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tv   Caught on Camera  MSNBC  August 15, 2014 12:00am-1:01am PDT

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that may be changing now. rand paul is speaking out. question now is who on the right will join him? that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening from ferguson, missouri. i'm chris hayes. this is "all in." it is this area right here about a block and a half away from here that just a few days ago an 18-year-old man, mike brown, was shot. he was unarmed and he was killed by ferguson police officers.
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fallen and was in need of medical assistance. police officers opened up the doors of the car with their hands up, with their arms up. this, of course, hands up, has become one of the iconic symbols here who believe, think to some testimony from eyewitnesses or testimony from eyewitnesses that mike brown was indeed shot with his hands up. you will see people saying hands up, guns down. i'm not quite sure how to describe the scene here. it feels like a mix between new year's eve and occupy wall street. there is a celebratory attitude in the air, people are out. i have seen parents with kids. a lot of folks are angry. there are profane champs against the police. there are people saying, hands up, guns down. they are sync with his name, mike brown. what you are also saying -- scene, no incidents of violence, no bottles thrown, no pushing or shoving, and nothing other than people loudly, loudly voicing
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their frustrations with the frustration. the loud voices of frustration of the situation isn't limited to ferguson, missouri. it has spread across the country. some of the images out a times square, where many protesters stopped traffic in the middle of times square. they were surrounded by the police. there was a memorial for those who have died at the hands of police in chicago. there are protests happening around the nation. in the heart of it all, a very, very different scene than what we saw last night. joining me now is a reporter who has been here, germain lee, who was here last night. how would you describe this? >> what a difference a day makes. one person described it as freedom. this is what freedom looks like. what they have seen, they felt was not freedom. the police drew a line in the sand and challenged people to come close.
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this reminds me of any holiday weekend in any city, philly, new york. it is more jubilant that we have seen. as an objective journalist, i would say it's good not to see people running and screaming and not to see police with their siple drivers that trained on residents. people say that they are allowing the voices to be heard. before they were preoccupied with the challenge presented by law-enforcement. they had tanks running through these communities. to finally have the freedom, they say this is what they have been waiting for. one person described it as part family reunion, where everyone feels like brothers and sisters. for this week, very little black on black violence. people in these communities are galvanizing around mike brown. >> i spoke to a young man here who said, look, sunday night, the burn down gas station and other things that were happening.
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he said that is not what this is about to this is all we want, to raise our voices. people are raising their voices. people are still angry about what happened here, but it is being expressed in all the loud din of horns and all the shots and all the chants. it's remarkable. one thing i have to say, the police signal that was going to be a different posture, i did not think it would be this difference. they have created, essentially, a midsummer's festival of protest in the middle of ferguson. >> i wondered if president obama's words would trickle down this far, being that everyone was outside all day. attorney general, eric holder, they said that during a gave them a sense of hopes that the president had their back. again, a community like this, who has long tried to get their voice out. even the political system, a majority black city with only one black city council person.
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they are voicing -- their voices are finally being heard. >> a tumultuous day politically here. jay nixon finally coming out. he had attended a few events. he had a long press conference. frankly, the governor look pretty uncomfortable to be. he was asked questions about police accountability. he said we are looking forward, not back. he asked about the name. i ask him that name of the officer, that is something everyone is waiting to hear. i have had a dozen people say, yeah, that is a key next step. >> certainly. what the people here might not know is that on the network a few minutes ago, we had a new witness, tiffany mitchell, who came out corroborated almost to a tee everything that the previous witness had said, but the first shot was fired from inside the vehicle. michael brown's hands were outside the police suv and he was pushing away. michael brown turned and ran.
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the officer fired several shots after exiting the vehicle. michael brown turned with his hands up, and there were other shots per what they don't know is that there are some developments in this case. other witnesses are corroborating. >> that story at several major junctures with the story told by jordan johnson, who spoke to me and you. a man was walking with mike brown, walking in the street when approached by the officer. you now have three eyewitnesses' who have all given their version of events to the press that sync up pretty closely and paint a pretty dire picture. >> we have seen this time and time again in the big high-profile cases. the police will fall in line and try to protect their own. that doesn't mean a cover-up, but they will take the word of the officer. if the officers said there was a struggle inside the vehicle,
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that the gentleman tried to wrestle with a gun, they will fight it until the end. now, can we get a look at the ballistic evidence, if any of his dna is on the gun, fingerprints on the outside of the suv. >> again, the number of shots should be in the autopsy. >> a wound in the back. >> right. all of that forthcoming. since you brought that up, i want to talk about a bit of breaking news tonight. it has to do with the case we have talked about the young man named mr. ford, 24-year-old who was shot and killed by police. a long statement, initially the lapd put out very little information. we call the lapd to get information. tonight, they put out a lengthy explanation of what happened. it's quite long, but a key portion here, officers approached this man. they feel he is acting suspiciously. when they got closer, the individual turned, grab one of
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the officers. a struggle ensued. they felt to the ground. the individual attempted to remove the officers handgun from his holster. the partner officer fired his handgun. there are some residences there because what we have heard from ferguson police and st. louis county police is that there was a struggle for the gun that mike brown reached for the gun. >> what it takes for their side is that there was a reasonable fear for the officer's life. all you need is a perk, a suspect, reaching for a gun print that says it all. now, again, as the information comes out, what other evidence will counter that? the shots in the back, was he feeling threatened as he ran away? there is a lot that we don't know. all it takes, typically, is that fear that his life is in danger. >> today there was a ton of developments, a ton of political developments. one of the things that you get from everyone is that this is
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widespread disgust with what happened. everyone, rand paul, claire mccaskill, president barack obama, eric holder. jay nixon comes in, and he makes this change. he takes a guy who grew up here, a change in policing. we have seen it here, as people walk and honk their horns and dry slowly down this avenue that had been cleared of everyone. i think pretty unanimously there is a celebration of that change. people said to me, we feel like we had a victory today. here is a late, breaking development from the st. louis post-dispatch. the single most important figure in this case, the man who will more than anything determine whether is a prosecution and a successful prosecution for this, that man had something to say about the governor's decision which was not what you might expect, and we'll talk about that right after we take this break. stay with us live in ferguson, missouri.
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this is all in.
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you are looking at a live stream with some of the scenes in ferguson, missouri, tonight. there have been protests all over the local st. louis area, in downtown st. louis today and protests impromptu sprouting up all over ferguson and the townships nearby. you are hearing the horns honk and are seeing people lean out of the sun roofs. some even on their knees with their hands up. we will talk to a few young men who grew up in ferguson, about what they make of all this right after this break.
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we are united in common values, that includes belief in equality under the law, a basic respect for public order and the right to peaceful public protest, a reverence for the dignity of every single man, woman and child among us and the need for accountability when it comes to our government. so now's the time for healing. now's the time for peace and calm on the streets of ferguson. now's the time for an open and transparent process to see that justice is done. >> i wouldn't call it calm in ferguson, missouri, right now. but it definitely isn't the ghastly images we saw from last night. that was the president calling for calm. people feel more interested in justice and making their voices heard.
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but so far things have gone off without a hitch. i want to just close a loop on something i said before we went to break. there's one person who is the most important person in all of this. it's not the governor or the president of the united states. it's not the head of the ferguson police and it's not ron johnson the state patrol trooper who's been assigned to security. it's bob mccullough, the prosecutor who will ultimately and is now conducting the investigation into the events surrounding the police shooting death. it is that office that will decide whether or not to bring criminal charges and if criminal charges are brought, it is that office of bob mccullough that will prosecute that. in that context, this statement that bob mccullough gave to "the st. louis post dispatch" saying, to relieve ferguson police and
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st. louis police of their command as they oversaw what we saw here the last three nights, a decision, i would add based on my reporting, has basically been unanimously acclaimed. bob mccullough, the county prosecutor for st. louis county, the man who basically holds the fate of the man who shot mike brown in his hand said this -- it is shameful what he said did, referring to governor jay dixon. he had no legal authority to do that. to denigrate the men and women of the county, police department is shameful. that is striking a very different note than the note struck by jay nixon which itself was fairly even-handed, the note struck by barack obama and basically every other politician who's watching this. that is a note of castigation. it's a note of defiance, a note of rallying to the side of the embattled ferguson and st. louis county police. and that note is being sounded by the man who is the single-most important person in all of this as it proceeds criminally.
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that's a very important development to keep in mind. i want to now talk to a couple of young gentlemen here from ferguson. tathia -- are you a journalism student? >> yes, loyola university new orleans. >> and joshua jones. >> yes. working on my masters. >> what has your relationship been like to the police growing up here in ferguson? >> in terms of the ferguson police themselves, it's been relatively tame. i've never really had any negative interactions with them. but other neighboring municipalities, i have had a couple of difficulties in the past. >> and what do those entail? >> when i was about 16 years old, there's this major street here in st. louis. my cousin and i were going to visit a friend. we stopped at a walgreens and noticed along the way a lot of officers were pulling people over left and right.
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when we came out of the walgreens, there were even more cops in the parking lot. and my cousin remarked, these cops need to go home and leave people alone. i pull out of the parking lot. and i look in my rearview mirror and i see a police officer behind us. and i didn't know if he was following us or not so i just made a turn into a random neighborhood and he turned with us and proceeded to pull me over for no reason whatsoever. and during our interaction, he's like, i heard your friends at that gas station -- my cousin, knowing he had absolutely no authority or anything that he could do is laughing in the passenger seat. and he looks at him and says, you think this is funny? and my cousin goes straight-faced and said, i laugh when i'm nervous. it's incidents like that. >> what has been your experience of how -- of growing up here and how you would characterize this place -- all these people i
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talked to today are worried that the ferguson, missouri, now has this name, which is an image of this, it's an image of the the teargas. what do you think about this place you grew up in? >> i enjoyed growing up here, to be honest. but getting older and seeing a lot of the dynamics that work in this community is disappointing. this is a predominantly black area. but representation and government and all -- as a child, it was really nice and still here, even with this going on, it's fine. my neighborhood is -- once you get past west forest and one block away, we're pretty much untouched by any of this. and it's still fine. but understanding how a lot of the resources are lacking here and particularly in this area of ferguson, it's disheartening as i get older. >> joshua, did you ever think you would see something like this here?
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>> directly in ferguson, i can honestly say, no. but things like this -- it was just a matter of time, honestly. in a city like st. louis where you experience situations like that, you grow up and your parents have to tell you, be careful when you're riding around with a group of your friends and in your car because your car might look a certain way or if you get pulled over, make sure you're pulling over on a street where people are going to be able to see you and just having these -- >> you got that talk about. >> constantly. it becomes the norm for an african-american male growing up in st. louis. and even in smaller municipalities like ferguson, it's a thing you should be worried about. >> it wasn't but a week ago that a man died in police custody in new york.
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that's new york city and new york city that has a police force that is a majority black and latino. it's a city who elected a mayor based on running against stop and frisk and has a black son. what does that say to you about how much the experience here is kind of universal, particularly when you see the protests happening everywhere? >> yeah, you touched on the idea of socialization. we're all socialized to be frightened of black men, particularly young black men. but in the case of new york, it was a big black man. in the case of mike brown, this is a young man who happens to be big and dark-skinned. these are the things that we're taught. not just white people, but black people as well are taught these things. you mentioned the new york police force is very, very divorce in terms of race. andest analysisty. they understand things the way
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the rest of the world does. >> here's a question for you about the politics of this night. i think there's a real interesting gap between how last night was perceived nationally and across the world and how it's perceived locally because there were some hard questions for the governor today when he was announcing saying, you're just going to leave the streets to the looters and rioters? and right now, citizens of st. louis and surrounding counties are seeing images of this, which is -- looks like a festival. it probably looks to some eyes like chaos. probably looks frightening to some eyes because of the socialization. how do you think this is going to play out, these images, tomorrow in the politics of this place? >> well, i think what you're seeing right now -- and i think this needs to be clear to the rest of the world. it's not even much a celebration. this is release. so the pressure was on these people last night, the night before that, the night before
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that. it was dangerous for these people to be out here and not dangerous because of the people themselves but because of the militarized misforce that was out here. this is a release. you might call these victory laps that these cars are making because they finally got a release from the pressure. so i think one of the things that should be noted is the idea that these people were able to almost not force but encourage a change in policy. and because of that -- >> that feels like a victory? >> that feels like a victory in that way. there's many people working towards that. >> i'm completely with dr. bradley in that people weren't able to go down west forest for the last four days. when i tried to get to my home on monday night, it took us two hours because they were clogging every single artery. and i was constantly being greeted with assault rifles and riot gear. now i can get home in five minutes.
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and people are excited about that and feel relieved. buses are running through here again. it's a feeling of relief more than anything else. >> is that how you feel? >> absolutely. i don't live in this direct area of ferguson. so i've been able to dodge the chaos a little bit that you're seeing out here in terms of traffic. but i can definitely see -- i was actually out of town the night -- the incident on saturday night. i was coming in sunday night when things were -- when the quick trip was burned and everything like that. coming down 270, the exit and seeing the helicopters in the sky and how police were flying up and down the streets. it's just something that -- it's not typical for your ferguson type of neighborhood. but at the same time, it could have happened anywhere. even today, we're walking down the neighborhood streets going up to a youth rally that they had up -- it's like you're
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mosquitos and cicadas and dogs barking. it was serene -- >> everybody's been telling me that. it's not a violent place. it's not an unsafe place. it's a suburb -- >> absolutely. >> in the middle of the country. like that's what it is. you go to the quick mart. >> i want you guys to stick around. we're going to have more live coverage here in ferguson, missouri. stay with us. ur?]7+expygcta8i??n-n[ozk=ó
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i should note that the protest here in ferguson, missouri, is not uniform in the racial makeup. there are folks of all sorts of different backgrounds, there are some white people in the mix here. there are some people that have come from outside ferguson, missouri, referred to, i think, with unintentional historical residents yesterday by the ferguson police as outside agitators. you were saying you've done -- you looked into some of the racial disparities of policing right here in ferguson? >> definitely. black people are 6.7 times more likely to be stopped in traffic. 11.9 times more likely to be searched with the contraband hit rate. the contraband they find is 13% higher for white citizens here. >> so you're way, way, way, way more likely to be searched if
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you are black and less likely to have anything on you? >> definitely. that's what the numbers lead to. also there's a number called the disparity index that looked at all police data and tries to put it into a number. 1 is the baseline. and from 2000 to 2013, over 1 represents an over representation. under 1 represents a 1. the african-american community in ferguson is the only group that is over 1. >> joshua, what do you want to see happen next? there's the investigation of what i said about the county prosecutor. seems to me all eyes are going to start to turn as they did in the case of trayvon martin to that place, the opportunity for small distinct justice. what do you want to see happen? >> first and foremost, i want the family of mike brown to have their time to mourn, have their time to remember their son, their brother and nephew.
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the family member and community member that he was. i want them to definitely have their time to remember and cherish his life. and then next that everything that's been transpiring over the last few nights in terms of the broken glass and all that, it didn't happen in vain. we take this opportunity, this window and allow it to actually produce some type of change. and i think slowly but surely through this process, though it can be viewed as chaos or rioting or destruction, i think it's going to be an avenue for something to happen because people are finally realizing that we have a voice, we have power. and though it came about in a way that might not be esthetically appealing to most people, it's coming out in way that was necessary. i think in the coming days as we continue to educate and advocate and not only encourage ways to bring about that change but facilitate ways to bring about that change, that's what's most crucial.
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i'm a graduate assistant for an initiative called african-american male scholars at st. louis university. it could have been any of those students. >> you saw the picture today from howard university -- >> yeah. >> that was the entire student body lined up with their hands up and the whole -- >> absolutely. it could have been any of these aspires gentlemen i know that are thriving in their fields, leading organizations, presidents of the black student unions and everything at these universities. who's to know what mike brown would have been done at college, what difference he would have made in his community? it hits home when things like this happen. you see guys who might not be what the media wants you to see in terms of the african-american male but they bash that norm, that stereotype. and they're contributing to communities in positive ways. i want there to continue to be an education, for there to be an awareness of self and an awareness of a higher power in god and awareness of the enemy.
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so know what you're up against and know and find ways to respond in a positive way. >> thank you, gentlemen, very much for coming out tonight. a pleasure to meet you. i'm going to talk up next to a lawyer for one of the eyewitnesses and the former mayor of st. louis about how all this is going down. stay with us. xkç
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that's when michael broke away and started running down the street. the officer gets out of his vehicle and he pursues him. as he's following him, he's shooting at him. and michael's body jerks as if he was hit. he turns around and puts his hands up and the officer continued to walk up to him and shoot him until he goes all the way down to the ground. >> that was some testimony from
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tiffany mitchell or an account given by tiffany mitchell earlier on our own air. tiffany is one of three eyewitnesses that have been given their account to the press. p.j. crenshaw and dorian johnson, the young man walking with mike brown when everything went down. joining me now is dorian johnson's lawyer, the former mayor of st. louis. >> pleasure. thank you for having me. >> you've got three eyewitnesses now, right? >> yes. >> they've all given fairly similar accounts. >> yes, they have. >> is it problematic if they keep talking to the media, does that make it harder to make a case? >> yes, it some respects it does. what happens now, when you get in court, basically all your statements, everything that you said is an open record. so if somebody said the officer said, get out of the street or if the officer said, get on the sidewalk, if you get confused
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with that, that's an issue. so people have to be careful of what they say. >> here's my thinking about this. i've covered criminal cases before. what happens is if you're talking to someone and as soon as they get -- they have their first contact with the prosecutor or the investigator, they clam up. >> right. >> because they don't want to talk to you. >> right. >> every prosecutor says to their witnesses, don't talk to anyone. this prosecutor in this case, kebab mccullough who would be prosecuting this case were it to happen, leading the investigation, he's not sending that message, as far as i can tell? >> the beauty about this situation, it's no longer in bob mccullough's hands. dorian johnson, my client, we met with the fbi yesterday, the u.s. attorney's office, the county prosecutor's office, the police department -- for three hours, we didn't stop talking till almost 6:00. as of yesterday at 6:00, dorian johnson is a federal witness now.
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so this issue now is one that's been taken over by the federal government. so we don't worry about bob mccullough anymore. >> the federal government can prosecute for things like hate crimes. but if it's simple murder or assault, can the federal government prosecute for that -- >> i think they will be able to find some angle in which they may be able to proceed with this matter. as a matter of fact, i believe they're going to present this case to a federal grand jury very soon. >> what did you make of the st. louis county prosecutor bob mccullough's comments, basically slamming jay nixon for the decision he made to essentially change the scene down here? >> well, think about this, the governor is in jefferson city. that's 137 miles away. what in god's name has gone on here that would cause a man to want to leave the governor's mansion in jefferson city handling the affairs of state to come to ferguson? obviously something terribly has gone wrong here. and i want to commend the
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governor. we don't always see eye to eye on things. but for him to come forward and do something like this, that lets us know -- that's a wake-up call for the people of ferguson and st. louis county and everybody else watching this situation. the breakout here with riot gear, with dogs, to shoot people with rubber bullets, to have military equipment, to look and see what was going on here the way they shot teargas at people, you'd think we're at the gaza strip somewhere. >> you were the mayor of st. louis? >> yes. >> and you know what it's like, as few people do, when an incident goes down with the police where they look to you to have their back -- don't they? >> absolutely. >> it always seems to me in situations that politicians are very cross-pressured because the community is asking for one thing but at the end of the day, those are the people that work for that chief executive, whether it's the highest office in the land, the attorney general or whether it's a county executive?
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>> cross-pressure is a very good word. so as a result, a leader has to use what you call a measured response to things. it's not like you're performing surgery with a -- people are upset. folks are outraged. there's a call for action which doesn't necessarily mean you show up in riot gear. that wasn't necessary. i think you'll hear it. i don't have to say it. the u.s. senator, claire mccaskill has said it. our united states senator has said it. nobody prodded them. they looked at it and got the responses from their staff and they said, something is wrong with this picture. >> as someone who was a mayor here in st. louis, how much have things gotten better here in terms of representation, in terms of the racial relations and demographics of the whole metro region? >> things really haven't changed around here. if you'll allow me to say this -- on behalf of i know the
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african-american community and fair-minded white people, we just want to say thank you to you, msnbc, other people in the national media for bringing attention to our community. for so long, all of this stuff has just been kept quiet. nobody wanted to talk about it. and you all have pulled the cover off of st. louis for the whole world to see. i believe as a result of that, we're going to see some change. >> we'll definitely be keeping our eye on this. there's going to be news tomorrow, i believe. thank you so much. >> appreciate it. >> stay with us. live from ferguson, missouri. so this board gives me rates on progressive direct
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and other car insurance companies? yes. but you're progressive and they're them. -yes. -but they're here. -yes. -are you... -there? -yes. -no. -are you them? i'm me. but the lowest rate is from them. -yes. -so them's best rate is... here. so where are them? -aren't them here? -i already asked you that. -when? -feels like a while ago. want to take it from the top? rates for us and them. now that's progressive. last night as teargas was fired on protesters, you saw tweets from egypt to gaza to ukraine giving tips to protesters asking what is going on in the usa. a tweet from kurdistan saying,
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what do the people in ferguson, missouri, do, exactly? we're going to talk about the international ramifications, how the world sees ferguson, up next.
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(blowing) ♪ in 1968 in chicago, the democratic national convention, protesters chanted "the whole world is watching" to the chicago police. that was before twitter and facebook and everything like that. last night, literally the whole world was watching thanks to social media. john swain was one of the reporters in the thick of it last night from "the guardian." what did you see last night? >> it was chaos, the whole street behind us was filled with teargas. people were running into side streets, ducking for cover, ducking behind trees and lampposts, getting shot with rubber bullets. people didn't know what was going on or where they were
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supposed to go to avoid the sort of police crackdown. >> how do you think -- to people that are seeing these images outside the u.s., how is that reading? >> i think it's reading with sadness and surprise that a country that is known for valuing liberty and individual freedom would allow domestic police on its streets wearing this sort of equipment, driving these sort of trucks and wielding these sort of weapons which look pretty scary. >> it struck me when talking about the trend of militarization of police. we have in the u.s. we have this real distinction between the police who defend against external enemies and police who -- military that defend against external enemies and police that serve the public. and we think of regimes that combine those as being morally suspect. that's one of the indicia, one of the things that tells you that a regime is up to no good when their military and police are combined.
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>> i think that's right. i was hiding in a back street over there with a couple of guys last night about 11:00 p.m. and without prompting, they unloaded about how this was like a military state, like the army was coming to get them. they had been gathering with friends and shouting at cops. they were sad about the death of one of them. and they didn't really understand how this sort of response was justified. >> there's also sort of interesting thread -- members of the military just slamming the training of the police yesterday. talking about how i was in iraq and we had crowd disturbances and you couldn't point your gun at people in iraq in the midst of a war zone. >> earlier this week, there was a gulf war 1 veteran screaming at the police that this was not a america that he served, this was not the america that he fought for. and i think veterans, like other regular people, feel the same way.
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>> those images definitely got out. i think the change we've seen was a product -- the question is how long this lasts? what happens next when other parts of the plot unfolds in this. john swain, thank you.
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back live here in ferguson, missouri, you're seeing the scenes of a very different kind of protest and a very different police response.
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people are in the streets, honking their horns. there's a slow procession happening here at the main avenue that's been the site of the most intense police activity towards protesters. the site last night of armored vehicles and people in s.w.a.t. gear. joining me now, jeiloni, you were here last night. contrast it for me. >> a shocking contrast. it was almost like it was an experiment in policing and tonight is the control. you see what happens when you have a group of people who are justifiably upset and you confront them with armored vehicles and weapons. and on a night when you have a minimal police presence but you allow people to express their emotions and say, we're not happy with how things are happening in our city. >> i've never attended a protest like this.
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this is complete organic relief is what it feels like. >> and people are hearing -- whether or not it's true. there's a statement going around that the police are going to release the name of the individual who -- >> sorry, we lost that mike. >> people say they're going to release the name of the individual. whether or not that's true. there's a kind of triumphant idea that people feel the city is taking them serious ri. you can see that here tonight. last night, it was foreboding, tense, every single moment people expected it to erupt in violence. and when dusk set in, that's what happened. >> rashad, color change was founded on the principle of applying the tools of social media and online organizing to the struggle for racial justice. it felt to me like the moments of silence across the country
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today -- largely organized online, there's kind of -- we're reaching a kind of watershed? >> i think this is an absolute new moment where we've moved from this idea of communications and engagement where there was this top-down idea where the protest is going to happen here and the leaders are going to show up where this age of participation where everyday people can show up and turn out and protest and make change happen. that's what we're seeing all around the country. people executing the fact that they're tired of these incidences happening around the country and there's no repercussion. that black lives can be put in danger, police can hurt, harm and even kill black folks and there's no repercussion. >> to me, the question becomes -- if you put yourself in the position of being the savviest manager of the situation in which you wanted to make sure the status quo was essentially maintained, the savviest manager of the status quo would let people express themselves, relieve some tension and everyone goes back to living
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their lives in ferguson, missouri, and st. louis county and the city of st. louis and the question becomes, there will be some legal process for this police officer and then what? >> that's been a fear the people expressed, people have said to me, the thing we're worried about is what happens after night, what happens next week, what happens next month. and given that this is unusual, the unusual nature of this, there's a chance that people will be vigilant, they will stick around. but toward the issue you raise about being a savvy manager, the way this was handled was almost like the southern segregationist who didn't understand the impact that television would have, how segregation looked on tv. arresting journalists, arresting an alderman, intimidating cameramen, the teargas that was fired in the immediate proximity of the al jazeera crew, all those things that happened, groups that were not understanding the implications of what exactly they were doing --
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>> i heard people saying, this doesn't look like america or you could say it looks like america -- very much does look like america. there are iconic images that look a lot like this. >> absolutely. and this is not just ferguson. i think for folks who are watching at home who want to place this just as happening here, all around the country, we continue to hear stories about color of change of these incidents. we have to pick and choose, how do we focus people's energy and attention. so many heartbreaking stories of police overstepping, of people being put in harm's way and how do you choose those moments and elevate. if anything comes out of this, i hope we continue to stay vigilant. not only what do we do here in this crisis, but nationally, how do we make real calls for reform? we cannot continue down to road where black people can be harmed, hurt or killed by police
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and there's no repercussion, there's no accountability, that's not going to make any of us safer in our community. it's not going to bring about the type of partnerships that solve crimes and make communities safer. >> part of the issue here that strikes me is that policing is so locally driven and there is such a wide range of professionalism, of training, of diversity that -- and the thing a lot of people have been thinking and frankly white folks have had the thought, we just happened to find out about what was up in ferguson. like ferguson just happened to blow up. but there are thousands of ferguson. >> i'm a historian. i think about this in the long term. there is a very close relationship between urban rebellions and riots and the communities of police. that happened in 1992 with rodney king in los angeles. it happened in newark in 1997 with mark smith.
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it happened with john powell in 1964 in harlem. we can go back and find a close relationship between these two things. >> thank you both very much. that does it for special "all in" live here in ferguson, missouri.

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