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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Appeal for Calm During Protests in Ferguson, Missouri

Aired August 11, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

ANTONIO FRENCH, ST. LOUIS ALDERMAN: A lot of us out here are trying to calm things down, especially getting a hold of the young guys and let them know there's a better way to voice their anger. But there is a lot of anger and some of it is very justified.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Are you concerned at all that this community and maybe, by extension, your city, St. Louis, may start to fall into the same category, the same circumstance that Stanford, Florida, did as well, after the shooting of Trayvon martin?

FRENCH: Well, I hope that's not the case. I think we all should be concerned in the St. Louis region about what's happening, the anger that's bubbling up in the young African-American community.

I think we need to do a better job of including them in our whole community. A lot of people -- the mayor was right. A lot of people from outside of Ferguson have come here because they share the anger and the frustration.

And so hopefully this can be a starting point for a conversation that lasts a long time and rebuild in a better way.

BANFIELD: And now, I'm sure you're aware, sir, that the FBI is involved with this, and that the federal Department of Justice has represented us looking into the circumstances surrounding the shooting.

Is that any surprise to you? Do you expect that there might be something additional that is added to the potential for charges, to the potential for more violence and dissatisfaction in this community?

FRENCH: I think it's a good thing that the U.S. Department of Justice is looking into this matter. There is such little trust between the community and the local Ferguson police and even the St. Louis County police department it's really going to take an independent outside agency to come in and restore that trust.

I think a lot of what happened yesterday, last night, was because at the press conference earlier that day, people were not given any hope that justice would be served. It seemed it would be business as usual. And that just caused people to become even more angry.

BANFIELD: Alderman French, thank you so much. I just want to update our viewers. I do appreciate your time and your insight. I hope the best as you get through this day that it stays peaceful and tonight doesn't turn into another night of looting and violence.

I'm getting word that there is going to be -- after the break, we've got information coming. might have to give me a quick update from the St. Louis police chief. I'm not sure if it's going to be a live update or what we'll get.

I understand we've got comments on tape we'll be able to spin, turn around and play for you right after this break. Be sure to it tune into "AC 360" tonight at 8:00 as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: We couple back to our continuing coverage of the circumstance in Missouri, our top story, the shooting and killing of an unarmed teenager by a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri.

This was supposed to be a peaceful rally but it turned violent as some people hijacked the moment by looting and by creating chaos. Police say they were fired upon, as was their helicopter

Thirty-two people were arrested. The mayor has urged calm. And the police chief says the FBI has also been asked to investigate.

I'm joined by CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin and criminal defense attorney Midwin Charles, and our law enforcement analyst, Mike Brooks.

Mike, there is a big discrepancy on what happened that led to all of this, an incident involving Michael Brown. Witnesses say he had his hands up and he was shot, one even said execution style.

The police officers say it wasn't as simple as that. There was actually an altercation that began. I want to get from you as a law enforcement analyst what is your protocol when it comes to discharging your weapon if you don't know if someone is armed?

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: If that officer believed another officer or a citizen was in imminent danger or he thought he was going to be killed, he could use deadly force. That remains to be seen whether or not what played up to that particular time for the use of deadly force.

We heard Police Chief Jackson say earlier there's a lot of forensic evidence. There's a number of witnesses that have been interviewed already. I'm glad to see he's turned it over to another law enforcement agency.

I'm glad to see the FBI is also monitoring this, as well as the U.S. justice community relations division. because they're the ones who will come into the community and get the pulse and see what is going on here and make sure that there is a clear and impartial investigation into this to get to the bottom of what really happened.

Because, you know, when something like this happens, there's three sides to either story. That's what the police say, what the citizens said and then what really happened. BANFIELD: And there's the truth, which is always somewhere and very

murky in between.

Sunny, it's only been a matter of hours since this happened. I'm a little shocked at the reaction being so quick, so immediate, so decisive, that they separated themselves immediately, turned this other to an autonomous police force outside of the Ferguson ranks and the FBI's in and the Department of Justice in.

It's almost like they have the blueprint.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: They do have the blueprint because I think we're living in a post-George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case society. We're seeing the killing of a lot of black male teens. We do have the blueprint at this point.

I think what you're also seeing in terms of the rioting, I don't think we should concentrate on that. Of course it's never good to riot, but where is this outrage coming from?

I think the outrage is coming from the fact we have Trayvon Martin. We have the Michael Dunn case, you and I, Ashleigh, both covered. We have the Renisha McBride case, the chokehold case here in New York.

You're seeing, over and over again, this issue between law enforcement and young black males. The black community just doesn't have an appetite for it any longer.

To mike's point, I think what we also need to do when we're looking at this case in terms of what started this altercation, whether or not something happened in the police car.

Two African-American males at noon walking across the street, what caused the officer -- what kind of reasonable suspicion did that officer have to stop them in the first place. I think that's really where the analysis needs to begin.

BANFIELD: We don't know yet. Even the mayor and the police chief have said there's so little information to start with, there may or may not be a robbery that preceded all of this. I think that's really critical to start this ball rolling, as to why any of this started.

Midwin, to that end, when it comes to the forensics, that they undoubtedly are scouring at this moment, there were no dash cams. There apparently were no video recorders in the vicinity, whether they be businesses or street. And it's going to be pretty tricky if it's just word against word. Will anyone be satisfied?

MIDWIN CHARLES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I don't know how tricky it's going to be, because what we do know is Michael Brown was unarmed.

We know that he was shot with many bullets. We don't know the exact amount yet because we're still waiting for the medical examiner to company back with a report. What we do know is his body was lying about 35 feet away from the police car. So you have to ask yourself, how is it that two young men who were walking across the street at 12 noon, one of them ends up shot dead, unarmed? There has to be an answer for this.

It cannot be that policing a black community results in the death of young man men. There has to be a way we can work this out. It's just adding up, and the numbers are not looking good, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And you've been in touch with Benjamin Crump who is now going to represent the family of Michael Brown. He's of course the famed attorney who represented Trayvon Martin's family as well.

I know he has a press conference for later on today. But is there any intelligence gleaned so far as to what the path is going to be for this family?

HOSTIN: Sure, well, I spoke to Ben last night when this story first broke. For me, harkened back to the Trayvon Martin case.

And Ben is now actually the president of the National Bar Association, the oldest African-American bar association.

So I knew at some point he would likely get involved. He did tell me he was involved. The questions he has are the questions that we all have.

Two African-American boys walking, you know, teens walking at noon, broad daylight, one of them gets shot to death by law enforcement official. So I think --

BANFIELD: I have to interrupt you there because some of the other reporting suggests it wasn't so simple as two African-American boys. They were young. They were 18. At least one was 18.

And there may have been a scuffle inside a police car to start with. There might have been physical contact between the officer and Michael Brown. We don't know. And the reality is, it's so dangerous to suggest anything otherwise.

HOSTIN: We don't know, but what we do know is, in terms of the legal analysis here, a police confrontation, in order for an officer to even begin that sort confrontation has to have reasonable suspicion, has to have reasonable suspicion to stop.

So what was afoot? What raised the radar on these two kids? Because I think an 18-year-old teen is not an adult man. It's a kid, walking across the street.

So I think Ben at this point is ushering the family, guiding the family.

BROOKS: Let me ...

BANFIELD: -- for a moment because -- and sorry, Mike, just hold on a sec. We've got some breaking news. The FBI has opened up a civil rights investigation into the shooting. I don't think it's any surprise at this point, knowing full well that they were already in Ferguson, Department of Justice officials in Ferguson at this point as well.

But this investigation is going to go forward.

Just quickly, the logistics of it, Midwin. When that happens, are they working in concert with the county officials who have taken over this investigation or are they completely separate and looking through their lens only?

CHARLES: It depends. Sometimes they can work in concert with those local officials to make sure that they're following all the proper protocol, that they are doing the investigation in a way that is impartial ...

BANFIELD: What are they looking at?

HOSTIN: Generally looking --

BANFIELD: Are they looking for something --

HOSTIN: The federal government trumps --

CHARLES: Exactly, and the federal government, like she said, always trumps.

They're just looking to make sure they've uncovered all the evidence, that they aren't just looking at it from the perspective of the police but also these two young men.

Where were they going? Who were they speaking to? Were they on the phone exactly right before this happened?

There are allegations they stole some candy from a store. Is that true? Go back. Look at the store. Look at the footage. Look at the tape.

HOSTIN: And I want to add ...

CHARLES: They step in there to just make sure that everything is done properly.

HOSTIN: And we need to add that if it's the FBI -- this is a civil rights investigation, then race does matter.

BANFIELD: Yes, it does, as well as the race of the officer --

HOSTIN: Race of the officer.

BANFIELD: -- which we don't know right now.

HOSTIN: Race does matter, and I think it's important to know that Ben Crump really is one of the foremost civil rights attorneys of our time. BANFIELD: Can you stick around, both of you, because we're also

getting this information from the county.

And I just want to be really clear. What's happening here is that the Ferguson police department, as well as the town council, they have dissolved all of their interests so far in this case and they've turned everything other to county police division to do the investigation, and now the county is finally speaking.

After the break, we're going to tell you exactly what they are telling the public at this point because there are so many unanswered questions. Whether we're going to hear about the genesis, the incident that sparked this all, or whether we're going to hear about the path the county's going to take, that's coming up in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Just continuing our breaking news coverage of the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, which is just an outside community to St. Louis. We're being told that the Department of Justice has opened up a civil rights investigation into this shooting of an unarmed teenager. An 18-year-old young man who was shot dead by a member of the Ferguson Police Department last night. The resulting chaos and looting and today, peaceful protesting certainly catching the eye of many across the nation.

I'm still joined by CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin and criminal defense attorney Midwin Charles and from our Atlanta newsroom HLN's law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks.

And, Mike, I want to just sort of dig a little deeper into the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice has its lawyers, its civil rights attorneys and its officials, in Ferguson to start this ball rolling, this investigation. Two-pronged question for you. Number one, does that put everyone under the microscope and completely change the calculus of how this crime is investigated? And number two, does it add a lot of resources to the work that's about to get underway?

BROOKS: Number two, yes, it brings a lot of resources in. And I'm glad to see the U.S. Department of Justice, their community relation service, you know, they will come out there and kind of - kind of be the peacemaker, if you will. And I hope that this does also, you know, help the people there, the 21,000 people of Ferguson who have basically a distrust for their local law enforcement and also the county police. I hope that that says, you know, to them, hey, we want to find out what exactly happened here also. So maybe cooler heads will prevail, you know, after night fall tonight and everything will be peaceful, at least for now, until the investigation plays out. But, again, I hope there's not a rush to judgment. Let the investigation play out. And I'm glad that the FBI is now involved.

BANFIELD: And to that end, the rush to judgment, so often that is what happens. And certainly when looting takes over, the optics are terrible.

BROOKS: Yes. BANFIELD: Sunny Hostin, jump in, if you would, on this. Talk to me a little bit about these demands that are being made now by something called the Ad Hoc Committee for Justice on behalf of Michael Brown. They're asking that the officer be immediately identified. They're asking that he immediately be fired and charged with murder. The only thing I get concerned about when I see demands being made so fast is that, shouldn't everybody operate with cooler heads and wait until the facts dictate as opposed to what the crowd dictates.

HOSTIN: Yes, I think there's no question about it. This is a - this just happened. Remember, this just happened this weekend. And it's very young in the investigation. We don't know what's going on. We - and I think we do need to take a step back, recognize that we don't know the full picture here.

But again, I think that because of the Trayvon Martin case, because of the Eric Garner case, because of the Michael Dunn case, I mean it goes on, Renisha McBride, it goes on and on and on and on. I think there really is sort of a lack of appetite in the community, in the black community, for sort of patience, you know, wait again, wait again, wait again. And I think that is where the outrage lies, Ashleigh, and I think that is why we are seeing the looting. You know I think we need to take a step back as well and figure out why people are looting. And it's usually the voiceless trying to somehow express their outrage.

BANFIELD: And it's just sometimes hooligans hijacking the circumstance as well.

HOSTIN: Not necessarily in the right - not necessarily in the right way, but -

BANFIELD: You've got to admit, sometimes it is just bad people taking advantage of a situation. I mean grabbing hair extensions and things like that from people who belong to that community, they're just double victimizing this community.

MIDWIN CHARLES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right. Well, it's - well as Sunny said, it's also frustration. See, African-Americans in their communities expect the police to assist them in solving crimes, protecting them. That is the role of the police, it is to serve and protect. However, unfortunately, when you look at all these deaths that she said, Michael Dunn, Renisha McBride, there's so many, Eric Garner, you have to start to ask yourself, well, what is the role of the police? Is it to serve and protect or is it to prosecute and execute? And that is the concern. And I think that is the frustration that you see here.

BANFIELD: I want to just quickly turn our attention to the county officials now who are going to take over this investigation. Chief John Belmer of the Ferguson -- or the St. Louis County Police Department, which has now taken over the investigation of the shooting of Michael Brown, gave some comments just a short time ago. Have a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHIEF JOHN BELMAR, ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MISSOURI, POLICE: So last night, I'd like to give you kind of an overview of what happened with the protest up there. A crowd gathered in the late afternoon at Ferguson Avenue and West Floresen (ph). So we had a pretty good idea, we being law enforcement in the area, Tom Jackson, Chief Jackson, myself, that we were to expect some sort of a vigil, a protest, whatever it would be.

So we went ahead, we being the county police department, staged special operations up in the area, but we did not deploy them at the time. We really felt like that with the emotions running as high as they were with the shooting the previous day of Mr. Brown, that we didn't want to add to any of that. So later in the afternoon, it became very clear that special operations from the county was going to have to deploy and they, in fact, did. They were eventually joined by what we call a code 1,000, which is a call for 25 additional police officers, and then a code 2,000 which was 25 more. It actually probably was closer to probably 100 municipal officers. The entire third and fourth St. Louis County precincts were there. The entire bureau of special operations from the county, the highway patrol, the troop c element out of the highway patrol, St. Charles County was there also, along with St. Louis and support elements from all of those departments.

Basically there was a line set up where the protesters were allowed to stand on West Floresen and Ferguson Avenue and just to the south of Chambers Avenue. So there were two police lines there. Again, there was a lot of protests. There was a lot folks there that were just kind of wanted to see it, they wanted to pay their respect to Mr. Brown and the family, and then there were others there in the crowd that, as it turned out, probably had other ideas. So our goal was last night as law enforcement was not ignite any sort of a problem. And we were really hoping that the crowd would disperse voluntarily.

Buildings -- the QT (ph) was burned. Looting began. And we realized that at some point this was going to be a -- not a -- something that we were going to have to react to. It was -- the scales were basically tipping to where we could no longer just stand on West Floresen and watch the looting and the destruction of property that was happening. And please understand that there were also shots being fired in the area. There were shots being fired very near where the initial command post was. So none of these kinds of things were unusual.

I think we had very adequate resources last night to deal with this. But when we disbursed the crowd, we tried to do it without any use of forces. And, in fact, I don't believe we made any arrests doing so. But because they did not voluntarily disperse, they moved north, up west Floresen Road and just parts of the crowd began looting businesses. Notable is the Wal-Mart up in West Floresen near 270. The Walgreens. Several shops in between. And there was -- the Foot Locker. Quite a bit damage was done during that time.

We developed a plan where we went away from the skirmish line model. We went in the police cars and we actually began to do lapping patrols so we could be more mobile for calls coming out. And there were thousands of calls last night. Everything ranging from shots fired to burglaries to destruction of properties to assaults. It is a miracle, however, that nobody actually got shot last night. And I was expecting the worst. You never can tell when you're in an environment like this. Thirty-two arrests were made last night.

And I think that, again, I'd like to echo what Mr. Duly (ph) said, the county executive. I think that we did a very good job initially of making sure the crowd had the opportunity to vent. But at some point, we no longer could sustain that attitude.

Moving forward, I want to assure the public, I want to assure everybody that we have the adequate resources to deal with this should it continue. And I pray that it does not. I've talked to Chief Sam Dodson (ph) in person about 3:00 last night in my office. I've been on the phone with the captain from Troop C. I was in on the conference call with Governor Nixon. I've talked to several municipal chiefs in the area. I really feel like with - certainly with the assistance of the highway patrol that we're well suited moving forward to make sure that we maintain the safety the public. None of these kinds of incidents, when they happen, are going to be perfectly executed, but I do feel like we have the resources and the manpower to keep the citizens of St. Louis County and the St. Louis region safe.

I would like to talk a little bit about the initial investigation, just to clarify a few things. I would like to reiterate that Chief Tom Jackson from the Ferguson Police Department reached out to me, I believe even before he was arriving on the scene. He had an officer involved shooting. That's pretty much all he knew at the time. And he asked if crimes against persons and county I.D., in fact, would investigate that. I told him that I would. That, in fact, that at the end of the investigation, the facts and circumstances would be turned over to the prosecuting attorney's office, regardless of what they were. He said he understood that very clearly and he didn't have an issue with that.

I want to assure you that this is a very complicated investigation, as it should be. A man lost his life. There's a police officer involved in this. And we need to make sure that this investigation is done right. We get one chance to do it. There are scores and scores of people we needed to talk to at the apartment complex where this happened. There are several witnesses that we needed to talk to. And, frankly, we're still waiting to talk to some folks that we believe have information that will lend itself to this investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: All right, so we just lost some of the audio on those comments. But what is clear is that the chief of the county police force that's taking over the investigation into the shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown has said that he thinks they've got the resources to move forward. Hopefully that they'll do it right. That they get one chance to do this.

We are still awaiting so many details as is he. He just said there are still witnesses they need to speak to. We're within, you know, 24 hours of the critical parts of this investigation even beginning. So CNN is going to continue its coverage of this. So stay tuned. We're also looking at our events overseas and around the world as

well. And to that end, my colleague, Wolf Blitzer, will be up right after this. He's going to be not only covering what's happening in Iraq with U.S. forces, but also the West Bank and Gaza as well. Another cease-fire.

Thanks, everyone, for joining us. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. It's nice to have you with LEGAL VIEW. We'll see you tomorrow.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.