eugene o'donnell, former police officer. eugene in terms of the captain ed kowalczyk, the baltimore police spokesperson characterizing these folks and outrageous criminals attacking our officers with no regard for the safety of the community or of police officers, i guess i wonder, clearly this is a distressing incident for anybody that wants the police to be able to do their job, keep communities safe. how carefully do you think they're going to tread the line to not incite further violence? >> it's going to be important for everybody to keep their heads, be cautious. this could be a long-term event. you need your more senior people, cool headed people up front. you need to keep command and control. the department has to make sure it's protecting its officers. the police have to be protected. but at this point, it's real important to have as many supervisors out there and to have a good command and control. there's no teams whatsoever. it's protecting the public. it's protecting the police while they protect the public. ther

let's go back to eugene o'donnell. eugene, what do we need to hear from police tonight? what does the community need to hear? >> the greatest extent of disclosure they can, and i think it's really vital that we all agree that when somebody dies in police -- in a state's custody, that what american wouldn't be horrified not to be able to know what happened. we can all be together on that. and i think that's what they really need to try to impart. they're doing everything to the maximum extent that they can, but i would definitely caution, in all fairness here the inconsistencies that ultimately if you give one story and another story emerges, that is the lifeblood of criminal defense, if there is a prosecution. so you -- they're sort of damned if they do and damned if they don't, in that sense. if you give a lot of information and that turns out to be inconsistent, you're gifting the defense here. >> how do they deal with all of these conflicting leaks, one station having law enforcement sources tell them one thing, another saying something opposite, and the actual witnes

clakszton, former new york police officer and director of the black law enforcement alliance and eugene o'donnell, professor of law and police study at john jay college of criminal justice. thanks for being here. >> thanks, rev. >> let me say a moment ago we got a response to bates from the harris family. quote, unfortunately mr. bates' apology will not bring eric back. with each passing day, as facts continue town fold we have become increasingly disturbed by mr. bates' actions. eugene, what jumps out at you about the explanation from bates that this could have happened to anyone? >> well, it's a very very very rare occurrence. i believe there's i'm wards of a million uses of tasers and perhaps a dozen or so of these claims. so it's a major exception to the rule that people don't usually reach for a gun when they are reaching for a taser, and i have to say bluntly the more i hear this story the worse the story, is and it's been a week now and every day it seems to get worse. >> now, matt lauer pointed out, and i'm looking out the tape of mr. bates' interview, if the taser was in a chest area ves

. >> joining us now is eugene o'donnell, professor of law and police studies at john j.llege and a former nypd officer, also joining us is david harris at the university of pittsburgh school of law. what's your reaction to that line of defense that we just heard? >> it will never work. the reason that it will never work, the oklahoma statute, like standard criminal law statutes and jurisdictions across the country contains a negligence for criminal purposes. that's exactly what you were pressing him on and you were right. culpable negligence means a level of negligence beyond ordinary civil negligence. his analogy to the operating room and the nurses and so forth, that's wrong, that's not what we call criminal negligence. criminal negligence is of a different order, and that's what he's been charged with because his actions fulfill that kind of definition. and there is no need to prove an intentional problem there, an intentional act. the nonintentional act will do it for criminal negligence. i don't think that defense will work. >> eugene o'donnell i was shocked today w

billy murphy and eugene o'donnell, professor of law and police study at john jay college of criminal justice. thank you both for being here tonight. >> sure. >> thank you reverend for inviting us. >> attorney murphy let me ask you, first, what is family's reaction to the justice department looking into this case for possible civil rights violations? >> they are delighted. they know that the more eyes on this situation the better and under barack obama and eric holder i have informed them that they have a trustworthy ally in getting at the truth. >> now, what questions do you still have for police and is the family confident in the police investigation? >> you know your show is not long enough for me to list all the questions. and the first one that i would ask is since when has running wild black been a crime, and i know that the police have always thought it should be but felony running does not exist, and the only thing wrong that that kid did is he didn't run fast enough and if you are ever looking for -- if you are ever looking for a reason why black kids in the inner city should

joining me now to look at the pros and cons of body cameras, former nypd officer eugene o'donnell and readit hudson. eugene what is the down side to these cameras? >> not for sure but we're uncertain what ultimately whether it will be a good or bad thing. the concern i would have is that it will disincentive for the police to be involved. we are currently focusing rightly on police abuse, police brutality, but the truth in america is that there are many places where the police are completely unengaged, are doing nothing and i would be concerned putting cameras on police people. it will make it much less desirable to be a police officer and police officers will find themselves -- it won't just stop wrongdoing it will stop right doing, also. >> why would it stop right doing? why would it encourage officers to not do their jobs? >> put yourself in a position of a police officer who does a car stop and asks somebody for their license and refuse. would you want to be on camera in that situation? when you don't know what the outcome is when you may need to use force, when essentially you co

prosecutor karen desoto as well as former nypd officer assistant district attorney and prosecutor eugene o'donnell. eugene's now a professor of law and police studies at john jay college of criminal justice. thank you, both for being here. karen, i'll start with you. the big takeaway from this whole story is the importance of this video that santana was so brave enough to release. because he released it there's really no debate as to what happened here. it allowed the city to respond as quickly as they did. it makes you wonder how many things go unnoticed without anybody seeing and also why cops should not have cameras on them at all times. >> you know it's interesting because the cases that have had the most controversy have had videotapes, right. as a prosecutor, yes, it's a great aid, but with police cases, it doesn't tell the full story. so it's problematic. although it's good sometimes it's bad. what i've noticed as a lit gator is that jurors, even if it's 100% a clean shoot or if the police officer was in the right, it is still very disturbing for anyone to watch any type of violence, whethe

eugene o'donnell is a former police officer with the nypd. now a professor at john jay college of. and jonathan betz is live in baltimore, can you hear me? >> john, we had technical issues earlier. let me give you an idea what's happening now. a couple hundred protesters, protesting, very upset lot of anger lot of frustration. if i can step outside a liberal of anger we're seeing her. in the neighborhood where freddy gray lived. they were being kept away from the police department's doors. on the other side of that door, there are concrete barricades that police brought out today people standing on top of them, demanding justice and answers the answers that have not been provided by authorities which is what led to the death of this 25-year-old suspect. especially people here say his death is the latest example of long simmering tensions between the city's black community and the police department here in baltimore. this is the fourth straight day of anger in this city after after freddy gray died in police custody. the mayor says she knows there needs to be repaired relations betw

. >> eugene o'donnell and i will not belabor the point how many versions of the story there are in policerts that are used to justify shots found in the back. we don't have time for that. but believe me, they have narratives that get around that. i want to read what may be the most important page of the incident report. it's the fifth page of the report. it's an amendment added by an officer. he was the first officer to respond to the scene. the first officer to get there to the body that's lying there. there he is right there. he's there when officer slager approaches the body for the first time. here is what -- here is the entirety of his report. >> justin bamberg there's not one word of what we might consider eyewitness testimony by officer haberhsam of events occurring at the scene once he got there. there's no description there of any movements by officer slager any picking up or dropping of objects by officer slager as has been discussed. that is what we have as to what happened at that scene. >> yes, sir. when i looked at the incident reports, what they may as well say, in my opini

right now i want to bring in marc lamont hill and eugene o'donnell, professor at john j. kol college of criminal justice. we have this statement that was released late today. you have to read it and get to paragraph three to see the headline. after they acknowledge and i think it's important to say, the protests have been peaceful, the police officer's union continues to say that the i'm manuals seen on television look and sound like a lynch mob. >> it was stunning. it was offensive, obviously inaccurate and it's dangerous. first of all, lynch mocks don't call for the immediate arrest of people they murder people. the whole point of a lynch mob is extrajudicial violence. it's what happened to this man, what happened in charleston south carolina. let's not use it for anybody right now. let's have an honest transparent process. people are angry this man is dead. there's no lynch mob out there. >> you heard our reporters using words like tense and angry. part of what he's referring to i think what happened live on this program last night. for people that didn't see it let me

i want to bring in eugene o'donnell. former nypd officer.y you watched those videos from both perspectives from the cruiser as you see the one zoom by and hit mr. valencia and from the actual cruiser who hit him. when you watch this and you ask yourself the question of was this appropriate, was this excessive, what do you think? >> it's ugly and it's improvised and this is what the police do. they're not trained to use a car to stop the guy, but they have to figure it out in real time. if they can not take his life and save the lives of others and he only ends up injured, it's imperfect and not good ending but it could have been a much worse ending. >> i'm saying this as a lay person watching the video, it doesn't look like whether the guy speeding up cared if he lived or died. >> remains to be seen. he was armed and turned around with a weapon that probably would have cost him his life. the cops will get no points for doing a pretty thing, but they may have actually saved his life. in that sense, they deserve credit for that. >> mr. vulens

. >>> joy reid and eugene o'donnell stay with us when we come back more on the breaking news ahead onhis new dash-cam video, just released from south carolina law enforcement, and the legal questions tied to this new video. also breaking now -- the mother of the officer charged with murder speaks out for the first time to "nbc nightly news." what she wants the world to know about her son the stay with us. act, america is now the world's number one natural gas producer... and we could soon become number one in oil. because hydraulic fracturing technology is safely recovering lots more oil and natural gas. supporting millions of new jobs. billions in tax revenue... and a new century of american energy security. the new energy superpower? it's red, white and blue. log on to learn more. wow. sweet new subaru, huh mitch? yep. you're selling the mitchmobile!? man, we had a lot of good times in this baby. what's your dad want for it? ..like a hundred and fifty grand, two hundred if they want that tape deck. you're not going to tell your dad about the time my hamster had babies in the backsea

and back with us again is former nypd officer eugene o'donnell, professor of police studies at john jaylege of criminal justice. always good to have you with with us. last night i was driving home through union square saw a large amount of police on all the corners mainly in front of one cvs there. we were talking during the break, you said the cops were wearing white shirts. that means the leaders were in charge? >> new york's not perfect burks they do this well. they have the numbers, they invest in it learn about it all the time. one thing that they know to do well is have their managers and leaders up front. there's responsibility accountability at the front because the tendency sometimes for the younger police people, less experienced is, to take it personally, take it emotionally. and you have the white shirt, bosses to say, no, this is not personal, not about you. let them do their thing don't take this to heart. >> of what what have you got? >> eugene, stay there. we'll have more with you. here in baltimore rob winehold a cries you and public safety expert, director of public af

worked on several high-profile cases including the rodney king lawsuit and political analyst and eugene o'donnell, professor of law and criminal studies and also former district attorney and was an officer with the new york police department. gentlemen, thank you all so much for being with me. >> thank you. >> earl let me start with you, because i managed to read your op-ed and i want to share a snippet of it with our viewers at home because your opinion on this is becoming a bit more popular here over the past 24 hours. i want to put it up on the screen. again, this is earl's latest column on the walter scott shooting. quote, just because the video doesn't make the case seem like a virtual slam dunk that does not mean he'll be convicted of murder or for that matter any other charge in the scott killing. the reason about that tells about the way of overuse of deadly force is treated by the criminal justice system. even in cases where cops are hauled into a court docket for the use of deadly force they routinely walk free and in the palmetto state in the past five years there have been roughly 200

gene o'donnell, professor of law and dallas deputy chief of police and national chairman of the national black police association. gentlemen, thank you both for being with us. >> thank you. >> eugene i thought the president made an interesting point, there were thousands peacefully protesting but get so much less attention than when someone sets a building on fire. how do you convince these young people that peaceful protests are the right and impactful way to go? >> i can't think of a better person to do it than the president. he's emphatic and saying you can't break the law. that's totally the right message. there are underlying issues that are urgent and need to be addressed but in the meantime, you can't have violence or beat up the police. >> and the mayor of baltimore speaking of the politicians making statements today, she's under some hot water for one what took her so long to ask the governor to bring the national guard forward, but two other statements made over the weekend where she said quote, the protesters needed space to destroy to let out their anger. she since walked that back saying it was taken out of context. here's how that played out. >> i've made it very cle