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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Fury In Ferguson Over Grand Jury Decision; Questions Surround Prosecutor's Case To Grand Jury; Office Wilson Goes on With His Life; Wave of Protest on East Coast; Rudy Giuliani Supports Grand Jury's Decision

Aired November 25, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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

JEFF ROORDA, (D) MISSOURI STATE HOUSE: Well, there would certainly be safety and security concerns. You know, but we're nowhere close to that point. You know, Darren still potentially faces federal civil rights charges. He, I'm sure, is going to be sued by the family for wrongful death. I'm sure there is a pending internal investigation to determine whether he violated department policy or procedures. So, while we turned the page yesterday the chapter in his life is far from over.

TAPER: Although he did get married last month. So presumably he's trying to start anew to degree.

ROORDA: Well, I mean I'm not going to go into any details about his personal life, but, you know, he's trying to live a life under the most impossible circumstances imaginable.

TAPPER: OK, but you don't have any information you can tell us right now about what is next for him, whether he's going to resign or whether he's going to join a different force or anything like that?

ROORDA: Any cop that was in this situation would be in a daze right now and trying to grapple with what the reality of their future is.

TAPPER: All right. State Representative Jeffrey Roorda, Evan Perez from CNN, thank you.

Coming up, next, he says that the grand jury got it right. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says the prosecution could never have gotten a conviction at trial. We'll talk to him about that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to "THE LEAD." It's still daylight here in Ferguson, and we're seeing growing protests in cities throughout the East Coast. You are looking right now at some live pictures from Baltimore and from Philadelphia, showing people starting to congregate, gearing up for a night of protests, of civil disobedience, perhaps. This, after yesterday's grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson. We could see the scene repeat again and again tonight. Nearly 120 demonstrations like this are planned in 35 states.

We have seen the anger, of course, and the destruction here in the aftermath of the grand jury's decision to not indict Officer Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. But the prosecutor in the case says that regardless of what people feel, regardless of what they heard from the media, regardless of their belief, the grand jury's ruling, he says, came down to one thing. The evidence.

I'm joined now by CNN's Pamela Brown. Pamela, you've been pouring over the pages of documents that the prosecutor released last night. What stands out to you?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what really stands out to me, Jake, is how wildly different the witness accounts are. And, of course, looking at Darren Wilson's testimony, he testified for hours, he talked about how would he first pulled over Michael Brown, he said his face looked like a demon, he said that Brown charged after him and that he fired in self-defense. But then other witnesses, their testimony was very different. They said that Brown surrendered. So that was really a big part of what we looked through with these documents, but also it seems like the physical evidence played a key role with the grand jury's decision.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: For the first time, we're seeing Michael Brown's blood inside Officer Darren Wilson's car where the confrontation began, but witness accounts of what happened outside of the car recorded from 70 hours of grand jury testimony, from around 60 people over the course of three months dramatically differed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The prosecutor chose to present those witnesses, even the ones whose testimony was contradicted by the physical evidence, he gave even that evidence to the grand jury, I think deciding ultimately I'm going to let these ordinary citizens decide one way or the other.

BROWN: The 210-pound Officer Wilson testified he felt like a five- year-old holding on to Hulk Hogan. When he says the 290-pound Brown reached into his car and sought for his gun. Wilson said moments later Brown turned around making a grunted like aggravated sound while he tucked his right hand towards his waist band and ran towards him. The officer says he opened fire in self-defense. St. Louis authority say Brown's body was 153 feet east from Wilson's car and his blood was around 25 feet farther east.

UM: The blood trail indicated that Michael Brown had turned and had approached back toward Officer Wilson for at least 20 or 21 feet.

BROWN: Other witnesses told the grand jury Wilson was the aggressor. One thing he gets out immediately and start shooting, one of the biggest points of contention, whether the unarmed 18-year-old was surrendering. But one witness said, I never seen him put his hands up. He started charging towards the officer. Other recollections were not so clear cut. One witness said Brown didn't raise his hands, but also never charged the officer. Instead, he staggered slowly toward him, his arms outstretched.

St. Louis prosecutor Bob McCulloch said some of their witnesses lost credibility after their stories didn't match up to the physical evidence.

BOB MCCULLOCH: Once the autopsy findings were released showing that Michael Brown had not sustained any wound to the back of his body, no additional witnesses made such a claim.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And forensics show that Brown was shot at least six times out of the 12 rounds fired. Officials say the only close-range wound was to his hand. Jake?

TAPPER: Pamela Brown, thank you so much. Long before this case even made it to a grand jury, many questioned the fairness of the process and they openly discussed and wondered if a prosecutor with family ties and close business ties to local police - professional ties, rather, to local police would possibly taint to the outcome of the case. It's a sentiment that was echoed today in a news conference held by attorneys for the Brown family.

ANTHONY GRAY, BROWN FAMILY ATTORNEY: From the very beginning that the decision of this grand jury was going to be the direct reflection of the presentation of evidence by the prosecutor's office. If they present evidence to indict, there would have been an indictment. If they don't present the evidence in a manner to secure an indictment, then there won't be an indictment.

TAPPER: I'm joined now by former New York City mayor and former federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Mayor, thanks for joining us. You say that the grand jury got it right but it is unusual, the grand jury situation in this case. It was unusual that the prosecutor didn't build the case the way it's usually done. He presented all of the evidence and let the grand jury decide as opposed to making a suggestion and a recommendation. When you were U.S. attorney, did you ever present a case like that?

RUDY GIULIANI, FMR. NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Unusual but not unique. This is a situation in which I don't think the prosecutor knew himself what the right answer was, so he presented it to a grand jury. And when you read the testimony -- and I have to admit I haven't read all of it - it's phelominous (ph), but I read about 200 pages, there's no question that they couldn't indict. Even the description you just heard, that there were many conflicting stories. Many conflicting stories means, you couldn't possibly prove this case. When there's conflict, you can't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And this grand jury came to the conclusion that there wasn't even probable cause to believe he committed a crime. If you have to read just one thing, read the interview of witness number ten who, I believe, is an African-American, non-identified as such in the transcript because they don't go that far. But his testimony completely, 100 percent corroborates everything the police officer said. And he said the reason he came forward was because he was so upset that people were lying about the fact that Mr. Brown had put his hands up because that never happened. And, of course, at least four people perjured themselves about Mr. Brown being shot in the back. Do you know how powerful that testimony would be at a trial and how it would destroy any ability to win this case? So I'm saying the prosecutor had no choice. If he had brought the case ...

TAPPER: It's not necessarily -- go ahead. I'm sorry.

GIULIANI: If he had brought the case, he would have lost it and the riots that you're seeing now, particularly the ones that are organized by the racial arsonists. I'm not talking about the people protesting. I'm talking about the people who organize it. A lot of those signs that were out there last night were printed four, five and six days ago. This is a very well-organized form of racial arson. And it would just ...

TAPPER: I want to talk - I want to talk about that in a second. But Mr. Mayor, in terms of how the case was presented, you know there's an old saying that a prosecutor can persuade a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.

GIULIANI: Right.

TAPPER: That it's not that difficult. And in fact, the latest stats from the Bureau of Justice show that there's something like 160,000 federal cases prosecuted in the last year 2010, where they started this, and grand juries decline to return an indictment in only 11 of them. So, this is not a federal case, obviously, but when people who side with Michael Brown on this say the fix was in -- I mean, it is very unusual to not to lead the grand jury towards the conclusion you want them to reach?

GIULIANI: It's unusual because most of the time you're certain that the person is guilty, but in a situation in which you are not, this is not at all unusual. A grand jury serves several purposes, the first purpose and the main one, 95 percent of the time is just to return an indictment that the prosecutor wants. But five, six, seven percent of the time they serve the purpose of being an investigatory grand jury. I've had grand juries that sat for three years investigating cases, helping me figure out whether we should bring charges. So this particular grand jury was used by a prosecutor who, I believe, wasn't sure what the right result was and he put it to a jury which, by the way, comports with the Constitution of the United States. And when you read ...

TAPPER: I want to ask you about this racial - I want to ask you about this racial arsonist term ...

GIULIANI: Sure.

TAPPER: We only have about a minute left.

GIULIANI: Sure.

TAPPER: There are people who feel like there are racial injustices going on that white police officers can kill young black men with impunity. I understand that there are people who use incendiary rhetoric and I understand that there was a lot of violence on the streets of Ferguson last night but it seems dismissive, maybe I'm reading too much into what you are saying, but it seems dismissive to say if you're protesting and you're putting out signs a week ago that you are a racial arsonist as opposed to somebody who might just feel like black men, young black men especially don't get a fair shake.

GIULIANI: They have the right to protest. No one is objecting to that. I had many protests when I was the mayor of New York City, but I had no riots. I had riots before I was mayor, but I paid attention to this ruling about the Crown House riots that preceded me in which he said you shouldn't allow a cooling off period.

I think they made a terrible mistake in backing off. The first person who throws a stone, the first person who breaks a window, who lights a fire should get arrested. There should be a clear delineation. They have every right to be as angry as they want, yell, scream, call names.

They even have a right to taunt the police, which they do horribly. They have every right to do that. They don't have a right to throw stones to, break windows, to steal bikes. They don't have a right to steal liquor. They certainly don't have a right to burn down the stores of their very own people, which is a true and absolute tragedy.

And it gives you an idea of the kind of people who are organizing that part of the protests. I am not talking about the whole protests, but there are people who are organizing that part of the protests. And I know and you know who they are.

TAPPER: Well, certainly the violence is to be condemned in any instance.

GIULIANI: Outrageous.

TAPPER: Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

I want to go right now to Paul Butler who is with me. He's a law professor at Georgetown University and a former federal prosecutor. I also want to bring in Gloria Browne-Marshal. She is a constitutional law professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Paul, I'll start with you. What do you make of what Rudy Giuliani said defending the grand jury process?

PAUL BUTLER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Jake, the reason the signs were printed in advance is the results of the grand jury was a foregone conclusion. This grand jury was not going to indict the black police officer for killing this young black child. Why, because the prosecutor did not want them to.

The prosecutor is a man who depends on police officers. He works with them every day. He's got six in his immediate family and his father was tragically killed by a young, black man. So was he the person to bring this case? No.

As a former prosecutor, I was embarrassed by that press conference yesterday. It sounded like this prosecutor thought that the real suspect was Michael Brown. He sounded like a defense attorney for Officer Ferguson. There is no way -- prosecutors get indictments in 99 percent of the cases. No way he -- didn't want this indictment. He did not want this indictment.

TAPPER: Gloria, let me ask you. The basic argument from the prosecutor and from Mayor Giuliani you just heard was, we didn't know what happened and this grand jury helped us investigate it and they ultimately decided that the preponderance of evidence suggested that the crime had not been committed. Why is that not justice?

GLORIA J. BROWNE-MARSHAL, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Well, think about it this way. He said that there was a problem with the evidence, conflicting testimony. That's up to a jury in a regular criminal proceeding to decide the credibility of the witnesses. Who has a credible story? Who sounds like they are lying?

That all goes to the jury. This is just to see if there's enough evidence that some type of crime has been committed. And when you look at the grand jury testimony from Darren Wilson, what you see is that he said that I feared for my life. There should be a cross- examination around what caused you to fear for your life?

You didn't see a gun. So he's charging toward you. Did you fear for your life or did you fear for the humiliation of being beat up by a teenager. I mean, there's a difference here between someone having a gun and pointing it at an officer and someone who is still standing and disrespecting an officer. Those are two different things.

BUTLER: Jake, when we look at the racially charged language that Officer Wilson used in front of the grand jury, he said that this 18- year-old child had an aggressive face. He said he looked like a demon. He said that when Officer Wilson was fighting with this man, that he felt like a 5-year-old in the hands of Hulk Hogan.

Officer Wilson is 6'4" tall. He weighs 210 pounds. Again, he did not see a human being when he was in this encounter with Michael Brown. He did not respect this man as a human being. He saw him as a threat.

TAPPER: Gloria, what did you make of the timing of the grand jury announcement last night? It's been criticized a lot here in Ferguson as not perhaps the best time to announce something like this.

BROWNE-MARSHAL: Well, I studied civil disobedience. I've studied civil rights protest and even in my book, "Race, Law and American Society," I have a chapter on civil rights protests. If you want to isolate protesters, this is how you do it.

You make sure that they are in an isolated place, you shut off access to any parts of the community and therefore, you have them. Anyone who is going to be part of the protests will be the only people who are on that street at that time.

So it was a way in which they can then isolate them and then if they have to push them into a corner, very strategic and very militaristic.

TAPPER: Gloria Browne-Marshal and Paul Butler, thank you both so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up, all that is left behind is the charred ruins of his livelihood. Next, I will ask one local business owner here in Ferguson left with a stark choice, will he and his family rebuild or will they leave?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Live from Ferguson, Missouri. Just moments ago, the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, spoke about the unrest here and the status of the federal investigation. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN LIVE PRESSER COVERAGE)

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, good afternoon. I have been briefed by members of the Justice Department and I wanted to provide a brief update of the Justice Department's ongoing efforts arising from the events in Ferguson, Missouri.

I've been briefed today by the cops director, Ron Davis, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Molly Moran and members of my staff, all of whom are here with me now. They are overseeing the federal investigations into the shooting of Michael Brown as wells the investigation that we are doing of the Ferguson Police Department.

I want to emphasize that we have two investigations that are ongoing. As I've said many times before and reiterated in my statement last night, the department's investigations will continue to be thorough. They will continue to be independent and they remain ongoing.

They will be conducted rigorously and in a timely manner so that we can move forward as expeditiously as we can to restore trust, to rebuild understanding and to foster cooperation between law enforcement and community members.

Last night and throughout the day, I have been briefed on events in and around Ferguson. I was disappointed that some members of the community resorted to violence rather than respecting what I thought were the really heartfelt words of Michael Brown Sr. and the wishes that he expressed about how he wanted his son's memory to be honored with nonviolence.

It is clear that acts of violence threaten to drown out those that have legitimate voices, legitimate demonstrations and that act cannot and will not be condoned. By contrast, I'm very encouraged that some of the more peaceful demonstrations last night as well as today have occurred and have been in keeping with Mr. Brown's request.

I would remind demonstrators of our history that those -- the way in which we have made progress in this country is when we have seen peaceful, nonviolent demonstrations that has led to the change that has been the most long lasting and the most pervasive.

The -- I'd ask the cops director, Ron Davis, to continue to confer with local law enforcement and conduct an after action review so we can develop strategies for identifying and isolating the criminal elements from peaceful protesters.

Additionally, I have instructed department officials to continue to make contact with leaders of the peaceful protesters and to seek their assistance in isolating those individuals who are inclined towards violence.

We've had a good ongoing dialogue with peaceful demonstrators in Ferguson. I've been very heartened to hear about the work that our customer service relations have done and instructed them to maintain those levels of communications and keep those avenues of communications open.

I really embrace those who have been proactively intervening to stop acts of violence within their midst and I encourage them to continue to exercise this important leadership. I know that that is not an easy thing to do, but it was very heartening to hear about people last night trying to stop those other people who were tried to loot and trying to destroy businesses and burn things.

Those people who took it upon themselves to try to stop those kinds of things are in fact heroes in my mind. Michael Brown's tragic death has revealed a deep distrust between some in the Ferguson community and its police force.

It also developed a need to develop and widely disseminate law enforcement best practices for responding to public demonstrations. The Department of Justice has begun this work and will continue to work with communities around the country in this regard.

The reality is that what we see in Ferguson is not restricted to Ferguson. There are other communities that have these same issues that have to be dealt with and we at the Justice Department are determined to do all that we can to bridge those divides.

We launched in September our Building Communities of Trust initiative to provide training to law enforcement and communities on bias reduction and procedural fairness, and we plan to apply evidence-based strategies in the five pilot sites around the country.

This is all designed to bridge those divides, bridge those gaps between law enforcement and the communities that they serve. These gaps, these divides exist in other parts of the country beyond Ferguson, and our focus will be national in its scope to try to deal, ultimately, with these issues.

We will continue to advance this work, as I said, in cities around the country in the coming weeks and months by bringing together elected officials, law enforcement officials and community leaders both to ensure dialogue but also action. This isn't just about talking. We want to ensure that concrete steps are taken to address these underlying barriers to trust.

I briefed the president today in the Oval Office about the situation in Ferguson, shared with him the perspectives of people in law enforcement and Justice Department officials who are there on the ground. We talked about the programmatic initiatives that we want to announce relatively soon and also about the need to bring our people together.

This is a difficult time for people in Ferguson. It's a difficult time for people in our country. I think it's an opportunity to find those things that bind us as a nation; to be honest with one another about those things that continue to divide us; and to come up with ways in which we make this union even more perfect.

And so that's what I talked about with the president. He is committed to this effort, as are the men and women of the United States Department of Justice. Thanks very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

(END LIVE PRESSER COVERAGE)