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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Baltimore Mostly Quiet Overnight; Baltimore Schools Reopen Today; Obama Spreads Blame And Praise; Nigerian Army Rescues Boko Haram Captives; Stock Futures Look Cautious. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired April 29, 2015 - 05:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now -- quiet in the streets of Baltimore, following a night of mostly peaceful protests. But as questions remain over the death of Freddie Gray, a man mysteriously injured during his arrest, can the city keep the peace? We are live in Baltimore.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans in the studio in New York.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Berman, live in Baltimore this morning. About 30 minutes after the hour, and breaking this morning, the curfew is over. It ended just about 30 minutes ago.

A curfew enforced by Baltimore City Police, Maryland State Police, National Guard, National Guard who, by the way, are behind me here at Baltimore City Hall, kind of eerie to see a heavily armed presence protecting city halls in our nation's towns and cities.

That is the situation here and the state of emergency that is in place in Baltimore. As part of that state of emergency, this curfew began at 10:00 p.m. last night and it did begin with tense standoff between police and protesters.

This is what happened just a few minutes after the curfew. There were about 100 plus protesters or demonstrators, or whatever you want to call them on the street. Police moved them off the streets. They used smoke bombs.

They used pepper pellets fired from special guns. At least at this intersection of Pennsylvania and North, it did seem to work. After this brief somewhat intense confrontation, the people went home. You can see what the street looks like a few hours later.

And the curfew mostly is silent up until now when the city is really waking up. Joining me here in front of Baltimore City Hall this morning is Athena Jones who has been in Baltimore for the last several days.

Athena, there were a few arrests last night, and there were those confrontations that we saw that one confrontation that we saw that did have moments of intensity, but by and large, officials here are happy this morning. ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You mentioned, moments of intensity. It's a far cry from what happened Monday afternoon into Monday night when we saw so much violence and a dangerous situation frankly. The police commissioner believes this curfew was a success. Let's listen to what had had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY BATTS, BALTIMORE POLICE COMMISSIONER: After curfew went up, we've had about ten total arrests. I'm getting reports from the organization that we do not have a lost activity or movement out there the city as a whole.

So the curfew is in fact working as the mayor had called. One of the interesting things that I had happen as I answered questions, as I exited the building to go to a meeting, we have pretty close to 12 to 15 young adults waiting in line to become police officers at the Baltimore Police Department.

In light of the activities and issues, I asked them are you still willing, able and wanting. They were very much enthusiastic and excited about becoming members of the Baltimore Police Department which says a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: It's so interesting to hear Commissioner Batts talk about the curfew being a success, but also about the young people wanting to join the police department. Of course, they have a wide range of discretion when it comes to enforcing the curfew.

They didn't try to arrest all of those folks they saw during that tense standoff, only about 10 or 11 arrests. Most of them had to do with curfew violations, a couple of looters, and a couple of disorderly conduct, but on and on, much, much calmer.

BERMAN: What you see last night in the picture right here, you see a much more organized deliberate police force. They had intentionality last night overnight that you didn't see, I think Monday night when it was just really chaos.

So, Athena, we heard from the police commissioner saying they're pleased with the curfew last night. They think it had the results, at least, that they wanted last night.

But you know, the complications here are not over. Today there are some new issues to deal with, namely, kids headed back to school.

JONES: That's right. Today, Baltimore City public schools are going to be open so that kids can all come back. Of course, it was Monday afternoon. It was mostly high school students that we involved in the beginning of those confrontations with police.

That's what set it all off outside of a high school, not far from the church where Freddie Gray was funeralized. But now those kids are going back to school. The CEO of the school system sending out a note saying that principals and teachers are putting together activities that will help them learn from the events of the last few days especially Monday.

[05:35:10] He said that they are trying to identify the students who took part in the violence and that they will be subject to the school code of conduct and of course, the law as they identify them.

He's also encouraging parents to talk to their kids about how they're feeling, and ways to express how they are felling, their frustrations with the death of Freddie Gray and with police conduct in general in positive ways.

And we've really heard a lot of that from the community. People saying we've got to focus on getting justice for Freddie Gray, but not on the violence because if we focus on the violence or have violence, that's a distraction to message.

BERMAN: They've got to face this head on. There is no way they can't face it head on. Not just the violence, but also still all those questions surrounding Freddie Gray. Athena Jones, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

So among the officers patrolling the streets here in Baltimore overnight there were thousands out there. There were Maryland National Guard troops. There were state troopers, all called up under a state of emergency, called up after a delay. And that delay is causing a controversy still.

The delay in getting these people on the streets after the riots broke out on Monday putting the governor of Maryland and the mayor still on defense.

The governor is a Republican, Larry Hogan and there are those suggesting that he seems to be trying to shift some of the blame to the Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is a Democrat. The mayor said what she's dealing with is a very difficult balancing act.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. LARRY HOGAN (R), MARYLAND: We've been working all week and we had already prepared the National Guard. We'd already called up all the assets. We'd already activated the emergency command center and when the mayor requested, we brought them in.

We did quite a bit, but we waited until the mayor asked us to come in. We didn't think it was appropriate to come in and take over the city without the request of the --

MAYOR STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE (D), BALTIMORE: As I want to say, just to be very clear, a lot of this started with high school kids. We tried to have a response that was appropriate and not excessive. And that's what our parents are asking us for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Yes, this cannot be a political issue. It has to be an issue of management, managing the city to move forward over the coming days and hopefully, these elected officials will do that and deal with the management aspect of it.

Now President Obama is calling those who rioted in Baltimore, he's calling them criminals and thugs, which a term the mayor also used here. The White House now has the president out front and center discussing these issues head on.

When the riots first broke out on Monday, it was the brand-new Attorney General Loretta Lynch who was really dealing with the situation more directly, but now it is the president.

He held a news conference with the prime minister of Japan and it had some, you know, emotional things to say about the events here in Baltimore. CNN's Michelle Kosinski with more now from the White House -- Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John and Christine, and keep in mind, when this rioting broke out, and started escalating on Monday, what we heard from the White House was a very low-key response.

Not similar to what we've seen in prior police incidence after Ferguson. But 24 hours later, I mean, the president knew he was going to get a question from somebody on this subject at this press conference and he was ready.

Just let loose on how he feels about things for 14 minutes using pretty blunt language and saying there's no excuse for violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Senseless violence and destruction that is not a protest. That is not a statement. It's people -- a handful of people taking advantage of a situation for their own purposes and they needed to be treated as criminals, criminals and thugs who tore up the place.

This has been a slow rolling crisis. This has been going on for a long time. This is not new and we shouldn't pretend that it's new. If our society really wanted to solve the problem, we could. It's just it would require everybody saying this is important. This is significant.

And that we don't just pay attention to these communities when a CVS burns. We're paying attention all the time because we consider those kids our kids and we think they're important and they had shouldn't be living in poverty and violence. That's how I feel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: And the president in some ways didn't really hold back, saying in large part, what he was seeing there in Baltimore was not a protest and not everybody was happy that he used the word "thug" either. But when you look at the entirety of what he said, you can see clearly that he's really trying to be so diplomatic about this, covering all the bases, first wanting to clearly in strong terms call out those who committed acts of violence.

Applaud those in the community who are trying to stop that violence. He even said that often they get far, far less attention than the violent people do. He also wanted to support police officers who are doing their job properly.

[05:40:01] But also call out those who aren't and he put this extremely diplomatically saying that there have been too many instances of police interacting with people primarily African- Americans often for in ways that raise troubling questions. He said it happens every week or every couple of weeks -- John and Christine.

BERMAN: Christine, we can see people coming out here on the streets. The curfew is about 35 minutes over right now. People are beginning to head to work. So, we will see what today holds, as people go back to work and kids, most importantly, Christine, go back to school.

ROMANS: John, tell me a little bit more about the clergy meeting you attended last night, so many, hundreds of clergy really talking about changing the message and being forceful in a message of peace.

BERMAN: There were about 300 to 500 members of the clergy at the Empowerment Temple along with what had to be 1,000-plus people there to take part in this town hall meeting. Just to talk to each other.

The clergy, before the meeting started, they held a sort of planning session where they said they wanted to be giants. Those are the words they used, to be giants in this community, to be present, to be out on the streets to try to help take charge the next several days.

One of the areas that's very interesting is that they want to take charge of is social media. They want to take over the space there and also take over the message on social media. One thing I thought was interesting was a very small practical thing.

They want to change the hash tag for anyone discussing what's going on here, change hash tag from Baltimore riots or Baltimore uprising, they now want to see people use the #onebaltimore because they think that will change the image a little bit of what happens here and they think that is very important -- Christine.

ROMANS: John, certainly is. Thank you for that, John. We are going to continue to follow the latest on the Baltimore protest all morning long, folks.

But first, the death toll rapidly rising in the Nepal earthquake, search crews make new daring rescues. We're going to bring those to you live right after the break.

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[05:45:40] ROMANS: Hope for finding more earthquake survivors in Nepal fading fast this morning. The official death toll now tops 5,000. Eight million people affected by this disaster. One million children in need of help desperately.

Let's bring in CNN's Oren Liebermann live from Kathmandu. Oren, what's the latest?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine, the frustration and the crowd growing here behind me in Ronta Park. This is one of perhaps many tent cities here in Kathmandu. This crowd has been here for nearly 100 hours now, almost 100 hours since the earthquake.

So they're pushing four days, and the concern is, the fear is, they don't know how much longer they'll be here. They're afraid to go back to their homes. Some of those homes have been destroyed. Many others have cracks.

So they're forced to stay here and now they are getting frustrated with what they see as a lack of help on the part of the government. Of course, that's part of the big picture challenge here.

Logistically, it's very difficult to get aid into Kathmandu because of a small airport. The Kathmandu's International Airport only allows a few flights to be on the ground at the same time, that has bottle- necked the international aid that's trying to pour into Kathmandu.

Once that aid gets here and then it has to get to the places that need it the most. Of course, Kathmandu, the biggest city in Nepal, has many problems. The fear is though that with the rising death toll, many of the smaller villages and more remote areas have many more problems.

Search and rescue teams are trying to get to those areas, but that's not a simple process. First, there's the challenge of terrain and infrastructure. It's simply difficult to get to those places under the best of conditions.

But the rain and the weather haven't been good her last few days and they are forecasting more rain today that will only slow down search and rescue teams trying to get to some of the more remote villages.

They'll have to use helicopters, and of course, bad weather could slow down or at least stop that process temporarily. So there are many more challenges here as international aid is trying to pour in, of course, at this point, tourists and visitors who were here had been trying to get out.

That has also slowed down operations at the airport and created for another bottleneck. Christine, there's nothing easy about the situation here. Not here in the tent city and not in Kathmandu, and not in the remote areas of Nepal now four days after the quake.

ROMANS: Days after the quake. Oren Liebermann in Kathmandu, thank you, Oren, for that. To Nigeria now, hundreds of Boko Haram captives rescued, but now many are wondering where did these kidnapped women and children come from? We're live after the break.

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[05:51:42]

ROMANS: To Nigeria now where army officials claim they have rescued hundreds of kidnapped women and girls from the terror group, Boko Haram. Now there are new reports of a mass killing by that terror group.

CNN's Diana Magnay is in Johannesburg with the very latest for us. Diana, these girls that were rescued, they are not the Chibok girls. The girls from a year ago who were snatched from their school?

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INTERNATIOAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The military says they are certain that these girls are not the Chibok girls. They managed to rescue them when they were raiding the Sambisa Forest in the north east of Nigeria, which they described as Boko Haram's last stronghold.

And they say they stumbled upon these girls as they raided four terror camps, 200 girls, 93 women. Let's not forget that Boko Haram as a policy kidnaps boys, girls, people.

And human rights groups say it is hundreds if not thousands that they've kidnapped over the course of the last six-year insurgency. These are the pause for those many hundreds who have been kidnapped, the Chibok girls, of course, not being found yet either.

Now the massacre that you mentioned was in the northeastern town of Damasak, which was recaptured by the Nigerian military last month. They say they found shallow graves containing hundreds of decomposing bodies from when Boko Haram swept through the town at the end of last year, killing clearly hundreds of local residents --Christine.

ROMANS: All right, in Johannesburg, Diana Magnay for us, thank you so much, for that, Diana.

It's 53 minutes past the hour. Twitter shares plunging, how one tweet sent the stock spiraling, next.

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[05:56:49]

ROMANS: All right, I'm Christine Romans. Let's get an EARLY START on "Your Money" this morning. U.S. stock futures barely moving, but a lot going on that could change that. We get a decision on interest rates from the Federal Reserve.

Not expecting a rate hike today, but we'll be looking for clues if interest rates could start to rise later this year in June perhaps later. Plus this morning, a look at first quarter GDP, we know it wasn't a strong quarter thanks to the winter weather. Estimates put economic growth around 1 percent. Let's hope it's not a total freeze like last year when the economy actually shrank.

All right, Twitter shares, Twitter earnings leaked early on Twitter. The stock plunged 18 percent yesterday. The stock is down again this morning before the bell. Now, the earnings results show that in a tweet an hour early.

Twitter blamed the release on Nasdaq which manages its investor sit. That's an embarrassing slip. What's more concerning is slowing revenue and user growth. Twitter having a hard time keeping users logged into the platform and convincing advertisers to spend more.

It's 57 minutes past the hour. Calm in the streets of Baltimore last night. The protests mostly peaceful, will that peace remain? "NEW DAY" picks up that story right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Leave the officers alone.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: They're putting out flash bangs right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's somewhat of a standoff.

CUOMO: They are shifting over there now, which is where they are getting the bottles from.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Senseless violence and destruction. That is not a protest.

HOGAN: Protecting innocent lives and property is our number one priority.

BLAKE: I think this can be our defining moment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's my only son. At the end of the day, I don't want him to be a Freddie Gray.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you don't teach them peace, then they don't know peace.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, April 29th, 6:00 in the east. Alisyn and Michaela are in New York, and we are here in Baltimore. And it is also a very new and different day here.

An overnight curfew ending about an hour ago. The streets basically deserted. Armored vehicles are lining many of the main intersections. There's certainly a heavy presence of police and National Guard. But also a renewed community resolve.

And all that is contributing to keep things under control at least for now. That said, police did clash with protesters for a second night before the curfew hit and right after it took effect.

We did see some clouds of flash bangs to distract and remove people. There were ten arrests that the police say were needed to restore order.

Today, Baltimore schools will be open. The Orioles are going to play a baseball game at Camden Yards, but there is one odd thing there. There will be no one in the seats.

And CNN has learned a preliminary report on the death of Freddie Gray could be in prosecutors' hands by Friday. But that may not mean what many people want it to be.

We'll get into that this morning. We have every angle of this story covered. Here's what it was like on the streets of Baltimore last night.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BATTS: Let's just watch this. Let's just watch this. Let's watch this. The citizens are safe. The city is stable.

[06:00:01] CUOMO (voice-over): Big crowds return to the streets Tuesday night, but this time joining them were more than 1,000 police and some 2,000 national guardsmen.