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Don Lemon Tonight
CNN TONIGHT In-Depth Report; New York City Sees Spike In Murders And Gun Violence; NYPD Employs Precision Policing; Outbreak, Crime, Protests, And COVID-19. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired July 14, 2020 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
JOHN MILLER, NYPD DEPUTY COMMISIONER FOR INTELLIGENCE COUNTERTERRORISM: We worked very closely with the FBI on violent crime and gangs. We are doing all that already. Our problem is not going to be solve with soldiers with rifles on the street. Our problem is going to be solve when -- when you're your making gun arrest. If 40 percent of those people arrested with a gun, a loaded firearm are being released on their own recognizance, even though a gun charge was not covered by the bail reform law that said, you couldn't remand people or require bail there.
When 80 percent of them are being released on their own recognizance in Brooklyn where we have to most shootings, when you have got hundreds of cases that haven't been indicted, because the grand jury aren't sitting and that's due to COVID. But when you have a system where even the people who are convicted of those cases, which is only 17 percent of our disposed of cases. Meaning it went to trial, there was a guilty plea, it ended -- only 17 percent of our cases are getting disposed of.
And in those cases where there's a mandatory minimum of one to three years, people are doing an average of nine months, that's really sending a message to the people in the street, a, the likelihood is I'm not going to get stopped, I'm not going to be arrested. If I am arrested I have an 80 percent chance in some places and a 50 percent chance in others that I'm getting out right that day.
And if I even plead guilty or get convicted I'm only going away for nine months that is not a formula that discourages gun violence which is markedly unfair. The thing that's unfair about the gun violence is and the irony of the time that we're talking about this is in our June to July numbers, 95 percent to 100 percent of our shooting victims were minorities.
That's blacks and Hispanics. In one month, 100 percent of our murder victims were. This having a disparate effect on certain communities, and we are not getting the same reaction from the press or the politicians about that disparate effect.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: I can't hear. Sorry, commissioner.
MILLER: That's OK.
LEMON: Sorry, finish your thought because I couldn't hear you for the last about 30 seconds. Go on.
MILLER: Well, the disparate effect I was describing, Don, is the vast majority of the victims of this violence are in New York's communities of color.
LEMON: Yes.
MILLER: In some cases 100 percent depending on what period and numbers you look at. That's devastating, and we're not having the same pitch and tone of outrage from our politicians or frankly our media about those wounding and deaths that we are about all the other issues that are at the forefront here. I'm not saying that we need to have one conversation and not the other, but it's very hard to separate these conversations when you see the effect it's having on lives.
LEMON: Well, John, as you know, that's the reason I contacted you, because there's real concern out there. And quite frankly I'm hearing from people who said -- I have a friend who said, I was mugged for the first time in New York City since the 1970s.
MILLER: Don, since I have been sitting here with you, we had a 16- year-old shot in the Bronx. We had a 19-year-old shot on the upper west side. We had another teenager mugged at gunpoint by a group of other teenagers in Central Park. This is not the New York that we were talking about a few months ago. This is a different situation, and there are fixes. And your friend's story resonates.
LEMON: Yes. Chief Maddrey, listen, I want to bring you in and I want to continue to talk about -- I want to talk about the COVID thing and then talk about the real elephant in the room here, right, the whole defunding the police and so on and so forth. But let's talk about the impact of COVID, because John mentioned this before. What is the impact of the coronavirus on policing? Are you seeing a connection between the spikes in certain crime and the pandemic?
CHIEF JEFFREY MADDREY, NYPD, COMMUNITY AFFAIRS BUREAU: Well, the pandemic exposed a lot of things. I mean, first of all, when you look at the effects of the pandemic, you're talking about economic distress with families, you're talking about hunger, food deprivation, loss of loved ones and treasured icons. And then of course a lot of our institutions being closed -- our houses of worship, other places that people frequent -- to just, you know, to relax and be able to unwind after working.
And work itself. Jobs are shut down, so the pandemic had a great effect on New York City, it had a great effect on the police department. The police department -- many members of the police department were exposed to COVID-19 and they suffered through COVID- 19. Their families suffered from COVID-19.
[23:05:04]
And all those effects that I mentioned, economic distress, loss of loved ones, a lot of members of the police department suffered through that. But when you talk about COVID in a public health crisis it caused gun violence is also a public health crisis and should be viewed as public health crisis and we are seeing gun violence just explode right now in the city.
And we have to treat it as a public health crisis and we have to look at it with a holistic approach of how we're going to address it. How are we going to address it with community partners, strategically working together to help reduce gun violence, to help shut down the iron pipeline when we're talking on a bigger scale.
The iron pipeline where guns are still coming into the city at an alarming rate. And we're talking about all those strategic partners, people that can help us from a holistic standpoint of providing resources and helping young people, or people wish to do gun violence.
At the end of the day when people are ready to go out there and pull the trigger, we need to make sure we're supporting our police so they can do a dangerous job as well and remove those people off the street who wish to hurt people and do gun violence.
LEMON: John, let's dig into this a little bit more. Because you have -- when it comes to COVID, right? You have people who are being let out of jail, right, who are, you know, being released because they don't want to, you know, be exposed to -- they don't want them expose to COVID.
And then you have a court system, right. That is, you talk about this a little bit before, where people aren't going to court, they're having to make adjustments and all of this is playing into the people who are out on the streets and quite honestly, many of them, for whatever reason, not to stigmatize, but are not necessarily stable or the best of citizens and that is contributing to the issue.
I know that there is real fear out there among citizens of New York. Can you talk to me about that how COVID plays into that?
MILLER: So, sure. You know, at the beginning of the year we probably had 5,400 people in the Rikers Island jail, which is the city -- making a giant push to get people out on parole, so they were paroling as many people as possible to reduce the state jail population.
Now, when you go on parole you have to say you're going live somewhere. A lot of those people don't have resources to set that up outside, so many, many, many of them were paroled into New York City's homeless shelters. Then you had COVID come along and then you had a further push.
So right now, the population at Rikers Island is about 3,000, maybe a little less, prisoners. That's a prison that once held 20,000 people. But that was a long time ago. You know, we have been through reducing arrests been reducing that population. But when you enter COVID into it, now you have hundreds of people being released into the streets. Then you have people being rearrested who are not going back to jail.
You have people who -- there aren't the grand juries to indict those cases as the law requires. So, if you take our gun cases, 50 percent of them are indicted, 50 percent of them are unindicted. Who knows what's going to occur in those cases. Then you have this other factor, Don, which is really important. The NYPD, like the rest of the populous was hit hard by COVID.
So at some point you have 7,000 cops who are out sick, and then you see shootings start to rise in neighborhoods around the city where crime is down, fewer people are on the streets, crime and police calls for service -- everything was slowing down. Why were shootings going up?
And that started during COVID because police presence was lower, the challenges for the cops were greater and the criminal justice system was starting to grind to a halt, and we're still in the residual effects of that.
LEMON: You know, Chief, John mentioned fixes. OK. So, let's talk about those. New York's policing strategies of the past are well known. With broken windows, stop and frisk. Now the new term is precision policing. Talk to me about that. What is precision policing?
MADDREY: Well, precision policing is really about knowing who's out there, who the bad actors are, who is committing the gun violence and the most crime. The small percentage of people who commit the most crime in the city and make sure we're direct them our resources to those people.
And again, like I said, we're going to need a holistic approach, even with precision policing through strategic partnerships and working with our community members and allowing our police officers to do their job, a very difficult job and they need support in doing that job.
LEMON: OK, I want to you stand by, gentleman. We're going to continue to talk about this. But what does this surge in crime mean for the black lives matter movement? Here to discuss now is Kirsten John Foy.
[23:10:00]
Kirsten John Foy is the president and founder of Arc of Justice. Kirsten, thank you. I appreciate you joining me this evening. You have been listening to this. And we're talking about the big spikes in violence in several cities. How is that affecting communities of color and the black lives matter movement?
KIRSTEN JOHN FOY, PRESIDENT/ FOUNDER, ARC OF JUSTICE: Well, thank you, Don and good evening to Chief Maddrey and Commissioner Miller. It's having a chilling effect. In fact, I have done several vigils where the narrative and message coming out of these violent and horrific acts is black lives matter and we're not directing that at an external force like the NYPD or other law enforcement. We're directing that message internally.
We cannot be hypocrites about the preservation and the importance of preserving black life. We can't demand that others respect black life, and we won't do so within our own community. But I just wanted to address -- there was many things that were said that I think is worth addressing.
When you have a hammer, everything is a nail. And for the police to recognize that gun violence is a public health crisis, yet the only prescription that they have offered are criminal justice prescriptions means that the ecosystem of public safety that they're referring to is not whole.
We need to not just be addressing this current epidemic and scourge of gun violence with criminal justice tools, we need to apply other tools that we have in our toolbox. We just in the city of New York zeroed out on top of COVID shutting down all recreation for young people during the summer, we just had the budget zeroed out summer youth employment programs.
That was the initial salvo in the budgetary negotiation. So youth- based and youth-targeted austerity, I believe was one of the triggers and the catalysts for what we are seeing. Our young people are hungry and thirsty. They have been sheltered in the place for months. Remote learning in many instances has failed them. Many of our young people, elders in high school, have checked out.
And summer youth employment was there their go-to. It was a thing they were looking forward to. And so when the mayor and others came out initially and said, we're not going to have any summer youth employment at all in this city, it send a chilling effect.
And so you had gangs and other so-called bad actors exploit that reality, target our young people who are now desperate, who are hopeless, who are feeling rejected and dejected now getting a sense that they have some place to belong, they have a purpose.
If nefarious, so be it, but they have a purpose. People are saying, well, if the government is not there to put money in your pocket, don't worry about it. We'll figure it out. Just rock with us for the summer time, so we are seeing --
LEMON: So Kirsten --
JOHN FOY: Let me just finish and you can pick it up. Yes, we are seeing the perfect storm of social phenomenon converging on this point, but to address all of it with criminal justice and law enforcement to the exclusion of fully funding some summer youth activities, even if it's virtually -- to think out the failure to think outside of the box, the failure to anticipate the impact of COVID, the impact of remote learning failures, the impact of this public health crisis on your young people, that failure of imagination, that failure of leadership is what led us to this point.
LEMON: So, Kirsten, I want to -- you know, the people who are watching at home and my family members among them and people I know who live in New York City, I live in Harlem -- and I just got, you know, my neighbors are texting me now saying, listen, I'm watching your show.
It's not just guns. Knife violence, stabbings, slashing are happening all the time, three to four times a day in west central Harlem. As for my citizen at more scary than guns for me at least. People are going to wonder, Kirsten, how does, you know, a youth program -- and it is needed, and what you said -- how does that drive people, they go from that to a gun to killing someone, to stabbing someone? [23:15:05]
JOHN FOY: Well, we touched on it earlier, Don. This is a public health crisis. Many of our young people are suffering from trauma. Trauma that's inflicted by violence. Trauma that originated out of poverty. The conditions that they live under, the absence of adequate housing, the absence of opportunities, whether they be educational or employment opportunities, the presence of violence.
You know, we may have seen a decrease in the stats but on the streets those stats don't -- they rarely play out the way they play out in a presentation in a board room.
And so our people are dealing with this untreated trauma, and then on top of that, they are told that the little opportunities that they were looking forward to will no longer be there, so instead of saying, let's throw the police at this, like we threw the police at social distancing enforcement inappropriately, and that wound up in a fracture of the good faith that took years to build up -- it looks like a resurgence and reemergence and a resurrection of stop and frisk under a new policy, social distancing enforcement.
When we see the police are doing jobs that they were not trained to do, that they are not equipped to do that quite frankly won't get to the core of the problem, we see criminal justice and law enforcement exacerbating the problem.
LEMON: OK. All right. I want to bring in -- let me bring in -- I understand. I think we got it. So, but I want to bring in Chief Maddrey. Can you respond to him? He makes some really good points about what's happening, people not having anything to do, the conditions that many people are set in, but do you see that as -- is that part of the issue here?
MADDREY: Absolutely. When you look at a lot of our communities, communities that have been marginalized and underfunded and don't have the resources, of course it's going play into it. Of course it's a factor.
And, you know, we need our leaders. We need the Governor and everyone involved to address it. This is what I talk about, we need a holistic approach to address crime in our communities with our community-based organizations and our churches or house of worships, of our crisis management systems.
All of these entities have to work together. We have to formalize the police community response to how we address crime, but also at the same time when we see this uptick in gun violence, we still need the police to be the police and address these crimes.
LEMON: John, you know, I want to you respond, because if you're just looking -- if you're just being reductive and simplistic about it, you would say, well, you know, this because this happened right in this moment then that means this and that means this. What Kirsten is talking about is something that has been happening for a long time, something that maybe should have been anticipated. How do you see what Kirsten says playing into the crisis that we're dealing with right now?
MILLER: I'm having trouble disagreeing with anything that Kirsten Foy says. You know, I even agree with him on the hammer and nail analogy. You know, this is the deal with police, Don. Society has a series of safety nets.
There's health, there's youth services, there's mental health services, but throughout history whenever those safety nets have become worn or broken or had holes in them, when people start to fall through them, at the bottom there's always a cop. That's why where that ends up. Whether it's mental health, the homeless and so on.
When it comes to shooting, if the nail is the bullet, then the police are going to be the hammer. We're going to focus on that and our focus is going to be enforcement. But Kirsten point is extraordinarily important.
When it comes to youth, you know, we have a police commissioner, (Inaudible), who when he was sworn in, his state of the NYPD address was, my focus is going to be on the kids. How do we keep them from going down that road? How do we put them on a better road? How do we help them, you know, in neighborhoods where they have very limited choices?
And he started the youth coordination officer program. He hired a Deputy Commissioner and said, your job is to wrangle other city agency into services that they're not providing whether that's cleaning that park, or opening that youth center, or providing that services. We have something called operation cease-fire, and Jeff Maddrey, Chief Maddrey can tell you all about that.
Where we went to the homes of kids that we thought this kid is with a gang, he's involved in shootings and there would be an intervention with a member of the clergy, a member of the kid's family, a member of the police department, maybe a probation officer and said, these are your choices. The next shooting from this gang, you know, you may be involved in that and your choices are limited.
[23:20:01]
But right now, can we steer you towards a job. You want a job, we'll get you one. Can we steer you towards a training program? You want training, we'll get you one. Are you having an addiction issue? Do you want rehab, do you a program? We can get you into one. You can write your ticket here, but you're headed to a bad place.
So as the hammer -- that's what police tend to be in these things -- you know, we've tried a whole bunch of different tools but we're not really the answer. Mr. Foy is right. Those programs need to be empowered, they need to be emboldened, and those safety nets, they need to have those holes fixed. The problem that we're facing right now is we have a crime surge, which requires more cops, and we're about to have less and requires better deployments and more deployments and our overtime budget has been cut by 60 percent.
Not the kind of thing that works logistically in a surge. And it was largely kind of in the politics of all of the protest movement to say, we're doing something to punish the NYPD by defunding. That's also not what you do during a crime surge, because for every one of these crimes there's a victim back there, one who may be surviving, one who may be losing their life, but that's where we're supposed to be focused and where we're needed right now, and that's a resource issue.
LEMON: Yes. Listen, we can talk all evening about defunding the police and what it means and so on and so forth. But I want to bring Kirsten back in. Kirsten, because I wanted you to hear what they had to say. Now I want to you respond to it. In your response, I want to ask you this, because black lives matter now has a lot of people behind it, right. A pew research poll last month saying 67 percent of Americans support the movement. Do you think that this crime surge might jeopardize that support? And then respond to what the gentleman said there.
JOHN FOY: I hope it doesn't jeopardize the support that's being built around racial equity and equality in this country. I think it's important to keep in mind and to put in context what we are seeing. And I'm -- you know, I count Chief Maddrey as a friend. Commissioner Miller I know is a good man, and I'm glad we're all having an embarrassment of agreement here tonight. But I think it's important to maintain the grander context of what is happening here.
We have reached our saturation point with respect to guns. There is a gun for every man, woman, and child in this country. And when it is easier for a young person who is feeling a sense of despair, hopelessness, when it is easier for them to get their hands on a gun than it is for them to get their hands on an application for a job or the to get their hands on an application for a training program, then that is a recipe for disaster.
I think it's important to note that we have seen -- over the years we have seen a market shift in the way the NYPD operates. Some of us wish we had seen more. But I think the defunding of the NYPD movement was not about punishing the police.
It's not -- for some of us. It wasn't about being punitive. It was about the redirecting of critical resources away from the law enforcement apparatus and law enforcement approach to the public health infrastructure.
The crisis management system as Chief Maddrey mentioned. The fact that we do not have in our schools guidance counselors. The fact that our children are going to bed hungry and waking up hungry in many instances. The fact that there have been no playgrounds open, no parks open, the fact that our children have been boxed in by circumstance and by material reality, and now they are boxed in by a lack of hope for any opportunity, all of these things go into what we are seeing with this crime spree, and I would hope that everyone that believes that black life matters holds these truths close to them.
That if black life matters it's not just a tag after a killing. It's also a call to action to prevent the circumstances, to arrest the social ills that are driving these young people and engulfing these young people. And to give our young people a sense that there is a pathway out of this reality, and we do not currently have that.
[23:25:00]
LEMON: Yes. Listen, I'm so glad that we're all here talking about this, because it is a very difficult conversation. But also I think that what we're doing here is a responsible way of having this instead of relegating it to a political process or some other means trying to demonize people, demonize the cops or demonize black lives matter or demonize anyone. Because we all need each other.
The cops need the citizens on board. The citizens need the police officers on board. It works both ways. So, thank you, gentleman. I want you to all stand by. We're going to continue talking about this and hopefully I don't want to run out of time. I want to talk about defund the police a little bit more.
You know, as these stories of crime, protest, and COVID-19 collide there's a void of leadership from the White House. And joining me now is CNN's National Correspondent, Sara Sidner and CNN law enforcement analyst and former Washington, D.C. Police Chief, Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey. You guys, thank you. Good to see both of you. You guys are have been standing by watching and listening.
Sara, black and brown people are fighting for better treatment from police. They're more likely to be affected by the coronavirus. They had a president out there comparing black lives matter to the confederate flag. And now this crimes spikes on top of that. A lot of things all coming together here, Sara.
SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are a lot of things all coming together, and it feels exhausting to a lot of people. They feel hopeless. But we're also seeing some things, for example in Minneapolis, I was talking to some of the residents there and kind of trying to figure out what has happened since the killing of George Floyd.
And in that very neighborhood, what you're seeing is people are starting to complain that when they do call police, when they do need assistance, when there's a shooting that they're not showing up and they feel like they're not being protected and serves by the police department in that particular neighborhood. And we have seen this happen in other spots. In Atlanta, after Rayshard Brooks was killed, you know, you saw this 12 or so -- more than a dozen officers calling in sick, and that sort of thing goes back and forth, right.
Because the officers also feel that people are very aggressive towards them when they try to go into a neighborhood after something like this happens. And so there's a reluctance there as well. You've got all these things kind of mixing together.
We do know that in the neighborhood where George Floyd was killed they have now started their own patrols. There are citizens who are patrolling, that neighborhood, there's even a group called 612 Nash that has put up tents to help with first aid there, because of some of the things that are going on in that neighborhood. And so you have this push and pull, because crime rates have gone up
there. They are seeing violent crime rise in Minneapolis, just like they're seeing it where you are in New York, where I am here in Los Angeles, and there's a dig conversation over how to deal with that. We often, though, see this in the summer time. Chicago, also seen those numbers go up.
We often, you know, sort of see this happen in cycles, but with coronavirus out there and with the huge impetus of black lives matter, who really concentrate on police brutality and not on other issues like gun violence in the black community, you're seeing this sort of conflation of so many things happening at once, and it is exhausting to those who are living in this neighborhoods, trying to figure out who to help first. What to do.
LEMON: Right.
SIDNER: How to make sure that they are safe while at the same time knowing that they're not trusting of the police department itself, the one group of people they felt like they should be able to call, and so they don't do that and take it upon themselves and that can cause problems in and of itself, Don.
LEMON: Yes. And listen, and many of this neighborhood -- having lived in Chicago for a number of years, there are people who are -- and New York City, I've live in Philadelphia, in St. Louis. In Alabama, and so on and so forth. There are many people who are out in these neighborhoods who have been for decades trying to stem the violence, especially the gun violence. It's not a new problem, but this is something now that seems to have skyrocketed.
And again, the perfect storm. Chief Ramsey, let's talk about this whole defunding the police. A lot of activists say, you know, it's about re-allocating resources, although some are calling, you know, for abolishing the police.
First of all, this hasn't actually happened yet. I think in New York City, $1 billion from the budget, from the city council and mayor, they're going to take it away, but -- and second, you know, this phrase has been misunderstood, but it's a tough phrase, because when you're explaining exactly what it means there are people who say, you're losing. Talk to me about that. What do you think?
CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I mean, first of all, thanks for doing this. This is a very important conversation. When I hear the term defund police, I have my own idea, my own view as to what it means.
[23:30:00]
RAMSEY: But like you, most people that I've talked, they're talking about reallocating funds more to our community-based social services, which I do not disagree with. But here is the problem. My fear is that the money will be taken out of the police budget but the responsibility for responding to these calls will not go away. I mean, they're going to -- the reason police have the -- our first responders to begin with for mental health crisis and substance abuse issues and so forth is because at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, who else is around other than the police? And so they would have to seriously staff up social services to make them available, even if they're going to co-respond with police.
So, you know, I would follow the money. Quite frankly, it's easy to take money out of a budget, which by the way, in most cities, the majority -- vast majority is all personnel costs. Philadelphia, for example, 97 percent of that budget is salaries and benefits. There's very little leftover there.
There's no way you could take money out of that budget and not impact personnel at a time when again we're going through -- what we're going through now with crime, COVID, and the like. So it's complicated. I don't disagree with reallocating funds. I just don't see it happening in the short term.
It would take years for them to staff social services to a point where they can actually be first responders. And even then, you can't divorce police completely from them because some of those calls are dangerous, quite frankly. Social workers are not going to go into some of these places and deal with it by themselves.
LEMON: All right. Charles, stand by. Chief, stand by. Sara, again, everybody, we have a number of people, a number of experts, law enforcement here, members of the community, as well. Crime and gun violence are adding to the heavy toll facing many communities of color already being hammered by the coronavirus.
Let's hear now from a doctor, OK? Dr. Brian Williams, associate professor of trauma and acute care surgery and co-director of the surgical intensive care unit at the University of Chicago.
Doctor, it is good to see you. Thank you. You have been listening to this conversation. I want to you weigh in. You have shared some data with us from your hospital that shows the increase in gun violence over the past several months. So tell our viewers what we're seeing and what you're seeing in this data.
BRIAN WILLIAMS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF TRAUMA AND ACUTE SURGERY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Thank you for having me, Don. This is from the University of the Chicago Trauma Center, which serves on Chicago's south side. And if you look at when the stay-at-home order went into effect in Chicago -- and we accept that crime like interpersonal violence requires an offender and it requires a victim -- when the stay-at-home orders went into effect, you would see a decrease because less people were outside and most homicidal gun violence occurs in the outdoors.
So we saw that happen in our center and it mirrors what is happening nationally. There is other data from other cities that mirror that, as well. And then as the orders were lifted, we saw the increase in interpersonal violence from gun violence and homicides, and that's also reflected across other cities. So, what we're seeing here at our center is not unusual. It seems to flow with what you would expect from the data. And the lack of being able to be outdoors during stay-at-home orders to commit crimes seemed to show that there was a decrease and we see that in April and May. And then now, you see it's ramping up in the summer.
We have been running for the past two or three weeks now. We had a call or an e-mail today discussing how we can adjust our activities as a group to cover the volume of gun violence that's coming into our center.
LEMON: Wow! I think it's interesting because you say -- you know, as I was trying to explain earlier, if you're looking at this simplistically, you look at, you know, the factors -- you know, you can look at the protests and so forth and you can try to connect one to the other, and that may not necessarily be so.
You say that this doesn't prove any connection between the protests we're seeing and the rise in gun violence. How do you know that? Why do you say that?
WILLIAMS: I'm saying you cannot say that that is the case. I can't say it's definitely not the case, but you can't definitely say that, yes, because of the protests or because of COVID that gun violence is going up.
If you look at the body of research about crime being committed, that you need an offender and a victim, and particularly with gun violence which occurs mostly outside, over 80 percent of gun violence occurs outside doors, then it makes sense that because of COVID and the stay- at-home orders, when people are staying inside and not going to work, that you would see a decrease in gun violence.
As the orders are lifted, you would see those numbers increase as we are seeing here at the University of Chicago. And going into the summer which typically is a busy season in all trauma centers around the country, we are seeing this take off.
[23:35:00]
WILLIAMS: So, you can't prove causality between the two. It's coincidental. It will be interesting to look at this data in months and years to come to see if there's actually some connection between COVID, there is some connection between the protests and the increase in gun violence. All we can say now is that yes, it is increasing and they're happening at the same time, but one may not lead to the other.
LEMON: You're working in the hospital and you're seeing patients from these communities, gunshot victims, also people suffering from symptoms of the virus. What is it like for everyone there?
WILLIAMS: Well, we all are -- we take this job very seriously. We have chosen to do this. Nobody forced us into this profession. We recognize that we are working on, you know, somewhat austere conditions with the volume of the violence and dealing with these illnesses. Me, personally, it's hard to see the number of black victims from gun violence and dealing with COVID. COVID-infected are coming to the hospital. That just indicates that there are root causes to this inequities that are being unmasked by the virus, that are being exacerbated with the gun violence.
But the moral of the group within our hospital is still pretty high. We recognize the importance of the job we're doing. But we want people to recognize that this is not over. COVID -- we're sitting down for the long haul. We still have a long ways to go. We're nowhere near being out of this pandemic. Please do your small part to keep yourself safe and your community safe. The health care workers will be there to back you up.
LEMON: I think it's interesting. You're saying something very similar to what Mr. Foy was saying, that gun violence is a public health crisis like coronavirus and it needs to be given the resources to combat it. What would that involve?
WILLIAMS: Well, like any other public health crisis, we need public health -- disease, we need to allocate resources for research. We need to have a multidisciplinary approach to solving the problem. We have to look at how to we have to intervene upstream to prevent the problem in the first place, so for gun violence.
For me, a utopic world will be where you don't need someone like me to actually work because there are no more gun violence victims coming into the hospital. So, instead of focusing on the resources here to take care of injured victims, what can we do to prevent those injuries in the first place? It is same thing with COVID.
You know, in the middle of this pandemic, the government printed $1 trillion to address the disaster from this pandemic. Just imagine if we could just invest a fraction of that and be proactive to prevent that from happening in the first place. If we minimize and intervene upstream, we can keep people healthy and safe in their communities and avoid this epic disaster we are dealing with right now.
LEMON: All right. Doctor, stand by. I want everyone to stay with us because we are going to have much, must more on our end up reporting tonight.
My next guest is patrolling the streets right now, trying to keep the streets safe after his 11-year-old grandson became a victim of gun violence over the fourth of July weekend. We are going to go live to him next. And we're going to keep the conversation going with the rest of my guests. So we're going to be right back right after this very quick break.
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LEMON: We are back now with our special programming this evening. We have assembled a number of people who can help us out with the situation that is happening from law enforcement, members of the community, victims, doctors, and so on and so forth. We want to continue this conversation. Hopefully, we can make a difference and get you to understand what's going on.
We all need each other in this instance because gun violence is claiming the lives of more children. On the fourth of July, 11-year- old Davon McNeal was at a stop-the-violence cookout, it was in Washington, D.C., that his mom had helped to organize.
Davon's mom then drove him to his aunt's house, which is close by, to borrow a phone charger. As Davon hopped out of the car to run into his aunt's house, he was caught in the crossfire and he was killed.
And so his grandfather is with us now. John Ayala is here. He is also a local activist and the founder of the D.C. chapter of Guardian Angels. Listen, I thought that you were out patrolling earlier, but you were actually out protesting.
And so I want to talk to you about that, but I just want to start by saying to you, John, how sorry I am for your family's loss. He was an innocent bystander, only 11 years old, Davon was. Thank you, Mr. Ayala, for joining us. How is your family holding up tonight? How are you doing?
JOHN AYALA, GRANDFATHER OF DAVON MCNEAL: Everybody's doing OK. Actually, we're getting through it. And one of the reasons why we're getting through it is because members of our community are fed up. And they have been out with us for the last nine days walking and marching and informing people, you know, we're not going to take it any longer.
The violence has to stop, especially the shooting of young people. We had three Julys in a row starting with 2018. We had a 10-year-old named Makiyah Wilson. She was shot when she came out of her mother's apartment with $5 to purchase ice cream from an ice cream shop. These five thugs jump out of a car and just shoot randomly, shot and killed this 10-year-old girl.
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AYALA: And then on July of 2019, we had on 11-year-old boy that was shot and killed at a gas station in Naylor Road in D.C., as well. And then this July 4th was my grandson just happened to be going to get the car charger when people came from around the building and started shooting at some others. They both returned fire, he was right in the middle, and he was caught and he was struck in. Of course, you know what happened from there, he was deceased from the shooting.
LEMON: The suspects in your grandson's death, you're explaining what happened, allegedly are alleged gang members, OK, who were shooting at possible rivals. So far, two men have been charged, arrest warrants have been issued to others. How the police dealt with this?
AYALA: I think the police are doing a great job. I have been working with the D.C. police for many, many years, back when Chief Ramsey was there. We had developed a great relationship when he was the police chief here in D.C. and I also went to helped him out a few times in Philadelphia.
But the D.C. Police Department is one of the best police departments in the United States. They got on this right away. They were able to pull camera footage from the community, which had very good cameras, and they used that by putting it on YouTube and people actually started reporting that they knew who the guys were.
And because of the reports that came in, the detective was able to start getting really close on the case and was able to pick up two. And of course, we have two more that have been identified that they are looking for. And there's a third one that they are trying to get a warrant for.
LEMON: I want to -- John, stand by. I just want to bring everyone back into the conversation because I want you guys to contribute, as well. And listen, all of you who are listening, unfortunately what happened to John's grandson isn't an isolated case.
He mentioned some kids that died, you know, in previous years, but multiple children as young as six were killed by gun violence during the holiday weekend alone. It doesn't end there. This past Sunday, a 1-year-old was shot in killed in his stroller in Brooklyn. A 9-year- old boy was killed in a triple shooting in New Orleans just yesterday.
I mean, this is a tragedy for families. A doctor is seeing it happen. John, speak to us about that. When I spoke with you, you said, you know, everyone -- people talk about, you know, what's happening with police, some of the issues that you mentioned, but very rarely do we mention the victims, right?
JOHN MILLER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, NYPD, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERTERRORISM: That's kind of why I say, you know, Don, we got to have these conversations together as one conversation because --
LEMON: I think we've lost your microphone, John. Sorry.
MILLER: Sorry, Don.
LEMON: Yeah. It's OK.
MILLER: I used to work in television. I should be able to figure this out.
LEMON: I remember when you were a reporter on CBS.
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MILLER: All right, so the microphone replacement process.
(LAUGHTER)
MILLER: The conversation we were having is it's very difficult to separate these conversations. You can talk about the disparate effect that police have in community of color, and then you have to say, OK, what is the way to reform and what are the right reforms? And then you talk about the disparate effect that crime is having in communities of color. You look at the terrible tragedy of John Ayala's grandson or the 1-year-old who was shot just this weekend in New York City or the three shootings I was at last night or the shootings I'm going to go to after this show tonight.
And, you know, when you look at the doctor you had on showed that chart, and the chart showed the disparate effect on communities of color of the COVID disease and, you know, if you look at the shooting charts, in June, we had 270 shootings in New York City, 98 percent of those involved people of color as victims, 76 percent of those were black.
That is a public health crisis, and we have to have the conversations about reform while we're also having the conversations about how to fight crime effectively. And we can't do that alone. We need the whole team in on that conversation.
LEMON: Yeah. Chief Maddrey, I want to play something else for our audience. This is the grandmother of the 1-year-old little boy who was shot and killed in New York this weekend. Let's listen.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody talks about Black Lives Matter. What about baby lives? What about teenager lives?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like you took an innocent child from a mother and a father as well as the grandparents, and I don't think it's fair.
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LEMON: That little boy's name is Davell Gardner, 1-year-old. It's both. It's all of it. Black Lives Matter, that black baby's life matters, teenagers' lives, and so on. And your job is to keep all of them safe. How do you feel when you hear that?
JEFFREY MADDREY, CHIEF, NYPD, COMMUNITY AFFAIRS BUREAU: It's awful. I feel awful. My heart bleeds for that family. You look at New York City since the beginning of the year, 104 people under age of 19 have been the victims of gun violence, 13 of them homicides. We have to work together as communities, police. We have to address this gun violence, the surge of gun violence that's taking our babies in our communities.
I've had the opportunity to do a lot of things with young people, especially during my time in Brooklyn north. We work, do healing circles to address trauma, put library books into precinct lobbies to increase and encourage reading within our communities. There are a lot of things that we can do to engage our youth. But again, we have to address gun violence to protect our young people.
LEMON: Yeah. Before the top of the hour, I want to get to everyone on the panel and get their perspective. Kirsten, I will begin with you. What would you say -- what would you like to say about that?
KIRSTEN JOHN FOY, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, ARC OF JUSTICE: I think it's important to maintain the connection between the violence that is self-inflicted and the violence that is inflicted upon our communities. Right now, today, a good friend of mine and colleague is leading protest in Kentucky, Tamica Mallory (ph), over the killing of Breonna Taylor.
I was just at the memorial for George Floyd, in August, on the anniversary of the march on Washington, Reverend Sharpton is convening a socially distant responsible march to deal with the issues of Black Lives Matter.
But it's important that young people see that their lives matter in order for them to reaffirm for themselves that black lives are mattering. If young people and people of color, black people and brown people and indigenous people are killed with impunity, with no respect to justice, no closure, then they internalize that and then they turn that trauma in on themselves.
It's important that as we talk about justice for young Davell Gardner and for the 11-year-old young man, my heart bleeds for you, sir, and the loss of your family, you have my prayers and condolences, but as we talk about justice for them, we also need to talk about justice writ large for our community.
We must have accountability across the board. We cannot just talk about accountability for those in the community that take the lives of those of us in the community and not talk about accountability for those outside the community that take our lives. The message has to be consistent across the board. Justice has to be consistent across the board.
There must be equal protection under the law and that in and of itself will send a powerful message to these young people, that if my life matters to the greater society, if my life matters to the justice system, if my life matters to the people that make the decisions, then my life has to matter to my brother and my sister and to myself.
And so it is important we have a holistic approach to justice. It is important that we apply justice equally. It is important that we have accountability across the board.
LEMON: Thank you. I want to get everybody in. No disrespect. We are getting close to the top of the hour. I want to make sure we get everyone's perspective. Doctor, Kirsten is saying something that is very important there, which might make your job easier, if what he says actually happens.
WILLIAMS: You have to understand that firearms are the leading cause of death for black children in America. It is the second leading cause of death for white children in America. America leads the world in high wealth nations as far as firearm-related deaths for children.
So, as a country, we should be able to do better to protect our kids. It is the antithesis of American exceptionalism that we cannot do that. Think about not just the lives that are lost but also the survivors of gun violence and the families who are also dealing with their own trauma from this.
The ripple effects from losing these children or anybody from gun violence far exceed anything we can actually quantify or unpack in a single show. The effects are intergenerational, widespread, and we need to collectively really put the effort forth to arrest this.
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LEMON: And Chief Ramsey, you know, speaking with John Ayala earlier, he said that you had developed a relationship with him in the community. It's important to have relationship with the police officers and the community.
RAMSEY: It's very important. John, I'm very sorry for your loss. John and I became very close during the time that I was a chief in D.C. I actually had him come up to Philadelphia to help me get a chapter of the Angels started up there, and he was very, very helpful in that regard.
You know, one thing we didn't spend a lot of time talking about but doctor just mentioned it, and that is the trauma that occurs in communities, not just the family members, but for everybody who is near the gun violence or violence period that's taking place.
Young children have to walk to school the next day and step over blood-stained sidewalks, teddy bears tied to telephone poles. I mean, that is sending a clear message, hey, my community is not safe. They become hyper vigilant and when they get older, maybe their way of protecting themselves is by having a gun themselves.
So it is a cycle that has to be broken. Violence is gripping our cities and we have to find something that really works -- short-term solutions. Long term -- a lot of what we talk about, long term, but how do we keep people alive this weekend? We have people right now that will not live to see Monday morning. That's just fact.
LEMON: Yeah.
RAMSEY: And we've got to find a way to be able to deal with that and stop that kind of carnage from happening.
LEMON: Sara, listen, you have been out there and doing a heroic job, covering what's happening recently. You and I have been on these scenes and covered these stories. What are the solutions? There's so much frustration in the community. There is so much mistrust of the police. The police are frustrated, as well. I think the chief is right, coming up with a solution is difficult but we're going to have to do it.
SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I think one of the things that's really difficult, Don, the show is really touching on this, is that we don't like dealing with the grey. We want black and white. It is either you're against us or for us.
And this is a grey area where, yes, there are people who are absolutely correct that gun violence is an epidemic in our country and we need to deal with that. Crime and epidemic in our country, we need to deal with that.
On the other hand, there are people that are saying, look, the police brutality element is an issue and has to be dealt with, and we have to deal with these all at the same time. But I do want to mention one department. I am really curious to know what the chief thinks about this in particular.
Camden, New Jersey had a huge problem with corruption within their department. Back in 2012, they basically disbanded the department and rebuilt it. And one of the things they said really worked because they're crying they were one of the most dangerous cities in America and their crime dropped by like 40 percent over the last seven or so years.
And one of the things they did was when they rehired officers and they brought officers in, the first thing they had to do was go to their beat and knock on doors, not show up when there's a 911 call, not show up when people need it but go and get to know the community. That seems to be part of the solution, Don.
LEMON: John, I want you -- everyone is giving condolences as they should because of what happened. You are -- that link between the police department and citizens. And so in the final moments we have here, we'd like to hear from you. What do you think needs to be done?
AYALA: First thing, we have to look at kids when they are showing aggressive behavior at a young age. When it happens, we have to have people in place ready to meet with these young people and talk to them. We no longer just can say (INAUDIBLE) when we think they have an issue and tell them to go into the corner for 15 minutes. That's not going to work.
We have to find out what the problem is. The problem can be that the children are not eating at home and probably somebody is attacking them and bullying them. We have to find out what the problem is.
The other thing is we have to start teaching young people from preschool all the way through the 12th grade of college how to deal with problems, problem solving skills.
If we can teach them how to solve the problems at a young age, hopefully, they'll learn how to solve a problem when they're engaged in some kind of activity that is aggressive to them in the community. They won't have to pick up a handgun or machine gun and use that.
Right now, young people don't know how to solve a problem. Think only way of solving it is picking up firearm and using it. So we have to start teaching them at a very young age. How do you solve problems when you have them? Once we can do that at young age, we are going to have less people picking up firearms.
LEMON: John Ayala, I want to thank you. Kirsten Foy, I want to thank you. We learned so much. I really appreciate your comments. The NYPD -- members of the NYPD, we're so grateful that you're here, John Miller, Jeffrey Maddrey. I want to thank Dr. Brian Williams as well for joining us, for helping
us understand what happens in the hospital and the real trauma of this. And of course, Chief Ramsey, we have you on all the time. You always speak with such authority.
Thank you so much. And of course, my colleague, Sara Sidner who is out there on the streets almost daily covering the stories, we appreciate you joining us as well. This is a tough conversation that we should all continue to have without castigation (ph), without judging each other, without concern of saying or doing the wrong thing.
That is the only way we're going to get this issue under control. So we have had a productive conversation. And I hope that we could build on it for the future. So thanks to all of my guests.
Thanks to you for listening and thank you for watching as well. I'm Don Lemon. Our coverage continues.
