PEREIRA: Yes, this has become quite a tradition here at CNN. Erin McPike and Brian Todd going back and forth from New York City and Washington. Erin is flying. Brian is driving. Who will get home first?

BERMAN: Erin's flight is delayed. One of hundreds of delayed flights so far today. It is sitting on the tarmac.

PEREIRA: She could be talking to us on the phone.

BERMAN: You could just imagine her looking unhappy and uncomfortable. In the meantime, we're going to go to Brian Todd to see where he is, hopefully somewhere on the road.

Brian, great to see your face.

PEREIRA: Nice face.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, guys.

BERMAN: Where are you?

TODD: We're on the road, on I-95. We just crossed into Delaware from Maryland heading north toward New York City. It's been a very nasty day. We'll show you out the front part of our vehicle, the dashcam, you can see the oncoming traffic. You see the traffic we're trailing behind. What's really bad about today is it started out as a rain event, then got to snow and then switched back to a bit of rain here. So this is blocked.

This is what motorists are dealing with. About 41 million people are expected to hit the road this holiday. With gas prices low, more people are tempted to get on the roads. But this is where they're going to be dealing with between D.C. and New York. Very nasty weather. So it's going to be a little bit dicey from here.

PEREIRA: Take it easy.

BERMAN: You be careful, Brian Todd, and anyone else out there. Please be careful on the roads. It is ugly.

PEREIRA: That's it for us @THISHOUR. We'll be here tomorrow on Thanksgiving Day.

BERMAN: "Legal View" with Pamela Brown starts next.