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New Day

Fallout from Garner Case Grips Nation; Bush 43 Weighs in on Racial Tensions; Who is the Officer Who Killed Eric Garner?

Aired December 05, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: This is very different than last night.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even bigger protests in the wake of a grand jury decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner.

CROWD: No justice, no peace.

CUOMO: They are now walking down Hudson.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have to make a change because they're killing us all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up.

CROWD: Don't shoot. Hands up. Don't shoot.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Race continues to play such an emotional, divisive part of life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not a black and white issue, this is a national crisis.

CROWD: I can't breathe.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: There's a larger question of restoring a sense of common purpose.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's very clear that this was excessive force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a mature police officer who's motivated, literally, by serving the community.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would not accept that apology.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Good morning, it is Friday, December 5th, just about 6:00 in the East. Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota here, and a very different night last night. Huge and fiery protests nationwide. The catalyst, two grand juries failing to indict white officers in the deaths of unarmed black men.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CUOMO (voice-over): These scenes played out last night all across the nation. People marching, demanding justice. We were in the thick of it last night in New York. Thousands of marchers spanning half a mile, shutting down streets, demanding the justice system be reformed.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And many protestors also want Officer Daniel Pantaleo locked up for choking Eric Garner, a father of six. Now, Garner's daughter says the officer treated her dad like an animal. She says that this is not a black and white issue, but rather a national crisis.

And we begin our coverage this morning with Alexandra Field. She's live from New York's Times Square. What's the latest, Alexandra?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

These protesters, they flooded Times Square. They were on the West Side Highway. They were on the Brooklyn Bridge. They were in cities across the country. They have only grown in numbers. Their message is very clear: they do not believe that this story ends with one grand jury's decision, and they believe that they are shining a light on a problem which they think exists in cities across the country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: Why were you arrested? Why were you arrested?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For standing and protesting.

FIELD (voice-over): Protesters in cuffs across New York...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They wouldn't let us walk through Times Square.

FIELD: ... after some seven hours of marching.

(CHANTING)

FIELD: Police cracking down as thousands of protesters gathered for a second night.

(CHANTING)

FIELD: Standoffs but no serious violence replicated across the country. Nationwide, outrage Garner's daughter says she appreciates.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not a black-and-white issue. This is a national crisis.

FIELD: In Chicago, protesters clashed with police after shutting down a major thoroughfare. And in D.C., protesters staged a die-in only blocks from the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No justice! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No peace!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No peace!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No peace!

FIELD: All this after a grand jury declined to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of 43-year-old Eric Garner.

ERIC GARNER, KILLED BY POLICE: I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

FIELD: According to the New York Supreme Court, the grand jury sat for nine weeks hearing from a total of 50 witnesses, 22 civilians; also police officers and medical personnel. Sixty exhibits were admitted into evidence, including video, records regarding NYPD's policies and procedures, Garner's medical records, and photographs of the scene. But the details of that evidence remain sealed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What video was they watching? Because obviously it wasn't the one that the whole world was watching.

GARNER: Don't touch me. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

FIELD: The Department of Justice launching a federal investigation.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Too many Americans feel deep unfairness when it comes to the gap between our professed ideals and how laws are applied on a day-to-day basis.

FIELD: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio ordering the retraining of the NYPD's 35,000 officers.

BILL DE BLASIO, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: We're changing how our officers talk with residents of the city. Changing how they listen.

FIELD: And Attorney General Eric Holder calling for reform.

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: There are real, practical and concrete measures that can be taken.

FIELD: Reform civil rights leaders say is needed nationwide.

MARC MORIAL, PRESIDENT/CEO, NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE: When we shine a spotlight on the criminal justice system, when we shine a spotlight on the experiences of people, it points to a very big problem.

FIELD: In Cleveland, Ohio, a nearly two-year investigation by the Justice Department found what they call a pattern of excessive force by police, caused by insufficient accountability, inadequate training and ineffective policies.

Three hours south, the NAACP and the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department are investigating racist text messages allegedly exchanged by several deputies. Parts of the texts read aloud by Dayton NAACP president Derrick Foward.

DERRICK FOWARD, PRESIDENT, DAYTON NAACP: "What do apples and black people have in common? They both hang from trees."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: The Montgomery County sheriff has spoken out about the text messages, saying that they tarnish the office.

And we're speaking about that case and other cases this morning. Because when you come out and you speak to the protesters, their message is broad. They're talking about how communities are policed, who polices the communities, when force is used and if that force becomes excessive, who is held accountable -- Chris.

CUOMO: Who polices the police, we kept hearing last night, Alexandra. And they say these marches will continue.

Now, in terms of how it goes with police, we hear somewhere between 60 and 100 people were arrested. It's hard to know, because a lot of people were taken into custody, and later to be released or just moved out of the way. So we'll watch those numbers as they come. Thank you for the reporting.

So here's something else we know. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is announcing these sweeping changes. But what is it going to mean? So far, that means a three-day course to teach self-control, curbing profanity, educating on the culture of communities that they patrol, and how to persuade suspects to comply without using force. That's a lot for three days.

But last night was all about the people who want even more. Huge and diverse crowds rallying around the perceived plight of minorities. The message was clear: we want change.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO (voice-over): Overnight, huge waves of demonstrators taking to New York City's bridges and roads, bringing the Big Apple to a standstill. Thousands flooding the Brooklyn Bridge.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No justice, no peace!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No justice, no peace!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No justice, no peace!

CUOMO: And shutting down Times Square.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't shoot!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't shoot!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't shoot!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't shoot!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't shoot!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't shoot!

CUOMO: Large crowds, largely peaceful, but this many people and this much emotion leads eventually to conflict.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're making an arrest here right now.

CUOMO: NYPD making arrests after a massive scuffle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's already violent. They were slamming people down on the ground against the cars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were very much overly aggressive. What a surprise. When has NYPD not been overly aggressive to us?

CUOMO: Marchers were chanting "Whose streets? Our streets!" Police disagreed.

Some staged a sit-in, arrested while singing and holding hands.

But for all the noise, silence in Brooklyn may have made the most impact. Protesters staging a die-in, lying on the ground, next to them cardboard coffins displaying the names of others killed by police.

Among the crowd of young and old, friends of the Garner family.

(on camera): What does this mean to you that there are this many people who showed up?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I'm so happy that people of all cultures, all ethnicities came out to show their love and support. And basically, we have to make a change, because they're killing us off. They're killing us off.

CUOMO: What do you think Eric Garner would have thought of all of these people mobilizing because of what was done to him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He would definitely have been proud of this. Because black people are adamant about making change. It's time for change.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: So the word "change" is in the air. What will it really mean? Let's bring in Cedric Alexander, the president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives; and Mr. Tom Fuentes, CNN's law enforcement analyst and a former FBI assistant director.

Gentlemen, let's come to consensus here. Do we believe this is just about bad apples, or do we have a culture to address with how we police certain communities -- Cedric? CEDRIC ALEXANDER, PRESIDENT, NOBLE: Well, let me start by saying

this. I think we have a real crisis here in this country. It's being played out every night, and we have a criminal justice issue here. Not just police. We hear a lot about police and the changes, certainly, that need to be brought about. But I think in a larger sense, Chris, we're also talking about a criminal justice system that we need to sit back and take another look at.

CUOMO: All right. So let's start with the police, though. I take the point, Cedric. But Tom, let's start with the police.

Researchers did a study that showed many police officers often subconsciously view young black boys as far older, OK? They also implicitly perceive them as guilty and are more likely to use violence against them as a result. That is not a three-day training course away from being fixed. What do you do about something like that? Do you even believe it?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I'm not sure I believe it in the first place, Chris, but -- but I think that what Mr. Alexander said is actually very important. It's an entire system, and that system is biased. And I saw it every day when I stood in court for six years, three, four days a month in Cook County, Illinois.

CUOMO: Right.

FUENTES: And the people that get the favorable treatment, it's designed for the lawyers, frankly. If you come into court, white, black or otherwise, and you are well-represented, you're going to have a much better time, you're going to either get off or get a lighter sentence. And the poor people that don't have that, that rely on public defenders, and unfortunately, that means predominantly minorities, are not going to get the same treatment in the court system. That's the fact of life.

Because if we want to help those, not just three-day courses for police officers, not just -- not just body cameras, which I believe in. But let's look at what happens in the courtroom, all across this country. And I don't see this -- I didn't see this in the federal system when I was an FBI agent, but I saw it every day when I was in court in the local -- state and local system, that you know, beef up our public defenders' offices so they don't have 50 cases in one day...

CUOMO: Right.

FUENTES: ... and don't take the time to represent. And I think that's a critical part of this issue. The entire.

CUOMO: I don't think -- I don't think you're going to get a lot of disagreement. But here is the practical...

FUENTES: No, but Chris, you see the attorney general is not just the top cop; he's also the top prosecutor. And I don't see any effort to look at our court system and look at patterns of practices of what happens in traffic court, in misdemeanor court, in felony court. That has to be looked at, too.

CUOMO: Right. Right, but a lot this is under state control. And this goes to the point of the next question, which is when you say it's everything, which is probably accurate, you wind up fixing nothing, because it's too big. So you have to look at the specific and you have to take on all of these issues where you find them.

And right now you're finding them with police, and you have motivation and energy toward that. So you have to deal with how to fix it.

And here's my concern with that, Cedric. Is that the police are now culturally almost feeling forced to motivate against the change. You have the union head here at the NYPD, saying, "Hey, we feel like we got thrown under the bus on this one." You have police officers taking to forums like Police1.com and saying, "Another week of chasing around these thugs. Boy, this would never have happened in the '80s and '90s. I miss those days."

When you start getting "us versus them" with the cops, you've got a problem. How do you get past that toward a solution?

ALEXANDER: Well, what we've got to do, and we've got to do this right away, and I've been saying this, Chris, for a number of weeks now, is No. 1, we as a community and we as police are going to have to find in the leadership, the leadership of those communities, from elected officials right down to those that are pointed to police chiefs, commissioners and whatever -- we're going to have to set an example. We're going to have to demand for the men and women that we're responsible for in terms of providing leadership. And our attitude also is going to dictate what their attitudes are from the top.

Now in regards to New York City, Commissioner Bratton, one of the most noted and respected commissioners in the country. And I have a great deal of respect for him. And I think that efforts that they're making in attempt to do something. Is three days long enough? Certainly it's not. But it's a beginning. But we have to build off of that.

Do that three days, but throughout the course of the year, and throughout the course of those officers' careers, we have to have constant training, constant training, constant training. Because you can't have training once and think that's going to fix it. It's got to be repeated training over time. And I think New York City is headed in the right direction.

CUOMO: So Tom, let's say you start doing that and you deal with your policing. The next big part in criminal justice winds up becoming adjudication. Specifically, when you have cops in the spotlight for their behavior, do you think the time has come? You talked about the attorney general, so you can't really do this on a federal level, but on a global level, state by state, do you think the time has come to say prosecutors should not investigate their own cops? Because it just breeds a distrust of the system.

FUENTES: Well, that could be true, Chris. And you could devise a system where you have at least prosecutors from another jurisdiction that come in and look when you have an officer-involved death. And you know, I think that would make sense and at some point might be the right answer.

But again, many of the answers that people have suggested in these situations, even when you have it, it doesn't solve everything. And for example, I've heard so much about the lack of diversity in Ferguson: if only there was more diversity in the police department. If you watch that Garner video closely, you'll see that there's a black female NYPD sergeant right there, at that scene. We haven't heard anything about what she's doing. Because if she had told those patrolmen there's going to be no arrest, there would have been no arrest.

So you know, so you have diversity, in that sense, that you have, you know, minority representative as a police, not just one of the officers going along with the program, but a sergeant.

CUOMO: Right.

FUENTES: The highest-ranking officer there.

CUOMO: Right.

FUENTES: That is one aspect.

But the other aspect is that not much has been talked about selection. Police departments have to do a better due diligence on the front end, because you see the police union, you see the effort that, if you get bad apples, it's very difficult to eliminate them from a public service job, whether they're policemen, firefighters or teachers or any other job like that.

The key is don't select bad apples in the first place. Have a due diligence system that identifies bad character. You know, we heard this in the Cleveland shooting for example, that that officer that shot the 12-year-old...

CUOMO: Was in trouble.

FUENTES: ... was in the process of being fired from a different department. And yet, Cleveland hires him.

CUOMO: Look, Pantaleo, the union is out in front saying that this was a great officer. He was doing the right thing. He was an Eagle Scout. He had been jammed up previously with three different guys saying that he had not behaved the right way with an arrest.

So obviously, there's a culture of examination that needs to be looked at. And it's all about solutions at this point, if we want to see the anger and outrage go away, because there will be no reason for it to, otherwise.

Tom Fuentes, Cedric Alexander, thank you for the perspective. We will keep the conversation going.

ALEXANDER: Thank you.

CUOMO: Coming up in our 8 a.m. hour, we're going to talk to former New York City police commissioner, Ray Kelly, and get his perspective on what happened here; and also Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner. So stay with us for that.

A lot of news right now, so let's get to Mick for the headlines.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris. Thanks so much.

Good morning, everyone. Here is a look at those headlines.

Luke Somers' family has released a video imploring al Qaeda to release him. In the video, the 33-year-old journalist's mother and brother, they plead for mercy, insisting Luke is all they have. U.S. commanders tried to free Somers last week. They failed, however. The terrorists have since released a video vowing to kill him if their demands are not met.

Later this morning, President Obama will announce his pick to succeed Chuck Hagel as defense secretary. He is expected to nominate Ashton Carter, a physicist and former deputy defense secretary with quite a long history at the Pentagon. His confirmation hearings are actually expected to go more smoothly than Hagel's did.

A United Airlines flight from Burlington, Vermont, to Washington, D.C., forced to make an emergency landing after striking a bird on Wednesday. Check out the windshield. Bad damage there. Shattered, in fact, on Flight 4331. Fifty-two people on board the plane. That jet did land safely. We're told everybody is OK. Probably some frayed nerves, though.

Former President George W. Bush weighing in on the building racial tensions here in the U.S. Back in 2001 he spoke about ending racial profiling in his very first address to very first address to Congress as president. Then 9/11 happened, and his initiative stalled. So what does he think about the gap of mistrust between law enforcement and minorities? Listen to what he told our Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: There are those who say, you know, race seems to be more of a problem with what a lot of people termed a post-racial presidency. When you saw what happened in the streets of New York in the video, what did you think?

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I thought how sad. You know, the verdict was hard to understand. But I hadn't seen all the details. But it's sad that race continues to play such an emotional, divisive part of life.

I remember back when I was a kid, in the '70s and there was race riots, with cities being burned. And I do think we've improved. I had dinner with Condi the other night and we talked about this subject. And yes, she just said, you've just got to understand there are a lot of, you know, black folks around that are just incredibly -- are more and more distrusting of law enforcement. Which is -- which is a shame. Because law enforcement's job is to protect everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Interesting conversation she has there with former president. You can catch Candy's full interview with former President George W. Bush. "STATE OF THE UNION," that airs Sunday 9 a.m. and noon Eastern. We'll look forward to seeing that.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I'll look forward to looking to that. It's interesting to be a fly in the wall between his conversations with Condi.

PEREIRA: I know.

CAMEROTA: That's a great window into that.

CUOMO: We're going to give you a better window into this situation with the officer who choked Eric Garner to death, as well. Does he have a troubled history as an officer? We're going to tell you what we learned. You decide.

CAMEROTA: Plus, another Cosby accuser coming forward. She explains why she's breaking her silence and why she believes there are dozens more victims.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: The New York City police officer accused of killing Eric Garner was not charged with a crime in that chokehold death, but this was not the first time that officer Daniel Pantaleo was in the middle of a racially motivated incident.

Two previous lawsuits were filed against him by three black men who say he violated their rights. Eugene O'Donnell is a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He also served 14 years as an NYPD officer.

Eugene, great to see you.

EUGENE O'DONNELL, PROFESSOR, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about these cases against this Officer Pantaleo before now. There was one case in which he strip-searched two black men in broad daylight on the street. He made them drop their pants, and they say that he subjected them to a really humiliating search. He touched them, even, inappropriately. You were on the NYPD. What's that about?

O'DONNELL: Well, it's hard to say for sure. The NYPD has to do a better job in looking at patterns and see whether this is a bad situation that shouldn't have occurred. It is worth saying that people do sue the police, settlements are made. That's not necessarily conclusive.

CAMEROTA: That's what happened in this case, a settlement was made.

O'DONNELL: Right. CAMEROTA: But you're saying that doesn't always mean guilt; it means you want it to go away. Sometimes.

O'DONNELL: Right. It's also really important to say that a relatively number of small police people do a relatively large amount of the work. And so there's sometimes a little bit of unfairness, when you want to look holistically at an officer's performance.

CAMEROTA: OK. In the next case, a black man said that he was arrested for no probable cause and then Officer Pantaleo fudged some of the details on a report. And in that one, I actually don't know the outcome. He was never -- Officer Pantaleo was never charged, but somehow that one went away.

O'DONNELL: Well, the cops were deployed on Staten Island on this conditions patrol, which apparently was doing, among other things, loose cigarette enforcement, which seems to be, really, the bottom of the barrel of criminal law. So I think the root of this is the police looking for offenses that were so trivial that they probably shouldn't be out there doing that.

CAMEROTA: That's interesting. So in other words, they were -- Eric Garner was selling loose cigarettes.

O'DONNELL: Right.

CAMEROTA: And you think that the Staten Island police should have had bigger and better things to do that day?

O'DONNELL: Right. This was ratified by the prosecutor's office, and the top people in the city government said this is a good thing to do. I don't think this is a good thing to do. This is revenue enforcement. A few cents of tax revenue per cigarette.

You put street cops who think the worst when they go into these situations with lethal weapons, you move them forward and, inevitably, if police do enough adversarial enforcement, there's going to be bad outcomes; that's inevitable. So we need to reduce some of these trivial enforcement interactions.

CAMEROTA: Officer Pantaleo was not indicted, as you know, in Eric Garner's death. But now, today, an internal investigation by the NYPD starts about what he did. How do those go, historically? Are police departments reluctant to throw the book at one of their own?

O'DONNELL: New York City Police Department has, in situations where people have died, has at a minimum taken people out of enforcement actions. They basically have lost their guns and never returned to patrol or didn't return to patrol for very prolonged periods of time. They can discipline officers and fire officers after due process rights are adhered to. And this could very well happen here. We'll see.

CAMEROTA: And so do you think that Officer Pantaleo will remain on the force, knowing what you know? O'DONNELL: I wouldn't predict it. I hope it doesn't get politicized.

I hope people look at it objectively. And there's been a tendency to demonize this officer, and I hope that won't happen, either. I don't see, as of this moment, any reason to believe there's anything malicious or especially bad, other than a very terrible outcome and a very bad use of force, which the department has acknowledged.

CAMEROTA: So you don't think he was a bad apple?

O'DONNELL: I don't know. I don't think he deserves at this point to be demonized. The department has a broken system for training people. The cops have no -- they're left to their own devices to improvise. And now...

CAMEROTA: Why is that?

O'DONNELL: Because the department has spent so much time on bureaucracy it doesn't have any time left over to do hands-on policing. It's a scandal. It's an ongoing scandal. Finally, this commissioner and this mayor are fixing that, which is wonderful. Three days, expensive, but perhaps could use a lot more training than three days for the hands-on stuff that they do.

CAMEROTA: You say that this officer has been demonized, and I do want to play the other side, because some people are speaking out in his favor and say that he was a good public servant. Here is the head of the police union on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK LYNCH, PRESIDENT, PATROLMEN'S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION: The motto of what we want a police officer to be, he's a mature, mature police officer who's motivated literally by serving the community. He literally, literally is an Eagle Scout. He is a good man. And more importantly for us all here today, he's a professional police officer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So he says he's a good man. He says he's a model of what we want police officers to be. But can he stay on the street after something like this, just for P.R. reasons alone?

O'DONNELL: Well, I mean it's -- his job is going to be untenable probably on the street. This is the union speaking. They have due process obligations to their members.

It's important the officer not be demonized, unless there's a reason to say that there's some malice and also, fortunately, nobody is demonizing Mr. Garner. We don't need to polarize this conversation.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Eugene O'Donnell, great to see you.

O'DONNELL: Sure.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for coming into NEW DAY.

O'DONNELL: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's go back to Chris.

CUOMO: Well, and what is obvious is that the nation is in turmoil over this, specifically the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Now you have two potential presidential contenders, and they're going on the record about it. That's when you know it's reached that level of dialogue. The question is, what do they have to say about it? It may surprise you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back. We have possible presidential contenders for 2016 weighing in on the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. For more on what Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul had to say, let's get right to senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar.