Protests In Baltimore Over "Baltimore Sun" Report
HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Right. And police officers aren't really worried so much about the criminal charges. You know, they're worried about the saying that police officers are guilty off the bat. Police officers want --</s>BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: We know that's not the case.</s>HOUCK: Well, police officers want the benefit of the doubt because of the job we have. I'm not saying give them a free pass. What I'm saying is give police officers the benefit of the doubt when an incident occurred. Wait until the investigation is conducted, and then take whatever action has to be taken.</s>BALDWIN: But this is not OK.</s>MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.</s>BALDWIN: Holding back is not OK.</s>HOUCK: It's not OK.</s>LAMONT HILL: For me, there are several problems. First of all, if the conception the police hold of proactive policing is what you describe include is chasing people who are guilty down an alley as opposed to talking community building relations, knowing the neighborhood, establishing healthy bonds, that is the atom of the problem that the idea of proactive policing has nothing to do with the community. It has nothing to do with that. If they're holding back because lives are lost, that's something to blame the police for. I hope you're wrong. Let me finish. I hope you're wrong. I hope --</s>LAMONT HILL: I hope the police are going the extra step to stop crime from happening. To me the biggest problem is the idea do people are spending this narrative, that crime is going up because people have the audacity to charge police for do not things. That intimidates the public form calling on the police of what they're doing wrong. That, to me, is the problem.</s>HOUCK: That's not true. Saying police officers are not proactive -- they are answering the calls, they are professionals.</s>BALDWIN: You're saying they're not taking the extra step --</s>LAMONT HILL: The proactive step.</s>HOUCK: OK. That guy -- the guy's making moves that are consistent with somebody who might be carrying a gun. I'm not going to try and make a move on this guy here or talk to him because who knows what could happen now. You know, so that's why officers are holding back. And you define officers holding back in cities across the country.</s>LAMONT HILL: There's no evidence.</s>HOUCK: I'm talking to them.</s>LAMONT HILL: I know. But because --</s>HOUCK: Homicides are up 60 percent this week from this week to last year in the city alone.</s>LAMONT HILL: You're saying because of Eric Garner?</s>HOUCK: I'm not saying because of --</s>LAMONT HILL: You're taking the anecdotes --</s>HOUCK: No, I'm not.</s>LAMONT HILL: -- an anecdote that's outdated. Because you have stories, it doesn't mean it's true.</s>HOUCK: Are you spinning --</s>LAMONT HILL: No. You said the police --</s>HOUCK: I am talking about to police officers all over, and it wasn't --</s>LAMONT HILL: Harry --</s>HOUCK: You put Eric Garner in it.</s>LAMONT HILL: What I'm saying is just because you have conversations with police officers does not mean that police officers are holding back and making crime goes up.</s>LAMONT HILL: You are you making a leap of your experience. It's not true.</s>BALDWIN: What we were talking about specifically, the line of the conversations Baltimore. You have those numbers. The highest in eight years.</s>BALDWIN: That is fact.</s>LAMONT HILL: There are a lot of other factors in Baltimore other than just the four or five people who have Harry's cell phone number. For example --</s>HOUCK: Who is taking the programs away?</s>LAMONT HILL: There are a --</s>HOUCK: The government of Baltimore. We'll stay on Baltimore. The governor of Baltimore is taking them away. Look at, a million dollars they're going to build a juvenile prison --</s>LAMONT HILL: Let them.</s>HOUCK: -- and these kids have nowhere to go. The schools are bad. Why do we have a 55 percent dropout rate in Baltimore and wonder why kids turn to crime?</s>LAMONT HILL: You're supporting my point. The structural problem --</s>HOUCK: Baltimore, the inner cities have to take control of their own city. They're out there demonstrating now. I love it. Go out and demonstrate and say, listen, we need that $11 million --</s>LAMONT HILL: We've been doing that for 20 years.</s>HOUCK: I never see it!</s>BALDWIN: Hold on. Time out!</s>LAMONT HILL: I'll give them your cell phone number.</s>BALDWIN: Gentlemen, let's be precise on the ""Baltimore Sun" reporting. There's a misnomer that money is going to jailing. Let's be specific and say "Baltimore Sun," money toward jail is to help educate youth incarcerated. The issue is a lot of young people are put in adult jails and aren't getting an education. If they go to the juvenile system, at least they will be schooled as opposed to not at all.</s>HOUCK: It really doesn't work.</s>LAMONT HILL: But there is a statewide problem of investing in prison. We say --</s>BALDWIN: As a professor, I want to hear from you.</s>LAMONT HILL: There's an investment in mass incarceration over education that we see in most major states that trickles down to urban areas, cities. And that is a fundamental problem. Again, statistically, we know what works. We're not investing in what works, we're investing in response to crisis.</s>HOUCK: When you want to see economic investment comes to cities like Baltimore where the riots were, crime's got to drop. Nobody's going there because they have high crime. They had to pull teeth to get a CVS in and it was burnt down. So a lot of companies don't want to go in. Like you're saying, I think the cops should go out and talk to people. I think that needs to be done --</s>LAMONT HILL: And not shoot them. Can we agree on them?</s>HOUCK: There's times you've got to shoot somebody. Let's put it that way.</s>LAMONT HILL: That's not what the --</s>HOUCK: Let's not blanket every time a cop shoots someone it's murder --</s>LAMONT HILL: Not every time, just when they're unarmed and running away.</s>BALDWIN: Finish your thought.</s>LAMONT HILL: This frustrates people.</s>BALDWIN: I understand. But had the police --</s>HOUCK: Have the police talk to the people, get the community together and start community policing. Are we going to see that in Baltimore? Has the politicians given the police department the money to go into those communities and start a proper program?</s>LAMONT HILL: That's a good -- I agree on that.</s>BALDWIN: Here we go.</s>LAMONT HILL: All right. Here we go.</s>BALDWIN: We're going to end on that.