Transcripts For MSNBCW Dateline 20200531

Protesters are not destructive or violent. But a little more than an hour ago despite that relative peace police fired tear gas where ali was reporting in minneapolis, an action he said was unprovoked by protesters. Nobody was doing anything. They opened fire, theyre aiming their fire now, theyre working towards us. Get back, get back, youre hit, hes hit. Step back. Watch it, guys. We got gas here. All right, back up, back up, back up. Theyre now moving toward us. Theyre now moving toward us. Yeah, theyre shooting, guys. Put your helmets on. Miguel, stay with me. We got gas. Highly dramatic situation as you can see and tensions have flared in other cities from pennsylvania and pittsburgh and columbia and freeways were blocked, windows shattered and authorities deployed tear gas and even rubber bullets. Nine states, georgia, kentucky, wisconsin, colorado, ohio, utah, washington, texas and tennessee are all joining minnesota in calling their National Guard forces to respond to those protests. George floyds brother told reverend al sharpton earlier tonight he spoke with both president and former Vice President joe biden. This is what he said he told joe biden. I asked could he please, please get justice for my brother, please because i need it, i need to. I do newt want to see him on a shirt just like the other guys. Nobody deserves that. Black folks dont deserve that. Were all dying. Were all dying. Black lives matter. Joining me now is Msnbcs Ali Velshi who was on the ground in minneapolis as he has been for days. Ali, you and what was a peaceful crowd were fired on. We saw that clip with tear gas just a little while ago. Whats the situation now, and how did all of this unfold . Reporter very unusual. Hard green light back there but thats where the fifth precinct is. Thats where peaceful protests were being held all day. Much larger crowd than weve seen in the past couple of days. 8 00 p. M. Our time, 9 00 p. M. Eastern the curfew went into effect. Everyone stood up and started marching peacefully through town. We probably walked a couple of miles. There was no incident, no violence, no looting. Nothing was going on, and then at some point we were about a half to two thirds of the way back of the march. We werent anywhere close to the front and suddenly i saw in front of me about 500 feet, maybe further in front of me police cars suddenly move u move into the intersection, no warning. The group behind we were in were now in front of the police line and they opened fire within seconds of getting out on the street they opened fire with tear gas as you saw. And then flash bangs and other projectiles. I got one of them in my leg. It must have ricochetted off something and hit me but we were doing nothing. We were just trying to get out of there. And you and i talked very shortly after and we were all walking backwards. The same thing happened at another intersection. The Police Closed it off. So now we were sort of trapped, we couldnt get out. And there were some other media people there and we walked towards them with our hands yelling we were media and the police or the National Guard, we were together, yelled we dont care and opened fire a second time. So weve been weaving our way around minneapolis for the last hour or so trying to avoid interactions with the police. We just saw a convoy of National Guard and Police Moving this way. The helicopter has been up there for a while. They have dispersed tre are peo the move tonight. Theyre trying to enforce this curfew, but the big take away tonight, chris, is that these protests were peaceful. Morgan chesky and i were on two parts of it. These were peaceful protests. The police without warning weve got people coming toward us again which makes me nervous right now miguel, lets move. Without any provocation and warning opened fire lets move back here and started firing into the crowd. As you know you mentioned earlier i had my tear gas mask. I didnt have enough time to police come down here to see what theyre up to. Thats the story, christine. Lets just watch whats happening here. Thois is what theyve been doing. Theyve been moving around the city and suddenly stopping and get out of their vehicles. Thats fire. All right, so this is a different story. One of the problems is and i can see a fire burning over to our left in the direction that the fire trucks are going in. You can see now this is National Guard escort. This is part of the problem that the fires as theyve been started have not been able to have been put out because the fire trucks cant get in there to put the fires out. So weve got another vehicle coming this way. So theyre not able to get in without military, National Guard or police escort. So it does seem like theyre being fairly aggressive about this tonight because last night, again, there were a lot of fires. Weve got more military coming in this way, more National Guard. These are meant to be escorting the fire vehicles. Everything coming down here now is National Guard following the police. So theres a lot more activity here. The curfew, we dont have a good enough picture of this because im standing on a random corner in minneapolis. But like i said entirely unprovoked, opening fire of tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs into a crowd that was walking, very, very peacefully, chris. First of all, im glad youre okay and we hope other people who got caught up with that as well as you are aokay. And i will continue to watch this scene, but i also dont want us to lose sight of why all those people who came out today and as you have pointed out came out peacefully were there we got more coming here. Hang on a second. All right, thats the county ems heading toward theres a fire there which looked like it may have been the Police Station. The last few nights the third precinct has been the focus. It changed to the fifth precinct last night. We were there until about midnight last night. There was a very large crowd that gathered there. And shortly after i left the scene Bryan Williams who listens to the scanners was telling me the National Guard had been activated to that point. Yesterday we had 500 National Guard members and then they upped it to 700 last night. This morning they activated another 1,000 bringing it to 1,700. And by noon today the governor activated every last National Guard member in the state. 13,100. We dont know whether being activated means theyre out on the street tonight. But what youve not seen a National Guard presence. That fifth precinct has been the attention and unlike the third precinct it does seem the police are very, very determined to make sure another Police Station does not fall into the hands of the protesters. There are police there and that does seem to be where the action is. Now, were seeing some smoke from there. I dont know and cant tell you whether thats the Police Station. The Police Station is a brick building so the amount of smoke im seeing from that doesnt suggest that would be a Police Station on fire. For obvious reasons, were not actually interested in walking down there to find out. Cannot say it again because ive been saying it for three days and ive been getting a lot of flack from it the majority of the people here are protesting peacefully. Theyve been giving speeches, say black lives matter and things like that and the police fired on that crowd tonight, chris. Do you find a difference in the mood of the crowd today and also you talked about the raw and then the governor activated every last member of the National Guard. But have you noticed just visually a major difference in the Police Presence today . Reporter yes, tonight was the first night i saw minneapolis city police. Ive not seen them at all for the last three nights. Theyve been entirely absent from the third precinct. We have seen state police and supporting National Guard members. What we have seen now is remarkably heavy presence of militarized vehicles. That is the National Guard. And the group that shot into the crowd we were in were minneapolis city police. Here we go. Weve got more coming down the road. Typically we wouldnt move out of the way for this sort of thing because were not on the road, so we let them go. But this is exactly what happened two hours ago. We were literally standing there, police pulled up, got out of their car assumed a position in front of the crowd and started firing. So everybody is a now a little bit skittish what happens when police come. They spent three days not getting into a confrontation with protesters. Thats a firecracker. Not getting into confrontations with protesters. The police did go up on the roof and fired tear gas and flash bangs into the crowd, but there seemed to be some deliberate strategy not to actually engage with people where not necessary. Yesterday you had protesters coming right up in their face and criticizing and getting up in their face and they didnt do anything about it. Something changed tonight where police drove into an intersection and opened fire on a crowd. So i dont know what the strategic change is, but something is very different in the air tonight. And i will tell you the mood of the crowd was very different, kris. This was an entirely peaceful not agitated crowd, so the Police Reaction to this crowd surprised me more. Two nights ago it may not have surprised me. We continue to hear noise over there that might be flash bangs. We dont know what it is and we see some smoke, but theres some action behind us, kris. Yeah, and if youre able to determine safely what that is youll get back to us. I want to thank you and your crew who are under extraordinary circumstances have kept your cool and gotten us information, and we do appreciate that. So, ali, thank you. Im sure well be talking to you later on tonight. Where im sitting is new york city and behind what you see behind me are the windows to my apartments. What i have not heard are sirens. And all throughout the night and moments ago while ali was on the air i heard sirens. In new york city hundreds of protesters have been gathering, many of them in brooklyn earlier before marching across the brooklyn bridge. Over 70 protesters have been arrested and a number of nypd officers have been injured. Msnbcs Richard Louie is with another group of protesters in brooklyn. Whats happening where you are . Obviously a lot of folks there. Reporter you were talking about the group that was walking across the bridge. That was actually a splinter from the group we were with about 2 1 2 hours ago. Were still with the group and this group has since grown in size and brought in other ad hoc protesting groups. Were now about a five block long group. The police just arrived down the block there. It has been pretty much i dont know if we can see it here, but its been pretty much a quiet protest until about 30 minutes ago. We were at the target and there seemed to be some conflict within the protesters, should we stay away from the glass doors, windows of the target here or should we do something. And then quickly the tension peaked and everybody ran away, and then were now here. And as you know covering so many of these yourself these ebb and flow. Weve had some quiet moments. They had a candlelight vigil about 20 minutes ago where they held up their phones and that accelerated again. I think it was earlier in the evening if you remember last night at this hour here in brooklyn there was a lot of conflict. So i think now that the police have arrived that there is going to be certainly a change, and here come the police. Weve obviously lost the audio, and our crew im sure when they have a chance to safely reestablish they will safely reestablish, but we clearly are seeing there in brooklyn a Police Presence moving in. You see richard loui and then his cameraman who started running for cover. This has been the experience. We saw it in minneapolis as well, which is that when the police start coming people start to move because they realize that tactically things have changed. While we continue to watch these pictures and maybe well get reestablished with richard at some point, i want to bring into the discussion now mark plaxton whos a retired new York City Police detective, and i want to ask you, mark, if youre there whats your reaction to what youre seeing first in minneapolis and now in new york city and we see Frank Figliuzzi with him as well, an assistant director for Counter Intelligence and an Nbc National Security analyst, but i want to start with you because of your new york city experience and because of your police experience, if i can. Something changed according to ali velshi tonight. He said a strategic change. He had a crowd that was much less agitated but a much larger crowd of police who were very quick to engage. What do you make of what you saw . Quite obviously and based on just information thats been released in minneapolis theres been a dramatic increase in man power and resource, so what theyre doing is utilizing that additional increase in man power and resources to redeploy to some Critical Infrastructure targets perhaps. Clearly they want to really take back certain sections or certain sectors of the area there. They want to absolutely be more assertive and proactive. They dont want to be caught in the heel as has been the case in the past several days. Part of the reason they say that i think what theyre doing is making a clear statement and taking back certain areas and commit to defending Critical Infrastructures. They dont want to lose another precinct. They dont want to be retreating constantly. They decided to be proactive and start to move forward and reclaim certain sections of the street. And theyre also going to develop lanes so that the flow of vehicle traffic, Emergency Vehicle traffic so i think those people on the street have to be wary because they have quite obviously decided to take back certain sections. This is Union Square West downtown in manhattan in new york city, and you can see people are blocking the street there. Frank, what do you make of this increased Police Presence and how its being used . Yeah, i think what were seeing is theres no coincidence across the country tonight that the various Police Agencies have decided this has shifted from legitimate grievance protests now to violence, suppression, and largely this is going to be based on intelligence. This is where the various Intelligence Units at the departments really earn their salary. And likely what therapy seeing was an influx of outsiders who posed too much of a risk and they decided weve allowed protest and peaceful protests to occur. Were now going to surge resources because we think a line is being crossed. We think we have people intent on violence only and were going to draw that line tonight. So when you see frank, im going to stop you if i can for a second. Frank, if i can im sorry to interrupt because i want to go back to this topic and were watching some movement there again in manhattan. But weve reestablished a signal with richard lui in brooklyn. Reporter what happened at that moment when the crowd was running towards the camera is that the crowd began to throw bottles and rocks at the police, and then the police then pursued the crowd. They ran towards us and our camera position. Thats when we got disconnected. So the crowd now has dispersed, and they have brought in another group of Police Officers from the opposite end. Youre now seeing them return back to the location where we were standing a bit earlier. And at the moment it seems that the crowd has been dispersed because theyre not behind us either. They were all running that way. So at the moment it seems that this protest group has been dispersed, but you can certainly see what was zero Police Presence has now turned into counting maybe ten on my left, ten in front of me, around 30 police vehicles, and they seem to be closing in on something there in the center of the block. We now have an ambulance here as well. We just got here, and were not sure if have identified somebody or if theyre moving towards the center of the block. It looks like theyre backing up the block. Omebody in the middle all right, it does not look like go ahead. I was just going to say while you were moving mark, a retired new York City Police detective was talking about the problem of people in the streets when you have to get an Emergency Vehicle through. And before that we saw fire trucks going through in minneapolis. Now were seeing the ambulance there. In new york city they cant do it if the streets are blocked. But there seems to be around you now a little more sense of calm although the police are moving toward you . Yes, they are, and you know how it works. After the crowd gets dispersed they find a new front, and then the protesters come back. So this latest scrum youre seeing right now is because one or two the protesters approach the Police Officer line there and began running away because they were pursued by Police Officers. Thats what happened just now. Were going to move a little bit out of the way right now. So it looks like at this point they have decided to pursue the protest group which is far down, three blocks in front of us. The original dispersement is. Explain to us, richard reporter if you can see this on camera right here what has happened is this is one of those handful of protesters that decided to not follow the police recommendation which is stand back. They then may have done something we did not see that, but then the Police Officers in masks pursued that individual. This is not like 5 or 10 or 20 people, this is about two, three, four people. Now, in some of the other scenes youve been showing across the country this does not seem to be en masse large numbers against each other. This is two or three people. It looks like theyre now pushing a young woman out of the way asking her to get off the sidewalk and asking us to move as well at the same time. But not a large number of protesters. This is largely this crowd behind you that rani is showing you, probably 100 to 1 is what were looking at. Richard, stay with us. Were going to continue to watch as long as we can your cameramans scene. Are they giving you instructions right now, the police . Reporter yes, they are asking us to step back. This is about the third or fourth time. This is very quiet evening relatively up to this point. It look has somebody has fallen theyre arresting somebody. If you can see this shot. Yeah, we see the restraints. Reporter ronny, can you get that shot of the person on the ground . See from our Vantage Point which is on the sidewalk where police have asked us to stay it looks like there is one individual prone at least, cross legs, hands behind her back. One Police Officer on top, and the person that is prone that is prone has a backpack. That person now standing up. So this is also another individual farther to the left. So two individuals it looks like in this case at this location. Richard, stay with us and if your cameraman can stay with his shot i want to bring in mark claxton, a retired new York City Police detective to tell us strategically what youre seeing happen here, mark. Were going to stay there, but we will come back to richard lui. Lets go to washington, d. C. Thats where garret haake is, and theres a developing situation there as well. Garret, whats developing in the nations capitol . Reporter what were 6 1 2 hours of mostly peaceful protests here in the white house things have definitely taken a turn here. A line has been crossed. Im standing just about 2 blocks north of the white house, and youre looking at at least one car set aflame here by protesters. I dont think you can probably make it out in this shot, but a lot of the windows here along connecticut avenue have been smashed and the businesses here, banks, restaurants, Office Buildings and so forth. I think what we saw here tonight were protesters stymied in their attempts to get closer to the white house, closer to Lafayette Park which was really locked down by park police, secret service and others spreading out into the downtown d. C. Area, and with them has come more destruction. Just in the last moments they got into a scene and they looked to be getting this car fire under control. Im obviously not in a position to get up and around the corner right now. You can probably see metropolitan Police Officers, thats the normal rank and file d. C. Police have basically blocked off the rest of the street here. Separating a crowd of perhaps 150, 200 protesters who kind of broken off from what was the main larger group closer to the white house, separating them from i street here which is where the car is on fire. We saw at least one other vehicle on fire in the area. This larger group that had been outside the white house earlier tonight, one of the protest organizers came out and chastised through the megaphone quite loudly some protester setting a fire in a trash can saying this is not what were here to do. Were not here to destroy, were here to convey a message. That message is going to get lost in this as we now have i think some significant damage here just two blocks from the white house. Is this the biggest escalation youve seen throughout the night . Reporter oh, by far. By far. Theres a series of protesters who marched from different points in the city to the white house earlier today to Lafayette Park. Thats a normal occurrence in washington, d. C. It is a weekly if not weekly certainly monthly you have large protests at the white house in Lafayette Park. Its common. Its some of the things people come to washington for is protest their government. You see it all the time. Over the course of the night things were tense but never full on violent. Youd see blastic bottles being tossed, occasionally pepper spray tossed into crowds. Its obviously pretty tricky to get around right now. The patchwork of Police Agencies who patrol d. C. Are now out in pretty significant force. We understand the d. C. National guard which is federally controlled, that means not by the mailer but theoretically by the secretary of army, the department of defense, federal control unit has been called in although ive not physically laid eyes on them myself. Again, this sort of greater white house region of downtown d. C. , the center of activity here tonight. Its not a part of a district where many people live. Its a business district, and in many cases on a normal night, even a normal saturday night d. C. Is kind of a happy hour early town. This area would be completely empty. Hundreds where i could see at times thousands of people surrounding Lafayette Park on sort of the Northern Region if youve ever been to d. C. , if youve ever had your picture taken in front of the white house, you have walked through Lafayette Park. Thats essentially a police zone now. Fully controlled and now youre seeing mpd officers clearing cross connecticut avenue here trying to clear out the protesters again who broke off from that main group and spread north. And you see them doing so down i street. Might give us an opportunity to move a little closer here as well. Garret haake, thanks very much. And as youre able to make your way i know youll check back in with us. We want to show you whats going on in washington, d. C. , along the amtrak rail is philadelphia. What exactly do we know is on fire here . Looks like an apartment building. Do woe know what this is on fire . Were not sure what this is. What we can say is we know earlier today that stores were engulfed in flames, that there had been arrests going on as curfew enforcement continued there. Hundreds of people had been on the streets there, but obviously you see a pretty major blaze that is there in philadelphia. Well keep you posted as we learn more about that. Lets go back to new york city where richard lui has been standing by and watching a lot of Police Activity. Whats going on right now, richard . Reporter well, right now from the last shot we were with you on, it is clearly much calmer. You can probably tell behind me the police force right now probably numbering at about 100. But this is that location where there were some people that were knock over when we saw the crowd running away from Police Officers who were responding potentially if you remember seeing in some some of that video to projectiles being thrown at them. We were not close enough to see what exactly. We have seen rocks being thrown at windows so far tonight, but that was really the peak of the evening. We have not seen any violence or altercations up to that moment that we were on camera. As you know last night we had 200 arrests. There were 70 reported earlier as you mentioned from some police officials. So tonight if this is the amount of altercations were seeing at least in brooklyn so far it has not necessarily been at the level it was at the Barclay Center last night where it was absolutely packed, and that was certainly a flash point last night. So right now pretty calm, three or four people arrested we saw so far. Richard lui, thank you so much. What an eventful halfhour we saw with the arrests there. We know there have been arrests in philadelphia. We saw that building on fire, the two cars on fire in washington, d. C. Where garret haake was and of Course Police action in minneapolis tonight. Were going to take a quick break and back with more developing news right here on msnbc. Its time for the Memorial Day Sale on the sleep number 360 smart bed. Can it help keep me asleep . Absolutely, it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. Its the final days to save 1,000 on the sleep number 360 special Edition Smart bed, now only 1,799. Ends sunday. We are back live. It was fast and fierce, a show of force by Law Enforcement in minneapolis, trying to prevent what we had seen in recent days, which was some pretty widespread destruction ofrom protesters. So curfew went into effect 8 00 local time and police moved in. Where we find Morgan Chesky who has been there throughout largely a peaceful day and into the night. What are you seeing and hearing now, morgan . Reporter good evening that peaceful protest has since ended. Minneapolis police with help of state police and National Guard are in process of retaking areas that they let crowds do with what they wished past several days. Wearing the gas mask because that haze is tear gas deployed to scatter a crowd of several hundred people. Theyre off in the distance there. They were congregated at this intersection about a block away from the third precinct from minneapolis pd, see the Officers Holding their position here, crowd as firmly entrenched as they were dissolved rather quickly once the tear gas was deployed. Few of them have a gas mask, so having caught a whiff yesterday without this on, doesnt take much to get people moving from the area. As well as several dozens vehicles that were blocking this intersection here. When we walked up they were essentially waiting for police to come tople or so were seated in front of the police cars not moving, but as you can see right now this intersection has now cleared out and it appears to be police are retreating back to their vehicles at this point in time. Thats a positive sign. Weve seen several instances were going to interrupt, we have a live press conference. Well get back to you. We want to go to new york city where mayor bill de blasio is starting a press conference. Lets listen. Spent a lot of time in brooklyn and manhattan and saw systematic efforts by very few people to create a negative atmosphere. And those people do not represent the values of new york city. And what they are doing is not going to help us move forward in new york city. Im joined mere by deputy mayor phil thompson, by commissioner marko. Just like me theyve been out around the city and what we have seen, again, a small number of people in the scheme of things protesting to begin with. Very few of whom committed acts of violence but those few were systematic in efforts to harm Police Officers, create damages to police vehicles, store fronts and other property. Thats not going to get us anywhere. To the Peaceful Protesters if youre still out there tonight, trying to work peacefully for change, let me be clear, we hear your desire to see these issues, relationship between police and the community, need for justice, for real change in our society, we hear you loud and clear, we appreciate and respect all peaceful protest, but now it is time for people to go home. If you went out peacefully to make a point about the need for change, you have been heard and change is coming in this city, i have no doubt about that. Its time to go home so we can all move forward. Those who are out there simply to create violence, those who are out there to express hatred to if youre out there to commit act of violence, youre going to get arrested tonight. There are fewer and fewer people out at this point, and those who are engaged in negative, violent activity they will feel the consequences oof the activity. So, look, the nypd all day laon has been working hard. Its been a very difficult day for our officers. Some of them have been put in dangerous situations and thats not the protest reality and history we believe in this city. We believe in peaceful protests, civil disobedience. We believe in people exercising the democrat rights but not attacking Police Officers, not attacking communities. What i heard from elected officials today and Community Members is how resentful they were people were coming in many daces from outside their community and creating negativity and violence that did not represent their community. Look, weve got a lot of work to do in the city, but this is place that is capable of great change and great progress and always has been. I have a lot of faith in the people of new york city. Were uniting to fight back a crisis we never could have imagined, fight back a disease we didnt even know about. New yorkers came together to do that. And the reason this city is getting healthier and safer all the time is because new yorkers banded together. So we will ban together again to overcome the challenges we face. That is how new york city move forward. Let me see if theres any immediate questions. Concerned people in new york city, you said were going to be continuing what beyond platitudes, the violence and rising concern of whats going on right now . Were going to continue to listen into the mayor. Well let you if any major news on is made on this, but his basic message is its time to go home. We want to go back to washington, d. C. Which is where garret haake has been standing by for us. Whats the latest . Reporter hey, chris, things are devolving quickly. Im back in front of Lafayette Park here, protesters have been pulling away at barricades all night. Weve got park police pressing out, getting squeezed from the other side. Lets walk a little bit this way, tony. Getting squeezed from other side by mpd officers. 16th street, more folks breaking windows, tagging buildings, additional property crimes. You can hear fireworks behind me, makes my heart skip a beat every time it happens. Getting thrown in amongst the park police who remain basically back in Lafayette Park. They have not come out here into the street by and large as this has gone on. Nor yet have the National Guard who are back inside that park. Were getting gassed here a little bit, chris, so were going to keep moving back. But weve got gas canisters here, pepper spray. As police are finally starting to try to disperse this crowd thats been out here, and again for about the first six hours of the day quite peacefully. But as you can see here the situation has really changed here. Were just trying to keep on the edge of it here and obviously not get caught up in anything even more unsafe than this. Definitely getting the pepper spray experience here now. Hey, tony, lets stop here for a second if we can. Lets see what we got here. Yeah, were kind of in the same boat, chris. You see park police can you get a shot across park police have been trying to maintain this barricade all night long. Again, this of this as the northern most end of the white house complex. Thats how its been treated all night long by Law Enforcement, as they try to just keep this barricade up all night. Protesters and police have existed, coexisted reasonably well all night long along that barricade. As things have escalated here in the course of the night and protesters getting more and more aggressive park police have apparently had enough of it. So we seem to have lost audio now with our crew there. Lets see if they can reestablish. They may not even know, frankly. There weve got them back. Weve got you back now, garret, if you can hear us. Theyre in a fast moving situation. Go ahead, garret. Reporter can you hear me, chris . Yeah, we can hear you now, thank you. Reporter okay, very good. Trying to hold this line if you will on the north end of Lafayette Park. Theres been this uneasy truce between protesters and police along that line for so much of the night. Obviously as we saw protesters spill out into other parts of the downtown d. C. We saw some of those car fires and windows getting smashed. Obviously getting none of this looks or feels Police Control Lafayette Park but not much else here in downtown d. C. Were going to let this scene play out a little bit, watching it unfold. Reporter obviously where dont want to be right now [ alarm ] reporter several agencies. Very, very hard to keep an eye on Lafayette Park. Up connecticut avenue you see a totally different picture. Were going to let this video play. Obviously its very difficult to hear what garret haake is saying. We see some protesters trying to breach a building there. Yeah, theres a lot of ambient noise. The closer you can get the mike to your face would be great. What were not seeing at this moment at least is any real significant effort by mpd to get control of this situation. They dont want us to witness whats going on in this district, but here we are. Its a bizarre situation. Why are you out here right now. Because its a lot of pain right in here and i i dont know what do about it. Im tired. They want us to stay apart. But dont do it. Reporter what do you think when you see whats happening here . Its anger. At the end of the day you cant be mad its anger. People got anger. Anger really builds up in you your options are based on the anger. I try to control my anger to the best of my ability, but i feel them. We grew up in poverty. Do you live in d. C. . I do. I do. Reporter all right, chris, were having a couple of technical difficulties and obviously the security situation is what it is, so im going to throw this back to you and well try to reestablish when we can, okay . Yeah, well get back to you when youre in a safe sbgz to do so. But garret haake, obviously a fast developing situation in washington, d. C. And we saw at least one person who was trying to kick through the door of a building there. We want to go back to mark claxton, retired new York City Police detective and director of the black enforcement alliance as well as Frank Figliuzzi, former assistant director of Counter Intelligence, and get your first reaction, mark, to what were seeing now in washington, d. C. I think there seems to be a bit of strategic consistency in the different locations that you have. Obviously police have decided that they would establish three things. They would gain control of Critical Infrastructure areas and maintain perimeters as best as possible in those areas. They would also try to clear the streets so emergency traffic can get through and access different points of the cities. And then theyre committed also to making sure that any protesters on the street stay mobile. No ones allowed to congregate and kind of fester in that particular area or establish a strong hold in one area. Constant movement is the key of dissipating some of the larger crowds. And we see that is working. People are moving then directions police are pushing them in all the places weve seen. When we were talking has to be half an hour ago, a lot of has happened since then. One thing that caught my ear is what we heard from mayor de blasio when he said what hes been seeing around new york city, around manhattan and Brooklyn Today is a systematic effort by very few people to disrupt, to cause trouble, to inflict damage. Talk about that statement by the mayor. Right, its the role of violent agitators that i think has largely contributed to the strategic shift were seeing in the Police Decision making across the country tonight. They have realized that the protests have shifted and now include a small but dangerous number of groups on the way on the left, on the right. Theres evidence of a full spectrum of dangerous groups participating in these, but they made the decision across the country that theyve got to take back the streets and at a minimum protect certain groundwork, certain infrastructure. And theyre drawing the line tonight. So i want your viewers to understand if theyre distressed by the large Police Presence or the use of gas and flash bangs and the arrests taking place, please understand the police have said weve got to now defend the city. Weve allowed the peaceful protests. But understand the police cant distinguish they dont have the luxury of saying were going to scan 2,000 people on this block and see which ones belong to a militia or a right wing group or left end group or whos armed or whos got a long gun or a billiard ball and a sock. Theyre going to manage the movement of the crowd and theyre going to push them back if they surge into territory that police are defending. All right, guys. I know youre going to stay with us throughout this hour and i hope into next hour as well. We want to take you to another place where there were demonstrations today. There was a big protest in the capitol of ohio in columbus, our affiliate has reported it was overall peaceful which is what we heard from most cities today until just a short time ago and then protesters had a confrontation with police. The incident alarmed the crowd and pepper spray was dispersed with no warning. Thats according to congresswoman joyce batie who was among those who were hit with the pepper spray. And the ohio National Guard has been activated in the city which is under a citywide curfew until 6 00 sunday morning. Joining us now is a democrat who represents ohios Third District and also vice chair of the congressional black caucus. Let me just ask you to take us into that moment. Where were you, and what happened . Well, i was in the capitol city and certainly went there to show my solidarity for those protesters. We all are feeling so much tension, so much frustration and anger especially in light of what just happened in minnesota with george floyd, what happened in georgia with mohamed arbery and in kentucky. So i went there because it was the right thing to do. It was a peaceful protest. Under no circumstances am i one to support tearing up our communities, our cities, breaking into businesses. It was a twohour protest. I was there with two other colleagues. We went together. People were happy to see us. We were able actually to be helpful, asking people to stand on the sidewalks, to not get in the street. And shortly before the 12 00 noon hour when police were deployed there it all of a sudden it was several of the police were fine, another string of police came through. And if one person had a foot on the curb they started going into riot mode in my opinion and pushing and shoving with bicycles. And then once one guy was thrown on the ground there were some young sisters there tha i was trying to talk to. I was trying to identify myself and say dont excite the crowd, and there goes the guy down. And im saying no, this is wrong stop because i knew what would happen with the protesters. And before we knew pepper spray went everywhere. Our president of city council was sprayed. I received some of it, and so at that point i was taken away. Yeah, we saw some of the pictures that were shot by our local affiliate, and we see your eyes being wiped out. But i want to make sure you said you clearly identified yourself and there was nothing going on that would indicate to you that there was a need for pepper spray nor any warning it was coming . There was no warning that i heard of it coming because certainly we would have moved. I mean, thats not an experience that you want to have pepper spray in our eyes and inhaling. But it happened so fast, but i just think because of the tension on both sides it was clearly not all the Law Enforcement, what the strands of officers that were there in front of us people were not throwing rocks or bottles. There was no excitement until there were a few of the protesters who put one foot in the street at the point, and it just started. And it was it was so upsetting. Im still emotionally upset about it, because i think being out there and protesting was the right thing to do. But we have to come together. It has to be peaceful. It has to be allowing people to exercise their freedom of speech. All lives matter, but black lives matter. We were asking people to stand with us against injustices. We know about the disparities in the capitol city. We are now going through the coronavirus, the pandemic. Theres so many disparities. We make up africanamericans make up 12 of the population. 25 of the people have tested positive, 13 of the africanamerican population has died from this. We are releasing statements about poverty. Its based on racism. Theres so much going on today in our community and across the nation. This is a time for us to stand in solidarity. This is a time for us to unite because what happens directly to any of us happens to all of us indirectly. So as a member of congress you have a lot of contacts. You work closely an any number of issues with local officials. Have you tried to get any answers for why what happened happened or have you gotten any indication of how it came to pepper spray . I have not. Certainly ministers in the community, people from all over my district have reached out. Young protesters have called and reached out. We are just trying to stand together and work through this. I have talked with other elected officials explaining why i was there, how i still want to work with everyone. I believe in unity. I sit on the house floor with john lewis every day, and we talk about getting into good trouble. Going down there to stand up and to fight against people are being murdered. It has taken us back some 60 years to when we were fighting for civil rights and voting rights, and here we are in 2020. I identified myself to be helpful, to say dont excite the crowds. You know, dont excite the crowds, were working with you and saying also to the protesters continue to exercise your First Amendment right. Continue to be able to say that were standing here and were protesting against the injustices. Well, one of the things that unfortunately is getting lost in all of these reports of what weve been seeing tonight and earlier in the day and some of the Police Activity is the fact that there is a man at the center of this by the name of george floyd, that his family and the people, the vast majority of people who have come out are simply asking for justice. Congresswoman, thank you so much. We do appreciate it, and were glad to see youre back home and that you are safe. And we look forward to many more conversations that are focused on exactly what needs to change in this country so we dont hav. Thank you so much for being with us. We do appreciate it. This is an msnbc special presentation. Some of the images and language in the following program are graphic. And might be disturbing to some viewers. While the images have been available across the internet, they have not been seen nationally in their entirety on nbc. 50 years ago, the nation lost an extraordinary leader. The time is always right to do right. A warrior for justice. We aint going to let nobody his fight is our fight