Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Riot Devastates Michigan Town
Aired June 18, 2003 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, ANCHOR: Back to Michigan, a second straight night into the morning now, riots there. Hundreds of people have been rioting in the city of Benton Harbor.
That violence broke out after a man on a motorcycle was killed while being chased by police, sometimes in excess of 100 miles per hour. Some homes were burned to the ground. The governor's declared a state of emergency.
What gives today? Chris Tye of our affiliate WZZM is live now in Benton Harbor.
Chris, what's happening now? Good morning there.
CHRIS TYE, WZZM CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
As you mentioned, it is a smoky morning, as a result of those house fires last night. Three house fires to be exact. Two of them were occupied, one unoccupied.
To give you some perspective here, this all started on Sunday night, like you said. That motorcycle driver being followed by police got in a car accident, later died at the hospital.
The next night at a city commission meeting here in Benton Harbor, a group of individuals around this year were very upset with that situation. Why remains unclear.
Needless to say, that group turned into a larger group and a larger group, and on Monday night they went out and started throwing rocks at police, started putting houses on fire. They were back at it again last night, only this time it was worse.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHIEF SAM HARRIS, BENTON HARBOR POLICE (voice-over): They threatened to destroy the city, in essence, and so far they've made that attempt.
TYE (voice-over): It picked up again at 5 Tuesday afternoon. A small crowd turned into a larger one, and soon...
HARRIS (on camera): It's gotten to the point now that they're shooting at us. And as a result, we've called in additional resources from the state police.
TYE: Some of these crews came from over 100 miles away to help. A state police expert on crowd control was flown in to help develop a plan.
All while the hundreds lining the streets got more violent, sending a mother and her 6-year-old to the hospital, attacking a television photographer, and setting fire to three more homes.
At 10 p.m. things changed when the governor declared this an official state of emergency.
HARRIS: All state resources are available to us. It also, if necessary, allows us to call up the national guard.
TYE: At 1 a.m., eight arrests were made. By 3:30 things started to quiet down. And if this happens again tonight, police say they'll install curfews and begin a much more aggressive approach.
HARRIS: We're going to try not to give up what we've taken. And people are going to go to jail now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TYE: Within the last hour we have learned that there will be a 10 p.m. curfew put into place tonight here in Benton Harbor.
And when asked what really is the genesis of this, why did this actually break out, we asked one of the Michigan state police troopers a short time ago, he said it's a real hard thing to decide. Because much of this community is African-American, much of the city commission is African-American, as is the police force.
So Bill, it's a real tough situation here in Benton Harbor, where they're continuing to have quintuple the number of police that they ordinarily have on a typical Thursday morning -- rather Wednesday morning.
HEMMER: Thanks. Chris, thanks. Chris Tye, WZZM, out there in southwestern Michigan.
The county sheriff, Paul Bailey, is on the phone with us.
Sir, good morning to you. How do you anticipate getting this situation under control there?
PAUL BAILEY, BARRIEN COUNTY SHERIFF: We've asked for more assistance by the Michigan state police. I've activated all of my personnel, which is 174. Last night we had 60 deputies assisted the Benton Harbor police department, along with the Michigan state police, and about 1 in the morning we had an additional 106 state troopers arrive to assist us to get the situation under control.
HEMMER: We've heard from some residents, a number of them, in fact, who say it's a question of trust and the relationship between residents and police has broken down. Describe for us, give our viewers a perspective on how that relationship is today.
BAILEY: You know, I'm just very surprised about this. I thought the relationship between the police and the public have improved a lot over the last two years. We've been able to get the crime rate down. We only had one homicide last year in the city of Benton Harbor. We've developed neighborhood watch groups. We have the pastors involved in the community.
So this is a very disturbing to me that we're doing lots of things to break those diversity things and those issues that we need to. We have started a council for world class community that we've been doing now for two years and meeting and talking and having reforms and talking about the issues.
So I'm just very surprised that this has occurred due to this chase. It was tragic that a young man had to lose his life, but it was his decision not to stop. And you know, we can debate pursuit or don't pursue, and you know, law enforcement is trying to deal with that and we have strict policies that we have in place to deal with. Do you continue your pursuit or do you terminate a pursuit?
HEMMER: And you say over the past two years the relationship has improved. What happened 24 months ago, prior to that time that led to perhaps a relationship that was less than strong?
BAILEY: Well, you know, we've been working. We have, you know, big corporations here, such as Whirlpool, who's behind the Council for World Class Community and setting these forums up.
So you know, I think we've made a lot of leadway, you know, in the last few years but I think this is a setback for us and something that myself, the chiefs, and the elected officials are going to need to get together and talk about what we need to do to make sure this doesn't happen again. And you know, as we were telling the citizens, there's a way to handle their mistrust, what they have, and that is attending the city commission meetings and the Benton Township meetings and talking about the issues.
HEMMER: All right. Best of luck to you. We'll see if again nightfall brings more rioting in your town.
Paul Bailey the sheriff there in Barrien County.
Thank you, sheriff.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 18, 2003 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, ANCHOR: Back to Michigan, a second straight night into the morning now, riots there. Hundreds of people have been rioting in the city of Benton Harbor.
That violence broke out after a man on a motorcycle was killed while being chased by police, sometimes in excess of 100 miles per hour. Some homes were burned to the ground. The governor's declared a state of emergency.
What gives today? Chris Tye of our affiliate WZZM is live now in Benton Harbor.
Chris, what's happening now? Good morning there.
CHRIS TYE, WZZM CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
As you mentioned, it is a smoky morning, as a result of those house fires last night. Three house fires to be exact. Two of them were occupied, one unoccupied.
To give you some perspective here, this all started on Sunday night, like you said. That motorcycle driver being followed by police got in a car accident, later died at the hospital.
The next night at a city commission meeting here in Benton Harbor, a group of individuals around this year were very upset with that situation. Why remains unclear.
Needless to say, that group turned into a larger group and a larger group, and on Monday night they went out and started throwing rocks at police, started putting houses on fire. They were back at it again last night, only this time it was worse.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHIEF SAM HARRIS, BENTON HARBOR POLICE (voice-over): They threatened to destroy the city, in essence, and so far they've made that attempt.
TYE (voice-over): It picked up again at 5 Tuesday afternoon. A small crowd turned into a larger one, and soon...
HARRIS (on camera): It's gotten to the point now that they're shooting at us. And as a result, we've called in additional resources from the state police.
TYE: Some of these crews came from over 100 miles away to help. A state police expert on crowd control was flown in to help develop a plan.
All while the hundreds lining the streets got more violent, sending a mother and her 6-year-old to the hospital, attacking a television photographer, and setting fire to three more homes.
At 10 p.m. things changed when the governor declared this an official state of emergency.
HARRIS: All state resources are available to us. It also, if necessary, allows us to call up the national guard.
TYE: At 1 a.m., eight arrests were made. By 3:30 things started to quiet down. And if this happens again tonight, police say they'll install curfews and begin a much more aggressive approach.
HARRIS: We're going to try not to give up what we've taken. And people are going to go to jail now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TYE: Within the last hour we have learned that there will be a 10 p.m. curfew put into place tonight here in Benton Harbor.
And when asked what really is the genesis of this, why did this actually break out, we asked one of the Michigan state police troopers a short time ago, he said it's a real hard thing to decide. Because much of this community is African-American, much of the city commission is African-American, as is the police force.
So Bill, it's a real tough situation here in Benton Harbor, where they're continuing to have quintuple the number of police that they ordinarily have on a typical Thursday morning -- rather Wednesday morning.
HEMMER: Thanks. Chris, thanks. Chris Tye, WZZM, out there in southwestern Michigan.
The county sheriff, Paul Bailey, is on the phone with us.
Sir, good morning to you. How do you anticipate getting this situation under control there?
PAUL BAILEY, BARRIEN COUNTY SHERIFF: We've asked for more assistance by the Michigan state police. I've activated all of my personnel, which is 174. Last night we had 60 deputies assisted the Benton Harbor police department, along with the Michigan state police, and about 1 in the morning we had an additional 106 state troopers arrive to assist us to get the situation under control.
HEMMER: We've heard from some residents, a number of them, in fact, who say it's a question of trust and the relationship between residents and police has broken down. Describe for us, give our viewers a perspective on how that relationship is today.
BAILEY: You know, I'm just very surprised about this. I thought the relationship between the police and the public have improved a lot over the last two years. We've been able to get the crime rate down. We only had one homicide last year in the city of Benton Harbor. We've developed neighborhood watch groups. We have the pastors involved in the community.
So this is a very disturbing to me that we're doing lots of things to break those diversity things and those issues that we need to. We have started a council for world class community that we've been doing now for two years and meeting and talking and having reforms and talking about the issues.
So I'm just very surprised that this has occurred due to this chase. It was tragic that a young man had to lose his life, but it was his decision not to stop. And you know, we can debate pursuit or don't pursue, and you know, law enforcement is trying to deal with that and we have strict policies that we have in place to deal with. Do you continue your pursuit or do you terminate a pursuit?
HEMMER: And you say over the past two years the relationship has improved. What happened 24 months ago, prior to that time that led to perhaps a relationship that was less than strong?
BAILEY: Well, you know, we've been working. We have, you know, big corporations here, such as Whirlpool, who's behind the Council for World Class Community and setting these forums up.
So you know, I think we've made a lot of leadway, you know, in the last few years but I think this is a setback for us and something that myself, the chiefs, and the elected officials are going to need to get together and talk about what we need to do to make sure this doesn't happen again. And you know, as we were telling the citizens, there's a way to handle their mistrust, what they have, and that is attending the city commission meetings and the Benton Township meetings and talking about the issues.
HEMMER: All right. Best of luck to you. We'll see if again nightfall brings more rioting in your town.
Paul Bailey the sheriff there in Barrien County.
Thank you, sheriff.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
