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NEW DAY SUNDAY

Governor Calls for Day of Prayer and Peace; North Korea Detains NYU Student. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 3, 2015 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[08:00:00] COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS: Marky Mark, he said Manny was going to win, and put a quarter of a mil on that, sorry, Marky Mark. You lost that.

And diddy, he went with Floyd, so he won $250,000. But you just remember, mo money, mo problems. But all the money, all the pomp and all circumstance, it didn't really live up to all the hype, the actual fight itself, Christi.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's good to get that perspective from you since you were there. Coy Wire, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

WIRE: You're welcome.

PAUL: And your next hour of NEW DAY starts right now.

(MUSIC)

PAUL: Overnight, several arrests in Baltimore. A lot of people upset about the curfew, and the question this morning is, will there be one again tonight?

And, Baltimore and Ferguson, two different towns certainly, but facing the same situation. The road to recovery in Baltimore, however, may not be the same as it was in Missouri.

Plus, an American college student from South Korea and two others now under arrest in North Korea. CNN travels to North Korea to learn what's happening to them.

Eight o'one right now. I'm Christi Paul. So grateful for your company.

Hi, Victor Blackwell.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Christi Paul. I'm live in Baltimore, as we say today that thousands are expected to fill the streets here.

And Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is calling on the community for a day of prayer and peace.

Now, overnight, a small group of protesters, they clashed with police after violating curfews, they were a handful of arrests. They're upset that the curfew has not yet been lifted, and at one point, police used pepper spray on a man. You can see him being arrested last night. He was later taken to a hospital for medical attention.

There might be a curfew tonight. We'll find out sometime today. Of course, there will be a news conference which they'll announce if the curfew will continue or if it will be lifted.

But in just a few hours, the Maryland governor and Archbishop William Lowry will attend a church service asking for that statewide day of prayer and peace. And the faith-based rally is planned for the city this afternoon, at city hall.

Let's bring in CNN correspondent Rene Marsh.

Tell us more about what we are expecting today and how that will be different in tone than what we have seen in the past couple of days?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, at the rallies, Victor, you know, you saw blacks and whites, they are marching together, and we expect to see the same sort of thing here in the sense that it's an inner faith rally. We're going to have religious leaders representing all faiths here. I'm told more than 100 members of clergy will be here as well, and thousands of people will be marching.

It will start here where we are now, this afternoon. Reverend Jamal Bryant, who has been very -- in the forefront of all of this, he has helped to organize this. So, he will be here as well.

And I think what they want to do is take this day to reflect while still making the message very clear that they want more answers, that they do want justice. But, you are right, the tone will be different because this will be -- there will definitely be prayer and we will have so many religious leaders of all faiths together in one place.

BLACKWELL: So, let's talk about this curfew, because there are many people who are saying that this is hurting businesses, it's hurting jobs, I mean, you drive through downtown, there's an exemption for the media. You drive through downtown, and the bars are closed, the casinos.

Are we expecting it to be enacted again tonight?

MARSH: It really remains to be seen. We have no definitive answer as to when they planned on lifting this. The mayor was asked this as late as yesterday. And she says she is still assessing the situation. We heard the Baltimore police commissioner, and he came out and they made the decision yesterday to keep it in place.

Will they make a change tonight? We don't know. We are waiting and watching for that, but the fear on their side is that they don't want to see a replay of the violence that we saw earlier in the week last week.

But there is a lot of pushback, and not just from the community, but groups are coming out and saying this is affecting us from living our everyday lives. So, there is definitely the pressure there to lift this curfew.

BLACKWELL: The priority, though, is public safety.

MARSH: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Rene Marsh, thank you so much.

You know, a string of black men dying at the hands of officers has ignited a nationwide protest, many calls to action. But the problem is very complicated, and we discussed the complexities over the last couple of days.

Let's go to Ferguson, Missouri, for example. Critics put some of the blame for Michael Brown's death on the lack of diversity on government and the police department. But here in Baltimore, that's not the problem, and some cops are facing charges for the death of Freddie Gray, they're black, and the city has a black mayor and a black police commissioner, majority minority city council.

Nathan Connolly, the co-director of the Racism Immigration and Citizenship Program at Johns Hopkins University, says the problem is -- and this is a quote -- "It is policy and politics, the very things that bind together the history of Ferguson and Baltimore and for that matter, the rest of America.

[08:05:11] Specifically, the problem rests on the continued profitability of racism."

Nathan Connolly joins us now.

I want you to talk about the profitability from racism. Expound on that if you would.

NATHAN CONNOLLY, CO-DIRECTOR, RACISM, IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP PROGRAM, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: African-American communities have history been rife for predatory practices. If you look at North Avenue in Baltimore, or neighborhoods around Mondawmin Mall, these are communities that we will see speculators came into -- looking for high profit, and rental markets. If they couldn't fetch between 10 or 15 percent, many of them would abandon the profits in seek of higher investments. We have red lining that's happening through predatory loans, reverse red lining in fact. And many of the communities suffered disproportionate foreclosures as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Anytime you have a concentrated group of black homeowners, or renters, you're going to find speculators who then try to move in and make a certain kind of profit, oftentimes much larger than they would find in other communities.

BLACKWELL: But the subprime mortgage crisis is a relatively recent phenomenon. I took the viewers on the tour of North Avenue, because I wanted them to see the vacant homes. Those homes have been vacant for decades.

CONNOLLY: That's right.

BLACKWELL: And you say that's not a back drop to the story. It plays a prominent role.

CONNOLLY: That's right. Real estate has really served as an economic engine for the country, and segregated real estate in particular has really allowed people to get high rents or higher profits from corner stores and other kinds of businesses for a very long time, going back to the early part of the 20th century, in fact. And so, part of what I think is necessary now is a kind of, you know, impartial federal investigation of predatory practices against communities of color around the country.

There's a long history of this, historical literature is quite vast. But we haven't done enough to connect the dots the way that we have already in Ferguson, between excessive policing, introduction (ph) of fees from poor communities and the like.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk about Toya Graham, the mother who's been lauded for good parenting, for coming out and essentially just hit her son up side the head when she found him at the riots outside of Mondawmin Mall. You have a different take on that?

CONNOLLY: So, Toya Graham's personal parenting is less important to me than the actual media firestorm around it. One of the things that happens in the wake of these flare ups, as we see in Baltimore, is a focus on what we call the black on black violence.

Now, again, I already got push back on this being good parenting. But I'm less concerned about what her choice of word, than the fact that we tend to focus on that as being the answer. Violence against black bodies a way to bring working class and black people in particular under control. To me, that's actually wrong-headed focus, that we need to focus again on issues like housing, education, public space, community policing, tenants' rights, rather than these moments of spectacles.

BLACKWELL: Do you see any actual action in Baltimore? Because everybody is saying the right thing, we need to talk about A, B and C, and at some point, you can't just talk about a journey. You've got to take a step.

CONNOLLY: Well, I think the accountability that you're seeing now from Ms. Mosby toward the officers is one step. But again, we need accountability across the board in terms of the companies that are coming into the city, what kinds of tax abatements are they being allowed, accountability for landlord speculation, accountability for tax liens that are being used, to squeeze working class people in the city. We need a much more stronger apparatus across the board to make it much harder for people of color from being taken advantage of and to really prevent the flare ups we have seen.

BLACKWELL: All right. Nathan Connolly with Johns Hopkins, thank you so much for being part of the conversation this morning.

CONNOLLY: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: So, what is it like to live in West Baltimore? I think a lot of people would like an answer to that. I sat down with some teenagers who say, it's, quote, "a mess". You'll hear their perspective, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:12:19] BLACKWELL: Twelve minutes after the hour now. I'm Victor Blackwell live in Baltimore.

We have new video from overnight of Baltimore police officers on patrol staying cautious in light of the new developments in the Freddie Gray case. CNN's Ryan Young was there. The cameras were rolling and here's what they captured.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There is a gentleman with a white hat on, it looks like from here, and he has a small hand camera, and every time the officers get ready to load somebody in the back of this van, he takes a video picture, it looks like of their face, and you see there, as he is backing up and he takes a full body shot, and they are basically cataloguing each person they put in the van.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Yes, a signal of how careful police are now with this expanded spotlight on arrests here in Baltimore.

Let's talk more about Freddie Gray, though. Freddie Gray lived a life marked early by disparity and the youth of Baltimore are facing staggering statistics. The most recent information available shows us that young black men between the ages of 20 and 24 have an unemployment rate of 37 percent, 27 percent higher than white males of the same age. Twenty-four percent of Baltimore's population lives below the poverty line. One third of Maryland residents that reside in the state's prison system are from Baltimore.

I sat down with young men from West Baltimore to talk about the odds they are against and ask them about specifically the challenges they are facing when it comes to employment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYRIQUE JONES, 17, WEST BALTIMORE RESIDENT: You already have the bad image just because of the color of your skin and age, trying to fit in with your peers. You get certified in a certain trade, but once you get out of high school, you have no exposure, no experience.

As in Freddie Gray, he didn't have a job as a carpenter. He went to carpentry (INAUDIBLE). Certified in carpentry. Where was his job?

If somebody comes to you with a resume, and they have all these different job experiences from development places, and you come to them with your resume, and you have your certification, who are you going to pick?

BLACKWELL: Yes.

JONES: Experience over everything, right?

BLACKWELL: Uh-huh.

JONES: They are not going to want to waste their time and money trying to teach you how to do things, so it's the lack of exposure. In West Baltimore, there is no exposure, and all you know is here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Yes. And I asked those young men, Terry, Kyrique, and Jamelle, if they wanted to get out of West Baltimore, and they said absolutely, they wanted to get away from, quote/unquote, "all the mess".

[08:15:05] We certainly wish the best for them and hopefully things start to turn around for a community that has struggled for sometime.

Christi, the police presence here, Maryland state police, I can see the National Guard and Baltimore police, there is a presence here. But the governor here, Larry Hogan, calling for a day of prayer and peace. That rally organized faith leaders, that's going to start sometime this afternoon. Of course, we'll cover it live.

PAUL: All righty. Victor, great conversations coming from Baltimore with you today. Thank you so much for everything.

Now, it's not clear what happened to a New York University student yet this morning. North Korea contends it's detained the 21- year-old for allegedly go into the country illegally from China. We're digging into that.

As well as two alleged South Korean spies who are talking exclusively to CNN. They're behind bars in North Korea, but we'll take you there live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:01] PAUL: We have some new details this morning involving the rescue of migrants off the Libyan coast. More than 3,400 people were saved in 16 different operations by the Italian coast guard over the last 24 hours, and this comes two weeks after a migrant boat capsized in the Mediterranean claiming the lives of more than 800 people.

Now, from the halls of New York University, to a possible prison cells in North Korea. Pyongyang says it's arrested an NYU student for allegedly entering North Korea illegally from China. The South Korean is a U.S. permanent resident and lives in New Jersey.

This comes as CNN is getting exclusive access inside North Korea to other two South Koreans being held. North Korea contends they are spies. Those two are talking exclusively to CNN's Will Ripley, who joins us now from Pyongyang in North Korea.

So, Will, first of all, what do we know about this young college student who's been arrested?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, shortly after we got in the ground here in Pyongyang, Christi, we were told about Won Moon Joo. In fact, before the news broke internationally, our government official here mentioned that there was a South Korean citizen, a permanent resident of the United States, in custody apparently accused of trying to illegally enter North Korea, and South Koreans are not allowed to cross into North Korea without special permission. The government here says that 21-year-old did not have that permission.

We have put in an official request to talk to this student, and we don't know a lot of details about him, we don't know if he's any communication with his family and we have been told our request is being considered right now, Christi, but we don't know if or when we'll be given access to him here in Pyongyang.

PAUL: All right. But you were given access to these other two South Koreans that have been accused of being spies. What did they tell you?

RIPLEY: We spoke to two men, one businessman, the other a former missionary, both of them operating in China, who claimed that the South Korean government recruited them with no previous training, and gave them assignments to cross into North Korea, steal information, steal materials, and try to give information to South Korean government about sensitive inner workings here in the DPRK.

We have no way of verifying these claims. The South Korean government denies these men were spies, and I will have to say that we were not told ahead of time on any restrictions on our views. We were not given a limit as to what questions we would ask.

And I asked these men if they were coached ahead of time, and they both said no, but they did have remarkably similar talking points. They talked about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with great admiration. They talked about the fact that they feel the human rights situation in this country is very good.

Now, keep in mind, these two men are in a precarious situation. They are being interviewed and being watched by government officials and you might expect them to say whatever they can to better their situation. But they were fascinating interviews, Christi. We are putting together the interview now, and, of course, there are difficulties in transmitting video back from North Korea. But we're doing it as fast as we can, and in the coming hours, we'll be showing that for you, so you can listen to what they said for yourselves. It was really interesting.

PAUL: All right. Great job, Will. Thank you so much. We appreciate it, as always.

You know there is a royal baby still without a name. When are we going to learn? The new moniker of the new princess, fourth in line to the British throne. Bettors have their ideas about what it's going to be.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW ZIMMERN, CHEF 7 TV HOST: Everybody, I'm Andrew Zimmern. I moved from New York City to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. And when I'm on the east side of the river, in St. Paul, I always hit up Ran-Ham Bowling Alley.

I started coming here in '55. People that have been coming here have been coming here forever.

Guess what? It has not changed.

I've yet to find traveling around the United States, anything quite like it. Eight lanes in a basement, old-timey bar, everybody knows each other.

Right up there is a lot of money.

MIKE RUNYON, CO-OWNER, RAN-HAM BOWLING LANES: Right. We had a local regular that went overseas for a couple years, and she said when I come back, I want to make sure I have a dollar to buy a drink. So, it started there, and then people just kind of caught on to the whole thing, and now they say, it's our retirement fund, some day if they never come back.

ZIMMERN: I bring people from out of town to sit down and have a beer, a hamburger, and this is what St. Paul is all about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a nice community around here.

ZIMMERN: Embarrassing yourself on television by showing the world what a crappy bowler you are, it's something you need big shoulders to handle.

Some of the best fries you'll ever taste, gorgeous little traditional bowling alley griddle burger, heaven.

Somehow, I just got cheated out of a lot of points.

[08:25:02] Let's see how we did, shall we? One twenty-two. They say you should be able to bowl your weight. With me, that's not happening.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Oh, yes. There was a big moment, the newest princess in London, most likely being pampered by mommy and daddy this very moment. Prince William and Catherine brought the baby girl home yesterday. And there's just one thing left, her name.

Top bets right now on line are Charlotte, Alice or Olivia. The duke and duchess apparently are mulling it over. They plan to talk to their families first before obviously announcing it to everybody publicly.

But looking at these pictures, one thing that I have heard from so many people is how does she look so good and wearing heels just hours after giving birth to this baby? And a tidbit you might not have known, before William, who was born in the same hospital, all of the heirs to the thrown were born at home. Prince Charles is born in Buckingham Palace. And this little nugget is known as the spare heir, as they're called the second child syndrome, I guess, for the royals, because, of course, Prince George would be next in line for the thrown.

Thank you so much for starting your morning with us.

"INSIDE POLITICS WITH JOHN KING" starts right now. Make some great memories today.