disruptive. it looks chaotic. >> marquez, thank you for being with us. we are following what has really developed over the past half an hour on the streets of baltimore. protesters on the funeral of 25-year-old freddie gray. we are going to end it here. coming up next is "now with alex wagner." we're following breaking news out of baltimore this hour where clashes involving police in riot gear and a group of juveniles have broken out outside a local mall. the mall along with other businesses downtown, is closed this afternoon out of fear of violent protests. one police officer has been injured. these new demonstrations come just hours after freddie gray the 25-year-old who died in police custody earlier this month, was buried. nbc's brian mooar is live in baltimore. brian, what can you tell us about how these demonstrations began, with the youths in

baltimore? >> the demonstrations more than that at this point, going on just a couple of blocks away from us. the first reports were a couple of kids at a mall who appeared to be up to no good. the police showed up and confronted them. it looked at one point like they were dispersing. and then more and more and more people started to show up and get involved to the point where we were just a few moments ago looking at large numbers of young men throwing objects. the reports were that there were rocks or bottles at police. at one point, we did see what looked like an officer being carried away by a number of officers. it looked like they were in a very defensive kind of posture. circling, closing the ranks on each other carried this person to an armored personnel carrier, and then that person was driven off. "the baltimore sun" is saying that it was a police officer who was injured. we cannot confirm that at this

point. it does look like police are really trying their best to keep the lid on the situation that is threatening to get out of control here just a few blocks away from the funeral, the church where freddie gray's funeral was just a few hours ago. >> brian, what kind of area are we talking about? is this a series of blocks? it looked like police were responding very much in force. lines of riot gear marching up. this is from the chopper feed that we're seeing in new york. the police presence looked to be much more organized. but in terms of the ground that they're coffering, what are we talking about? >> well look these are officers from many different area departments. not just baltimore police. the baltimore police has asked for police from other jurisdictions, from maryland state police to neighboring townties. and all of them hopefully most

of them have been given training in civil disturbance tactics. they call it cdu. these officers are trained to disperse people. small groups of people with potentially bad actors from coalescing into large groups of people where it just gets out of control. what they're trying to do right now is urge these people to get out. we've seen what looked like a couple of people being arrested. it doesn't look like these people are ready to call it a day. and these police officers are very well-lined up. it's a tactic where if they need to break out and start using forward, they do it as a unit. they try to not just break out and every officer for himself. they're going to do anything they do as a unit. and at this point, based on what we've been seeing, it strikes the imagination to believe that they've called for reinforcements and that they're not going to take any actions

against these people. this group of people until they have the number of officers on the scene. the force they need to respond to the force that's being directed at them by these young -- it looks like young people in the street. >> you've been living in baltimore for five years. you know this town well. i know you have a piece out today that talks about the response in baltimore, which is up until this point -- and it's unclear what exactly is going on at this point. what has been largely peaceful. there's been some amount of confidence in the mayor's handling of this stephanie rawlings blake. tell us a little bit if you can, about the city itself and the difference between east and west baltimore, and how much what's happening in the aftermath of freddie gray's death and funeral is a response to years of things that may have been going on in baltimore. >> i'll do my best.

to provide local context, what you're looking at basically is the mall -- i shop at that target in that mall. it's sort of the big inner city mall on the best side of baltimore. when everything started getting a little crazy today, it's the very end of the school day, and there's a lot of bus lines that terminate at that mall. so you'd expect to see a lot of teenagers there to begin with. at 2:00 today, the baltimore police put out this warning that you guys have been talking about. it said that there was a coordinated action among generally rival street gangs that target businesses and to target the police themselves. activists responded almost immediately and said those are lies, this is an attempt by the police to demonize the protests to make what is essentially a political scene like organized criminal behavior. i don't really know what's going

on right now. i don't know which of those narratives are true, but both of them are scary. if you have a police overreaction here, and i would say this is just going around baltimore this afternoon, downtown baltimore is really quiet. this is sort of the one place where you see not only a big police presence, but, you know, these horrible scenes of people throwing rocks at them. if this is a police overreaction that triggered this that's terrible. if you have a coordinated kind of gang activity that's really scary, too. but look obviously what's happening here is that you have a conflict between the community and the police that the political establishment, you know, has not really been able to mediate very effectively right now. and is boiling over. and hopefully, this is just an artifact at the end of the school day and a lot of kids out in the street, but i guess we'll see as the day goes on. >> ari, i know we are expecting

police to finish their investigation into the death of freddie gray by the end of this week. there is some talk that the preliminary report may not be released until may 1st. our own reverend sharpton has called that into question and saying he is saddened and disappointed in the timing about the release of the report. when you look at a scene like this, there is obviously tension. today freddie gray was laid to rest. in terms of the investigation, can that proceed on track, not taking these events into consideration? >> it certainly can. the police department and the city are under tremendous pressure, obviously local. what we're looking at right now, a city that is not able to function normally and national in the attention that will continue to apply the pressure regardless of what happens in the streets. i think what we see today and why this is important, this is an inflection point. there have been several days of reaction from the surveillance, or citizen video emerging and creating pressure on what happened to freddie gray and how did he get the spinal injury and

why can't the police provide even basic information about that, to now what we see, which is some smoke in the air, seeing some people running around as we look at this seeing some problems in the roads. just the ability of baltimore to function. and the police now confirming just this afternoon that several officers have been injured, according to police. including an officer that we showed on our air just moments ago that was being carried out, who could be seen with blood on his face from the rocks and the bricks that had been thrown. we're seeing what looked like potentially tear gas canisters in the streets being kicked around. that's the scene going into night fall is very concerning. with regard to the police department and the credible threat, the police are saying that they have that threat. they put the information out. and clearly they are being attacked, at least in a disorganized way at times on the street. >> do we still have brian on the scene down there? >> reporter: yes.

>> in terms of -- we know a lot of these businesses near the mall have been closed in advance of what might be some protests possibly some violence. what can you tell us about how businesses not in the immediate vicinity of the mall have been responding this afternoon? >> well, all we know is what we're being told and that is some businesses say that responding to the reports that they've heard from police decided to close down for the day, especially in that mall area where a lot of young people tend to congregate. university of maryland campus not too far away decided to close down official business today. but what we're looking at appears to be the police officers lining up blocking the one roadway that would lead into that mall area. and you do see every once in a while traffic is passing through. so it's interesting that this standoff is playing out. occasional clashes. occasional flare-ups. don't know what that smoke is.

i don't know whether it's tear gas. i don't think it is, but i don't know what it would be. you know it's a tense enough situation that the officers feel like they need to deploy something like that. but at the same time you've seen traffic go through from time to time. and at this point it does appear to be a standoff. it does appear to be you know the police standing their ground. and the demonstrators, the protesters the people who were throwing rocks and other objects at police standing near as well. >> i want to bring on pastor jamal bryant who spoke at freddie gray's funeral today. thanks for joining us today. it was a really emotional day. some of the things that were said today -- elijah cummings had an incredibly emotional tribute to freddie gray his life, the idea of parents putting their child in the ground, what that means in term of hour hope for the next generation. what was the ceremony what was

the funeral like for you? what was sort of running through your head at a moment when the eyes of the nation were on baltimore today? >> i thought it was heartwarming. i thought it was unifying. that all sectors of the city, the protesters in the same assembly with elected officials in a harmonious way. didn't feel like it was adversarial or tense. and so to get the news on what is taking place now is absolutely heart and gut-wrenching, particularly when we called for a moratorium on protests today because of the funeral. that there was to be no activity at the request of the family. we're mobilizing ministers and peace activists to try to intervene and to try to pull these young people back. >> let me bring you back in.

>> the footage that we're seeing, these look like scatter shot groups of maybe young people people, very organized lines of police. there has been renewed emphasis on police brutality inso far as it has been an issue for the baltimore police department. there's been renewed attention on the idea of rough rides, which are unsanctioned illegal techniques that may have been used by the baltimore pd in previous instances where folks have been effectively ridden around in police vans without seat belts and subject to sharp turns, which have then inflected significant amounts of damage to their brains to their spinal cords. folks are looking at whether something like that may have happened in freddie gray's death. as a baltimore resident what can you tell us about the scrutiny that the police department now finds itself

under? ben, are you there? >> yeah oh sorry. tell me about the scrutiny that the baltimore police department finds itself under. "the baltimore sun" has been covering this in detail for some time now. but the rest of the country is sort of just waking up to the issues that the community has had with its police department. what can you tell us? >> you know, one question that you have to ask is sort of why is this happening now. and it's hard to imagine that this would have happened out of context. there's a long history of brutal relations between the police department in baltimore and the community, and you know the legacy just coming in the aftermath of ferguson and eric garner. right now every one of these incidents is going to have this additional sort of energy to it.

the level of injustice is just too much to take. in addition there are these existing issues. there have been several lawsuits with rough rides and with the particular issue of how the police treat people well there while they're transporting them. in terms of the history and the national context, it feels a little bit like a powder-keg. i'd say that earlier this week it didn't feel that way. as pastor bryant was saying. the family and the ministers have been pretty concerted about calling for peaceful demonstrations. most of the protests have been quite peaceful. i'm not so sure that what we're seeing is going to be the harbinger of something. but it doesn't look good right now.

>> ari, in previous case where is the police department has had to settle. when they settle there is no admittance of wrong doing. in many cases, officers are not even disciplined. i wonder in a case like this because it's getting so much national attention, because we now have people in the streets, we have a dialogue that has been ongoing with the subject of police community relations. do you think something like a settlement is even likely? do you think this has to go to trial? >> well, it's very hard to say. the reason many of these settlements occur is that you don't get a government response. what is a criminal prosecution? that is the local government using its resources to prioritize a case. and they don't prosecute everything. and they make their decisions. often they don't prosecute wrong doing by government officials or police. especially if the facts are in dispute. and civil cases lead to often these settlements. so here you have a situation, as we look at baltimore here as we look at this aerial footage of

the police reconstituting in these positions trying to maintain order here around the mall. and the police reporting several officers injured. a situation of rising tension between the police and the community here. ta many folks in baltimore would say. and these reports as you reference would say this is not new in the underlying issues. what's potentially new is this being a national story. freddie gray's funeral being attended to national figures. we are seeing now -- and i guess we're looking at some folks dispersing or running up another street. what we are seeing here is a pattern where what would at one point in our history have been local events, largely local political controversies take on a national dynamic. so to your question as we look at today as we look at this not going away, it's hard to imagine baltimore being able to conduct business as usual. >> yeah. pastor bryant to go back to the funeral service today, ari

points out that among the representatives that the white house sent down broderick johnson, head of the my brother's keeper initiative. what was the response from the community to see that the white house had some emissaries some ambassadors from the federal government at the funeral had it not resurfaced probably none of us would know about. i think that number one, the family was overwhelmed with the love and the support. to see it from all different sectors is one thing. to see it on the street on eye level. but to see a whole church and people turned away was awe-inspiring to them. but to juxtapose now leaving the cemetery and to be come barded with radio and television has got to be a roller coaster of emotions. and there's really no excuse for it. it's got to be interrupted,

because justice is not violent. as a consequence, we've got to call for immediate calm, and for those who are perpetway or thes of it that they will scale all the way back down. there shouldn't have even been a protest today because we were honoring the family's request. >> we've seen this -- this is the umpteenth time we've seen a video, the revisitation of racial relations in this country. renewed scrutiny over policing techniques. and now folks taking to the street. i guess i wonder when you look at the footage we're showing, is this time different? >> you know i'm not sure that it is. certainly it is the case that this is a different kind of situation than what we saw in

ferguson. i think it's more akin to the one in new york with eric garner, where it seems unambiguous that there is some sort of undue misconduct or police action. but the fact of the matter is that a real change to these conditions that lead to these sorts of situations. the kind of action you would have to take to make sure that people like freddie gray or just people in general, aren't subjected to that kind of treatment by law enforcement officers. it's change i'm not sure a broader political community is willing to make. at a certain point, when you have constant reports of police misconduct, you have to begin to conclude there's not really misconduct, it's just how we do things. i don't see any real evidence that americans are ready to fully reconsider what we've asked police departments to do in our inner cities and our poor

communities and high crime communities. it seems to me that what we've asked them to do is to use this sort of heavy hand. when you give wide berth for a heavy hand you're going to get inevitably in situations like this. >> let me bring in jane miller who has been covering the freddie gray case and the fallout. she joins me on the phone. what can you tell us about the level of surprise here? there have been several developments about gangs being united together and called to bring down the police. and now sporadic bursts of rock throwing from the street. >> we have a situation that is very dynamic at the moment. schools were closed about 3:00. there's a group of kids younger

people that were involved in skirmishes near a shopping mall. and they're currently in kind of a skirmish with the police as we speak. there's a lot of police presence in that part of town. downtown is calm at the moment. a lot of businesses closed early. today was freddie gray's funeral. that is going to take second seat to the disruption that is going on right now. >> jayne, for those folks who are tuning in now and are unfamiliar with the geography of baltimore, we're looking at west baltimore right now. is that correct? >> are you looking at the -- >> northwest baltimore. it's about ten minutes from where the freddie gray incident started. >> and the funeral was nearby that. >> the funeral was on the other

side of town. northeast baltimore. >> northeast versus northwest. >> i'm sorry, no. that's not correct. the funeral was -- i'm sorry. the funeral was -- i was thinking of the viewing. the viewing was in northeast baltimore. the funeral today was also in northwest baltimore. not far from the mall where you're seeing the service is now. >> we were talking to benjamin wallace. he was saying a lot of the kids involved in this protest would have been near the mall anyway at the close of school which was around 3:00. >> it's a big transit stop. so it's a normal flow. i think the allegation is that -- and what we can see is they're in 7-eleven and disrupted it in some fashion. and it's just been -- apparently hurdling bottles and apparently anything they can get their hands on. i think a couple of officers have been injured. >> jayne thanks for the update.

i want to go back to ari. and benjamin wallace brings up the good point -- jemele, i'm sorry, brings up the point that we have seen this before. and the question is, does anything change. it seems like a lot of the issues at this moment are systemic failures, big pieces of our criminal justice system and indeed, american society that we need to revisit and potentially fix. and i guess i wonder are we closer to looking at reforms in a meaningful way. >> i mean it depends on how you count it. but if you look at this attorney general, and we had a new one sworn in today, this attorney general opened over 15 different reviews into police departments around the nation. and sometimes didn't find enough wrong doing to create change, and other times in the case of new mexico, had wholesale changes where they found unjustified killings and departments were changed. there were legal consequences.

people were removed. there are prosecutions of officers for misconduct in this country. so it is certainly too simple a gloss to say that nothing ever changes, although you can understand why so many of the protesters in these communities say that on day-to-day basis these problems persist. we're looking at a continued sort of -- clashes of folks moving around in the street. moving around these officer phalanxes that we've seen gathered together. as for what does baltimore do the big question is how will they show that there was a process in accountability here. in the case of ferguson that was similar, you had a -- we're looking at some officers i think taking one individual to the ground. and we saw earlier today officers removing one of their own as they say several were injured. in a wider context on sunday there were about 35 arrests made according to police. what we've seen here covering this the last hour or so from what we can see from the air only a handful of arrests.

and as your guest mentioned earlier, who was at the funeral, the official folks who are related to the family and the civil rights groups on the ground, asked for no protests at all today. so what we are looking at which is newsworthy for the violence is not necessarily representative of what's been planned by i would say the bulk of the organized protest on the ground. >> when you look at the protest here -- i don't know if we can call it protest. the reaction in the streets. do you think that changes a narrative that i feel like up until this point, especially in the case of freddie gray has been decidedly with the community, and been i think in many ways skeptical of police actions, specifically in the case of freddie gray? >> yeah. and unfortunately, i think it does. sort of the problem with this sort of action in response to police and police violence is that it makes it easier for

naysayer or skeptics to say that listen, there isn't a problem with the police. there is a problem with the community, it just needs to get back in order and that the police are just sort of doing their jobs and have not actually behaved in any way that deserves serious scrutiny. i think you saw that and you see that sort of in popular conversations about ferguson. even in the wake of the department of justice report showing real misconduct by the ferguson authorities. the fact of the riots in ferguson, both the initial disturbances in august and the later ones in november the fact of all of that discord has essentially in the minds of many americans i think erased any sense that there is an injustice happening there. which is understandable and very frustrating. because the conduct of

protesters, whether or not you agree with it or not and sometimes there are reasons to be critical of it. it doesn't really have any bearing on the broader institutional issues at hand. so in this particular case you can have kids acting wrongly, throwing bottles and rocks at police officers, which they should not do. and it can also be true that the baltimore police department has problems with regard to interactions with the community. both can be true but oftentimes people treat them as if either one has to be true or the other has to be true. >> right. as singular narratives opposed to parallel. we're joined on the phone now by former nypd officer eugene o'donnell. professor, in terms of the police response one would imagine the conversations going on behind the scenes are ones to be -- ones cautioning a measured response on the part of the police given the dynamics at play here.

what's your read on how the police are handling this particular moment? >> i think you look at city hall at a time like this. it's really an issue of the reach that the city government has to ordinary people. and if the police can get to ordinary people. people that are legitimately protesting. for those people to legitimately make their points they have this outreach. but it's really important that the mayors now step up around the country. you start to wonder how connected they are to their own police departments. do they know what the cops knew they know who the local commanders are. do they talk to the community. are they actually out there? or are they just leading from city hall? i have to say in some of these cities it looks like it's a police to run for higher office. these are the real issues finding out what the police are actually doing. you tell people to do something, they do it.

you tell people not to do something, they don't. the issue about what the police were confronting this man about, that's a political issue. the police will do essentially what they're told not to do. you wonder how many mayors -- >> let me push back on that a little bit. from what we're hearing at least, from folks in the community, stephanie rawlings blake has been very involved in this case. was at the funeral of freddie gray. has been meeting with family members. has had her arms around those affected by this. i guess the question is is the dialogue happening? it would seem to be yes. >> but the mayors to me seem to be like bystanders. this is a real risk. it's absolutely right to express concern. but to demilitarize your police force, it gets to the point where you're almost looking at

like a bystander. if the department has issues which she has said for years, fix the problem. it's a leadership issue. it's not helpful for elected officials to continuously be on the air acting like somebody out in the audience. i mean, they're elected to run these agencies. and i wonder how much they do that. i wonder how much they're actually out there not only flash point times, but ordinary times. did they go to community meetings? do they know the cops? do they know the commanders? do they know the mission the police are doing? what they're being asked to do. the conflicting demands that are always in play. or are they simply there at the end. i hope that's not the case here. but this is a department where they talk about going to the justice department to fix it. i mean, this is what you expect from the mayor. and she seems to be quite conscientious and quite good but that's really the major issue. >> i'm sure we'll be talking more about stephanie rawlings blake's relation with the police

department. but first, let's listen in to our affiliate in baltimore, wbal. >> a small group of agitateors turned that protest violent and you saw remarkable restraint from our officers. remarkable restraint. this afternoon, a group of outrageous criminals attacked our officers. right now, we have seven officers that have serious injuries. including broken bones, and one officer who is unconscious. we will do whatever is appropriate to protect the safety of our police officers and ensure the safety of the people that live and work in this area. we have officers deployed throughout the city to make sure that we can continue to deliver peace services to the city of baltimore and we will continue to keep the city safe. our officers are working as quickly and as appropriately as they can to bring about order and effect arrests of the criminals who violently and

without provocation attacked our police officers. >> can you tell us exactly how -- [ inaudible question ] >> we're still in the middle of the situation. it's still happening. we know as this is going on that seven of our officers right now have been injured. the exact circumstances somebody will determine at a later date. we will find the people that are responsible and put them in jail. >> who do you believe is responsible? >> right now it is a group of lawless individuals with no regard for the safety of the people that live in that community or the safety of our police officers who are there to ensure that the people who live and work in that area could do so safely. >> are these high school students? >> i don't know who is out there. what we do know is that they're criminals. they attacked officers without

provocation. our officers are working hard to bring about order. we're not going to speculate as to what this is related to. we're dealing with the situation right now. you hear officers responding behind me. right now our focus is making sure that the people that live in that community are safe and that our officers are safe. >> the size of the group? >> i don't have an estimate of the size right now. it's a large group of people spread out over a significant area. i can't emphasize this enough. we have seven officers injured during the course of this. they have broken bones. one of them is unresponsive. this is not okay. our officers went out to that situation to make sure the people who live in that community were safe and we're going to continue to do what we can to make sure that those people stay safe. we have that obligation to the city. monodawmin

mondawmin. what we know is this morning we received a threat it was through our intelligence section. that threat was determined to be credible. so we took the appropriate precautions of ensuring that that information was not only distribute to our officers here but to law enforcement agencies nationwide. >> the preparations you'll be taking throughout the night? >> it's too early to know that. we have officers responding to that location. you're going to see tear gas and pepper balls. we're going to use appropriate methods to ensure the safety of the community. [ inaudible question ] do you know exactly how this came together? was this planned protest or spontaneous? >> i don't want to get into that right now. we're in the middle of the

situation. we need to let people that are in that community know that we are doing what we can to ensure their safety. we're deploying police officers to make sure that that neighborhood is safe that the people that are trying to get home from work can do so peacefully. >> what were they hurt with the officers? >> that's something we're going to figure out. we know rocks and bricks were being thrown. we're going to make sure we do everything we can to make sure another officer isn't injured. we're going to use appropriate methods like tear gas and pepper balls. as we're able to provide later information, we will. >> that was captain eric kowalczyk. >> that was baltimore police spokesman eric kowalczyk giving an update on events in baltimore. he had a very strongly worded statement. said outrageous criminals attacked our officers. they had no regard for the safety of our community or that of police officers. rhetoric becomes incredibly important in moments like this.

the baltimoreoiltaltimore police clearly feel that the response here is wrong, is disproportionate. at the same time they are not commenting on why -- >> we were just showing there, you talk about him mentioning injuries. we just showed footage from half an hour ago when they were loading one of the officers who was injured carrying him into a van. seven serious injuries. the officers saying one unconscious. the other with broken bones. from the scale of this when folks are watching this live and we show the footage, it looks worse than it might look on the ground, or it looks sort of bigger. this is a scenario where it is different from earlier days where there were far more people in the protest. there was a lot of problemerty damage. it looked really scary. here, while there's a smaller number of people, one thing from your reporting, alex we can say

we've heard from pastors and folks on the side of the protest as well as from the police today, one common thread has been this is not the organized protest. we are looking at whatever you want to call it. the other sporadic element. what the police are calling a very criminal element. so that is different than these earlier days. looking at seven serious injuries. a photographer says he was injured separately by a rubber bullet that he believes was fired by the police. and we're going into dusk or end of day on the day of freddie gray's funeral. >> i want to ask -- i think we still have brian on the scene. do we have brian? brian, are you there? we don't have brian. i want to go now to nbc news correspondent tom costello. we're here in new york. it's hard to get a sense of the number of people on the street not police officers, whbut who are engaged in this moment. we're still told it's a group of juveniles. do you have a sense of how large this response is?

it seems fairly spread out. >> reporter: i think you're looking at several hundred young people at this point, and i would say you're looking at at this point a massive police response of several hundred people as well. i know you want to stay on the picture, but just for a moment, take my camera. i want to show you this piece of concrete was just thrown at us just a moment ago. you can imagine if this hits you in the head this is potentially lethal. so this is what the police are up against. they are having these type of projectiles thrown at them. if i could bring them in very quickly, i have one of the ministers who was this morning at the service for freddie gray. there you go. if we could put a microphone on you. i'll ask you to say your name for you really quickly. you're on national television on msnbc. >> reverend ron elwins. >> i know you today and all the other clergy were pleading for people to be peaceful. to have a sense of outrage. but to channel that in a productive way. what are your thoughts about what you're seeing right now?

>> i think what you're seeing right now are not those who are committed to bringing the best for our community. i think you see a bundle of kids who are showing lawlessness. we're not endorsing that. we're asking the police to use a sense of caution, care and concern. but i think it is confined to one group. >> reporter: just so you know i'm sure you know this already, there are it looks like hundreds of people now, of young people -- >> we actually rode through it and i would say it probably looks like 200 at best who are all dismissed from the high school. i would blame the city for not coordinating the efforts to dismiss high schools in an appropriate manner. dismissed three high schools simultaneously. >> reporter: for those people who are not from baltimore, give us a geographical sense. is this isolated only to -- >> it is isolated to west baltimore. douglas is less than three blocks away from us which is the principal school engaged with the bad conduct.

>> concern at all about this spreading through the city? we've heard that downtown they're already starting to close some buildings, some shops, that sort of thing, and blocking off traffic. >> i am cautious and i am faithful. i am believing that the best will prevail. i don't think you're going to see tons of gang violence because that's not been our problem. ours has been just crime in random parts of the city and not a lot of gangs. i am concerned that if there is trouble, that it is metered out. the appropriate measure of re response to the appropriate level of action. >> reporter: based on what you've seen this was thrown at us a, your thoughts on whether the police response at this moment is appropriate? >> i think what i've seen, it's been appropriate. >> reporter: and lastly the police earlier today said that they believe they had credible information of a threat against them that several rival gangs teaming up to potentially target law enforcement. have you also heard of that? >> i've been a fan of yours, and you know the likelihood of gangs

coming together to agree on anything, even if it's making money, is possibly and probably untrue. >> reporter: reverend, thank you. >> thank you. keep doing the good work. >> reporter: don't walk away with my mic. >> i promise i won't. >> reporter: guys back to you. it is a very tense situation. as you know, we have been trying all along to characterize this appropriately. the appropriate numbers of people who are involved. on saturday we had a small pockets of individuals who were causing trouble. i would say i think that we are looking at a larger group of young people right now. back to you guys. >> thanks tom. let's listen in to our affiliate in baltimore, wbal, with their coverage. >> the riot -- i'm sorry. okay go ahead. >> that's bryant avenue just off north monroe street barry. just got a call from baltimore

county pd. they're heading into baltimore city to assist the baltimore city police department with crowd control and what have you. >> i want to go over to ben wallace. you're a resident of baltimore. you write about this town. you've been writing about this. the latest goings on in the aftermath of freddie gray's death at the hands of while in police custody. you can already hear the division. their assessment of these groups of juveniles in the streets. whether or not this is a situation, if you will, with people taking to the streets and posing great risk. a group of kids who were let out

of school and probably should have been better prepared. but seeming to underplay whether or not this is a real face-off between community and police. anne you know you know, from the activist community, have you heard or seen -- have you heard tell of them in the days since freddie gray died? >> i think it's a pretty organized activist community. i think that you've seen that in the protests which themselves have been for the most part pretty non-violent, pretty concerted, pretty respectful pretty particular about who they were for and who they were against. there was a particularity to the protests that i thought was impressive. this doesn't look to me like anything we've seen over the last couple of weeks. this looks to me like something apart. i'd also say two things. one is that maybe this doesn't hold. i've been in the studio for 40 minutes, but, you know an hour

ago, it didn't look like there was any -- the only confrontation here was people looked like young people to me against police. there was no targeting of the businesses downtown. very quiet. there was, you know, no kind of broader social insurrection. this looked like people who were angry at the cops. i understand you know, captain kowalczyk's sort of feelings the baltimore police spokesman. i understand that if you're a cop -- >> yeah i should interrupt you, ben, because we're getting new footage in which looks to be -- again, looks to be people entering a cvs possibly looting. we're going with the footage as we get it. but there seems to be some interaction on the street level between businesses and

protesters. >> i'm just going to add. in terms of what we know, there may not be a widespread property damage today. it is a smaller protest. we can factually report that but it's having significant damage and i don't think anyone would seek to characterize the distinction between property damage and illegal attacks, violence, injuries for the officers as somehow meaning that it's a lesser incident. but removing abofficer who had been badly cut in the head. what wii seeing here is people going in and out of the cvs. i'm not seeing a lot of officers

near that area right now. it doesn't look like baltimore is completely calmed down yet. >> by no means are we meaning to suggest that it is a calm situation. i want to go to the chopper pilot who can give us more details. >> one officer was hurt and hurt badly. they actually had to carry him out. they actually ended up lobbing tear gas canisters or pepper spray or cs gas to disperse the crowd so they could get to the officer and rescue him and protect themselves. in fact, as they were carrying the officer to put him into the peace keeper they were still being pelted by rocks and bricks.

>> we're hearing that there is violence on the ground here. to echo what has been said there are seven officers with serious injuries rocks and bricks being thrown. eugene, are you still with us? eugene o'donnell, former police officer. eugene in terms of the captain ed kowalczyk, the baltimore police spokesperson characterizing these folks and outrageous criminals attacking our officers with no regard for the safety of the community or of police officers, i guess i wonder, clearly this is a distressing incident for anybody that wants the police to be able to do their job, keep communities safe.

how carefully do you think they're going to tread the line to not incite further violence? >> it's going to be important for everybody to keep their heads, be cautious. this could be a long-term event. you need your more senior people, cool headed people up front. you need to keep command and control. the department has to make sure it's protecting its officers. the police have to be protected. but at this point, it's real important to have as many supervisors out there and to have a good command and control. there's no teams whatsoever. it's protecting the public. it's protecting the police while they protect the public. there's a large number of people that are trying to do the right thing, protest peacefully.

for those that are looting, they have to be prosecuted that has to happen also. >> in terms of the mayor's response and what the mayor does in a moment like this there is certainly a necessity in liaising with both the community and with the police department. i guess i wonder up until now, it seems like stephanie rawlings blake has been engaged with the community. to eugene's concern, has she been engaged enough with the police department? >> i don't know enough about the mayor and her relationship with baltimore's police department to answer that question definitively. i think we will see in the next days and months as the city begins to react to this. if she has had that relationship we will see i

think real progress because there will be mutual trust. if she hasn't then it's not clear that we'll see much of a shift from past practices. it's really one of those issues where one of the situations where the only proof we'll have will be action going forward. >> and indeed the relationship between the mayor and the police department -- i mean we're here in new york city bill de blasio knows well the mayor's response in this moment is critical. and there will be a lot of scrutiny on how she handles it and how she even talks about it. again, the narrative and the rhetoric around what is happening is really can inform future events. >> right. this is sort of what's disappointing about what's happening right now. he faced a big backlash from city police who saw that in some regards a statement against

them. when that really isn't the case at all. communities and police officers have to work together to make their cities and their neighborhoods safer. when communities feel that they are being treated unfairly that is as much an interest for the leaders of that community as sort of making sure that the police feel like they are a part of the conversation making sure that they are trusted and making sure that they are respected as well. situations like this make it hard to walk that line. it polarizes the situation and makes it seem like sympathy for protesters, sympathy for people who feel grieved is tantamount to opposition to the police officers. i don't think that's the case at all. >> ari, you brought up a major

news event that is doing to dove tail with this, as we see cars on fire here. it looked like -- and again, this is a developing story. it looks like a situation is escalating. we're hearing -- we can go now to the helicopter pilot who is covering the area. let's hear what he has to say about the situation on the ground. it looks like there's looting there's the damaging of additional police cars. we're seeing a car here on fire. nightfall, is of course, just a few hours away. i guess i wonder on the day that we are also swearing in a new attorney general, and seeing the end of eric holder's tenure as attorney general someone who's very very very involved in cases like this you know this

is a daunting next chapter for loretta lynch. >> it is. and these law enforcement problems are not just defined at the incident of an event. so what happened to freddie gray is suspicious. and the lack of police information when the police are alleged to have potentially been involved in it is problematic. that's one event, right? here we are days out on the day of the funeral watching here a police car burn. on a day when seven officers have been injured. two injured seriously. this is a different level of the event of criminality. that's what the police are up against. i think what we've seen in the police stapttements, we've seen their statements as they continually put out updates on twitter about trying to disperse the crowd. the message from the baltimore police is one of saying they are trying to exercise restraint here as they feel they're facing down a very difficult criminal element.

>> i'm sure members of the community will say they've faced years, if not decades of police brutality, of deteriorating relations with the people that are meant to serve them and the frustration has boiled over and some unsavory elements in the community have decided to take out their own form of justice with rocks and sticks and bricks and other homemade weapons, which is in no way excusing the violence, but an explanation. ari, you are a chief legal correspondent. this case is ongoing. we're not going to get the first report now until perhaps may 1st and then there will be weeks -- there are benchmarks ahead in terms of potential inflection points. >> and we're looking at a level of unrest. and again, as we've emphasized in the context. a relatively small number of

individuals. a fall smaller number we just had a report from the ground of a pastor saying about 200 people in their estimate. compared to thousands over the weekend that was relatively peaceful. it is the nature of these disputes where obviously the violence and a burning police car that we're looking at right now will get more attention, which is understandable. that we saw the mayor and the police chief come out right afterward and give an update on the process of that investigation. this will be reminiscent for some people in ferguson. there will be the incident that needs to be investigated in the death of freddie gray. and then there will be how does the police and the mayor and the establishment of baltimore deal with these ongoing problems. you would expect a higher level of police leader to come out at some point today, maybe hopefully before night fall to try to address the city.

>> brian is with the attorney for the gray family. if we could just get a sense of his and the family's response to what we're seeing on the ground unfold. cars on fire looting, protesters armed with sticks rocks, and homemade weapons. >> reporter: bill, you're an attorney, a former judge. you spoke movingly about what the family didn't want. you called on the community to tear down the blue wall of justice peacefully. you said that there was going to be change. and now we're seeing this violence in the street these clashes. what is your response? what is the family's response? >> these kids obviously weren't at the funeral and they didn't hear what we were saying. but we've got to get to them so that they don't go any further with this. this is not what anybody wants. the family doesn't want it. we don't want it the city doesn't want it. we don't need it. innocent people can get hurt.

police officers who haven't been brutalizers themselves getting hurt innocently. merchants are getting looted. this is not good. >> these people on the street do not believe that justice is being done here. they do not trust the system. do you? does the family? >> we are patient about getting justice. we've gotten justice before. what we want to do is get into a court of law, which is the only civilized way to solve a problem like this and to solve this dispute about what happened with freddie gray. we don't want to solve this in the streets. the streets are what brought us here. and so we are against what's going on. now, these kids have seen and felt police brutality. as they grew up in this community. they don't trust the police. but this is not the constructive way to do it. this is the destructive way, which can only make things worse. >> if you want to billy is now mic'd up and can hear what you're saying.

a distressing day for the family. counterproductive, would you say? >> absolutely. we don't want anybody else hurt. >> billy, what would you like to see from the mayor and the police commissioner at this moment? if you had one ask of them, what would it be? >> i'm not going to put any more pressure on the mayor and the police department than they already have. they know what to do. they know what the correct response ought to be. my message is to the people who can hear me now, who might be tempted to go out into the streets and make the problem worse. don't do it. it's not right. violence is not the answer. we must be intelligent and measured in our approach. we shouldn't let the emotions of the moment cause further problems. these merchants having don't anything to you. passersby in cars haven't done anything to you. restrain yourself. go back home. >> you did have a request of the

police body cameras that cannot be turned off. can you bring us through some of the other items on that list? >> well we need an end of the blue wall of silence, which is the code that the police have to protect each other right or wrong. regardless of whether the behavior was good and justified or bad and unjustified. we've got to end that. that's a police culture that exists all over this country. and we can't have it anymore. it's got to go. police -- the law-abiding police have to be encouraged to report the bad guys. >> thank you guys body for the update. thanks for joining us. thank you to billy murphy. ari melber eugene o'donnell, jemele buoy and benjamin

wallace wells. we are continuing to follow breaking news out of baltimore. there have been a handful of arrests, according to the baltimore police. at least seven officers have serious injuries. in a press conference earlier this hour, police said they were attacked without provocation and called those who attacked them criminals. our coverage ends now, but "the ed show" picks up our coverage beginning now. i'm sitting in for ed right now. we start with breaking news, as you've been watching on msnbc out of baltimore, maryland. looking at live pictures right now in baltimore where young demonstrators are clashing with police. earlier, demonstrators were throwing rocks and other objects at officers. at the moment fire trucks arriving at this burning vehicle. we've been watching it over the last hour here from this helicopter that was over this area, which we believed to be around the mondawmin mall not too far away from where the funeral was held earlier today for freddie