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Melissa Harris-Perry, Transcript 10/31/15

Guests: Anthony Roman, Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Patrick Egan, David Zirin, RaulReyes, Sayu Bhojwani, Hillary Mann-Leverett, Mikey Kay, Joshua Dubois,Carla Shedd, Francine Sherman, Gregory Thomas, Gloria Malone, Hyunhee Chin,Tee Emanuel, Brittany Braithwaite

MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY, MSNBC ANCHOR: Good morning. I`m Melissa Harris- Perry. We have a lot to cover this morning including the latest on the presidential race, the debate over immigration reform and the shocking classroom confrontation in South Carolina. But we begin with the breaking news about Russian jetliner crashing into Egypt`s Sinai Peninsula. And my colleague Richard Lui joins us right now. Richard? RICHARD LUI, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, thanks, Melissa. Good morning to you. Let`s get folks at home updated on the latest that we know about that plane crash. Officials have now confirmed just within the last two hours there are no survivors of this plane crash. That Russian jetliner carrying 224 people taking off from Egypt`s Sharm el Sheikh Airport this morning headed for St. Petersburg in Russia, but disappearing about 25 minutes after takeoff. There are reports that the pilot requested an emergency landing before that flight vanished. Now, Air Force planes later did spot wreckage from the aircraft. An Airbus A-321 in the mountainous area of the Sinai Peninsula. Crews have begun recovering bodies from the scene, Russian officials saying most of those on board were Russian tourists, including 17 children. Following this story for us all this morning is NBC`s Tom Costello in Washington. And Tom, what are we learning right now at this hour? TOM COSTELLO, MSNBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that this plane apparently has experienced some sort of a very sudden deceleration and a very sudden - it happened at 28,000 feet. And the speed here is what is particularly interesting here, Richard. 404 knots is what it was traveling at, at about 33,000 feet. And then suddenly, within about 20 seconds, it went to 62 knots. So a very dramatic reduction in speed. And this plane, as you know, this is an Airbus A-321, which is really a work horse stretch version of the A-320 family that`s flown around the world. This flight was on its way from Sharm el Sheikh to St. Petersburg, Russia, packed with, we believe, Russian tourists when it went down there in the Sinai. By the way, the Israeli military offering assistance to the Russians as well as to the Egyptians, but so far the Egyptians are the ones who are handling this recovery operation. Egyptian forces on the ground reporting that there were no survivors. And that apparently every -- the wreckage is in at least two big pieces and then spread across the desert floor there. 217 passengers and 7 crew members on board. And now as this investigation will begin, the key will be for them to identify the black boxes. We`re told that they may have one of them already. But the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. To then piece together what happened. And that flight data recorder is going to be critical because it would have recorded hundreds, and perhaps thousands of pieces of data, data coming off of the cockpit which would tell them accurate headings, actual readings about heading, about altitude, about speed, about whether the plane was in a nose up or nose down configuration, and how far did this plane break up in air or did it in fact stay intact until hitting the ground. An awful lot of questions here that we need answers to. The cockpit voice recorder captured, of course, the last few seconds of the conversation between the co-pilot and the pilot. There was one report that the pilot had reported radioed. He was having some sort of technical problem, but that`s the best translation we have at the moment, Richard. LUI: Tom, I know that you have been tack-teaming and talking with Ron Mott in London who has also been covering this story throughout this morning for NBC News and MSNBC. Let`s get to Ron in London. Ron, also what you`ve been reporting about are the families and how they have been learning about the details as they come in. RON MOTT, MSNBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Right. It`s a devastating day, obviously, for the folks who are in Russia waiting on their loved ones to come back. Most of those folks going on vacation. A very popular tourist spot, Sharm el Sheikh. And I can tell you, though, in terms of the investigation on the Russian front, it is moving along rather rapidly here. We`re getting word via Reuters that the transport agency that regulates air travel in Russia is at the offices of this airline in Moscow and have apparently seized some documents. We can also tell you that last year this airline when it had its last safety inspection in March of `14 had some violations and the government gave them some time to correct them and apparently the airline met those deadline - those deadlines and was able to get back up in the air. But as Tom and I spoke off and on the air today, that something catastrophic apparently happened at altitude with this flight crew and this airplane that seems to have caused a sudden pitch control problem, where the captain and the co-pilot could not control the up and down motion of this aircraft because of data returns we`ve seen from flight radar 24 show that the plane oscillating essentially in those last few seconds. I would imagine being a passenger on that flight would probably be pretty scary to have an aircraft going through that kind of movement on the way to the ground. And then, of course, we know that the radar control -- radar contact, was lost before the flight hit the ground. And so whether there was a break-up of the aircraft, we don`t know. One final point I wanted to point out that, there apparently was, according to our producer in Cairo, a post-crash fire and many of the bodies succumbed to fire as well. So a lot more details coming out as we go forward in the morning, the afternoon. Richard. LUI: Ronald, Tom. Also joining us at this hour, Anthony Roman, a former pilot and CEO and founder of Roman and Associates, an investigation/risk management firm. And Anthony will look at this. Tom was talking about that those recorders. They will have hundreds of pieces of information. Ron was talking about that oscillation. Will be able to confirm from if those are intact what exactly did happen, what they were doing in front, what was happening in back with the equipment? ANTHONY ROMAN, FMR. COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT: You know, these oscillations are a real problem because once they start, they build on themselves and can result in a stall configuration. Which would explain that very low air speed within 20 seconds after it reached 33,000 feet or so. It`s basically called a full-joyed (ph) oscillation. And it begins like this and as the aircraft builds momentum, as they get bigger, it reaches an angle of attack, at which the aircraft stalls and then it begins to go down precipitously. So, that may explain what happened there. But those flight data recorders on the A-320 series are robust. They`re enhanced like data recorders with an increased number of parameters that it monitors. So the answer`s going to be there. LUI: Ron, also part of this is as they go through the debris on the ground and, you know, they`re going to be looking at where is what, right, and that`s going to tell them potentially more of this story, that at this moment, we don`t have all the details on. MOTT: Correct. If that`s for me, Richard, yes. I mean this investigation is going to take quite some time. Obviously, the first matter of business is to secure the scene and to get to the victims first before you turn it over to the officials to start piecing together exactly what happened with the aircraft. But as we mentioned, there was post-crash fire. LUI: Right. MOTT: As airplane had just departed Sharm el Sheikh, so there was a lot of fuel aboard that aircraft. And as your expert is just mentioning there, something happened at altitude. The one thing as a pilot I would wonder is, as this flight at altitude probably has the autopilot engaged, so - inputs that the crew is making in terms of altitude or speed or heading is simply done by a dial. You`re not using the control yoke to control the plane at that point. There are just dial inputs as you are getting instructions from air traffic control. Now, when they were turned over from Egyptian air traffic control authorities over to Cyprus, they did not make the handoff, so the crew did not report into that new handoff and that`s shortly thereafter we saw this radar lost. LUI: Covering this for us all this morning, and throughout the day - on MSNBC. NBC`s Ron Mott. Thank you, so much, NBC`s Tom Costello, Anthony Roman. Thank you all three for that. Melissa, we`ll have much more on the breaking news throughout the morning, but we`ll throw it back to you now for the rest of the show. HARRIS-PERRY: Thanks, Richard. And we will keep checking in with you. We`re going to take a short break right now. But when we come back, why you can thank immigration for an amazing World Series. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: Welcome back. And we`re going to pick up our coverage this morning with sports news from late last night. The New York Mets are back home and bouncing back, defeating the Kansas City Royals 9-3 in game three of the World Series. A lot of enthusiasm on my set about this. Game for is tonight at city field with the Royals leading the series two games to one. The last and only time the Royals clinched the title was in 1985, winning over their interstate rival, the St. Louis Cardinals. And the following year, the Mets won it all, beating the Boston Red Sox in the sevenths and deciding game of the World Series, meaning that these two teams want it and they want it bad. On one side, we have a young arsenal of New York flame throwers that threw pitches of 95 miles per hour. More often this season than any other team. Versus a Kansas City roster that is older, more experienced and knows how to hit heat. It all began on Tuesday when the royals outlasted the Mets in a 14-inning marathon that hit the books as the longest game won by innings in World Series history. And that wasn`t the only historical tidbit. As Nerdland favorite Dave Zirin wrote in "The Nation," "We are presented for the first time with a fall classic pitting two teams that never fielded all white segregated rosters." You know, it`s a point that reminds us how sports history is American history. "The Star Spangled Banner" was sung at a World Series game for the first time in 1918 during World War I when Major League players were being drafted into service. In 1947 when Brooklyn dodger Hall of Fame infielder Jackie Robinson stepped on - became the first African-American in the 20th century to play baseball in the major leagues, smashing the color line, a segregation practice dating back to the 19th century. And then in 1955, the debut of Roberto Clemente of Puerto Rico, aka, the great one, who amassed 3,000 career hits in nearly 250 homeruns, playing the kind of baseball that turned the right fielder into a symbol for the nation`s growing Latino population. And the first foreign born player to be elected into the Hall of Fame. Possibly no other sport echoes U.S. immigration patterns as well as baseball. MLB is a $9 billion industry that aggressively courts foreign- born talent. Close to 30 percent of the players on MLBs opening day rosters this season were born outside the U.S. The Dominican Republic has topped the list each year since MLB began tracking the numbers ten years ago. And the percentage of foreign born minor league players is nearly 50 percent. As for the two teams now vying for a championship, 40 percent of the Royals active roster is foreign born. For the Mets, 28 percent. But say the phrase immigrant labor in the context of politics instead of a Major League ballpark, and the conversation changes dramatically. During this week`s GOP debate, the discussion focused on H1-B visas. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, quote, "the intents of the H-1b provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United States." These days, H-1b is largely about filling high-tech roles, science, engineering and IT. Just take a listen to two GOP candidates. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am all in favor of keeping these talented people here so they can go to work in Silicon Valley. MARCO RUBIO (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our legal immigration system from now on has to be merit based. It has to be based on what skills you have, what you can contribute economically and most important of all, on whether or not you`re coming here to become an American, not just live in America, but be an American. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: So, did you catch it? It comes down to a kind of foreign born respectability politics. The ones we want and those we don`t. And although I`ve got to say, maybe we don`t even know what we really want and need. Because immigrants make up nearly 50 percent of workers in private households and nearly a fifth in construction, food services and agriculture. Immigrant labor is the foundation of the American economy. But listening to Wednesday`s debate, you`d think the only thing the country needs from immigrants are skills that are the tech equivalent to throwing a 95-mile-per-hour fastball. Joining me now, Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church. Raul Reyes, attorney and nbcnews.com contributor. Patrick Egan, associate professor of politics and public policy at New York University. And Sayu Bhojwani who is founding director of the New American Leaders project. And joining me and my cold from Washington, D.C. is Dave Zirin, sports editor of "The Nation" magazine. Nice to see you this morning, Dave. DAVID ZIRIN: Great to see you, Melissa. HARRIS-PERRY: So, you know, when we think of Major League sports, we rarely discuss it as immigrant labor. And I guess I wonder what might happen to our public debate if in fact we did talk about it that way. ZIRIN: I think it would expand dramatically. It reminds me of during the first part of the Black Lives Matter movement. When fans in St. Louis held up signs that said "Black lives matter on and off the field." In other words, if you like us in uniforms, then you need to actually respect us when we`re outside the stadiums and not just entertaining you. It would be a similar dynamic if this was raised in Major League Baseball. If you are liking the World Series, then you probably like Johnny Cueto who is from the Dominican Republic. Then you probably like Alcides Escobar from Venezuela. On the Mets side, a folk here in New York right now is Bartolo Colon, the only Major League player in the World Series older than me. So, I look at him and I think, maybe I can play in the World Series. He still gives me that hope. Bartolo Colon also from the Dominican Republic. And I think it`s important that people recognize that part of Major League Baseball, because it`s also about recognizing some of the worst excesses of globalization. Of the idea of going into the Dominican Republic. Hyper exploitation of young Dominican kids dreams to play Major League baseball. 99 percent get thrown on the scrap heap. So, respecting that 1 percent who was able to make it, to play Major League baseball, it`s also about respecting the 99 percent who are left behind who dream of a better life. HARRIS-PERRY: So, Dave, stick with us. You know, Raul, part of what`s interesting to me here is that this isn`t just immigrant labor, these are often precisely the immigrants, black, brown, Spanish speaking immigrants that we hear most often denigrated in our public discourse around immigration. And yet, when I looked back at some data about high-skilled and highly educated immigrant labor. In fact, there`s a 2008 report from the Migration Policy Institute saying that if you are higher skilled and highly educated from Africa or from Latin American, they actually have trouble finding jobs. Whereas those from Asia and Europe are able to find these jobs. So I wonder if it`s really about high skill or something else? RAUL REYES, ATTORNEY: No, it`s really about the way the H-1b, the visa program has evolved. It`s really about serving the needs of American corporations. And basically, exploiting everyone else. And what many people don`t realize is an H-1b visa, it`s a, specifically designated as a nonimmigrant visa. You can only stay on that type of visa, if you renew it, for six years. So, basically they want people to come here, work, they often promise that they will help them obtain permanent residency. Rarely happens. They work for far less than their American counterparts. And then they are sent home. And these workers themselves are exploited because they`re tied to the company they`re working for. American workers are hurt. And also, it`s very interesting that this came up in the Republican debate. Because H-1b visas in the context of our whole immigration system and policy, it`s a very small part. There`s only 65,000 allocated a year with another 20,000 for people with masters. You know, contrast to the 11 million undocumented people we have. And even for that 65,000 people, I think this year, almost a quarter of a million people applied. I mean record numbers of people applied. And yet, that`s the only people that the GOP wanted to talk about at the debate, where the quote/unquote "good immigrants" who are going to work and then go home. HARRIS-PERRY: Well, I have to say that my favorite thing about this particular piece of immigration law is that it is both high skilled people and models. (LAUGHTER) HARRIS-PERRY: So, for some very bizarre reason, models actually ... REYES: It`s a talent. HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah, but they have the highest yield. Because far fewer people apply to be a model. So, something like 50 percent of them actually end up getting the H-1B -- just the most bizarre thing ever that it is like the model visa. And look, I`d love to put it on the GOP. I`d love to say, this is all GOP, but it`s not, right? I mean I just want to say that good versus bad immigrant thing, we actually even heard this from President Obama in a conversation he was having about deportation. So, let`s take a listen to the president back in November. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Over the past six years, deportations of criminals are up 80 percent. And that`s why we`re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felons, not families. Criminals. Not children. Gang members, not a mom who`s working hard to provide for her kids. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: I saw you take a deep breath there. What was that for? SAYU BHOJWANI, FOUNDING DIR, NEW AMERICAN LEADERS PROJECT: Well, I think it`s part of the narrative we`re being sold. That it`s not just skilled immigrants, but it`s tied to this keep America great. But the immigration and economy, immigration and fences and security. The difference between that narratives is that we are willing to accept those immigrants who are going to help keep America at the forefront of sports, at the forefront of certain sectors. But caring for our children and caring for the elderly is an equally valuable job to creating the next banking app. So if we can get to a place where the conversation becomes about immigration and immigrants as part of all of American society, then that would be a much more nuanced and, frankly, a more American conversation. But the conversation we hear, particularly in the GOP, and actually during all the debates is the palatable conversation. Because if you can tie immigration to the American economy, then you have the year of, you know, these Americans who apparently don`t include immigrants. HARRIS-PERRY: Dave, let me go back to you on this, because it does feel to me like this question of sports goes right to this American identity question. And I was also looking at data suggesting that of the kind of MLB big fights that have happened, they are consistently happening between foreign-born players and those who are American born often around this language of whether or not you really know how to play the American game. ZIRIN: Yeah. I mean, of course, it`s absurd because people from Latin America have been playing in the major leagues for over a century. There is a terrific book called "Playing America`s Game" by Professor Adrian Burgos. Everyone should read that. And it shows that the roots of the sport in the Western hemisphere are in the Americas, not in the United States. And that`s largely a myth spun. And the reason why it`s in so much of Latin America has to do with the U.S. Army. And the ways, in which a lot of these nations were conquered. So, it runs deep in the vein of the Americas, but the thing about respectability politics set my antenna up because it reminded me that, you know, respectability politics, it can`t save you at the end of the day. If we`ve learned nothing else from this last year of talking about police brutality, it`s the limits of that. And I was thinking about the players for the Arizona Diamondbacks who have been advised by their union and the team about what to do if they`re stopped by police, because what was left of SB-1070, as well as Major League players who play in the Arizona Cactus League. They all have instructions of what to do if stopped by police for fear that they`re going to get caught up in the anti-immigrant dragnet. So, this affects Major League players, too, when you have this demonization. HARRIS-PERRY: Dave Zirin just speaking all the truth from Washington, D.C. Respectability politics cannot save you. Up next, we have a new speaker of the Houses promising a new way of doing things. But does Speaker Paul Ryan`s agenda begin with the promise to do absolutely nothing? And we`ll talk about that when we get back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: The House officially has a new speaker. Here he is on Thursday with constant Republican Paul Ryan. Now Speaker of the House, a fiscal conservative who was the GOP nominee for vice president in 2012 and who now seeks to quell, a quote, "broken chamber." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. PAUL RYAN (R) WISCONSIN: The House is broken. We`re not solving problems. We`re adding to them. And I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: Reportedly, one thing that will not get done any time soon under the new speaker is immigration reform. This week, "The National Review" reported that Congressman Ryan signed off on a letter promising members of the House Freedom Caucus for the speaker he will not, quote, bring up any immigration legislation so long as Barack Obama is president and that he would not allow any immigration bill to reach the House floor unless the majority of GOP members supported it. Congressman Ryan`s office did not return multiple requests for a statement. This is real? I mean as a matter of politics, this is a real issue. We see that, you know, Republicans are more likely to not want immigration reform. Like voters, that sort of thing. So, how do we get past that to the reality of people`s lives? PATRICK EGAN, ASSOC. PROF., NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Yes, it`s really a shame because you`ve got a situation now where something like 60 to 66 percent of Americans support some kind of path to citizenships. And actually, that`s a lot of Republicans as well. So, it`s one of many issues right now on the political agenda that is blocked by partisan polarization in Washington and our institutions, which make it very difficult to do anything, unless everybody agrees. Ryan`s insistence that nothing`s going to happen while we`ve had a Democratic president means that we probably are not going to see much movement on this until 2017 at the earliest. HARRIS-PERRY: Now, you know, at least one of my producers, when that news hit, just sent me emails like I am having all the rage about this. This idea that it just definitely isn`t going to happen. REV. DR. JACQUI LEWIS, SR. MINISTER, MIDDLE COLLEGIATE CHURCH: One of the things that I`m hoping is that all our faith-based institutions will make this an election issue. That we will have conversations about especially because, especially in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, there`s this whole sense that, you know, you were once strangers. You were once strangers in the land. And because you were, you must be welcoming to strangers, kind to strangers. So, what does our faith compel us to do in terms of raising these issues? And at the actual people level. Like, we know somebody in the congregate -- I met a little guy the other day named Jesus. A waiter in a restaurant in New Jersey. Waiting on me. Was caught up in some Mexican cartel things with his family. Is here under an asylum. 4 1/2 years, still waiting for citizenship. And as soon as he started telling us his name was Jesus, he was playful about the whole faith thing. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes. LEWIS: Well, Jesus was an immigrant from Bethlehem doing his ministry in Palestine. Nothing good can come out of Bethlehem. And look what good came out of it. (LAUGHTER) LEWIS: So, I`m thinking about all the Jesuses, all the Marias, all these children who have the possibility of healing our world, if we give them a chance -- HARRIS-PERRY: So, it`s interesting, because even as you tell that story, right? Which is this kind of compelling story, even taking us to the scripture, I still worry about our good versus bad. Immigrant narrative that emerges - and it`s in part actually, even if we think about DACA. You know, activists themselves have used this as a way of getting what they can through politically palatable. BHOJWANI: You know, and I think what`s interesting about that letter and the quotes that we saw is that on the one hand, there`s - it`s purely obstructionist, right, we`re not going to do it while President Obama is president. HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah. BHOJWANI: But then there`s this other piece, that unless the majority of Republicans, so let`s get - let`s cover that base as well, because we know that`s not going to happen. Even - not even in 2017. And back to your question, Melissa, about what are we going to do in the absence? I think what`s been happening is the faith community organizing. I think the other thing that`s happening is that localities and states are take things into their control. And on the one hand that can be very negative as we saw with SB-110. But on the other hand, you know, you have in New York City municipal I.D.s. That can happen, probably in Phoenix as well. All the things that happen at the state level. Around driver`s licenses and pay equity - I`m sorry, tuition equity. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes. BHOJWANI: And so, I think we`re not going to sit there waiting for something to happen. Now, obviously, immigration reform has to be addressed. But in the last three to four years as we`ve watched Congress refuse to deal with this issue, the last thing I will say is that the fact that it`s in the negotiation with the speaker is really, really, really fascinating, right, because it means that people are scared. And they get that this is an issue. And so I`ll take some hope in that. (CROSSTALK) HARRIS-PERRY: Is there any room for executive actions at this point? EGAN: There is. You know, I think one thing that`s really happening that`s blocking that, however, is it courts - looks like courts are going to go after anything that the administration tries to do. So, we`re probably - I think there`s very little wiggle room for the Obama administration now. And it`s the kind of local and state responses to the gridlock of Washington that we`d like to see any sort of action take place, both on the conservative and liberal side between now and 2017. HARRIS-PERRY: I have to say good-bye to you all. Thank you both for being here. Jackie and Raul should be back a little bit later in the show. But still to come this morning, the story behind the rise and the redemption of Ben Carson. And up next, we`ll have an update on that Russian passenger plane and the crash in the Sinai Peninsula. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LUI: And welcome back to MSNBC. We want to bring you the latest on the breaking news that we`ve been following all morning here. The Russian passenger plane that crashed in the Sinai Peninsula. The Russian embassy in Egypt confirming no survivors. They just did that within the last two or three hours. Now, the plane, it took off from Sharm el Sheikh Airport en route to St. Petersburg, Russia. 217 passengers on board along with seven crew members. Egyptian officials say the pilot of the airliner had reported technical difficulties and wanted to make an emergency landing. But about 25 minutes after takeoff, air traffic controllers lost contact. Like to bring in international affairs correspondent, pilot and former British senior official Mikey Kay. Mikey, also just coming from the Associated Press Egypt`s foreign minister saying they`re going to work very closely with Russian officials. And that`s international collaboration as we know, then they are bringing in forces and brains from all the over world to try to find out what happened on the ground there. MIKEY KAY, FMR. BRITISH SENIOR OFFICER: Yeah, whenever - whenever a board of inquiry is convened of this nature, there are certain critical components that need to be involved in that investigation. The first one will be the design manufacturer. So it will be Airbus, so that`ll be French officials involved there. The country with which - within which the aircraft went down. Obviously, Egypt in this case, they will be responsible for coordinating and running the investigation. And then you`ve got Russia, a Russian operator, so Russian - Russian officials will be heavily involved as well as all of those subject matter experts ... LUI: Looking for these black boxes, looking at the size of the debris that they might find? KAY: Yeah, at the moment there are reports saying that the fuselage is relatively intact, almost snapped in two. Which I think - which I think gives us a number of clues when it comes to understanding what happened. For example, if you look at MH-17, so anyone that`s sort of indicating there might have been a shootdown, there is no credible evidence. But for example, the MH-17 aircraft that was shot down over 30,000 feet by a Buk missile system, the Dutch safety board concluded that not so long ago, that was spread over 50 kilometers radius. If you look at the German Wings Airbus that remained relatively intact and the debris field was spread over three to four football fields. LUI: 4:37 in the afternoon there in Egypt. When it hit night fall, do they stop? Because they don`t have much more than a couple of hours there. KAY: Well, I think the area which has come down as quite austere. It`s kind of north of the most mountainous region on the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai is very mountainous. But there`s still elevation there in terms of terrain. It`s very hot, it`s very arid. This is also an area that has an insurgency in it. The Sinai province which is an affiliate of the Islamic State has been targeting Egyptian soldiers in that region for all year. It`s also actually gone into Cairo. So, these will be factors when the Egyptian authorities and the officials will be setting up the perimeter ... LUI: The security of those who are on the ground is what you`re saying? KAY: Absolutely. And if it`s limited - then they will be allowed to look by night. But it`s obviously got to vary on other security factors as well. LUI: Any time concerning here? Of course, we were looking at the black boxes in other crashes in the past? KAY: There are all reports, I mean the black box is the critical. And let`s break those down into two. You`ve got the flight data recorder and then you`ve got the - voice recorder. They`re separate. We know from the MH-370 they were never found. It look a long time for Asia Air for them to be found because they landed in the ocean. But there are already reports that these boxes have been identified. And they will be absolutely critical to the subsequent investigation. Hopefully, there will be an earlier, rather than later, conclusion of what happened. LUI: National correspondent, pilot, former British senior official Mikey Kay, thanks for giving us your perspective on what we know right now. Stick with us. Back to Melissa Harris Perry right after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: The U.S. mission in Syria is about to get more complicated. The White House announced Friday that a small contingent of Special Operations Forces will be sent to northern Syria to work with opposition fighters who are battling ISIS. But the White House insists the U.S. Forces will play an advisory role. And they will not be engaging in direct combat. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think if we were envisioning a combat operation, we probably would be contemplating more than 50 troops on the ground. But because the responsibility they have is not to lead the charge to take a hill, but rather, to offer advice and assistance to those local forces about the best way they can organize their efforts to take the fight to ISIL or to take the hill inside of Syria. That is the role that they will be playing. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: Joining me now from Washington, Hillary Mann-Leverett, former State Department and White House Middle East adviser and author of "Going to Tehran," also CEO of Strateger, a political risk consultancy. So, Hillary, what do you make of this very small contingent, just 50 or so individuals? How much of this is really an escalation? HILLARY MANN-LEVERETT, FMR. STATE DEPT. AND WH MIDDLE EAST EXPERT: Well, unfortunately, I think as the White House spokesman said later in his briefing to the press, it really isn`t much of a change in the Obama administration strategy, which is unfortunate, because the strategy for the past four years has, I think, by all standards, really been a failure. But it`s led to a massive death and destruction inside of Syria, the neighboring states and massive refugee outflows. So, this is really I think, unfortunately, more of the same. In addition to the 50 or so Special Forces, they`ve also allocated another $100 million to Syrian rebels to increase the fighting, increasing the bloodshed in Syria. So, the strategy hasn`t gone well - for four years, and this is unfortunately an indication of more of the same. HARRIS-PERRY: Now, that said, the White House is also apparently redoubling diplomatic efforts. Secretary of State Kerry saying that there`s now a role also for Iran in those diplomatic efforts. So, how do you see the kind of boots on the ground even if they are limited contingent relating to those efforts? MANN-LEVERETT: Well, they seem to be operating in parallel universes. Secretary of State Kerry when briefing reporters in Vienna during these very important diplomatic talks that do for the first time include Iran, which is terribly tremendously significant. He said to reporters that he was just made aware that the White House had finally -- had made the decision to send the 50 Special Forces to Syria. So it seems like there is a bit of disconnect between the diplomatic operation and the military operation. The diplomatic piece is potentially a very significant silver lining to an otherwise failed strategy. We saw Secretary Kerry with President Obama`s support lead two years of intense negotiations with Iran that came to this incredibly important deal with Iran. Hopefully, secretary can do the same thing with Syria. But the military strategy the White House is pursuing I think will impede his efforts rather than support them. HARRIS-PERRY: You know, it`s the kind of military strategy that at least initially, it seems like no one is happy. Either folks want many, many more boots on the ground or are irritated that any are showing up there. What`s your sense then of kind of the internal politics of this decision? MANN-LEVERETT: Unfortunately, I think it`s a lowest common denominator type of decision. To try to make - if not make everybody happy, at least not make everybody completely unhappy or have the unhappiness spread across the board. But we`ve seen the slippery slope strategy all over the world. It never works. Whether it`s advisers to Vietnam, to the Contras in Nicaragua, to Afghanistan, Syria. The intelligence support we`re giving to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, it fails across the board. I think it is very much a product of domestic infighting within not just the administration, but Congress, the military, the intelligence agencies. And it`s a lowest common denominator approach that does not work. Fortunately for President Obama, he does have Secretary Kerry who is dogged in his pursuit of diplomacy. That`s really the only way forward here. HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you to Hillary Mann-Leverett in Washington, D.C. Appreciate you joining us. MANN-LEVERETT: Thank you. HARRIS-PERRY: Up next, the new front-runner and how a story of redemption is fueling the surge for Republican Dr. Ben Carson. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: A new NBC News online poll conducted by Survey Monkey found that retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has made a 12 point surge since last month to tie Donald Trump to head of the pack of contenders vying for the Republican nomination for the presidency. It follows the poll - earlier this week, where for the first time in a national survey, Carson surpassed Trump at the number one spot. Carson`s lead is even wider in another recent poll of likely Iowa caucus goers who prefer him to Trump by a whopping 14 point margin. Carson support in Iowa has increased across all ideological groups, but his biggest bump comes from Christian Evangelical voters, who`ve given him an 18 point lead, a significant increase from the six point lead he held just two months ago. Carson, a member of the Seventh Day Adventists Church, makes his religious beliefs a key component of his political persona and his message has resonated among the faithful. In a recent "De Moines Register" poll, 89 percent of Iowa Republicans agreed that Dr. Carson is an attractive candidate precisely because he says his decisions would be guided by his faith in God. And among this large and influential bloc of religious Republican voters, a pass that could be a liability for another candidate has become for Carson an affirmation of authenticity of his faith. Recounting a story about his history as a violent and angry young man, Dr. Carson told NBC`s Chuck Todd last week about a pivotal moment from his past. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. BEN CARSON: There was a time when I was, you know, very volatile. But I changed. CHUCK TODD, NBC CORRESPONDENT: When was that? CARSON: As a teenager, I would go after people with rocks and bricks and baseball bats and hammers. And, of course, many people know the story, when I was 14 and I tried to stab someone. And, you know, fortunately, you know, my life has been changed and I`m a very different person now. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: It`s a story that Carson has frequently recounted since he first rose to national fame with his 1996 autobiography "Gifted Hands." And in his telling of it, Carson says after praying and reading the Bible following the incident, he got control of his temper and found his faith. With me again, the Reverend Dr. Jacquie Lewis from the Middle Collegiate Church. And joining me now from Washington D.C., Joshua Dubois, who is CEO of "Partnership" and former director of the White House Faith-Based Initiative and author of "The President`s Devotional: The Daily Readings That Inspired President Obama." Nice to have you, Josh. Let me ask you specifically about the way that sort of this discourse of redemption, of having been one kind of young man and now being someone else, how that might be influencing how Dr. Carson is seen? JOSHUA DUBOIS, FMR. DIR., WH FAITH BASED INITIATIVE: Sure. Well, you know, there are simple answers to our challenges on race in this country and complicated ones. And Evangelicals are responding to Dr. Carson and Republicans more broadly are responding to him because he`s providing a simple answer. He`s basically saying, look, I was a troubled young man, just like you see a lot of troubled young people today, and all I did was I went in my prayer closet, I prayed and God turned me around. He`s basically saying that the issues on race in our country as they were embodied in his life can be solved by personal responsibility alone. So, he`s absolving the country of having to have a serious conversation about these issues. And that has great appeal because it means that no one else is to blame except African-Americans. But I think in the long run it`s a real challenge for the conversation on race that we need to be having. HARRIS-PERRY: So, hold for me, a second, Jacqui, because this is an interesting point, that evangelicalism is a strong aspect of many African- American, particularly Christian faith communities. And yet, over and over again in the polls, we see black evangelicals look different than their white counterparts on a variety of issues. And I wonder if it goes to, what Doctor just saying there, about this kind of easy, hard answer question? LEWIS: I think Josh is right about the place where the simple answer doesn`t work for African-American folks. I think we understand our faith is a really important part of our lives. And we know that there`s something about personal transformation. But I think the black church and I think most black Christians, no matter, evangelical or progressive, understand the transformation isn`t just an individual transaction. We would say we`re not saved until everybody`s saved. So, the transformation of systems. The eradication of poverty, housing, you know, health care, all of those kinds of things, that justice, pocket of faith, I think is really important for black folks. And here is, just to sort of say a little more about the Ben Carson phenomenon, I think his narrative I mean as a young black person, he was my hero. HARRIS-PERRY: Sure. LEWIS: I think all of us are captivated by this story like Paul, you know, I used to be violent, I was blind and now I can see. But there`s something that is missing if the narrative doesn`t continue to evolve to where individual responsibility can`t be the only answer and that there has to be some corporate responsibility as a part of our faith. HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah, Josh, let me - Josh, I want to play for you, though, because as much as I hear that I just have got to say, my colleague Chris Jansing was in Colorado and really did captured some extremely strong feelings of support for Dr. Carson. Let`s take a listen, then I`ll come to you. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love the man. CHRIS JANSING, NBC CORRESPONDENT: And you`ll vote for him? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, honey, I would give him everything I had, honest to god. JANSING: You`re very emotional. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am serious, I would. I love him. He needs to save our country and our country needs saved. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ve known for a long time he was a brilliant man and a man that God has gifted in many ways. And now that America is so sick, we need a doctor. We need a doctor to heal us. And that`s all there is to it. JANSING: So, is there any doubt who you`re going to vote for for president? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, there isn`t. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: Josh. DUBOIS: Yeah, you know, we have had a really tough couple of years as a country. And I think some of these same voters are looking at the challenges that we are seeing in Baltimore, in Ferguson. Even the deaths of nine African-Americans in Charleston. And they don`t know what to do with that. And here, Ben Carson presents a solution. If you can just, like he did, go into his prayer closet. And if you just, you know, pull yourself up by your boot straps, then the challenges with race and the challenges that we`re facing as a country will be solved. Now, we know it`s not as simple as that and that we`ve been grappling with these issues for a couple of centuries, but they don`t want to hear that. What they get to do is support this nice soft spoken doctor. And be absolved of all of these issues. And I think that`s why you`re seeing this outpouring of emotion. He`s a candidate to support, but unfortunately, a candidate that I think would take our country down a really problematic path. LEWIS: I agree with that. I think even more pointedly I would say this read on to the black body thing. This is a black body that can be read on to with all this evangelical fervor, nonthreatening black body, non-angry black body, speak-sharing our values black body. So, I would really love to hear Dr. Carson talk about Black Lives Matter and see how many people would stay supportive about him then. HARRIS-PERRY: No, it`s so interesting. I`ve got to say - we just have no time today, but like some of what I`ve heard from both of you today is discourse that is not unlike we heard in 2007 about then Senator Obama. This idea that it was easy to support him or that he could do god-talk in a particular way, and then that`s of course, precisely not what the experience of his actual presidency has been. But it is an interesting set of questions we will undoubtedly have to come back to. Thank you to Joshua Dubois in Washington, D.C. and here in New York, thank you to Reverend Jacqui Lewis. Still to come this morning, updates on the Russian passenger plane that crashed in the Sinai Peninsula. Plus, the South Carolina school where the video, what we can learn from it. Much more at the top of the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: Welcome back. I`m Melissa Harris Perry. And we have a lot to get to this hour, including the classroom confrontation between a school resource officer and a 16-year-old student. But we begin with the latest on the crash of a Russian jetliner in Egypt`s Sinai Peninsula. My colleague Richard Lui joins me now -- Richard. LUI: Good morning, Melissa. Egyptian officials now say all 224 people aboard the Russian jetliner were killed when that plane crashed in the mountainous area of the Sinai Peninsula. The plane, an Airbus 321, was en route from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, Russia, when that flight disappeared from radar about 25 minutes after takeoff. Relatives of the passengers have been gathering at the airport in St. Petersburg, waiting for updates. The majority of those onboard are believed to be Russian, which could be the biggest aviation disaster in the country`s post-Soviet history. All right. Joining us right now is NBC`s Ron Mott in London. And, Ron, as we get closer to the end of the day, what do we know about the final moments of this flight and any developments that you`re hearing as well? MOTT: Good morning, again, Richard. Yes, you spoke about the passengers being mostly Russian, that is correct, 224 in all, 221 Russians and there were three Ukrainians on this flight, 217 passengers. A crew of seven. And what we`re learning in the last moments of this flight, there were some abnormalities if you will in the smooth and level flight this flight appeared to have been on before something went wrong at altitude 35,000, 36,000 feet, and then they plunged 6,000 feet, about 6,000 feet in a minute, which is usually normal but that`s a lot of altitude to give up in 60 seconds time. And there did appear to be some up and down motion, if you will, in those final moments of the crash. We can tell you Russian officials are already on the way to Egypt. Vladimir Putin has announced tomorrow will be a day of mourning, a national day of mourning. And they have also sent investigators from their transport agencies, which regulates commercial travel in Russia to the offices, the Moscow offices, of this carrier, Metro Jet, and apparently they have seized some documents. Now, we can tell you that last year, last spring, March of 2014, when they had their last routine safety inspection, that the government found some violations. And gave the airline some time to correct those violations and apparently the airline did just that. Made those corrections and get back up in the air. The flight that was operating today is Flight 9268 was a charter flight. So, a lot of these folks were on vacation, returning to Russia from the very popular tourist destination of Sharm el-Sheikh. And obviously they did not make it all the way home. And you mentioned, Richard, there are families that are gathering in St. Petersburg tonight. Just past 6:00 there in the Moscow area. Gathering to get this bad news and what happens now going forward. This is going to be a rather lengthy investigation I would imagine and they`re still recovering bodies at this hour. We can tell you there were 17 children among those on this aircraft. So, a really tragic day for Russia especially -- Richard. LUI: Richard, what have you heard about those key black boxes? MOTT: They -- we are just getting word now from Egyptian state television that they have recovered the plane`s black boxes. That would be, of course, the flight data recorder. Those will be analyzed over the next few hours, days and weeks perhaps and we should glean a lot more information about what exactly happened in the air there. The pilot, we were told, did make a distress call. Said that he was dealing with some technical problems with the aircraft and that he was looking to land at the nearest airport. Now, I believe Cairo was going to believe that airport. She did not make any move before the radar was lost, Richard. LUI: All right. NBC`s Ron Mott following the story for us all this morning from London. Thank you so much. I`d like to bring in now, international affairs correspondent, pilot and former British senior official Michael Kay. Also joining us is retired airline pilot and NBC News aviation specialist John Cox. John, starting with you on this -- Egyptian officials saying that a black box was found from the Russian airliner here. Ron Mott just telling us that. So, that`s new this hour. What do you expect to learn from this? It has hundreds of pieces of information in how the mechanical versus the digital might be working here. CAPTAIN JOHN COX, MSNBC/NBC NEWS AVIATION ANALYST: Well, the parameters reported on the recorder are very numerous. This will tell us the tale of what the airplane did. The cockpit voice recorder will give us additional insight into the conversations that the pilots had. And when you put those two together, you get a pretty complete picture of what actually happened. We know this much, we know that the airplane reached its cruising altitude. We know that the captain or one of the pilots said they had a technical problem and that they wanted to land. There`s conflicting information about where they wanted to go. But they did intend to land the airplane. The airplane started down, the descent rate was high but within the normal fly parameters. And for reasons that we don`t yet know, this descent continued all the way to the ground. Beyond that, it gets pretty speculative. I think we`ll know in short order if we have the recorders. LUI: And that 6,000 feet permitted is within normal parameters? COX: Yes, yes. LUI: OK. All right -- COX: Yes, it is something most pilots or most passengers have experienced on commercial airliners. They just may not have known the magnitude of it. But it`s well within the operating envelope of commercial airliners. LUI: OK. Mikey Kay is also here with us. So, Mikey, you were mentioning the black boxes before we went on air. They found it. That`s new at this hour. And the piece of information so key, which may mean that new issue of debris we`ve been talking about this morning may not be as difficult as some of us were worried about. KAY: Yes, the two black boxes, cockpit voice recorder, fundamental to getting the investigation under way. If you go back to MH370 and the pings from the black boxes, we never actually found them. And so, the first thing is you identify the debris and the debris hopefully takes you to the black boxes. And it looks in this case, they`ve been found pretty expeditiously. I think the other thing that`s happened pretty quickly as well is actually bringing together the investigation. The state of occurrence, there`s four key components to any investigation. The first one is the state of occurrence, which would be Egypt. They have the legal responsibility to start bringing the investigation about. Then you`ve got the state register. That appears to be island. You`ve got state of design of manufacturer, which would be Airbus, which will be France. And then you`ve got the operator, which would be Russia. And we know Russia has set up an investigation. "Reuters" are already reporting they`re checking into some of the fuel samples and they`ve also opened a criminal investigation against the airline as well. LUI: Just to clarify about the black box. They`ve located, they know the location. They have not actually been able to harvest it as of yet. That`s the latest we`re hearing from our news desk. John Cox, to build off what Mikey Kay was saying here, the fuel sample is number one. Why? Number two, speaking with Metro Jet employees, both in Russia, and three, the travel agency that appears to have chartered this jet. As an investigator, what are you going to be gathering from these pieces? COX: As an investigator of something over 30 years of experience, the first thing you do is you start compiling evidence. And then you begin to exclude the things that are not contributing. Certainly, they`ll look at the fuel. They`ll look at the weather. They`ll look at the mechanical status of the airplane. They`ll look at pilot training. They`ll look at cabin training. They will look at air traffic control procedures. What you do as an investigator is you gather an enormous amount of data, you document it, and then that leads you to your areas of focus. And that narrows it down so you understand what happened to the airplane. And, equally, you have the evidence and data to support those conclusions. LUI: Mikey, finishing with you very quickly, they are getting into the evening. We talked about this a little bit earlier. And the question is, you know, every moment certainly counts, especially for the families. KAY: Yes, every moment counts. It`s vitally important to secure the area. And it appears the area is relatively small in this case. However, there are other additional problems. To the south of Sinai, you have a very mountainous region, very arid. The crash apparently did take place slightly north of that. You`ve also got this insurgency. The Sinai Province is an affiliate of the Islamic State. They`ve been incredibly active on the Sinai Peninsula, both bombing Egyptian soldiers. They`ve had IEDs in Cairo. They`ve just been very active. So, that`s something that`s going to be on the forefront of the Egyptian authority`s minds when they try to secure the area, as John says, process this data and make sure that, you know, the criminal investigation can occur before the flight investigation can. LUI: And again, new this hour, they have identified the location of one of those black boxes. We`re just getting that information in. Ron Mott saying Egyptian officials and media reporting that. Thank you so much, John Cox. Thank you so much here in New York, Mikey Kay. We`ll keep you updated on the story. But now, back to Melissa Harris-Perry -- Melissa. HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you, Richard. When we come back, the latest on the 16-year-old girl hurled from her desk by a school resource officer in a South Carolina classroom. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: Welcome back. I`m Melissa Harris-Perry in New York. And an undoubtedly, you`ve seen the video by now. A disturbing act of school violence so hard to watch that it is incomprehensible to imagine what it must have been like to actual experience it. The video of school violence is not a mass shooting or playground brawl. It`s a Monday morning math class at Spring Valley high school in South Carolina. The intervention by an officer doesn`t seem to stop the violence. It seems to initiate and aggravate it. As the school resource officer Ben Fields hauls a 16-year-old girl across the floor and arrests her after she refuses to leave her classroom, the student who according to her lawyer had recently moved to a foster home after the death of her mother was reportedly caught using her cellphone during class. The girl, whose name has not been released, refused the teacher`s request to put her phone aside and later to leave the classroom. When a school administrator asked the student to leave, she continued to refuse. At that point, school resource officer Ben Fields was called in to remove the student. She also refused his demand for her to leave with him. And the video shows part of what happened next. Some of the student`s classmates reported the officer as he removed the student from her desk by flipping her backward by the neck, pulling her out of her toppled chair, and dragging her across the room before arresting her. The student`s attorney says she now has a cast on her arm, with neck and back injuries. Wednesday, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott fired Fields for failing to follow training protocol when he was called to the classroom. The Justice Department Civil Rights Division along with the FBI and U.S. attorney`s office in Columbia, South Carolina have launched a civil rights investigation into the incident. Still, Fields attorney maintains his client`s actions were justified. In a statement released on Wednesday, the attorney wrote, in part, "We believe that Mr. Fields` actions were justified and lawful. We believe that Mr. Fields` actions were carried out professionally and that was he was performing his job within the legal threshold." His job duties, it`s interesting. I mean, what are the duties in high school? There are English and math and history and science teachers, principals and guidance counselors, the janitorial and food service staff provide critical services. We might expect to encounter volunteer parents or front office administrators, librarians, coaches, choral directors, pretty much any made for TV after school special, that cast of characters is going to appear. But over the course of the past 20 years, another group of professionals is increasingly performing their job duties in our high schools, police officers. So, why was an officer like Ben Fields at Spring Valley High School on Monday? Well, Fields is part of the school resource officer or SRO program. The particular education initiative was part of a group of school policies initiated as part of the get tough on crime policies of the 1990s that introduced zero tolerance policies. Zero tolerance for children. These policies led to an uptick in suspensions for small infractions like talking back to teachers or being disrupted. And as the number of suspensions rose, schools relied increasingly on the presence of officers, school resource officers in the classroom. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of SROs in schools increase from 9,000 to 413,000. According to the National Center on Education Statistics, SROs are officers deployed by the police departments to collaborate with schools and organizations to engage in community policing. And SRO is meant to both police and act as a guidance counselor, a mentor, an adviser for students. That appears to be far from the role Officer Fields played Monday in South Carolina`s Spring Valley High. Joining me now, Carla Shedd, assistant professor of sociology at African- American studies at Columbia University, and author of "Unequal City: Race, Schools and Perceptions of Injustice", Raul Reyes, who is attorney and NBCNews.com contributor, Francine Sherman, who`s clinical professor and director of Juvenile Rights Advocacy Program, and an associate professor at Boston College Law School, and Gregory Thomas, senior executive for law enforcement operations at Kings County D.A. and a former director of security at New York City Schools. So let me start with you. When you see that video, you see job duties performed in the way that an SRO is meant to be performing job duties? GREGORY THOMAS, SR. EXEC. LAW ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS, KINGS CTY DA: No, I don`t. It`s very troubling. I also see a very bad decision made by other adults. So, people -- you see that incident for what it is right now. Back to the decision that was made by another adult, the administrator in that room who called for the SRO in the first place. Because I think over time, their role has devolved into being, you know, guidance counselors, as you mentioned earlier, also being involved in discipline. Their roles in schools were never meant to be that way. They are police officers. They`re taught, you know, police tactics. He made the wrong decision clearly by intervening the way that he did. But the problem is he was called in the first place. HARRIS-PERRY: This is not a small point. It feels like this is part of what makes this video -- I mean, I find all of the videos we have been watching over the past year very hard to watch. But typically, we`ve been seeing videos between police officers and young men or women in traffic stops, in policing situations, having it happen in the schools feels like a particularly kind of emotional violation. CARLA SHEDD, AUTHOR, UNEQUAL CITY: Yes, sight definitely matters. The fact we have this violence you would maybe expect from a routine encounter that goes bad on the street happen in a classroom is even more alarming. But it`s not uncommon. There are arrests every day in schools across the country. In Chicago last year, there were 3,000 arrests. That number is so low in comparison to the early 2000s when we were really ramping up the police in schools. Overall, there have been about 92,000 arrests a year of all kids in schools. So, it`s not uncommon. All of these arrests aren`t happening very gently. In fact, they could be very brutal. The kids said they took him down like a man. They treated this child like a grown man. So, they could see the horror and the sort of trauma that comes from these interventions. HARRIS-PERRY: Every time I hear this language, it was an arrest in school, you know, there are things one should be arrested for in school and in other places, right, breaking what I think everyone would reflect and understand as our laws. But I just got to say, I mean, I get what would be irritating for a teenager to not put their phone down. I get why it`s irritating when they don`t jump and do what you ask them to do. I totally -- I also figured, teenagers, part of what they do is push back against authority. Heck, part of our job as teachers is to teach them how to push back against authority. FRANCINE SHERMAN. DR. JUVENILE RIGHTS ADVOCACY PROJECT: Right. And it`s not criminal, right? HARRIS-PERRY: It doesn`t feel criminal. SHERMAN: Right. And this is what happens with SROs. But it also happens with charging decisions, because you know, this story didn`t end at the end of the tape. My understanding is that this particular girl who was assaulted and another girl were charged with disturbing schools which is a very common charge for things like speaking out of turn, talking loudly, being disruptive, not obeying the teacher. And that really wasn`t the intention of that law or other laws like it or the role of SROs. HARRIS-PERRY: It makes me wonder, to go back to your point about police officers in schools, they have to be doing something. So, if you have a math teacher, they`re going to be teaching math. And if you a food service worker, they`re going to be providing lunch every day. But if you`re just a police officer standing around waiting for a mass shooter, the fact is that`s pretty unlikely to happen. And so, we find things for them to do, like criminalizing the schools (ph). REYES: Right. What is happening unfortunately is that the presence of these police officers, we are importing the ratio -- the disproportionate ratio into the schools. We see that, what is amazing is that we even see that in research from preschool, where you see that black kids in preschool are far more likely to be suspended than white kids. This continues at all educational levels, for black girls, especially. And the other thing that`s interesting, certainly, black and white students are suspended. That`s what teenagers do. They act out. That`s part of adolescent. HARRIS-PERRY: Right. Teachers and parents are supposed to teach boundaries and how to do it reasonably and respectfully. That`s part of the job. REYES: Right. And yet when you look at the type of offenses, white kids are suspended for documented offense, maybe breaking a window, doing graffiti. Black kids and children of color are suspended for highly subjective things, attitude, being defiant, talking back, much more subjective criteria. And we end up with a dangerous place in the classroom, like in that institute. Who would have thought, when you have the choice between a girl being defiant in the classroom and refusing to leave, how is that more disturbing than this police officer traumatizing the whole classroom with that very violent act. HARRIS-PERRY: Well, I have to say for me the piece of -- I kept refusing to watch it for a long time. But the piece that just got me is that this young woman was in foster care. And we know that -- we know from these data these are the most vulnerable young women, highly likely to end up in the juvenile justice system, often vulnerable to a variety of other trauma and abuse. Apparently has a parent who recently died. I feel like the school should have said, hey, by the way, this is a student experiencing trauma. We should expect to see acting out behavior. REYES: As an at-risk student. HARRIS-PERRY: This is an at-risk student. Let`s sort of pull our arms around the student, not our handcuffs. THOMAS: That`s my point, because again, the administrators in the school knew her better than ever he could know her, right? And we have to be careful we don`t vilify the entire SRO program, because there are some SROs that I personally having travelled the country and train SROs, they are very sensitive to these issues. But in this case, it clearly wasn`t told who she was. I think there`s ways you could have dealt with that through de-escalation tactics. Whether it be before he got there or while he was there. He also did a very poor thing tactically. I mean, to take her down like that in the classroom full of students who might at that point revolt against that action. You`re asking for trouble, right? So he didn`t think this thing through fully. SHERMAN: But also, one of the things you see when you look at the tape is the reaction of the other kids. One of the disturb things, these kids looking down, trying to cover their faces. I mean, it was clearly a dramatic event all around. If you play out into the juvenile justice system, what we see is that girls experiences of trauma and reactions to trauma are criminalized, mislabeled, and they drive them into the system. SHEDD: And I`m glad we`re talking about different systems because we see failure at every turn. Here, you now have the welfare system and the school system, parents missing. So we are really losing kids. She probably felt the safest in the classroom. I mean, from the research, kids say they feel the safest in class or walking in school or in the hallways. So, we failed her. REYES: That`s where those at-risk kids should be when they have an unstable home life. And they`re not together. They should be in school. They shouldn`t be being suspended, although, you know, I think there is some good news. We`re seeing from Department of Education. Some different places like LUSD (ph) where they`re moving towards restorative justice programs, trying to move away from that. There`s some good news in terms of the reform. HARRIS-PERRY: So, it`s interesting. I want to go back, we`re going to take a break. But when we come back, you were talking about the reactions of other students. We`re going to talk about another part of this story out of South Carolina, there are been some reactions from the other students. You might be surprised to discover what those reactions are. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: Friday morning, nearly 100 Spring Valley high school students staged a walkout at 10:00 a.m. to express their support for former officer Ben Fields -- the student resource officer who was fired for dragging a 16-year-old student from her desk following a call for assistance. The participating students, many wearing "Free Fields" or #bringbackfields t-shirts gathered together for ten minutes to share their thoughts on Officer Fields. In an e-mail to parents, the principal described the walkout as safe and productive. So, Carla, we found this to be really interesting. This Officer Fields has also been someone who was an assistant coach on the football team. And this sense that there was support for this officer, despite this. And I`m wondering, given the research, talking to young people, do you find that surprising or not surprising? SHEDD: I don`t. There`s great nuance in how young people view the people there as authority figures. They may say I hate police but they love Officer Hernandez. You know, I was walking down the hallway about to interview the kid, he`s like, give me a dollar, officer. And then later he`s like, don`t like police. And we have to talk about that. And so, with this, you know, walkout and show of support, they may have had a personal connection with him and positive interactions matter. It`s just the negative interactions matter a great deal more, and the psychological research shows us. That`s why it`s interesting when I saw this video, the police officer in D.C. doing the dance contest, the nae nae, and I said, this is a moment of positive interaction but the girl she was dancing with said she had had no personal contact with police but multiple kind of vicarious perceptions of injustice and seeing how they treated her, you know, siblings and her family. So, this one positive moment is there. But it doesn`t disrupt everything else she`s seen. HARRIS-PERRY: So, you know, this is -- that feels like such a critically important point, even as Raul was saying. You know, the White House is clearly on criminal justice reform, policing reform, trying to talk about trying to talk about how create community-based policing. We love that D.C. video. It felt like, oh, look, here is an officer behaving as though a young person is not a threat to them. And yet, I wonder how much -- is that enough to actually change the relationships between policing authorities and the communities where they are? THOMAS: No, it`s not. It`s an ongoing process, too. And I had the pleasure of being with the police chiefs in the White House with the president when he discussed reform practices. He was trying to go down the path of doing. But, again, every time you take a step forward, sometimes these things like this take you four steps back. So, the challenge is going to be everyday interaction police have with people in the community, has to be on a professional respect level. It has to go both ways. Some decisions not being made by people who are contacted by police to bring things to another level so it`s a matter of balance. HARRIS-PERRY: I want to dig in just a little bit on the feelings that the 16-year-old girl might have about the walkout. And, again, I want to emphasize that students have every right to support this officer. I think there may have been some very good reasons for doing so. I do also wonder for young women who have been traumatized, how frequently the young women are blamed for the experiences of trauma they have. I want to listen to the sheriff on Wednesday, actually placing that blame and then I come back to you on that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SHERIFF LEON LOTT, RICHLAND COUNTY, SC: We must not lose sight this whole incident started by this student. She is responsible for initiating this action. There`s some responsibility that falls on her. Now, the action of her deputies, I`ll take -- we take responsibility for that. We also have to put responsibility on her for disrupting that school, disrupting that class, and causing this incident to start from the very beginning. (END VIDEO CLIP) SHERMAN: So, you know, it`s hard to listen to that. What we know now is the developmental lens is the right lens for schools, for justice systems. It`s about fairness. It`s about the perception of fairness. And girls, very many of them girls of color who are in the system, who are 61 percent of girls in the juvenile justice system, don`t perceive it as a fair system. And that`s really what we want to strive for in this kind of thing. I mean, these are sort of understandable responses to trauma we see and they`re criminalized. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes, we`ve seen young women who are traumatized, often abused, experiencing loss and then having this kind of additional victimization. It`s very hard to hear, you know, it`s her fault. REYES: But that`s the state of how this country views black people, black youth, black girls. We`ve talked about it on this show. The pathology our society assigns to black victims of crime, especially in encounters with police. But what is to me, it is great we have this video that -- so this incident could be brought to light and other videos have, you know, literally shined a lot on these problems. But what is also troubling to me is I think now we`re reaching the point where not only do you have to have a near perfect victim so they can be totally unassailable in assigning guilt, but also if there`s not a video, people will not even believe it. I fear we`re reaching the point when these incidents happen, people will demand to see a video and if there isn`t one, they will discount it. Even when we have the videos, over time, we`re seeing these videos have been used more often to maybe absolve the student or the victim but not necessarily leading to charges of punishment of the officer involved. Look at Eric Garner. Having the video, the video record cuts both ways. HARRIS-PERRY: I want to say thank you to Carla Shedd, Raul Reyes, Francine Sherman and Gregory Thomas. And up next, we want to get you the latest on that Russian passenger plane crash that left 200 people dead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LUI: We`ve got new information now on the breaking news we`ve been following. State-run television there in Egypt reporting investigative team has identified the location of one of the black boxes of the passenger plane that crashed in the Sinai Peninsula. The Russian embassy in Egypt confirming there are no survivors. A recovery teams are working to transport bodies to a morgue in Cairo. Now, the airliner was traveling from Sharm el Sheikh airport to St. Petersburg, Russia, 217 passengers were on board along with seven crew members. Relatives of the passengers have been gathering at the airport in St. Petersburg, waiting for updates. And we have one of our producers headed that way soon right here on MSNBC, we`ll go to her when we are able to reach her. For now, let`s go to NBC News correspondent Ron Mott who`s been up all morning and night looking at what`s happening on this flight. The Metro Jet A321 that has crashed, and now as you`re reporting, at least in our last discussion, Ron, and that is that the state-run television reporting they found one of those boxes. MOTT: A crucial piece of evidence obviously, Richard. But this investigation is only just beginning. In fact, we just heard from one of the Russian aviation regulators who says it`s simply too early to say exactly what caused this plane to fall out of the sky. Whether it was a technical malfunction, whether there was some sort of outside force that caused this plane to go down or whether this was sort of human error on the part of the pilots. We can tell you that the Russians said they were given promises by the Egyptians that they will be fully cooperating with them. Vladimir Putin has called for a day of morning, a national day of mourning tomorrow. He has sent a team of people down to Egypt to the site of this crash to help find out exactly what happened. We know they have also sent investigators into the Moscow offices of this airline metro jet. As you mentioned, they were last inspected back in March of 2014 and had some issues, had some problems that the government gave them some time to correct. Apparently they did meet those deadlines and were able to go back in the air. It`s not a huge fleet. We understand it`s fewer than ten aircraft in the fleet for metro jet. This is a carrier, in American terms, a discount carrier, if you will, flying people back and forth down especially to Egypt, which is a popular vacation spot for them. But a couple of things that they`re going to be looking at, Richard, in terms of the investigation at the airport in Sharm el-Sheikh, will be the fuel that was used to refuel that aircraft. Also, they want to see footage, camera footage of anyone who had access to the exterior of the plane while it sat there on the ground before service before being loaded with passengers and taken off on this ill-fated flight, Richard. LUI: NBC`s Ron Mott reporting for us. Thank you, Ron. Melissa Harris-Perry will be back right after this. Stick around. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: We know that black girls in public elementary and high schools across the country are suspended or expelled at six times the rate of their white counterparts. What are the lived experiences of navigating the stereotypes and expectations that so frequently define girls of color as defiant or disruptive, impervious, even criminal? It can be dizzying to try to navigate a world where studies show sometimes the adults meant to guide, mentor and teach you often perceive you as a problem and expect less from you than from other students. Girls for Gender Equity, an organization that supports young women of color, spoke with a few high schooler about their special experiences with discipline in schools. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think with being a black girl, it`s automatic assumption you`re going to be louder in the classroom or the problem child. MIASIA: It makes me feel misunderstood and I`m very cautious now of what I do in school because I know if I say something, then it would be taken to the extreme. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I focus on how my teacher makes me feel, not the positive energy around me. It causes me to really shut down and not want to be there. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: Joining me now are some representatives from girls for gender equity, who this week participated in a White House forum on girls of color and public systems, Gloria Malone, Hyunhee Chin, and Tee Emanuel are all advocates for Girls for Gender Equity. And, Brittany Braithwaite is a community organizer for the group. Thank you all for being here. So, I found the video, the South Carolina video we were seeing in the break, really hard to watch. But I`m wondering if any of you have witnessed in your classrooms in your experiences something similar? GLORIA MALONE, ADVOCATE, GIRLS FOR GENDER EQUITY: Well, when I was in elementary school, I would se the teacher literally throw students across the classroom. And then at recess, as a young girl of color, I was not only afraid of teachers throwing me across the classroom but also young boys replicating the same things and throwing us, you know, in the playground and things like that. When we would go to administrators to tell them what was going on, they wouldn`t listen. They would tell us that`s how boys are or just don`t play with the boys. So, we would spend recess hiding from the administrators who don`t listen to us, from teachers who might be harming us and from our fellow classmates who are harming us as well. HARRIS-PERRY: And in a context, in which school resource officers are meant to be there to create greater safety in schools, I`m wondering if that also echoes your experience. TEE EMANUEL, ADVOCATE, GIRLS FOR GENDER EQUITY: Yes. Well, I`ve experienced a lot of physical abuse within schools and school safeties. I`ve been restrained by school safety where I was choked up. And then afterwards they tried to have me put in juvenile delinquent center where, you know, they suspended her but they come to find out they switched her to my little sister`s school. And when she found out I was with her, that was my little sister, you know, they tried to attack her as well. HARRIS-PERRY: So, do you end up feeling like you have rights, like you have a voice, like you can speak back against that type of experience and behaviors? TEE: At the time, no. They did not allow me to, you know, voice my opinion, tell them exactly what was going on, where, in fact, you know, they were saying I assaulted her, when, in fact, I was the one who had the as ma attack and she only had a broken fingernail. HARRIS-PERRY: I was -- again, it`s hard for me when we were talking in the break and you`re all sort of, you know, lovely young women who are pursuing education, doing all of these kinds things. And then to hear about these kinds of experiences, very clear violent or trauma, I was also reading in your conversation with one of my producers, your sense that some girls are given first and second chances and some girls never get a first chance at all. HYUNHEE CHIN, ADVOCATE, GIRLS FOR GENDER EQUITY: Yes, definitely, when I was in high school, as a survivor of multiple forms of violence in my life at home, the way that I responded to my trauma was to re-enact that violence towards my fellow peers. And so when I was in high school, I have stabbed somebody, I choked somebody, and I threw a textbook at my physic teacher`s face. Not only was I not disciplined, I wasn`t given detention, I wasn`t even given a verbal warning. But nobody caught my trauma. HARRIS-PERRY: No one saw that what was happening underneath was the violence that you`ve been experiencing outside of the school. CHIN: Yes. HARRIS-PERRY: That is the story over and over again. Part of the reason all of you were at the White House is because we talk about that school to prison pipeline for boys, but over and over again, for young women, the pipeline to juvenile detention and the pipeline to prison begins with sexual assault with violence, with intimate partners and family members at home. BRITTANY BRATHWAITE, COMMUNITY ORGANIZER: Right. That`s why it`s so important we expand the narrative and scope of our definition of school. Because currently it`s only capturing the experiences of young people that are policed in these ways. But girls of color experience violence inside and outside of school on a daily basis. And there`s no one -- in New York City, there are more safety officers than guidance counselors and social workers combined. So, the current narrative, the current research doesn`t address and can`t address because they`re not looking for the indicators. HARRIS-PERRY: That idea of trauma and as you were talking about a secondary trauma that boys who are experiencing violence might then enact that violence on girls, I guess part of what I`m wondering then, is if defiance is something that you can be held accountable for in school, what appropriate way can you get your sense of trauma out? EMANUEL: Being talked to, being listened to. And that`s where the line crossed where, you know, there`s no boundaries or, like, how to get these girls help. Like, there are people who are introverted who have trauma, and there are people who are extroverted who has trauma and they don`t realize that and that`s where the issue stands at, that we need to have more guidance counselors at school than police officers, because that`s what they technically are. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes. Stick with me because I want to talk more about what the solutions might look like when we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: This week, Simone Biles made history when she earned her third straight World Gymnastics title and standing on the podium with her 3.3 points behind was Olympic champion Gabby Douglas, it was pure black magic. A magic which seem so pervasive in the world where Misty Copeland graces the American Ballet and where Serena Williams dominates the tennis course, and where Viola Davis captures the Emmy, and the first lady is just fabulous all the time. But even in this extraordinary era of visibility and achievement, the realities often un-acknowledgeable, their abilities continue to shape the lives of far too many girls of color. And this week`s gut wrenching viral video out of South Carolina was a vivid reminder of that fact, as was the language that you all provided at the White House. And so, I`m interested in what your experience was in talking about these questions in that space. CHIN: Yes, I think it was an e empower in empowering experience to not only bring our wisdom and the lived experiences to the White House, but to have these researchers and advocates go up on the subsequent panels and r reflect our language back at us. HARRIS-PERRY: That idea that the voices of girls and women of color might show up here, I`m wondering if you also see solutions in local communities of, you know, what I heard is that we need to be listened to, we need to be able to say our stories. MASON: Absolutely. We need to be listened to, and it is not like the girls of color are just starting to experience these types of issues, right, advocates and young girls of color have been speaking with the things that has been dealing with forever, and we are being, our experiences are being raised and not listened to, and that is the issue going on here. And we here in New York City, we have the women`s initiative which was spearheaded by the speaker of New York City, and what we are doing is to talk to young women, and specifically about the types of experiences that they lived experiences that they have within the communities and the different communities that they walk through in life, and whereas speaking to policy makers and researchers and looking over the data and saying, you know, are the numbers that are missing? And yes, we know that there are numbers that are missing. There an analysis across race and gender, and how are when we`re connecting, conducting -- when we`re collecting research and breakdown the ethnicities of the individuals or the indigenous individuals or AAPI communities, even the black community and the Latino community, and how we can get targeted data that reflects the real experiences of young women. HARRIS-PERRY: When you start talking about these other identities that cross cut what it means to be a girl or young girl of color, the other part of that is gender nonconforming or lesbian identities and queer identities, trans girl identities, and I`m wondering how that ends up playing out in schools as well. EMANUEL: Well, as someone who identifies with GNC, which is gender nonconforming, within schools, I have experienced a lot of verbal violence, you know, I am not female enough or I`m not feminine enough to be a woman or to classify myself as a woman. And you know, I used to get harassed about that, and there was no help, no assistance with that because there`s not enough gay straight alliance in schools, and that`s the issue where it lays at, you know? So, I feel like when it comes to the schools and GNC and trans folks, queer people in general, that they need to have more guidance for us, as well as the people who are allies to us. HARRIS-PERRY: So, this issue of trying to think about girls of color inserting this experience of these multiple ways of experiencing black and brown girlhood into the conversation, what looks like a ray of hope, and what look like some kind of solution? BRAITHWAITE: Well, first, for the communities, which was lifted communities who addressed these issues for schools and the local places, but we also don`t have a national initiative that addresses young women and girls of color, we know last year, President Obama issued an initiative to look at the disparities among Latinos and black men, but these things are also as we are at the table, also affecting girls of color. And so, to not address the vulnerabilities, and the sexual violence and the issues with the parenting and all of the things that affect girls of color, it is horrible, right, and we can`t expect black girls to be that magic. HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you to Gloria Malone, to Hyunhee Chin, to Tee Emanuel, and to Brittany Braithwaite, I appreciate your courage and the power of your voices. That`s our show for today, thanks to you at home for watching. I`ll see you tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Last week, we spoke to the director of the FBI saying there is a Ferguson effect. Tomorrow, we`ll bring you President Obama`s response. Coming up, "WEEKENDS WITH ALEX WITT." THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END