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CNN NEWSROOM

Police Clash with Protesters for Fourth Night; CNN Obtains Shooting Dispatch Recordings

Aired August 14, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: NEWSROOM starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to a special edition of NEWSROOM. We start this morning with breaking news.

Internet activist group Anonymous has released the name of the officer it claimed shot Michael Brown. Now CNN is not reporting the name until we're able to independently confirm the identity of the officer who fired those shots.

In the meantime protesters taken to the streets for a fourth straight night, objecting to what they call the unprovoked shooting of 18-year- old Michael Brown by this unnamed police officer at least so far.

This is what it looked like last night. You can see what appears to be relatively peaceful crowds with police officers about a block away but the town changes in a heartbeat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A city block and a half. They are now firing onto the crowd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Officers launched tear gas canisters and possibly rubber bullets into the crowd. We're going to play more of this amazing tape for you in just a few minutes but first some other developments that we're following this morning.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon is headed to Ferguson today. In a statement Nixon called the situation, quote, "deeply troubling," and asked law enforcement to respect the rights of residents and the press.

It has been a rough reception for several media outlets in the last few hours. This is an Al Jazeera news crew. You can see a tear gas canister erupting right in front of them forcing them to run.

Just a short time later this happened. These are police officers taking down their lights and pointing their cameras toward the ground. A couple of print journalists didn't have it any easier either. You're going to see video from one of two reporters, one from "The Washington Post" and another one from "The Huffington Post." They were both taken into police custody last night -- excuse me -- after they were informed they were trespassing at a local McDonald's. They were both released after about 45 minutes, no charges filed.

Also a new eyewitness coming forward telling CNN about the moment Michael Brown was shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIFFANY MITCHELL, WITNESSED SHOOTING: When his body jerked, he turns around facing the cop and he put his hands in the air and that's when the cop continued to come up on him and shoot him and so he fell down to the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I want to bring in CNN's Ana Cabrera now.

Ana, you're in Ferguson. We've seen four nights of protests now. Things seem to be -- they seem to be spiraling out of control. What are you seeing?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly things are not getting any better up here in Ferguson, Missouri, Carol. The emotions still very high. They've continued to boil over. You mentioned 18 people were arrested overnight, two police officers reportedly injured.

I just talked to a man who walked out of the jail, an alderman here in the St. Louis area and he talked a little bit about what led up to the unrest last night. We'll hear from him in a minute, but first, I want to walk you through exactly what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA (voice-over): Overnight, Ferguson erupted, perhaps the most chaotic protest the police response yet. Angry crowds throwing bottles at law enforcement and police firing tear gas and flash bangs to disperse them.

A TV news crew on the scene runs for cover after a tear gas canister lands directly in front of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There it goes. They're firing on to the crowd. Ouch. (EXPLETIVE DELETED). They are firing rubber bullets.

CABRERA: Dramatic video shot by a reporter on the ground captures utter chaos. Police advance on the protesters, sending them running in fear. As officers fire rubber bullets and smoke grenades in this residential neighborhood.

At least 18 arrested overnight including two journalists, detained while police attempted to clear out a local McDonald's. The altercation caught on camera.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go, let's go. We don't have time to ask questions. Let's go.

CABRERA: This as new cell phone video from just after Brown was killed captures the heartbreaking moment when a man, believed to be Brown's uncle, rushes to his lifeless body and is immediately pushed away by police.

The witness who captured this video says she also saw the shooting unfold telling CNN's Don Lemon exclusively the details of what she witnessed.

MITCHELL: What I saw was when the cop and Michael were like wrestling through the window. It looked as if Michael was pushing off and the cop was trying to pull him in. Then the cop shot -- fired through the window.

Michael breaks away and he starts running away from the officer. The officer gets out of his vehicle and pursues Michael as he is shooting his weapon. Michael jerks his body as if he was hit. Then he turns around, faces the officer, puts his hands up and the officer continues to shoot him until he goes down to the ground.

CABRERA: Another eyewitness describes how the officer repeatedly shot Brown who was unarmed.

MITCHELL: He was trying to get away from him. Why did he continue to shoot at him? I don't get that part at all. Why was he killed trying to get away from the officer?

PIAGET CRENSHAW, EYEWITNESS TO SHOOTING: And even when he turned around and put his arms in the air, he was still overkilled, shot multiple times.

CABRERA: Multiple witnesses tell a similar story while police maintain Brown assaulted the officer in his car and tried to take his weapon.

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: An officer involved shooting out of Ferguson, 2190 just said that they just had some more shots fired in the area.

CABRERA: The police chief now says the officer suffered injuries to his face during the altercation and was taken to a local hospital.

CHIEF THOMAS JACKSON, FERGUSON POLICE DEPARTMENT: He is very shaken about what happened that day and the after aftermath.

CABRERA: Earlier Wednesday, police had asked that all protests be held during the daytime. But Wednesday night's protests continued as scheduled. Police responded with force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There it goes. They're firing on to the crowd. Ouch.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Again, I just spoke with Alderman Antonio French. He is from St. Louis. He has been on the scene night after night, recording what's happening out there on the ground. These protests where we continue to see these clashes with police. He tells me and insists that what happened last night was unprovoked by the protesters. He says that police were the first to use force, that they fired the tear gas and some of those flash bang rounds upon nightfall, around 9:00 he said, just because the protesters refused to move.

But he says the protesters were peaceful up until that point and then responded to that police action. He says he was arrested from his car because he was shooting video and wasn't, quote, "listening" to police officers.

So this is some of the reason as we hear these different accounts. I'm sure police will tell us a different -- a different story and we're continuing to ask them questions about what they say happened, but he's saying these are reasons why there are these two sides that can't seem to meet somewhere in the middle, and he says until there is a better open dialogue, more communication, this situation could continue to escalate -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Ana Cabrera, I'll let you get back to your work. We'll bring you back in the next hour of NEWSROOM. Thanks so much.

Of course the big question this morning, was this massive police presence necessary or did it just enflame an already tense situation.

Take a look at the scene again from last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is goes, they are now firing onto the crowd. Ouch. (EXPLETIVE DELETED). They are firing rubber bullets. (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't do it. Drop it down.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Stop throwing stuff at them. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got the same roman candles. (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will continue to record this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got News Channel 4 running there. They're attacking reporters. They are attacking civilians. They are firing upon the media. They are continuing to advance down the street.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: Did you hear him? He said, "They are attacking civilians." The situation in Ferguson being compared by at least one blog site to Iraq. Check out today's front page of "The Huffington Post."

I want to bring in our panel this morning. Lieutenant General Russell Honore is going to be here shortly, but with us now HLN law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks and HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson.

Welcome to you both.

MIKE BROOKS, HLN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Thanks, Carol, good morning.

Thank you, Carol. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Mike, I want to start with you. Was this level of police response necessary?

BROOKS: Well, it depends on again who threw -- was there rocks being thrown? They said there were rocks and Molotov cocktails. I didn't personally in all the video I've seen coming in to CNN see any Molotov cocktails. It was otherwise if -- if there were being thrown rocks and bottles and Molotov cocktails then they had to respond in kind. But they have to make sure that they have a good command and control incident commander there on the scene.

We heard Chief Tom Jackson from Ferguson Police Department yesterday during a presser say that each night there is an incident commander there, but you've got a number of different law enforcement agencies there, but ultimately it comes back on Chief Jackson.

If I were he, if I were Chief Jackson this morning I would begin to gather all of my incident commanders and saying look, folks, you need to use common sense. If you're not being fired upon, do not fire tear gas, do not use flash grenades do, not use triple chasers, all these kind of things if there is no civil disobedience.

COSTELLO: But, Joey, the police seem to not be in total control of the situation. Look what Anonymous just did. They released the name of the police officer they say was the officer that shot Michael Brown. The police are refusing to do that but now they've lost control of the situation.

JACKSON: Well, you know, the problem, Carol, is that people certainly have the right to peacefully protest and obviously the tensions are enflamed and there's a feeling of gross injustice that occurred. Now I understand that the facts are developing. We don't know them all but some of the witnesses that have come forward it is troubling and it is disturbing in terms of the police conduct.

And so if people are out there and they are voicing their concerns. We're a country that's founded upon the First Amendment, that's founded upon freedoms, that's founded upon people expressing their views and if they can do that in a peaceful way I'm not sure that I see the necessity for tear gas and rubber bullets or anything else. In the event that people, limited people are protesting in a way that

is negative, and it's going away from the general peace, the police need to isolate those people and perhaps respond to them as opposed to firing upon the crowd in general.

(CROSSTALK)

BROOKS: And Carol, also --

COSTELLO: And Mike, and arresting reporters who were sitting at McDonald's, taking notes for their stories?

BROOKS: No, no. That was totally -- I watched that over and over and over again. You know, my question is, look, I was with the D.C. Police Department, probably worked more demonstrations both violent and non-violent than most police departments in the country, and when I look at this, I'm saying to myself, OK, was there a danger inside that McDonald's? Was there a bomb threat? Was the McDonald's open for business? Yes.

But why did the police come in and ask them to leave? It's up to the manager, the general manager of that establishment to ask them to leave, and you know, and then you heard one of the reporters say that he was handcuffed for 15 minutes standing outside. So where was the danger?

I want to know what department these officers were from and if an officer -- if I ask an officer what is your name and badge number, that officer better give it to me.

COSTELLO: That's right, and the reporters aren't getting that information.

BROOKS: No, they're not.

COSTELLO: In fact, we're getting very little information from the police. I want to continue this conversation.

BROOKS: Sure.

COSTELLO: So Mike and Joey, stay with me.

In the midst of all of this violence another key question remains, what exactly happened that day? Slowly more witnesses are coming forward. The latest, Tiffany Mitchell, who saw what unfolded between that officer and Michael Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITCHELL: I saw the officer pulling him in and I saw him trying to pull away. I went on my phone to try to get a video of it because it just didn't look like -- like I didn't know exactly what was going on but I know didn't look right for somebody to be wrestling through the police window.

But I didn't get the video because a shot was fired through the window so I tried to get out of the way and so I pulled onto the side. The kid finally gets away and he starts running. As he runs, the police get out of his vehicle and he follows behind him shooting and the kid body jerked as if he was hit from behind, and he turned around and he puts his hands up like this, and the cop continued to fire until he just dropped down so the ground, and his face just smacks the concrete.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, so if Tiffany's account is true, Mike Brooks, is it proper protocol to chase down and shoot a man if he's running away in a neighborhood?

BROOKS: Unless that officer for some reason thought that his life was in danger, but again, if he thought, he didn't see a weapon and I tell you, listening to Tiffany Mitchell, we've heard a lot of witness accounts so far, this -- I'm looking at her, I'm looking at her body language, this -- she is extremely credible and believable to me, Carol, so you know, again we don't know the whole story. But we're starting to peel the layers back on this onion to find out what really happened.

COSTELLO: Check, one, two, three, so I know you're still there.

All right, Mike Brooks' shot has gone down. We're going to try get him back up. Let's go to Joey Jackson and ask you the question.

We also know that police officers are human beings and if you think your life is in danger and you fire off one shot, your adrenalin is going and maybe you do shoot multiple times. I don't know.

JACKSON: It's not an excuse. Not an excuse at all. I've been on the prosecutor side, Carol, where I was a prosecutor in Manhattan. I've been on the defense side. Police of course are human beings, we respect them, we trust them and we think that they are there to protect and to serve. And for the most part they really do but this conduct, if as explained by this witnesses, is inexcusable.

First of all, Carol, lethal force is the final alternative, the last alternative, not the first option.

Second, Carol, the proportional threat, the force you use has to be proportionate to the threat posed. If you're in a defensive position as a person breaking away, attempting to go, where is the threat? Where is the eminent danger to your life, such that you have to take somebody else's? And so, finally, if it there is eminent danger, where is it, explain how? And in the event that there is no eminent danger at all, why are you shooting your gun?

So, again, the facts will continue to unfold, but as these witnesses point them out, Carol, it certainly does not look that this was justified at this point from what we know.

COSTELLO: All right. Joey Jackson, Mike Brooks, stick around.

We have much more in THE NEWSROOM still to come. CNN obtains police dispatch recording from the very day Michael Brown

was shot.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're just getting information from the news and we just called Ferguson back again and they don't know anything about it. So --

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COSTELLO: We're going to break down the rest of that call, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Pleas for calm continue in Ferguson, Missouri, this morning, as we all search for answers. CNN has obtained the first police dispatch in St. Louis County where Ferguson is located from the day of the shooting.

Let me explain to you what you're about to hear. While this is happening on Saturday, county police dispatchers talked with police officers on the scene. You're about to hear the dispatcher talking. You cannot hear the police officers asking the questions.

There are hours and hours of this conversation. We edited it all down for to you illustrate the chaos that day.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DISPATCH: Ferguson is asking for assistance with crowd control -- asking for an officer to respond. Can I send one?'

DISPATCH: There's just a large group. The original call was just a large (INAUDIBLE) had just occurred now. They have a large group gathering there. She doesn't know anything further.'

DISPATCH: Just got another call stating that there is an officer involved shooting at Canfield and Coppercreek, I don't know who called it in. It was called into my desk.

DISPATCH: We're just getting information from the news and we just called Ferguson back again and they don't know anything about it. So --

DISPATCH: If you can go and expedite, this is in reference to an officer involved shooting out of Ferguson and I believe 2190 just said that they just had some more shots fired in the area.

DISPATCH: OK, 2190, in reference to the k-9, we're getting information that Ferguson is supposed to have their k-9 and he's supposed to be on scene. You still want to request one of ours.]

DISPATCH: Ninety, I have two more cars from your precinct going.

DISPATCH: You can start up there for now until we get TAC or somebody going, he said the crowd is starting to get bad.

DISPATCH: We still have cars from other precincts expediting our there. So let me know if you still need that to go on

DISPATCH: Any cars on the shooting call, any cars on the shooting call, can switch over to "Riot A", Riot A -- Adam, for further.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Let's bring back in HLN law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks, HLN legal analyst and defense attorney Joey Jackson, and retired Army General Russel Honore.

Welcome, General. Welcome to all of you.

RUSSEL HONORE, RETIRED ARMY GENERAL: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So, Michael, I want to again start with you.

This audio gives a taste of what was happening that day. It seems disorganized to me. Was it?

MIKE BROOKS, HLN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You know, it does. We're not hearing the dispatcher from Ferguson police. We're hearing the St. Louis County, but usually St. Louis County will also monitor other small departments within their county to see what's going on.

But for the dispatcher from St. Louis County to say that Ferguson is unaware of what's going on, it does sound very confusing, but then it sounds like they start to get their act together, because they start asking for mutual aid assistance, and that's when she had everybody switch over to that mutual aid frequency what, they call Riot A Adam channel, so everyone can communicate from the responding departments to assist Ferguson.

COSTELLO: General Honore, I want to ask you about the police presence, because I remember when you took the National Guard to New Orleans and they got things calmed down, lickety-split. When you see police firing rubber bullets and firing tear gas canisters into people's homes, is that the right way to handle things?

HONORE: Well, it looked like it may have escalated the situation. I mean, people starting to think non-lethal weapons are non-lethal, they are not. They have a traumatic effect on people. I mean, over years, I went to that training, had a lot of experience with it in South Korea, some experience in the United States and getting the police to put their guns down as you remember from Katrina.

But I think they went non-lethal quick. You're in trouble when your SWAT team is on the front line of dealing with a civil disturbance. They are starting to treat the citizens like the enemy. They should be there to protect the people but when you put SWAT up front, they have a specific mission that they're trained for.

I've seen this done successfully in the past where you have your front line policemen on the front, until people start throwing things, then you have your riot control squads in the back. The tactics they are using I don't know where they learned them from. It appeared they may be making them up on the way, but this is escalating the situation, and the use of non-lethal weapons you can escalate the situation as we've seen in the last two nights.

JACKSON: Carol, when you --

COSTELLO: Wait, hold on, I want to ask General Honore this question, because I went to New Orleans when you were there, general and one of your guys pointed a gun at the crowd and you yelled at him, "Do not point your weapon. Put it down!"

I was impressed by that, and kind of taken aback at the same time.

HONORE: Yes, any time we have policemen pointing weapons at American citizens, they need to go through retraining, and I think we are about 24 hours too late that the governor should have stood in here and brought in the state police and pulled that police force off the line.

They are going to have a hard time reestablishing credibility to protect and serve on those streets after this type of infraction has occurred. That is why the governor I think should come in with the state police, not National Guard, state police.

JACKSON: Here, here.

HONORE: And take this situation over and get the politics to work, because politics fail and PR has failed, and police tactics is failing.

COSTELLO: Well, that's another thing, Mike Brooks. Why aren't police holding two press conferences a day, just to tell people, you know, we're investigating, we're on your side, here's what we're doing? But they're not doing that. I don't understand.

BROOKS: No, I saw one yesterday and that was about all by Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson.

We're talking about -- General Honore is talking about the tactics of police there. The state police are there and the problem is, in this area I was with a large metropolitan police department in Washington, D.C., we had officers specifically trained to handle things like that, and we also had our emergency response team which I was a member of which was our SWAT team. When you get small departments like this, that don't have the resources and don't have the officers who were trained to be on the front lines of a civil disturbance type unit, you get your tactical units in there and that's what they're trained to do so they're playing a dual role which sometimes is not the best.

COSTELLO: Joe -- go ahead.

JACKSON: It runs deeper than that. It's seemingly a major disconnect between the community and the police, and the fact is that there's distrust that we see that's not there. There are tensions already high that are being escalated. I get the fact you have to maintain crowd control, Carol, but if the

crowd is posing no danger, and if the crowd is voicing frustration and the crowd is peacefully assembled, exercising their right under the First Amendment to express their disclosure, what's the issue? What's the need for tear gas? What's the need for rubber bullets? What's the need to escalate and hide in something that is already explosive?

And so, I think the tactic needs to be reexamined. And to your initial point, Carol, I think everyone needs to be informed. Speak to the public. This is what we're doing, we're repairing relations, we're healing the community, we're looking into this situation. We're getting answers as opposed to attacking and fighting with the public.

What is that doing but making matters worse?

BROOKS: And, Carol, that's why I'm glad that the U.S. Department of Justice, their community relations service are there on the ground. As basically as observers to see what's going on with law enforcement and to make suggestions on how to make it better.

So I hope that they are in every meeting every day with all the command and control supervisors and chiefs there on the ground to say okay, folks, here's what we got, because you've got those folks out there, it was created for situations like this, and I've seen them have great success in other cities where there have been civil disobedience.

COSTELLO: All right. Joey Jackson, Mike Brooks, General Russel Honore, thanks to all of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, still to come in THE NEWSROOM: amid outrage and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, questions are growing about the state's governor and his response so far. We'll talk to an attorney who says the governor has been missing in action.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)