protests were quite peaceful. you saw these spasms of violence and destruction that have colored the way that everybody looks at this. absolutely, eugene. a lot of peaceful protesting in ferguson and spasms of violence. last night here in new york, and there was some video of moments where there would be tension between officers and civilians and then the officers would back off or know how to get the civilians to back off. seems a big reason why new york was so different than ferguson is because of how police responded. they didn t come in, overmilitarize, they weren t tear gassing folks. the way police respond didn t dictate what happened in the protest. this is a department that does this all the time. has the numbers, the leadership, the equipment. a whole process they use to engage people. and also, i think everybody last night, first thing you notice, it does look like the city, it s a representative group of people. you ll see community affairs people up in the front and the
welcome back, we are here in the guest spot with a man who knows multiple sides of what happened in these kind of cases like the garner investigation. gregory meeks, also a former prosecutor. good day, congressman. good day to you. let me start with an important piece you know all about, which is the way that prosecutors have to rely on local police and whether at times that creates the kind of conflict or pressure that we don t want in a fair system. take a listen to a discussion between reverend al sharpton and eric garner s lawyer just last night. explain why a federal investigation whether it s ferguson, whether it s cleveland, and i talked to the father of that 12-year-old last night. whether it s staten island. why is this important now. we ve seen in the cases over the years.
around the country, in new york, in ferguson talking about this. you know, calming the protests on the one end, but also saying we ve got to acknowledge as virtually all americans are now that we have a problem. you were saying it s different than ferguson which was so polarizing for this country. you are hearing a similar message from both republicans and democrats. this really, in my opinion should not be a political issue when you look at the video and look at the fallout. take a listen to what speaker boehner and senator rand paul had to say in the aftermath? i think the person people want to understand more of what the facts were. a lot of unanswered questions that americans haven t frankly, i have. it s hard not to watch that video of him saying i can t breathe, i can t breathe and not be horrified by it and some politician had to direct the police to say we want you arresting people for selling a loose cigarette and for someone
administration where it took a while to really rebuild the civil rights division. it had been decimated in the previous administration. and we ve seen in the last few days why it s so important to have a civil rights division. but the attorney general slowly built it back up, started opening these types of cases, and i think as they ve as the investigations have gone forward and as we ve seen the results become public, what s become clear is that the problem of this type of policing it s not a ferguson problem, it s not a new york problem, not a cleveland problem. there have been investigations that have brought about tough reforms in new orleans and seattle and police departments all across the country. it really is a problem that happens far more than it should across america and it s why we need a strong civil rights department that can come in and investigate these police departments when they re overreacting. and it s not to say they all are. and to institute real serious reform
wow! go power.oats! go! made from oats cheerios! cheerios! go, go, go! go power oats! go! cheerios! go power! go.power! yayyyy! ten days ago now, a grand jury decided not to charge officer darren wilson in the death of michael brown in ferguson and this happened. chaos, fires and loots despite months to prepare for this announcement and hours before it was actually made. yesterday afternoon, right here on the cycle, the announce that a jury would not charge in