when it mattered. the anger at john bolton being willing to do this for money for his book rather than doing this under oath has been absolutely palpable all day long. but i'll tell you early next week, we are going to be speaking to a former senior government official who i am very much looking forward to hearing from, who may be a little bit of the antidote to john bolton, and that is robert gates, former defense secretary bob gates is going to be joining us here live on tuesday as his new book comes out. couldn't be happier about it. that does it for us tonight. see you again on monday. welcome back. i'm ali velshi. we begin this hour with breaking news. protests are breaking out in atlanta tonight where the chief of police has resigned after another video has surfaced of another black man being shot and killed by police. this is a live picture as you're looking at crowds gathering near the site of that. the shooting happened last night after atlanta police officers were called to a wendy's where this man, 27-year-old rayshard

brooks was allegedly asleep in his car while in the drive-through lane. police gave him a field sobriety test and attempted to arrest him for driving under the influence. he resisted. the georgia bureau of investigation says brooks then grabbed an officer's taser and ran away. he then, while running, pointed the taser at the officers, and that's when an officer opened fire on mr. brooks. atlanta's mayor had this to say while announcing the chief of police was stepping down. >> while there may be debate as to whether this was an appropriate use of deadly force, i firmly believe that there is a clear distinction between what you can do and what you should do. i do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer. >> georgia bureau of investigation is investigating

the incident. joining me now, marq claxton, a retired detective for the nypd, currently the director of the black law enforcement alliance. and phillip ateva goff is the co-founder and president of center for policing equity. thanks to both of you for being here. marq, we have been studying this video and the information coming from the atlanta police department and watching the developments in atlanta. there's a lot we don't know, but what we seem to know and what the police have told us is that the 911 call came in about a man asleep in the drive-through lane. and now that man is dead. what do you make of this? >> i think what the mayor indicated is something that we really have to pay attention to and focus on, and that is whether or not the level of force that was used in this interaction, which should have been pretty simple and straightforward. you responded to a call, in essence, for assistance. someone may have called just

perhaps to offer assistance to this individual sleeping. but either way, there has to be the level of course commensurate with the level of threat. and you can't -- a police officer, a professional police officer cannot use deadly physical force unless deadly physical force is being used against them. clearly based on what we've seen thus far, that's not the case. so it's a matter of whether or not we're going to abide by the guidelines and the use of force continuum, which professional policing has anchored onto for decades, or not. and i think the mayor in this particular case is operating under the minneapolis model, and that is to act quickly, deal with punishment for those individuals who operating outside of not only their department guidelines but the law. >> phillip, this man did not have a gun on him. he did take the -- it appears from the video we're seeing, he took one of the tasers from the police, gets up, runs away, is

pursued by the police. turns the taser toward the police and then is shot. we have two pieces of video of this. this one that you're looking at that was shot by a bystander, and then we have the police who released the wendy's video that show him turning and pointing the taser at the police as he is running away. and within the context of what we've seen in the last few weeks, phillip, the idea that a man, as marq claxton talked about george floyd narrated his own death for us at the hands of police. one wonders -- one understands the instinct to want to get away. >> yeah. yeah, you really do. you know, we've been say three names for the last couple weeks, ahmaud arbery, breonna taylor, george floyd. i want you to remember that breonna taylor's partner was in bed and thought that police were breaking into the house, thought

that there were dangerous, armed intruders. turns out he was right. in that situation, you have a no-knock. there's disagreement about whether or not the police announced themselves. but increasingly in black communities, especially at exactly this moment, law enforcement are scary people with guns, not there to protect us, not there to make sure that the law is followed. they are potentially weapons of people who want to see us hurt, and they are themselves unpredictable individuals who can do harm possibly with impunity. i think we're going to see over the next several days arguments about, well, if he had just complied, well, if he had just -- you know, and also why fight with police? a bad person does that. he was asleep in his car. there's no reason to bring a badge and a gun into that. he was asleep in his car. i don't care what substances he might have been on. i don't care what his day was like. i don't care what his character

is. he was asleep in his car. the outcome is his death. if this doesn't make you think about we need better and different resources to send to someone asleep in his car, i don't know what's wrong with you. i really don't. >> marq, let's talk about that because there have been conversations about defund the police, and a lot of police we talked to have said there's some things that cops are just not good at. that is people who are intoxicated, people who have mental illness, people who are homeless. we have seen instances where we have tried to shift away from using police resources where not necessary and shifting that to social workers or intervention specialists or de-escalation specialists or nonviolent communications specialists. the issue isn't that some guy maybe shouldn't have been blocking the line in a wendy's, but phillip's point is correct. why is he dead if he was asleep in his car?

>> well, it's a question that we've been asking -- you know, you can go back many different cases and have the same question as to why. and let me just deal with the fact that there should be an expectation that professional policing is multi-disciplinary, and that to say that policing is part social work. policing is -- professional policing is part psychiatry. professional policing is part health worker. you know, you have to incorporate all of these different professions into your one profession if you're serious about it. what's going on now is we're at the cusp of a reform movement, and we have to be clear about what the goals and the objectives are and what the standards are on a national level so we can avoid these type of tragedies from happening time and time again. and we're going to have to ask the question as to why, and we have to be -- and i'm talking about the law enforcement community has to be committed to restoring the confidence of the

community which they're sworn to serve. that is the goal and objective at this point, and anything outside of that is useless. i agree with the mayor, and i agree with those people who are reform-minded. i agree in minneapolis with chief arredondo and mayor frey because the world changes by your example and not your opinion. so you have to do something. and if doing something means you have to take executive action or the employment of a professional police officer, that's what you do. and it doesn't counteract an investigation. there should always be an investigation. there should be full transparency and accountability. we can't forget that last part. accountability is key. >> phillip, one of the things that's interesting here is the speed with which keisha lance bottoms, the mayor of atlanta, has moved on this. she did say that erika shields, the police chief who has been on the force for more than two decades, did choose to resign.

but, you know, that comment that she made that we don't know yet because these things have to be investigated whether it was an appropriate use of force or not, but the idea there are things you can do and there are things you should do. part of this lack of trust between african-americans and in fact a large part of the american public and the police is that we don't know that the right thing will happen. do we at least have a proper reaction from the atlanta mayor in some sense that this will be dealt with more effectively than it was in minneapolis for the first several days? >> yeah, no, we don't know. i mean i think the mayor read the room. there's absolutely no way you can have somebody who dies, who is executed by the state for the crime of sleeping in their car and being scared of you and then allow for things to stay the same. so you chop the head off, and you hope that the next one that grows back is more palatable to the people. chief shields was a good chief and a strong chief for reform. will the next chief be better?

hope so. i don't know that there is going to be a set of responses that will help in a low-income neighborhood tomorrow when they're worried that someone might be breaking into their house and they're thinking, maybe i should call the police. maybe i'm in danger. and then they're looking at this video and they're thinking about what's happened, and they're thinking, but even if my house is being broken into, i don't want to be responsible for this person dying. i don't want to be responsible for this person being executed. like how do you fix that? >> that's the question, marq, that phillip's asking. that's the question, right? we're all a little confused about this. in the moment it's easy to sort of call for abolition of the police or defunding of the police, but there are moments where we're going to need somebody who is a police officer, who's armed, who's in the position to take somebody

down who is a real threat to society. but then you see things like this and you say, well, is that what they're doing? how do you get to that point, marq? i know we've probably asked you this 20 times in the last two weeks, but how do you? >> you can't fix it, not right now, not immediately. you can't fix it in the immediate. but what you can do is to put in place those ideas, those initiatives, those guidelines, those people, those policies, those laws and really force professionals to abide by them. there is no short rescue answer here. you can't fix it right now. but hopefully -- and i think there is some significant movement towards revolutionary-type, holistic reform. hopefully what is being done on the legislative level, in the streets, in local municipalities, will be enough to begin the process towards building and restoring

confidence and establishing a high standard of professional behavior in our law enforcement community. >> phillip, how much do we need to know? you're involved in this first national database on racial disparities in police stops and the use of force. we were just discussing the way these police stops are revenue generators and people may not be being stopped for the right thing and in the case of this man in atlanta, we may be using the wrong approach to dealing with the problem that maybe the guy's car needs to be moved out of the way, but this may not have been the way to do it. does it start with the idea that we still don't have shared numbers and statistics and enough information about how serious this problem is because americans are starting to believe in big numbers that being black is a dangerous thing around the police. >> yeah. i mean so i'm a data nerd. i'm never going to say to you, no, we don't need more numbers

and we don't need more analysis. but i'm going to say we've got pretty -- on the question of whether or not there's bias in law enforcement. it's done. there's anti-black bipartisanas enforcement. we haven't decides as a nation what law enforcement should and shouldn't be used for. someone who is worried that their house is being broken into, the reason we keep talking about trust is i don't know how you have safety in those neighborhoods if you don't trust the people you're going to call are going to be okay towards you or treat the other person fairly, right? so it's not as much about whether or not there's bias. my hope is the last three weeks have settled that in the minds of everybody else because the science has been settled for a while. the question is what do we want to use law enforcement for and what other tools do we need to effect actual public safety. >> right. so the data helps, but the data is probably not going to tell us something we don't already know, but we are a society that requires it, so we'll keep getting it. thanks to both of you.

marq, stick around with me because we're going to get a press conference by the attorneys representing rayshard brooks' family at about 8:30 eastern. after years ever reported police brutality in new york, real reform is actually happening. what does it look like, and why did it take so long? we'll discuss that on the other side. you're watching msnbc. give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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as protests against police brutality continue across the country, calls to defund the police and re-allocate that money to social services and reinvest in low-income communities are gaining traction. by the way, you are now looking at live pictures which we're continuing to stay on in atlanta. that is a crowd gathering in an intersection adjacent to where a 27-year-old man was killed, who

died at the hands of the police last night at a drive-through at a wendy's. the call came in for a man who was stopped in the drive-through lane. he was asleep in his car. that is an important piece of information. he was asleep in his car. there was no call of any threat other than the fact the people couldn't get through the drive-through. and after a sobriety test, which police say he did not pass, he got into a scuffle with police, grabbed one of their tasers, and ran away, ran away. he was then chased by the police. he turned his taser toward the police. he was then shot by police and declared dead at the hospital. you can see a number of police cars on the exit off of that highway on top of the overpass and at the exit. the police are blocking the entrance ramp to the highway. so i think they're concerned that those protesters will get onto the highway. look at that. it looks like we've got armored police vehicles there. i don't know whether those are national guard or those are atlanta police department or fulton county police or georgia state police. we're unclear. we can't see from this distance.

but a large police presence is assembling in the area. protesters have gathered peacefully again. i want to reinstate that. they are protesting peacefully, but there does appear to be some concern by the police that they'll attempt to get onto the highway and stop traffic, and that is what we're looking at right now. the concern here is why is the man dead. there was no threat. he was asleep, and he did resist arrest. he did take the taser. he did, again -- the police released surveillance video from wendy's that show him running away from the police. the police then continued the chase. he turns his taser toward them. unclear from the video whether he fired the taser or not. police then shot him while he was running away. the police chief, erika shields, has been with the atlanta police department for over two decades. she has resigned. she's actually lauded as a police officer, as a police chief who was reform-minded.

the mayor of atlanta has said while the investigation needs to determine whether this was an appropriate use of force, she wonders whether it was the right thing to have happened. so that's the situation right now as we have it. there are a lot of people in the neighborhood in atlanta, and we're going to stay on top of this story. in about ten minutes, we are expecting a press conference being held by lawyers for the victim's family. again, he was 27 years old, and when the call came in, he was asleep in his car. part of the question here is in all these calls to either defund or re-imagine or redirect police resources, people are wondering whether there are things that can be done that do not involved armed people coming to deal with some of these issues. new york has become one of the first states to pass a series of policing reform, including making use of choke holds -- by the way which killed eric garner -- a felony. unsealing police disciplinary records to the public. creating a new independent

prosecutor's office to investigate police conduct. the governor, andrew cuomo, signed an executive order requiring police departments in new york to work with communities to modernize their culture or risk losing state funds. >> the taxpayers are not going to pay for a public safety function that they don't trust. that's what we learned. okay. then let's actually seize the moment, and let's redesign the police department. it's been 50 years in coming. redesign it for 2020. then fund it and force the community and the police to sit down and make that decision. force the local community to redesign it and pass a law and use the state funding as an incentive/sanction to get them to actually do it. >> joining me now, carl heesty, the speaker of the new york assembly for the new york legislature. carl, thank you for joining me. mr. speaker, i appreciate it.

what andrew cuomo has said is a point that a lot of americans seem to be missing right now. whether or not you agree with defund the police or abolish the police -- and there are a lot of people who think that's not a reasonable approach to take. whether or not you agree with it, police are public servants. they work for the people, and that seems to be lost on some police and some police unions. >> well, i think what many people are saying and particularly people here in new york are saying is they want to see funding for other purposes. they'd rather see money spent more on youth, more money on education, more money on social services, more money on mental health services. i think that's really the cry you've been hearing from the people in the state of new york, in the city of new york, particularly are saying. that we want to reshuffle where

our priorities are. and many of the interactions that are happening between police and people may be able to be handled in a different way and maybe by different people. >> so what do you think when you hear that police got called to this wendy's in atlanta for a guy who was asleep in his car, blocking the drive-through lane? it strikes people like me who are not in law enforcement that maybe a guy didn't have to be dead for that. >> well, i guess for me personally, what concerns me is the fact that he was running away, and you're looking at a situation now where this man is -- is dead. so it does bring into question was there a different way that this could have been handled, particularly when he's running away, but now he's dead? so i hear that the mayor of atlanta wants to have a full investigation, but i do think this is a situation that could have been handled much

differently. >> so here's the problem. i think forever people have been asking for more money for homelessness and more money for mental health, and more money for substance abuse, but "the washington post" had an interesting article entitled "we spend $100 billion on policing. we have no idea what works." in it it says the united states shells out well over $100 billion each year for public safety. we've got remarkably little idea whether that money is well spent. it's possible that any given policing tactic or technology from tasers to facial recognition systems to body cameras is a fine or poor idea. but we don't really have much sense of which tactics and tools work or whether they are worth the cost. and i think what people are seeing is i don't know that you've proved that these things work, but the outcome, particularly if you're black and brown in america, is not good. so something has to change, and if the thing that has to change is you get less of our tax money, then so be it. >> i think, again, as i said, people want to see a reshuffling

of the deck, more priorities in terms of social spending on priorities that we feel, education, social work, mental health. those are the things that people want to see because the inequalities are not just in how we're dealing with how policing communities are interacting with each other. there's inequities in education, in health disparities. i think those are the things that people are crying for to see a change. and when they're looking at the police budgets, you know, they would like to see maybe some shifting of funding towards those other priorities, and that's what they're saying in new york. and i think that's what they're saying around the country. >> of the things that come into force into new york that the governor signed today, which of these are you most interested in? there's making choke holds a felony. there's the repeal of the

secrecy laws which, again, nobody really understands why they exist given that these are public servants. personnel records being used to evaluate performance. special prosecutor's office independent of the police to investigate and prosecute police killings of unarmed civilians. what do you think is going to be most meaningful in the stuff that has happened in new york state? >> it depends -- i would say it depends on the situation. you know, if you look at whichever police interaction that is leading to an outcome that is problematic, you can look at any of the bills that we've passed. if it's something that's resulted in a death, having a special prosecutor is -- may be what people feel in the best thing. knowing an officer's disciplinary records who may end up being part of another interaction that has a negative outcome, that may be what people

may want to see. but even on the stat act, which keeps track of the low-level offenses that people often have interactions with the police department, that might be the most important one. so it really depends on which situation that you find yourself in, or as a person of color, which situation have you found yourself on the opposite end of or your families have found themselves on the opposite end of. i think the important legislation is really in the eye or in the heart of the beholder. >> speaker heastie, thank you for joining us. and as i said, we are awaiting the attorneys for rayshard brooks to speak any minute now. the 27-year-old was allegedly asleep in his car while in the drive-through lane at a wendy's before being approached by police, ending up in a scuffle, and him being shot dead. we are going to bring that to

you. we're seeing them setting up mics there. that's expected to happen. i don't think they're going to get to their 8:30 start which was the scheduled time, but we will bring that to you as soon as it happens. we've got our special guests lined up to make sense of it, what little sense we can make of these things. another man dead at the hands of police tonight. you're watching msnbc. yeah, right. i look like a wanted poster. i didn't have time to get my beard routine in this morning, so... what beard routine? ah. well, the key is maple nectar. gives it that sheen. is there something wrong with my screen? -mnh-mnh. -jamie, what are talking about? you're right, alan. we should be talking about bundling home and auto with progressive, not this luscious mane of mine. [ laughs ] jamie, do you know what a beard is? still fresh... ♪ unstopables in-wash scent booster ♪

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. we're continuing to follow breaking news here on msnbc. we are -- in fact i'm going to show you some pictures out of atlanta about what's going on right now. there is a crowd of people, protesters it appears gathering around the scene. well, that is a shot of a press conference we're expecting to start. we were expecting it at 8:30 p.m. eastern. it does look like there's a bit of a delay there, but we will hear from the family of the man whose picture you're looking at, rayshard brooks, 27. he was last night apparently asleep in his car at a wendy's drive-through in atlanta. people called the police. the police arrived.

they administered a sobriety test on him. he apparently failed that test, and they attempted to arrest him, which is what you're watching right now. this is video that was taken by a bystander. the struggle ensues. he grabs a taser from one of the police and runs away. he does not use the taser on the police. he runs away. he then is chased by the police and you'll see more video in just a second, which is the surveillance video from wendy's that shows him running away right there. he seems to turn as he's being pursued, points the taser in the direction of the police. he then gets shot, falls to the ground, and is taken to hospital, and he dies there. this is now resulting in the resignation of the police chief of atlanta, erika shields, a 20-year-plus veteran of the atlanta police department, well regarded as a reform-minded chief, saying, for more than two decades, i've served along size some of the finest men and women in the atlanta police

department. out of a deep and aid booing love for this city and this department, i offered to step aside as police chief. apd has my full support. and mayor bottoms has my support on the future direction of this department. i have faith in the mayor and it is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. mayor keisha lance bottoms also made a statement about this in which she said that she does not know. they will investigate to determine whether it was an appropriate shooting, but what she was concerned about is whether the thing that police can do is the thing that they should do. i'm joined again by marq claxton, a former detective for the new york police department in charge of public relations and political affairs for the black law enforcement alliance, and he has been somebody on whom we have relied heavily for the last few weeks as we have covered the death of george floyd and the protests across the country. also joining me, jim cavanaugh, former atf special agent in charge, someone else we turn to when we need to understand these things. and i want to go to you, jim,

because one of the things that marq and i were talking about and that's been talked about a lot in the last few weeks about what policing needs to be better at, one of those things is de-escalation. here we have a situation that by all accounts -- and there may be much more information to come -- but by all accounts didn't start as an escalated situation. it was a guy asleep in his car, and there are a lot of people wondering tonight whether this has to be the outcome, a scuffle with police and then a man dead. >> well, you're right, ali. it did not. i mean i was a uniformed police officer before i went in the atf, and i answered many calls like this. this is a routine police call, and marq has as well. and all officers and deputies troopers have answered these routine calls. and this is a bad shoot. this atlanta shoot is a bad shoot. there is no deadly force justification in this shoot. and let me break it down for you this way. when the officers arrive, the man's inebriated. he's not committed any heavy

crime. they're going to arrest him for disorderly intoxication. he wants to fight. it's not unusual. the officers, you know, start fighting with him. everything they do in the fight on the street is, you know, part of police work. i mean sometimes you have to expect to get punched and kicked and, you know, you don't like it, but it happens. he's resisting, actively resisting. and then he goes from resisting -- what we call resisting without violence, which is just, you know, not letting you put his arms behind his back, which is a misdemeanor, to resisting with violence, which is a felony, which he starts to strike you, punch you, which he graduates to. then he gets the taser and runs away. now, you got two officers. he's got your taser. you know how far the taser deploys. you know you can get 25 feet away from him and he can't hit you with the taser.

plus he's running away from you. so there's no justification to shoot him. there's no justification to break leather here in my view. it's a fight. it's moving across the parking lot. i mean you have two officers. you don't have to be, you know, a sprint runner to be a police officer. you get on your radio. you get some more officers there. you're going to know his identity. you're going to pick him up a block away when he's exhausted, and he's going to be charged with, you know, disorderly intox, resisting with violence, and that's the end of the game. and i don't know why they're reaching for their guns. there's no reason for an officer to reach for his gun when a man's running away. the man doesn't have a gun. now, if he had a firearm, a man running from you can still kill you, shoot you with a firearm. running away, he can shoot low behind his back. he can shoot over his shoulder, and there's plenty of videos showing that, but he did not have a firearm. >> jim and marq, i'm going to ask you to stand by for a

second. we are seeing some people arrive at the podium in atlanta. they're getting ready to talk. this is apparently lawyers for the family of rayshard brooks, who was killed last night. let's listen in. >> -- trial attorneys with my partner, justin miller, mike roth, jess palmer, diana leeds in the back. we proudly represent the family of rayshard brooks, and we sadly represent the four children that will never see their father again. we just literally landed a few days ago from the funeral of george floyd, where we represent his youngest daughter, gianna. days before that, we were here fighting the ahmaud arbery case, where we're georgia cancel. then i could go on and on about

deandre phillips, another murder down here which involved apd, which still hasn't been decided or resolved yet. i could go on to alton sterling, which we also represent, which years later still has not been resolved. and all of the other cases. and what it boils down to, black, lightweigwhite, hispanicr you are, are you not tired of seeing cases like this happen? we see from the protesters, we see from the people in the streets of all races now that people are sick of watching black men murdered. and before we even get into what happened last night, the one thing that nobody can disagree with is that it shouldn't have happened. but it did because the value of

african-american males' lives in the inner city or wherever doesn't mean too much to officers nowadays, and it's sad because we look at things not just for the emotional effect of how horrible it is but legally. in georgia, a taser is not a deadly weapon. that's the law. >> i'm dara brown. there's breaking news in atlanta. multiple fires have been set in a parking lot in a wendy's where a black man was shot and killed by police friday night. now we're looking at the flames that have spread and protesters gathering outside the streets of atlanta. this started earlier today where protesters were showing up in atlanta, but things have gotten a little out of hand there. there are flames shooting into the air at the fast food

restaurant where rayshard brooks, a 27-year-old man, atlanta man, was shot and killed last night. this also comes hours after atlanta's chief of police resigned following the incident. there is cell phone video that showed 27-year-old rayshard brooks struggling with police before he was running away. the georgia bureau of investigation and the fulton county district attorney's office are both investigating. again, we are looking at live scenes now outside as people are gathering in atlanta. this has been going on for a few years, and of course as it becomes darker, believe it or not, more people have been coming out and protesting down here in atlanta after this shooting last night of rayshard brooks, a 27-year-old atlanta man who was shot by police and killed by police. there are videos. police are investigating what's going on here because it shows them struggling with brooks,

with the police, before brooks was running away. it's been a point of contention, especially after these weeks of protests that have been happening across the country from george floyd's death in minneapolis, that has just sparked these protests and demonstrations across the country. and this in atlanta is definitely another scene that did not need to be repeated here in the united states here with police, and people are gathering, obviously angry about the situation. they've been burning down the wendy's where the incident had happened, and we had pictures earlier of the flames from the wendy's. the drive-through -- sorry -- the fast food restaurant where this had all happened, and that's where people have gathered in atlanta. earlier, there actually had been a freeway that had been blocked as the restaurant was burning. mayor keisha lance bottoms had made a statement earlier saying

that chief erika shields had stepped down as the former assistant chief and is going to serve as an interim there because this is an issue that's been plaguing atlanta for a long time in terms of the police and people obviously in this neighborhood that they've been having -- certainly having problems. and mayor keisha lance bottoms acted very quickly in doing this so there is no repeat of what happened two weeks ago with george floyd, so there is a way to sort of get this under control. she's trying to take control of the situation there, and right now we're going to go to james cavanaugh, who is a former atf specialist. and, jim, good to have you on the phone. i know that you've been covering this throughout the day and the evening here for us. and now here we are still in atlanta, and the scene is unfolding, and more

demonstrators are coming out. they've already burned the wendy's down, and it just seems to be unraveling here, james. what can you tell us about this scene? >> well, i think atlanta p.d. here has to just, you know, use a lot of restraint. look, it's bad that a business burned, but if nobody was killed or injured in that fire, there's -- you know, buildings burn every night in america for various reasons. it's a property loss, and it's not a reason for the department to overreact. i think that atlanta police should just have some restraint, be calm. people are on the street, but that doesn't mean that they are all committing violence and arson. now, that climate may change, and they'll have to deal with that. but right now from the video feed, we can see just people milling around the street. they're upset for the death of mr. brooks. they're out there. they're, you know, active.

they want to talk to each other. they want to see each other. they're upset. just like this scene we're seeing here, really this is nothing for a lot of heavy police action is not needed here. they can monitor this from a distance, and apparently that's what they're doing. >> it seems to be rather peaceful now, which is obviously a very good sign that people are just standing around. there doesn't seem to be a lot going on, but certainly people are gathering. if you are the police in atlanta trying to de-escalate these issues, especially tonight, what is the first call to action? >> yeah. well, you see two police officers walking here. this is a light response. a few officers walking through with their masks on. it needs to be a light response. they don't need to have a lot of action, pushing. if there's no violence happening, just remove yourself back. let the people there. as long as there's not arson or

violence or attacks on the officers or attacks on other people, then, you know, it might be prudent to block some highways and streets and let the people, you know, vent a little bit, mill around, talk to each other, speak out loud, talk to reporters. there's nothing wrong with that. so i would say this response that the atlanta p.d. is giving here seems to be a restrained one. they do have a police line. they're not pushing anybody. they're not shooting tear gas or trying to press things. now, like i say, things can change, but right now it looks like it's peaceful, and they're letting it be peaceful. >> and, jim, we do know that the chief of police did resign earlier today and that the mayor had announced that. and how is that reaction in terms of this being from last night to today? we are moving in the right direction here. how do you think her response was to handling this situation

to really de-escalate and to show the people that she is taking control of atlanta? >> yeah, i think this mayor has done a great job. she is out front. she appears and talks to the citizens. she has the safety of everyone in mind. she's shown real leadership. i think she's really done that. the chief -- i don't know that the chief is to blame for this shooting, but the chief decided that she would step aside. apparently she had a pretty good rapport with the community and the department. she was a respected leader. she's not leaving the department from what i understand. she's going to stay, but she's not going to stay in the capacity as the chief of police. so the mayor is going to put an interim chief in. i think she's named a deputy chief to be interim chief, and she's going to do a nationwide search for a chief of police for atlanta. all these major city chiefs' jobs are tough jobs, and they have to really look and get the right people in there because,

you know, we're in a seminal shift in america for a culture change in the way our cities and towns are policed. it's coming. we all have to deal with it. we cannot have, you know, this level of angst going on in our cities with, you know, murders like mr. floyd and, you know, walter scott and, you know, just horrible cases unfolding in front of our eyes every week. we can't have this anymore in america. everybody wants it to end. the police want it to end as well. so we need to put a stop to it quickly. >> and, jim, to that point, especially on the heels of everything that has been going on across this country like you mentioned, this was not necessarily a routine stop by any means when they found rayshard brooks. i know there were situations saying he was possibly inebriated with a dui, but the altercation with police, what has to go into the training now

to change this so this does not escalate into a situation where the 27-year-old is shot and killed by police? >> right. well, you know, this is a routine call for all police. i was a uniformed deputy in florida. this is routine call. every officer has been to these calls. this is not a hard call. it's a normal call. even a person resisting, that happens pretty frequently with the police, and people resist. they resist without violence, resist with violence. this is not an unusual call for the police, and they should have been able to handle this. when they were struggling with the man they were, you know, doing a tough job. whether or not the decision to arrest mr. brooks was a good one or not i don't think we have those facts right now, but if the arrest was going to be a good one, a lawful arrest for maybe disorderly intoxication

or, you know, some charge they had and he resisted they were struggling with him on the tarmac there, and he resists without violence, low level. and then he resisted with violence. he struck the officers and took the taser. well, all of that is not a death sentence. i mean, we've had -- i've had fights with persons like that. i mean, you don't kill them. i mean, you have to fight with them. it's tough. you get punched, you get kicked. you get blood on your shirt. they run away, you get them, you get other officers to help get them. and, you know, it's just where is this man going to go? i think in policing what we have to look at is why are we in this all-out mental state that the man cannot get away? first of all, you already know his identity, you interviewed him, you got his car, his tag. where's he going? he's not going to get an a

helicopter and fly to, you know, catmandu. he probably lives in the neighborhood. you have his identification. he's not a serial killer trying to escape. he's just a man inebriated and made decisions to fight with you, but you don't have to draw your gun. you know, it's just a sad case. and, you know, the officer should have known -- it looks like he probably knew that he took the other officer's taser because the officer who chased him still had a taser, but it was a pretty obvious thing in the fight, and they might have communicated that with each other. so, you know, a taser you can get away from. you know how far it shoots. it only shoots a certain number of feet, 20 feet, 25 feet. you can get away from it. so you don't have to get that close to him.

>> and we did see that in the video. we could absolutely see that in the video. for those of you joining us we're covering breaking stories out of atlanta here. there's a new flash point in the debate over police violence. the atlanta police chief is off the job less than 24 hours after an officer killed a black man in a wendy's parking lot. i'm talking to james kavanaugh who's a former atf officer about what's going on now, and jim, you're looking at these pictures also and we see more police moving in. now they're covered in the shields and they have their police shields. so the situation has obviously changed from people just milling around to now more police being on the scene. so how -- what's in their training to have them handle this in an appropriate manner and not have this escalate? >> yeah, i hope they don't press it too hard at the moment because there's no violence, you know, that we're seeing in the

neighborhood there. so more officers are coming in. we saw what looked like some tactical officers, some s.w.a.t. officers now. looks like some riot control teams moving in, but they're not engaging in arresting people. it looks like they're just walking to a location, but sometimes your mere presence can get things charged up. but they are, it looks like they're forming a police line. i'm not sure they need a police line, but maybe the commanders have decided they need to clear this street. so we're just going to have to see if there's a clash here. i hope not. i hope they give everybody a little room. >> earlier the attorney for the family of rayshard brooks, he was the 27-year-old man actually shot and killed last night. the attorney spoke about his death at the hands of police. let's take a listen to that. >> you can't say you don't have other options. where was he going to go?

he was barely jogging away. you could have boxed him in. support came in i think two minutes. he would have been boxed in and trapped. why did you have to kill him? >> and earlier this evening mayor keisha lance bottoms announced that the chief, erica shields, had resigned. >> chief erica shields has been a solid member of apd for over two decades and has a deep and abiding love for the people of atlanta. and because of her desire that atlanta be a model of what meaningful reform should look like across this country chief shields has offered to immediately step aside as police chief so that the city may move forward with urgency in rebuilding the trust so desperately needed throughout our communities. >> and again, all this comes after the incident involving

rayshard brooks. officers responded to that wendy's after brooks supposedly fell asleep-in the drive-thru line. the georgia bureau of investigations said the 27-year-old man failed a field sobriety test and when officers tried to arrest him he apparently resisted, grabbed one of their tasers and tried to runoff. gbi said he might have been trying to fire the taser when the officer shot him. brooks die adat the hospital. the former chief shields has been with the atlanta pd for more than two decades and her resignation statement reads in part, quote, out of a deep and abiding love for this city and department i offer to step aside as police chief. she added, quote, it is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, unquote. and that is from the resigning police chief there. and we're back here looking at these live pictures of atlanta where police have moved in. and, you know, jim, we have to -- jim kavanaugh who's

joining us on the phone, we're looking at this now because everybody has cameras out. this is all a very visual piece for everybody to be looking at. everything can be documented now. how has that changed how the police can really handle these situations? >> you know, it shouldn't change anything. sometimes we see officers react to people filming them, but it shouldn't change anything about the way you police. if you're policing correctly and the camera is going to be on your side. if you're using only the force necessary to make the arrest which is what you're legally allowed to do then the camera's on your side. and when people, you know, will accuse you of using excessive force or overwhelming force the camera will show if you're acting appropriately, that you used the force necessary to effect the arrest. like let's go back to mr. brook

brooks' case. if they officers punched him on the street and eventually they arrested him someone could accuse the officers of using excessive force, but maybe they didn't. it's not that an officer punches you that that's excessive. it's all in the context of, you know, what is the level of force necessary to effect the arrest. and the level of force necessary to effect the arrest of mr. brooks was not deadly force. you could have let him run and called in some help, and he wasn't going to get anywhere. and he http://committed any major crime. i mean resisting arrest with violence is a felony but it's not a cause for, you know, major police action. it happens in every city in america, you know, during the week all-time. it's not that unusual of an event.

good morning, it's ali velshi here picking up at msnbc, our continuing live coverage of the events in atlanta whereas you have been hearing protesters have taken to the streets to protest the death at the hands of police of rayshard brooks. he was 27 years old, killed on friday night. just over 24 hours ago when police stopped him in the drive-thru of a wendy's he was asleep. that was the report, that he was asleep-in his car. that somehow escalated into a scuffle with police. they claimed originally that they were looking to conduct a sobriety test on him, a field test. we're not now clear on whether that happened, but this is what it entailed. a struggle with police in which he resisted being arrested, and in the process of that he got his hands on one of the police tasers, didn't use it on the police. he ran away. he was -- his effort here was to

run away from the police. he then got away from the police, and they toipcontinued chase him at which point you'll see video that changes to the surveillance video from the wendy's right about here, and he turns the taser on police at some distance. they then fire on him. he goes to the ground. he is subsequently declared dead in the hospital. so the questions are now why deadly force was used on him in the first place when the initial call was for a man asleep-in his car. in the immediate aftermath of this the police chief of atlanta has resigned, a 20-year plus veteran of the atlanta police department. erica shields has resigned. she was thought of as many of being a reform minded chief trying to fix what had been long-standing problems between the police and members of the community in that city. she has