All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 04/27/15

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: That`s a live news press conference from Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Joining me now from the ground in Baltimore is NBC`s Brian Mooar. Brian, do we have you there? Likes like we don`t have Brian. Let`s go back into that presser, please? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re seeing unprecedented type of violence throughout the city, mainly towards the west side of Baltimore. We`re not going to tolerate that. The police department is not going to stand for that. We`re fully deployed at this point. We canceled leave for all our police officers. So, they are deployed on the streets as we speak. Each shift is fully staffed. We called in outside resources from all over the state of Maryland to give us an assist here. We`re not going to tolerate this. Our priorities right now is to restore order in the city. Our priorities right now is officer safety, and the safety of the community. Thank you. JACK YOUNG, CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT, BALTIMORE, MD: Good evening. I am deeply saddened by what`s taking mace in the great city of Baltimore. This reminds me of 1968 when the riots were taking place after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, where people were destroying their own stores and properties in their own community. This is unacceptable. This is not what Freddie Gray`s family wanted. They asked that there be no protest, marches or anything of that nature today, and the organizers of those marches are not participating in what`s taking place today. As the mayor stated, these are thugs who are seizing upon an opportunity to show their anger, their distrust, and their frustration at the police department. This is not the way to do it. We have the Department of Justice in here, along with the state`s attorney that is doing the investigation of this murder or killing or whatever you want to call it. Some are saying murder, some are saying the killing. But we have to let the Department of Justice and the state`s attorney office do their job. We can`t rush to judgment. A lot of people are saying, let`s get this answered now. Our job is to get it right. It`s your job as the media to report that. I just want to stay this, because I`m heart broken and I`m disturbed how the news media are focusing on the negativity of this city and not looking at the great things that are going on in the city. We have young people who are out there protesting peacefully, but you`re not focusing on them. You`re focusing on those that are burning down buildings and rioting throughout the streets of Baltimore. Show the positive people who are out there trying to stop these folk from doing this. These are not the people living in Sandtown-Winchester that are out there looting and burning down the stores. These are people that are not even connected to that community. So, the media need to make this perfectly clear. It is not the people that are living in Sandtown-Winchester, or the people who live in Gilmore Homes, these are opportunists out there destroying our city and we`re not going to tolerate it. I thank the mayor for asking the National Guard to come to Baltimore so we can get some order and some peace in their city, because justice will prepare, but we cannot resort to violence and destruction of property. RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Thank you very much, council president. Before I take questions, I would like to hear from Councilman Scott and I open up to questions. COUNCILMAN BRANDON SCOTT (D), BALTIMORE, MARYLAND: Thank you, Madame Mayor. I`m not going to be as nice as everyone else. I`m simply pissed off. This is the city I love and chose to dedicate my life to. And we cannot stand idly by and let thugs or whatever you want to call them, I don`t say they`re thugs, we`re just going to call them cowards, ruin our city. So what I`m going to say is, if you are an adult and you`re out there participating in this, you are ruining the future for these young people, and I`m calling on every abled man and woman who wants to stand up to get out there and get in between these folks. When we leave here, I`m going out there, get out there and stand tall and stand up for your neighborhood. We cannot let this be a repeat of 1968. The neighborhood that they`re in right now are still being burned down from 1968. This is why we have to pull our -- pulling (ph) these people. These young people are showing frustration. They`re -- at the end of the day, they`re still our young people, and we have a lot of work to do with them, and folks are going to have to do, this is going to be the starting point for that. We`re going to have a lot of healing to do, but we cannot continue to let this go on. We have ignored them for too far long. Adults have to step up and going to be adults, and take control of our children and take control of our future. RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Thank you. I open it up for questions. REPORTER: Madame Mayor, what are saying to people who say you waited five hours before you made the first announcement about what`s going on inside your city? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Well, we`ve been managing the situation. I understand there`s a call that -- you have to balance actually doing the work of managing with having precedence, and the police department throughout the day has been putting out information. I`ve been working to make sure we`re managing this. There`s a lot of moving parts and I wanted to make sure I was dedicated to that before we came out and spoke. REPORTER: But also, at this particular time, it`s the 7:00 hour, you look at all the monitors behind you, this is the city you ran to be mayor of. Are you proud of it tonight? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: I`m proud of the people in the community who say we don`t want this anymore. There are people marching to bring calm to our community. There are people who want so much for there to be peace and to protect the values of our community. I`m proud of them. I`m also very concerned, because what I`m seeing is not -- it`s just not acceptable. I shouldn`t -- I went to one of the elementary schools in the western district, Gilmore Elementary School, this morning, and talked to some fourth graders. The first question the young lady asked me, why are people trashing my neighborhood? I didn`t have a good reason -- I didn`t have a good answer for her. It is so frustrating that people think that this makes sense to destroy our community when we know that those people who live there that are already hurting are going to pay for that. (CROSSTALK) (INAUDIBLE) RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Not yet. We can get that information to you. REPORTER: Mayor, what do you make of the criticism that your words might have encouraged some of the activity on the streets? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: I say the very blatant mischaracterization of my words was not helpful today. I was asked a question about the property damage that was done, and in answering that question, I made it very clear that we walk a balance -- we balance a very fine line between giving protesters -- giving protesters -- peaceful protesters space to protest. What I said is, in doing so, people can hijack that and use that space for bad. I did not say that we were accepting of it. I did not say that we were passive to it. I was just explaining how property damage can happen during a peaceful protest. It is very unfortunate that members of your industry decided to mischaracterize my words and try to use it as a way to say that we`re inciting violence. There`s no such thing. REPORTER: There is no order to the police to hold back, to let some of these happened? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Absolutely not, absolutely not. And I`ve never said anything to that -- to that fact, absolutely not. What we did was manage a peaceful protest in the best way possible, and when it got violent and destructive, we responded to that. We have an obligation to protect people`s first amendment rights. We also understand through the best training and best practices that we have to do everything that we can to deescalate. And those were the tactics that were deployed yesterday. Did people exploit those tactics or that space that we gave -- that we facilitated to have peaceful protests? Yes, we did. But we didn`t endorse it. We didn`t -- you know, I didn`t -- we don`t endorse it, we didn`t allow it. We went into -- we went in using best practices to -- REPORTER: You don`t think it`s a mistake? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: -- to allow people to have a peaceful protest. REPORTER: The de-escalation strategy? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: That`s best practice. Any other question? REPORTER: What are the plans now that night has fallen? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: As I mentioned, we have the juvenile curfew for 14 and under, that`s 9:00 p.m. We will be enforcing it. Fourteen to 17 is 10:00, we will be enforcing it. Tomorrow, there`ll be a city-wide curfew, 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. in the morning. Let me be clear what that means is, if you are not -- if don`t have -- if you are on the streets in which it will be for two reasons, medical emergency or you`re going to work. That`s it. (CROSSTALK) REPORTER: On the police officers who were injured, you know, seven were injured, one was unconscious. Do we have any update on that? (INAUDIBLE) RAWLINGS-BLAKE: OK, go ahead. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, unfortunately, at this point, 15 police officers are injured. Of the 15, two are still hospitalized at this moment. The others have been released with minor injuries at this point. REPORTER: Do you know how the two officers were injured? Two hospitalized. How were they injured so badly? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, what we know right now, just preliminary is that objects breaks, bottles, I`m not sure exactly specifically what it was, but it was flying debris that caused the injuries. REPORTER: Did they have helmets on? Did they get hit in the head if UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some did, some did not. REPORTER: Do we know how many groups and large? How many people are involved in this? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In terms of a number, I can`t tell you. I can tell you, earlier, part of the day, around dismissal times of schools, I know around the Mondawmin hub, we did see in excess of 75 to 100 school-age kids that was causing a lot of problems up there. A majority of the officers that were injured in the incidents that occurred around Mondawmin hub was coming from flying debris. From what we could tell, it looked like it was school-age kids. The good thing is that we have a lot of video that we`re easily able to over the next couple of days to track them down and fight out who is responsible. REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) know on social media know this was going to happen? I mean, everyone knew that Mondawmin Mall was being mentioned on social media, that students were planning on meeting there. (INAUDIBLE) department to stop this before it got out of control? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, we -- yes, we monitor social media. It`s no surprise, and we did know that there was mention of something that was going to occur there. So what we did is we pre-deployed. So, we actually were out there before dismissal time. REPORTER: Are you satisfied with how the department handled the response at Mondawmin looking back? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, what I can say that I`m not happy 15 officers were injured at this point. I`m not happy at all. Should we have done things differently? You know, we have to sit back and really assess that, but it`s -- right now, like I said, the 15 officers were injured. Two of them are still hospitalized. It`s unacceptable. (CROSSTALK) REPORTER: -- people you pulled off the streets through all this? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prior to me coming over here, it was maybe 27 arrests. REPORTER: Mayor, moving forward, what role will the National Guard play in assistance with the police? And how do you see this ending? It seems from what we`ve seen today that this looks virtually impossible to stop. I know it`s not, but it appears that way. How do you plan on getting ahold of this whole situation? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: In a couple of ways. First, the National Guard will be deployed in collaboration and cooperation with the Baltimore City police department. There are several ways that they can be used and we will determine that. It has not been determined yet. We will -- once we get the exact number that will be deployed, we will make the determination of how to best use that number to provide backup and support for the Baltimore City police department. With respect to how we get to order, let`s be clear. You know, the council president and I share the frustration of the negative images that are being shown of our great city. But best belief we`re going to use all of those images to hold the individuals who are destroying our city accountable. So, once people start getting arrested for the looting, for the destruction, I think they will understand that this is not a lawless city. And the thugs and the -- you know, I`m at a loss for words, because it is idiotic to think that by destroying your city that you`re going to make life better for anybody. And once -- and after we -- as we start to review the tapes that we have from our own police video, as well as what we`re able to see from the different outlets, we will be holding people accountable. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re getting one more. REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) Al Sharpton coming to Baltimore, is that sort of an invitation that you welcome? RAWLINGS-BLAKE: Anyone who wants to add to the calls for peace in our city is welcome. If Reverend Sharpton wants to come, if parents want to encourage their children to act within the law, I met with young people this afternoon, young people who want peace. Young people who want justice. They were given their own suggestions of how young people themselves can add voice and try to add a sane message, a message that says, we don`t -- it`s not in our name that you were doing -- that you are destroying our city. Anybody that wants to be a part of sending that message, I welcome it. Thank you. We`re working that out with the city school police -- I mean, with the school system. Thank you very much. HAYES: That was a live news conference with the Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and city council members, including the council president, spokesperson for the police department as well, announcing there`s also going to be a curfew, also announcing or reiterating the National Guard will be deployed in concert with local police, that pursuant to an emergency -- state of emergency declared by the governor just about an hour ago. Joining me now from the ground in Baltimore is NBC`s Brian Mooar. Brian, what is the latest? BRIAN MOOAR, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest, as you just heard, Chris, is the mayor, who is struggling to explain why things spun so terribly out of control today, from a peaceful funeral with a message of change through peaceful protests, of giving the city government, giving the city police department a chance to investigate the death of Freddie Gray and to take whatever actions are deemed necessary, if the actions that led to his death are, in fact, criminal. Two criminal acts on the street, and we saw this sort of spin out of control, Chris, right here on MSNBC in real time, a group of young kids that looked like teenagers basically near that mall, confronting police. Police seemed to have a handle on it. But then more and more young people came in. Yes, there were more police. But the police were not really engaging, especially after the point where we saw at least one of those officers apparently gravely injured on live TV, taken away by his or her colleagues to an armored personnel carrier and driven off. At that point, it seemed like that little area became quarantined by authorities and was a controlled burn, if you will. It looked like the mayor in trying to talk about de-escalation and best practices, was trying to explain a situation that they hoped would work, and just failed miserably. Now at this point, it looks like faith leaders of the community are trying to come in and ease tensions, get these kids back in their homes and off the streets. Something police have been unable to do during this long evening. HAYES: NBC`s Brian Mooar on the ground in Baltimore. Thank you very much. All right. To reset what is happening right now, you`re looking at live pictures from Baltimore, where in the wake of the unrest caused by the death of a 25-year-old man in police custody, the mayor has just announced a 10:00 p.m. curfew. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard. We expect to hear from him within the hour. We are awaiting that press conference. Don`t go anywhere. This all after chaos broke out today in Baltimore as a group made of largely, it appeared, of teenagers and young people looted and damaged businesses and property, including the CVS pharmacy, which was set on fire. Looting is seen at a number of Baltimore businesses, including a cell phone business and a bar, numerous vehicles were set ablaze, in the violence, including this police car as participants threw rocks, bricks and bottles at police in riot gear who in some cases threw the projectiles back at the youth. This afternoon, a police spokesman reported a number of officers had sustained serious injuries in the clashes. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CAPT. ERIC KOWALCZYK, BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT: This afternoon, a group of outrageous criminals attacked our officers. Right now, we have seven officers that have serious injuries, including broken bones and one officer who is unconscious. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That number of injured police as we just learned from Colonel Darrell De Sousa, chief of patrol from the Baltimore Police Department, is now 15. Two of whom we heard from him as well just moments ago are still hospitalized. Baltimore police deployed pepper spray against the crowd this afternoon, tear gas and pepper balls were being deployed in an effort to control the unrest. Police appealed to parents to, quote, "locate their children and bring them home", as the Baltimore Orioles postponed tonight`s scheduled game at Camden Yard. The University of Maryland at Baltimore, , many local businesses closed early due to the violence, which may have been spurred, some speculated, based on this flyer which calls on high school to engage in a so-called purge, which reportedly widely circulated among Baltimore students. Others say students were organizing a peaceful walkout in commemoration of Freddie Gray`s life. The clashes broke out following the funeral of Freddie Gray, that is, of course, the 25-year-old black man from that neighborhood in Northwest Baltimore where we are seeing these images, who died on April 19th in the custody of Baltimore police, and after suffering and as-yet unexplained severe spinal chord injury that -- again, more than two weeks after his arrest, more than a week after his week, not been accounted for by officials. Joining me now on the phone from the streets of Baltimore, "Huffington Post" reporter Arthur Delaney, who has been out there all day. Arthur, you are there in the streets in northwest Baltimore when the CVS was burning. There was a police car on fire. What was the scene like? How did it get to the point it got to? ARTHUR DELANEY, HUFFINGTON POST (via telephone): Well, it started off with police expecting teenagers to start rioting or attempting to start a riot around 3:00 and they actually shut down the Mondawmin Mall before that happened because they expected it. And sure enough, these kids all showed up, and they were basically just throwing rocks and running away from police who put on their riot helmets. But then a few hours later, about a mile away in downtown West Baltimore, it was a lot more chaotic. Stuff was on fire. People were looting stores and in the street it was just a much more and anarchic scene. And I don`t know who the people who are involved at that point and the more violent stuff were actually teenagers or not HAYES: It seemed when things started again, it started around 3:00, around when school was letting out. It was after the funeral. It was at the site of Mondawmin Mall. There had been some activity on social media according to several people, not just police sources, but others, that there was an event planned at the Mondawmin Mall. Clearly, the police anticipated that and a group of young people showed up. That`s where we saw that kind of rock throwing standoff. That rock throwing got pretty intensive. I mean, there were all sorts of projectiles being thrown from police as far as we could tell. From the live shot overhead. What did it look like on the ground? DELANEY: It was like pieces of concrete and entire bricks were littered about the street afterward. You could see them hitting the police and the police getting hurt. It did look like they were trying to be restrained. They would charge at the kids and the kids would run away. And then they were continuing to be restrained a little later downtown when stuff was on fire and fire department took a while to get there while CVS burning and police were just holding the line as people continued to throw rocks and bottles at them. HAYES: I`m curious, in terms of characterizing who these young people were that sort of started this initial confrontation that has grown and spiraled a bit. If they were shouting things, if they were invoking Freddie Gray, if it was less about that or more just anger directed at police. Have you heard them articulated anything? DELANEY: Everyone is talking about Freddie Gray. At the very beginning, at the outset, the kids were saying, you all started this. That`s what they were yelling at the police. They say, you know, we want indictment. So, it`s definitely focused on Freddie Gray, even though it was violent from the start and spiraled out of control. It was organized on social media. I interviewed a teenager who said they were following the hashtag, #JusticeforFreddieGray, and she`s believed they would actually go through it, and she has been in this funeral which is basically around the corner from mall that morning and see what actually happened. (INAUDIBLE) word sort of sat there for a while so they could get around the police line. HAYES: It also did seem like police have been at least sort of carefully instructed on which tactics they could use. There was a lot of advanced warning at least they were giving, about when they would deploy things like pepper spray, we haven`t seen them coming early with the heavy tactical presence we saw in Ferguson. And then as the day went on, we began to see more SWAT vehicles, things like LRADs (ph), we saw green smoke, tear gas. Did that response escalate throughout the afternoon? DELANEY: In the first 90 minutes, I did see pepper spray and intense armored police vehicles, just trying to have a show of force to intimidate the crowd. We`re still at that time mostly seeing like teenagers. I can`t say whether that was effective or not. It did seem like they had control of the area around the mall after 90 minutes or so, but it turned out, just a few blocks away, even though the police were all there in their lines and in their riot gear, stuff was just getting set on fire and stores were being smashed and looted. So, you know, it didn`t look like they were trying to use a lot of strength, but I don`t know whether it worked or not. HAYES: The neighborhood that you are in that has been the epicenter is the neighborhood both near Mondawmin Mall, it`s also the neighborhood near where the funeral was, it`s also near where Freddie Gray lived in a neighborhood called Sandtown-Winchester. And it`s on the northwest side of Baltimore, I want to give a little context here. This is from 2011. The Baltimore city health department issued a profile of that neighborhood, just so folks are looking at these images that are being beamed out across the world right now, get a sense of the background context of what that neighborhood is like. The unemployment rate is double the city-wide average, so is the poverty rate. There are twice as many liquor stores and tobacco outlets per capita in Sandtown- Winchester, as in the city as a whole. The worst domestic violence of any neighborhoods, the Health Department analyzed and among the worst rates of non-fatal shootings and homicides. I saw other data that said that a quarter of the juveniles on the neighborhood had been arrested over a four-year period I think spanning from 2009 to 2014. It is, Arthur, you were there, it is an intensely concentrated area of urban poverty. DELANEY: That`s right. And a few of the young people we interviewed talked about Freddie Gray as if he was one of their own. Like one young man was telling me he was like an older brother to me. It wasn`t clear how well they knew each other, but people were taking what had happened very personally, sort of as an affront to the community there. So, in some ways he`s a symbol of what some people feel has been going on here. HAYES: Arthur, did you get a sense from the police at all if the police that were deployed there, I know a notice had gone out to Baltimore police I believe yesterday for them to bring riot gear to work. There had been some training. My sense was that these were reinforcements brought in. A lot of the police patrolling the area today aren`t police that are in the western, that aren`t police that generally patrol those streets and those neighborhoods. DELANEY: No, and we thought some police were from out of state. A couple I saw were from Virginia. But, you know, they had all the (INAUDIBLE), they had the baton tonight, it wasn`t like they were out swinging, there was definitely a marked restraint. Except for when people were getting pepper sprayed, which would seem to happen whenever the tension really rose and it seemed a little more dangerous. HAYES: All right. Arthur Delaney, who`s been doing some fantastic reporting all day for "Huffington Post" -- thank you, Arthur. Joining me now, Reverend Jamal Bryant, he`s the pastor of the Empowerment Temple in Baltimore. He today delivered the eulogy at Freddie Gray`s funeral. And, Reverend, I want to get your reaction what has transpired in the hours since the eulogy you delivered today at Freddie Gray`s funeral. REV. JAMAL BRYANT, EMPOWERMENT TEMPLE: Absolute and complete dismay if not horror. We have made a covenant with the community, the city at large, that on this day there would be no protests, no marching, as it was the request of the family, that this would be a moratorium. So, you can imagine the shock and amazement coming from the burial, getting the news of a code red that this had taken place is really disappointing and unfortunate, because it doesn`t mirror or reflect the ideology of this movement, which is in and to itself non-violent, and all the more is peaceful. It is our resolve that violence doesn`t bring justice and it is counter to what it is that we`re aiming for. HAYES: You can sense some of the national coverage of this and some of the local coverage I picked up on, a growing condemnation, criticism of the mayor of Baltimore for not taking essentially a heavier hand. And I wonder what your response is to that criticism? BRYANT: Really understanding an absence of knowledge of the law. In Maryland, we have something called the officer`s bill of rights, which would suggest that an officer has ten days before they have to testify, they can lawyer up. And all the more once they do testify, it`s not admissible in court. Under the officer`s bill of rights, you can only be given paid vacation unless you`re charged with a felony. So, as a consequence, the mayor`s arms are proverbially tied behind her back. She really can`t do anything until we get those three reports back from the Department of Justice, the state`s attorney and the internal investigation here. After that is when we will be able to move forward. And this coming Friday is when we`re expecting this, and all the more reason why we`ve been trying to bring everybody to calm so that we can see what can happen. But none of those six officers can be terminated until charges have been filed. HAYES: You`re obviously a pastor in Baltimore, you`re of that community. And I wonder what you want to tell folks that are watching tonight? We`re watching images of looting in West Baltimore. We`re watching things burn, police cars burn, youth throwing rocks at police. This is probably the most coverage West Baltimore is going to get on the national media all year. And I round myself up in that sort of self- condemnation of the media`s coverage of West Baltimore. What do you want to say about the place where you are a pastor and West Baltimore in general for folks that are now watching it under these conditions? BRYANT: You`re not the first one to do this PR campaign against Baltimore. HBO is our flagship with The Wire and The Corner who has already painted a broad sweeping stroke of poverty and crime. And just before you brought me in, you gave the raw data of the statistics of what`s taking place in that community of tobacco sales and alcohol sales. What is not being reported is how those neighborhoods have been red- lined and so they`re not able to get small business loans. What nobody is asking is how many of them have been contaminated with lead paint poisoning, that why it is in that same area there`s a subpar public school system, how the governor who just called the state of emergency has just lowered funding for public education and increased funding for the penal system. And so it is a horrible lot and predicament. And we`re praying that if anything positive will come out of this, is that the band-aid has been ripped off, the sheet has been pulled back and you can see how abject poverty is taking place and having its effect, tightening its noose on those who are just seven miles away from Johns Hopkins, from the Inner Harbor and the headquarters of Under Armour. So, Baltimore has access to wealth, but it`s not being equitably distributed. And we hope that through this you would understand it`s a much larger issue than Freddie Gray. But we`re talking about inequity all the way around. And we pray that through this it will be unearthed and it will finally be addressed. HAYES: What happens tonight, pastor? I saw some members of the community -- some elders were out, some members of the Nation of Islam, a group called The 300 Men March were out, that`s a group that has come out in force in West Baltimore and other neighborhoods to try to essentially interrupt incidents of violence before they can start. I saw them in the streets earlier through social media. There are some pastors out. I mean, what happens tonight and through the night and into tomorrow, where does this go? BRYANT: We`ve just dispatched a large army of pastors who are going to be walking through the streets tonight, calling for calm, asking for young people to return. Tomorrow night at 7:30, we`re having an emergency citywide crisis meeting at the Empowerment Temple, the church I pastor, asking not just for an opportunity for people to vent, but also to come up with some solutions. The people in Baltimore are overwhelmingly frustrated and flustered. We`ve not had this kind of breakout since 1968 with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And so for us to sit on this kind of pain, this kind of anguish all these years, the only thing that`s more surprising is it hasn`t happened long before now. But we cannot commiserate over spilled milk. We have got to figure out how we`re going to pick it up. And how we`re going to move forward. There`s still a focus that has got to be addressed on how it is that we bring redress to some of the flawed characteristics that are taking place within the Baltimore police department. And I pray that that starts tomorrow. This has been a horrible day, but we believe we`re starting a fresh page tomorrow, and as a consequence, we`re not going to stop the fight. We`re just going to stop the way that we fought today. HAYES: Pastor Jamal Bryant, Empowerment Temple, AME Church in Baltimore, delivered the eulogy for the funeral for Freddie Gray today. Thank you, pastor, I appreciate it. BRYANT: Thank you. HAYES: The pastor mentioned something that I would like to just add a footnote to as you watch these images and think about the neighborhood where this is happening. He mentioned elevated levels of lead poisoning. It turns out that Freddie Gray`s family filed a lawsuit against the man who owned the apartment they rented for negligence because they had been exposed to lead poisoning. According to that lawsuit, Gray and his sisters, the lab tests conducted in the 1990s showed that he and his two sisters had levels of lead in their blood nearly double of what the state of Maryland defines as the minimum for lead poisoning. That case was eventually settled, but I gives you a sense. Joining me now Michael Eric Dyson, MSNBC political analyst, professor of sociology at Georgetown University. Michael, you were in the pews today at the funeral. What was that service like? MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Well, it was an incredible service. You just spoke to one of the most eloquent and articulate spokespeople of this rising generation of leaders the Reverend Doctor Jamal Harrison Bryant who delivered a stunning eulogy that not only talked about the pain and the pathos that has besieged that community. That urban terrain has been besieged by such tragedy and such negligence. And he spoke brilliantly and eloquently to that. He encouraged his listeners not to be boxed in by stereotypes and be boxed in by the kind of restraints that have been arbitrarily imposed upon them, but to break free of them and challenge to people there to move to the next level. And so it was an extraordinary testimony to the resilient spirit of African-American people that in the midst of tragedy and trauma, in the midst of the horrible depression that can be visited upon a population when there seems to be no way out, to see them rise up together and be determined to move forward was extraordinary. But what was also important, the Reverend Jesse Jackson delivered an analytical insight into the forces of oppression that have besieged that urban terrain as brilliantly as Dr. Bryant did. And what he talked about of course was not only the factors that Dr. Bryant spoke of, but the ways in which the Baltimore Ravens and the Baltimore Orioles with their tax exempt status and their being given tremendous goodies to stay into the city. So you`ve got the urban blight contrasted to the extraordinary accumulation of capital for some people. This is what Dr. Bryant was speaking about when he says they have the extraordinary rise of capital, just not equitable access and distribution of it. So when you put that together, it is quite easy to dismiss what`s going on now as a bunch of hooligans and looters. The great Martin Luther King, Jr., whose noble crusade of nonviolence, said riots are the language of the unheard. He said I refuse to condemn f what`s going on in the inner cities then of Watts and of Detroit and many urban cities across America without also talking about the contrasting and broader landscape against which that violence is pitched. And he talked about the American government. Now in our case, I think we have to talk about state brutality, because police people are the most immediate emblems of the authority of the state to protect them or subvert them. And the tragedy is many white Americans who look at that and many others who feel protected when they see the police or hear the sirens coming, they don`t feel a sense of horror and terror, they don`t feel that oh my, my life may be now ended. They don`t feel like irrationally when the cop stops them they will get up and run. And it seems irrational to others except those of us who have been subjected to this arbitrary form of terror. So that reality forces us to come to grips with something that doesn`t happen until there`s violence. Your cameras, our commentary would not be in Baltimore talking about the slow terror of expulsions from schools, rising rates of lead poisoning. The export of jobs to places across the waters that have no ability to refuel and recycle that capital back here. So when you put all that together, it`s easy to point a gun of analysis at these people and shoot them with the bullets of our condemnation as opposed to picking up the narrative that says all of them have already been besieged. And we have to together find a way out of this. HAYES: Michael, let me show you just a little bit of some of the frustration that was evident on the streets with the rioting today on the streets of Baltimore. It was just one of the people, our affiliate interview today. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is it like seeing all this? UNIDNETIFIED MALE: Crazy, crazy. I can`t believe we`re out here like this. You see my brothers down here at the 300 Man March. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want you to describe what do you see across the street? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Craziness. I think -- I think our young brothers is hooligans, honestly, hooligans. UNIDENTIFID MALE: And you see someone across the street that just came out of that liquor store right now with a canister of liquor. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he stole it. You know, it`s crazy, for our young brothers to be doing that these days is crazy. That`s all I can say is crazy. I don`t have any words for it, honestly. I ain`t steal nothing. I would have never stole anything from anybody. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see you didn`t steal anything. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. It`s crazy to me. It`s... UNIDENTIIFED MALE: Are these people from Baltimore or from out of town? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, to be honest with you, everybody out here is from the hood, right here. You know, they are opportunists, because these people out here don`t have anything. And everybody will justify something by their own means. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Your response, Michael? DYSON: Well, look, there`s enough of that prevails that people say, look, we`re not thugs, we`re not hooligans, we`re not given over to this kind of ecstatic chaos that urban terror reveals. But at the same time, I think what`s interesting, you know, I`ve been watching the NBA playoffs. And sometimes somebody will hit somebody in the ribs, the referee won`t see that, but the person who retaliates the referee sees and throws the flag. This is what`s happening here. What we`re seeing now is that -- what we don`t have cameras on and commentary about is the theft of capital from these urban post-industrial conditions, what we don`t see is capital flight, jobs going out to the suburbs and exurbs. What we don`t see is the fact that many police people live in York, Pennsylvania and come over to Baltimore and extract revenue from that city, and they don`t give back to the tax base, but take it back to their communities, and yet they are policing people who are not their friends, neighbors, relatives or kin. And as a result of that, there`s a sense that these people are disposable. So yes, you see the utter chaos that they are besieged in and engulfed in, but at the same time, what you don`t see is a camera or a commentary about the broader backdrop against which these occur. So this isn`t justified what we see going on. You see people in that neighborhood say, look, this is crazy, this is self-destructive, this is horrible. And guess what we say? How can you live in a community where you`re destroying your own future and prospects? Many of them say we don`t have a future or a prospect. This will never occur. HAYES: Yeah, there was a moment in the press conference earlier today -- again, if you`re watching right now, those are images from earlier today. Night is falling obviously in Baltimore. There are some folks out on the street, there are a lot of sort of elders that have been dispatched to the street to try to calm things down. That`s earlier today. A shot of some of that right now as night falls. Things seem to be calming down in a city that has been ravaged by rioting, by looting, altercations, rock throwing, police deploying tear gas and rubber bullets it appears at one point, although that is as yet unconfirmed. Social reports indicating that. There was a moment earlier today when the mayor Stephanie Rawlings- Blake of Baltimore talked about the `68 riots that burned down parts of West Baltimore and said that the city has still -- and parts of the city in West Baltimore had still not recovered from that, and that struck me as kind of a searing condemnation of generations of leadership at every single level that it could possibly be the case that 47 years after those riots, that West Baltimore is yet to be rebuilt. DYSON: Yeah, that`s a powerful point. And it struck me the same way. It`s like, this is the condemnation of what we the leadership is doing there, are doing there. That`s a condemnation of what they have inherited and what they refused to see. And so what you`re seeing the accumulated aggrievement (ph) of populations who feel that they are desperately invisible. And the only time they become visible is when they strike out in such self-destructive fashion. So are we going to be there when there`s peaceful condemnation of their conditions? Are we there when they deliver searing analyses of what has led them to become who they are? No. But we`re there when the fires besiege that community. We`re there when they`re engulfed in pain and tragedy. So that doesn`t justify it, but it does say let`s step back and say if you can`t clean that up in 47 years, that`s not a condemnation of the people who are subjected to it, that`s a condemnation of the city and the state and the government, which refuses to help them or is unable to help them in serious fashion. HAYES: Let me also say this, we are awaiting a press conference from the governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan. He, of course, has signed an emergency order, a declaration of the state of emergency for the state of Maryland. The national guard are being deployed. There is a curfew that has been put in by the mayor that I believe applies to juveniles from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. Folks on the street have to have a reason to be out on the street. Larry Hogan of course recently elected just in the last election, a Republican governor, following the two terms of Martin O`Malley, the Democrat who was once mayor of Baltimore, then governor. He is traveling in Europe, although his folks have issued a statement expressing empathy with the family of Freddie Gray condemning the violence that we saw today. I want to say also we are now -- we also shouldn`t lose sight of the fact that there parallel investigations happening into the actual death of Freddie Gray, which as of this late date, given the fact that he was arrested on April 12, I don`t know if we have the footage of his arrest, which of course has been rolling quite a bit, that as of this late date we know there was the spinal chord injury. We just still don`t know in the 45 minutes that he was in police custody, in which this -- what ultimately would be a fatal injury was sustained, we still do not have any kind of definitive account of what actually happened. The Gray family lawyer has issued a statement begging people to stop this saying how heartbroken and dismayed they are by the images they have seen coming out of Baltimore. There was widespread calls, as you heard from Reverend Jamal Bryant earlier today, for a kind of day of peaceful observation, silenced moratorium, mourning today in the wake of the funeral, and that has obviously not been the way things turned out. Now we will get a state of emergency. And Michael, I`m curious where you think this does go next. I mean, obviously, there are calls, and you can see them in the questions the mayor of Baltimore got, you can see them in some of the national press coverage of the mayor, a certain comment she made that I think was widely interpreted, though I would say not quite properly interpreted, as essentially excusing property destruction, or saying the police were given the orders to let property destruction happen. But there is strong political pressure from certain quarters on her to see a more aggressive police response. DYSON: sure. Well, you know, look, she`s got a difficult job. You saw her today. She was offering unqualified, unconditional condemnation of the violence she saw. She didn`t excuse it. She didn`t tolerate it. She didn`t try to give many reasons as to its existence. She said it`s wrong. And at the same time, she knows she can`t go into these populations, from which she has emerged, laying down the riot act, so to speak, without understanding what the precipitating events are. So she`s got to be very careful here. She got to insist upon law. And she`s got to insist upon law and order. And at the same time she`s got to say, look, it`s been very difficult on the other side, because the law has not been equally applied to the people who are here. You referred to the service earlier today. In that service, what emerged was, why is it that we tell black and brown populations, hey, don`t adhere to that no snitch law. You`ve got to tell the truth. Come forth with information, and yet police people have a no snitch rule as well. They don`t come forth with saying, yep, I know this was wrong. Let me tell the story. So, people perceive that there is a disparity between the kind of standards that are induced and events when it is applied to the police, and when they are applied to urban populations. She`s got to balance that. She`s the mayor of that city. she`s got to hold the line in terms of the urban chaos that she sees rising up, and she`s got to also be empathetic to the people who are unfairly victimized by the excessive use of police force. And this young man, Freddie Gray, died under mysterious circumstances heretofore, but we know that his -- you know, his severe spinal chord injury led to his death. So, she`s got to balance that out. And it`s a very difficult job indeed. HAYES: We should also note in Freddie Gray`s circumstances, and we should sort of make sure that -- his death and the explanation for it, or the counting for it, remains front and center. Obviously it`s the trigger for this. We see -- it appears the Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, this is a big test for him, newly elected, Republican governor of a Democratic state, about to address the media. Take a listen. (LIVE COVERAGE OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE) THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END