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tv   The Ed Show  MSNBC  April 28, 2015 2:00pm-3:01pm PDT

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picks up our coverage live from baltimore coming up next. hi everybody. good afternoon from baltimore. i'm thomas roberts in for ed schultz tonight on "the ed show." and we are live right now at the intersection of north avenue and pennsylvania avenue here in baltimore city where two different protesting groups are merging together. if you can turn around and face that way, going up pennsylvania avenue, you can see this group that's just coming in. we're in front of the burned out cvs where there were rioters and looters last night that set this cvs ablaze. it seems to be right now that this intersection has become more of a protesting party atmosphere, as we have muse nick the background and two different groups that are merging here right in front of the cvs, coming from different directions on pennsylvania avenue. right over here on the corner is the burned out cvs, and people are literally going in there
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taking pictures video they're just walking through and touring it. it was a place that the police and fire department were here earlier saying that this property is condemned. you can see the big red sign on the front door but that's not keeping people from going inside and taking a look and it is completely burned out. the smell of acrid products and the torched ceiling and things that are falling out of the ceiling, the wires. it's a complete rack on the inside. but there are volunteers in there that are trying to mop up the mess that is created from the fire department coming in and putting out this structure fire but also from the products that were burning inside. you can imagine a fully stocked cvs when this was looted late last night. nbc news's gabe gutierrez is here with me on site. we chatted earlier today, this has changed dramatically in just a couple of hours since we chatted. >> yeah that's right. we were just over there, you can see the riot police.
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they've been here for several hours right now. and the people that have been standing here, earlier there was a little bit of tension. there was such a heavy handed police presence. but they were mostly peaceful throughout the afternoon. but as you can see, there's kind of a little bit more of a celebratory atmosphere here right now. people are singing, they want the focus to go back on freddie gray. they want the violence put in the past. they want to change the narrative to shift it back on freddie gray. people have been coming here throughout the day and volunteers have been here cleaning up debris and moving it out, and they really want to show that this isn't just a bumpbl of bunch of thugs that had the violence. these are members of the community that really care about it and really want to see their community taken care of. they hope that there is no more
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violence here, and they've gathered here. there have been no major clashes with police. some instances of water bottles being thrown at the state police. and some very minor clashes of people running away. but for the most part very peaceful here. >> as you said, the word thug that's something that the mayor used last night. we are waiting for a press conference from the mayor and the police commissioner. we're going to take you there live as soon as that happens. we're less than five hours away now from the mandatory curfew that begins at 10:00 p.m. tonight here in baltimore city and goes until 5:00 a.m. the only conditions where people can break that curfew is medical or for work reasons. you were talking to volunteers out here today, did any of them talk about the curfew or bring up feeling impeded upon because of the curfew? >> a few did. a few of them feel that listen, they are residents of this community. they are adults here. they don't feel that the curfew will really do much to them or is really hurting them, whereas the violence yesterday was perpetrate perpetrated, like you said. the mayor and other officials have referred to this as thugs. so they don't feel that this is
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something that the rest of the community should be allowed to be out here overnight. >> and you've seen this slowly but surely fill up throughout the afternoon with more and more people. >> there were several hundred people here earlier. i don't have an accurate count here right now. earlier, they were bunched up. if you can turn around and show here. there were a lot more people stationed there and now they've dispersed a little bit. they've moved to another part of the block. you can hear music playing very loudly in the background. people milling about. people protest, but doing so in a very peaceful way. they really again want the focus to shift back to freddie gray and the questions surrounding his death. >> it really is a crush of police presence and we're seeing the militarized vehicles. i know that some have been
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brought in from other location ss. i saw military vehicles from prince george's county that have been assigned to come here. i now the baltimore police thanked the national guard effort that has come out to help reinforce the streets tonight. >> the national guard is very visible, especially in the downtown area. we're not seeing them so much here in west baltimore, but in the downtown areaing hundreds of national guardsmen were very visible today. making sure that they were seen and their presence was felt. some residents here feel the heavy police presence is unwarranted. they feel that this is too much, and they're trackcracking down now and not trusting the community to take care of themselves. but there are some residents walking up to the police and thanking them for being out here and for keeping the peace.
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definitely a lot of different ideas. some were denouncing the violence together from rival gangs, and they were saying that this does not represent their community and that the violence we saw yesterday had nothing to do with freddie gray. that's the message they wanted to get out there. >> from the police department, they had issued a statement saying that there was a credible threat that was levied against the police department that rival begans in the city had put down their grudges to unify against the police. they strongly deny that. >> they strongly deny that. they say this is not about violence, even though many people around the country would argue, they are associated, many times with violence. but they say that they want the focus to remain on the mysterious death of freddie gray and they don't appreciate the gang members say that they had nothing to do with the violence yesterday. and that they're not about
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attacking the police. >> we are still waiting on the police conference. just to reset the scene, we're in west baltimore. the cvs is right behind us the one that you saw on fire last night. we're less than five hours away from this mandatory curfew that's going to go into effect this evening starting at 10:00 p.m. and lasting until 5:00 a.m. but if we can just turn around and show like i said it's this unique protest party atmosphere where we have music and a collection of people coming together, either with bull horns and signs, all trying to be heard, not -- i don't know if they're working organizationally, but they know this is a collective point for people to come out, because there's a crush of media here and there's also the police presence just across the street. you can see one of the militarized vehicles over there, and also the police in their riot gear. they were on both sides of this
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street as we tried to approach we had to go around the long way trying to get through there. >> very difficult to get in here. hundreds of people have been here throughout the day. as we mentioned, the cvs behind us about an hour ago firefighters came here and there were reports of a small fire that had popped up at the roof of that building. they said the air conditioner on that roof had created sparks. actually came up. so they poured water on it protectively. but that stirred up a lot of anxiety here. the firefighters rushing here very quickly. just wondering what happened. was there another fire. we're told that's not the case. >> excuse me i'm thomas roberts from msnbc. do you mind if i ask you a few
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questions? >> oh no. >> why did you want to come out here tonight? >> i live in washington, d.c. and i used to live here. and when i heard about what had happened, i just wanted to come out here and support. >> what's your name? >> robin riddick. >> so you saw this on the news, and now you see this. describe this for everybody at home. i've been trying to describe it as almost like a party-like atmosphere for the protesters that have gathered. what's your impression? >> my comment, my comment is that it said it had to come to this but it is unfair with what the police are doing and what they're doing and how they get away with it. so it's unfortunate that young people, this is their way of expressing themselves. whether it's wrong or right. and it's not right at all to destroy anybody's property. but at the same time i feel for them because this is the only way they know how to express it. >> but as someone who lives over in washington, d.c. you felt safe enough to come over to baltimore tonight after what you saw on tv? >> oh, sure no doubt.
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i used to live here. >> so what do you think is beginning to happen tonight? the mayor has instituted a curfew. do you think that's going to help the situation? >> it could help the situation, but now whether or not everyone will abide by that that's a whole new different story. we'll have to wait and see. >> all right. robin, thanks so much. i really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. that's a unique perspective from someone who traveled over from washington, d.c. to be a part of this moment in history and moment in time. most of the people that you spoke to today that were here to clean up, they were community members, residents here. >> yeah many residents here. this area really drew a lot of people from just the surrounding area. people who lived here for decades and they were really disheartened to see what happened. this was an attack on their community. they pulled up right here to the cvs. if you can just see it our video from earlier this afternoon showed it. there was so much debris.
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came in here piled on and drove it out of here. now you can see there are residents peering into the cvs trying to take a look at some of the damage. the hope was that the violence would not happen again tonight. the curfew is controversial for some. there are some people that think listen, what good does it do now? there are some people that ask the question why wasn't it instituted yesterday? the mayor said in order to have a curfew that was enforceable, that they needed to give notice. i wouldn't say anxiety, as you see around here. it's a bit of a celebratory atmosphere in a way. but they are hopeful that we've seen the last of the violence. that's what most of the people here will tell you. >> okay we're looking at the vcs, and looking at my correspondents toure and joy reid standing right there. i want the shot of the cvs. so just get out of the way. yeah. look over right here.
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no, i want the shot of the cvs, because the thing that amazes me is the fact that people can walk in there with the red condemned sign right on the front of it and they are not heeding any type of warning about the fact that it's condemned. most people are walking in there and taking video and pictures. i'll admit it i took video so we could send it back to the studio to get that on the air for later. and we look down here can we show everybody -- they're taking pictures and using their cameras to document this moment. this is taking place at the intersection of north avenue and pennsylvania avenue in west baltimore. and last night, the images are starkly different to what we are seeing right now. where people community members have come out in advance of the curfew tonight to gather, to have their voices heard. some with bull horns. some just with signs. as gabe was pointing out, we have seen this heavy police
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presence, and it is combined not just with the local baltimore city police department, but also with regional forces and the national guard that was activated after the governor declared a state of emergency yesterday. you can hear the choppers that are flying overhead and a huge media presence that's descended on this spot. i've been at three different spots today in the neighborhood of freddie gray and over at the southern baptist church location where the senior center was burned. but i haven't seen anything like this. >> the media presence has been huge partly because the crowd was just so large. earlier on this afternoon, it's dispersed a little bit now, but there was sometying that if there was going to be some flare-up today, that this might be the spot. there was a little bit of tension earlier on today between the crowd and some of the police that were there. however, thankfully nothing came of that. but the media was here to document that and to check and
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see if it happened. at the same time we were very fortunate, and if we can pan over here and see not just reporters, but other community members and throughout here we have been able to see people here gathering and earlier there were volunteers that were here cleaning up this debris in front of this cvs, so i think that coupled with the police standing over there, with the volunteers standing over here that drew a lot of reporters throughout the afternoon. >> the community members that you had a chance to speak to this afternoon, it was about changing the narrative. i don't know how much room we have to move around, but i'm going to try to catch some of these people that are out here in the streets so we can actually talk to them. but gabe was talking to people and i had a chance to talk to kids earlier today young leaders in this community that wanted to change the narrative. they didn't want a few bad actors that the world witnessed to dominate the headlines. of course, we've been waiting for answers from the baltimore police department in the death of freddie gray. he was taken into custody on
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april 12th and allegedly through injuries received at the hands of the police died a week later in the hospital in a coma. and since that time we haven't gotten answers, but it was yesterday that freddie gray's family laid him to rest and it was on all accounts a beautiful service that was attended -- well attended by many members of the community who knew the gray family, but many activists and also policymakers here in and around baltimore city and maryland that wanted to be there to support the gray family. after school got out around 3:00 that's when things started to go south around mondawmin mall, and then we saw different pockets explode here in baltimore city overnight with the fire that happened directly behind us here. at the cvs. do you mind if i talk to you really fast? what's your name? >> danielle.
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>> do you live here in baltimore city? >> yeah. >> why did you want to be out here right now? >> i just came out here to represent my city and just to let everyone know that you know baltimore isn't this bad place. we really do come together when we need to. and this is a time that we really need to come together and show support for our city for the family of freddie gray and to let america know that we do want justice. >> when you say that you want justice, what type of message do you think it sends to the world when we're waiting on that justice and due process from the police investigation that we see residents last night looting and rioting in the city? does that represent the population of the city? >> no it doesn't. but my question to you is when we were out here protesting all last week for six days straight peacefully, there were no news cameras, there were no helicopters, there was no riot gear, and nobody heard us. so now that we've burned down buildings and set businesses on fire and looted buildings, now all of a sudden everybody wants
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to hear us. why does it take a catastrophe like this in order for america to hear our cry? i mean enough is enough. we've had too many lives lost at the hands of police officers. enough is enough. >> we're waiting right now for a press conference from the mayor of baltimore, stephanie rawlings blake, and also the police commissioner. as a resident of the city what's been your impression of how they've handled this case since they had to announce that freddie gray died a week after being taken into custody? >> i think they could have done a much better job of handling it. i think they've had plenty of cities around america who have served as example ss of what not to do. the people of baltimore want transparency. we still don't have answers as to bhapdwhat happened in the van. even after all this, we still don't have the answers that we need. so what more is it going to take? let's go right now to that press conference with the mayor
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stephanie rawlings blake and the police commissioner. they're about to speak. good evening, everyone. thank you for being here. last night was a very rough period for our city but today i think we saw a lot more of what baltimore is about. we saw people coming together to reclaim our city to clean our city, and to help heal our city. i think this can be our defining moment. and not the darkest days that we saw yesterday. i spent the morning talking to residents. i visited along north avenue where residents were cleaning up and tried to give comfort to people who know that their lives are beginning to be disrupted in major ways for a long time because of the damage that was done to their community.
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i saw the damage that was done to mondawmin mall and it breaks my heart because those of us who are from baltimore know how hard we fought for those resources and those stores to bring good quality products and items to our community and to have those stores destroyed, mom and pop kiosks destroyed, senselessly. they are working to recover. i also visited lexington market where vendors are desperately trying to get back to normal in dealing with the damage that was done as well. i want to sincerely thank the baltimore city police department. and i want to thank all of our other law enforcement officers who we have had in our city over the past week. commissioner, you're going to have to give all the counties
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because i can't remember. but i know that several counties in maryland they have sent us resources over the past week and they have been extremely supportive and i'm very grateful for that. i should have started here but i'll end here. i want to thank the members of the community. not just the ones that you see here behind me, but the ones that you haven't seen or won't see that have spent all day yesterday, all day today, trying to figure out how we can come together as a city. how we can heal. we have churches that are opening themselves up to be a sanctuary and a refuge giving young people who are out of school a place to go and something to eat. we have so many in our community who are looking for ways to come together and give a few
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community members an opportunity to make remarks. i would like to thank mark washington of the montebello community. mark? >> my name is mark washington. while we stand here as a disparate group of community leaders, of representatives, what i want everyone to know is we stand united as one baltimore. we hear the cries the frustration, the anger. we understand quite clearly that things need to change in baltimore city. but what we saw last night was not reflective of the majority of the city or the majority of youth in the city. we saw individuals take advantage of a situation and use it for their own cause. what they did was to try to diminish the legitimacy of the grievances that we do have in this city with the baltimore
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city police department. i want to make it clear to everyone that not only do i stand in unison with these community leaders here but i stand in unison with this mayor. as we all move together forward for a better and truer baltimore. thank you. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you. next i'd like to ask mike barb -- i know i saw you somewhere. where is mike? very active in the san town community and with habitat for humanity. mike. sorry. i know it's barb. >> it's been a long week. i understand. so my name is mike barb. my title in my day job is chief officer of programs and community engagement for habitat for humanity on the chesapeake. but i'm also a resident of the winchester community for almost the past ten years.
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so the story of the san tell and winchester community goes like this. since 1968 my neighbors have been working to rebuild from the stories we all know following dr. king's assassination 50 years ago. for me it's a little bit personal to the extent that i was born in baltimore in 1968 just a few months after that horrible time in our history. but our community -- and i'm so proud of my neighbors today, particularly for stepping up. and working so hard to reclaim the community. particularly from those who were trying to destroy it. we know those issues over here are very complex. certainly not going to solve those overnight. from a community perspective, what we are looking for is opportunities to facilitate
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these conversations of dialogue about these really difficult issues. we understand issues of race and social justice in an american history context are very deep and complex. so that's very much a part of where we are today. and we still have a long way to go. but to the extent that i would feel comfortable speaking on behalf of my neighbors -- you know, i apologize. it's just you have to -- we've got to have such deep admiration and appreciation for the sense of community, and this is a very critical time but again, today, i was so proud to see everybody out and cleaning up standing up to say this is not right in
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terms of destroying our own community and we won't go backwards to 1968. we'll use this as an opportunity to continue the hard conversations, and continue the rebuilding efforts that have been going on for a long time. thank you. >> thank you. thank you very much mike. last, before i open it up to questions, i'd like to ask mr. terrell, thank you very much for being here as well and standing in community. >> thank you. >> i'm mark terrell, the president of the associated jewish association of baltimore. let me start by saying i love this city. i love all the city that have rallied in support of making sure that we get past this. it's clear that change must occur and that injustice corrected but that needs to be done in a civil and resolute way. i know that we have the right people together to make sure that we get past this to be an even stronger baltimore. so i thank everybody for being
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here and for everybody working towards a productive goal. so thank you mayor. >> thank you. again, i want to thank all of the -- [ applause ] community leaders who love our city so much and are willing to stand up and help us get information out, and to help us to rebuild and just thank you. i think i'm turning it over to the commissioner. i'm sorry. it's been a long day. i'd like to turn it over to the commissioner and then we'll open it up for questions. >> a couple thoughts before we get started. my mayor takes a lot of shots and she's courageous enough to stand up and lead this city. you know, i've been doing this job for a long time. i've been standing in front of microphones like this and news conferences way too many times and i've lived through the riot of rodney king i've lived through riots in oakland and now i'm living through them in the
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city of baltimore. and when these things happen this pain this trauma takes place in the community, you don't always see the richness of the community. these people who are standing behind me, these are the people of baltimore that i know. people who care who love this city, who are very good people and do a lot for this community. when you're from baltimore, you're from baltimore, it's something that's in your dna. and at the same time as i see behind these cameras, my officers boarding that bus behind you. they love baltimore, too. i had officers come up to me and say i was born and raised in this city. this makes me cry. and one of my officers came and said, i went home and cried last night. this is a sad part of my city. i think what you're seeing within our community also is people celebrating and trying to heal this community. it's clear that what we have to do is change the culture within the baltimore police department. something that we've started on two and a half years ago and
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doing things totally different. bringing this community inside this police department. taking the police department and sitting down and reading to 5, 6, and 7-year-old young kids. bringing athletics and making police officers coaches. we have more to do, but we can't do it this way by destroying this beautiful city. we have a lot of things that we need to change and we're willing to work that direction. we've had an okay day today. we had small events that took place on the eastern portion of our city early this morning that resulted in a couple of arrests. we had some opportunists going to a couple of businesses. but overall today it has been a very good day. i was very pleased to say north and pennsylvania we had dancing, we had people celebrating, we had people bringing calm and peace. we had one or two people that acted up, we made two arrests, but for the most part the city has been calm today. people may ask also and put the question, why didn't you move faster yesterday?
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did you prepare yesterday? yes, we prepared. we had over 200, 300 police officers out there around that mall at the time that it took place. why didn't you move faster? because there are 14 15 and 16-year-old kids out there. do you want people using force on 14 15 16-year-old kids that are out there? they're old enough to know better. they're old enough to know not to do those things. but they're still kids unfortunately. so we had to take that into account while we were out there. [ applause ] >> you have a number of people on the streets for a number of hours now. can you talk a little bit about broadcasting messages. what exactly are you doing? >> we will continue to put information out on social media from twitter.
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i would ask that you guys continue to put information out and make sure that community is aware. we have no exceptions other than for medical or coming and going from work. that we will be stopping people who are out after curfew that were taken. we don't want to engage in any forcible action whatsoever. we have the national guard here. we also have state police in a multitude of other agencies outside from new jersey even from d.c. as well as multiple counties in the state of maryland. so we'll be out in strong numbers making sure that we have no issues within our city and we ask everybody to cooperate and be understanding at this point in time. i know it's a little -- it throws people off who want to go out and have dinner and different other events, but as we move forward to calm our city, have a little patience with us as we move forward, please. [ inaudible question ] we have no new intelligence but also we had one gentleman who
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shot at officers last night. one event in the northwest. but we deal with threats on a common basis. that's the reality of policing. i don't want to focus on that. i'd rather focus on the fact that we have these wonderful citizens behind us and the mayor standing there. [ applause ] >> the organizer of saturday's protest, which ended pretty badly at the end of the night announced today and circulating fliers, same thing for the protest here. is the city prepared for that? and how does the city respond to that? >> we're putting -- we are bringing in a lot of resources. they continue to come in. like i said, from other states jersey pennsylvania, also from washington, d.c. area. so our numbers are growing with the national guard here state police here also. our numbers are growing to keep the city quiet and make sure that everyone's safe. it's the same thing. when people come inside come out from outside, it's one thing when people are saying they have
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pain within our community. it's one thing when people say we want this police organization to change. and since they pay our salary we need to adapt to how the citizenry says here. but when people hurt this community, and then when it's done they leave and go home and then where it's shattered infrastructure, it's just not the right thing to do. so what i've been told is activists within our community, ministers for within our community are trying to have conversations with people who are leading this to remind them this is where we live this is where we worship, this is where our kids go to school. >> a group of high school students -- [ inaudible question ] >> i think probably there was a social media posting that said come out to mondawmin mall and we're going to do a purge. the only thing i know about purge is a movie that's a part 1 and part 2 about running on a rampage. i guess you could make a corollary about some of those
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kids being out there at that location. also it's a hub for i believe about eight different schools. so on a daily basis, we have big numbers of kids that drop off there on a constant basis. when we started making mobile movements there, there were buses in line and they let the kids off the buses. so we had even greater numbers out there. >> the national guard, do they have less power than baltimore city? how does that work? are you concerned about coordinating that and keeping that in line with the approach that you're trying to make? >> my responsibility as the commander that oversees these responsibilities within the city of baltimore is that we have expectations with our citizens and residents. so we're working through that. i just had a conversation with the colonel of state police. we were discussing how to make sure that we operate
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appropriately and by the same procedures. >> we heard one officer was unresponsive. >> i'm sorry, one more time. >> the latest on the injured police officers from last night. >> we had a number of police officers -- and i have to check on the firefighters. had about 15 of our officers and a lot of them were bruises on their hands from rocks and bottles being taken. i had one officer, brian who was in the hospital. i went to see him. he was held overnight because they had to do scans to make sure there wasn't any permanent damage. i hear he's doing well. all the rest of my officers have been treated and released at this point in time. >> thank you. >> we'll be doing another briefing about an hour from now. >> so we've been listening to the mayor of baltimore city stephanie rawlings blake along with the police commissioner and other officials that are
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overseeing the policing of the city now that we are less than five hours away from the mandatory curfew that will go into effect at 10:00 p.m. tonight and last until 5:00 a.m. in the morning. that's going to go on instituted at least for a week. that is according to the mayor. maybe less depending on how the situation is under control now that the national guard -- and as you just heard from the mayor there, the regional and local forces that have amassed here in the city of baltimore, trying to help tonight not look like the chaotic scene that we saw last night. i'm still on the scene here at the corner and intersection of pennsylvania and north avenue where protesters have gathered peacefully walking around in front of the burned out cvs. we all know those images that we saw last night. this is the cvs where people are taking video and pictures and seeing for themselves, while volunteers are actually in there mopping up the filthy water, mopping up the burned products and trying to get that cvs back
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on its feet. all of their own accord. there isn't really any organizational structure from the city being led to help clean up this area. it's being done by people here within the baltimore city community. i want to bring up the conversation now. congressman dutch ruppersberger. i know you had an opportunity to hear what the mayor was saying and the city police commissioner. how does that make you feel knowing that there has been concern about this type of activity moving from baltimore city into baltimore county? do you feel they have it under control? >> first thing, let's talk about the city. i was born in the city. i went to high school in the city. i raised my family. and we are in the area i represent, it surrounds the city. but also i have a part of city. so we were all disheartened. but when i went to bed last night and saw the fires -- and by the way a lot of people thought by seeing the fires the way they were that the whole city was on fire and it really wasn't. but when i woke up this morning
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and right away you saw the people of baltimore who live in the communities that were affected last night, it was very heartening to see them cleaning up saying this is our city. and that's what baltimore is about. you're going to knock us down we're going to get right back up, and we're going to take back our city away from those hoodlums who disparaged who we are and what we are in the city. i think that now that we have the reinforcements that are needed that's extremely important, because, you know when you do break the law, when you do attack police officers you attack citizens you attack people's property. law enforcement must stand up and they must arrest and stop it. because if you don't, you put fuel on the fire and it grows and grows. and i think now that those individuals who did those things understand that there's consequences and that's what we need to do. not only in baltimore, but in the entire country, because protecting innocent citizens and their families is one of the most important things that we do. >> congressman, i think most people would agree with you about the police and the honor of the badge to protect and to
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serve. the catalyst of all of this it seems to have been born out of the injuries that freddie gray allegedly sustained while in police custody after his arrest on april 12th and his death a week later. are you satisfied with the way that the mayor and the baltimore city police have handled their investigation and the information that they've been putting out to the public? >> let me say this, you raise two issues. first, we need to talk about where we got here. and secondly, about how the mayor has handled it. the mayor is in a tough position. she's in a position trying to do what she feels is right with her team. i'm going to let other people make judgments on that. what i want to talk about is how we move forward and fix this. when you talk about freddie gray and how this started, there's no question there's a lack of trust between a lot of people especially in the baltimore community and the city police departments. and what we had to do there is
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to make sure that we evaluate all the facts and data not only in this case, but, you know what goes back as far as the issues and how there have been other problems in this regard. the good news is that we have federal, state, and local government, and the justice department is also coming in to make an evaluation to make recommendation to make a difference. what it really comes back to i was a former executive in baltimore county jurisdictions larger than the city. and the issue is that there needs to be trust and develop a relationship between our police department and the people who live in the area. if there's not that trust, the police department has some excellent people and these men and women put their lives on the line every day. >> but if you would recommend building trust, what would you say to the people in baltimore city that are aggravated that they don't understand why a 25-year-old healthy man was taken into custody by police for what they thought was a
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reasonable suspicion, and is then dead a week later after being in their custody for 45 minutes. >> and that's a legitimate -- that's one of the reasons we have the issue we have now. what i would say is that the justice department is involved. you have a new attorney general. who's coming to baltimore, and by the way our congressional delegation is having a meeting with her in about 15 minutes. when that investigation is complete, there will be no rocks that we do not look under. there's so much at stake for the credibility of baltimore, our police department, and also the perception of the people, that they can feel safe and look at our police department, a police department that's going to protect people and also be able to work with communities not just go after people in communities, and that's a perception that has to be
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overcome. >> finally, sir, last but not least for the towncounties that you represent outside baltimore city do you feel that you can let those residents know they can rest easy that the suspicion or the fact that there was some some social media for a purge to move into the county that people are safe that they don't need to worry about that? >> you always worry when you see what's on the media. i can say this as a former county executive, and i was a former prosecutor, i know the baltimore county police department. i knowa lot of these police officers are working to help the city right now. but the bottom line is we have backup. and we have our national guard who is excellent. over 5,000 national guard, who i have a lot of confidence in. we need to restore order. and that's what's happening
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right now. also my specialty is intelligence. we need to get intelligence to make sure we can protect in any situation, because there is always going to be crime, unfortunately. but when it comes to rioting and looting, i feel very strongly first thing that we don't have any intelligence that's going to happen in other areas. if it is we will stand up and stop it immediately. we need to make sure people are safe in their homes. we have more backups now in this area on this issue of what's happening in the city than we've had since 1968 and the riots then. >> congressman ruppersberger, thanks for making time with me. we're going to let you get off so you can get to the meeting. >> one other thing i want to say, take advantage of what we have to move forward. goodbye. take care. >> thank you, sir. take care. we are still live here on the streets. let's reset for you. that was congressman dutch
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ruppersberger, second district of maryland. we remain in the active area where people have come out to peacefully protest right here in front of the cvs that we saw on fire last night. right behind me is the intersection of north and pennsylvania avenues. i know we have people that we've amassed to talk to. can i grab the mic back? are you lined up to speak to me? i'm thomas. what's your name? >> bico. >> why did you want to be out here tonight? >> to protest. i don't think it's right. we deserve justice. >> when you say you deserve justice, what makes you think that you are being stone walled in getting that justice? >> it's a matter of just the socioeconomic status that we're in. but specifically i want to start with square one and justice for freddie gray. a conviction, we need to see the cameras, everything.
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that's step one right there. >> so the transparency we talk about wanting to demonstration that a lot from the baltimore city police department of having a transformative dialogue with the community. do you think they've been transparent enough? >> no. i mean the information has been slow getting out. we still don't know what fully happened. it's been a week and a half and we still don't have official reports. do we have official reports? >> we're due to get one on may 1st, which is coming up friday. but it was april 12th that freddie gray was taken into custody and he died a week later after being in police custody for 45 minutes. >> that's the big question. why wasn't aid rendered to this man? >> what's your name sir? >> nigel. >> so you're a baltimore city resident? did you grow up here? >> born and raised. >> so nigel, let me ask you, when it comes to the presence of the community that you see tonight, the difference that
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we're seeing 24 hours later, what does that say to you about how tonight's going to go? >> i think tonight will go well but in actuality, i'm not sure how tonight's going to go. i hope it goes well you know i mean? because, you know, people are furious. we're out here right now doing this. this is exactly what is ned. but i can't say that something else is not going to happen you know, because there's young kids out here and people that are going to do you know -- >> when it comes to the curfew tonight at 10:00, are you okay with that? >> for the young kids yeah. i'm okay with that. >> and do you think that the mayor saying it may last for a week is something that's necessary for the city? >> at this point, i couldn't say it's necessary, but it's something that's going to happen. and it's not really a big deal
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to me because, i mean not going to do anything productive on the streets, there's no point being on the streets. but they should have the right to protest, too. >> what time are you going to be home? >> tonight. the curfew's 10:00 city wide. but i'm in the county right now, so i will probably be out a little later. >> i think the children should be in house by then. >> you're in the county. do you have any worries about this going north? i mean there was some talk about alleged social media conversations about it going into the county. >> i've heard news that it was set ablaze. i'm not afraid because they're not going to come after me. they're attacking businesses and things like that. they want their voices to be heard. it's a messed up way to get the message across. you have to understand they feel unheard. and it's a hopelessness a
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frustration, and they can't find a way to express it. >> we normally wouldn't say that word on cable tv. but we'll let it slide this time. bico nigel, thank you guys very much. i want to bring in the state senator, kathleen pugh. what do you think when you see this? >> i think what you see are people gathering simply because they want to express their frustration. i think last night you saw a lot of that frustration. i think to see people peacefully demonstrating is a positive thing for baltimore city. i think that what you're hearing from people in the street is that they're not monolithic. you know crime is not our only issue. but what they want the police to do is to respect the community and respect the neighborhood. but as i said consistent tloi the -- consistently to the media, one of the things we look at is whether we do psychological testing of our police officers after a period of time on the job on a regular basis. because people become incensed. when you don't have enough cultural diversity and training
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if your departments, i think it becomes an issue. but more importantly, i think that as we look at this city and you see those buildings over there, that didn't happen yesterday. or the day before. many of those buildings have been vacant for over 20 years. and people you know walk out of their doors and they see this. and i tell people the african-american community is not monolithic. we need the same things that everybody else does. job creation economic development, sharing of the wealth and those are the kinds of things that are not happening in this particular neighborhood and in this community. >> so systematically explain to everybody, i grew up in baltimore county my dad lives in baltimore city. so i was back and forth between mom and dad's house a lot. so i remember when mayor willy don shaffer did the inner harbor, it was supposed to be a big thing to bring everybody back downtown. and in the '90s we got camden yards. and in the process there's been a regentrification. >> but what we did was -- and i think those are all great things and they were absolutely necessary. but you're talking about the time of community development,
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housing programs, and we did them in downtown areas, but we didn't do them in areas like this. and we've left these communities vacant for, you know, many, many years. if you're from baltimore area you've seen this. and you ride up and down. >> this didn't happen overnight. >> but we've got to fix it, because these people feel frustrated because their neighborhoods have been devastated for decades, and you've got people who have invested in these communities and stayed here and want to stay here. but the thing that hurt me most was to see mondawmin vandalized like it was yesterday. because those are people's jobs. v cvs, those are people's jobs. a senior building right next to it and talking about people now not being able to get their prescriptions. i think sometimes when we become frustrated, we don't think about the consequences. yesterday i stood on the corner across from mondawmin and i asked parents, i said get your children. come get your children. and to see a mother come out and grab her son and take him home and let him know that this is
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not what we want you to do. and then i asked parents today, you know not just to let them see this kind of thing, but also to go and watch the movie "selma" so the children and people in can understand that we -- our forefathers fought for civil rights but they did it peacefully, and we just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement and, you know we get things if we work hard together to do it but i can understand the frustration. >> what's the framework though? what's your suggestion for how to deal with this blight? if you haven't been to baltimore, it's a beautiful city with beautiful row homes and white marble steps that people used to come out and scrub all the time. >> i live ten mintz in a neighborhood called ashburn, single-family homes, very modest homes and people care about their neighborhoods, not just there, but they care about them down here, too, but the gentrification that has occurred and the lack of development in those areas concern people and so many folks don't understand that we need you to come and invest in our communities, and i -- i think that what you're going to see is more leadership
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development going on in the city because sometimes it takes, unfortunately, this kind of cry from the public to say look at our neighborhoods. see what's going on. understand our frustration, but, again, the message is do it peacefully. that's what will make the difference. >> thank you very much. really appreciate it. >> appreciate it. >> and appreciate the fact that you know so much of the beauty of this city and what it means, and i look forward to what -- what this is going to represent. >> what it can be. >> absolutely. >> thank you so much. >> i want to bring in my colleague toure. >> thank you. how are you? >> you've been out talking to the group. >> i have and i thought i was being crazy feeling like this is like a block party but people said, yes, it's supposed to be like that to make people feel comfortable and bring the tension down a little bit, and, yes, the cops are right over there with military gear and military trucks, but there's a woman right there handing out chicken wings. there's people over there playing drums. there's people over there dancing, so yes, the mood is
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very intense and freddie gray is on people's minds, but people wanted this to be like bring it down and feel a little bit better about yourself feel a little bit better about the moment. i mean, this is a diverse crowd in terms of age, in terms of race and people are sort of trying to build this as come together, and they keep saying to me we want the looting to stop, and we're going to use this sort of a unity moment to bring the energy down to where the looting doesn't happen. now, they are like we don't know what's going to happen when the kids come through because you can't reason with them but this could help the community. >> and it seems most people that i've talked to they are okay with the curfew tonight at 10:00. >> yeah. no, i think they understand that the violence is bad for the community, that they don't want the cvs in particular ransacked. i mean somebody pointed out to me that when the cvs gets ransacked that means all kinds of crazy drugs will be on the street this week next week who knows the impact of that so they don't want that to happen. they don't want their community
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broken down so yeah if we have to send everybody in the house a little bit early every night, good. >> when it comes to the military presence, police presence, i mean it does look pretty militarized. just over your shoulder or over there. have you been surprised as you've gotten around the city today as where you've seen the police presence as to where you haven't? >> yeah. well, i mean i've been talking to people and nobody really understands why the police are right there in a line in a phalanx. i don't understand what that perimeter is meant to protect. when we were coming up we were told, well that's to protect people from going back to the cvs. okay, i understood that. then we took a little side street and the cvs right behind your camera so there's a perimeter here but i don't understand what they are trying to protect or what they are trying to do with that perimeter. people keep pointing out that they keep taking steps in as time goes on. >> right. >> so maybe they will try to disperse this crowd, but this crowd is more than peaceful.
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this crowd is trying to be united and come together and have good feelings move through this community, at least in this spot, so why they would try to make a move on this crowd, i don't understand. >> yeah. it will be interesting to watch as we're going to be hear throughout the night. toure, thank you, sir. our colleague chris hayes joins us now on the telephone. chris, where have you moved to? you were in this location just an hour ago. chris, are you there? okay. we've lost chris hayes. chris was on this location just an hour ago. my colleague joy ann reid is also on the scene. what are the impressions of the feeling here? >> this is what people want us to focus on. that's been an anonymous sentiment from this morning is that people are saying look they are out here for a very
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specific cause. it is about justice for this young man, young 25-year-old man, whose life was taken. they feel like there's been too much emphasis as one man said on 100 protesters versus 10,000 people who were out here protesting for freddie gray so they really want the focus to be on this movement which is an extension of this black lives matter movement and i think that people as one person said they are not necessarily mourning buildings. they are mourning people and they are mourning the people they have lost not just this one young man, but just this sense that there's a systemic problem and no one is listening. >> and the other problem is not rebuilding the cvs, it will get done but rebuilding the trust to the police in the community in which they serve. >> yeah. i heard not a soul of all the people we've talked with today express a lot of confidence unfortunately, in law enforcement, and that's -- that's a really untenable position. i have a lot of friends who are in law enforcement in florida. it's critical just for basic intel about what's hang in the community, just to know the hoaxes from the real threats. >> right. >> you've got to have that
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relationship. i didn't get a sense that there is a relationship really. there was sort of mixed reviews of the mayor, but some people saying they respect the fact that she's trying but there is a sense of people feeling overwhelmed by the system. i definitely got that sense from people, that they do feel like the system is kind of stacked in a way that's against regular ordinary people, and that has to change. >> all right. the one thing i've -- also that i wanted to bring up is the catalyst for change not so much right now the attention being on the death of freddie gray as it is on the looting and rioting that happened last night. that's really not where we need the attention to be. >> yeah. and i spoke to one young man who said essentially this was just ignorant people in the community who took advantage of a situation. >> of a crisis. >> and had nothing to do with this movement and these were people who saw an opportunity to do something, you know that was external to what was happening here and then cast a negative light on everyone else. whether it was at the church that we were at this morning or out here on the street and what
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people are focusing on what us in the media to focus on that they are united in the idea of rebuilding this community. it doesn't mean police relations. it means jobs and the cvs being rebuilt not just to have the building rebuilt and to have jobs come back and not minimum wage jobs but living wage jobs. high unemployment in this community and if this is a catalyst for people to start to see change then could be really good. >> people want answers from police and they want to know there's a framework for hope in this city to rebuild itself. as we've been learning on the ground here our colleague chris hayes was on this location earlier. he's moved on to a different spot. chris, where are you now? >> we're just in another part of baltimore. things will pretty calm frankly. kind of a beautiful spring day. there was a march that came down pennsylvania. organized by some of the folks who were organizing that saturday march that had a huge draw, if you'll remember.
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there were about 4,000 to 5,000 people marching for freddie gray that actually marched along the same route down pennsylvania and ended up making its way down the inner harbor around to camden yards. there was a bunch of markers and contingents from a bunch of local universities johns hopkins among them but aside from that it's very -- very calm. i've talked to a lot of people who are really hoping that it remains calm. of course, there's a curfew that starts tonight at 10:00 p.m. and, you know, the scene where you are, where i was just a while ago, there was kind of a generally sort of festive and chill atmosphere, i would say. there's a line -- there's a lot of hope almost unanimous. >> chris, stand by. can we shift the camera. want to get the shot of these vehicles coming in. they have got their lights flashing. it's the sheriff's -- a small
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bus with their lights on. there are about four different vehicles coming our way and just stopped and now the other one is progressing to do a u-turn maybe as well as the other four vehicles, but i want everybody to see that. these are the type of police vehicles. you can see they are militarized vehicles that are on the street. these are the types of vehicles that you can't really see behind the mass of people over here on pennsylvania avenue but those are the types of vehicles that are here with the police as they are lined up one by one in their riot gear on both sides. again, this is pennsylvania avenue headed this way, but this is north avenue going that way and that's where the police remain on different sides about two blocks apart right there on north avenue with militarized vehicles and then a line going straight across. we weren't able to get through that line to get here to the cvs, to get to this location and also the atmosphere where these protesters have been peacefully
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marching but just doing simple loop around the block, got us here very easily to where we're seeing people walking inside to the cvs and taking video and images for themselves of what happened here last night. again, we are less than four hours. we're about four hours from the imposed curfew. we'll go now to the reverend al sharpton and start were "politics nation." i'm live tonight from washington, d.c. with our breaking news coverage of the situation in baltimore. police and crowds have been gathering in the street all day. i was in baltimore earlier today meeting with mayor stephanie rawlings-blake at city hall and moments ago the mayor talked about today's peaceful crowds. >> last night was a very rough period for our city but today i think we saw a lot more of what baltimore is abou