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tv   CNNI Simulcast  CNN  August 19, 2014 10:00pm-11:01pm PDT

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ending peacefully, and then this happened. >> and this has been the constant frustration for the peaceful protesters, these small groups of agitators, and the police trying to extract them from the peaceful protesters? >> exactly. this is the problem, in fact, just now, they pushed through us, the media, to get to somebody that for whatever reason they were targeting, and now they pushed a bunch of us aside and brought this man to the ground. there's a large number of police in riot gear out. i have to say the majority of the protesters went away, it's just a handful left out here, they were mixed in with the media, and probably more members of the media than protesters at this point when the bottles started flying. >> stay tuned. we want to welcome our viewers from the u.s. and around the world as you watch pictures
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out of ferguson, missouri, the first clash of the evening, it's been ten days of demonstrations since an unarmed teen was killed. stephanie elam is on the ground and can bring us up to date on what's happening. >> just to let you know, the reason we're broadcasting to you in the dark, is because the police could not see with our light on, we're here, but it was -- it got very tense when people stopped walking in a circle and a water bottle was thrown and that let go of all the tension we felt out here. people started running, we started seeing military people, like this van almost coming down the street this way, more water bottles were thrown, more people started running back this way, and now we're in the middle of it, there's people around us now trying to go between the police
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as you can see, are lined up behind us, there are dogs out here as well, people have their gas masks on. you can see i'm holding mine, because we don't know how far this is going to go right now, the tension just broke right now as we are standing out here looking from both sides, there's one person who was just yelling behind me, turn the camera off. because this does not represent us. there are people walking by me crying because this moment just happened. they were saying they wanted a completely peaceful demonstration and they saw the energy broke right now, and so they're upset that this has happened, that there was this element here that really wanted to have some sort of confrontation. i've seen people out here just regular civilians running around between the police and the protesters just saying stop, we're not going to have this tonight. we're not doing this tonight. as you can see they're lining up right now, saying stop, we're not doing this. they're holding hands saying, this interface between the
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police and protesters has got to stop, they're putting they're foot down. these are regular civilians doing this, this is not anyone else but people saying, enough is enough, we're not going to have this big melee as we've seen here in the nights previously. the police are completely lined up on the street right now, and it's -- people just standing here within the media penned area that we were told to stand earlier this afternoon, and we're still standing here right now, but so is everyone else. we're all mingled in together, tensions are running very high at this point. >> stephanie, it's rosemary here, you were walking when it was daylight, you were walking there with very peaceful protests, there were children in the crowds, people were saying to you we've seized back control, we don't want to see this happen, we want to go back to our homes so we're not on the streets at night. talk to us about some of their frustrations about losing control to this small group of
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agitators. >> right, you know, the folks i spoke to earlier in the day, and you know what, i do feel like there may be an age playing into this too. middle aged folks, folks in their 30s. a lot of them saying, let's just keep this peaceful. let's get a message across and keep this peaceful. and they were telling me they planned to leave by sundown. they left out of here early, they didn't want this to get worse. at the same time, there are people out here who were peacefully protesting, and you can see the number is getting smaller and smaller. but it just kept getting bigger. this tension, you can feel it, it started to ball up, you can feel there's a certain number. even the way they were standing, i went down there to look. there were people standing at the parking lot, the police officer is standing in the line looking back at them, and in this area over here where we're standing, you could feel the tension it was about to pop. there are people that are frustrated about how this has
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gone down, and they didn't want to see this happen, and yet again right around midnight, here we have this happening again, rosemary? >> we can see you just about, and we've got an aerial shot of the street as well, where it appears that some locals are trying to be this buffer that we talked about between police and the remaining protesters. can you tell what they're trying to orchestrate and who's left? the peaceful protesters leave by nightfall, it's now midnight there, who's left? >> well, there's definitely a ton of media, but there's a lot of other people too. there's media from all over the world here, and you can see that there are -- there's still some young people out here, but they don't seem to be standing here as much as they were before. it seems to have calmed down a little bit. it does seem to feel like the civilians who stood between the police behind me here and up here where the protesters were, the young folks, that that move
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actually did make a difference, it does seem to calm things down right here, i can see down here, i can't show it to you, there's too many people in the way, there are still some civilians standing in the street between the police officers as well. so -- >> we've got a separate shot of that, stephanie, they appear to be linking arms, raising their hands in the air. we've got another shot of that, if we can cross to it, now will be a good time, perhaps we don't. >> i can see that from where i am as well, the way that they're standing there, people are moving in this general direction to see what's going on. the helicopters shedding light on the situation as well. people are trying to get closer to see what is happening. the tension that was standing right here where we are, people are walking again, they're not running right here. so it's calmed down a bit on this side. the police officers are definitely not taking any chances and they remain completely lined up here and they've blocked off the street even closer, i'm walking down to
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take a look. they've blocked off the street even closer with another row of police officers and more military type vehicles that are in the street behind these police officers here, there are also more police cars and vans on the streets. they were ready and in position, in case anything happened. but i don't see anything else flying, i don't see any more water bottles going, there's an effort here by regular folks still to keep things cam amor, to calm things down. >> on the left, the police certainly are in force, they've got their batons, some are holding weapons, they have their riot gear on, their helmets, we're seeing these demonstrators trying to get in between police and the remaining protesters, a smaller group left now than earlier. certainly as we've witnessed over the past ten days this could kick off at any moment. >> i should also mention too that there is one officer that's walking down, who had what
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looked like a shotgun. and people were yelling at him to put that down. when things first erupted, they were yelling at him to put that down. i saw an effort to paint the picture on both sides of the street here, to try to control what was happening and not let it go completely out of control. one final note i wanted to share with you right now. >> people on both sides of the equation here want to see calm and peace. stephanie joining us there, we're going to leave you for a moment, steph. let's go to steve kastenbaum who initially reported to us here on cnn, this scuffle, the running of some of the agitators if you like, what have you seen now from your vantage point? >> on the other side of the parking lot from stephanie, seeing what the commotion is here, there are a few dozen protesters left in the whole area, if that, and they seem to be outnumbered by community
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members to be honest. they -- the people who have been self-policing the crowd, but the problem is, for police, they're mixed in in the media area, where all the media is as well. he has a sort of stand-off situation again. and let's recap what happened here, this started earlier in -- not earlier, just about an hour or so ago. the marchers that sort of dwindled and people were hanging out in the parking lots, the businesses along the main drag here in ferguson, and the crowds were starting to grow in the parking lot. so the police felt that the lines, people in the lines were growing too large, they started to push people out of the parking lot. before they told people they had to keep moving, they put on their helmets and took up their shields. the moments the police put on their helmets before they cleared the parking lot, that completely elevated the tension levels here, all throughout the
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night, the police were being cordial as they told people they had to keep moving on. the second they put on their helmets and started pushing the crowd out of the parking lot, people saw that as an aggressive move and it elevated the tension level between the protesters and police. still, the protesters were restrained, the ones who are here who are out, not agitators did not act out. and communities members held them at bay. most of the protesters subsequently went home. a small number stayed. there was a prayer circle going on for a while, but then there were a remaining number of protesters here that refute -- they felt they have a right to be here with a curfew. at some point one plastic water bottle blew out of the crowd, just one, and it changed the whole dynamic here. the police rushed into the crowd. presumably to go after whoever threw the bottle. people started running, 100 yards away, they caught up with
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somebody, had him down on the ground and an arrest was being affected. that's when it got extremely chaotic, the protesters and the media and the community members were all mixed in together. just all in the direction -- riot police, it became very chaotic mess, really, no other word to describe it. more bottles started flying through the air, we heard some glass shatter as well, and there were some very aggressive police officers mixed in with the crowd as well. i saw some automatic weapons drawn on people, automatic rifles put up in the aggressive stance pointing at people as the police were standing out there and mixing in with the protesters, and i saw some police officers that one or two of them scared me, i have to be honest. the aggressive stance that they were taking, and the things they were taking, but this -- we have a long row of police officers here now in their riot gear,
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standing opposite what is mostly media, right now. >> we can see the shot there steve, we have a couple vantage points and your eyewitness account is important, because it essentially justifies what a lot of analysts from the military and police forces have been saying, when the police show up with such force, with the helmets on, ready to go, hands on their weapons, weapons pointed toward protesters, that in and of itself, can add to already high intentions, this is a story that's people feeling the police are heavy handed in their treatment of black men, black people in this part of the united states, a sentiment shared all around the country. and it also seems to underscore that some protesters remain. i'm concerned about what's going to happen next, as we watched these last few days, the police will stand there for a short amount of time, and eventually, they're going to clear out that street. >> i don't know how they would clear this out without clearing
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all of the immediate yo out here as well. they're completely mixed in with us, the few remaining protesters. >> steve, they did that to you yesterday? >> they did, they pushed us all out. i don't see how they can do this without some show of force, as they push us out. yesterday they were doing it verbally, and they were being -- making themselves clear in no uncertain terms. but today it could go a little beyond that, i don't know, they're looking in -- the community members are mixed in with us, they're trying to tell the few remaining protesters that are defy and, the agitators in the crowd, they're talking to them, there's little negotiations i would characterize them as. taking place in the crowd here, community members are trying to tell people to just go home.
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some of the police are stepping up, moving down their lines a little bit. i would say that this is a little worrying to me, there are police surrounding us on three sides. it concerns me that they're doing this, but i -- i don't want to project anything. it concerns me i'm seeing them sort of encircle us. >> stay safe as long as you can. no curfew in place, but this is following ten days of clashes between police, the national guard is there now, and peaceful protesters who the captain said had been infiltrated by violent elements from other states, trying to spoil things, as we watch these live pictures. if history is any example, we expect the police will do their best to clear the area, clear the street and prevent the kind of looting and violence we've seen over the last few days. >> this is such a contrast, just
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a few hours ago, before the sun went down, we saw the police much more relaxed and as a resu result, the protesters relaxed. now that the sun has gone down, things get tense on both sides. as soon as you have police there with their helmets on, gearing up and pointing guns at people you're going to get this reaction, and the bottle that stirred all this up. >> a single plastic bottle. >> i guess from the perspective of the police, they don't know what's in that bottle. and so the bottle gets thrown at them, they react. we don't really know -- it's hard to get an idea. steve, are you still with us? >> let's listen in, we're hearing the police make an announcement now. it sounds as if the police saying, if you're not with the media -- >> credentialed media need to go to the designated area.
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if you don't you will be subject to arrest. >> 24 hours ago the same thing happened. we had a live location, and the police approached live on air and said you need to move now, this is no longer safe. move from where you are now or go to the designated area. the police are ready shoulder to shoulder, batons in hand. >> if they don't go, the threat of arrest. >> they're also aware the world is watching. this is being watched around the world, in the united states, you have so many media outlets lined up on their streets. there may be more journalists than protesters there. stephanie elam, we can see you there, stephanie, what's happening, what's being said? >> i was just listening right now to our marching orders, they're saying for right now, the media can stand right here, what is concerning, and my photojournalist can show you right now, there are police officers who have now lined up on the other side of us here,
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all the way through the parking lot where they had us set up, and they are now about to sweep through here it looks like. the idea to get the people who are not part of media, who are standing up here, to get them out of here it sounds like. they're telling me to move here, but eventually they want us to leave all together, the media. >> they're getting ready to crackdown essentially. >> yeah. yeah. >> you can see a police officer next to you, is that a police officer there, can he bring us up to speed on what's happening? >> that's what i was listening to when you were coming to me, whey just told you is what he just told us. they want us to move away from the storage area, this parking lot where we are. now officers are moving in right now, into the parking lot and they're doing arrests it looks like here. more people are going to go see what is happening here, they
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told media to stay back, stay in our location here because of the fact that they're doing these arrests, they just moved in very quickly. it wasn't a ton of police officers, but it was a quick moving tight knit group that just moved in. people moving to see what's going on. i'm staying back here so i can see from this vantage point of what's happening here. >> we just saw an arrest -- >> we just saw an arrest there. >> yeah, i see now they have somebody else. just taking them out, i can see him in a white t-shirt, everything they do here, they're backing out, these officers are backing out from where they just went in, did this tactical arrest. they're backing out of it. nothing they do is without being seen. there's so many cameras out here right now. not just the media, but from the community. they keep telling the media to stay back to our location so they can do what they need to do.
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>> stephanie, we're watching this from a number of camera angles and vantage points, stand by as long as you can, steve katsenbaum also along the street in another location. where are you, what are you seeing? >> the tactical arrest team has moved into the crowd. the protesters have been mixed into the media here, they told the credentialed media huddle together essentially. and we saw the tactical arrests come through the crowd, take down some people and pull them out. they're trying to go through this crowd of dozens and dozens and dozens of journalists and trying to pinpoint the people who aren't credentialed media as they keep saying and pulling them out. so it's -- again, another chaot chaotic, uncontrolled situation,
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really. it seems to just explode in a second when one water bottle, one water bottle flew out of the crowd and it totally changed the flavor here on the street. >> one thing i just saw there steve. the police have police dogs with them, is that new? >> yeah, we had not seen the police dogs out here the last couple days. it's the first time we've seen the police dogs. i still see a few members of -- a few protesters, a few agitators here, behind us, you know, still mixed in here with us. but we're looking at a line of -- the militarized looking police units still out there, it looks like they're heading south now down the avenue in -- i don't know if there's a target down there they're looking for or what.
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we've heard it over and over and over again about how the response needs to be disorganized or confused and that's what we have here again. a chaotic confused response to what was going on, and again, let's recap this, this all started when police started clearing out the parking lot in front of the businesses on the main drag here in ferguson. they -- the marchers have been going around in circles for hours, little by little people stopped marching and were congregating in the parking lot. at some point i guess the police felt there were too many people out there, and they wanted to clear people away from the private property. when they did that, they put on their helmets, they had their shields at the ready and that just changed the dynamic immediately. the second they went for the helmets, it changed it, elevated the tension levels, people reacted in a defensive way and
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more loudly, some of the folks in the crowd became aggressive as they were being cleared out of the parking lot. what was amazing about that, the local community members got between the police and the people that are being cleared out of the parking lot, and kept the peace. they kept the peace, everybody went to the sidewalk, a huge majority of people walked away, went home, and there was a small number of protesters still out here. there's a small number. we're told now we have to go up to the target shopping center where the command center is. we're being told we have to leave. >> you're talking about these numbers, can you gauge how many protesters you're talking about here? >> we are right now, i'm seeing guys scattered around, some hiding behind press vehicles, trying to keep a low profile behind us, using the media as cover, quite frankly. no surprise that the police are telling us to move out of here and go to the command center, so they can weed out the few remaining protesters, we're
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talking about an extremely small number compared to what's been out here. i'd be surprised if it was even in the dozens at this point. i see a few gentleman here and there with bandannas or t-shirts covering their mouths, those are the ones they're obviously looking for. it started with the throwing of one water bottle, and then it became much more elevated when the police tried forming their lines. i saw some very -- a handful of police officers who were clearly nervous, because they found themselves surrounded by the entire crowd of protesters and taking a very aggressive stance with their rifles, the semiautomatic weapons. they were saying things that troubled me, in a very threatening manner, aimed toward the protesters, this is a small handful of police officers that -- i really need to stress that, i'm talking about a very small number of police officers that are saying these things.
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nonetheless, it was quite troubling to see that. it looked like the situation is diffusing, they're telling the media we need to get out of here, we're going to have to get to our cars and move up to the command center, there still are some protesters here and there mixed in with people. >> if you're just joining us, you're watching a developing situation in ferguson, missouri. very fluid, could go in any direction at this point as we watch after 10 days of demonstrations and clashes with police. the local police force there showing up in force, but appearing to take a very targeted approach in removing individuals from the remaining protesters which our correspondents are telling us is a small group. they are being told they have to move to a staging area, and you're watching live pictures now as police and possibly the national guard in full riot gear are face to face with a few remaining protesters as they try
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to remove them from the street, it's now just approaching 12:30 at night late in missouri, tensions are high, and all of this centering around the killing of an unarmed teen. >> what we've seen in the last hour or so, before that, it was calm, and what's triggered this has been the throwing of a bottle to the police. they're on edge and they have reacted in this way. we're seeing this small number of protesters, an effort to sort of move them out. we've seen this change in police strategy, yesterday we're looking at police using tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades, incredible extreme use on the mass there. now they are doing this targeting effort. >> we haven't seen any of that so far. >> and that has possibly helped diffuse the situation all in all across the board, and why we've seen this more peaceful
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situation. now -- we're losing those pictures obviously, we have our -- our journalists have to move out of the area. >> the police have tried to -- steve was saying earlier, they appeared to encircle this area from all sides, slowly and gradually, they moved in, another thing he's seen tonight which we've not seen before, police dogs, certainly with more media there than protesters, officials will be careful of the optics of this, with any -- they don't want any kind of repeat of the 1960s civil rights era, when african-americans simply demonstrating peacefully for their rights had dogs sicked on them, so the police certainly wanting to show restraint. you're watching live pictures here from the streets of ferguson, missouri. as this individual walks backwards. >> our rights only exist over here, that's what they say. we don't have rights over there, we don't have rights over there. >> speaking to the point that in the united states every citizen has a right to freedom of
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speech, freedom to assemble, and that's really the core of the residents of ferguson, missouri, they have their rights, they want their rights protected in order to do this. they thought their rights are being violated by the treatment of police, this is a community that is 76% black, but the police force is 94% white. that's why you've seen the state police, the national guard come in to help with security. eric holder heading there tomorrow, to check in on the status of the fbi investigation into the shooting of michael brown. also, you have the grand jury, the state grand jury which may see evidence for the first time tomorrow, and, of course, the funeral for michael brown isn't until next week. his body going through some three autopsies, again because local don't trust the police, the family isn't trusting what any other entity is doing. let's listen in to what these
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remaining protesters are saying as they're being pushed off the street. >> why we leaving? why are we leaving? this is who we trust to lead us about -- >> let's go to steve who is able to join us. >> we're situated behind a line of police. they've managed to essentially go through our area and weed out the protesters or push them out, we sort of segregated ourselves as well. and then beyond the line of police that we're behind, approximately 200 yards further down the road is another line of police that is, i presume pushing out the remaining protesters. we're talking about a very small number of protesters that were mixed in together. so they're clearing the main drag through ferguson tonight is essentially what's going on right now, and doing a sweep,
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essentially is what's going on as they advance further down toward the southern end of the main business drag. >> steve, are you getting a sense that this is diffusing the situation? >> i don't mean to chuckle like that, but there's not much a situation left to diffuse. there's a huge number of police officers out here right now, the numbers are very large and the number of protesters extremely small, there isn't a lot of diffusing to do, but we do see at the other end, by the mcdonald's now, i can see some lights, which to me tells me that there may be some media down there, they look like camera lights. i also see police vehicles down there as well. and the riot police are down there, pushing out what little crowd remains. >> if you're just joining us, you're watching the developing situation in ferguson, missouri,
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where after 10 days of unrest, police appear to have diffused a very tense situation there in ferguson, about half an hour after water bottles were thrown toward police, and then they started to encircle the area and move in, no tear gas was deployed. >> yes. >> no rubber bullets as far as we can tell were fired. it seems as though a number of people were arrested but in a very targeted way. we've also not seen those s.w.a.t. teams move through, at this time yesterday we were dipping in and out of the crowd. steve telling us, no real situation to diffuse now, the only people left are the police, the media, and maybe a handful, a few dozen of protesters, the media being ushered to the staging area, and the cops standing shoulder to shoulder on that street, not bulging, also, the police dogs, something we've not seen before, all of this centered around the shooting of an unarmed teen.
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if you can still hear us, bring us up to speed on what you're seeing now. >> hold on. >> you know what free means? >> i'm not sure if the anchors were talking to me. >> yeah, tell us what you see now. are things still de-escalating. >> yeah, sorry, my apologies, i was talking with our newsdesk in between reports to let them know we're okay and our situation with our camera men. the majority of press have moved on to the command center. we, most of the cnn folks are still here with a number of other media members, we're situated behind a line of police spread out across the main business drag in ferguson, and about 200 yards or more, ahead of us, now, there's a line of riot police, more militarized police units continuing to push
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forward, and that can only presume that there remains some straglers ahead of them. i -- from this vantage point, do not see any evidence of clashes, i'm not seeing flash grenades going off, we're not seeing any smoke or feeling the effects of any sort of tear gas, we haven't heard those blasts that we hear, every time those canisters are fired off. that has not been the case tonight, no tear gas here on west parsons avenue. still, it doesn't change the fact that we had an extremely tense situation. it caught some police offguard. they were nervous as they were enveloped by this running crowd. it began hours ago, when police started clearing park lots. the protesters had been marching and doing so, in a circle for hours here. i can just imagine after doing
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that, people got tired and had had enough. they were just hanging out. police had been tolerant of that, letting people to gather in the parking lots. when the number started getting really large, someone gave the order to clear the parking lots. the officers that were sent to push people out put on their helmets and it immediately elevated the tension level. it looked like we were going to have a quiet night, and things changed dramatically, there were no confrontations. police kept their distance from the people in the parking lot. they kept a significant distance from them as they were telling them to move on. the community members got between the police and those demonstrators, it changed when someone threw a water bottle in the direction of the police. that sparked some officers to move into the crowd to try to
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arrest them. it caused other people to run. as we've seen here over the last couple nights, the second a bottle flies, the response is elevated dramatically. we began mixing in with police, the media, the community members who are policing this crowd tonight, and it became a chaotic mess out here, and it changed on a dime, this whole night, it was a peaceful night, subdued, it was quiet, and there were no -- there was no real tension any more. >> and steve, over the last few nights, you know, you talk about the police response here, the big debate across america has been the mill tarization of the police. what has been the chatter there on the streets about the police strategy on this day, because there is a marked difference in how police are responding today, compared to yesterday. >> and i think part of the
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reason there's a difference is because we're talking about a much smaller number of people who were left. we're really talking about dozens at this point. i think that's why we're not having a heavy handed response like we did in the previous night. nonetheless, there are a lot of people here who are very upset. they really get extremely angry and frustrated every time they see the police put on their helmets. and it's something that's been voiced over and over again here. we've talked about it on the air, we've had captain ron johnson of the state highway patrol troopers talking about that, he was asked about that with jake tapper yesterday. we had numerous analysts out here yesterday talking about this on our air. and -- i'm sorry, we have an officer -- we need to go back to
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the command post? we're going to have to come through your lines in order to get up there. yes, go through the side streets. okay, thank you, sir. we're being told we have to leave the area now, they're still clearing it out, the straglers, we're going to have to get into our vehicles and make our way to the command post at the target shopping mall, which has been the area you've seen a lot of our reporting coming from, and the news conferences taking place. >> steve, we'll let you get to where you need to be safely as we stay on these pictures of one of the remaining, possibly demonstrators, people spraying her with water, she may have fainted. she seems upset as -- you see the presence of journalists reiterating, or steve and stephanie said for us, as they report live for us, there are more journalists and locals, the size of the protest group is different compared to this time in previous nights, people listening to captain johnson's
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request, to please demonstrate during the day, keep it moving, keep it positive, and remove yourself from the evening, and community leaders in the morning. >> they're the ones who have been diffusing this, haven't they? putting themselves in danger, you could say standing between the protesters and the police, and joining hands and saying, no, we don't want the two sides to crossover here. >> no tear gas thrown, no rubber bullets, more peaceful than we've seen in nights before, could change at any moment, we're going to stay, keeping an eye on this footage coming out of ferguson, missouri, stay with us. we're going to take a short break and reconnect with our team on the ground after this. so i get invited to quite a few family gatherings. heck, i saved judith here a fortune
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welcome back. i'm errol barnett. >> i'm rosemary church. we want to go to ed lavandera
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joining us on the line from ferguson. give us an idea what you're seeing there? >> well, authorities here in ferguson where the protests and demonstrations have been going on for almost 10 days now, are starting to sweep through the area and trying to clear out the crowd. the vast majority of the flight everything was very calm, and then all of a sudden an intense melee broke out and authorities were just trying to clear a group of men, and started chasing them down the street. and it became very intense. we have not seen any deployment of tear gas. we spoke to several of the authorities who are dealing with -- some of the specific people they were trying to arrest, using cans -- it appeared to be pepper spray
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or -- in that kind of fashion, it was a much more targeted situation not the vast deployment of tear gas we've seen on some nights here, the police dressed in s.w.a.t. gear are moving up and down the street. once again, it was -- from what i saw, a group of agitators that were trying to take things top a very intense level here, when they were singled out and targeted, that's when the melee erupted here, very dangerous, authorities have set up a news media staging area where a lot of us have been able to kind of work from as we venture out into the neighborhood here, and the melee erupted and burst through our area, it was treacherous for several minutes in many ways. i was standing next to one cameraman who was attacked by
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one guy and had his camera ripped off his shoulder and thrown down to the ground. another person had a camera stolen as well. the melee kind of burst through the news media staging area. >> i want to bring you up to speed on what you're watching as we speak. we have a cameraman in the crowd giving us a pov of what it's like to be walking around. we see national guard troops, one of them with his firearm drawn, i want to stop and see if we can hear what's being said. [ shouting ] >> one person's being arrested the national guard troops, i'm counting five, maybe even six standing around the gentleman as
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he's being moved off, some of them moving backwards, as they remove this one individual. a large crowd, mostly media at 12:40 in the morning. i believe this is next to that fast food chain ed, if ed is still with us, that's been a flash point of the proset for the past week. what can you tell us about this area, if you can still hear me? >> yeah, that was the area where they made their way up to now is the area where some of the intense stand-offs had taken place last night. and that's where they're at. at this point, it's a small group we were speaking with many people here in ferguson who had come out, many brought their own children, it was interesting, about 9:00, 9:30 a lot of those people started clearing out, and there was -- a much different
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element that was left behind. we did see several within a short quick timespan, at least 7 or 8 people who were arrested. in fact two people arrested, thrown on top of my crew's rental car, that we've been driving here and we -- right in front of us as well. >> do you have an idea of overall how many people were arrested. we know in the end yesterday it was more than 70, we've seen a number of men taken away under arrest. do you have any overall figures or are they not releasing those at that point? >> none of that has been released. that number will probably change. in the middle of the night last night, they had said 31 people arrested, and the number jumped to 70 later in the day. obviously a very fluid
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situation. sporadically there were probably a couple people arrested during the earlier hours of the protests, those are people who have been getting arrested for failure to disburse. if you're demonstrating on this stretch of roadway, you have to keep walking, you can't just be standing around and loitering. >> while you're speaking, we've noted another individual seems to have been arrested possibly for failing to disburse, the reasons that so many people yesterday were arrested. we see a man now holding a water bottle, it looked like a bottle of milk. it does seem -- >> people know, often times, the milk, they're using targeted spraying of gas to subdue
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people, the milk is something that people pour on their face to clear that out of their eyes and off of their skin. >> as we watch things seem to calm down, let me ask you this, the tone is changing, you have the world watching, the governor is pay attention, barack obama, sending eric holder to be there tomorrow. i'm wondering if the fact that you have the big dogs in town tomorrow, there's going to be a lot of attention on the judicial side of this, if that's being factored into the cops decision to use as much restraint as possible to heed the examples of days ago, and target their removal of instigators as narrowly as possible. >> i think we've heard repeat repeatedly that that's one of the things they're dealinging with, they're fully aware of the criticism and tactics, fully aware of the criticism in some
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of the individualitier indications and the manner and style in which they're doing that, but it is interesting to see from night tonight you see slightly different tactics, and, you know, that's probably in response to some of that criticism, several nights we've seen a large deployment of tear gas canisters, we have not seen that tonight and we saw it in a much more targeted -- i guess, smaller more controlled fashion using the handheld gas devices that authorities have. >> give us a broad picture of what is happening on the ground. we've just seen a man just attack a member of the national guard there dprt looks of it. what are you seeing big picture here. >> the national guard is not in that area as far as i can tell, they have been mainly guarding
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the command post area, which is about a half mile away, and what we are seeing now, is the final attempts by officers to clear the area, they are sweeping through, up and down the streets forcing people to leave the area at this time. the news media staging area was basically cleared out after the play lay erupted through that area. now you're left with the smallest number of protesters, if you want to call them that at this point, i'm not even sure if that's -- >> yeah, ed -- we're seeing one man now trying to direct people on where to go, we have a cameraman walking through the crowd, i'm wondering if we can listen in and see what is being said. >> i'm trying to go home.
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>> listen. >> i want to go home. >> obviously difficult to hear, difficult to make any of that out. you see the police there out in force, and you get a sense as we show you these pov shots. i think our cameraman is changing battery, you get a sense of why police sometimes don't know the individual who may have thrown a molotov cocktail or set off a firework and why in previous nights they've had a hard time finding out those provocators and pulling them out of the crowd. you really don't know who is media, who may be protesting, and who has an axe to grind. >> and you have the community leaders trying to diffuse the
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situation as much as they can, it is difficult to know who is what in the crowd. it's dark. we have the community leaders, the protesters, media, police and an effort to calm things down, a real contrast to what we were seeing yesterday with the overreaching, the tear gas, the stun grenades, today this much more targeted effort to take the agitators from the crowd. people still walking around with the milk in case tear gas is released. at this point this is a different strategy we're seeing. >> we've also seen police with the police dogs we haven't seen that over the past few days, a strong show of force, we continue to walk around the crowd here, we see a lot of journalists. we heard what appear to be
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community leaders to coral people, let's see if we can listen. >> are we allowed to go through? >> let him back -- clear some room. clear some room. >> our cameraman able to get through that line of police officers, possibly to get to the staging area. or not, possibly in this shot, you're seeing who's left in ferguson, missouri, as it approaches 1:00 a.m. there, a very small crowd compared to what we've seen before. the state grand jury case gets underway tomorrow. you saw new video of the police officers behind. . darren wilson emerged yesterday, darren wilson a decorated officer, and well respected.
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everyone's waiting to figure out what happened that day, and hear the evidence. the criticism of police is that they haven't done it so far. >> let's go to stephanie, she's at the command center, can you hear us now? >> i can. >> talk to us about what is happening there. >> here at the command center, things are pretty calm. you have to show your i.d., not just the driver, but every single person in the car. getting out of where we were over there by the public storage where they had told all of the media to stage themselves earlier this afternoon, around 3:00 in the afternoon, we moved over there maybe around 4:00, and at that point while we -- when i last spoke to you on the air, the police officers swept through us in a row, because they were looking for any protesters or any troublemakers at this point who were out, and sweeping them out of the area.
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behind us there was another row of police officers also with military type vehicles as well. they swept through and pushed them up the street toward the mcdonalds. we came here so we could get back on the air and talk to you. it did get very tense over there for several minutes. we were watching people running back and forth. we couldn't tell which way it was going to go or how intense it was going to get. someone was standing out there in the street watching as everything was going on, watching these two different sides face each other, you could feel the tension building up, all it took was one water bottle to be thrown and everything complaining complaininged changed. did exploded in that one little minute, but quickly they were able to clear out a few blocks
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of the street where we were standing. >> we were watching your footage, when you see police officers run at that speed down the street it certainly would make you nervous and make you feel as if something's going to kick off. you see some of the peaceful demonstrators running just as fast. it gives you a sense as to why things were able to really kick off so quickly. we always wondered what triggered the police response, why did they deploy tear gas and become more robust with their response. each night things could really kick off at any moment. tonight it seems as though the situation has diffused, i did guess that those were national guard troops, we were corrected. those were the police officers in s.w.a.t. gear essentially. how's the mood? i guess you're far away from it. >> yeah, we're far enough removed, i can tell you while we were packing up all our gear, by
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the time we got to the end of that time we were packing up, it had definitely majorly calmed down, you looked around, there were just a few media trucks left at that time it changed very quickly and very fast, but that's i think what the goal was, with the police lining up the way they did, one line of police officers this way and another line this way, this line held it and this one pushed. everyone who was not media got pushed out. so much of the media here is nimble and wireless, they moved along with it, they were also looking to cover whatever was happening, there were cameras everywhere throughout the entire day showing footage, people from the protester side, filming the police officers to make sure they didn't do anything wrong. and then you have the media out here with all of our cameras, filming everything. it was very tense and after they
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came through, it calmed down a bit a lot of people running to get away from the scene, they could tell it changed from being a peaceful protest. >> how would you credit the local leaders in diffusing the situation tonight. >> hugely. there were people in black t-shirts that read peacekeepers. i saw them go up to people and say, we need you to clear out of this area, please, we don't want to have any issues here tonight and then there was the one big tension break, we saw the police officers lining up in the middle of the street, and in the parking lot there were protesters and some civilians that came into the street holding hands, linking arms saying we're not going to do this. the first water bottle was
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thrown, people were hiding behind our lights. we also saw people crying. i saw this one woman crying, we're better than this. another man yelling at me to turn off our cameras, this is not ferguson. people were very upset and they took it personally they were trying to have a peaceful demonstration and then it turned on a dime. they were hoping to change things. overall, it seemed they got out of it without it being too, too bad. i think the community leaders and by community leaders, i just mean people who live here, who care enough to interface and say, stop, this is not what we need to do, this is too much. >> stand by for us, stephanie. >> form a line between the police officers and say, stop it. i think that made a difference. >> they were the heroes of the day. >> we'll have more on this developing situation after this. stay with us.
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hello, again. welcome back to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. >> thanks for staying with us as we continue special coverage out of ferguson, missouri. what we've just witnessed after a day of mostly peaceful protests in this town, things took a slight turn for the worse, just before midnight there. it's 1:00 a.m. local time. >> there were those very peaceful protests, but then someone in the crowd threw a water bottle at police. they responded by rushing into the crowd to arrest the person. >> and things got slightly more