ta-nehisi coates, i'll start with you. there's been a lot of calls for the police chief to step down, he's done that at least temporarily now. what's your reaction? >> i think it's a good first step. i think over the long term we'll have to see how much it actually means for the investigation. i think what's important is that people were not simply calling for him to step down just because there has not been an arrest. people were calling for him to step down because they were vastly and, in my opinion, legitimately displeased with how this investigation took place. it was just a very shoddy job and i think this is about the absolute least that could be done so far. >> suarez: dennis backsly, what's your reaction to the latest development? >> well, i think something had to happen in response to the outrage that's occurred. i think at first of all we simply want to express empathy and condolences to this family who is hurting. from this point forward i think we can have a lot of confidence in what we'll learn from the grand

at least not yet. >> brown: ta-nehisi coates, pick up on that. there's a larger american story, you started to talk about that earlier. is there something potentially beneficial so far or not at this point? >> >> i would agree with reihan. i think a significant part of this is, like donna, a lot of us in the african american community have had friends, relatives who've experienced some sort of negative encounter, some of them lethal with a friend. i have a friend from howard iveity er i went to school who's like that. i think the difference is you have an actual child. you have a 17-year-old kid. i think at a base level everybody can relate to sending their child out to the store for a bag of skittles, an arizona iced tea hoping to enjoy the afternoon, watching the all-star game with his parents, with his father who was present in his life. donna alluded earl dwrir "the talk" and as she said, there's very little he could have done differently from what we know thus far. i think a lot of us can empathize with being afraid, with seeing somebody fol