Transcripts For WHYY Charlie Rose 20141126 : vimarsana.com

Might say, look, this is a difficult case. Its a close case. Why not give all the grand jury all the Available Evidence and let them make up their minds from the most informed perspective . If you are cynical, you will say this is a prosecutor who wanted to exonerate officer wilson, so he simply buried the grand jury in evidence, confused them with lots of stuff that wouldnt even be admissible at trial, and then reached the result he wanted to all along, which was no true bill. This really doesnt matter as a kind of micro case. In the macro picture it fits perfectly into the pattern that says africanamerican lives do not matter to the same degree that white lives matter, or shawe are willing to tolerate the policing of black people in some ways that are fundamentally different and less democratic than we would be willing to tolerate for other parts of the society. Rose we conclude this evening with a conversation with tom donilon, former National Security adviser for president obama. The circumstances have changed quite a bit during the course of the second term. You have an unexpected fight in iraq and syria with respect to isis, which came on the scene as a major security challenge over the last year. You had renewed security challenges in europe with russias incursion into ukraine. And you vof, as a result of all that, professors on the defense budget. And in my own judgment, instead of looking at the cut that are now contemplated i think well be looking at some increases in the budget. You have a changed landscape, no doubt about that. Rose the lessons of ferguson, missouri, and the analysis of tom donilon when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin this evening with the ferguson grand jurys s to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. Prosecuting attorney Robert Mccullough spoke lat night of the. The grand jury deliberated over two days, making their final decision. They determined that no probable cause exists to file any charge against officer wilson, and returned a no true bill on east of five indictments. Rose just minutes after the announcement, president obama made an unusual latenight statement from the White House Briefing room. We need to recognize this is not just an issue for ferguson. This is an issue for america. We have made enormous progress in Race Relations over the course of the past several decades. I have witnessed that in my own life, and to deny that progress i think so is to deny americas capacity for change. But what is also true is that there are still problems, and communities of color arent just making these problems up. Separating that from this particular decision, there are issues in which the law too often feels as if it is being applied in a discriminatory fashion. I dont think thats the norm. I dont think thats true for the majority of communities or the vast majority of Law Enforcement officials, but these are real issues, and we have to lift them up and not deny them or try to tamp them down. What we need to do is to understand them and figure out how do we make more progress. And that can be done. Rose the president s call for calm fell on deaf ears. Demonstrators and complis accomplice clashed overnight, exchanging gunfire. You need to get out of the street immediately or you will be subject to arrest. Reporter gl more than 80 people were arrested in the st. Louis area as cars and businesses were set abliez. Michael browns parents stood alongside the reverend al sharpton when he spoke earlier today. Michael brown has lit a new energy for police accountabili accountability. I remember when rodney king happened. Our hearts were broken when we went to simi valley and watched a trial jury acquit those police. There was violence after that. But we kept on going. And the federal government came in and those policemen were convicted. So before you think this is over, remember applause remember what happened in rodney king. We went from simi valley to the federal government. This will not end in the valley here. Were going to keep on going. Rose also today, ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson spoke to George Stephanopoulos of abc news. Is there anything you could have done differently that would have prevented that kill from taking place . No. Nothing . No. And youre absolutely convinced when you look through your heart and your mind that if Michael Brown were white, this would have gone down in exactly the same way . Yes. No question . No question. You and your wife i dont know if this word is appropriate anymore what is your dream goinged for . Like i said, we just want to have a normal life, thats it. I guess its hard to have a normal life after someone is lying dead. Uhhuh. Something you think that will always haunt you . I dont think its haunting. Its always going to be something that happened. You are you have a very clean conscience. The reason i have a clean conscience is because i know i did my job right. Rose joining me from ferguson, missouri, is michelle miller, of cbs news. Michelle, drieb for us the scene on the ground today. Reporter charlie i have to say the peaceful protests, the people out in force who have been here over the last 100 days or so, they are continuing their efforts to get the message out beyond the decision made by the grand jury yesterday. They say that people still need to talk about the issues at hand. As far as those Business Owners who were impacted by the looting and the arson last night, they are cleaning up. You see this store behind me actually two storeses, one of them a blackowned business. Both of them have cleaned up the rubble outside of their buildings, have tried to put things back in order. Fromut community standpoint that is how they are trying to recover today. The police, quite a different response from sets of factions here. The head of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said last night was a disaster his words. He mentions the fact that, one, he hopes to never see that kind of response again, and certainly not tonight. The mayor of ferguson has said that the National Guard troops, those that who had been activated by governor jay nixon, that the deployment here was woeful. He expected far more National Guardsmen to be out in force. The governor said some 700 were in fact in and around the ferguson community, and he plans to deploy some 2200 on the ground tonight. But people across the board depending on where you sit, certainly are trying to react and certainly trying to moveed for and make sure that that this sort of thing doesnt happen again tonight. Rose so the question is for everybody how do we moveed for . What do you expect to see in the coming days . Reporter oh, wow, thats a big question. Its a very good question. Its a question a the lot of people are having here, and i think each one of these entities is taking one steped for. Business owners are getting their Property Damage assessed by insurance their insurance companies. You haveue have Law Enforcement trying to figure out and restrategize what happened last night, where they went right, because keep in mind, no one was killed last night as far as has been reported by various Police Departments and Law Enforcement agencies. There were 18 injuries reported, but, again, keeping this in perspective, as i said, in comparison to other riots in our past history over the last 20 years, the last one that comes to mind is one that i was witnessing before my eyes in los angeles. Some 63 people died there. So thats the Silver Lining of this. Property damage here, certainly, a big, big deal for people here who wanted to moveed for and move beyond what protesters and what really agitators here had done to them, not those peaceful protesters. And they are simply trying to see what the next step is. Whats so interesting about this building, charlie, is that it was hit some three and a half to four years ago by a tornado, and this business came back three years ago, and now they have to go and start all over all again. Its ad i a good question, and tonight i think a lot of people are asking themselves how i do take the next steped for . Rose joining us from the cnn studios in new york is jeff toobin. Hi, charlie. Rose tell me about this case from the legal perspective and the prosecute attorneys approach, mr. Mccullough. Well, he did something very unusual, very unusual for the state of missouri and very unusual for most state prosecutions generally. Instead of simply bringing charges against officer wilson shortly after he killed Michael Brown, he took the case to a grand jury. Now, grand juries are unusual in the first place, but he did something even more unusual than that. He announced that he was going to present every single piece of evidence to the grand jury, and let the grand jury make up its mind about whether to bring charges. So not only is it unusual to go to the grand jury at all. Instead of simply acting like a prosecutor and present, the, the evidence he wanted the grand jury to use to bring charges he basically threw up his hands, did a document dump to the grand jury, and let them make up their own mind children turned out to be no indictment. Rose why do you think he did it that way . Well you know i think the answer is is depends how cynical you are. If you are uncynical, you might say, look. This is a difficult case. Its a close case. Why not give the grand jury all the Available Evidence and let them make up their mind from the most informed perspective. If you are cynical, you will say this is a prosecutor who wanted to exonerate officer wilson, so he simply buried the grand jury in evidence, confused them with lots of stuff that wouldnt even be admissible at trial, and then reached the result he wanted to all along, which was no true bill. Rose is there any evidence that ties him to that position, that he wanted to dump so there would not be an indictment . Well, certainly, the family of Michael Brown and civil rights leaders in missouri have been very skeptical of Bob Mccullough for a long time. Its been a contentious relationship between mccullough and the black community, as i think many people know by now, his father was murdered. Hes a crime victim. You know, practically since he was a child. Hes someone who works very closely with the police, as most prosecutors do. And a lot of people were suspicious that he was interested in that he was never interested in bringing this case at all. Rose okay, talk about inside the grand jury, and what they looked at that might have led them to make the decision they did . One of the things that is, i think, unambiguitily good about the situation here is all the evidence is now out and all of us can look and see whether we whether about what we think about the evidence. And basically, what he did was he presented two incidents that took place in a very short period of time maybe as little as 90 seconds. There was a confrontation at the car between Michael Brown and officer wilson, and it does seem quite clear from d. N. A. Evidence that Michael Brown reached in and had a confrontation that led to officer wilsons gun going off twice in the car. At that point, though, things get a lot murkier. Officer wilson came out of the car, and there he had a confrontation with Michael Brown that ended with browns death. Initially, a lot of the witnesses who were in public, said Michael Brown had his hands up. Some said he was shot in the back. What we know from the grand jury is that, clearly, he was not shot in the back, and there were several new witnesses who said with zeroing degrees of certainty zeroing degrees of certainty, that mieblg brown was coming at officer wilson, was making threatening movements toward him, thereby justifying wilsons use of lethal force. I think those witnesses, those eyewitnesses who said there was movement from brown towards wilson were the key witnesses in leading to no indictment against wilson. Rose is this a reasonable decision looking at the evidence that they saw and heard . You know, charlie, i think so. I dont i think other prosecutors and other grand juries might well have come out differently, might well have pursued this whole case in a different way. But do i think this grand jury made an irrational choice based on the evidence before it . No, i dont. I think they made they made a reasonable conclusion to the evidence. Rose would it have been better, with hindsight, that some of these witnesses and what they had to say and some of this evidence had been released earlier . Thats a good question. Probably. Its hard ton exactly how that would have worked. If mccullough, the prosecutor, had simply outlined his reasons for not bringing the case on his own, he might have disclosed this evidence on his own. But it is certainly good that the public can see this evidence for itself now, and at least understand, if not agree with what the jury what the grand jury decided. Rose what options are there now, Legal Options . What can eric holder do if he wants to take some action . Well, there are really two options left. One is this itself investigation, and th and the fl investigation has two parts. One is an investigation of sphers Darren Wilson in the way that the officers who attacked rodney king in los angeles were prosecuted after they were acquitted of state charges. In simi valley, california. I think thats very unlikely to yield anything. Those cases are very hard to make. And so i just think as a criminal matter, Darren Wilson is pretty much in the clear. Theres also a civil investigation by the Justice Department of patterns and practices of the Ferguson Police department, and i think almost certainly there will be changes ordered in ferguson as a result of that investigation at a sort of policy level. And i certainly think thats a good thing. In addition to those federal investigations, there will almost certainly be civil lawsuit by Michael Browns family against the Ferguson Police and other Law Enforcement entities. I would be willing to bet those cases will be settled. There will probably be, perhaps a substantial amount of money change hands but its not going to do Michael Browns parents much good given what theyve gone through. Rose jeffery, thank you so much. Jeff toobin from the new yorker magazine and cnn. Joining me now from st. Louis, missouri, jelanie cobb from the new yorker magazine. Thank you for joining us. I know what a busy day it has been. Let me read what you wrote, what transspired in ferguson last night was entirely predictable, widely anticipated and yet seemingly inevitable. Tell me more about how you see this circumstance that has transfixed the nation. Well almost from the outset, it almost seemed as if, you know, things were following there was a manual for creating a negative outcome. It almost seemed as if this situation would have followed it to the letter, you know, beginning with the incident that transpired between mr. Wilson and mr. Brown on canfield drive that culminated in mr. Brown losing his life. Then the, you know, fact that he was left out in the sun for four and a half hours while people in the community saw this and became more and more incensed, to a litany of interactions that left a decreasing amount of credibility for kind of all the official structures in ferguson on the part of the people of the community. And by the time we reached this outcome, people were widely predicting that he would not be indicted despite the, you know, idea that grand juries will typically indict when the prosecutor wishes them to. There was the perception that the entire affair was effectively rigged and that there was no way that people could trust the system for justice. And when people dont have the ability to trust the system for justice, i think it makes it more likely that things like what happened last night will transpire. And so it seemed almost as if everyone knew that it would culminate in this, but no one was capable of doing anything that would prevent it from coming to this. Rose obviously, beyond sort of the long history of race in america, what else might have been done within the context of these series of events to have avoided it . Well, one thing i think worth noting is a couple of weeks before Michael Browns death, Bob Mccullough won a contentious kind of racially tinged primary election against an African American opponent. He has had a longstanding history of just terse relations with African Americans, very many African Americans in this community. And he had been part of another campaign, the county executive charlie dooley, who was unseated in his primary as well, and it was the highest kind of African American political figure and he was unseated in the primary in which the prosecutor, Bob Mccullough, enendorsed his opponent and in an advertisement that people thought had racial elements to it. So this really was kind of a tinderbox before anythin