CNN "CNN Newsroom" - TRANSCRIPT Memphis Police Department Permanently Deactivates Scorpion Unit After Videos Of The Deadly Beating Of Tyre Nichols; Interview With Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN); Tyre Nichols' Death Raises Complex Questions On Race And Policing; Trump Makes Presidential Campaign Stop In New Hampshire And South Carolina; Court Releases Audio, Video, Bodycam Of Assault On Paul Pelosi; Interview with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). Aired 7-8p ET

Interview

[BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT]

BROWN: Polo Sandoval, thank you so much.

And joining us now is Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen, whose district includes much of Memphis.

Congressman, good to see you. You're the fourth generation of your family to call Memphis home. How is your city doing today?

REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): I think the city is doing pretty well. It's been an unnerving experience to see one of our fellow citizens who was such a nice, innocent, free spirited young man murdered by the Memphis Police Department.

My first job out of law school was working as a civilian attorney for the Memphis Police Department nearly 50 years ago. And I taught officers in the academy, I worked on cases that were disciplinary actions. And so I know the police department. At least I knew it 50 years ago. It's much better than it was. It still needs a lot more work.

We've got a new U.S. attorney. We've got a new district attorney general and a new chief of police. And they've done an excellent job of getting on this early and showing that the city and the federal government with its location here in West Tennessee want to bring about justice. And the federal government wants to help and will help. I know that. But it's unnerving and it's terribly sad.

BROWN: Certainly. And just picking up on what you mentioned there, you used to be an adviser, a legal adviser for the department. I'm curious if you were still advising the department, what would you suggest? Do you think the other officers who were on that scene should also be let go and possibly charged? What do you think?

COHEN: I'm not sure if they should be let go or not, but I know they should have an administrative hearing and possibly be reprimanded in some manner. There were at least four other officers on the scene that stood around and did nothing. The duty to render aid is a major part of a police officer's job to protect and serve. And those officers did not do that. [19:10:03]

There were probably other officers involved. There was an officer back at the scene who was, I think, a sixth member of the Scorpion Unit who didn't go to the scene. He was the person who drove up in the first video that had his body camera -- camcorder working. And he said, I hope they stomp him. I'm afraid what he said was indicative of the attitude of the Scorpion Unit and maybe police in general, but more likely the Scorpion Unit specifically to take their aggressions out and take the law into their own hands. And this is always wrong.

So I think -- I don't know how they've been trained. I'm sure they've been trained well, but I don't know if this group particularly learned their lesson and they acted on basically blue testosterone and ego. But it started with that. When they grabbed him out of the car, it wasn't, excuse me -- excuse me, but show us your driver's license. And why did you run that light or why did you run out of the lane or whatever?

We saw them all giving what probably were George Santos type descriptions of what occurred earlier when they were saying we did out of traffic, he was in the wrong lane, he reached for my gun. These were alibis that they were posting knowing they were videoing and they were laying out their defense. And I couldn't trust any one of them because they didn't take their oath of office to heart and they just beat him to hell.

And there were three of them, two of them, one kicked him, one punched him and one hit him with a stick, a baton, and the other two helped. All five are rotten apples. And I commend the police chief for doing what she did. But she and Mayor Strickland, both of whom, want to do right. They had the toughest job of coming forward. They need to clean the department of bad apples. They need to get intensive training. They need to make sure de-escalation comes first.

I've had a bill for about eight years in the Congress that George Floyd saying that we need to have training of officers in other ethnic differences and to look at de-escalating intense situations. The Memphis Police Department trains, but they need to make it more of a regular part of the curriculum that is undertaken and observed, and protocol taken out by the officers to deescalate. There was no effort to deescalate.

BROWN: No, not at all. How do you change the culture? I mean, as you said, you were an adviser there 30 years ago. You said it's better now than it was. I can't imagine how it was back then if you were saying it's better now. What can actually be done to change policing and the culture?

COHEN: Well, one thing is you can get more money. The federal government has monies available starting this next spring with grants the Memphis Police Department should apply for to hire officers in high population areas. We need to have more money to pay officers so we can get a better grade of officer. And we had some differences with the police association over compensation, over health benefits, over retirement benefits. And a lot of police officers left Memphis and went to higher paying

jobs in Dallas and other cities that could afford to pay more. We need to be able to pay more and compete with other cities to get the best and brightest. I don't know if these five guys, they certainly were hired more recently when the benefits were the least. So we may not be getting the cream of the crop. Obviously they were not the cream of the crop. That's one.

And then secondly, you just have to have more intensive training and you have to have better supervision. Your commanders have to stress this. I'd like to see a return of the old community oriented policing where the neighborhoods know the policemen. The police people, women and men, are in the communities making friends, helping people and getting tips. And we don't do enough of that. Rather, we have Scorpion Units out to pounce on people.

I mean, they pounced on him when he got out of the car. Throwing him. They were so nervous, you wonder if they were hyped up on something. They were out of control and not very professional at all. But we need to have officers the neighborhood knows, and who know the neighborhood. And I think that's a more effective manner of policing.

BROWN: Really interesting to hear your thoughts, Congressman Steve Cohen. Thank you so much for sharing some of your time with us about your city Memphis.

COHEN: Memphis is a great city.

BROWN: Thank you.

[BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT]

Source