New Statement from Gov. Urging Calm
COOPER: And welcome back. We have some breaking news now, just a moments ago we got a special video statement on Ferguson from the Missouri Governor Jay Nixon. He urged calm, acknowledge that it has not always been easy to strike a balance between law and order and people's first amendment right to protest, saying that Missourians would not be defeated by bricks and guns and Molotov cocktails. He also promised justice in the killing of Michael Brown. Listen.</s>JAY NIXON, MISSOURI GOVERNOR: A vigorous prosecution must now been pursued. The democratic re-elected Saint Louis county prosecutor and the attorney general of the United States each have a job to do. Their obligation to achieve justice in the shooting death of Michael Brown must be carried out thoroughly, promptly and correctly and I call upon them to meet those expectations.</s>COOPER: That is Governor Nixon tonight. Just about 8:15 local time here right now, 8:19 things calm so far. Not very different in last night, fewer people probably here than last night which naturally puts people on edge. Thing change, so it's suddenly last night, hopefully it will it'll be different tonight. Whether you blame police tactics or outside agitators, local rumors, gets a random chance any or all of it can play a role, there are no rules. There is however one common denominator in every situation like this. Every protest, every clash, people inside the community have the most at stake. The most to lose and the moves to fear. Jason Carroll reports tonight.</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Most of those who have been watching the unrest and fold in Ferguson have been doing it from a safe distance but people like Deborah Jones are saying it up close. Each day, she fears what the night will bring.</s>DEBORAH JONES, FERGUSON RESIDENT: It's restless. You know, you can't sleep at night. You know, you go to work tired because the honking at the horn, they're yelling, the tear gas. And everybody is running over this way, you know, for safety.</s>CARROLL: Jones was in the neighborhood which borders West Florissant Avenue here in Ferguson, a street which is essentially ground zero for the protest. Her home is about a block from where a demonstrators and police continue to clash.</s>JONES: We're right in the middle, you know, and people, you know, they just need to, you know, cease this, just be seal about it because it's not going to solve anything with all of this.</s>CHANTE SIMMONS, FERGUSON RESIDENT: Every night we smell teargas.</s>CAROLL: Her neighbor Chante Simmons just had to miss work because of curfews and he sent her children away because of the violence, she says, she feels trapped. How long do you think you can continue to live like this?</s>SIMMONS: I hope they'll get everything resolve soon. You can't -- they need to bring the person a justice so these people can start to heal. So this can calm down and quite now because these neighborhood is really suffering.</s>CAROLL: It's not just people in their homes feeling trapped. Businesses along West Florissant are boarded up. William Whittaker is a local community activist who has trying to keep the peace during that day and at night.</s>WILLIAM WHITTAKER, COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: My step daughter lives right behind the (inaudible) there and they can't even get to the grocery store. That's how serious it is right now. And like I said to Mandy (ph), it wasn't going to get any better it just keeps getting worst.</s>CAROLL: And for now, no end in sight.</s>JONES: It's like a prison here. We're in the war zone. You know, it's so sad. What are we going to do?</s>COOPER: Jason Carroll joins me now. I mean schools are shutdown here regular life is -- there is no regular life in this small several block radius.</s>CARROLL: It's pretty much come to a stand still and, you know, I'm talking to the people here who are actually just on the road from where we're standing right now. You know, these people really feel conflicted. They feel for a support politically, a lot of the people that you see standing behind you, within the flip side of that they're tired.</s>COOPER: Yeah.</s>CARROLL: You know, they go to this every single night. The tear gas, the shouting, the yelling, how do you explain that to your children? I think what's happening here in this community, you have a lot of people who are just tired.</s>COOPER: Also I think tired of people from other parts of Saint Louis perhaps or even out of state coming here. There's a lot of frustration about -- as you said, local business is being destroy.</s>CARROLL: And that was one of the points that they brought up as well. They know that there's a lot of people -- they see them. There are some of their other neighbors who've been out here on the streets but they've run across some of these people coming from the outside as well. It's extremely frustrating to them and here is the dynamic, they're leading to police to do something about it but it's the very same police force instance some cases that they haven't trusted for years.</s>COOPER: Sure. Jason Carroll, appreciated. Thanks. I just want to share you some of the pictures that we have been saying. We saw a two tactical vehicles moving down, passed just a short time ago and actually started to draw a people a little bit further down to about a block or so from where we ware now. And the crowds are somewhat larger than they were probably an hour or so ago. More people have come. There's a lot of people kind of milling around, standing around here. I want to bring in two community leaders who are both part of the protest and part of the efforts just trying to keep it peaceful, Bishop Zacheriah Davis of the Greater Harvest Church and Pastor Robert White of the Peace of Mind Church of Happiness. It's great name of the church by the way.</s>ROBERT WHITE, REVERENT, PEACE OF MIND CHURCH OF HAPPINESS: Thank you.</s>COOPER: First of all, what are your hopes for tonight? Do you think it's going to be peaceful tonight?</s>WHITE: Well, I hope is that it would be peaceful just like every night that it is. Each night we come out here and we give a feel for the crowd and I can tell you the crowds are little more common that it's been most night, so hopefully we can have some of the peace that we (inaudible).</s>COOPER: Seems like a little smaller crowd tonight.</s>WHITE: Yeah, little smaller crowd, of course its 95 degrees out here and we haven't had too much heat out here, so maybe that's, you know, effect the (inaudible) as well.</s>COOPER: You guy have been out here, standing at, sometimes in between police and protesters, trying to keep it peaceful. How difficult is that?</s>ZACHERIAH DAVIS, BISHOP, GREATER HARVEST CHURCH: They're difficult because the emotions are running high. There's a lot of anguish. People are angry about the situation and literally, you know, we have to stand in between and often times to trying to get the crowd to calm down and then it doesn't help when they're agitators, you know, in the crowd, you know.</s>COOPER: You've seen that. You've seen agitators ...</s>DAVIS: OK (inaudible).</s>COOPER: ...no doubt about it.</s>DAVIS: Part of it last night, absolutely. And it happen the ways down and ...</s>COOPER: What would you do in the case like that? How do you deal with that? You try to single them out and talk to them or ...</s>DAVIS: We do trying to single them out from time to time and speak with them and say, "Hey, just keep cool. Calm down." Last night it just went, you know, a little bit further than what we though and even the police came up to us and say, "You know, hey we don't want a gas." But, you know, it's getting worst and so we did try to pull certain individuals out that we saw causing issue but it just became a little bit more than what we could dealt with.</s>WHITE: And then we're listening to the protesters. There's some folks who -- identified folks who've been a part of other rights and now, they see them out here.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>WHITE: And they're saying, "Hey this guy was out in Cincinnati and now he's out here."</s>COOPER: Right. (inaudible) who was doing that. Yeah, French who was doing that, he was saying just that he's has identified some folks who was from out of town.</s>WHITE: Right. And so that makes our job difficult because our community knows us.</s>COOPER: Sure.</s>WHITE: So it's easy for us to talk to our constituent and then make friendship with the police officer to try to serve as a barrier between the two, but when you're from out of town and your sole purposes clash action law suits, just so purposes is to push an agenda for revolutionary party, things like that, that makes this difficult. And to be honest with your Anderson we want those folks out of our neighborhoods.</s>COOPER: What do you make of the police response? I mean, obviously they got to deal with people if people are shooting at them but at the same time, a lot of people I've talked just say some of their responses has been an antagonistic and made it worst.</s>DAVIS: From time to time it has. I think they have done pretty descent job to try to be as calm and keep restraint but they do have a job to do, you know, keep law at peace in order. But yeah, there have been certain pockets, you know, policemen that have been aggressive and, you know. So, yeah.</s>COOPER: That aggressiveness has caused some issues for people here.</s>WHITE: And so what you have is you have a meeting point of aggressive police behavior, agitates from out of towners, a city that's being divided since its inception, people who have been push to brink. And so all those things have come together at this point.</s>COOPER: And real legitimate concerns.</s>WHITE: Very legitimate concerns. There is a police brutality, unfairness, imbalance and poverty, things with that nature. So you have all of that coming in this little small town that's really -- this is not a Ferguson issues or single (ph) issue, as a national issue.</s>COOPER: Yeah.</s>WHITE: And we're hearing about it everyday.</s>COOPER: Pastor, I appreciate you being with us. Thanks and Bishop, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Coming up, can there be an impartial investigation in the killing of Michael Brown. A lot of people here have real questions about that. Some protesters and at least one state center already calling for the prosecutors to recuse himself. We'll tell you why, next.