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Police Video Captures Traffic Stop Beating; Representative Jerry Nadler Joins Dems Boycott Of Inauguration; Report: House Dems Leave Friday Russia Meeting With Comey Furious. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired January 16, 2017 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00] ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, he also told people not to take -- not to underestimate the incoming president who ran an unconventional campaign and unconventional transition but clearly was successful.
Now the president will hold his last press conference here on Wednesday, that's also the day that CNN airs its special on the last days of the Obama White House and then on Friday the president and first lady will greet the Trumps here in the morning before preparing to hand over the keys, so to speak -- Poppy.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Athena, thank you very much live for us in Washington.
Coming up for us here, a black doctoral student pulled over, tackled and beaten by police suspected of being a car thief, but the car was his car. Details straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Police in Evanston, Illinois, have released pretty disturbing dash cam video showing the moment of that black doctoral student from North Western University was tackled to the ground. Police say they thought he had stolen the car that he was driving but that car was his. Police released 40 minutes of video and audio related to the arrest. Listen to just a small clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: Hands up. On the ground. On the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: Get on the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: Turn around. Turn around. Turn around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm cooperating. I'm cooperating.
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: Stop resisting. Stop resisting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, you are on video. FYI.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my vehicle, sir. I have evidence. UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: When we tell you to get down, you have to get down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. I understand.
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why am I being put in handcuffs.
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: We have to verify the car is not stolen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Lawrence Crosby, the civil engineering student, seen in that encounter from October 2015 is suing the city and four police officers for excessive use of force and false arrest. Crosby is seeking damages in excess of $50,000. Police are not commenting on the case because of the lawsuit.
[06:35:08]I want to discuss now with CNN political commentator, "BET News" host, and Morehouse college professor, Mark Lamont Hill, and CNN law enforcement analyst and retired NYPD detective, Harry Houck.
Marc Lamont Hill, let me start with you. First of all, that video that we saw, I said 40 minutes that was presented by the police force, it was an edited video that they put out there. Just to know where it's coming from. But your reaction when you see it.
MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Happy Martin Luther King Day, by the way. I was not surprised. It has happened to me before. I've been stopped for stealing my own car multiple times, detained and handcuffed. It actually happened to me about a month ago actually. It's really interesting.
BERMAN: Really?
HILL: Yes, absolutely. It's a longer story than I can get to now but it happens. It didn't end like that, I didn't get tackled or anything like that. My point is that this is a very common story that happens with black people.
The fact he was a doctoral student, I hate we have to add that to the conversation, even if he was a garbage man, even he was a janitor, even if he was a secretary, that still shouldn't happen.
I don't think it's not unreasonable for police to stop that they get a report of a stolen car, but once he is on the ground and they are hitting him saying stop resisting, which is another thing that happens a lot.
People get hit, they say stop resisting even if they are not actually resisting. That to me seemed troublesome. I don't know if it was a false arrest, but it certainly seemed like excessive force.
BERMAN: Harry, you know, I saw him with his arms up outside his car. How is that resisting arrest? HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: That's not resisting arrest. Let's go back here. They get a 911 call that there's a possible stolen car.
BERMAN: And they saw this man -- I guess with a crowbar or piece of metal trying to fix his roof at night. Anyone with a crowbar on the roof of his car at night --
HOUCK: It definitely looks kind of bad. They pull the guy over. The first mistake this guy made was getting out of his car, the minute someone gets out of his car like that when they pulled over, the police officers are thinking, OK, what's this guy up to. He had keys in his left hand, another bad move. All right. He was then told to get on the ground he did not get on the ground. Police officers went and put him down on the ground.
BERMAN: Put him down. They tackled him.
HOUCK: Right.
BERMAN: At least four guys tackled him.
HOUCK: Exactly. He was told to go down on the ground. He did not go on the ground, maybe he didn't go down on the ground fast enough.
BERMAN: Says who?
HOUCK: Listen, it's the police officers lives that are in danger here.
BERMAN: How are they in danger --
HOUCK: Do you know how many police officers have been killed in the line of duty in a car stop? Hundreds, maybe each thousands. It's a very dangerous situation. He had something in his hands. Now, when they went and they tackled him and brought him down he resisted arrest.
Now, that "Washington Post" article that I read regarding this says that the officers beat him. There is no signs of a beating here. That is a take down. That department has a rule that whenever you make a stop and you have a potential criminal, he is to go down on the ground.
BERMAN: What was threatening about the way he looked outside the car with his hands in the air, Harry?
HOUCK: What was threatening?
BERMAN: What was threatening? He's getting out of the car right now.
HOUCK: Right.
BERMAN: His arms are up.
HOUCK: What's in his left hand? BERMAN: Does it look threatening?
HOUCK: Yes, this is threatening. You are not supposed to have anything in your hand. Did you ever see the key that opens up to a knife? I've seen t police officers have been injured because of that. You don't get -- you don't get out of a car. I mean, I know we are all sitting here so concerned about this man --
HILL: That officer in the red vest is the one who is beating him, by the way, the one swinging.
HOUCK: That is not a beating. He is punching him to make him submit. That's all that's going on right here.
HILL: What's the difference between beating and punching? I'm not an insider. I'm going -- what's the difference?
HOUCK: What are his injuries?
HILL: No, I'm asking --
HOUCK: What are his injuries?
HILL: I don't know.
HOUCK: He has no injuries. He has no injuries. The man was not beat. Something like this to try to get you to submit to put your hands behind your back is fine but that is not a beating.
HILL: May I respond to some of the points? May I respond to some of the points you've made?
BERMAN: Let Mark talk.
HILL: OK. A few things. One, he wasn't instructed to stay in the car, right, so it's not that uncommon for someone who isn't familiar with getting arrested to jump out of a car. Also having the keys in your left hand I don't know if you meant versus your right hand, I'm not sure whether a person knows what hand to have their keys. I'm left-handed so it's very likely that I would have my keys in my left hand.
HOUCK: That's got nothing to do with it.
HILL: I'm just saying so part of it is people not being familiar with it, but his hands were clearly up and there was nothing aggressive about his move. I agree police have to make decisions in a split second about whether people are being dangerous but I don't think a reasonable cop would have looked at that video and said that this man is threatening us.
Finally when you see that guy doing this, if we make a distinction between beating and punching, sure, he was being punched repeatedly, which is different than saying all we did was take him down.
BERMAN: Let's listen to the 911 call because it's interesting to know what was in the minds of the officers when they went to stop this guy, Harry, because you're right --
HOUCK: But remember, John, they don't hear the 911 call, all they're hearing is dispatch, what dispatch gives them.
BERMAN: And dispatch told them there was information about a stolen call. This is what the 911 call was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DISPATCHER: What did the guy look like?
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: He was African-American with a black hood. I don't want to be racial profiling. I feel bad.
DISPATCHER: Did you see him jimmy the door open or do anything?
[06:40:08]UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: He had a bar in his hand and it look like he was jimmying the door open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Again, you can be white, you can be black, you can be any race if you're jimmying a car door open at night that looks odd. It was interesting to me that the caller was very aware, though, of what she was saying. She didn't want anyone to think she was calling just because the man was black.
HOUCK: Yes, but, I mean, you have to question the caller here. The fact is the police officers knew nothing about that phone call except the fact that they got a call that somebody tried to break into a car and probably stole a car. That's what they were going on.
They don't get a chance to hear that 911 call until after if they get the investigation. There's nothing here indicating that there's anything racial about this at all. These were police officers who were trying to protect themselves, all right, following their procedures and their department procedures.
BERMAN: But I think they changed their procedures now.
HOUCK: They changed it. They don't have to go down on the ground anymore. OK, that's fine, but those officers followed their procedure.
HILL: So I think that becomes the critical issue, I don't disagree with you, I don't think the officers said, hey, let's go tackle a black guy or falsely arrest a black guy. However, I think what happens is when you see a black guy going into his car people do a double take, studies show this if you believe in science.
Police officers often are more aggressive with black suspects than white suspects. They're often read as more guilty than their white counterparts. So again, I don't think the cops had a racist intent.
HOUCK: I don't agree with that at all.
HILL: No, I'm only basing what scientific studies show, but I mean, I get it, you don't have to believe in that (inaudible).
HOUCK: I don't think scientific studies actually show that, it's not really true.
HILL: I'll give you an example. Philip (inaudible) has a study out of Stanford that looks at black males versus their white counterparts and it shows cops read black people as older than their white counterparts and more guilty than their white counterparts. So for example --
HOUCK: Did he take a poll?
HILL: No, he did a scientific randomized study.
HOUCK: He thinks this.
HILL: He did a randomized study.
HOUCK: You can't just think this because --
HILL: Are you hearing what I'm saying?
HOUCK: I understand.
HILL: No, you don't. You think he took a poll then you don't understand. He did a study of actual police officers, real people with real science and real studies.
HOUCK: I don't buy it.
HILL: You don't buy science.
HOUCK: I don't buy that.
HILL: Have you read it? Have you seen it? But what basis do you not buy this?
HOUCK: I do not buy that.
HILL: Because why?
HOUCK: Because I have experience out on the street. How much time has that guy been out on the street?
HILL: Actually he is hired by police forces in Cleveland, San Francisco and L.A.
HOUCK: That does not mean anything.
HILL: To follow police on the street and watch their arrests and stops.
HOUCK: That does not mean anything.
HILL: You just said he had no time on the street. I'm showing you that he did. HOUCK: I've got 40 hours a week for 25 years. I'm sorry.
HILL: Of your own experience.
HOUCK: Mine and the experience of others.
BERMAN: All right, guys.
HILL: Anecdotes are better than data, I agree.
BERMAN: I will say this, I will say this, you know, this case does raise questions, they did change the procedures as you said, Harry, going forward and it is worthy of a discussion. Marc Lamont Hill, Harry Houck, thanks --
HILL: This has been awesome.
BERMAN: All right, guys, thanks so much -- Poppy.
HARLOW: All right, that's exactly why we're having this debate. You guys will be both be back. Thank you very much.
Up next, we will switch gears. We have "Bleacher Report," two teams a step closer to the Super Bowl. They can thank their kickers for that. The clutch kick that have the Packers and the Steelers moving on.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:46:45]
HARLOW: This is about football so Berman should be telling this story. No touchdown, no problem for the Pittsburgh Steelers as they advance to the AFC championship game, but a late penalty call has one Chiefs player upset. Coy Wire has more on this morning's "Bleacher Report." Good morning.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Ms. Poppy. Steelers kicker Chris Boswell set an NFL post-season record with six field goals in this game. It took (inaudible) 170 yards for the Steelers to get the win but they did. But what an ending, Chiefs need to go for two from the two to tie it and they get it.
Alex Smith to Demetrius Harris but a holding penalty on Eric Fisher trying to block James Harrison they have to go for it again, they move the ball back ten yards, this time from the 12-yard line the attempt is no good, incomplete.
After the game Chiefs team captain, Travis Kelsey, said that he felt the official should have never made that penalty call on his teammate saying, quote, "He should have even be able to work at foot locker," end quote.
Dallas and Green Bay, they went down to the wire, Cowboys kicker, Dan Bailey from 52-yards out ties the game at 31, nails it. One problem, they left 35 seconds on the clock for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. This is a third and 20. Aaron Rodgers on the run, a flick of the wrist, look at this, Jared Cook with the incredible catch to put the Packers with a 51-yard attempt for Mason Crosby and he nails it. He sends the Pack to the NFC championship game. That will do it.
Packers are red hot. They have won eight straight and only four teams remain. The Packers will head to Atlanta to take on the Falcons in the NFC championship game and the Steelers will go to Foxboro to take on the Patriots where they are 16-3 at home in playoff games under one Tom Brady.
BERMAN: Pittsburgh will need to score a touchdown to win that game. Let's see if they can do that. Coy Wire, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers vowing to boycott the inauguration after Donald Trump's feud with a civil rights icon. Will there be more members to say they won't go. We will speak to a Democratic congressman who is weighing his options. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:52:28]
HARLOW: Welcome back to your NEW DAY. More than two dozen Democratic congressmen and women are boycotting Donald Trump's inauguration. The protest the -- they're protesting many of them the president elect's feud with civil rights leader, Congressman John Lewis. Others say it's because of his conflicts of interest and history of inflammatory comments. How many more will join?
Democratic Congressman Nadler is with us. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee. Thank you for being here.
REPRESENTATIVE JERRY NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Pleasure.
HARLOW: So have you made up your mind? Will you go to the inauguration on Friday?
NADLER: I will not go to the inauguration on Friday. I cannot go because of the president elect's inflammatory comments, his racist campaign, his conflicts of interest, refusal to disclose his taxes and the last straw was his personal attacks on an icon of the civil rights movement, someone who suffered beatings and almost gave his life for this country, John Lewis.
HARLOW: Of course, those attacks came after John Lewis said he does not believe the president is a legitimate president, something that many people, Republicans and Democrats including John Lewis, were up in arms over when the president elect did that to President Obama.
NADLER: Well, that's right. They're entitled to be upset at what John Lewis says if they want to be. They are entitled to agree with him as I do and the president-elect is entitled to respond.
HARLOW: You agree with John Lewis on what point? NADLER: That the president-elect although legally elected is not legitimate for all the reasons I said.
HARLOW: We have to dive into that. Why do you not believe that the president-elect is not a legitimate president? Because as you know the intelligence community has not said that the Russian hacking in any way swayed the election.
NADLER: Well, they've said that they wouldn't look at that question. That that's beyond their purview.
HARLOW: They actually said -- and they said that the intent of the Russian government which hacked was to favor Donald Trump, but they have not said that he won because of that.
NADLER: That's right. And they also said that it is not in their purview to look at the question of whether he won because of that.
HARLOW: So where do we go from here? I think John Berman asked an important question at the beginning of this show and that is what does this do to benefit America? Donald Trump by Hillary Clinton and the sitting President Barack Obama has been called legitimate, they will both be there on Friday.
What does it do for the American people for members of Congress including yourself to say he is not legitimate? What do American people at home do with that?
NADLER: All they can do is bear it in mind and see if they agree with it or not. But I didn't say he was not legal, he was legally elected but the Russian weighing in to the election, the Russian attempt to hack the election and frankly, the FBI's weighing in on the election I think makes his election illegitimate. But he is the president and he will be legal.
[06:55:09]HARLOW: All right, so as you know, in 2009 when Mitch McConnell said we are going to make Barack Obama a one-term president, that's going to be our goal, that was very detrimental the fact that the two sides couldn't get along for the past eight years. So now are you saying that you and other Democrats will not work with this president?
NADLER: No, I'm not saying that at all. We will work with him when he agree with him. We will oppose him when he don't agree with him.
HARLOW: Where do you agree with him?
NADLER: We will see what he proposes.
HARLOW: Is there anything that he has proposed that you agree with him.
NADLER: Well, if he has a good infrastructure program I'll agree with him on that. We don't know how it's going to be financed. That we'll see. HARLOW: All right, let's talk about your conversation with FBI Director James Comey. Contentious, probably an understatement to the Friday meeting, which I know was classified so there's some things you can't say, but what can you tell us? Because we do know that you confronted him.
NADLER: Well, I can say that I asked him the question that I've asked him publicly. Let me just say I regard what he did not only in sending those letters in October as way beyond the pale, but back in July and that's when I said he should have been fired in July for characterizing what she did.
He said her concededly, admittedly legal conduct he said was legal was wrong because and as the head policeman in the country he has no business giving his opinion of her or anybody's legal conduct.
HARLOW: You want him to say whether or not the bureau is doing an investigation over whether there was contact between the Trump campaign and Russia.
NADLER: That's right.
HARLOW: Did you ask him that?
NADLER: I've asked him that on a number of occasions and he refuses to answer that and appointed out that that refusal to answer that is inconsistent with his commenting on the ongoing investigation of Hillary Clinton back in the summer.
HARLOW: Let's listen to what he said in September.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: Our standard is we do not confirm or deny the existence of investigations, there's an exception for that when there is a need for the public to be reassured when it's apparent given our activities, public activities, that the investigation is ongoing, but our overwhelming rule is we do not comment except in certain exceptional circumstances.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Your argument is this is an exceptional circumstance.
NADLER: My argument is this is an exceptional circumstance. I want to make one thing clear, I said that he should have been fired last summer and he should have been. At this point, he shouldn't be fired because if he were fired now and President Trump got to appoint a replacement it would be seen, rightly or wrongly, as an attempt to quash any investigation of the president and the Russians that he may be doing. So at this point, he should not be fired. He should have been last July.
HARLOW: Congressman, I appreciate you joining us. Final thoughts on your message to the American people because I think if we hear more and more Democrats saying that Donald Trump is not legitimate what's that going to mean for the American public?
NADLER: It means that we're simply observing what his conduct is showing every day and that there's two major questions about the legitimacy but not the legality of the election. No one is questioning he is the president, the election was legal --
HARLOW: Isn't that semantics?
NADLER: No, I don't think it's semantics at all. I don't think it's semantics at all. We're not questioning the legality, we are not saying he is not the president or can act as president. We are saying that the election had real problems brought on by the Russians and brought on by the FBI.
HARLOW: Congressman, I appreciate you being here. Thank you.
NADLER: Thank you.
HARLOW: All right, we have a lot of news to get to. Thank you to our international viewers for watching. "CNN NEWSROOM" begins for you in just a moment. To our viewers in the United States, NEW DAY continues right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: Donald Trump has every right to defend himself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think he has a full and appreciation of Russian capabilities.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: It's a disgrace. That information that was false and fake got released to the public.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is more than being about him. It's about the United States and our national security.
REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), GEORGIA: I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians that helped him get elected.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're responsible to question the legitimacy of the next United States president.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: House Democrats announced that they are not going to be attending the inauguration.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: You just cannot throw 20 million people off of health insurance.
BERMAN: Donald Trump says his Obamacare replacement plan is nearly complete.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R--WI), HOUSE SPEAKER: We want to advance repealing this law with its replacement at the same time.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It says I'm John Berman but I'm Poppy Harlow and this is John Berman. It's 7 a.m. on a holiday Monday.
BERMAN: That's a good catch there. That would have been embarrassing.
HARLOW: Good morning. Alisyn and Chris are off today. President- elect Donald Trump slamming outgoing CIA Director John Brennan after he said Trump does not fully understand Russia and warned him to watch his tongue. Now the president elect suggesting the CIA director may be the leaker of that unsubstantiated dossier.
