Summary
Live coverage continues of the protests in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, after the killing of black man.
Transcript
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: That is ALL IN on this Monday evening.
"THE RACHEL MADDOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thanks, my friend. Much appreciated.
And thanks at home for joining us this hour. Happy to have you here.
The House and Senate have been on recess the past week or so, but they are coming back now. And tomorrow is going to be a very, very somber day in Washington, as they return and get back to work.
At 10:30 a.m. Eastern, tomorrow morning, the body of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Billy Evans is going to arrive at the U.S. Capitol. Officer Evans, you will remember, was killed a week ago Friday, April 2nd, when a young man with a knife rammed his car into a Capitol barricade and into two U.S. Capitol police officers who were guarding that entrance to the U.S. Capitol grounds.
A second officer was injured in that attack and hospitalized briefly. He is out of the hospital and is apparently going to be okay. But Officer Evans was killed. Killed in the line of duty, defending the U.S. Capitol, just as Officer Brian Sicknick was killed in the line of duty during the Trump mob attack on the Capitol January 6th.
And like Officer Sicknick, Officer Billy Evans, tomorrow, will lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol rotunda. His body will be brought to the Capitol, to the rotunda in a very somber ceremonial arrival ceremony, a tribute to him. The officers and members of Congress he was protecting when he died will take part in a ceremony honoring him. They will stay with the body during his viewing all day tomorrow at the rotunda. There will be a ceremonial departure at 6:30 Eastern tomorrow night.
So, that will be an all-day thing tomorrow in Washington. Whatever else happens tomorrow in Washington, you should expect, I think, it to take a backseat to that ceremony and honor that will span the full day tomorrow. That will likely have everybody`s heart in their throat.
Today, President Biden made a string of increasingly high-profile appointments on homeland security, military and law enforcement posts, including a new head of the Border Patrol, a new head of Citizenship and Immigration, new head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the new number two official at the Department of Homeland Security, head of Cyber Security at Homeland Security, a new Army secretary.
President Biden`s nominee to be secretary of the army will be the first woman ever appointed to that position. Army secretary is the civilian chief, not the uniform chief for that branch of the armed services, first time a woman has ever been nominated to be Army secretary.
I just referenced the January 6th attack on the Capitol, talking about Officer Brian Sicknick as we look ahead to Officer Billy Evans lying in honor. I just tell you, in relation to January 6th, I think there was a sigh of relief that President Biden finally nominated somebody, named somebody to be head of the criminal division at the Justice Department.
This week, Friday, will be 100 days since the January 6th attack on the Capitol. There have been hundreds of people arrested, hundreds of people charged but many observers, including some of the judges involved in these cases, have noted a certain level of chaos and disorganization at the Justice Department in the way these cases have been handled, up to and including the Trump appointee who is serving as the top prosecutor in D.C., him inexplicably going on television and giving a detailed interview about charges he thought should probably be brought against Capitol rioters or charges that maybe might be brought, and people who haven`t been charged yet, who he thinks maybe should be charged.
Nobody knows why he did that. He apparently did not have permission from the Biden Justice Department to give that interview. The Biden administration did bench that guy, they moved him out of the top prosecutor`s job in D.C., which is good since his totally out of bounds remarks about the January 6th cases are already being used to undermine prosecutions of accused Capitol rioters in D.C. federal court.
The Biden administration has moved him out of position. But who is moving in?
Republicans in the Senate have slowed down the confirmation process so much for all Justice Department Biden appointees, including Attorney General Merrick Garland whose nomination slowed walked for a very long time that there`s been consternation that all of those hundreds of cases about January 6 and the overall investigation and prosecution of the Trump mob attack on the Capitol that day.
There has been consternation that has seemed a little bit at sea with nobody in charge, nobody coordinating, nobody making sure that the Justice Department, for example, is making consistent applications to the court that defendants charged with like crimes be treated in similar ways by the different courts that are hearing all of these cases that. It hasn`t seemed like there has been anybody at the Justice Department in charge of wrangling that overall investigation and all of those hundreds of complex cases as the Biden administration hasn`t been able to set up their upper echelon leadership at the Justice Department thus far.
Well, now, as of today at least, we know who President Biden has chosen to run the part of the Justice Department that will manage all of these cases. That`s a start. Kenneth Polite was the U.S. attorney, the top federal prosecutor in New Orleans under President Obama. Now he is reportedly being chosen by President Biden to head up the criminal division at the Justice Department which will mean he will have a massive remit at the Justice Department but it will include the overall management of the January 6 prosecutions.
And as President Biden chooses all these nominees for all these important law enforcement positions and homeland security positions, basically all these nominees announced today seen as progressives and reformers in their fields. Even still, we remain quite stuck as a country we remain stuck in this loop that we seem to not be able to get out of.
In Virginia, body cam footage released this weekend of police officers pepper spraying and threatening to kill a black U.S. Army lieutenant in uniform after they pulled him over supposedly for not having a license plate on his car, even though it`s apparently that`s because apparently it was that the reason he didn`t have a standard license plate on this car is because the car was brand new and it did have a proper dealer issued temporary plate on it. Nevertheless, they pulled him over and treated him like this.
Here`s the video that was just released of that incident this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POLICE OFFICER: You received an order. Obey it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m honestly afraid to get out.
POLICE OFFICER: Yeah. Dude, you should be. Get out. Get out.
POLICE OFFICER: Get out of the car.
POLICE OFFICER: Get out now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve not committed any crime.
POLICE OFFICER: You`re being stubborn, not cooperating. At this point right now you`re under arrest -- you`re being detained for obstruction of justice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do not have to get out.
POLICE OFFICER: Really? Really? Get out of the car now. Get out of the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get your hands off me. Get your hands off me.
POLICE OFFICER: Not a problem.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn`t do anything.
POLICE OFFICER: Sir, get out of the car now.
POLICE OFFICER: Sir? Hey, sir --
POLICE OFFICER: Get out of the car now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m trying to talk to you.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you please relax? Can you please relax?
POLICE OFFICER: Get out of the car right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not how you treat a vet. I`m actively serving the country. This is how you`re going to treat me? I didn`t do anything. Whoa, hold on. What`s going -- hold on.
POLICE OFFICER: Get out of the car.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Again, that body cam footage released this weekend that incident took place in December 2020. After the body camera footage was released this weekend of that incident, one of the officers was now fired took part in that incident. The lieutenant, the uniformed army lieutenant who was inexplicably treated that way by those officers is now suing over what happened to him in Virginia.
That happened this weekend. We saw that footage. We learned of that case -- very, very difficult to watch, very hard to explain.
And then last night -- and maybe not that hard to explain but very hard to swallow -- and then last night in a suburban community just outside Minneapolis, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, a 20-year-old African-American man Daunte Wright, unarmed driving with his girlfriend in the car, a father of a two-year-old baby, Mr. Wright told his mother by phone that he was being pulled over for having an air freshener hanging from his rear view mirror.
Police say they pulled him over for having expired registration tags, although it should be noted that Minnesota like many states did have delays in issuing registration tags during COVID. It`s unclear what was the exact origin of this traffic stop, but police say when they ran Mr. Wright`s ID, it turned out he had an outstanding warrant on a misdemeanor, so they decided they would use this traffic stop to arrest him.
They got him outside the car. It was two male officers, body camera footage released by the town`s police chief today is body footage -- body camera footage from a third officer, from a female officer.
I should warn you, this video is not easy to watch. It is disturbing.
You can see from the body camera that was worn by a third officer, female officer, she moved in closer to Mr. Wright while he was being handcuffed by one of the officers, some kind of sudden movement that ensued some kind of scuffle. The officer wearing the body camera screams, I`ll tase him, I`ll tase you, and then she says, Taser, Taser, Taser, and then she shoots Mr. Wright, but she does not shoot him with a Taser, she shoots him with her gun.
And immediately thereafter, the officer says, holy bleep, I shot him. Mr. Wright then drives off at speed having just been shot the other officers look at the officers wearing the body cam, the one with the handcuffs says, oh, wow, when she says "I shot him". Mr. Wright then drives a short distance and he crashes and he`s dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POLICE OFFICER: I`ll tase you. I`ll tase you .Taser, Taser, Taser!
(EXPLETIVE DELETED), I just shot him.
POLICE OFFICER: Oh, wow.
POLICE OFFICER: Yes!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: I just shot him, she says. She says Taser, Taser, Taser, then she shoots him. The officer appears to realize she did not tase him. She shot him.
The autopsy released says this individual died of a gun shot wound of the chest and the manner of death is a homicide.
Daunte Wright`s girlfriend was in the car when he was shot. As you saw in the video after the shooting, Mr. Wright drove away. He did drive a short distance before crashing and then died.
His girlfriend apparently called Mr. Wright`s parents from the car. Mr. Wright`s father raced to the scene and was there in less than ten minutes of this happening, his son laying dead on the street when he got there.
Now the officer who shot Daunte Wright is on leave now following this incident yesterday. The mayor has called in the department to fire her while the matter is being investigated. This all happened yesterday. It happened ten miles from the courthouse where Derek Chauvin is on trial. Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder and manslaughter for the death in custody last year of George Floyd, another Minneapolis African-American man whose unarmed interaction with police on a low-level law enforcement matter ended with him dead in the street.
Last night in and around Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, angry protesters demonstrated, they broke windows, looted businesses, turning their anger against the local police station. National Guard was ultimately activated. A vigil for Daunte Wright started tonight at 7:00 Eastern, 6:00 local time in this Minneapolis suburb.
And tonight, protesters are gathered outside police headquarters in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. The mayor of Minneapolis, I mention this as sort of a Minneapolis suburb. Mayor of Minneapolis declared a state of emergency in Minneapolis. Four counties, including basically the whole Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area instituted a curfew tonight, people not being allowed out on the street. Major League Baseball, Major League Hockey, major league basketball games were all scheduled tonight in the Minneapolis metro area. All of those games have been called off as most of the area is under a curfew.
And, of course, this is all happening where and while former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin is standing trial for the alleged murder of George Floyd last year. Today was day 11 of that trial. And that trial convenes for its third week. Day 11 today while the news of yet another unarmed black man being killed by law enforcement in the Minneapolis area looms incredibly large over their proceedings.
And it`s interesting today, before the jury entered the courtroom for today`s trial in the Chauvin case, Derek Chauvin`s defense lawyer asked the judge if he would please sequester the jury, if he would put them up in a hotel basically where all they can do is attend the trial, can`t see the news, would be isolated from people talking about the trial. Derek Chauvin`s defense attorney asked the judge to do that with the jury right now because the jurors live in that community. He argued that the angry, aggrieved emotional community reaction to Daunte Wright`s death might bias jurors against his client.
Chauvin`s defense attorney asked for the jurors to be sequestered today in light of the community reaction of the Daunte Wright killing by police. The judge denied that request.
But today, the prosecution called what are expected to be their final witnesses in the case. Cardiologist testifying that in George Floyd`s case, his death was not the result of a pre-existing heart condition. A use of force expert testified no reasonable officer would consider Officer Derek Chauvin`s actions to be an appropriate, acceptable or reasonable use of force.
But the witness who appeared to have the biggest impact in the courtroom was Philonise Floyd, George Floyd`s younger brother, the only member of the Floyd family to take the stand during this trial.
You might remember that in the final moments of George Floyd`s life, he was heard by witnesses to cry out for his mother, who at that point had been dead for two years. Today, Philonise Floyd gave brief but powerful testimony about why George Floyd might have been calling for his mother, about George Floyd`s relationship with their mother.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHILONISE FLOYD, BROTHER OF GEORGE FLOYD: I will see him every day and I`ll say, Perry, because we called him Perry instead of George. And he would say hold on. Let me kiss mama before I come over there. And being around him, he showed us like how to treat our mom and how to respect our mom. He just -- he loved her so dearly.
And when George, he had found out that my mom was passing, because she had to stay with us for hospice. And he was talking to her over the phone, but she perished before he even came down here. So that right there, it hurt him a lot. And when we went to the funeral, George just sat there at the casket, over and over again, he would just say mama, mama, over and over again.
And I didn`t know what to tell him, because I was in pain, too. We all were hurting. And he was just kissing her and just kissing her. He didn`t want to leave the casket. And everybody was like, come on. Come on. It`s going to be okay.
But it was just difficult, because no -- I don`t know who can take that when you watch your mother, somebody who loved and cherish you and nourish you for your entire life and then they have to leave you. We all have to go through it, but it`s difficult. And George, he was just in pain the entire time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That`s the younger brother of George Floyd, Philonise Floyd testifying today in the trial over his brother`s murder.
Again, these were the final witnesses on the prosecution side today.
The defense is expected to start calling its own witnesses as soon as tomorrow. All of this happening as the whole Minneapolis region and the country remains on edge. As the Minneapolis area starts to process yet another very similar tragedy. Much of the whole Minneapolis and St. Paul region tonight under curfew as the community reacts to yet another police killing of an unarmed black man while the George Floyd trial is still underway. Just incredible.
Joining us live from the protests underway right now in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, is NBC News reporter Meagan Fitzgerald.
Meagan, thank you so much for being with us.
Can you tell us what you`ve seen tonight? We understand that the curfew is already in effect. We can see behind you plenty of people still out on the street.
MEAGAN FITZGERALD, NBC NEWS REPORTER: Yeah, absolutely, Rachel. As you mentioned, curfew already in effect, but you can see there`s hundreds of people out here and they tell me they`re not going anywhere. They want justice. As you`ve been reporting, it`s a community that`s on edge. They`re tired of these unarmed black people being shot at the hands of police.
I want to show you here, obviously the situation being tense. Protesters are running here but there`s a fence up right around the police department here. They`ve erected this fence since earlier today. Officers are on the other side. You can`t see that there but there are dozens of officers on the other side in riot gear, just watching, watching.
Every now and then, we`re seeing smoke being deployed.
Right now, you hear they`re talking to protesters, telling them to leave. Yep. Protesters obviously getting more angry. They`re saying there`s a curfew in place. They`re trying to get people to go home.
Again, Rachel, these folks tell me they`re not going anywhere. They want to see that officer who pulled her gun accidentally, as the chief says, they want to see her fired. It`s something that the mayor is calling for.
But the police chief here tells us she deserves due process and the process is going to play out.
So, Rachel, again, it`s like a tinder box. At any moment, things could get worse -- Rachel.
MADDOW: Meagan, I know it`s loud where you are. But if you can hear me, we can see protesters shaking that chain link fence there that`s around the police building. We obviously saw people just bolt pretty quickly from that site.
Can you tell us anything about the nature of the confrontation here between police and protesters? Are police using gas? Are they issuing warnings? What`s happening there on the front lines?
FITZGERALD: So, Rachel, at this point, it`s warnings. We hear them getting on the bullpen, trying to tell protesters to back off. We are seeing smoke being deployed. It sounds like they could be shooting rubber bullets. We don`t know for sure. It certainly sounds like that.
You can see the smoke in the air here. Protesters are shaking the fence. They are angry. They are frustrated, and they`re not going anywhere.
That`s part of the concern here because there is a curfew in place. We just don`t know at what point officers will make a move. Again, as you`re seeing here, people in the crowd are throwing things over the fence. They are hitting vehicles that are on the other side of this fence.
There goes another object thrown in the air here. So, really, it`s very tense because we know that the officers on the other side likely won`t allow this to go on all throughout the night.
But it`s certainly a wait and see situation. I keep on saying this, but these protesters say they`re fed up. They`ve had enough, Rachel, and they`re not ready to go anywhere, any time soon.
MADDOW: Meagan, one of the things we saw last night as protests and some looting erupted is that we saw the National Guard activated. We expected to see some sort of National Guard presence. Have you seen any sign of that tonight where you are?
FITZGERALD: So what we know, Rachel, is that they are doubled the amount of National Guard members that are on the ground. There were 500 last night. Right now there is 1,000 National Guard members that are deployed to try to back up law enforcement officers, because at any time protests can erupt.
As you mentioned, there is a state of emergency declared in Minneapolis. There`s also a curfew there, while the protests are here, people are on edge. Anything concerning --
(SHOUTING)
FITZGERALD: You see, say his name, Daunte Wright. They don`t want people to forget. They want to see the conversation going, because they want justice. They want these shootings to stop.
MADDOW: Meagan, can I ask you, are you seeing any signs of local officials or any community leaders, anybody doing any organizing or exhibiting any leadership there in terms of trying to direct the protests or channel them?
FITZGERALD: Rachel, it`s a great question. We know that the mayor has been communicating with the community via Twitter. We`ve not seen him out here.
We know there was a candlelight vigil that took place earlier today. They were being respectful of the curfew in place. It happened at 6:00. But we`ve not seen any leadership out here sort of directing or corralling the masses here, so to speak.
It looks like these are groups of people who have come out, who live in the community. I spoke to people who drove in from miles away. We talked to mothers who said this could have been my son. You know, we talked to college students who say it could be me. When is enough enough?
So, at this point, these are people who you`re looking at here, who have just come from all around this community here, but also throughout Minneapolis -- Rachel.
MADDOW: NBC News reporter Meagan Fitzgerald live from Brooklyn Center, Minnesota -- Meagan, you and your crew stay safe. Keep us apprised over the course of the night. I know this is a really fluid situation. It`s invaluable to have you there on the ground. Please stay safe.
FITZGERALD: Absolutely.
MADDOW: All right. We`re going to have -- checking back in on that situation again, evolving situation right now in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. This is suburban Minneapolis.
Again, Daunte Wright is the young man, 20 years old, unarmed, who was killed by police yesterday. Body camera footage appearing to show an officer saying she was going to tase him, apparently intending to tase him, expressing shock that she had shot him once she did, but he was killed by a gunshot to the chest as confirmed by the autopsy report tonight.
This happening as Minneapolis is already on edge because of the George Floyd murder trial under way.
Just a tinder box of a night and a live involving situation in Minnesota. We`ll stay on it tonight.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: About two dozen hospitals in the great state of Michigan are at 90 percent capacity or above as that state still that state deals with a huge surge in COVID crisis. At least one Michigan hospital, the McLaren Port Huron hospital is at 100 percent capacity as of this morning.
Chief medical officer there saying that when his hospital tried to transfer out some of its patients with the most acute needs. They couldn`t do it. They faced long delays trying to move patients out because so many hospitals are so crowded, there`s nowhere to move them to.
As Michigan COVID cases and hospitalizations continue to rise inexorably without any relief at all, the Michigan Health and Hospital Association said today they expect the number of hospitalizations in the state to beat last fall`s peak, to head up higher than they have ever been before during the crisis at all.
This is the daily new reported coronavirus cases in Michigan. Right now, there are dozens of states that are having COVID case numbers spike across the country but Michigan is by far the worst. Still though, even in light of that, today, the White House confirmed again that they`re not planning to send an extra allocation of vaccines to Michigan.
That is what Governor Gretchen Whitmer is asking for to try to get Michigan`s crisis under control.
The White House says they will send other resources to Michigan to try to help but not additional vaccine supplies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: When you have an acute situation an extraordinary number of cases like we have in Michigan, the answer is not necessarily to give vaccine in fact we know that the vaccine will have a delayed response. The answer to that is to really close things down, to go back to our basics, to go back to where we were last spring, last summer, and to shut things down, to flatten the curve, to decrease contact with one another, to test to the extent that we have available to, to contact trace. Sometimes you can`t even do it at the capacity that you need, but really what we need to do in those situations is shut things down.
I think if we tried to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan we would be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to work to actually have the impact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: What we need to do in Michigan is shut things down. If we tried to vaccinate our way out of what`s happening in Michigan, we`d be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to work.
That`s from CDC Director Rachelle Walensky today coming just one day after Governor Whitmer repeated her plea again for the White House to please surge extra vaccine to her state while they cope with this huge rise in cases.
It`s interesting. This is now a legit controversy between what the state is asking for from the federal government and what the federal government is willing to give them, and that scientific thinking about whether or not extra vaccines could help. Clearly, there`s a disagreement there between the Biden administration between the White House and what the state wants.
But the White House is sending some additional resources. The White House stressed today that they`re surging additional personnel additional vaccinators to help expand Michigan`s vaccine capacity. They`re also trying to help expand Michigan`s testing capacity and interestingly, they said they plan to surge treatments, therapeutics, monoclonal antibody treatments to Michigan for people who are COVID positive.
The use of those treatments for people who actually contract covet is something that we`ve covered pretty intensively here on this show. The clinical data about monoclonal antibody treatments shows that they`re really effective if used quickly enough. They`re really effective at reducing the risk of hospitalization and death.
For people who get COVID, who are at high risk of getting very sick from COVID, including everybody over age 65, people over age 55 with a number of different comorbidities, younger people even if they have serious enough comorbidities, if you`re COVID positive and you`re only mild you only have mild or moderate symptoms, if you can get a monoclonal antibody infusion early before you need to be hospitalized there they`ve shown to be incredible -- they`ve been shown to be incredibly effective at preventing people from getting sick at saving lives.
They`re being underutilized. They`re free to the end user. The U.S. government has bought these doses, but there just isn`t enough awareness that they could be used and that they should be used before people are sick enough that they need to be hospitalized.
So we`ve been talking about that a lot on this show. We`ve now sort of having a bunch of developments on that front all at once. First of all, we do have the federal government essentially endorsing these treatments today at the White House saying that, you know, we don`t believe that extra vaccine supply in Michigan will make the difference in this spike in cases of spike and hospitalizations there, but treatments to prevent people who have COVID from getting very sick, monoclonal antibody treatments, we will surge those. Interesting.
Also, new interesting clinical data today suggesting that these types of treatment might be more useful and potentially ought to be even more accessible than was clear even before today. Regeneron is probably the best known of all of these therapies, one because it`s the easiest to pronounce. Also because it`s the one that was given to President Trump when he was diagnosed with COVID and he went to Walter Reed.
Again, you use this to treat people who have COVID, who are at high risk of getting very sick from it. The infusion happens before you have to be hospitalized. It has to happen early in your infection.
But today, Regeneron said that they`re going to ask the FDA if this treatment, their treatment can be used at a broader time. Basically, it can be if it can be used to prevent treatment.
According to a phase clinical trial of people who were exposed to the virus, who had a household exposure to the virus, taking Regeneron, taking this drug actually reduced the risk of getting COVID, getting symptomatic infection by over 80 percent. The prospect that this could keep you from getting infected if you are exposed to somebody with COVID could be another big major use for these types of drugs. The other sort of exciting top line from this trial is that for the purposes of this trial, they didn`t give this drug in an IV infusion. They simply gave it as an injection, as a shot, the same way that you get a vaccine, which is a much easier way to get a drug into people than having to get them in an IV infusion, where they have to sit there at an infusion center for an hour while the drug gets slowly dripped into them.
All this to say if this further use for Regeneron gets approved, if the White House endorsement of these therapies as a way to fight surges matters in Michigan and could matter in other states, could that mean something important for our overall fight against this virus and the ongoing fight to save lives.
Joining us now is Dr. Vin Gupta. He`s a pulmonologist. He`s a global health policy expert and assistant affiliate assistant professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Dr. Gupta, it`s really nice of you to make time to be here tonight. Thank you.
DR. VIN GUPTA, GLOBAL HEALTH POLICY EXPERT: Thanks, Rachel, for having me.
MADDOW: So you`ve been very outspoken about the utility of these monoclonal antibody treatments uh in the fight against COVID. I want to ask you as a practitioner if I said anything there that was wrong about them or if there`s anything else that you think people should understand broadly about how these things could be used and why they should perhaps be used more than they are.
GUPTA: Absolutely, and good to see you, Rachel.
What I`ll say is, first of all, no, everything you said was exactly correct. One thing I`ve noticed, I see the end consequence, Rachel, what happens if we don`t use these at scale I`m an intensive care unit physician. I was just down in Arizona caring for a very different type of ISU than I cared for earlier in Seattle at the beginning the pandemic. Younger patients, those with pre-existing conditions on ventilators, that - - and they were not asking for they didn`t know to ask for monoclonal antibodies.
So we are definitely under utilizing a therapy that frankly because of demand the lack of demand for it could keep people out of the hospital. That`s the key point here. Seventy percent reduction in hospitalizations and deaths for those who have COVID-19 have mild to moderate symptoms this could potentially halt progression, halt seeing folks like me in the intensive care unit.
MADDOW: How does it work practically? I feel like we`ve talked about this a few different times on the show we`ve talked about it with Dr. Kessler who`s a scientific advisor to the to the high level scientific advisor to the White House COVID response, and I still feel like the thing that comes up when I talk to people about this in my personal life, when I`ve had source conversations with this, is that people just don`t know what to do.
Let`s say that I`m not 65, but let`s say I was 65, and I just found out that I`m COVID positive. If I`m 65, I technically qualify to get this treatment as a potentially high risk infection. What do I do if I want to access this antibody if nobody`s offered it to me if my doctor doesn`t seem to know what it is, how do I go about pursuing it?
GUPTA: Oh, and this is the inherent tension here. This is a patient-driven exercise, not provider driven. That`s one of the challenges here. There is really no paradigm here that we`ve dealt with in the past where a patient has to self-screen and then seek out this therapy.
And so, for all your viewers out there, please go to CombatCOVID.hhs.gov. If we had time, I delineate everything in terms of all the inclusion criteria if you were to meet them, 65 and older, if you have a pre-existing condition and you`re 55 and older. If anybody on that`s watching has chronic kidney disease diabetes or is taking an immunosuppressive medication, you`re 12 and older, you would qualify.
Go to that website, you`ll find the ability to search by ZIP code for infusion centers. For those -- for those of you in south east Michigan watching this right now, I just use the website to see if there are therapies available there, the government and HHS, Dr. Kessler`s outfit is actually actively verifying that hospitals especially in hot zones have supply if the website has it that was a big issue early on, even a few weeks ago, Rachel, where we direct people to that website turns out it`d be really actually hard to access it because those hospitals didn`t have it. So they`re working on that.
So if it says the green check mark verified in on that website at places infusion centers that have been identified, call them and you can get a prescription go in and get your therapy. But this is a challenge because we`re asking the same health care systems that are trying to vaccinate and test Americans to then also provide a part of their clinics to infuse patients with monoclonal antibodies so definitely a challenge.
MADDOW: Dr. Vin Gupta, pulmonologist, affiliate assistant professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Dr. Gupta, thank you for everything that you`ve done both online and on television and all of your all of your work as a practitioner to try to keep this issue front and center. It is an underutilized therapy that could save thousands of American lives if people really know to ask for it and we can get it together.
Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
All right. We`ll be right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: We`re continuing to monitor an unfolding situation tonight in Minnesota. These are live images here in the left side of your screen. In Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, Brooklyn Center is essentially a suburb of Minneapolis.
This is the community where yesterday, Brooklyn Center police officers pulled over a young unarmed African American man named Daunte Wright. They said they pulled him over for expired registration tags, he was on the phone with his, mother he told her that they were being pulled over for having an air freshener dangling from his rearview mirror.
They decided they would arrest him on a warrant for outstanding misdemeanor related -- a warrant related to a misdemeanor, in the process of handcuffing him, something happened, in a Brooklyn Center police officer, said that she was going to taste him. She said Taser, Taser, Taser and then she shot him with her gun. Immediately saying oh expletive, I shot him.
That body camera footage is released by Brooklyn Center authorities today, and you`re seeing the aftermath of that air, with these live images on your screen. Of course this is only about ten miles from the courthouse, where the trials underway for former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin is on trial for killing George Floyd in low level, law enforcement interaction last year.
There is right now, in the whole Minneapolis St. Paul region, there is a full county curfew in effect tonight, nobody is supposed to be on the streets. For almost two hours now. That`s already been in effect, as you can see there are in the scenes we`re looking at, hundreds of people here.
This is outside the police station, in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. And as you can see, people are out in force, we have seen some people shaking the fence, we have seen what looks like fireworks. We have definitely seen people in what appears to be direct confrontation with the police.
This is an unfolding situation, and the numbers we`ve been able to see on our screen, have been growing, over the course of this hour. While we`ve been looking in on this.
Let me ask the control room. Do we have run available?
Okay we do.
Ron Allen, NBC News correspondent is live for us there in Brooklyn Center.
Ron, where are you and what you can you see from where you are?
RON ALLEN, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: We are just down the street Rachel from police headquarters, which is down in that direction. We can see a lot of smoke, coming from tear gas that`s been fired apparently by the police. In the protesters have been firing off fireworks in the other direction.
We`ve also seen a number of projectiles going into the police compound. There are steps around it. The standup has been going on for several hours.
The police have come out recently in the past couple of hours, couple of minutes, I should say, and told the crowd that they were in violation of the curfew and if they did not leave, they would be in violation. The police have been patient. They have been waiting this out.
But now it seems like their patience has run out. There are more and more people coming this way. Can we go down this way a little bit guys? If you go come down here, down the street a little bit you can see that the crowd is coming this way.
Let`s stop right there. There you go.
All night, the crowd has been coming and going but it has been many people throughout the night. They are angry, frustrated, they don`t like the explanation that the police have given about how an officer who is now been identified, a 26-year veteran, Kim Collier (ph), I believe it is. Who says that apparently she was she mistook a Taser for a service revolver and fired, killing Mr. Right, Daunte Wright, who is 20 years old.
The crowd is angry and they want the officer fired immediately and earlier today we heard that police chief say that the mayor said he supported firing the chief immediately. They`re saying that Daunte, of course, did not get any due process so why should this officer?
Things are settling a little bit. It seems that the area right in front of the police department has been vacated and there are not as many people in the street now as there were hours ago, but people are still out here. They are not going home.
And over in this direction, if you walk over here you can see at this Dollar Tree store over there in this distance, please give me just a second, okay?
Over there you can see people going in and out of that store. Can you get that shot? Can you see that?
That store has been looted now for the past couple of hours. We have seen people walking through the parking lot with carts full of stuff and you can see people going in and out.
But let`s focus back there on the police department because people are going to come in if we`re seeing this happening over there. So over there, you can see the police after hours of being patient, I guess you could say, they started firing tear gas. The crowd is now dispersing but they are not going home, Rachel. They are still here in the streets. They are still here. They are still here.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: Easy, easy, easy.
What`s happening? Tell me what happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The police are now firing on homes, that are just across the street that have nothing to do with anything.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m going to go, but report all day NBC.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: Okay, okay, okay take it easy please. Okay. Take it easy, okay. Folks, easy. You want to tell the world what is going on out here, okay?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don`t put your hands on a woman.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: Tell me what you want to see happen. I don`t think so, no. No, no, no. No, no.
What do you want to see happen out here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need the police to stand down. We are peaceful protesters. We are here to talk about the fact that Daunte Wright was murdered, murdered in our community.
ALLEN: So what do you think the explanation they gave, that the police officer mistook his Taser for a gun?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ve shot a gun. I`ve held a Taser. I`m a beginner shooter, and I can tell the difference between the weight of a gun, the trigger of a gun versus the trigger on a Taser? The sound is different. The feel, the weight is different.
The weight is different, anyone who has held a weapon and shot a weapon knows what a weapon is. That is the first thing you learn when you shoot a gun. You understand what it means, with the responsibility that you`re carrying. If the police are telling us that it is that easy to mistake a gun and a Taser?
ALLEN: Are you going to stay out here all night or what`s the plan?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m going to do what needs to be done.
ALLEN: What`s that? What do want to see (ph)?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Be here for my people.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: However long that takes. Be here for my people.
ALLEN: To any of you know the Daunte and the family very well?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I don`t.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get the fuck out! I don`t want to --
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: Rachel, you heard all of that some of it rational, some of the very angry and passionate. But the bottom line here is that people are still out on the street. They are not going anywhere. And the police have stopped firing tear gas. They are still behind that fence perimeter that`s been built up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fuck the police. Fuck the police.
ALLEN: What do you want to see happen?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What I want to say?
ALLEN: What do you want see happen?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want these bitch ass niggers (ph) stop killing innocent black people.
(INAUDIBLE)
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: We`re just going to cut in and we have a responsibility in terms of the language and I just have to cut in. There are certain things we can broadcast and there are certain things we can`t.
But, obviously, this is live footage and we do apologize for the language that you just heard there. But what Ron is testifying to there while he is doing live reporting and trying to watch his own back out there in the middle of it and trying to get people to speak in ways that get the message out that they want out is the rawness and the anger.
The footage that you see here zooming in there, that is the police station in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. We have, in this situation right here, a curfew in place. The police have been given warnings that they would clear the streets because nobody is allowed to simply be out by virtue of the curfew.
While Ron is talking about the ebbing and flowing of the course of this hour, the numbers that we are able to see in the streets are considerable and it doesn`t seem like it is thinning out overtime, and clearly this is an agitated and confrontational moment in this place and we don`t know with the overall place or response is going to be. They have been using gas, you have been seeing them give warnings. We`ve been seeing people throw fireworks and other projectiles.
The National Guard has been activated. We are not seeing signs of that in our camera view right now but that does not mean they are not there. We are trying the best we can to figure out whether the National Guard presence is something that may appear tonight in the streets in a more visible way.
Meagan Fitzgerald is also covering the scene with us. We spoke with her earlier on camera, we`re going to join her now by phone.
Meagan, are you still here near the police station where we were earlier?
FITZGERALD (via telephone): Rachel, we are just outside of the city limits of Brooklyn Center. Shortly after we got off air we were rushed out of the security team because there was some kind of gas deployed.
This is what we have seen throughout the night as it gets darker outside. As things go out, whether it`s the fireworks or something from within the crowd or something coming from law enforcement, we are seeing the crowd run and go right back.
We also saw looters at the nearby stores going in the Dollar Tree which is not far from where we were. At that point, it was a free-for-all. As we have seen before, we saw people carrying handfuls of things out of the store.
So, now, we`re seeing this protest take a different turn. These are the people who showed up for a different reason, right? We talk to the people on the ground, our colleagues. Ron talking to people there who are here because they want justice.
But as night falls, as it gets later and later, this is where we are starting to see things take a turn for the worst -- Rachel.
MADDOW: Meagan, one of the things that appears to be concerning just from our camera angles is that we are seeing not only police, and in some cases police lines, police masked in a formation that is designed to protect the perimeter. We are seeing essentially chaotic movements of protesters but we are also seeing people driving amid the protesters which itself can be dangerous. People have used their cars and ways against protesters that have resulted in deaths over the course of the past year.
Can you tell anything from where you are in terms of the overall dynamic? The -- I guess the scale of the perimeter here and whether any of this is under control?
FITZGERALD: Rachel, that`s a great question and you know it`s a good observation as well. We saw that cars that are being used to block the protesters, I think that was another thing that our security team were concerned about because at some point there you could be stuck in that perimeter because it seems that protesters or rioters, they are using their cars to kind of keep people within a certain radius. So that is certainly concerning.
But it doesn`t seem as though it`s under control. People are able to kind of go do and do is they wish, and as I was telling you, we were watching these people looting as we were getting ourselves out of the situation as it continued to get more tense. And there was no law enforcement present.
And as we saw by our cameras there, we were looking at the perimeter around the police department. Those police officers are behind that gate, so they have not made a move yet which is why if you`ve got the sense that at any moment now things could certainly escalate. Once police officer leads that gated area where they are.
But at this point from what we were able to tell, officers remained right there on the ground at the police department, Rachel.
MADDOW: Yeah, and we are seeing in our footage here officers shoulder to shoulder. Some of them appear to have shields and other crowd control or riot gear and it`s hard to grasp the dynamic in terms of how the kinetic activity is happening between these protesters and police officers at the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police station.
Meagan, we will be back with you as this continues to unfold. Ron Allen there for us as well. We have several correspondents and crews there.
I do apologize for the language you heard earlier when Ron was speaking with protesters live, but as you can see this is a fluid and fast developing situation and we`re just trying to give you the best look that we can on the ground and that does include talking to people, angry people, when we can and when it is safe to do so and so sometimes the language will go south.
I will also follow up on something that Ron mentioned a moment ago just within the last few minutes. The state has actually released the name of the officer who discharged her firearm in the Daunte Wright incident yesterday in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, which resulted in Mr. Wright`s death.
He was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest. We have seen the body cam footage from the officer who says Taser, Taser, Taser. And then shoots Mr. Wright and says oh bleep, I shot him. That officer has been identified, her name is Kimberly Potter (ph). She is a 26 veteran of the police force.
She has been put on administrative leave. The mayor of the Brooklyn Center has called for her to be fired but as of yet, she has she has been put on administrative leave, not yet relieved of her job.
So, we are watching this tonight. There is a curfew in effect, well, there is a curfew that has been called in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Region and four counties in that metro area. But as you can see, it`s doing nothing to keep this increasingly tense, increasingly angry protest in Brooklyn Center from continuing to unfold.
All right. A live coverage continues now with "THE LAST WORD". Lawrence O`Donnell hosting.
Good evening, Lawrence.