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Michael Brown's Mother Appeals For Stop To Violence In Ferguson, Missouri; 78 Arrests Overnight In Ferguson

Aired August 19, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is it for me, Don Lemon. Thanks for watching. For our viewers on CNN International, make sure you stay with us for "NEWS CENTER."

And for our viewers on CNN NEWSROOM, CNN NEWSROOM with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And this is CNN's special live coverage on the escalating crisis on the streets in Ferguson, Missouri.

The main flash point of the conflict between predominantly white police and hundreds of mainly black protesters. The scene today, it is relatively calm, but overnight it is chaos. Police arresting at least 31 people, four officers were injured. Two people were shot, not by police but what authorities are calling crowd-on-crowd crime. And we watched scenes we're use seeing scenes that we are not used to seeing in the United States. I'm talking about stand grenade, teargas, canisters, rocks, Molotov cocktails and gun fire. Ten days of protests since the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. But his mother says the violent night after night detracts in some way getting justice for her so son. She spoke out this morning on the "Today" show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLEY MCSPADDEN, MICHAEL BROWN'S MOTHER: We have to remain focus. We have to remain strong and the violence needs to stop. When justice is prevailed, then maybe they will regain their trust in the locals but right now it's really out of control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Off the streets, a lot of developments here. A grand jury could begin hearing evidence as early as tomorrow while the department of justice is opening a civil rights investigation into Brown's death. And Attorney General Eric Holder is traveling to Ferguson, Missouri tomorrow to meet with FBI investigators and prosecutors.

And let me remind you, CNN was right there on the ground as things went from bad to worse. This is our coverage as the drama unfolded for night number ten.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Police don't want people in congregate in any one spot. But they've lifted the curfew and it's in the afternoon.

LEMON: I think we're going to be arrested because we're standing on the sidewalk and you said you want to --?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move out of the way, sir.

LEMON: I'm being pushed back by the police. This is exactly what the citizens have been dealing with.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Several hundred people marching through the streets.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Everyone seems to be keeping the peace. Any small thing can set the community off here. People who are standing around too long are basically being arrested for failure to disperse.

LEMON: We have seen several water bottles being thrown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And here come the police.

LAVANDERA: The scene has angered some people and they are moving towards the police. It's kind of a standoff here.

LEMON: There is some disturbance. Police have put on their gas masks. You can see an officer with a stoke rifle.

TAPPER: It's chaotic. They are aggressively dispersing the crowd. And you see police officers with guns and batons and shields. I don't know why they are standing here ready forearmed confrontation.

There is nothing going on on this street right now that merits this scene at the (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tension is on the police side at this point. When you look at the law enforcement agents, when you go up the street, there are tanks and tanks and tanks.

TAPPER: There are people in the crowd, a minority, but they are there who are trying to instigate with the police.

LEMON: OK. Some grenades that were thrown and to break up some of the protesters and now there is teargas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are throwing more tear gas.

LEMON: Jake, what's going on there?

TAPPER: This is a photographer who got hit pretty badly by the teargas. Somebody get a medic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an extremely tense situation that has elevated to the level of what we saw last night with teargas and smoke being blown. Moments ago we heard the unmistakable sound of gunshots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hit the floor and I couldn't breathe. It felt like my lungs were under water and I was drowning. Everyone in our vicinity is being overcome by tear gas.

LEMON: The protesters are saying this is our house, we're not going anywhere. Police are moving in in force. Now they are being taken into custody one by one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please leave for public safety. There's a gunshot victim. Please leave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want anybody to get hurt. I don't want an officer to get hurt, I don't want a citizen to get hurt. But we have to find a way to stop it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: And for many of you watching all of these events unfolding in the wake of Michael Brown's death, the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, seem like a scene from another country. Police appear well- armed to face an angry and violent crowd but are they armed with the psychological training to handle a deadly force encounter and its potential aftermath?

In the moment, after Michael Brown was shot, you can see officer Darren Wilson standing there, Brown's body taking in what has just occurred. So let me bring in Maria Haberfeld. She is the chairwoman of the department of law, political science and criminal justice administration at John Jay College and the author of "critical issues in police training."

So Maria, welcome.

MARIA HABERFELD, PROFESSOR, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And you know, you were saying you've been watching this coverage nonstop. You know how this is supposed to work in terms of police training and tactical training and in a case like this, so many different accounts. Let's just go with one, for example, eyewitnesses say Michael Brown was walking away from the officer arms up. In that kind of situation, how should a police officer handle it?

HABERFELD: Well, it's all contextual and depends on what happened before. It's not just a situation that somebody is walking away from a police officer, to a police officer. There was some prior encounter that led to the officer pulling out his gun. And so it's very hard to say that this particular moment, even though somebody put their hands in the air, the officer will automatically put the gun down because it's contextual to what happened before.

BALDWIN: You have to take an encounter. So no matter how many different scenarios I can throw at you, it's the variables that led up to the critical moment?

HABERFELD: Absolutely. It's just one picture, one frame so to speak, of the entire encounter.

BALDWIN: So then why not use pepper spray? Why shoot?

HABERFELD: Well, again, police officers are trained for continuum of force. Pepper spray is a continuum that is on the stages of continuum force is lower, of course, than the gun. But based on the encounter again and the account of the encounter, apparently Mr. Brown, based on the encounters that, you know, the account that we're hearing from the witness, maybe not the witness, but a friend of the officer, Mr. Brown reached out for the gun. So when he reached out for the gun of a police officer, then you don't go beacon the continuum.

BALDWIN: You wouldn't go down the pepper spray because if you're reaching for a gun, you're at the gun level?

HABERFELD: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: So, but police are trained, this is also what I wanted to ask you, especially since we have been seeing the pictures from the autopsy yesterday and where Michael Brown was shot, in the arm and in the head. Police officers, you write in this piece, are trained to shoot at the center of the body? Why not shoot legs to injure?

HABERFELD: Again, it is a matter of philosophy of training. But when you look at how police forces are trained in the United States, they are trained around shooting at center mass. The reason around this thinking is it is much he easier to minimize the threat or eliminate the threat. It is important to emphasize, police officers are not trained to kill people, even when they use deadly force.

BALDWIN: They are not trained to kill?

HABERFELD: Absolutely not. They are trained to incapacitate the threat that is in front of them. And it's much easier to incapacitate the threat when you're aiming at, you know, center mass and not at somebody's hands or legs. Given the threat also that the police officers usually are only qualified with the firearms twice a year. You know, they are not snipers. This is not a sniper unit. This is an average police officer who receives a training during the basic police academy and then twice a year qualifies, which is not enough to have --

BALDWIN: That was my follow up. I mean, there is only twice a year with this kind of gun?

HABERFELD: Absolutely. So, it's not even trained twice a year. They just have to qualify that they actually can shoot.

BALDWIN: All right. We will go to the Pentagon here in the control room. Stay with me.

Pentagon is talking about the militarization of assuming of local police departments. Take a listen.

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Well, it is still up to the local law enforcement to determine how and when and where and under what circumstances they use excess military equipment. But the secretary has been mindful of the public debate and the discussion about this issue and asked his staff this morning for some additional information about the program. He has been given an information paper that provides some more detail to it and he's consuming that now.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: So the president yesterday said he wanted a review of it and one can only assume that the president wants a review of a military program and so does the secretary. So what's the next step here? What happens next? And what concerns does he and the military and General Dempsey have about, you know, the term now isn't militarization of this country's police department?

KIRBY: I don't think -- I don't think the president's demanded a review of it. I think what he's said is he's open to taking a look at it. If it needs reviewing, Secretary Hagel has not ordered a review of this program. He's simply asked for more information so he can have a more informed opinion about it.

But look, it's important to understand, this is a program legislated by Congress which allows the secretary to transfer some excess military property to local law enforcement. It has been on the books since 1991 and many, many law enforcement agencies have benefited from it. In fact, many citizens of many towns and cities all over the country have benefited from it. But how, as I said before, how and where and under what circumstances the equipment actually gets used is up to the local law enforcement agencies to determine.

BALDWIN: OK. So this is Rear Admiral John Kirby talking, spokesperson of the Pentagon. The voice you just heard, the woman's voice, that was our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

And so, asking about the teams that really been pervasive through our coverage about the militarization of local police departments. Because as we've been reporting on the Pentagon, it was giving some of these local departments, you know, weaponry, et cetera, that had been used in war. So it's military grade equipment. And so, you heard the president saying last night he's open for -- I don't know the precise language or calling for review of that policy, but that's what Barbara was asking about because a lot of people have wondered why is this happening in police departments across the country.

So Marie Haberfeld, thank you for joining me from John Jay College here in New York City.

And just ahead, as we stay on this story out of Ferguson, as children are watching what is unfolding on the news in their own community, how does that impact their feelings towards local police? Will this sense of distrust increase?

Plus, what are the African-Americans on the Ferguson police force dealing with right now?

And the prosecutor in charge of this case in Missouri was a wild when he lost his father in a line of duty killed by a black man. And now there are calls for this prosecutor to leave the case. Is that fair? This is CNN's special live coverage. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN and I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And for ten days now, Ferguson, Missouri has been in turmoil. Images of protesters, smoke out of the street and police armed now seemingly a daily occurrence. What kind of toll is this taking on this city now squarely in the national spotlight?

Let me bring in Jelani Cobb, writer thenewyorker.com. He is in Ferguson for us right now and Craig Watkins, Dallas Country district attorney and also part of the innocent project at Texas to helps get wrongfully convicted people out of prison. So gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: You got it.

Jelani, I want to begin with you in Ferguson because something that I have thought about the young people in this community and I talked to school spokesperson yesterday because a lot of these kids, as we know, they are not at school. And I'm wondering if they are seeing these images, you know, playing in their homes, how people are being treated? How, in some cases, their parents are being treated by the police and in the optics of shields and rubber bullets? How is this going to affect them?

JELANI COBB, WRITER, THE NEW YORK.COM: Well, I mean, I think it's not going to affect people in a good way. You know, I've talked with young people here and they have had a great deal of anxiety and concern around this. This seems to have been, you know really, in trench this process for the police before.

One of the things that young man talked -- said to me, he was a member of the United States Navy. He joined the navy out of high school. And he said that there are people in his high school who, because of the way that, you know, issues in high school behavior are being managed that, that if a person gets into a fight in high school, they are treating it as a criminal assault. And so, this begins kind of a stage in which people are not looking at the legal system as their friend as opposed to perhaps treating this as a bad infraction of school policy.

The other thing that I will say is that there have been counselors and therapists. But I went out to the area where they created the shrine where Mr. Brown was shot. I ran into someone from the association of black psychologists and they have been out volunteering going as the community there for that specific purpose, to talk to people who saw this incident and who may be traumatized by it.

BALDWIN: That's good. They need all of those different people because so many people are, obviously, being affected it, just by sheer geography and where they are living. And then at the same time, Craig, when you talk about, you know, law enforcement, especially in the communities like Ferguson, where, you know, Ferguson police department primarily white, Ferguson demographics are primarily African-American, do you think that matters? Do you think law enforcement demographics show mere demographics of the city?

CRAIG WATKINS, DALLAS COUNTRY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Yes. Obviously, I think we need to be honest with ourselves in this country. Race is still an issue. Hopefully, as we move forward with these issues that we are dealing with as it relates to Ferguson and even in the county that I'm a district attorney in, we can stop dealing with race. But unfortunately, that's still the issue.

And so, you have a lot of individuals of a certain race, of a certain culture that really just don't trust law enforcement. In order for us to regain that trust, we need to have transparency and therein lies a reason that, you know, here as the Dallas Country district attorney, and only have I pursuit exonerations, but also we have decided to put in place a civil rights unit that will investigate the police shootings independent of the police department.

BALDWIN: But to me it's more than transparency. Yes, people are calling for transparency from the police department. But why are not more minorities wanting -- I don't know if it's an issue of wanting to joining the police department. I mean, apparently this police chief is saying it's been a struggle. Why is that not happening?

COBB: I want to respond to that.

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Jelani.

COBB: I had an opportunity to speak to a the chief of a neighboring township and what he said was that, you know, he was able to turn his department from one that had 17 officers and only two African- Americans into one that has 22 officers and now it's evenly divided over the course of, I believe, six or seven years and he did this by intensely recruiting. He went to high schools and talked to young people, predominantly high schools and talked to predominantly black high schools, which is that I talked to young people about the idea of a career in law enforcement, went to graduating classes at the academy and found officers who had not been hired by a department yet. And then when he went to various communities, he played up their virtues and benefits of his home department and attracted people there.

So I think that this has something to do with perhaps there may be a small pool. But there are certainly ways, in talking with him, it was chief Ware of a neighboring township, that they can get around that.

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Craig.

WATKINS: Yes. You know, I respect the answer but I somewhat disagree.

BALDWIN: How so? WATKINS: I am head of the eighth largest district attorney's office

in the state and when I took my oath of office in 2007, you can count on basically one hand the number of African-Americans that were actually prosecutors within that office. And the excuse was is that we can't find any qualified individuals or there's no pool of individuals that want to come and be prosecutors. That's just absolutely not true.

We've seen over the last course of eight years that we've increased not only African-Americans but Hispanics but the diversity of our district attorney's office and it wasn't because we had to try. There were applications flowing through our office of individuals who wanted to come work for the D.A.'s office. Those applications were there before I became the district attorney.

So I think it's indicative of the individual who runs the department. If it's an appointed or elected position to basically look, you know, for a cultural standpoint to make sure that they represent the citizens and the diversity of their citizenry.

BALDWIN: To help actively seek those people out and to have them diversify, maybe a much needed D.A. office or a police department.

Jelani, I'm just curious. Ha you -- I have seen few pictures of African-Americans on the Ferguson police department just in our, you know, flashes of coverage. I'm wondering if you had talked to any of them. How are they handling all of this right now?

COBB: I have not. But you know, the officers that I did attempt to talk to uniformly said -- referred me to the spokesperson for the police department. So even if I did, I'm not quite sure I'd get, you know, any commentary from them.

One thing that I did notice, though, that stood out to me which is on Wednesday night, which was the first really, really intense night of clashes between the police and protesters, there were maybe, my estimate, 65 to 75 police officers out there that night, that was the night they rolled out the military-style vehicles. And of that number, there may have been seven or eight black officers. Now, there was one black officer who had his face covered in a bandana or a scarf of some sort. And now I think that's very troubling. A police officer's face should be visible to the people who he derives his color (ph) from the people of taxpayers who--

BALDWIN: Why was he doing that?

COBB: Now, there are two ways of looking at it. It may have been that he was going to do something that, you know, he did not want to go -- to be able to be identified for or it may have been that he lived in that community and he was worried about what the backlash would be, the people he may have been ashamed or humiliated the police of behaving. I can't really say, but it was very disturbing to see him and his face shrouded in that scarf.

BALDWIN: I haven't seen that picture, but I will definitely take your word for it. Jelani Cobb, thank you so much for just explaining to us what you are

seeing and hearing on the streets of Ferguson. And Craig, thank you as well.

Let's take about someone who is in-charge of security here as we are talking on law enforcement. We are just getting word now that Captain Ron Johnson who is overseeing the police response right now in Ferguson who is appointed by the government of Missouri, calling the shots in the middle of the chaos last night, has just stepped to our camera. We will hear from him next. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: And you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We are going to back out to Ferguson, Missouri with -- let me just say this. We got some confirmed numbers because I know Don Lemon who is joining me now from Ferguson was in the thick of it all last night. We have said there was some 31 arrests, now looking down with confirmed 78 arrests last night and early this morning. The man who is standing next to him has a pretty huge job.

Don, go ahead and take it away.

LEMON: Yes. Commander of the operations here, Ron Johnson. He is the captain for the Missouri highway patrol. Seventy eight arrests last night? Our Brooke Baldwin back in New York is saying. Do you know the number of arrests?

JOHNSON: The last reports I had, it was between 50 and 60 arrests.

LEMON: Between 50 and 60 arrests. But it's initially you heard there was only a handful but there was way more than that. What happened last night, Captain?

JOHNSON: The crowd got agitated and excited again. And once again, it was a criminal element that was within the crown. They have many peaceful protests. They started off correctly. But then at some point, they began to gather and a lot of it was the crowd talking to the media, gave a chance to express their opinion. And then, as they were stop talking to the media, then we just saw starting an influx of 10, 15, 20 people and they got into the crowd and everybody that was there, peaceful protesters, the media were there. Those bottles began being thrown over their head at officers. Some were glass bottles and water bottles.

LEMON: Let's talk about that. Because people were saying for the show of force, the amount of force, for throwing a water bottle, whatever, do you know when that was being thrown at you what's in those bottles?

JOHNSON: We have no idea. You have no idea. And really you're unprotected because it's coming from anywhere. And so, you have no idea. You don't know what is in there when it lands on the ground.

LEMON: Do you think the amount of force was appropriate because people were watching and saying, oh, my God, it looks like Afghanistan or Iraq out here. Why do they need these sorts of militarized -- why do you need armored vehicles and shields and tactical gear for people who are trying to express their right to protest.

JOHNSON: Well, we had two people shot, two different incidents, within the scope of West Florissant, within the area that we're covering. Two people were shot. We recovered two handguns. We recovered a Molotov cocktail. So that tells you right there what's going on in that zone and the danger that is there.

LEMON: Since you have taken over, initially you said, you know, you wanted police officers, as many as you could without -- not uniformed, especially not pointing their rifles or guns at the citizens. Do you think that police are getting of being portrayed fairly? Are you -- is there a fair portrayal? Are you getting a bad rap you believe in the media and even from the residents?

JOHNSON: Yes. This morning, I was watching at the local news station and I saw three troopers down on their knees, help picking up glass with one of (INAUDIBLE). I also have dealt a community there and I saw St. Louis County police officers (INAUDIBLE) officers talking to residents.