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@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Civil Rights Groups Address Chokehold Case; Mayor De Blasio Addresses Chokehold Case; Is Justice System Divided By Race?; Civil Rights Orgs Respond to Garner's Death

Aired December 4, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Hello everyone. I'm John Berman.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN HOST: And I'm Michaela Pereira. Thanks for joining us.

We are about to hear from civil rights leaders addressing the lack of an indictment against a white NYPD officer for an unarmed black man's death back in July. We're going to bring you to that news conference live when it happens.

BERMAN: So the decision that Officer Pantaleo should not be charged for the chokehold he put on Eric Garner as Eric Garner did not comply with their attempts to arrest them has prompted protests, it has the Justice Department now promising an investigation, and New York's mayor is promising, in his words, to make things right.

Bill De Blasio was saying, quote, "Issues surrounding policing and civil rights are not just an issue for people of color. They're not just a problem for young people, and they're not just problem for people who get stopped by police. They're a problem for all Americans who care about justice."

PEREIRA: Our Jason Carroll is in New York. Jason, I'm glad you could join us. You're down in Times Square, the scene of many protests last night.

Are you expecting or are you hearing word that we'll see more protesting today?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The protesters are saying that they are not going to give up on this, that they're going to continue to protest

Even before the grand jury decision when I was out here on Monday, a number of protesters has started south down about 40 blocks at Union Square, had marched here, up to Times Square.

When they got here, they made it very clear that whether it be for Eric Garner or Michael Brown that these protests will continue.

BERMAN: Jason, what's the status of the police investigation into the officer now? I understand they say it will intensify this investigation. CARROLL: That's correct. Now that the grand jury has completed its

investigation, they will move forward with their internal investigation to try and determine whether or not this officer violated policy.

What they could end up doing is interviewing more officers, holding their own trial, if you will, of sorts. Ultimately what it will come down to is the police commissioner of New York City, William Bratton. He will be the one that will ultimately decide what, if any, punishment this officer could face.

PEREIRA: Meanwhile we know that Mayor De Blasio here in New York has written a letter regarding the Eric Garner decision. He takes it very personally. He has a son that is by racial, his wife is African- American.

Any more about what he's saying in terms of plans to improve some of the relations between police and the community in the city here?

CARROLL: As you know, the mayor is also going to be meeting with the police commissioner. They're going to be going out there to one of the police training centers and talk about the need for retraining of officers.

William Bratton made it very clear even as early as July, right after this incident happened with Eric Garner, about the need for improvement in terms of training.

The mayor also made it very clear about the community effort and about trying to do more to reach out to the community. I think one of the things that impressed a lot of people here in the city that I heard was, right after the grand jury had reached its decision, the mayor came out and spoke from the heart, saying that black lives matter.

And as you know, we have heard that time and time again from protesters out here on the streets. So look for more community policing. Look for retraining of all of the officers here in New York City as well.

PEREIRA: Jason Carroll, we appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Garner's widow, meanwhile, says she's struggling to understand and can't believe, frankly, the grand jury's decision, that her husband's death will not be in vain.

Esaw Garner also questions the prosecutor's sincerity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ESAW GARNER, ERIC GARNER'S WIDOW: It's not fair. What do they not see? How could they possibly not indict? I felt hopeless. I felt like there was not another corner to turn, like there was nothing left for me to fight for.

From the beginning I had no faith in Staten Island prosecuting anybody from Staten Island. I just didn't have any type of encouragement. I felt no remorse

I felt no compassion, no anything from Staten Island besides the people on Staten Island. As far as the police and the d.a., there was no sincerity in his eyes from day one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: People from Staten Island and beyond came out in droves, protesters in Times Square chanting, "I can't breathe," one of the last phrases Eric Garner uttered before he died.

They also revived a simple but powerful slogan that took hold in Ferguson, "Black lives matter."

BERMAN: Mayor Bill De Blasio, whose wife is black and whose children are biracial, echoed that same sentiment after the grand jury's decision was announced.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK CITY: They've said black lives matter. And they said it because it had to be said.

It's a phrase that should never have to be said. It should be self- evident. But our history sadly requires us to say that black lives matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What a difference in terms of empathy in New York City and what we saw in Ferguson. That's an aside.

Joining us now to talk more about this, Michael Skolnik, editor-in- chief of GlobalGrind.com, and Joe Hicks, vice president of Community Advocates, Inc.

And, Michael, black lives matter. I find it to be such a compelling mantra in some ways. You were on the streets last night, protesting, and I know you'll be out again, and I'm sure you'll be chanting, "Black lives matter."

Who needs to hear it, though? Because it's not just police. It's got to include the grand jurors who decided not to indict in this case. It's got to include the people in Pontiac, Michigan, who called and said there's a suspicious-looking guy with his hands in his pockets outside my door; I want police to come and take care of it. It's got to be heard around the country.

MICHAEL SKOLNIK, POLITICAL DIRECTOR FOR RUSSELL SIMMONS: I want to give credit to Mayor De Blasio for mentioning it during the speech. I thought his leadership in the past 24 hours has been tremendous.

I think allowing the protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights. The three women who created the hash tag "blacklivesmatter" need credit. It's not just the police officers. It's all of us in this country who have to come to the realization that we have two different justice systems, one for white people like me, and one for black people, which oftentimes they find injustices when they try to get justice for their loved once.

We have to fight not just for them, not just for us, but what color skin you have. We have a motto, liberty and justice for all. Not just those who have money or those of a skin color. We have to march against it.

PEREIRA: Joe, we've had you on to talk about so many aspects of this and other stories sadly of late. This notion, I think there's so much frustration about this very point that Michael makes, there seems to be this bifurcated justice system, one for whites, one for blacks.

JOE HICKS, VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNITY ADVOCATES, INC.: I don't agree to that at all.

PEREIRA: You don't?

HICKS: I'm really disappointed that we have a mayor in New York who buys into this mantra of black lives don't matter. Where are the voices saying black lives don't matter?

We don't even know the details yet -- there's been no information released from this grand jury indicating why they reached the conclusion they did about not bringing an en indictment. Yet you have people in the street saying that somehow they know, their feeling that this was unfair.

Let's wait and get the facts. Let's find out why. Everybody has seen the video. It's horrendous to watch. We don't know, in fact, how that was judged, what the levels were that this grand jury was looking at in terms of whether they would indict or not indict this police officer, but this notion that black lives don't matter is a new racial mythology in this country.

More whites than blacks, almost twice as many whites were killed in interactions with police last year alone. So this notion you have white cops out looking for blacks, that there's open season on blacks in this country is ludicrous.

BERMAN: Joe, you're creating a spin --

HICKS: It does no good service to our race relations in the country.

BERMAN: I think that's a bit of a straw man. I don't think anybody is saying this is open season.

HICKS: We've heard that constantly, John.

BERMAN: Do you think that justice in America at this point in policing is color blind?

HICKS: Justice deals with what gets brought to us. Justice is a case -- the cases that get brought, they get adjudicated, judged by judges and juries or in some cases grand juries. There's no doubt that the vast majority of crime in this country based on conditions in urban America are often issues of black perpetrators that get caught up in the justice system.

Now, is there a racist justice system? Is this 1930 in America? Is that really what we're talking about? I think we need to really think about the kind of narrative we're spinning out here about justice in America and pretending as if it's 1930's south.

SKOLNIK: Joe, if I can add, speaking of 1930s, '40s and '50s, the killers of Emmett Till were indicted. Think about that for a minute. The killers of Emmett Till in a racist South were indicted.

We saw a videotape of a man being choked out by a police officer who was supposed to protect and serve us. We watched it. Michael Brown, we didn't get to see the death. We watched the death of this man in Staten Island.

And no one can tell us that, yes, it's not illegal to choke someone, but it's against police procedure to choke someone. How do you not have, at least negligent homicide? Forget murder one or murder two.

HCKS: But again, you're not waiting to hear what, in fact, those grand jury members were looking at.

Are you really going to tell us that the killing of Emmett Till, the horrendous killing of Emmett Till by racists and bigots, is what we're looking at in terms in terms of these police officers involved in trying to arrest a man?

Now, I've got to tell you, you and I are probably in agreement. Trying to arrest some guy for selling "loosies" on the street? All the kinds of things that cops should try and direct themselves to, and you've got the taxation so onerous in New York that you've got people buying these loose cigarettes?

BERMAN: That's not an unimportant area --

HICKS: There shouldn't have been that kind of interaction with those police officers around something that petty.

BERMAN: That only happens with black people in this country.

HICKS: That's what the laws are in the city. That's a very deplorable situation.

SKOLNIK: If you look, Joe, at stop and frisk under the Bloomberg administration, 91 percent of people stopped, like he was stopped for the cigarettes, were black and brown. That is exactly where the injustice lies.

We know that drug use in this country between whites and blacks is equal. Crime is equal. But they stop black people and they harass them at least the unfortunate death of this men.

PEREIRA: Michael and Joe, we could continue on. Final point, Joe. Go ahead.

HICKS: Those laws need to be changed. I'd like to see people marching in the street there moving to try to get those laws changed. You and I agree on that. That's ridiculous.

To try to argue that automatically because of a jury and all those officers were white and the suspect in that case was black, automatically transfers to the case of racism. That's not what we should be talking about.

Let's get the facts, find out why the grand jury did what it did and said what it said. We'll hopefully know that. I think there's been movement to get that hfgs released. It should so we know.

PEREIRA: Let's hopefully get that information. We don't know if that information that the grand jury was given will be given to the public.

Michael Skolnik, Joe Hicks, thanks for the passionate conversation. We appreciate it.

BERMAN: It's a great discussion. And there's more areas of agreement here than we realized at first. And I think that's a little bit different than what we saw a week ago.

Ahead at this hour, we'll talk more about this, are there two justice systems, one for whites, one for blacks. Does the grand jury system as a whole need to be rethought when it comes to cases involving police officers?

We'll speak to our legal analysts ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: @THISHOUR, leading civil rights organizations are holding a press conference in Harlem reacting to the non-indictment of the officer in the Eric Garner death. We're going to listen now to the President of the National Urban League, that's President Marc Morial.

MARC MORIAL, NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE PRESIDENT: -- approximately 25 civil rights and social justice organizations met this morning here at the House of Justice. We met with a number of us in the room, with many, many others who were on the phone, and we met today because of the urgency of the moment. And the urgency of the moment is a reawakening about the cause of justice in this nation. The urgency of the moment is underscored -- underscored, certainly by the untimely, unfortunate killing of Eric Garner by a New York police officer and the travesty of justice by the Staten Island grand jury not to hold that officer accountable.

This reawakening is underscored by the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the decision, again, by a state grand jury which refused to indict Officer Darren Wilson. That reawakening is further underscored by the case of Marlene Pinnock, a 51-year-old grandmother and great grandmother in Los Angeles, California, who was brutally beaten by California highway patrolmen. It is further underscored by the tragedy of the killing of a 12-year-old boy, Tamir Rice, in Cleveland, Ohio, by Cleveland police officers, and further underscored by the killing Of Akai Gurley in this very city by, once again, a New York police officer.

All of these incidents, when taken together, do not describe or encapsulate the sum of the concern, the sum of the outrage, the sum of the reawakening that you're seeing all across America today. They are just -- but those incidents that are visible, that have been carried and covered in the news, which bring into question, one, the relationship between law enforcement and communities, particularly communities of color. And once again, in the case of Eric Garner, in the case of Michael Brown, the abject absolute failure of the criminal justice system to exercise the ability and the wherewithal to hold those who offend justice accountable.

So we gather here today, not only to discuss, but to plan. So we announce today, collectively, a call to action for the year of 2015 to be a year dedicated to justice and jobs. And collectively, we commit that our actions and our efforts to promote the cause of justice, to push for criminal justice reform, to change the landscape in the relationship between police and communities across the nation, will not end but will begin refreshed, anew, with vigor, enthusiasm and power today. This year, which is going to be a commitment to both justice and jobs, underscores the idea that across this nation today, young and old, black, white, Latino and Asian, people who love the nation and are committed to its principles are outraged at what we see, and we cannot stand and we cannot sit and we refuse to watch and we're committed to action that will bring about meaningful change.

Towards that end, there are two steps in the immediate. No. 1, and Reverend Sharpton will talk about this in a moment, No. 1 is a major march to take place in Washington, D.C. Around jobs and justice next wreak. Second, we will convene a major civil rights and social justice leadership summit at the beginning of 2015 to build a coalition of the willing and the determined, to build a coalition from people across this nation who are committed to forceful change through peaceful and constructive methods. This is a time in this nation, this is a moment where our consciousness is shocked. And I might add, yesterday's decision by the Staten Island grand jury defied common sense.

One can engage in lots of discussions about the law and discretion and standards, but the plain eyes of the world got an opportunity to see that interaction. And now a man, a father of six, is dead. A wife is without a husband, children are without a father, a mother is without a son, and it hurts and it is painful. We stand with that family, as we will stand with the family of Michael Brown, and the families of all of these victims. So 2015 is going to be a year of action. No doubt that what we're announcing today, the march, along with the summit, are but two first steps, two first steps on this important move to bring about meaningful and substantial change in this great nation. So let me introduce one of our conveners today -

PEREIRA: All right, we're just hearing from the President of the National Urban League, President Marc Morial, announcing several things. There's been a meeting of the leading civil rights organizations today in Harlem. And they're working on a plan -- a plan of action, he's been talking about, announcing a call to action for 2015, a year, as he said, dedicated to jobs and to justice. A two-step plan they have in the works.

Apparently next week in D.C., there will be a major march that's being planned as we speak. Also, a second part of that -- the second part of the two steps he announced, a civil rights and justice summit. That, apparently, will start at the beginning of the year. He says a coalition of the willing will be there to participate. He talked about this push for reform, the need to address police accountability and to discuss misconduct and excessive force.

BERMAN: It's interesting, the title of the march next week, he said, is a march for jobs and justice. You know, 51 years ago, the March On Washington was the march for jobs and freedom. And I'm sure that it's not a coincidence that they have decided to name that next week. We also just got some news in here to CNN. A Staten Island judge is expected to rule today on whether to release portions of the evidence that were presented to the grand jury in the case of Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who put that chokehold on Eric Garner. We'll find out today if the judge will release some of the evidence, and perhaps some of the testimony that was provided to that grand jury there. You know, it was the district attorney who asked the judge to release that. A little unusual.

PEREIRA: And we know that in Ferguson that information was released and was sort of viewed as an unusual move.

All right, many people are asking now, and it's a conversation we had, a very heated one last hour, or a few minutes ago, rather. And we want to continue it here. Is our justice system broken? Let's talk about it with our legal team.

Our analysts today are Mel Robbins and Paul Callan. And Mel, I want you the pick up off of this conversation that we sort of started a little bit earlier. There are people in our nation that feel, that yeah, there are two systems. There's one for white people, there's one for African-Americans and other minorities. What are your thoughts on that?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I actually would say it differently. I would say there are two systems. There's one for you and I, and there's another one for police officers. And I have tremendous respect for Mr. Callan, he's been in and out of grand juries for a lot of his practice. And one of the things that I'm coming to feel very strongly is that the grand jury is not the proper tool to be investigating police shootings. And one of the reasons why is, first of all, there's no transparency.

Secondly, when you particularly have a local prosecutor's office, it's problematic for a local prosecutor to be investigating cases against police officers that they work with. It would be like me having to investigate Paul for something. That would be absurd. I would never want to have to do something like that. Third, as we've seen over and over and over again, the grand jury, which Paul wrote an incredible article on CNN.com about the constitutional background, they were originally put in place to protect us from overzealous prosecutors. But what's happened in the case of police, is that they've stood in the way and they've been obstacles to overzealous police actually having to face prosecution, Michaela.

BERMAN: So Paul, what of that? You've been on both sides here, in essence, in the grand jury, you've been a prosecutor presenting evidence, you've also been a defense attorney representing, although not in the room, defendants who could be charged. Is the system capable of being fair when police are involved in these incidents?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think it is capable of being fair. But Mel raises a very interesting and legitimate point. You know, can we tinker with the system and make it better? And I think one of the things that is disturbing is this idea of local prosecutors really investigating local police. Now, New York has dealt with this on a case-by-case basis periodically, and they appoint special prosecutors. We had a special prosecutor for police corruption back -- years ago when Serpico was exposing police corruption. We had one in the nursing homes area, and the ideal was that you'd have a prosecutor who's a specialist in this area, he doesn't have an ongoing relationship with the police. So you could do it that way.

In terms of elimination of the grand jury completely, I think it would be a mistake because this institution, which has been around for an awfully long time, if it reflects the community demographically - and by the way, I was looking at the numbers that I've seen on this Staten Island grand jury. Staten Island, most conservative, pro-police borough in New York City, a lot of cops live in Staten Island, and predominantly white. However, only 10 percent African-American population there. This grand jury, 20 percent of the grand jurors, were African-Americans. Nine of them were described as non-white, which would put your non-white number as 39 percent of that grand jury. So it's hard to criticize whether that demographically represented the community or not. Now, that's not to say they made the right decision. Even demographically diverse grand juries can make wrong decisions.

PEREIRA: Mel, I want to ask you a quick point real quick here, if you don't mind. I know it's pivoting a little bit, but one of the things that I think a lot of people post-Ferguson, when they were looking at the upcoming Eric Garner case, they thought, okay, at least we have the video, right? And we also know the president has called for multimillions of dollars to put cameras on police officers around the country. Yet, the cameras didn't necessary help in this situation. I'm just curious to your thoughts on all that.

ROBBINS: Well, you know, I was a huge proponent when I first heard about the Michael Brown law, and now I'm not so sure it will help. Here is the thing, everyone keeps focusing on race, this is really, in my mind, the Eric Garner case, is about police and excessive force. If that was a big 6'6" white guy and the same thing went down, and he was basically choked to death on camera for all of us to watch, everybody in this nation would be horrified that the police were not indicted for killing somebody in that kind of just misdemeanor, ridiculous kind of crime that they were surrounding him on.

I think the major problem that I have is that Paul, as a prosecutor, was in the grand jury presenting cases, asking for indictments. In the case of the police, the prosecutor is doing the same thing.