Isaiah Thomas on Violence in Chicago
LEMON: This is a Monday night headline that is becoming unfortunately all too familiar. A deadly weekend in Chicago. Dozens of shootings. And at least eight people killed. One of them, one of them tragically a young mother, the cousin of NBA Star Dwyane Wade. And I want to talk about this now with basketball Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas and friend. Thank you very much.</s>ISAIAH THOMAS, NBA HALL OF FAMER: Good to see you.</s>LEMON: Good to have you. You doing okay? How's your wife, family?</s>THOMAS: Everybody's doing good. Thank you</s>LEMON: Everybody's good. Dwyane Wade, good friend of yours.</s>THOMAS: Yes.</s>LEMON: His cousin, her name is Nykea Aldridge, a mother of four, pushing one of her children in stroller in Chicago, shot on Friday night and killed. How is the family? How is Dwyane doing and the family doing tonight?</s>THOMAS: Well, surprisingly they're doing quite well in terms of -- I spoke to his agent, Henry Thomas. And, you know, Dwyane has been on the forefront of this type of movement in terms of police brutality, speaking out against violence in all communities for a long time. He and his mom, they're pillars in community along with father Pfleger. So, to have this hit so close to home, particularly on a night right after we had such a positive coming together and talking in Chicago about police violence, about community violence, and about trying to come together. To have this hit so close to home, we all feel for him, but knowing Dwyane and his family the way we all do, we know that they're going to take this and lead from it and bring our community closer together.</s>LEMON: And there's a foundation in Chicago. I remember years ago, right, as I was leaving Chicago, I was an anchor there and coming to work with CNN, I emceed one of his foundation events and they do really great work in Chicago. It's been a number of years, but I do, you know, we're talking about lives. I'm just -- let me give you some of the numbers here, OK? What makes all of this worse is this tragic shooting this weekend. And Chicago P.D. says there were 72 shootings, 8 fatalities, and as of midnight Sunday, there were 459 murders so far this year. How do we fix this, Isaiah?</s>THOMAS: You know, there's -- this has been a problem in all communities for a long time, particularly in poverty-stricken communities. And how do we fix it? We always talk about the need for jobs, the need for an employment, the need for, you know, adequate food, and just opening up recreation centers where all kids can come and play, get to know each. When you look at the educational system, some of our educational systems in terms of the schools are broken. They need to be fixed. So having access to just quality of life and a lot of our kids in these communities, they're just asking for a chance, they're asking for hope, they're asking to be able to see and live that American dream that we all talk about. And, you know, just to give you an example, my first 10 years of life on the west side of Chicago, in '66 Martin Luther King visited Chicago and my mom marched with him in the Cicero March, and in '68 Martin Luther King died, right? The Chicago riots break out. And I remember we were on congress in Homan and the military tank pulled us off the expressway and we were occupied for, you know, two to three days. In '69, Fred Hampton gets killed.</s>LEMON: Right.</s>THOMAS: So, those were my first 10 years of life dealing with Chicago and the Chicago police and policing in that community. So what happened now, I believe, under Superintendent Johnson is that, you know, now you're getting feedback, now you're getting community relations, now you're getting people to talk. And in the same situation, in the same environment, my brother became a police officer. I got two nephews that are police officers now. So when we -- when the community continues to ask for people who look like us, who grew up in our communities, who can police our communities, then we can start having communication and we can open up the dialogue. And when we started opening up the dialogue and people communicate and talk, then we move our country further.</s>LEMON: There's not a lot of that going on lately because even when you want to talk to certain members of law enforcement, they become angry and, you know, defensive, which is just surprising to me, especially considering the environment that we're in, it would seem like it would be open to suggestions and doing what you said. And because of the political environment, here is what republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted out about Nykea Aldridge's death. He said "Dwyane Wade's cousin was shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying, African-Americans will vote Trump." I've heard that before from him, from law enforcement. Oh, I predicted this. I knew this is going to happen. You're like -- is that how you respond to this? What's your reaction to this?</s>THOMAS: We need compassion and leadership in these difficult times. And what -- where we need to go from here is the understanding of family, forgiveness, and also how do we move forward. We don't need to politicize these murders. We don't need to politicize this event. But we do need to show leadership and lead from this in how we bring this country together, in how we keep giving people the opportunity to really live this American dream.</s>LEMON: Do you think trump can fix this? Do you think he's the one to show leadership?</s>THOMAS: I see where -- I need to be careful here.</s>LEMON: You're a straight shooter but ...</s>THOMAS: Yeah. But, no, I'll be straight and I don't know if he can. I know Hillary's record in terms of what she's being done in the forefront of African-American issues for a very long time. It's documented. It's there. You can go back and you can look at what she was doing in the '70s, in the '80s, in the '90s, what she was fighting for. Trump is new on the scene so we have to see what he's saying and really listen to what he's saying.</s>LEMON: That's a very diplomatic answer but it's real.</s>THOMAS: Yeah.</s>LEMON: Thank you. Always a pleasure.</s>THOMAS: Always.</s>LEMON: I appreciate you coming on.</s>THOMAS: Thank you.</s>LEMON: All right. My regards to your family. Thank you. Up next, the firestorm over NFL star, Colin Kaepernick's protest. I'm going to talk with one of the men who raised his fist to protest at the Mexico City Olympics back in 1968.