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More Cases of Deadly Police Arrests Caught on Camera; Some Americans Call to Defund Police Forces in Wake of George Floyd's Death. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 09, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:20]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Just hours from now, George Floyd will be laid to rest in his hometown of Houston, Texas, two weeks after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for eight minutes, 46 seconds. And two weeks after his death sparked global outrage and protests over police violence and broader racial injustice here in the U.S., yesterday the ex-police officer charged with second-degree murder in the case appeared in court for the first time.

HARLOW: This as the attorney for one of the other former officers charged in Floyd's death is offering up a pretty shocking defense amid the growing outcry for police reform.

More violent incidents involving police captured on video, you'll see those in a moment. But first, let's begin our colleague this hour with our colleague Omar Jimenez. He joins us live in Houston.

And Omar, today is a day about remembering the life of George Floyd. What can we expect?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy and Jim. Not just remembering the life but celebrating the legacy he is now leaving behind, from Minnesota, to North Carolina, and now here in Texas, in Houston. George Floyd is set to go to his final resting place.

Now specifically what we are going to see with this funeral, the service begins at 11:00 a.m. local time here. It will be limited to 500 guests or so. But afterwards the Houston Police Department will escort Floyd's body to Pearland, Texas, which will be his final resting place. The last mile of that procession will be by horse-drawn carriage so people can pull up and watch that procession, again, as he makes his way toward what will be his final resting place, buried next to his mother.

Now, of course, this comes as not just Houston and not just family, but more have mourned over the death of Floyd, but also realized that his death has now brought them into a moment of police reform that is continuing to play out across the country and the combination of those two emotions and moments play out in the words of family members that have been speaking out over the course of this.

Listen to George Floyd's brother.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILONISE FLOYD, GEORGE FLOYD'S BROTHER: All the family is going to be with me today. Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Ahmaud Arbery. It just hurt. Breonna Taylor. Everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We love you.

FLOYD: Thank you all. We will get justice. We will get it. We will not let this door close.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And all of those names a reminder that what happened to George Floyd isn't just about Floyd. It is about trying to push for long-term change.

And I mentioned he is going to be buried next to his mother later this afternoon. The same mother George Floyd cried out for in his final moments under the knee of a police officer almost -- a little over, I should say, two weeks ago today -- Poppy, Jim.

HARLOW: Omar, very important day ahead. Thank you for that reporting.

Be sure to stay right here with us on CNN. We do have special live coverage of George Floyd's service. That starts at noon Eastern.

SCIUTTO: The four now former Minneapolis police officers at the center of the George Floyd case, they remain in jail, and now a lawyer for one of those former officers is making a controversial defense.

CNN's Josh Campbell joins us now live from Minneapolis.

So Josh, we already heard some of the officers kind of divert blame to Officer Chauvin who had his knee on the neck, saying he was in charge here. Now you have one of the defense attorneys diverting blame to bystanders?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Truly remarkable, Jim. We've been -- as we covered this story, we've been keying in on what the defense strategy would be for these different officers. When we were in court last week, we saw that two of the officers, their attorneys were pointing to Chauvin and his seniority as the reason to be responsible for George Floyd's death.

Now just last night in an interview with our colleague Chris Cuomo, we did get a sense from the attorney for former officer Lane about what their strategy would be. He said something that we have heard before and that is, during that encounter between police and George Floyd, Lane as he alleges told Chauvin let's turn him over. George Floyd was in some type of distress. The attorney saying that Chauvin disagreed with actually doing that. But he also said something, and I can tell you that I've heard a lot of unconventional defenses in the year -- throughout the years. I've never heard anything like this.

This attorney is now saying that it is also the bystanders that were there watching this encounter who are also potentially to blame for not interfering and stopping the police. Let's listen here to what he told our colleague Chris Cuomo.

[09:05:07]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EARL GRAY, ATTORNEY FOR EX-MINNEAPOLIS POLICE OFFICER THOMAS LANE: If all these people say why didn't my client intercede, well, if the public is there and they're so in an uproar about this, they didn't intercede either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Just a truly jaw-dropping claim there that these bystanders who are watching this incident should have somehow gone up to these four armed police officers and shoved them off or stopped this encounter.

We do know that based on the cell phone video footage that many of the bystanders were yelling at the police, telling them that Floyd was unconscious, to get off of him. But again what the attorney is claiming that these bystanders should have intervened, we're talking about a potential felony, interfering with the actions of a police officer. So again, just a truly jaw-dropping claim.

We don't know if he will be making that same defense should this go to a trial inside the courtroom. But this is just the latest that we're getting insight again into that defense strategy. Of course it comes also across the nation as we continue to hear calls for policing reform. We've been reporting here that the Minneapolis City Council has been looking to reform the police department and they passed an order, voting on a temporary restraining order to ban the use of chokeholds.

We're told that just yesterday a judge has signed that order. Those techniques are now -- it's not possible for law officers to do that. They took it a step further as well, Jim and Poppy, saying that if any officer sees a colleague using a banned technique like a chokehold, they must intervene. If they don't, they will be punished at the same level of severity as the officer using the technique.

New reforms here in Minneapolis -- Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Josh Campbell, thank you for all of that reporting.

Joining us now is Alondra Cano. She represents the Ninth Ward on the Minneapolis City Council.

We appreciate your time this morning. Thank you for being here.

ALONDRA CANO, MINNEAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL MEMBER: Good morning. HARLOW: Good morning. You have nine votes, a veto-proof majority of

the 13-member council to not only defund the Minneapolis Police Department, but your position is to dismantle it. I ask you this as a journalist and someone from the city. Can you explain what you believe the city council's power is? Do you believe you have the power to completely dismantle, do away with the department unilaterally?

CANO: We have budgetary power, so any time we have seven or more votes we can approve a significant budgetary measure to change the moral directive of our city. And as you know, we have nine people on board, which is a veto-proof majority of the council to both -- that all agree that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed. That all agree that we are on a path to end that current policing system, and that we're going to create a new safety system with our community.

SCIUTTO: Alondra, let me ask you how you explained to citizens of Minneapolis who would be patrolling the streets, who would be protecting them from crime? Minneapolis, like many cities in the country, violent crime trending downward for more than a decade. How do you propose to replace the police presence on the street?

CANO: It would be wrong for me to come in with a top-down answer for that. I think that what we're showing right now is the fact that our community is going to recreate that safety system with us by centering trust, by centering justice and healing. And so it's important for everybody to keep in mind that we cannot create a new system without our community. We cannot do it before they are ready for it.

As you know, we began the process of ending our current system. That doesn't mean there isn't a police department today. That doesn't mean we're abolishing help. That means we're putting ourselves on a path to come up with the answers together.

SCIUTTO: But wait, how is it wrong if you're going to eliminate the police force not to have a plan to replace it? Why is that not a reasonable question for citizens of Minneapolis to ask?

CANO: I never said it wasn't a right question. I said that citizens and council members do have a plan and the plan is we're going to start a deep process of truth and reconciliation to come up with a new system. We can only move as fast as our relationships and our trust with community and everybody in Minneapolis has -- you know, I guess I would say directly said to us, this system is not working for us.

We all agree we need a new system and what we have is the city council commitment to resource the ways that we come up with that new system and to fund that final system once it's ready.

HARLOW: So to Jim's point, I think it's an important one for anyone who calls Minneapolis home, you would not pull total funding from the Minneapolis Police Department until you have the construct in place to replace it. Is that right?

CANO: We're working together with our community to come up with an alternative model and I expect that to be a month's long process. It's really important that our community is front and center in that process because that is the trust we have lost as a governing agency, as a policing agency.

[09:10:04]

Without that trust there we don't have any social agreements that this system can work and in fact many people across the country have said this policing structure doesn't work for us. It's not yielding the results. And I'll tell you, as the chair of public safety, I have deep relationships with many police officers and our chief of police. And they also know that that system doesn't work. They don't want to be in a position where one week after they graduate from our police cadet class they are now in court being charged for murder.

No officer wants to be in that position. They also acknowledge this system is not safe for them. It's not serving their needs, and so what we're saying is we're going to keep safety, we're going to keep help, but we're going to toss broken and outdated systems that don't let us respond to community in a way that protects people's lives.

SCIUTTO: OK. But don't you have to -- understand why you'd have to present some sort of idea as to what that replacement system looks like, right? I mean, if you're still going to deliver health and safety, who's doing it, right? I mean, is it citizens walking the street? Are you still going to have uniformed police officers? Are you going to call people from outside the city? I mean, what's the most basic idea as to what's going to replace the police force if you take that step?

CANO: Today we still have a $193 million police budget that the people of Minneapolis can lean on for help. Now, tomorrow, meaning perhaps in six months, nine months, in a year, we will have a structure to present to our community that we've cocreated together about the future of safety in policing in our city. We've already started the architecture of that work. You can look at past city council votes where we establish the Office of Violence Prevention which works to address violence as a public health pandemic.

We've established the Group Violence Intervention Program. We have a mental health corresponder program. There's already a study under way about which 911 calls can be diverted to other social safety net responses and not necessarily an armed officer. So all of these body of work already exist and people in Minneapolis know that. I know it may be hard for people externally to know that.

So folks are saying we want to do more community safety beyond policing strategies and certainly we're going to come up with the way --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CANO: -- to deal with some of those grittier crimes that we know folks will still want to see a law enforcement response to. So we're going to tweak that and see what that best model could be, what the best size is, and certainly the research like Camden, New Jersey.

SCIUTTO: Right.

CANO: Who's done this before and other countries like Ireland.

SCIUTTO: Alondra Cano, thanks very much for taking the time.

CANO: Absolutely, thank you.

SCIUTTO: A New York City police officer is expected to surrender today. This after being caught on camera pushing a protester to the ground last week. A source tells CNN the officer could be charged with misdemeanor assault as well as other lesser charges as early as today. The officer is currently suspended from the force. We'll bring you the latest as we get it.

And still to come this hour, George Floyd's death has exposed several other cases where black men have pleaded for air during encounters with police. The latest coming from Texas where disturbing body camera footage has now been released. You'll want to see that video. It's disturbing, but it's telling. And we'll have an update.

HARLOW: Also new report from the World Health Organization says that it's, quote, "rare" for people who have no symptoms to spread coronavirus. What does that mean for you?

And we'll speak to someone who knows the cost of police violence all too well. A mother whose son was shot and killed during a police encounter. You'll remember this story. What changes does she pray finally come from this moment?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

HARLOW: Welcome back. There's a newly-released arrest video, but with disturbing familiar elements. It is a black man --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

HARLOW: Telling police he cannot breathe, this just before he dies in police custody.

SCIUTTO: He says he can't breathe. This happened last year, we should note in Texas. But the police body cam video showing 40-year-old Javier Ambler, that's him there, was just released. Ed Lavandera has more. It's disturbing but you do want to watch these pictures.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim and Poppy, the death of Javier Ambler was ruled a justified homicide. But more than a year after his death, new video has surfaced, and the attorney representing the family says that ruling is outrageous. We warn you that the video you're about to watch is deeply disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): On March 28, 2019, Williamson County sheriff's deputies are pursuing 40-year-old Javier Ambler just after 1:00 in the morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it looks like he could get a fine.

LAVANDERA: According to a sheriff's department incident report, Ambler failed to dim his car's headlights as he drove past a deputy. The report says Ambler tried to flee leading officers on a 22-minute pursuit that ended up in the city of Austin. The incident report says Ambler crashed his car five times during the pursuit, and that's where the officers' body camera footage captures how the arrest turned deadly.

According to the documents obtained by CNN, Ambler exited his car with his hands up. He was not intoxicated and unarmed. Officers tried to handcuff Ambler, but say he resisted and pushed back on the officers as he refused to follow the verbal commands, but the body camera footage captures Ambler in distress.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Flat on your stomach.

JAVIER AMBLER, DIED IN POLICE CUSTODY: I can't breathe!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Flat on your stomach.

LAVANDERA: Multiple times on the video, Ambler is heard saying, he can't breathe, and that he's not resisting.

[09:20:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You really -- stop resisting. Stop resisting!

AMBLER: I'm not resisting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop resisting!

LAVANDERA: Several minutes into the arrest, officers realized Ambler is unresponsive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sit up, man -- all right, wake up!

LAVANDERA: You can no longer hear him talking on the video. Officers then unhand-cuffed Ambler and can be heard administering CPR compressions until medical units arrive on the scene.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: According to documents also obtained by CNN, the Williamson County Sheriff Department conducted an internal review and the department's Office of Professional Standards found that after reviewing the video evidence, the primary and assisting deputies acted in accordance with the guidelines of the sheriff's department, and they used objective reasonableness in the level of force.

We have reached out to the Williamson County Sheriff's Department for comment, but have not heard back. The district attorney in Austin says this investigation has been stymied for more than a year because the Williamson County Sheriff's Department refuses to release more video evidence from the officers' body cameras that were there at the scene. The DA says they hope to present evidence of this case to a grand jury later this Summer. Jim and Poppy?

SCIUTTO: And the original infraction we should note was not dimming lights as they past --

HARLOW: Yes --

SCIUTTO: Deputies. Ed Lavandera, thanks very much. Joining us now, Rashawn Ray; Fellow with the Brookings Institution, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. He also researches racial and social inequality. Mr. Ray, good to have you on this morning. In an interview with "Fox News" just on Monday, the Attorney General Bill Barr said that the actions of a few bad officers do not mean there's a systemic issue.

This is something you hear frequently, the president has repeated that, saying 99.9 percent of officers are good. You wrote an article in Brookings saying something different. You said that "bad apples come from rotten trees", your words. "Law enforcement agencies imbued with structural racism." You go on to say, "in order to fundamentally solve police brutality, we have to replant the roots of rotten trees within law enforcement."

Can you explain what that means? Are you talking about police department leadership, training? Are you talking about the legal basis for pursuing allegations of police abuse? Explain the rotten trees.

RASHAWN RAY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Yes, thank you for having me on. I think all of those are plausible. So the piece that I wrote, "bad apples come from rotten trees" in policing is highlighting the fact that law enforcement in the United States originates from slave patrols. The fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently reported that white nationalists and white supremacist organizations are viewing law enforcement once again as an organization to get into.

And I think part of what we have to do for reform is first, we have to restructure civilian payouts for police misconduct. Eventually in Minneapolis, George Floyd's family will receive a large civil payout. They will be repaid with money that comes from their tax owner money to repay them back, for the fact that one of their loved ones was killed by a police officer.

I think what we also have to do is to ensure that officers like Chauvin can never work in law enforcement again. Part of highlighting the bad apples come from rotten trees is that these apples are allowed to proliferate. They have to come from somewhere. Chauvin had nearly 20 police misconduct allegations as did the officers who killed Tamir Rice and Antoine Rhodes --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

RAY: Who have been fired and let go from other departments.

SCIUTTO: As you know, part of the Democratic legislation introduced yesterday includes a national police misconduct registry so that in other words if you were accused of such behavior, in one police department, you could move to another as has happened before in addition to other changes. Do you find those changes can address these problems here? Because as you know, there are some who are saying in Minneapolis for instance, dismantle the police department entirely.

RAY: I think that the recent package that was presented by Democratic senators and Congress people is highly viable. In particular, the part about comprehensive data reporting. I've worked with police departments around the country, directing the lab for applied social science research, and one thing we know is that comprehensive data will decrease officer-involved killings by 25 percent. This is important because we know how many people are killed by jellyfish every year.

The CDC collects, but we do not collect information on how many people are killed by the police. That should unnerve us all, and it's not simply about --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

RAY: Not wanting to do it, it's often times about a lack of resources.

SCIUTTO: Yes, well, it's interesting the pattern with the prohibition on collecting on gun crime for instance, which has been opposed by the gun lobby. I want to ask you a question, and trust me, I don't want to minimize the real issues that you're talking about here. I just -- we try to focus on signs of hope on this broadcast where we can.

[09:25:00]

And I wonder, as you've watched the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, when you've seen not just lawmakers or members of the public, but you've seen heads of police departments come out and say this will not stand, right? This is -- this made me sick to my stomach, you know, our police department, we're going to look to train better, et cetera. I wonder, do you find the reaction to this different, particularly among police leadership in some communities that then gives you hope?

RAY: I do find the reaction different among law enforcement. I've spoken to several dozen police officers over the past couple of weeks. I have police officers in my family, my great uncle was the first black chief of police in my hometown of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and they think that these sort of things are highly egregious. And I think we've seen changes.

These officers been fired in Minneapolis is unprecedented. We've got to think five years ago, Maryland's most withstood in Baltimore and charged officers, and people cheered. That was unprecedented. But those officers were found not guilty, and they went back on the streets to at times be bad apples to proliferate the rotten tree in Baltimore. So, I think law enforcement wants change. And I think part of the change is not only focusing on the structural change, but it's also dealing with the mental health of police officers that we know desperately need psychological services.

SCIUTTO: Rashawn Ray, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

RAY: Thank you for having me.

HARLOW: Yes, fascinating interview and fascinating perspective. So, the World Health Organization says now that the spread of coronavirus by someone who is not showing symptoms appears to be rare. So what does that mean for you, and how you carry forward this Summer and the battle against COVID-19? We'll talk about it.

SCIUTTO: And we're just moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. U.S. futures are actually down this morning, stocks rallied again on Monday, pushing the Nasdaq to an all-time high. The S&P in the positive territory for the year. The rally came on the very same day economists officially declared the U.S. in recession. We're going to take a closer look at those headlines next. Why the disconnect?

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[09:30:00]