find an honor your ancestors who served in world war ii. their stories live on at ancestry. the four fired minneapolis police officers charged in the george floyd killing appeared in court today for a pretrial hearing. derek chauvin, who pressed his knee into mr. floyd's neck, faces several charges, including second-degree murder. the three others are each charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second degree manslaughter. the judge announced the next hear willing be in september. he would like the trial to start in early march of next year. he also said he would likely issue a gag order if public statements on the case continue, and if that happens he would likely grant a motion of -- a change of venue motion if one is in fact filed. that's it for us. the news continues. i want to hand things over to chris for "cuomo prime time." chris? >> thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." ignoring a pandemic does not make it go away.

that's why states like florida are in such dire straits. listen to its governor desantis boasting last month what great shape florida is in. >> you've got a lot of people in your profession who waxed poetically for weeks and weeks about how florida was going to be just like new york. wait two weeks. florida is going to be next. just like italy, wait two weeks. well, hell, we're eight weeks away from that, and it hasn't happened. >> what now? not going to hear him here. you won't see him here. why? because he's got nothing to say. when he had a chance to speak, he spoke too soon. he did too little, and now his state is suffering too much. new york's peak and daily cases was in what, april? the five-day average of daily cases hit almost 10,000. terrible. things here still aren't great. we're just moving in the right direction.

florida health officials reported nearly 10,000 new coronavirus cases on saturday, its highest single day since the start of the pandemic. he made trump happy, governor desantis did, and now more floridians than they can count accurately appear to be sick. more than half our states have growing cases now. 16 are currently having to pause or roll back reopenings because they did not do the right things the right ways. texas, parts of california, bars have been directed to close back down. the secretary of health and human services says the window is closing for us to get this right. even pence, who you saw silently by desantis' side as he spewed nonsense, seems to be his strongest asset as an ally. even he is now saying you should wear a mask.

that's good since he's the head of the coronavirus task force. it's bad that he is only saying so now. but the really ugly reality is that pence still sat there and enjoyed this maskless choir of more than 100 singing on sunday. it doesn't matter if you're singing songs to the lord. there is no commandment that thou shalt do stupid things in my name and get covid. the main commandment, if you care, if you believe, was to love one another as i have loved you. keep your distance. if you can't, keep your mask on. wash your hands. at this rate, there is a real chance that quarantine may become the reality for more of us in this country. and for many of us, here is the scary part, a second time.

it is possible you may see me in my basement once again. why? because this isn't about being scared. this is about scaring us straight with the facts. let's bring in our chief doctor, sanjay gupta. i thought a lot tonight about suggesting whether or not we would see people going in a second time, doc, and what that would mean for us. but i have to tell you, more and more as i learned, and you and i still have to do our story about plasma donations. frankly, i've been stalling on it because i want it to get the attention it will deserve, and we have other big, pressing issues in the country. but antibodies are no guarantee. people who had them were seeing them go away. and if things don't go right over time, places that made it through may start to see a resurgence in cases. what do you see in the numbers

that give you the most immediate concern for spread right now? >> let me start with the good news, and then i'll tell you the predicts which are a little bit more dire. first of all, the antibodies, chris, because i think this is an important story, you know, i've been following this very closely. and obviously your story about the antibodies and you developing antibodies, one thing that we haven't seen in this country, we're five months in nows, is cases of documented reinfection in the united states. just something to keep on the mind here. if the antibodies were not providing some level of protection, i think we would have started to see some reinfection rates here. that doesn't mean that they won't come. maybe it's shorter protection than we realize, but that's something to keep an eye on, chris. we'll talk about that more. tomorrow will be six months since the world health organization first notified the world about this mysterious cluster of pneumonia cases coming out of china. six months ago tomorrow. since then, ten million people have become infected. 500,000 people around the world, and a quarter of them, as you

well know, in this country alone. i thought we'd be having a different conversation right now. the back of my mind secretly hoped, chris, by july 4th we'd be having a different conversation about where the country stood, that most of the country would look beige or green, and we would look beige or green and feel like we're truly getting on the other side of this. not through it, but at least starting to come on the other side of that curve. unfortunately, we're not anywhere close to that, chris. when i look at the maps now of what the country looked like memorial day versus now, and i think about the country as a human body, before i thought maybe there was some localized disease we could go after. and now i'm worried about the whole country, chris. even new york where you are. because i don't think there is any place that is immune. when you have this much disease in the country, this much infection that is spread, and sadly, i take no joy in saying this stuff, i think everyone is vulnerable once again, and we all have to actually think of the aggressive treatment that is necessary now to get us through this. >> and this was supposed to be the break, right?

this was supposed to be that as long as we do the right things, summer should be a relaxation, because we don't have the same concentration of people indoors as we do in the less good weather. what did we get wrong? >> i think somebody asked me today what did we get right, and i had to scratch my head and think what did we get right here? and the only thing i think maybe we got right, at least in the beginning, was the people in some places rose to the occasion. despite their not being policies yet, people actually started staying indoors. i didn't think the country would abide by these stay-at-home orders. we had some of the biggest behavioral shifts ever going on in human history over the last couple of month, and people did rise to the occasion. the problem is people got bored too quickly and gave up on the treatment. as if a patient was getting chemotherapy for cancer, abolished the therapy halfway through and is upset that the cancer hasn't disappeared. that's i think the fundamental thing we got wrong. i think we minimized this,

chris. you said this from the beginning. we didn't test because we didn't want to know the problem. we minimized it. we put our heads in the sand. i think that's true, and i think everything else is derivative from that. the less emphasis on masks, the less emphasis on testing, the opening up too early. it all came because we didn't take this seriously, despite what we were seeing in other places around the world. >> you know, i remember when we were looking at italy, and obviously that's where my blood comes from. and it was a little bit embarrassing to see them getting slapped around by it by not paying attention. but then i was just watching an interview that we have here with one of the leaders of that country, and they're getting to a better place rapidly. and they said once we knew what it was, we stopped playing games with the truth. and we haven't done that. whether it's our president who doesn't talk about it, the vice

president who, just as a joke, is the head of the coronavirus task force who is finally wearing a mask, but looking at joy with 100 people without masks singing in an enclosed space, and you wonder what's going to happen there. but also what we're doing with the numbers. this new ihme model, young people, and the model they create. in florida the governor there desantis is blaming them. but state news just before my show tonight had a segment with a doctor saying young people, they're just not at risk for more serious illness. i don't know why anybody is worried about the young people. what is the truth? >> the truth is that young people are at less risk than older people and people with preexisting conditions are more vulnerable. but what's so different about this virus is this whole idea that anybody can spread it, even if you don't have symptoms. so this is very predictable. right now you have about half the people in florida are under the age of 35 out of these new infections. that's why the death rate is going down.

that's why the death rate hasn't gone up. let's put it that way. the problem is it's very predictable, chris, where this goes next. again, i take no joy in talking about this stuff. it sounds way too clinical, but we know that the infection rate will spread to more vulnerable populations, older populations, people with preexisting diseases, and the death rate will go up. i hate to say it, but this is predictable. we've seen it around the world. the virus is the virus. the virus is this one constant in this whole equation. it hasn't changed. you can predict how that will behave. but everything else becomes arbitrary because it depends how people are going to react to it. >> i think you need to say it more than you ever did before. you're now battling fatigue of people hearing it. it's not resonating the same way. look at desantis. desantis in florida let everybody go crazy over spring break. he exported all that virus back to wherever they wanted to go.

okay. now he is blaming the young people. but it has always been true that they will be more asymptomatic, have less symptoms but spread the virus just as anybody else who has symptoms. me spreading the virus and some 19-year-old who barely knows they have it, same effect on you, god forbid. tony fauci spoke about this. i want you to explain the significance of this sound bite that we're going play right now. play fauci, please. >> what you're seeing is community-based spread where 20 to 40% of the people who are infected don't have any symptoms. so the standard classic paradigm of identification, isolation, contact tracing doesn't work, no matter how good you are because you don't know who you're tracing. they're out there. they don't even know that they're infected. >> what does that mean? >> what tony fauci, dr. fauci is saying there is this idea unless you have adequate testing where you can actually test

asymptomatic people, you can do surveillance testing. then the rest of the system breaks down. in typical viral outbreaks, people have symptoms. hopefully more likely than not they're staying home and not spreading it. this virus, the fact that it spreads asymptomatically the way it does changes everything. not only does it do this, what dr. fauci is saying is 40% of the spread probably comes from asymptomatic people. so you've got to be testing widely to find those people who, wow, i didn't know i had the virus. i have this? this is a surprise to me. you've got to find those people and get them isolated, find out who their contacts were. it's laborious work. the thing is, if you get 40,000 new infections a day, it's not just laborious, it becomes impossible. you can't hire a sector of society large enough to actually be able to do that. chris, the other thing, we've known this for some time. this is not new information. what dr. fauci is talking about in terms of asymptomatic spread has been known since late

february. what we know about the super spreader events like that choir singing, that was particularly disturbing to me, and i'll tell you, it wasn't just this choir event that was disturbing to me. it's the fact that we've known that is a super spreader event. we saw a study that came out of washington where 87% of the members of the choir subsequently became infected. 53 of them got sick. two died. we've known that. it was part of the cdc guidelines to stop doing these types of events. then they took it out of the guidelines, then they put it back in the guidelines. if we can't even get what we know right, how are we going to make progress? that's what really -- that choir event represented to me was the fact that we can't even get what we know right anymore. that's a problem. >> dr. sanjay gupta, thank you very much. keep fighting the good fight. remember, simple axiom here for you guys at home is anybody who doesn't want to talk to you about testing, anyone who questions testing doesn't want you to know the truth.

and anybody who doesn't want you to know the truth cannot be trusted, period. now we know the truth in florida. cases are up 500% from just weeks ago. best known beaches just got shut down for the holiday weekend. the same governor who was all about letting those kids kill it on spring break are now blaming young people for the problem and not himself. how does that sit with the miami mayor? we're going to have him next. and later in the show, please watch tonight. this video has gone all over the country. now not only is it about multiple cops having trouble controlling one man, but you remember what the big problem is here in georgia? it's the wrong man. he committed no crime. why is he screaming? i'll tell you why, and why should it make you scream as well in an exclusive interview ahead.

♪ book two separate qualifying stays and earn a free night. the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com.

and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. a new moment in wireless has begun. t-mobile and sprint are joining forces. by bringing together our two networks, t-mobile will build america's largest and most reliable 5g network... with more towers, more engineers, and more coverage. you'll get the best 5g network, and the best prices.

welcome to t-mobile. america's largest 5g network. i see your messages. i watch them during the show. please don't tell me that florida's crisis is about how much they're testing. it's about how many people they're finding out are sick, and the rate of sickness is going up, okay? here is a fact. the positive rate of the testing

they're doing is now up to about 15%. context. the world health organization says governments should try to keep that below 5%. now i'd like to say and here is the reality, look at the hospitalization numbers, because that's not about testing. that's about sickness, right? that's the best metric. they won't release them in florida. think about that. that leaves local leaders like miami mayor francis suarez to make the tough decisions on a community-by-community basis. it's good to have you back on "prime time." i wish it were for a better reason. i'll be honest. i'm surprised by the slide in that state. what are you seeing in the communities that you can control right now? >> well, what we're seeing is precisely what you're seeing is this last week alone in miami-dade county, we had close to 7,000 new cases. we broke two records, one with 1,500, which is three times the high watermark in late march, april which is 500 for one day.

and another day with 2,000. it's actually 2,100 cases for one individual day which is four times greater than the higher watermark we had in late march, early april. so we instituted as you know, chris, last week a mask in public rule, and just today i announced stiffer penalties for businesses that are breaking the rules and not abiding by the rules. for a business that doesn't abide by the rules, they're going to be shut down ten days for the first instance, 15 days for the second instance, and 30 days for the third instance. >> what are you hearing from your health officials and the hospitals in different communities? my understanding is that you're seeing more hospitalizations, more strain on the system. i can't give you a statewide number because desantis won't release them. but what are you seeing in your communities? >> we are absolutely seeing an increase in hospitalizations. we do see that the largest percentage of new cases is

coming from the 18 to 35 age range, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're not being hospitalized. maybe the hospitalizations are shorter. obviously the medical system has gotten better at treating the disease, and that's certainly something that's a positive piece of news, and the death mortality rate is still thankfully low. but what we also know is all of those indicators lag. they lag anywhere from two to five weeks in the case of obviously mortality rates. it's yet to be determined exactly how these new infects are going to affect the system. and of course concern is that a lot of these young people live with their parent, live with their grandparents, or are in party, graduation parties, house parties, and that they can be spreading the disease to the more vulnerable population that could influence hospitalization rates and death rates to the point where we might have to take more dramatic measures.

>> what do you say to the people who say, suarez, i can't believe that you're taking measures to pretend this thing is going to kill all of us. this is weakness. it's going to pass. don't stifle us. >> look, that's part of leading. part of leading is making tough decisions, understanding that there are some people that are not going like it, understanding that people are going to criticize decisions that you make. you know, we're one of the cities that got criticized for cancelling large events. i got criticized for it months ago. i think putting on a requirement of a face mask is no different than telling people they wear a seat belt. if you wear a seat belt, there is no for sure that you'll come out of an accident alive. but it certainly increases the chances. and wearing a mask in public increases the chances that you're going to prevent yourself from getting sick. that's why we require it.

it's not because we want to take way people's freedoms or their liberties or be onerous. it's simply we want to give them the best opportunity to be healthy for them and their families. >> and a seat belt, the argument about that was don't tell me how to protect my life. masks are about protecting other people. you may not even know you have it. do you believe that the governor should be releasing the statewide data and should be putting in effect a statewide mask mandate? >> look, if he would ask for my perspective, i would recommend that he do that, that he do put in a statewide mask mandate, because the number of new cases in the state is worse even that miami-dade county. you're talking about 9500 this weekend and a few days where you're close to 9,000, which is a 7 x multiplier from the high watermark. in the case of miami where we're still significantly up, but we're about 4 x from our worst moments. i would recommend it. i think it's the prudent thing to do in terms of the hospitalization. that was done by county order, and we get the hospitalizations every single day. i would recommend he do something similar for the state so he gets the hospitalizations. i'm sure he is in contact with the hospital administrators.

i know i am. i have spoken to hospital administrators twice today, and they are definitely telling me that we're getting closer and closer to that capacity limitation. >> well, i'm sure he is getting the numbers, it's that he doesn't want other people to see them. but what he is missing in that is he is being too self-conscious about it. if people know the numbers statewide, it will spread the urgency, and that helps contain the spread of the virus. mayor francis suarez, best of luck to you there. you will always have this platform to make the case of the state of play in your own state. >> thank you, chris. >> all right, god bless. be well. >> god bless you. this is a year of astonishing change. history will take another big step forward, okay. the last state in our union is finally ready to leave the confederacy where it belongs, dead and in the past. details ahead. gillette proglide and proglide gel. five blades and a pivoting flexball

designed to get virtually every hair on the first stroke, while washing away dirt and oil. so you're ready for the day with a clean shave and a clean face. ♪ ♪ ♪

the open road is open again. and wherever you're headed, choice hotels is there. book direct at choicehotels.com. ♪ at choicehotels.com. i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424. hey it's me, lily from at&t. i'm back working from home and here to help. hey lily, i'm hearing a lot about 5g. should i be getting excited? depends. are you gonna want faster speeds? i will. more reliability? oh, also yes. better response times? definitely. are you gonna be making sourdough bread? oh, is that 5g related?

no, just like why is everyone making sourdough now... but yes, you're gonna want 5g. at&t is building 5g on america's best network. visit att.com to learn more. yeah. this moving thing never gets any easier. well, xfinity makes moving super easy. i can transfer my internet and tv service in about a minute. wow, that is easy. almost as easy as having those guys help you move. we are those guys. that's you? the truck adds 10 pounds. in the arms. -okay...

transfer your service online in a few easy steps. now that's simple, easy, awesome. transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. visit xfinity.com/moving today.

when you appeal to the head and the heart and get nowhere, see what happens when you mess with the money. mississippi is set to remove the symbol of the confederacy from their state flag. a big reason why? politicians act out of fear of consequence more often than they do out of good conscience. major organizations made moves that could mean money. walmart taking down the flag outside its stores. the ncaa and the sec announcing no championship events in mississippi until the flag was changed. now once the governor signs the law, no state flag will bear that symbol in this country. the confederate battle emblem has been a part of the state since 1894, three decades after

lee surrendered. the move comes amid a growing reckoning with racism in this country. as quickly as opinions are shifting, remember, it was only in 2001 when voters there decided 2-1 against changing the flag. there is hope. there is progress, even in a time of chaos. there is also developing news in the controversy over what the president knew or didn't know about the possible russian bounty on american troops. was the warning flag for trump? does the warning matter? we have a congressman on the house intel committee, himself a former air force b-1 pilot. what does he think of the situation? he is here, next. at philadelphia, we know what makes the perfect schmear

of cream cheese. you need only the freshest milk and cream. that one! and the world's best, and possibly only, schmelier. philadelphia. schmear perfection.

all right. so let's try to walk through what we know and what we don't know together. tonight a u.s. official with

direct knowledge tells cnn president trump did get intel on russia possibly offering to pay the taliban to kill u.s. troops. why does that matter? because we're getting all these mixed messages out of the white house about what they knew, what they didn't know. the source says the intel was included in the presidential daily briefing some time this past spring. now the question there will be what does that mean? does it mean they knew it absolutely? does it mean it must be really important because it's in there? good question. president trump denied on sunday that he was briefed. now does that mean he doesn't include the daily briefing of all the things that he's told, that he is saying this wasn't singled out? is he lying? did he ignore the memo? good questions. he is known to prefer hearing about thing, and he has basically let it be known he doesn't want to read. the white house says he was not

told orally. republican congressman chris stewart was briefed today on the party that matters the most, okay, which is do we really believe that this was happening, that russia was putting out bounties on american servicemen, or maybe still is. congressman, god willing your family is well. we know in utah you're seeing cases with covid that are going to be difficult to control. so god bless you and the family. thank you for being with us tonight. >> good to be with you, chris, thank you. >> obviously we know you take your work on the committee very seriously. you're a veteran yourself. what is the straight deal on what you were told about the intelligence backing this assertion that russia may have been trying to offer bounties to fighters in afghanistan to take out americans? >> well, chris, like you said, i'm a veteran. these are my father's air force wings. my brother served.

it's deep in my family's dna. there nothing i wouldn't do to protect our soldiers, and i think every person in leadership feels that way. the truth is we don't know. could russia have done that? absolutely. russia is not our friend. they're not an ally. they seek to harm us. they seek to diminish us and diminish our role in the world everywhere, but particularly in a very vulnerable spot like the middle. could they have done that? absolutely. do we know they did that? we just don't know yet. which is why the president and other senior leadership haven't acted or done anything on this yet because once again, chris, we just don't know. we're trying to find out for sure. but this is something that goes back a long time too. this isn't something that just popped up in the last few weeks or the last few months. some of this intel actually goes back for several years. >> okay. but when you say they could have done it, are you saying that because they don't like us or did they present you with information obviously without betraying what you were told specifically, but did they actually have intelligence that leads to some level of confidence that this was

actually being done? >> well, i wouldn't phrase it level of confidence that this is actually being done, but i would say a level of confidence that it was a possibility. it was something we need to keep our eyes out, something we need to try to inform ourselves and to discern, you know, accurately is it true or not. but look, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of cases like this where we we're fed intel. we see warning signs. we see something that is concerning. we don't know if it's true or not. we keep looking. we pursue it. some of them turn out to have veracity, be accurate. many of them don't. it's an ongoing battle we have to keep ahead of something like this. once again let's be clear. russia, would it shock me if they did something like this? absolutely it wouldn't. >> that's what matters to me. you know what the context. i haven't been running with the ball i can't believe you didn't do anything. i've been watching to know if it's true or not.

once we know it's true, you better be doing things before i have to ask you about it. so that's the part that mattered to me. now to the secondary part of this which of course involves the president. go ahead, chris. >> can i make a comment? >> go ahead, congressman. >> well, it's just this idea that of course we would want to know if it's true or not first. >> of course, of course. >> we don't want to confront nations. >> absolutely. >> invading another country until we know. >> absolutely, agree. 100%. god forbid you ever do it any other way. we're on the same page. now, if it mattered enough for the dni to put it in a daily briefing for the president, is that something that he should be aware of? >> yeah. that's actually a great question. and i think it deserves an explanation. everyone calls it the presidential daily brief, but it's really an executive daily brief. it's not just for the president. it's for many people in government. all the cabinet secretaries get it. many of the senior people see the daily brief. so it's not just for the president. the other thing is it's not just

a one or two-page synopsis. the actual daily brief might be 40, 50, 60 pages. and that's on a daily basis. and from that, once or twice a week, maybe more often if necessary, but a couple of times a week they'll take out the most urgent, the most credible and they will brief the president on those things, but no president sits down and reads the entire daily brief every day. it's just too much. no president has ever claimed to do that. it's too much. it's just here is a list of things we're worried about. and a couple of times a week, let's talk about the most serious ones. and this one just never reached that level of credibility that they briefed to it the president. >> so you believe that the president was never told anything about this threat by anybody? >> well, i'm certain that's true. i mean, they've been very clear. director ratcliffe, the cia, the president, the vice president, robert o'brien, the nsa, everyone around him has been very clear that they did not brief this to the president or

the vice president. >> and you're okay that they didn't, from what you learned today? you're okay that this wasn't given more priority in a briefing to the president or the vp or the white house? >> yeah, because again it didn't reach the level of credibility. by the way, here is something that i think would back that up for you, chris, that's important to know. nancy pelosi had this presented to her as well in much the same format. so did adam schiff. all of us did. it was in the general intelligence analysis that we receive on a daily or weekly basis. none of them picked it out and wanted to pursue it either. it was just one of many things that they were concerned about. >> i take you at your word. until i have better information, that's the state of play on this. i'm not going to play to any hype. we got enough problems that we know are real and urgent and happening right now. >> yeah. >> when we get more intel on this, if i get it, i'll call you and let you know. if you get it, i know you'll come on and make the case to the american people what it means. no reason to make up fights. congressman chris stewart, thank you for being with us. god bless you and your family at

home. hopefully you get covid under control. >> all right, thank you. >> be well. all right. i know this video from georgia -- again, i don't buy into this. this may not be easy to watch. if you don't want to, don't watch. if you look at the reality in the face of what is happening too often in this country with black people and police, we're not going to get to a better place. please look at what happened. >> oh, god, oh, please. >> now a couple of things. you're going hear that described as a training move, all right? again, these officers are not doing things the way they could do, the way they could be trained to do. you've got three officers. that's the way you have to control one man? and by the way, wait until you learn more about what these police had every reason in valdosta, georgia, to know it was going wrong in realtime, and

yet this still happened. antonio smith is that man yelling. you know why he is yelling? he is yelling because they hurt him bad, and he is still hurting. you know how i know? because as scared as he is, and as broken as he is, he is going to be on tv right after this break for the first time because it matters that much that you know why this was wrong and how he feels about it, next.

♪ ♪ [ engines revving ] ♪ ♪ it's amazing to see them in the wild like th-- shhh. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.

a black man is suing several members of the police department in valdosta, georgia after claims they fractured his wrist during a february arrest. antonio smith says his rights were violated by officers after they mistook him for another black man with active felony warrants and used unnecessary and excessive force to detain him. here is a clip of what they did to him. >> call my sister in florida. don't do this.

what are you doing? oh, my god! what are you doing? >> put your hands behind your back. >> put your hands behind your back like you're told. >> put your hands. >> what are you doing? oh, my god, oh, please. >> put your hands -- >> i wasn't doing anything! oh, my god! >> three cops. that was the only way to get him to comply? three cops. you know why he is screaming like that? his wrist is broken, badly, and you'll see it for yourself. shortly after, another officer, who smith was initially talking to, okay, they -- this officer tells -- i can't believe this happened. this officer who is there, who is talking to antonio smith, after they do this to smith, this other officer says to them hey, by the way, that's the wrong man. listen. >> no, that's the other guy. >> the other guy is over there.

they pointed out two different people. they got the guy a warrant. this guy i just got contact with him. >> no, that's why -- >> no, there is two different people. that's why i was trying to figure out if i missed something when his hands behind his back. >> why didn't you tell me something? i thought he was the one with the warrant. >> whether he is the one with the warrant or he wasn't, they've got to be able to do their job better than this. we are better than this. the police chief admits there was some miscommunication during radio traffic. yeah, no kidding. antonio smith joins us now for an exclusive interview. he's joined by his attorney, nathaniel haugabrook. counselor, thank you very much for being with us. antonio, we're talking a little bit about what are dealing with

before the interview. thank you for having the strength and commitment to do this, antonio. i know you're scared. i know you're worried about this. i know you're embarrassed. i know you're in pain. now, everybody can see. you see that lump on the outside of his wrist? he broke his wrist. antonio, was your wrist like that, before this happened that day? >> no, it wasn't. >> right. all right. that was in february. he broke his wrist, and he broke his wrist because the way they threw him on the ground. antonio, we pick up midstream there. you're on, like, the side of the road. what happened? how did you get in that situation? you can put your hand down. thank you, very much, my friend. what happened? >> actually, i was coming -- coming back from the store. waiting for my sister to send me some money, like she always do. and i have a habit, because i do -- i did security, like years

ago. and i have a habit of like watching my surroundings. you know, and just talking to myself. and then, i happen to look back and i saw an officer car pull up. and i said, oh, god, what i done now? so, you know, i just stood there. and he -- the one that came out, which was a black fellow, a black officer, came up. and, you know, he was kind of like -- look, he was kind of like jittery. like, jumpy. like, okay, where's the rest of them. but i say what's going on? i said i haven't done anything. you can watch -- go back and watch the camera because i had already picked what -- what was going on because they was watching me. and plus, i don't know what else was going on. but anyways, he stopped me. and we did the procedure of the i.d. and everything. and all -- all of a sudden -- >> i told them what i was doing. >> next to the el rodeo.

>> i was waiting. >> you're saying to him, i was waiting for money from my sister. i wasn't panhandling. i wasn't doing anything wrong. and then, you give him your i.d. then, what happens? >> so, he runs it down. so, all of a sudden, i happened to glare back. and i saw a couple more running. i don't know how it went. but a couple more running. and i kind of got terrified. i said to myself, oh, my god, it's one of these days where they're going to probably arrest me. and take me off and probably won't find me anymore. that's -- that's the thoughts that i had because i know how the cops -- the law system there is. the times that i have called and needed them. and the laughs that they gave me. and the situations that i was going through. so, at that time, i thought, well, maybe this is one of the moments where they arrest me.

and they take me off, and they won't find me. that's the moment that i portrayed at that time. >> so, right or wrong, you were scared of what was going to happen. >> yeah. i was scared, yeah. >> and when they told you, put your hands behind your back, we all know when the officers tell you something, you're supposed to do it. you didn't do it. because? >> i was, like, in shock. because what had i done? i knew i hadn't done anything. so, i was more in shock. and, like, what is going on? and why is this going on? because i know i haven't done anything. but the procedures just wasn't right. if you get me -- the procedures wasn't right. and everything wasn't just, like -- like what it's supposed to be because i know i hadn't done anything. >> yes. the -- in reading your account of this, it seems to me -- tell me if i'm wrong, please, don't worry about it being on tv, we want to get things straight --

that you seemed like the farther down the road this went, the worse it was going to get for you. and that's why you were a little resistant to comply, in the beginning, because you felt, once you did that, it was only going to get worse. is that true? >> yeah. i kind of felt like it was going to get worse. well, i thought i was going to get pinched for something i didn't do. it was one of those moments where, okay, something's going down that i'm going to get stuck with. that i hadn't even done. >> right. >> so it's pretty much what you're saying. >> and then, the officer comes up and says, hey, by the way, it's the other guy who's got the felony warrant. and the cop is like, oh, boy, oh, i thought it was him. jeez. then, how did they change toward you, after that? >> actually, i had forgave them when they done it. but walking up the road and i'm far away from home, the pain just insists. and like worse and worse. >> didn't they know about your wrist?

didn't they offer to get you medical treatment or take you to the hospital? >> yeah. i didn't know that it was going to be broken. or either, i thought i was going to be able to go through it. but i thought maybe -- hey, maybe, it's just sprained or whatever. >> so they offered to get you help, and you said you didn't want it? >> no, they wanted to get me help -- they wanted to give me a ride to the hospital. they offered me help to get to the hospital. but i told them maybe it's just a little or something like that. you know? i thought maybe it was sprained. right? you know what i'm saying? >> did they apologize? >> yeah. yeah, they apologized. but i told them, i forgive you. we laughed about it, actually. >> well, if you forgave them. but now, you're going to sue. why? >> i'll let my lawyer answer that. >> go ahead, counselor. obviously, forgiveness and getting legal remedies can go hand in hand. i don't mean to suggest otherwise. but the -- what is your legal take on the situation, from your client's perspective?

>> well, from his perspective, as you've characterized, chris, this officer basically sneaks up on my client. then, dumps him to the ground. and, as the video shows, it's the wrong person. there was no reason for this particular officer to even -- to make the -- to cause the case or this situation to escalate, to the point that it did. the first officer, as the video shows, is having a pretty normal conversation with mr. smith. mr. smith complied with all of his directives. provided his i.d. denied the situation of being the suspicious person. and, all of a sudden, you have another officer who comes on the scene and just takes over. he doesn't identify himself as an officer. doesn't say, hey, bhawhat's goi on? is this the person with the

felony warrants? and let me correct that part because there were no felony warrants against anyone. the other gentleman had misdemeanor warrants for shoplifting, as well as traffic offenses. >> understood. whatever it was, it didn't belong on the record of your client, antonio smith. counselor, i get it. i get it. i understand. i wanted everybody else to understand it, as well. antonio, i know you forgive them. but i, also, know that you are still, very much, haunted by what happened. we will stay on the story, and i appreciate you having the bravery to come forward and talk to us about it. and it is a really big tribute to who you are, as a person, that you forgave the officers for what happened that day. counselor, thank you. and, antonio, thank your sister, as well, for helping us tonight. be well and god bless. >> thank you, chris. >> all right. we'll be right back.