tv Politics Nation MSNBC April 28, 2015 3:00pm-4:01pm PDT
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cefully 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 about.
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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. >> a citywide curfew starts in four hours. over 1,000 national guardsmen are in the street as officials try to prevent further looting, riots and fires and help the city pick up the pieces. local kids today taking out brooms this morning and cleaning up the area but tensions are still high. the orioles have postponed tonight's baseball game for the second straight night. they will play tomorrow afternoon instead with no fans allowed in the stands. earlier today president obama spoke out about the violence for the first time. >> there's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw
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yesterday. it is counterproductive. the violence that happened yesterday distracted from the fact that you had seen multiple days of peaceful protests that were focused on entirely legitimate concerns of these communities in baltimore. >> it is counterproductive, and as i and other civil rights activists met with the mayor we stressed that we understand the frustration, the underlying problem of police and community relations and inequality in the criminal justice system but nothing justifies violence and recklessness. nothing justifies our seeing what we saw last night. joining me now is the mayor of baltimore, stephanie rawlings-blake. first of all madam mayor, thank you for being here. >> oh, thank you for having me
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and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you earlier. >> mayor, what do you expect when the curfew begins in just a few hours? >> yeah. our goal is to get baltimore back to normal. this is not the baltimore that i know and love, the rioting and the looting and the damage that was done and we're working very hard using all of the resources that we, have including the tool of the curfew to get things back to normal. >> well, what are the biggest challenges to maintaining stability in the city? >> well we want to make sure that we don't have these pockets of individuals that are -- that are running around and causing damage. you know, i got a chance to talk to young people today, and what they said is they were so in pain from seeing what was going on and they were not just in pain but they were concerned because they know that a lot of the young people that were out there doing these things they are going to regret it later, but you can't take it back after you burned a cvs or after you've
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looted a store. that damage is done and the community is going to take a while to rebuild. >> now, one of the things that came up in the meeting you had with myself and other local activists of the networks chapter is that the police investigation into freddie gray's death that will be turned over on friday clear up the timing on that and what exactly will the police deliver on friday and what will come out? >> right. so what is happening on friday is the police is -- the police department chose friday as their goal, their deadline to be able to give their information over to the state's attorney understanding that she is conducting her own investigation right now, and she will use the information that the police give her to further her investigation, so there won't be -- she certainly won't be able to in the same day that she gets that information to supplement what she's doing in
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the investigation make a determination about whether or not they are going to be charges, and we want to make sure that people understand the process. you know, we want to do more than just seek justice for freddie gray. we want to have justice, and in order to do that we have to respect the process and we have to work very hard to make sure that this investigation is protected. >> so there's no big announcement friday. it's the police turning over their investigation to the state prosecutor. >> absolutely and the police commissioner was trying to be clear so people could understand his time line you know what he was charging his department to do as far as the investigation and pushing them to be able to give the information, but it's certainly -- we certainly -- he didn't want to and i certainly don't want to give people the impression that the -- that our state's attorney will have made a decision by friday. >> now, another thing that came up in our conversation today is
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some have criticized your handling of the events and questioned whether you should have done more sooner, and larry young who heads our local chapter and the big morning show host there laid out how you have a background of fighting for police reform and ironically some of the people that have been critical have been people that have not stood up on these issues prior to this incident that we're dealing with with mr. gray. >> absolutely. i fought to get the community policing office through baltimore to have collaborative reform. i'm not afraid to confront these issues. i want to confriend them in a way that's meaningful and has long-lasting impact. i was down during the legislative session this year in annapolis fighting for reform for the officers bill of rights. it was a pretty lonely fight. not a lot of people standing with me to try to make that happen, you know. you know how it is. there's always a lot of armchair
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quarterbacks and critics after the fact but hopefully the next year when the session comes around they will be standing with me, saying that we need to put these reforms in place. you know i'm a criminal defense attorney, you know by profession before i was mayor. that's what i did. i understand the issues of police brutality. i understand the issue of police misconduct, and we are making steady progress. is this a tremendous setback what is happening with our city? absolutely it is but it's not going to stop me from confronting these issues and making sure that we get it right for our communities. >> we are looking at live pictures of a peaceful standoff of protesters peacefully marching that are now standing in baltimore. we're talking with the mayor. mayor, one of the things i said in the press conference after meeting with you is that you informed us you reached out to other police departments to help restore order. i felt my term not yours, that
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the governor took a veiled cheap shot at you saying you had finally called. but you had called people in that could restore order and had arrest powers before calling for resources of the state. is that correct? >> absolutely and, you know it's unfortunate. i'm determined not to turn this into a political issue. we have to get this right and bring peace and order and healing in our city. i'm not going to play politics with it. you know i know and everybody knows that the -- the track record, the evidence is very clear. we have engaged with jurisdictions with police resources from outside of our jurisdiction for a solid week bringing them in. one county at a time supplementing what we're able to do with the police department. we have been negotiating with jurisdictions outside of our state to bring in those resources. you know it is a very -- you have to -- the decision to bring in the national guard ask a dec
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decion that has to be very carefully weighed and i stand by that >> the fact that there's been a history of police community problems, over $5 million spent, but these lawsuits are settled for situations and claims that happened before you were mayor. am i correct? >> yeah. a lot of these stories that have been in the news are, you know almost all about cases that happened before i was mayor. the story isn't being told about the fact that since i've been mayor the lawsuits against the city -- the lawsuits against the police department have gone down dramatically. misconduct complaints have gone down dramatically. excessive force complaints have gone down and at the same time we're holding officers who are accused of wrongdoing
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accountable. our -- our ability, our track record for holding those officers and finding them guilty when we -- when they have been accused of wrongdoing is going up at the same time. you know we -- we've made a lot of progress in baltimore, and what you're seeing is how much father we have to go because the pain is real and the work that we have to do is real as well and i believe that baltimore is up to the challenge. >> one of the things that came across to me and i've met with a lot of officials down through the years, is you seem very passionate about not losing sight of the pain of the gray family wanting answers as well as the pain of the community wanting to see change and you made the case to us that this violence, this recklessness in many ways obscures what we really ought to be focused on. >> you know, the -- the rioting,
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the looting, all that's doing is diverting resources away from a vulnerable community that needs better. this is one of the communities that can least afford the damage that was done. that cvs, i spoke to a woman this morning who was in tears because she knows how hard they fought to get the cvs in a community that national retailers weren't coming, to so after working so hard to get it to see it destroyed is heartbreaking. you know, we have a lot of healing to do and i hope i hope that we'll continue to work. you know yes, we can be robust in our protests but we have to be respectful of the communities. >> how difficult will it be to keep businesses in baltimore and get new businesses to continue to come in which is something that a lot of community people and you have really championed? >> you know it is a challenge because we know -- i've talked to people from ferguson.
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we've seen that some of those properties that were damaged, those stores aren't coming back and i don't want to see that happen in my city. the communities in west baltimore impacted by a lot of the looting yesterday, those communities are just starting to come back from the riots in '68, and to be dealt this blow at this time is devastating and people are hurting, and one thing i can say is what i saw today, where community members stepping up and talking about what they can do and how they can help clean, how they can clean up the community and how they can work together to rebuild, because we are better than this and we will be better than this. >> do you feel that out of these ashes that a phoenix can rise that didn't rise 47 years later, some of those communities still blighted and now you're trying to deal with those same communities? >> look, you know they say you rise like a phoenix, but baltimore, i say we're going to
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soar like a raven. you know we're not going to be -- don't count us out. that's all i have to say. never count baltimore out. >> soar like a raven, i'll leave it with that. thank you today for coming on and thank you for the meeting today. baltimore mayor stephanie rawlings-blake, thank you again for your time this evening. >> thank you. >> let's go to thomas roberts who has been on the ground all day. thomas, describe the scene where you are. >> so reverend the mayor had brought up the cvs pharmacy and what it took to get that shop in this city. we're in front of the cvs farmry right behind me where it burned down. the intersection of north avenue and pennsylvania avenue where we've been reporting, and it's a pretty party-like atmosphere for the protesters that have come out tonight, and it's multi-cultural, multi-aged and i happened to pull aside some young ladies got permission from their mom to speak to them
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but are you in the fourth grade at this school the william pender hughes school right? why did you want to make this sign this year and be out here? >> because -- because a lot of schools have more than our schools, yeah and a lot of schools have more than our school and that's not -- >> so you wanted to bring attention to that. >> yes. >> fantasia, this is your sign. you have a message about rebuilding the culture and city and rebuild with positive and encouraging education. why do you think it's important for you to be out here? you're in eighth grade so why do you think it's important to be here with your mom tonight? >> well most of the kids in baltimore aren't really what they displayed to be. most of them are good kids. they just didn't have the right role models to do what they are supposed to do. >> do you agree with that about having role models in baltimore city, that the city needs better role models for women like
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yourself? >> i do but then i don't. >> so when you see what happened last night, and this is your local cvs because y'all live down the street how does that make you feel about the neighborhood and what happened here? >> well i feel as though it was wrongful what they did because like they are messing up their own neighborhood and -- and really to me it felt like it was just opening i was taking my brother's prescription and just to see it burned down and stuff like that that was unacceptable. >> has your mom taken you aside and tried to explain to you, fantasia why all this happened? how did she explain what you had to witness? >> well she didn't really explain it to me. i just see it when martin luther king died i see it as like another one of those incidents. >> in 1968 -- >> i'm going to have to break in, thomas. >> in 1968 is when we had the riots here. >> thomas, i'll have to break in. the three lovely young ladies. i want to go live to a press
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conference from maryland officials, governor larry hogan who is speaking in baltimore right now. >> logistical dealing with protesters that you've had since the national guard has been on the guard and i know police have made arrests. have you run into any trouble, again, logistically or with anyone on the ground? >> not to my knowledge. maybe if anybody has something and they want to talk about. i think so far, and i preface it by saying so far because we've got a long night ahead of us but so far i think we've not run into any major issues and any major glitches. we've got things a little bit better under control than they were last night and more manpower on the streets and we're communicating better. and so far, although there have been some arrests, we hadn't had the kind of situations that we had yesterday afternoon. >> and if i could ask one more follow-up. what's the plan heading into tonight, and how would you make sure that there isn't any unrest like there was last night? >> well you can't ensure that there's not going to be any
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unrest. i'm not a magician but what i can assure you is that we will put all the resources that we have at our dispotional to make sure that thehe disturbances don't get out of hand and we don't get overwhelmed. a lot of manpower on the street. can you see looking at this room there's a lot of people focused on this problem, and we're in management of the situation now, and we're going to put whatever resources are necessary to make sure we keep the people of baltimore safe. >> could you talk a little bit about your experience with the people of baltimore on your watch. >> well, thank you, pat. it was -- i was really touched by the fact that when -- you know, we got up there when the sun was rising this morning and we walked through ground zero. all the neighborhoods that got hit the worst. there were neighbors helping
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neighbors at 5:00 a.m. helping sweep up the trash, boarding up the windows and clearing the trash out of the streets. we tend on all the problems. we've got to focus on the violence and there's a lot of good going on in the city too. i found people that love their city city, love their neighborhood and angry about what happened last night. >> were they happy to see you? >> very happy to see us. hugging us and happy to see us. as the general said they were happy to see the national guard. they were happy to see the state police. they were saying thank you for being here. people are concerned. they want us to restore law and order. we've been very restrained. there's been a pretty good in spite of the tension out there in the community, we've got a lot of people thanking us for being here and we didn't have any major incidents yet. >> do you have any idea how long the extra police and the national guard will be necessary? >> we're going to keep them here as long as is necessary, and we don't know at this point how long that's going to be. >> how will you judge that though? what has to happen so you can finally say it's time to get
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things back to normal? >> you know, i'm going to have to make that call myself. i guess i'll know when i see it. we're going to get the best information to make that situation. >> governor any thoughts on the investigation or what will happen -- >> gives us an opportunity to clear the street and if people are in violation of the curfew if we feel it makes sense, we can start arresting people. >> governor do you think the mayor made a mistake by not asking to bring the national guard in earlier? >> look, you know i don't want to point fingers at anyone. i'm not here to place blame. i'm here to try to solve the problem. i don't want to second guess the mayor's decisions. i know that she was trying the best she could. this was a difficult situation. the baltimore city police and fire were doing the best they could, and when she asked us for help, we immediately responded. i know that it typically takes eight hours to mobilize the guard. we did it in three because we
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were already ready and we were prepared. we set up this emergency operation center last saturday. we prepared the executive order last saturday. our team has been in constant community and set up our command center and we've been working all week. been in communication with the city all week. earlier yesterday i talked with general singh and told her to prepare the guard and get them ready to be activated so she took a lot of steps to get everybody teed up and on the starting line and ready to act. when the mayor called i signed an executive order 30 seconds later. the guard was already on the way. >> you said that you started getting ready last saturday? >> well we opened up the emergency operations center here in preparation in case there was violence that broke out. >> at initial protest? >> yeah. >> and in spite of that -- was there a point where you actually -- >> look, i don't want to get
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into what happened before. let's talk about what we'll focus on in the future. right now we're trying to keep baltimore city safe and, you know we're trying to work the best we can with the city and provide as much support as we can. anybody else? well, thank you all so much for being here and let's all hope that tonight's a little safer night. thank you. >> that was -- that was maryland governor hogan in a press conference. he said the national guard was mobilized in three hours. it normally takes eight hours. he responded. he said he was prepared when he got the call from the mayor of baltimore. he continually refrained from making any assessment of the mayor, and there was no statements that inferred any blame or any attacks as he has been questioned by people in the community and in the media, including me for statements in the past. he was clearly staying away from
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any references to that tonight. let me bring in nbc's rehema ellis who is live at the sunshinior center that was burned down. raheema, what are you seeing on the ground tonight? what we're seeing here, reverend al is that it is very quiet. there was a lot of activity earlier. people coming out, actually some residents coming out and praying at this site calling for calm and also praying that they do not see anything like this happen tonight, but it is very quiet here. there's other areas of the city that we traveled to earlier where we saw large pockets of people but they were very peaceful. there was one incident where people said there were some agitators in the crowd. they say that police did spray what they thought was pepper spray, and it scattered the crowd a little bit so people walked away but for the most part as the governor was pointing out there have been no signs of any kind of major incidents and people for the most part have been focused on
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trying to clean up their community tonight, and it really has been neighbor helping neighbor. we did find that people say that they were glad, as you heard the governor say, they were glad to see the national guard. i have to tell you one thing that i heard when i came into baltimore early this morning and stopped and talked with people on the street, there was some criticism, us a pointed out. some were even critical of the mayor who they said had used the word thugs and referring to those who were engaged in the looting, and as one woman said she said we have to remember that even those who are engaged in looting are someone's children and the kind of activity that they were engaged in because, to her words, they are lost and that they were hopeless and that it's up to the rest of the people in the city of baltimore to help find a way for those people to feel more hopeful and not engage in this kind of behavior again because, as you've been pointing out, and they said to me this is their community, and when it burns down they hurt. >> now, we're watching live
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pictures of people very peaceful at a standoff but peacefully protesting, no incidents, and raheema, also as i talked to people in baltimore today, i had a sense of real community and bonding and people feeling that this was their neighborhood. this is their town. they do not like a lot of what they have seen in terms of policing, but they do not want to see violence. that is clear. >> they really don't. this is a city of 622,000 people. 63% of them are african-american, and 8.1% of them are unemployed in the city of baltimore compared to a 5.4% statewide average of unemployment, and people will tell you here that there's been chronic unemployment and that's one of the issues that they are facing. it's one of the things that's created a lot of frustration, and when the governor said earlier today, as people have talked about these problems
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that they are -- that he is going to try to bring more jobs to the city of baltimore. some people pointed out that we have to make certain that the children are educated in order to be ready for those jobs. >> right. >> they also were looking for them to be some sort of legislative changes so that people who have had prison sentences will not be denied jobs just because they made a mistake in the past reverend al. >> and we're watching and it seems as if this is a live march going on in the streets, and it looks like little children participating, very peaceful way it appears at this -- from this vantage point. rehema ellis thank you for joining me. now is the gray family attorney -- joining me now is gray family attorney mary cook. mary is in baltimore. mary, thank you for joining us. tell us what is the family saying today? >> the family is saying today what the family has been saying all along, that they are just
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tremendously grieving the loss of their son. they want the violence to stop. they want the peaceful protests to continue because they want an answer to the question of what happened to their son, to their brother and they want not only that but they want answers to why these things happen and they want you know freddie's legacy to be that we find a solution to these problems so no family suffers in the way in which they have suffered and the way that freddie suffered the day he was taken into police custody. >> mary you and your colleagues, i've been talking with your colleagues that represent the family what information do you want from police right now? >> i want all of the -- i want all of the information, if i could have all of the information that the police had, that's ideally what i would want. i want to see any videos that they have gathered up to this point. i want to hear their transmissions between the police officers.
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i want to see a copy of the paramedics' reports for what it was that they found and what they responded to and what freddie's condition was when they got to the western district. i want to see the statements of the police officers who made statements, you know after this event occurred. i want to see any officer report that was written because up to this point i've only seen a statement of charges. i want to see the medical records. i want to see the notes of the medical examiner and i want to see the photographs that the medical examiner took. those are all of the things that at this point that are available that we want to see, and any other information that the police department has gathered that they think is relevant to go to the office of the state's attorney for purposes of their investigation, we believe is relevant to go to the family for purposes of their understanding of what happened to their son. >> now, attorney billy murphy one of your colleagues has stressed that we still don't understand why fred gray was even taken into custody. is that still the case?
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any clarification on what he was being arrested for? >> absolutely not. if you read the application of statement of charges that was written at the time, and really what that is is that's a statement of the probable cause that the police officer believes that he has at the time the application for statement of charges simply states that they made eye contact, that freddie ran, that the police officers followed him and apprehended him and then once they had apprehended him, apprehending meaning laid hands on him and had custody, they say that they found a knife that they say is a switchblade. we've never seen that knife so you can add that to the list of things that we would like to see. where is that knife that allegedly freddie had so that's the allegation of why they arrested freddie gray and that is not probable cause. that is not reasonable arciculable suspicion and i think that there's absolutely no
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probable cause. >> mary cook thank you so much for your time tonight. >> thank you so much for having us. >> let me go now to msnbc's toure. toure, what are you hearing? >> reverend i'm at the corner of pens opinions and north in front of the cvs that was looted, with two state senators catherine pugh who is the majority leader and steer hershey, the minority whip. kathleen, this is your district. >> absolutely. >> right now there feels like a block party, dr. use a drum circle and people are trying to take the tension down. >> i think it feels like more of a festive atmosphere and people are releasing their tension and would i rather see them release it this way than how we saw last night. of course, these are not the people involved in yesterday evening, and, you know we've said consistently we understand the frustration of the people in our community, but more importantly it is important for us to remember that we can do things peacefully and i think
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that's what you see out here today. burks know the reality is that america does have a problem, you know. it has a race problem, and it's a problem that needs to be discussed and also the president of the national black caucus of state legislators, one of the things i'm going to do is elevate that conversation to the national level because in part of this discussion and as i said yesterday, this is not just about freddie gray. this is about a number of black men who have come under attack by policemen for decades, and i think with the advent of social media you see a different kind of response and so because of social media you now see people being exposed that have never been exposed before and we play police to serve and to protect, not to sever and attack and that's not every officer, but at the same time america needs to understand that the african-american community is not monolithic that we want the same things that everybody else does economic development, job opportunities, the sharing of the wealth health care education. we want the same things but we also -- when people walk out of
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their neighborhoods and they see boarded-up houses that have been around for decades they are concerned and i understand their frustration, but, again, it's about peaceful demonstrations like you see out here today. people are sharing stories, excited about being here, and, you know participating in what they feel is a way to express what needs to be done in this city in a very positive way so i really appreciate this kind of gathering, and as i said yesterday to the mothers and the fathers when i was standing on the corner of mondawmin mall, come get your children because, you know you should be concerned that they are out here doing things that they should not be. and when i saw that mother come out yesterday and grab hold of her son and smack him across the head and said you know this is not what you should be doing, that's indicative of what baltimore is all about, people working together understandingledunderstand ing understandingled frustrations that people have and understanding that if we do things in a peaceful american we can change the city. we were out here earlier today with voter registration cards, and i said any time a crowd like
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this is gathered, the naacp and everybody out to have voter registration, you know get them registered to vote. >> steve, you know at this corner, at this moment people are trying to diffuse and to relax and bring their feelings back to equilibrium but the cops are right there. people are worried about what will happen tonight. take the temperature of the city. what do you think will happen this evening? >> we're praying that nothing happens this evening. we're praying that the governor and the mayor have been able to work together. the national guard is here. the baltimore city police is here. we have police from all different counties that are close by. we hope that that presence is going to prevent anything from happening tonight. that's the last thing that we want to see is what happened last night, and i think that the leadership is going to put us in the position that we're not going to see anything near what happened last night. >> let me just say something. >> we've got to go. everybody here hopes that nothing happens here tonight, but i want to point out something right now if we can turn around that people are just able to walk in and out of that burned-out cvs as they
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wish. we don't know what chemicals are in the air. don't know what's going on in there. that doesn't seem safe. i'm not sure why that's being allowed but it is. back to you, rev. >> thank you, toure. let's go back to thomas roberts on the scene in baltimore. thomas? >> reverend earlier we had the opportunity to speak wellmentry-aged schoolgirls here in baltimore city and now i've found some college freshman who go to notre dame of maryland university. said that correctly, used to be notre dame college back in the day when i lived here and right on charles street and it's a beautiful school. we've got alemt its walters and ashley pack offer and cin owe garu. alexis, why was it important for you to come down here and be a part of this? >> right now this is in baltimore and i can do something about it and this is an issue nationwide and if i could be a
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part then i can have an impact. >> ashley you're down here seeing this and seeing a cvs burned down and also seeing a community spirit. are you a little worried tonight about the curfew starting at 10:00 in a we may see something like last night? >> i'm definitely worried because i feel people will retaliate and try to go against the curfew and i don't know how the police will act and i'm concerned about my people. i hope we listen and this is the only way to get something done, if we try to abide by their rules and try to work with them. we need some type of communication going on that's just going to work. >> cin, you said there were other classmates coming down to join you from the college. >> yes. >> what is temperature on campus us a watch what's happening on tv? are you worried that this type of activity is going to head north up charles street which is a main artery in and out of the city? >> the reason we're here is not because we're worried. we're just concerned about the lives of our individuals being treated.
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we're he's because of police brutality. we don't want people treated like animals. police should have some authority but this is not afghanistan. this is baltimore. we're all citizens. we should not be treated like this. this is wrong and i feel like the way that they are feeling, it's not being communicated you know what i'm saying it's wrong and no one should like -- we need justice, that's what i'm trying to say. >> when you want justice, how does it feel to see the military-style presence out with the national guard and the police? >> it's scary, and like it should not be like this. like somebody shouldn't have to wake up and this is what they see. it's wrong, it's scary, and this is not helping anything. it's not helping anything. what we want is for them to tell us what's going on. what's going on with the case? like tell us that. stop telling us what's going on in the streets because we know because we live it. give us more insight about the case. we want to know how justice has been served. >> we need answers. >> need answers. supposed to demonstrate answers on friday, may the 1st. ashley, do you think you'll get proper answers about what
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happened to freddie gray? >> proper answers, i think it's -- the definition of proper. >> it's like so hard. the words are just so hard to flow because we see this. i've seen this in my textbookses. i've steen on television but now i'm here and i'm living it and it's something totally different. i never in my life would have thought like this -- look as this building. i cannot even fathom it's terrible. >> third world countries where there is no structure and here there's structure. >> there's a lot of frustration and these young laidries a small microcosm that have come out. diverse faces and different age groups that have come out to be supportive here on the streets and, again, the curfew will start in about three and a half hours, mandatory here in baltimore city. >> we're hearing that frustration all over the country. we do need communication. thank you, thomas. let me bring in nbc's gabe gutierrez, gabe, what's the scene there tonight where you
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are? >> reporter: hey there, reverend al good evening. we're across and just down the street, rather from that cvs pharmacy burned and looted. hundreds of people have been gathering here throughout day. this crowd is swelling but it is peaceful. behind me there is police in full riot gear. they have shut this street down, but it's been a strong show of force. no major clashes between police and protesters. the senior center saw riots and looting here last night. community members say they do not want to see that again and want to shift the focus to the death of freddie gray. volunteers have spent the day clearing up the area and the curfew takes effect and police and residents hope that it is peaceful and police hope that this crowd, however peaceful clears out by 10:00. al back to you.
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>> thank you, but let me ask you this gabe. at 10:00 the community leaders and those that are out there peaceful also have to respect the curfew. what happens then when you don't have community people there to interface and encourage people to be peaceful? >> reporter: reverend, i didn't catch the last part of that question, but what i heard you ask is what happens at 10:00. >> right. >> reporter: when, you know some people may not want to leave. that's a big question. police here as we've been seeing, have been in full riot gear. there's a strong show of force. they have been saying that they want to allow protesters to protest peacefully and to demonstrate peacefully but right now there is that 10:00 curfew. the mood that we've seen here has been in a way, i don't even want to call it celebratory, of course, but it's been a very upbeat mood and the terms that they want to get their voice heard and they want to shift this focus back to the death of
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freddie gray and away from the violence that we saw yesterday. some people here are upset that a curfew has been imposed because they feel it is their right to protest, and residents here feel that if there is no violence they should be allowed to be here throughout the night, but right now the question is what happens at 10:00 when this crowd is here when police are in riot gear and if -- if some instigators do you know do something that -- to incite this crowd, what happens then and that's the question that we're all waiting to see right now that residents here hope they -- they hope that this night does not end in violence. >> gabe one of the things i've picked up when i was in baltimore is these gatherings are not organized, they are spontaneous displays of wanting to rebuild as well as continuing to protest. >> yeah, it's really been a lot of word of mouth. the people that we've seen shown up throughout the day. have seen this on the television and it's been widely reported in the local media and many of them have heard about it through
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social media and have shown up with signs. a lot of them wanting to discuss the issue of the mysterious death of freddie gray and they -- they -- they don't like the media repeating these images, of the violence that we saw yesterday. at the same time there are residents that are very concerned about what happened here. we had -- we saw earlier in the day, volunteers that came here to the cs and were cleaning up the debris here and they really wanted to focus on the positive that the community is trying to do to -- to get this -- to move past the violence reverend. yeah a lot of these demonstrations have been spontaneous. we've seen music here. we've seen speakers here. earlier in the day there were a few instances where protesters got you have and threw some water bottles at police nothing major. there was a brief little dustup there where some people ran away from police officers but then what you had, reverend, is that you had other community members push the crowd back separating from police and trying to de-escalate the situation so so
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far today we've definitely not seen anything close to what happened here yesterday and the shown from police and from the residents here that it stays that way, even past that 10:00 curfew, reverend. >> gabe gutierrez, thank you so much. i want to go back to thomas roberts. you went into the looteded store earlier today. tell us what you saw. >> reporter: i did, ref. i had the opportunity to go into the store in sand town. sand town is the area that freddie gray lived in it's an impoverished neighborhood here in baltimore city and there's only one store that pretty much everyone frequents called jolly's down on the corner. a former 7-eleven. i went on the inside and did it on my own. i can see what was done to this store. it's a staple of the community where most people in sand town go to shop and pick up bags of chips and things like that but it was completely destroyed. there was fire damage in one
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area. there was water damage all throughout because of the fire that had started in there and the fire department had to put that out, but just ravaged completely with broken glass everywhere, and even the atm had been totally ripped apart and ripped to shreds but to the community members that i spoke to that live in sand town the people that have grown up in this neighborhood, they talked about what a devastating loss this is because this is pretty much their corner shop where they go for everything at their last-minute convenience and they are just devastating that this is gone. for now, they are were boarding it up and while we were there we witnessed this as well and this is a group of people that had organized a volunteer and get out and clean so the folks that i had the opportunity to meet and be with today they were trying to change the narrative. they wanted america and the world to see that they had rakes in their hands and shovels, not bricks, and they wanted the world to know that they were taking control of their own communities with the cleanup and that there was a prayer circle
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that we had in the middle of the jolly's parking lot and it was interfaith and it was multi-cultural and again, age diverse, with people that had brought their kids out with shovels and little brooms to make sure that all hands were on deck, so to speak, to try to clean up the neighborhood but it was amazing to see that this one store, pretty much the primary shop in sand town is completely gone right now at least for the foreseeable future. >> stay with me, thomas i want to go back to toure who is moving around the crowd. toure, what are you seeing? >> reporter: reverend right now i'm standing with easy jackson, activist activist rapper and here cleaning up the community. there's five or six-piece brass band a lot of saxophone and trumpet going on. what's going on in this corner right here? >> right now it's just the community coming together to show love to show baltimore in a positive light. this is a city that we're used
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to. this is the crowd that you see at summer gatherings at showed block parties. >> okay. >> you know this is what we're really about. the world is seeing a very small part of what happened here and right now, you know we're just out here showing love and trying to spread love throughout the community. all kinds of people out here black, white, hispanic christian, muslim bloods crypts, bjfs, you know. people are trying to have a good time and diffuse even though the cops are right there in phalanx and military gear. i want to walk down the street -- >> toure, before you leave, does he feel that a lot of the artists that kids listen to do have a positive influence like he's doing? >> does he feel that a lot of the rappers that he listens to are part of the problem? >> that the young artists can
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also help? >> i don't think that he would say that some of those rappers are part of the problem, especially when you have people like kendry lamar who is very conscious and positive. i think he would say the current generation is not part of the problem that we're seeing but over here we're seeing a 300-man march trying to talk about let's be peaceful tonight, let's be anti-violent tonight. what's going on here? >> can't talk to you, sir. >> can you talk to me sir. tell me what's going on here sir. >> they are not doing interviews right now but they are trying to be anti-violent fully respect that. ref, let's toss it back to you. >> all right. let's go to chris hayes and get his perspective. chris hayes is on the ground in baltimore. >> rev, how you doing? >> chris, what do you see? >> well it was interesting. we got here right around noon. the scene at the corner of
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northern pennsylvania which was the site of some of the looting and rioting last night with the burnt out cvs was actually pretty tense. like toure was saying, there's been police in riot gear kind of quartering off different parts of the area. there was a man up on a p.a. system giving a pretty heated sermon about discipline, about nonviolence and also about sort of self-respect, and that was actually drawing some dissent. there were some yays and nays coming from the crowd. there were a few teams when people perceived to be provocateurs had gone up towards the line and getting in a guy's face. one guy was drunk and pulled out but throughout that whole period there was kind of a very very active management of the line. a lot of discipline. as toure noted the 300-man march are out here in full force, they have t-shirts and nation of islam is out here. i spoke to two students who are college students locally here who had come out to try to keep things orderly. it has stayed orderly. right now it has kind of a feeling of an impromptu street
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festival here. there are, however, more police coming in as we get closer to nightfall and as we get closer to the curfew. coming down northern pennsylvania as i approached here can you see police vehicles, tactical vehicles unloading more and more officers who are in riot gear. the question will become and this happened in ferguson when the curfew was imposed, the curfew can become its own kind of point of conflict or tension in which there's a kind of staring contest over who is going to leave the streets and who is going to chase them of course, and i think the question for this evening is just what happens at 10:00 p.m. >> now, you've covered a lot of these situations, chris. from what you're feeling now, do you feel there will be a peaceful interaction when the curfew comes on or do you think that there's a tension there that could get out of hand at the point of 10:00? >> you know the situations are very fluid, and obviously ballot smar big city.
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right here right now there's actually a pretty good vibe in the air and that's a credit to the kind of a, restraint of police who have been very quiet and composed all day and all the people that have been out here organizing in a million different ways handing out flyers, a bunch of events set up today for community members, particularly schoolchildren who, of course as you recall didn't have school today. there was a up to hall for them to go to where they could speak their mind and free lunches being offered and libraries opened for them so there was a lot of effort put in by everybody in this neighborhood all through west baltimore to try to create continues today that we're going to leave to something more peaceful and more orderly. >> all right, chris. stay with me. i want to go back to toure who is still moving around the crowd. toure, what are you seeing now? toure? >> hi i'm standing here live in front of a line of nokes who are standing in front of the cops. what are you doing? >> i'm -- i'm protecting the
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police officers, but i'm also trying to protect the citizens of baltimore city as well. >> so why are you protecting the police officers when they are supposed to be protecting us? >> because everybody needs protection protection. they need protection just like we do. i'm standing here with my daughter, and i'm a baltimore city educator and school liberian. i believe everybody needs to be protected. they are people, too, and citizens of baltimore, too. we all need to be protected. >> and there's a whole line of folks here standing in front of the police protecting them and if you guys are here then people will not want to engage with them and not want to taunt them. >> absolutely absolutely. they see us. they see us being a line of unity to say it's okay. just back off. everything will be peacefulful. just leave it that way. we're protecting them. i may not be able to do much. i'm a woman, but i'm here standing here. i've been here for two hours standing here protecting them you know. they are scared like we had.
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here doing my part. >> thank you so much for your time. >> i don't think i've seen anything like this a line of citizens, rev. >> thank you toure. let me go to reverend wesley west who is an outstanding youth organizer. he was with us today in the private meeting with the mayor. reverend west, what is the temperature that you're feeling now on the street? you've been from day one out leading peaceful protests and have been diligent in the trenches. what feel do you get tonight? >> well rev, the feeling that i'm getting tonight is -- is more -- is more warming, more heartfelt tonight. something has changed overnight. what, i don't know but the love i am getting from the -- from the people and the brotherly love from the communities and here in different events that have taken place tonight, i'm
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kind of shocked. >> now, one of the things that i noted in the meeting with the mayor is that there seems to be intergenerational leadership and certainly you have stood out as among the young leaders that have said that the fight is about trying to rebuild and provide jobs and training for these young people. after all of the cameras are gone, do you feel that you will have the kind of assistance and backing you need to help to continue to rebuild and restore and help these young people that have looked to you for leadership? >> yes, sir, rev. i believe if i, you know remain strong in this particular fight, even after the cameras are gone i receive, you know and carry a message from young people that say we're stanning behind you and we're looking forward to have you as our voice. i do believe that after the cameras are gone away that the people -- that the young people will still, you know come to me as -- as a young black male that
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understands and is relatable. >> all right. thank you so much reverend wesley west. >> thanks for having me. >> i believe we'll hear allotted from you as we go into the future. let me go back to toure. i'm sorry, let me go to chris hayes. chris hayes has an interesting guest, a bishop from philadelphia. >> i'm here were the bishop from philadelphia today. where do you breech in -- do you preach in fill? >> you can see behind us there's a youth march, and a huge youth march coming down of folks saying we want peace! we want peace! >> what brought you down here today? how did you make the decision? you came down with a few fellow clergy. >> well, we realized that there were some communications problems here in philadelphia and that people were hurting, and where there are hurting people, that's where you'll find myself and my staff so we came down and there will be a voice
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for people in the community as well as for the government. >> were there a bunch of clergy was there sort of a lot of communication from the clergy from around the surrounding area to come down here and try to create a situation of what's going to lead to a repeat of last night? >> that's correct. there are a number of different denominations that have come together in order to become a buffer zone between the police and the community. we have that meeting happening in about an hour so we can actually get an organization going here in the city so that we can create that dialogue and continue the dialogue that we created earlier today. >> so you're going to meet with the police in an hour. >> with the police and with the city officials and the pastors. >> the people of i've been talking to today say look freddie gray died. if he hadn't died it wouldn't say anything because it's so common in this neighborhood that people get arrested by the police and get hurt in police custody. it was just the fact that he died and then the length of time it's taken for any explanation. i mean where does -- where does your role come and other folks
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coming down here to sort of keep order which is obviously important in also pushing the police for some kind of answers 17 days in? >> well communication is going to be vital. communication and respect on both sides, mutual assurance that this is going to be resolved and people are going to be heard. what we have is a melting pot of people who have been generationally ignored, both when it comes to their rights being trampled and also the -- the economic issues, so if we can create that dialogue and begin to speak and keep the community together on a page of hey, expression yourself but do it in a peaceful manner so that we can actually make change happen through that dialogue. >> all right. thank you, bishop. >> thank you. >> throw it back to you, rev. >> thank you, chris. let me go to toure who is actually marching with those young people we heard chanting we want peace. toure, what's going on? >> people are marching up the street chanting we want peace, but it is peaceful and just to
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show you that this is a multi-racial, multi-generational situation out here i'm here are laura herman. laura, why are you here today? >> just to support my city, man. honestly breaks my heart everything that transpired in these past couple of nights and it really brings me to tears. i'm a coach and coach a lot of these inner city kids and to drop them off somewhere where i don't feel that they are safe or not to be able to have the right reks and facilities just to keep these kids off the streets. come on now, man, what are y'all really doing? it's gotten to a point of ridiculousness and i just hope that this is a small piece of what's about to change pause it needs to change and it needs to change now. >> thank you laura. rev, back to you. >> thank you. let me go to mark claxton. mark, you were an nypd officer for years, and how do you think the police have handled the situation today? they seem to be getting a lot of praise on the streets when i was
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there earlier today and you're hearing it tonight. it seems, so far, and clearly with three hours and five minutes before the curfew but so far it seems like they are getting some praise from various corridors of the community. >> well they are really handling the situation with a lot of restraint, but, i mean today, it's not necessarily the same challenge as it would have been yesterday with all the violence and crimes going on around them so they are doing as they should do which is to provide whatever service they can to the public and today they are showing a tremendous amount of restraint. we'll see after 10:00 just if they can withstand that and sustain that type of professional demeanor an attitude. >> all right. thank you, mark. let me go to joy reid who is standing bay vigil going on live. joy?
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>> hey, rev, i'm here at the empowerment temple which as you know is reverend jamal bryant's church in west baltimore. there's a meeting of clergy going on right now. earlier in the day they housed kids who needed somewhere to go on this day when kids were mandated to be out of school and there was also a training that was done for high school-aged students to teach them nonviolent civil disobedience and that was led by former knapp knapp president ben jealous and amnesty international. then in about five minutes, rev, there's going to be a town hall that's getting started. the parking loltd is packed to capacity. community members are going to be here and will have a town hall meeting about policing addressing just those very issues you've been talking about today in the show. rev? >> what do you think about tonight? what is your forecast of what will happen when the curfew begins at 10:00? >> well i did talk to a lot of young people at the cvs where you were talking earlier to toure and chris hayes, and people were saying they don't
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expect there to be anything that happens unless they are provoked somehow by authorities. people don't buy the narrative that it is the citizens that are provoking any violence. they say there are some people who are taking advantage of the situation just to cause mayhem that essentially are separate from the movement and just out to cause trouble because they are just trouble-makers, so the people who are part of the movement here want nothing to do with those people. don't claim responsibility for them. they are just saying for themselves a lot of people will have their kids at home but they are going to be here tonight at this meeting that starts at 7:00 so we'll see what happens when this meeting let's out. >> now, have you seen a large police presence today as you have moved around joy? >> you know what's interesting, rev, we started out downtown where the big hotels is, the four seasons and the nice hotels, are and there were endless amounts of authority and national guard and police. then as we moved here to west baltimore, the area that's not
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far from where the uprisings happened the other night, we saw no one, not one national guard person. then we moved over to the area by the cvs and did we see national guard nanned out, people turning their backs on them, et cetera, but i think the police presence is much much bigger downtown and by city hall. >> i want to thank you, joy, and thanks to all of my guests who helped me report this story tonight. let me say that yes, we do not gain anything with violence. nothing justifies violence. nothing justifies further pain but we also can't lose sight of the fact that there are problems that anything can be a spark to leading to this kind of recklessness and this kind of bemay havior. though it is unjustified, neither do we ignore the problems of poverty, the approximate of unemployment and
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the problems of policing. we must not only end the violence, we must pick up our -- our mutual responsibilities and fight for change so these kinds of issues will be things of the past. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. maas >> the streets will be empty and so will the stadium. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. well tomorrow afternoon at 2:05 a statement will be made 35 miles north of here. the baltimore orioles of the american league will host the chicago white sox with no one in the grandstands. camden yards one of the most classic stadiums in the count
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