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CNN NEWSROOM

Business Owners in Ferguson Still Recovering; Raven Former Backline Spoke; Three Americans Rescued from Remote Village. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 30, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:03] SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, some of the business owners and residents talked about how when they saw what was going on in Baltimore, it really did bring them back.

What we're seeing now, there were two streets really that were batter and burned here in Ferguson. This is one of them. This is south Florescent. And then a few miles away, west Florescent. We're right down the street from the police department. Kathy's kitchen was broken into. This building broken into. The next building broken into. Kathy's kitchen, up and running. They're even opening a new business. This one didn't make it. The Mexican restaurant here still has remnants from that day in November.

But I want to let you see what was happening on west Florescent where there was looting last night.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice-over): Sunny Dayan is frustrated. Forced to finish the job looters started when they bashed in half of his store's front door. This is Ferguson trying to rebuild. For Dayan, the setbacks keep coming.

SUNNY DAYAN, FERGUSON BUSINESS OWNER: This is I want to mention, the fourth time in a year and a half that I've had a break-in. This is the mildest one yet.

SIDNER: The mildest one?

DAYAN: The mildest one yet. The last one that was in November, the end of November, whole store, the whole front was busted. All of the showcases were destroyed completely.

SIDNER: This is what he's referring to. November 24th, when west Florescent, the street he is on, looked like this. It was the day a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown after the two got into a scuffle.

Despite the hardships, though, Dayan's determined to stay right in the heart of the protest zone. This is why. Guys like Steve Smith.

STEVE SMITH, FORMER FERGUSON RESIDENT: I'm just trying to help him get back, trying to help him build a board back. Just so he can sleep tonight. So we both can sleep tonight.

SIDNER: Smith and Dayan formed a friendship in Ferguson years ago. It began with Dayan offering Smith a couple days of work at his mobile and bill payment store. Now on nights like this, Smith jumps to help, catching a ride in the middle of the night to make sure Dayan and his business are secure. Both are well aware of the frustration continuing to simmer and sometimes boil over in Ferguson.

SMITH: The police and I would say the black community, they don't get along at all. It's no secret, you know what I'm saying. But it don't give them the right to do all this. I understand the movement. I understand why they are here. But to just destroy buildings and get the point across, that's too far. You know what I am saying? It's too far.

SIDNER: Though some boards remain, there are several businesses that are rebuilding after November's mayhem. Many are going to online sites like go fund me to help out. So far, more than $500,000 has been collected.

For others, the signs of rebuilding are absent, unable to sustain the financial beating after their shops experienced a physical one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: And you know, a lot of these businesses are tells us, you know, they had 60 percent of their business went down. Now it's somewhere around 30 percent. So things are starting to come back. It is not by any means easy, but I'm standing in front of a brand new business here. The same folks that own Kathy's kitchen have now opened up J&C barbecue and blues. It's doing quite well. And they're hoping more businesses will look at this community because a lot of folks here are saying, look, we're going to work this out, and we need other people to believe in us and to invest in us -- Brooke.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Rebuilding and a little hope. We wish them the very best.

Sarah Sidner, thank you so much in Ferguson for us.

Coming up next here on CNN, I walked this morning through Freddie Gray's neighborhood. I spoke with this young woman who has been clean now for a year. She got very real with me and talked about what life is like in this part of west Baltimore and how her friends interact with police. Don't miss this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:38:12] BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And you know, I think it is so important to hear from these young voices in these neighborhoods where we're covering here in the city. And I just want to put the spotlight back on this one particular neighborhood here in Baltimore. It's known as Santown. This is where Freddie Gray called home. It's also home to more people held in state prisons than any other area in the state of Maryland. And I went out this morning again. I went and walk in the streets in

the neighborhood. Met this phenomenal young woman. She's 24-year-old Kiarra Boulware. She's now been clean for a year, she told me. She's turned her life around after growing up with what she referred to as limited options. And really no parents around. And she knows these streets almost better than anyone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: What do you think will happen in these communities?

KIARRA BOULWARE, BALTIMORE RESIDENT: I'm hoping what will happen in these communities is that people will sign a petition, people will initiate petitions, people will do the right thing and fight rightfully. I hope that we instill some intelligence into our youth about the importance is of where we are and where we're from and how to rightfully fight, how to effectively fight for our rights where we're from.

BALDWIN: From what I'm hearing around here, if people don't see change or see charges, which is not likely, I'm hearing people will -- we thought Monday was bad. Are you hearing any of that?

BOULWARE: No.

BALDWIN: Good. Good. So do you think by having rec centers, improving communities, how will that, though, help the relationship between community members and police?

BOULWARE: OK.

[15:40:00] BALDWIN: Explain this to me.

BOULWARE: That will in no way shape or form help anything between community leaders and police because we are policed by individuals who have no relation to our background, period. We are policed by people who don't want to have any relation to our background, don't want to understand. I feel like why aren't more people from our community policing our community?

BALDWIN: Do you know the answer to that?

BOULWARE: I don't. I don't. But I believe that who are encouraging these children to still become police officers when they graduate from school? Who's home with them?

BALDWIN: So you need to have more police officers who come from this community, who understand this community, who are invested in this community, number one.

BOULWARE: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: Looking ahead, I mean, eventually we're all going to pack up and leave. You're not going to have CNN sitting here.

BOULWARE: Right. BALDWIN: So then what?

BOULWARE: So then that's when I call on additional leaders. I've been a community leader since I've been here. Like I said, I implemented the youth program. I just want us to invest more into our children, invest more into the future generation. If programs like Penn north didn't exist, how would -- I would not have recovered myself to even come back to help someone else.

So it's amazing how much people say they want done, but it's even more amazing how little they did. So hopefully some people will start showing some action, stop talking. I have a lot of friends who are very much leaders, very much capable of being everything that they want to be. Don't have the right support system, don't have the right people pushing them. Sometimes they've been pushed so far back that it's hard to crawl out. A year ago today I couldn't say that I was a future student or I work for a multimillion dollar company as a nursing assistant. I couldn't tell you all that. I can tell you I'm just trying to live today. My days is better today. I'm grateful for that.

BALDWIN: Why would someone want to start selling drugs?

BOULWARE: This is just a scenario, not anyone specific. If I am left in the house by my parents, I have -- I'm 14 years old. I can't get a legal job. No one wants to give me change at a gas station because I'm a bum. I have one other sibling to take care of. How do I take care of them? My mom's gone, dad's incarcerated or he's not active. What do I do? I go and ask for help, but help will send me to foster care.

BALDWIN: And you don't want to leave your home.

BOULWARE: Because that's my safe haven.

BALDWIN: Right.

BOULWARE: Even though it's not that safe.

BALDWIN: I'm so grateful for you talking to me today. And I'm so impressed with how you have turned your life around. And I think this community needs more of you.

BOULWARE: Absolutely. And there are. But of course, the media doesn't focus on the more of me. They focus on --

BALDWIN: We're sitting here today for that reason.

BOULWARE: Absolutely. And I salute you guys for that because it's a shame the national news has to pick up what's going on good in the community, but we can turn on our local news station and it'll go from, we're dancing and we're protesting and it's peaceful and then focus solely on the riot. That's not all that happened this week. But that's a lot of what we're hearing about.

BALDWIN: We're here to focus on you and what's happening in this community. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: She was so wonderful.

Just quickly, when we were talking about whether charges will be filed, I was just simply referencing, you know, the police investigation getting handed over to the state's attorney's office. When you talk to some of these people in these neighborhoods, they think charges would happen today or tomorrow. That's not the case. You know now, the state's attorney is going to take a look at this. And she is the one ultimately to decide if there will be criminal charges brought against any of these police officers.

And just if I may, I mean, Kiarra was phenomenal. And I just want to give credit to this Penn north recovery center, where she now lives. It's really helping some of these young people in this community. It's not quite a year already. Already its staff has helped more than 150 people turn their lives around. So if you want more information, you want to help these great people, it's Penn-north.com.

Coming up next, former Baltimore Ravens superstar Ray Lewis, he is in the city today. He is out and about speaking with young people and speaking with my colleague Ryan Young. His message to the city of Baltimore next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:50:00] BALDWIN: No more violence. This is now the rallying cry from several former and current Baltimore ravens football players, taken to social media to spread their messages here in the wake of protests and Monday night's riots. Many of them, including former Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, had been pleading for peace and now Ray Lewis is taking his message into the communities and in to the schools. Ryan Young was at one of the schools this morning and he talked to Ray Lewis.

What was his message?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Powerful moment, Brooke. I didn't expect do see all the things that we witnessed this morning. He took the stage and thought, maybe he will say a few words. Twenty five minutes later, you had all these high schoolers on the edge of their seat staring at, you know, listening to his message trying to bring the kids into what he wanted them to understand. And each one of them has a chance to have a future and it starts with a personal decision. It was a powerful message, he had almost a standing ovation for.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY LEWIS, FORMER RAVEN LINEBACKER: Stop talking about old Baltimore, old Baltimore. This is a rural problem. Detroit, number one crime rate in the world. Two years black to black. Young black kids killing each other like a video game, you know? And we got to teach them, stop killing each other (bleep).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: And I almost, as in almost standing ovation because a lot of the kids wanted to ask questions and would they be back to help the community. Ray Lewis promised that he'd be back throughout and they'd work with the high school kids.

We have also been talking to business owners in the community who are trying to help out. Look up here at the images here, this is a store owner who has put this mural up, shelter residence. A powerful history of the neighborhood and everything done. We talked about what he thinks could help turn this area around.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I was 13, I had a job. We had job opportunities. In this community, where are the job opportunities? Therapy not here. The only job opportunity they have is drug dealers that say, hey, run this over here for me. Take this. Stand here. Do this. And it's all about economics. But how do we expose them to something different? So that they have a different outlook. But -- I do believe if you change the environment, you change the people. You change the environment, you change the people, and we need to change this environment.

The whole focus, like I said, of the bakery is to educate our community on the history and legacy and I got this crazy thing in my mind that if they know the history and the legacy, they will take pride in the community, take care of it, and certainly it will get folks to come and invest in it and the rebuilding of the community.

YOUNG: So athletes and investors all talking about the same thing, Brooke. The idea of empowering people through jobs and opportunity making sure that the young people even before they graduate high school realize they have a chance to make a mark in society -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: It's the empowering and to know you have -- knowing you have options as investing in these communities. What we keep hearing in Baltimore.

Ryan Young, phenomenal reporting. Thank you so much to you.

Again, we're live here in Baltimore. And CNN will be live here throughout the evening, following every single development. We are anticipating this protest heading from one of these communities here to city hall, watching for that. State rye her stay right here. This is CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:57:30] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi there. I'm Brianna Keilar.

We have an update for you now on quake ravaged Nepal. Three Americans have just been rescued from a remote village where they were trapped in what is being describe as a cave-type area. This as we get new pictures of incredible rescues. A woman 24 years old rescued after five days in the rubble. And for nearly a week this 15-year-old trapped underneath a huge slab of cement. Today after hours of digging and against all odds, he was pulled out alive. For the last few days, CNN's Arwa Damon has been trekking towards the epicenter and what they're finding along the way can only be described as utter devastation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is one of the villages up the mountains. We're about still a six-hour hike away from the epicenter of the earthquake. The actual epicenter of it, but throughout this entire region, the villages and towns up and down these sloping mountains have all been completely devastated. There's a tent back there, and in it is a 13-year-old girl with a severe lower back injury. Her back is swollen, she has a lot of pain, can't move. There is also the mother of an 11 day-old baby who had the head injury as well.

These are parts of Nepal that have yet to see any sort of assistance whatsoever. There's a lot of rubble covering everything, and it's really hard to fully describe the magnitude of what it is that we've seen, because every single village that you go to is almost entirely destroyed. We hiked 4.5 hours up this mountain to be able to get here and we just crossed village after village after village where there was similar devastation.

We met a father whose wife was killed when a landslide swept her away. That's another thing that people out here are having to deal with. There were a lot of deaths by the landslides caused by the earthquake and also because of the boulders and rocks that ended up falling down during the earth wake. There are a lot of children who were crushed inside these various homes, reaching these parts of Nepal. It's very difficult, but it is doable.

The problem also is not just getting aid to these areas but the even farther out areas because the epicenter of the earthquake, we were told that the route to actually reach it, which goes down in between these two mountains is about a six-hour walk.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[14:00:03] KEILAR: And Arwa and her team will continue the trek to the epicenter. Thanks to Arwa for that report. "The LEAD" with Jake Tapper live in Baltimore starts right now.