One Hour Until Baltimore Citywide Curfew; 2,000 National Guard Troops On Streets Of Baltimore; 1,000+ Police Officers In Baltimore Tonight; Awaiting Baltimore Police News Conference; 235 Arrests, 140+ Vehicle Fires, At Least 20 Officers Wounded.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And welcome back. It is 9:00 p.m. here in Baltimore. We're boradcasting tonight from City Hall and all aroudn this city, an hour away from a citywide curfew. Everyone is supposed to be off the streets from 10:00 p.m. tonight to 5:00 a.m. Police have been going out with bullhorns reminding people to go home. Now, at this moment, protesters are still out there. There are protesters here at City Hall behind us. Our reporters are out as well, men from a local megachurch where religious and civic leaders and community members gather tonight, they are marching, carrying a message of nonviolence to the community. There was a lot more hope out there tonight than there was certainly 24 hours ago. There were also 3,000 police and National Guard troops on the ground. We got a lot to cover in the next hour before the curfew begins, including when you expect a police conference very shortly. At first, I want to go to our Jason Carroll. Jason, explain where you are in relation to City Hall and what you're seeing?</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well we are at Pennsylvania in North. And what you're seeing right now, Anderson, is the line of volunteers that have come out here to put a distance between themselves and police, making even more distance now between police and the crowd that is out here. The crowd dwindled some in numbers, still a significant number of people but not what we saw even two hours ago. What they're trying to do now is just trying to move people back. Just a little bit more, you can see beyond the link chain. Some people there who are still sort of caught in the middle. Police trying to create more of a distance between themselves and those who are still out here. Even just more than about a few minutes ago, Anderson, and I just saw someone just trying to throw something there at some of the officers there. Some sort of an object there at officers. We'll see what happens now. Let me try to get a better view point here. As we move through, you can see some of those here and still trying to tell people to move back -- to move back and to try to keep some of the piece. So you can see over there. Leon (ph), see if you can try to get a better shot in there. Thank you. Just going to move in to try to see if we can get a better vantage point here, Anderson, and see what's happening. That unity line that we talked about, just more than an hour ago.</s>COOPER: Jason, we'll come back to you. Brian, I want to -- I need to go to our Brian Todd, he's out with marchers. He joins us now. Brian, what's happening where you are?</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Excuse us. Anderson, pretty dangerous situation just unfold to us. Some of these volunteers were trying to put some of the demonstrators back. One of the volunteers got a little over (inaudible), pushed a journalist -- it looks like a journalist back and almost made him fall. That created a really tense situation, just a moment ago here. It's calm down, but this is one of the things that we've been watching out for. But it's fairly calm. I mean, once something like this happens, our experience tonight is, that a bunch of people get in the middle of it and camp it down. And that is what has just happen. Also, some of these volunteers, you mentioned it's just an hour before curfew. Some of these volunteers have yelled out very vociferously, anyone under 17, go home. They have actually -- I've seen them take young people, children and not push them but just kind of escort them down the street this way and telling them to go home. They do not want to mess with the police curfew. They are determined these volunteers, try to keep the peace here. A moment ago with the situation where the journalist got push back, it was very tense. But again, just as quickly, Anderson, it has calm down. And the reason is, is because of largely, this crowd, like the crowds we saw last week are self policing. Whenever things get out of hand, several volunteers or just people participating in it, come into the middle of it and try to just basically tap down the agitation and the tension. Now they're moving us back a little bit, we're not sure exactly why, but these volunteers who have come out are doing a lot of this. We don't -- and what we have observed here, they are the ones doing this, not the police. Although they maybe in some communication with the police, I'm not sure. You see them up there, there's a lot of yelling, some change confrontation, but this has been peaceful up until just a moment ago, but that was tapped down fairly quickly, Anderson.</s>COOPER: There are obviously a lot of very strong emotions out on the streets tonight as there have been for days now, even among the peaceful protest which we are seeing tonight. There's obviously a very strong emotion, there's a lot of anger, a lot of frustration. A lot of people feel their voices are not being heard. I want to check in with Miguel Marquez. Miguel, where are you right now and what are you seeing?</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well look, we're all very close to each other. Brian was just over here and this is the crowd as we are pushing back. And the volunteers who are out there are doing it for a very good reason. And the festival like an environment that we saw out here today was, because people here wanted to say, this is their neighborhood and this is how they are going to do it. They wanted to world not to see a line of police officers across North Avenue, right here. They wanted the world to see a line of people from this neighborhood, people who care about this neighborhood. And that said, people who are across Baltimore came here today. In the hundreds of thousands, we saw people with gloves on, rakes and a shovel, everything, in order to clean up this place. And I've been here for a week now, it is becoming in a very good shape, based on what I was like, last night. This is Pennsylvania Avenue, you're about three miles down this road, Anderson. This avenue was almost a no go zone last night, frightening, looting. Right down here is where they punch the hole in the hose, as the firefighters were trying establish some water. It's less than an hour now before that curfew kicks in. This crowd has been, it's been amazing our here all day, it has literally (inaudible) festival. This is their neighborhood. They walk the world to that, they don't thing the police are necessary and it will be very interesting to see how it is that this police force if able to clear this area from 10:00. We get only -- we get hope that everything goes well. Everybody here has been certainly focused on it going well. Anderson.</s>COOPER: Miguel, it's interesting what's happening here at City Hall actually is that the attorney for Freddie Gray's family who was just on this broadcast. He is actually not talking to this group of protesters who have been here. He is trying to explain what the family of Freddie Gray has been calling for. And clearly he's getting a very positive response from the protestors who are here. Actually, I want to bring over here if I could. Just what you have been telling -- what have you been telling people?</s>BILLY MURPHY J.R., ATTORNEY FOR FREDDIE GRAY"S FAMILY: He wants to know what I've just told you. Can I tell him? All right, all right.</s>COOPER: So what have you been saying to the protesters?</s>MURPHY: I made a analogy today. If they rooting for the prosecutor, would you want the prosecutor to tell the Ravens, for example of -- let's pretend the prosecutors are Ravens and there are Ravens fans, would you want the Ravens to tell the Patriots what your strategy is? That's like general costume, you know, what happen to him. And so it is strategically found for the prosecutor not to show all of (inaudible).</s>COOPER: So you are trying to tap down any expectations that on Friday there's going to be a (inaudible)?</s>MURPHY: Absolutely. And that's important. And they heard me, they got it. The problem is that I can't talk to enough groups about this. And so that's where you come in. And so we ought to make sure that if you're rooting for one team, you don't want that team to tell too much to the defense before they develop their offense.</s>COOPER: I appreciate it. Thanks again. I appreciate it. Again, it's just one group of protesters here. Mr. Murphy there, the attorney for t the Gray family. Joining us here is our legal analyst Sunny Hostin, who is both a former resident of the area. Here, also a long time fried of Baltimore's mayor, we should point out. also joining us is the DeKalb County, Georgia police chief, Cedric Alexander, also former NYPD detective Harry Houck and New York and CNN political commentator Van Jones. Chief Alexander, I'm wondering what your thoughts are in what you're seeing on the streets here and why you wanted to be here?</s>CEDRIC ALEXANDER, PRES. NATL. ORGANIZATION OF BLACK LAW ENFORCEMENT EXECUTIVES.: Well and it certainly look much calmer than it did last night, Anderson, and that's a good sign. We're going to see as the night progress, in terms of the curfew that's going to be upon us here in a few minutes. We are all very sad by what we saw last night, it was just absolutely horrific, where you have people that live in this community, destroying their community. But what's really I've noted in the time that I've been here on the ground, is there is so many people in Baltimore that love this community, that are out here tonight trying to keep peace. And that is so important as very moment goes by. And I think it's going to play itself out later on as well too, when you have citizens who live in this community, who live in this neighborhoods, who certainly want to protest and talk about their concern, which are (inaudible) to them. The good part of this is, however, of course, is that fact they want to do something to make a difference. And they don't want to see their neighborhoods destroyed anymore, such as we saw last night. And that is so obvious, it's up in here.</s>COOPER: Sunny, it clearly seems that the mayor here did not want to repeat of Ferguson in terms of what, at least, she believed was the over response by the Ferguson police department. The criticism now is that she -- there was an under respond.</s>SUNNY HOSTIN, FORMER FEDERAL PRESECUTOR: Yes, that's true and I did have the opportunity to speak to her about that and she was very concern about overmilitarizing the police. Because I think one of the lessons learned in Ferguson, Anderson, where you and I were both there, is that when you have a community that already has a tense relationship with the police, overmilitarizing the police can exacerbate that situation. [21:10;03] So she's had that very real concern. But I think certainly that she's a very measured person, this was a very measured response from the mayor. And people, you know, I think there are two sides of he issue, some people think that overmilitarization or at least preparedness of the police is very important. And others think that it's sort of a wait and see, it's a very fluid situation. But I do want to just piggyback a bit on what Billy Murphy said, because the bottom line is May 1st has been sort of this deadline and everyone in the community is talking about, I've spoken to many people about that because that is when the police department is scheduled to turnover their investigation to the State Attorney's office. And may people think that those reports should be made public. I don't know that that's going to happen, because typically a prosecutor gets that information and continues the investigation. So I really hope that our viewers and the public do understand that they may not have all of the information on Friday, on May.</s>COOPER: And according to Mr. Murphy, it certainly sounds like that is not going to happen, they're not going to have any of that information that's been released. Van Jones, you know, we talked to the guest earlier about -- a councilman about, what do you say to young people here, what do you say to people who feel their voices aren't being heard. I'm wondering, you have a lot of experience in this realm, what do you say to people?</s>VAN JONES, CO-FOUNDER, REBUILD THE DREAM: Well, you know, first of all we have to be very clear. These young people are -- they're not stupid, they have gotten the message, they have gotten the memo that America does not really care very much about them. Many of them do not expect to live very long. They do not expect to live free for very long. And they've gotten the message that, listen, they're lives just don't mean that much to anybody. People keep saying, why this kids say black lies, man of black lies, man that's racist, that's (inaudible). Now, listen to the pain under that. Either you have to just say that my life matters. There's real pain there. And so if you don't meet them where the pain is, and it say, "Listen, I get it. I care about you. I love. I want you to do well. I want you to be winner and not a loser. Let's talk about how we get you from where you are to where you want to go." If you weren't coming with love in your heart, then what you're going to do is you're going to retrigger and that's why I say, "You're a thug. You are this, you are that." You got to retrigger them, you don't want to call them out, you want to call them up. That's the key, call them up. You know, we want you to be a strong young man and a good leader in this community, you got a lot of influence here, a lot of people listen to you. Hey, don't you want to make sure that when people see Baltimore, they see this community, they think good things about you and which you got a change now to do something possible in this attention. You start pulling them up, you don't call them out, put them down, because you're adding pain to pain. That never works with young people. Don't work with old people very well, it definitely doesn't work with young people who don't feel America is there for them.</s>COOPER: Harry, let me ask you just from a police standpoint, a curfew has been announced, it's going to take place at 10:00 tonight. If the protest remain peaceful, could -- and people remain out of the street, I mean, that's a dilemma for the police. Do you just -- because the protest are peaceful, you let people violate the curfew? I mean how forceful does one get in terms of trying to enforce a curfew?</s>HARRY HOUCK, RETIRED NYPD DETECTIVE: Well that's a very interesting question and a good question. I hate to be the chief who is going to make a decision there. But the fact is that I'm hoping that when we get to the countdown of the curfew, then the police officer start saying there's 15 minutes left to the curfew, 20 minutes left to the curfew, that the leaders around it will start trying to convince people to leave the streets. Now, if we get to 10:00, all right and we have no violence on there, I don't think it would be a real good move for the police officers to move in. I think they would probably just wait for the clerics and the volunteers to help people eventually move off the street. Because -- and we have police just moving in at 10:00, then we're probably going to have a violent situation.</s>COOPER: We're going to be watching very carefully over this next hour, how as the curfew approaches, how people respond in this, to Harry's point. How the community leaders try to enforce their curfew, try to spread the message of the curfew. Police are expected to speak to the media momentarily. Their last news conference before the curfew, before that 10 p.m. curfew takes place, we'll obviously bring that to you live. We expect to hear as well with a local clergymen, retired General Russel Honore also joins us as well as the curfew approaches. We'll be right back.