All In With Chris Hayes, Monday, December 1st, 2014

ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES
December 1, 2014

Guest: Katie Ray-Jones, Dewan Smith-Williams, Mike Pesca, Etan Thomas,
Norm Stamper, Connie Schultz


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --

DEMONSTRATORS: Hands up! Don`t shoot! Hands up! Don`t shoot!

HAYES: Ferguson protests continue around the country, as the St. Louis
Rams take a stand in America`s living rooms.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tavon Austin and Kenny Britt acknowledge the events in
Ferguson.

HAYES: Then, in Cleveland, a 12-year-old shot and killed by police.
Tonight the alarming discrepancy between the video and the police version
of events.

Plus, Janay Rice tells her side of the story.

JANAY RICE, RAY RICE`S WIFE: I asked him after I saw it, why did you just
leave me there like that? He was terrified.

HAYES: And a turkey was spared. The career on the Hill was not.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Turkeys don`t have the best-
looking heads.

HAYES: Why the Obama girls are right about pardoning a turkey.

OBAMA: Do you want to touch him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nah.

(LAUGHTER)

HAYES: ALL IN starts right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.

This afternoon, President Obama met with civil rights leaders, law
enforcement and other officials to discuss how to repair the relationship
between police and communities of color, following the announcement by St.
Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch one week ago that a grand jury would
not indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of unarmed teenager
Michael Brown on August 9th -- setting off a wave, ongoing wave of protests
across the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Ferguson laid bare a problem that is not unique to St. Louis or
that area and is not unique to our times. And that is a simmering distrust
that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of
color. The sense that in a country where one of our basic principles,
perhaps the most important principle is equality under the law, that too
many individuals, particularly young people of color, do not feel as if
they are being treated fairly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The president is proposing to spend $263 million on resources and
training for law enforcement, including $75 million that would go toward
the purchase of 50,000 lapel-mounted body cameras for officers to wear on
the job.

The White House also said today, the federal government will overhaul
programs to dispense to military equipment to local police departments,
programs that led to images like this out of Ferguson. The president
stopped short of calling for those programs to be ended as many critics
have called for.

Also, today, the 16 person Ferguson commission, selected by Missouri
Governor Jay Nixon met for the first time to address the social and
economic factors that contributed to the outpouring of anger following
Brown`s killing with input from the community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who polices the police? Who? I don`t believe a damn
thing that they say and I can find a damn lie in everything that they have
said. A damn lie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The president was not the only administration official focused on
the aftermath of Ferguson today on this first day back from the holiday.
This evening in Atlanta, Attorney General Eric Holder kicked off a series
of meetings he`s attending around the country to discuss the fraught
relation between police and some of the communities they police.

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, protesters all across the nation made
sure that Ferguson and the county prosecutor`s decision or the grand jury`s
decision not to indict did not disappear into the holiday ether. Today, as
part of the "hands up, walk out" protest in more than 30 cities, protesters
laid down in the middle of the street, diverted traffic in Harvard Square
near Boston. Protests continued in New York and Washington, D.C. where
protesters blocked traffic for the second straight day. And in St. Louis
on Black Friday protesters forced the temporary shutdown of the entire
galleria mall on the busiest shopping day of the year.

But perhaps the single most visible act of protest and the most instantly
iconic and controversial took place on Sunday, when millions of American
football viewers saw this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Moments ago as the Rams came out of the tunnel, Tavon
Austin and Kenny Britt acknowledged the events in Ferguson. And then they
were joined by the rest of the receiving corps, as they ran out on to the
field.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That moment of protest by the Rams players prompted a blistering
response from Jeff Roorda of the St. Louis Police Officers Association
saying those players were ignoring evidence exonerating Darren Wilson in
what he deemed a, quote, "tasteless, offensive, and inflammatory display."

Roorda calling the players and the NFL to apologize, quote, "Now the
evidence is in and Officer Wilson`s account has been verified by physical
and ballistic evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, which led the
grand jury to conclude that no probable cause existed that Wilson engaged
in any wrongdoing. It is unthinkable that hometown athletes would so
publicly perpetuate a narrative that has been disproven over and over
again."

It`s worth noting that nothing presented to the grand jury disproved the
contention that Michael Brown had his hands up when killed. Numerous
eyewitnesses testified before the grand jury he did, in fact, have his
hands up and ballistic evidence doesn`t say one way or the other. That
said, St. Louis police met with the Rams today. It appears they won`t get
an apology from the NFL which said in a statement, quote, "We respect and
understand the concerns of all individuals who expressed views on this
tragic situation."

At a press conference late this morning, Rams coach Jeff Fisher took a
similar position.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF FISHER, ST. LOUIS RAMS HEAD COACH: As far as the choice that the
players made? No, they`re exercising their right to free speech. They
will not be disciplined by the club nor will they be disciplined by the
National Football League as it was released today. So, that`s all I`m
going to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now, former NBA player Etan Thomas. He`s co-host of
WPFW`s "The Collision" where sports and politics collide.

Etan, you were a player who was outspoken on a variety of social issues
while you were in the NBA. What do you think was going through the minds
of those athletes when they were doing that and did they know what kind of
hammer was going to be brought down on them from -- in terms of reaction?

ETAN THOMAS, FORMER NBA PLAYER: Well, first of all, I respect them for
being able to take that stand. It was amazing to me the reaction that came
after that. You know, sometimes you read something and you don`t think
it`s actually true. It`s like a Giuliani statement or a Sarah Palin
statement, you`re like, wait a minute. This actually can`t be true. This
must be one of those satire sites, you know? You know, this can`t actually
happen.

And then I`m looking at it, I`m like, wait a minute, the St. Louis Police
Department said they were offended? They were the ones who are offended,
you know, because of the stance that they took? So, we shouldn`t be
offended that you left Michael Brown in the middle of the street for four
hours in broad daylight. You shouldn`t be offended about that.

But you think they should be offended over the stance that they took. And
it`s really amazing to hear but I`m glad that -- the NFL has bigger
problems. Roger Goodell is still holding on to the lie that he never saw
the tape. You know, they got bigger things to worry about right now like
Roger Goodell`s job.

HAYES: That NFL statement that, basically, the actual wording was that
players expressing their beliefs. The subtext was we want zero part of
touching any of this. Thank you very much. Please move along.

THOMAS: Yes, they want to move along as quickly as possible. But it`s
still amazing to me, you know, everything that happened with this St. Louis
Police Department hasn`t shown that anybody should have any kind of
confidence this them.

HAYES: Well, here`s the thing -- fascinating to me about this moment in
particular was, this was a story that, you know, huge -- millions of people
watched the Bob McCulloch announcement. Everywhere I went the holiday
weekend, people were talking about it. They were talking about restaurants
and cafe and relatives were talking about it.

And here you have, you know, America sitting down holiday weekend to watch
some football and get away with it and it`s almost like the reaction is,
like, how dare you bring this into this space where we just want to watch
some football?

THOMAS: But that`s also what is inconvenient for you? You know, the
people who are saying that they`re so tired of hearing about racism all the
time like really, what, is it giving you an ulcer? It`s ruining your game?
Like how do you think we feel about living it all the time or turning on
the TV every time and seeing another person that looks like us being gunned
down by the police?

We`re not worrying about interrupting your normal day of life. It`s the
normal day of life which that caused the protests in the beginning. It`s a
normal day of life that took Michael brown`s life away from him.

So, you know, there`s a reason why people are hostile. People have a right
to be hostile. I mean, I`m not condoning any of the burning or looting,
I`m definitely not about to go Charles Barkley on anybody. Please, don`t
get me started on his statements.

But I think that people have a reason to be hostile. A riot is a voice of
the unheard. You know, Dr. King said that. You know --

HAYES: As someone who is sorted committed to players have the prerogative
to speak out, citizenship duty, if five players had come out and they had
given a salute as a sign of solidarity with Officer Darren Wilson or worn a
blue armband as a kind of sign of solidarity to Officer Darren Wilson and
they were getting pummeled by civil rights group, where would you be in
terms of defending their right to sort of express themself in that venue?

THOMAS: Well, the same place I was when I defended Pat Tillman`s rights.
I mean, I speak up for anybody who stands up for anything as far as
athletes. But people will encourage people who agree with, that`s when
they disagree with you, they say, no, you have no right to say anything.
Just shut up and play.

When they agree with you, they want to applaud you, oh, you`re wonderful.
You`re great. You`re so honorable to be able to stand up.

It`s just so interesting but I think it`s admirable what they did to stand
up. People have to remember that people like John Carlos and Tommy Smith,
they were vilified when they took their stance. You know, people love
Muhammad Ali now --

(CROSSTALK)

HAYES: John Carlos and Tommy Smith, of course, raising the iconic black
power salute with the glove at the Mexico City Olympics.

THOMAS: Right, right. And people love Muhammad Ali now, but back then
when he was standing up for everything and saying he didn`t want to go to
Vietnam and standing up for his rights, he was vilified, he was hated this.
So, this not something that is new. This has been happening for decades.
But, you know, I definitely give them a lot of credit for being able to
stand up with all the criticism.

HAYES: Etan Thomas, thank you as always.

Joining me is Norm Stamper. He`s former chief of the Seattle Police
Department, author of a great book, "Breaking Rank" which I really
recommend. I`ve read and enjoyed.

All right. Can you talk me -- what was your reaction when you read that
statement from the police officers association? Because I was a bit taken
aback by the tone of it. I mean, it is so angry, it`s so hostile. There`s
even a sort of section which basically suggests, look, we`re breaking our
backs to essentially protect the stadium and, you know, it`s a nice
stadium, it would be terrible if something happen to it, if we just walk
away and let you to fend for yourself. There`s almost a sort of menace to
it.

As someone who spent 34 years as a cop, how did you react to that
statement?

NORM STAMPER, FMR. CHIEF, SEATTLE POLICE DEPT.: Well, I wasn`t the least
bit surprised with the reaction, I`m sad to say. I think it points the
huge gulf that exists particularly between white police officers and people
of color. We -- every poll that you see taken in this country shows that
white citizens in general support the police. African-American and other
people of color do not support the police, don`t have confidence, don`t
have trust in the police. If we could acknowledge that, if we can find a
way in our hearts and in our minds to recognize that the police in this
country belong to the people, not the other way around.

HAYES: Do you think that`s -- I mean, part of what we`re seeing here,
though, is this sense of embattlement, not being faked. It`s very real. I
mean, I think both from the micro-incident of how Darren Wilson before the
grand jury recounts what happened on Canfield Drive, which is a sense of
threat, a sense he was going into hostile territory even before he
encountered Michael Brown because the area was, quote, "anti-police" in his
testimony, to the way the police officers organization, how ubiquitous is
in major police forces throughout this country, that sense of being
imperiled, that sense of being threatened?

STAMPER: It`s very common. You hear police officers today say that their
number one priority is to make it home at the end of a shift of every shift
for their entire careers. I certainly supported that goal for police
officers.

But when you swear to defend the Constitution, to provide public safety
services for all the residents of your community and to do so under law,
you are basically committing yourself to taking certain risks as a police
officer. We need to do everything we can in equipment, in training, and in
leadership, to ensure that our police officers are safe as that work can be
made. But we also need to, I think, create an atmosphere within the
community and the police that the community and the police are involved in
a partnership and that that partnership requires the community to be at the
table when policies and procedures are set to participate in the training,
to participate certainly in citizen oversight of police activities.

HAYES: There`s also this dynamic at play, I think, in which I`m seeing a
lot of people refer to Michael Brown as a thug, the people that set fires
or looted as thugs. There was this statement from that Jeff Roorda, "I`d
remind the NFL and their players, it is not the violent thugs burning down
the buildings that buy their advertisers` products. It`s cops and the good
people of St. Louis and other NFL towns that do."

You know, it strikes that there`s a distinction between the act of a person
and what that person essentially is, and I understand as a police officer
that`s a hard distinction to make in the moment when someone is threatening
you or you`re called upon to answer a case, but it seems crucial to sort of
-- for good policing to make that distinction.

STAMPER: I could not agree more.

Let`s be very clear: there are times and places when police use of force is
not only justified, it`s essential. Times and places where SWAT operations
and other very military-looking operations are carried out in the interests
of public safety. Active shooter cases, barricaded suspects who have taken
hostages, for example. All of that requires the police to move quickly,
decisively and with great discipline.

But what`s been lost in this entire conversation from my point of view is
the day-to-day conversation that takes place between working police
officers and the communities they serve. If those police officers for
whatever reasons, and I`ve got my own set of them, have come to the
conclusion that they are an occupational force there`s no hope for
improvement in that relationship.

HAYES: I keep thinking --

STAMPER: The police have got to stop conveying this attitude that we are
the police and you`re not.

HAYES: I keep thinking about this moment in the grand jury testimony when
the attorneys ask Officer Wilson if he knew the two people approaching him
and he says, no, I had never seen them before -- and I keep thinking, what
if he did? What if he`d been around there enough it was Big Mike and
Dorian and how that interaction would have gone down if it wasn`t an
interaction between strangers.

Norm Stamper, former chief of police for Seattle, author of the great book,
"Breaking Rank" -- thank you so much.

STAMPER: Thank you.

HAYES: And there is no video of the moment Michael Brown was shot by
Officer Darren Wilson, but there is video of a 12-year-old African-American
child being fatally shot by police last week in Cleveland, and what we see
on that video seems very different than how police describe it. We`ll talk
about that.

Plus, Ray Rice`s wife Janay is speaking out for the first time since video
of the incident showing Ray Rice assaulting her in an elevator became
public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT LAUER, NBC ANCHOR: You have remained silent. Has it been hard to not
speak out about this?

JANAY RICE, RAY RICE`S WIFE: Yes. It`s been the hardest part.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: We will have much more of that interview, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: There is no video of the moment Michael Brown was shot on Canfield
Drive in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9th. There is audio of the shots
fired from Officer Darren Wilson`s gun. There are recordings of what
happened immediately after the shooting.

But as far as we know there`s no visual documentation of the shooting
itself. So, all we have to piece together is a whole bunch of conflicting
accounts from eyewitnesses, including the shooter, Darren Wilson. Michael
Brown`s friend Dorian Johnson, who I talked to in Ferguson last week, and a
number of other witnesses who testified before the grand jury.

And it all comes down to one question. Who are you going to believe? Last
week, it became pretty clear the grand jury and prosecutor Bob McCulloch
more or less believed Darren Wilson`s account.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MCCULLOCH, ST. LOUIS COUNTY PROSECUTOR: They determined that no
probable cause exists to file any charge against Officer Wilson and
returned a no true bill on each of the five indictments. The physical and
scientific evidence examined by the grand jury combined with the witness
statements supported and substantiated by that physical evidence tells the
accurate and tragic story of what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Last week at a park in Cleveland, a 12-year-old African-American
child named Tamir Rice was fatally shot by police holding what turned out
to be a pellet gun.

And here`s how police described what went down as related to the press by
the president of the local police union. When the two officers pulled up,
they saw a few people sitting under a pavilion in the park. Police said
they then saw Rice pick up a gun from the table and put it in his
waistband, so the officer got out of the car and told the boy to put his
hands up but then the boy reached into his waistband, pulled out the gun
and the officer fired two shots.

One officer ordered Rice three times to put up his hands according to
police, and once Rice had been shot, the officer called in the shooting
identified him as a black male maybe 20 years old.

Taken together, this sounds like it could have been a really threatening
situation. You got a 20-year-old male with a group of other people. He
picks up a gun, puts it in his waistband. You tell him three times to put
his hands up, he goes for his gun.

If you took that to a grand jury, it would probably add up to a pretty good
case for the justifiable use of force. But this time, unlike in Ferguson,
there is a video and it tells a pretty different story.

At the start of the tape, you see Tamir Rice playing around with the pellet
gun as he paces up and down the sidewalk. At one point, he can be seen
gathering up a snowball from the grass and tossing it on to the sidewalk in
front of him. Pretty normal 12-year-old stuff.

Later, when he`s under the gazebo, you may notice that Rice is completely
alone. There he is in the back there. That table. No one with him, much
less a whole group.

And when the police car pulls up, it`s about two seconds before Tamir Rice
is down on the ground.

Joining me now is Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist Connie
Schultz. She`s a former columnist with "The Plain Dealer."

Connie, what has reaction been like as this is unfolding in Cleveland just
days after the Ferguson grand jury?

CONNIE SCHULTZ, FORMER CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER COLUMNIST: There`s been a
lot of outrage, as you can imagine. It`s very hard for many people to
believe, including me, that you could, in two seconds time, yell three
times with any sort of clarity to a young man who is alone.

We know a dispatcher -- the call to the dispatcher said it was a kid and it
was probably a toy gun. None of that was conveyed apparently to the
officers who arrived on the scene. We have had some very disappointing
local coverage from an NEOMG who decided to go look into the background of
this child`s parents, criminal backgrounds of the parents, and, yet, we
know nothing about the backgrounds of the two police officers, including
the one who actually fired the gun.

So, there is a lot of heated discussion about this right now. I think it`s
really important to distinguish that this reporting has been done mostly by
young reporters, not by "Plain Dealer" -- veteran reporters who are a
member of the guild. I make that distinction because I think that`s really
important right now, because I think community reaction would be different,
to some extent, if we had veteran reporters out in the communities now, out
in that community, talking to people who knew him, talking to family
members who knew him.

We don`t even know yet if his parents raised him or if he had other
relatives involved in his life. He had no juvenile record. All that we`ve
seen reporting on records, nothing dealing with interviews.

And you`ve got -- I could name a long list of them, Jim McCarty (ph), John
Conegli (ph), Richard Dashel (ph), Olivera Perkins (ph), Tom Peron (ph),
veteran reporters who have been covering the city of Cleveland for decades.
I wish right now that they were unleashed in the community to do the job
that we need done right now. There is so much that`s not answered right
now.

HAYES: I want to talk about some of this coverage because you`ve raised it
here and I think it`s upsetting to people because it recalls, you know,
that day when the Ferguson police released that tape of Mike Brown in the
convenience store. They felt like this was a sort of character
assassination. Not moment loomed very large in the grand jury.

Here, we have a 12-year-old boy. There`s no incriminating stuff to show
about him. There`s nothing he did except through a snowball and hold a
pellet gun. And so, it feels to people like that same impulse is now being
bourn out against his family.

Here`s "The Cleveland Plain Dealer", Tamir Rice`s father had a lot of
domestic violence. A lot of people saying, what the heck does that have to
do with anything?

SCHULTZ: Right. And I want to again correct you. It`s understandable
that you`re confused. That was NEOMG that did that.

HAYES: OK.

SCHULTZ: That was not the "Plain Dealer", and it did not run in the print
edition. In fact, I give a lot of credit to a man named David Cordalski
(ph) who`s had the visuals for "The Plain Dealer" who said on his Facebook
page, he was going to do everything he could to prevent that from running
in print edition.

This is the idea of what -- one of the executives there called journalism
where you put up little pieces of stories. But that was -- it was so
appalling. I had so many people send a link to me to that story within I
would say the first two hours that it went up.

And I refused to link it on my public Facebook page. But we did have a
discussion about it. That sort of coverage, you`re exactly right, it`s
fuelling a false narrative. It`s looking at the victim`s background,
looking for some -- what does this mean that he`s got parents with criminal
backgrounds? That his life wasn`t worth as much that we should have
expected, that he could have been shot when he was not carrying around a
real gun when he was alone?

That video is haunting, is it not? It is just haunting to watch what
happened. And that`s the thing about this day and age.

You know, I was listening to your discussion earlier about the football
players who raised their arms up. History is no longer written simply by
the victors. It is just not that way anymore because of social media and
because of our ability to look at things like this video and demand
answers.

HAYES: Connie Schultz in Cleveland, thank you very much. Really
appreciate it.

All right. Janay Rice got a lot of backlash which he apologized during the
now infamous press conference after that video came out showing Ray Rice
physically assaulting her in a casino elevator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAUER: Did anyone at the Ravens say, Janay, it would be really good if you
would issue some kind of a policy?

JANAY RICE: They suggested it, yes.

LAUER: Did they come up with the wording?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Her answer to that, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: A question a lot of people have been asking since seeing that
shocking video of Ray Rice physically assaulting his then-fiance Janay
Palmer in an elevator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAUER: So, let me just ask you directly and bluntly -- prior to what we
have now seen in that elevator, was there any ever any incident of violence
in your relationship with Ray?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Much more in that interview is ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Every year in the grand tradition of Thanksgiving, the president of
the United States pardons a turkey. This year was no different. In fact,
you may have watched last week as Obama pardoned a lucky turkey named
Cheese with his two teenaged daughters by his side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: All right. Cheese, you are hereby pardoned from the Thanksgiving
dinner. Congratulations. Gobble gobble.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: He looks pretty happy about it.

OBAMA: All right, if you want to take Cheese down, that`s okay.

COLE COOPER: He`s a fancy boy, right?

OBAMA: I will tell you, though, turkeys don`t have the best-looking heads,
you know what I`m saying.

COOPER: I think they`re beautiful.

OBAMA: Yeah.

COOPER: And, if you think about it, they`re red, white and blue. So
they`re American patriotic too.

OBAMA: There`s a patriotism element to it. Absolutely. You guys want to
pet him?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Out of that fun, goofy, cringe-inducing family event, a particular
genera of snapshots started making the rounds showing Sasha Malia, the
president`s daughters, standing behind their father looking unenthused
about the whole situation. And their perceived side-eye towards the
presidential turkey pardon got some people`s attention, including Elizabeth
Lauten, the communications director for Republican congressman Steven
Fincher.

Outraged, Lauten took to Facebook writing, quote, "Dear Sasha and Malia, I
get you`re both in those awful teen years, but you`re a part of the first
family. Try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play.
Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you.
Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar. And certainly don`t
make faces during televised public events."

Well, that got around quite a bit. And earlier today, after the backlash
to the backlash, that GOP staffer resigned from her position, kicking off a
much larger discussion about whether or not she should have lost her job
and if the president`s children are off limits.

But those very worthwhile conversations lose sight of the real issue here,
which is this that the Obama daughters appear to have had the indisputably,
objectively correct reaction towards the entire turkey pardon tradition.

In fact, there is perhaps no public event on the president`s entire
calendar more deserving of adolescent standoffishness than this bizarre,
cringe-inducing ceremony.

So, let`s focus on the real issue here: teenage contempt has never been
more appropriate in any situation than when you are the president`s
daughters watching
him pardon a turkey named Cheese.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: An NFL arbitrator has overturned the NFL`s indefinite suspension of
former Baltimore running back Ray Rice. Rice had originally been handed a
two-game suspension for assaulting his then fiancee, Janay Palmer in an
Atlantic City hotel elevator. But after TMZ released a tape from inside
that elevator, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell decided to suspend Ray Rice
indefinitely saying Rice had misled the league about what had happened.

On Friday, however, the arbitrator, former federal judge Barbara Jones,
essentially decided Goodell had no grounds to penalize Rice a second time
simply because a tape became available regarding an incident the NFL
already knew had happened.

Quote, "after careful consideration of all the evidence, I am not persuaded
that Rice lied to, or misled, the NFL at his June interview. I find that
the indefinite suspension was an abuse of discretion and must be vacated."

Which means Ray Rice is now eligible to play football again immediately if
he can find a team to sign him.

His wife, Janay Palmer Rice and her mother Candy Palmer, sat down with Matt
Lauer for a lengthy interview, parts of which aired on The Today Show. And
in that exclusive interview, Janay Rice advocates on her husband`s behalf
as well as talking about what happened that night in Atlantic City.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT LAUER, NBC ANCHOR: I guess it was about four days or so after the
incident at the casino that the first tape came out, the one that was taken
outside the elevator. Had you seen the tape?

JANAY RICE, RAY RICE`S WIFE: I saw the first one.

LAUER: So, did you see it before it was released to the public?

RICE: No. We just heard about it.

LAUER: You knew about it. Were you dreading the moment that that tape
came out?

RICE: Yes. Yes. We knew it was going to happen. We didn`t know exactly
when it was going to happen. But there was no preparing us at all.

When I saw that it was horrible.

You can`t make excuses for anything, bu we were highly intoxicated. And in
the moment, you`re not thinking, oh my god, I`m on a camera in a elevator.
So, of course people are going to read into everything and pick at
everything about the situation. We understand that.

LAUER: Have you seen the second tape?

RICE: No, I refuse. I refuse.

I`m not going to let the public bring me back there.

LAUER: Mom, you`ve seen it?

CANDY PALMER, JANAY RICE`S MOTHER: Of course. I didn`t want to see it at
first. And it took me a while, but I did, because I had to. That`s my
child. And if something happened to her, I don`t care what it is, I want
to see it.

LAUER: Can you tell me the reaction you had when you saw it the first
time?

PALMER: I was kind of sick. I was. I was sick to watch it.

LAUER: Did it change your view of what happened in any way? Or was it
what you expected?

PALMER: Kind of what I thought. Kind of what I thought.

LAUER: When that second tape came out, your daughter became the face of
domestic violence in this country instantly. And I know you don`t think
that`s fair.

PALMER: No. I know -- I mean, I understand. I totally understand how
people look at that and think that that`s who she is, but I know her and we
know it, and she`s not.

LAUER: So, let me just ask you directly and bluntly, prior to what we have
now seen in that elevator, was there ever any incident of violence in your
relationship with Ray, or has there been any incident of violence since
that elevator incident?

RICE: No.

There`s no way. He knows what he would have to deal with, you know, if
this was something -- you know, I`m not going to sit there in silence and
let something happen to me and, you know, god forbid in front of my child.
And just let it happen? There`s no way.

LAUER: There`s something else on that tape. The punch is obviously
outrageous, but there`s something that happens after the punch. And
there`s -- it`s mostly seen from outside. And Janay, you are unconscious,
you`re out cold on the floor. And instead of being so freaked out that he
kneels down and takes your daughter head in his arms and strokes her face
and strokes her hair and says I`m sorry, he stands there for a long time.
What did you think when you saw that part of the tape?

PALMER: I was very upset by that part and I told him so. I basically told
him that I didn`t care who was out there at the elevator, you should have
never left her there like that. I did tell him that.

RICE: And I asked him after I saw it, why did you just leave me there like
that?.

LAUER: Did you see that part?

RICE: Yes, that`s the one part...

LAUER: From the outside. Why didn`t you comfort me?

RICE: Yeah, he said he was terrified. He was in such shock that this
happened, that he didn`t know how to function at that point. And then, you
know, obviously, by that time, hotel security is there, the police are
there.

LAUER: The minute I heard this story, I started to hear from people who
knew Ray for a long time and I started to hear amazing things about him. I
heard rave reviews. And so you do have to ask the question, how could that
guy end up doing that in that elevator.

PALMER: I think we all have, like, a moment...

RICE: People forget that these people are human.

PALMER: Yeah, humanness.

RICE: Everybody makes mistakes. After this whole situation, you would
think that we were in a whole country full of people who never made a
mistake.

I apologize for the part that I took in this. And I apologized, because
for one, this press conference was something the Ravens put together.

LAUER: Did you want to be a part of that press conference?

RICE: I was going to do anything that was going to help the situation.

LAUER: When you say help the situation, help Ray and his career?

RICE: Both -- helped the way we looked in the media, help his image, help,
obviously, his career. So, you know, they told us earlier that week we
would do the press conference. And I was fine with it.

LAUER: And did anyone at the Ravens say Janay, it would be really good
if you issued some kind of an apology.

RICE: They suggested it, yes.

LAUER: Did they come up with the wording?

RICE: No, not specifically. They basically gave us a general script.

I do deeply regret the role that I played in the incident that night.

LAUER: That really started it.

RICE: And that was frustrating for me because, obviously, people took it
as I`m taking light over what Ray did. In no way.

PALMER: Or you are giving him an excuse.

LAUER: You`re in denial.

RICE: Yeah. Not at all. I was basically not doing what I was told, but,
at the same time, I didn`t think it was completely wrong for me to
apologize beacuse at the end of the day, I got arrested, too. So I did
something wrong, too. Not taking any light off of what Ray did, because I
agree with everybody else. It was wrong.

LAUER: The Ravens tweeted out that portion of the statement, your apology.
And then they quickly took it down, because I think they understood very
fast the
reaction to that apology. Do you think the reaction was warranted from
people around the country?

RICE: I completely understood it.

PALMER: Me too.

RICE: I completely understood it, which was, you know, frustrating,
because the whole thing was just awkward to be honest.

LAUER: But had it not been for the Ravens urging you, or suggesting you
would apologize, you would have never been at that press conference and you
would have never apologized.

RICE: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: What Janay Rice wants to happen now and what Ray Rice has to say
about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Tomorrow, The Today Show will broadcast Matt Lauer`s exclusive
interview with Ray Rice. Here is part of that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAUER: What do you think it would take for another owner and another group
of fans to put the images of that video behind you and say we`ll take a
chance on Ray Rice?

RAY RICE: I would think that they would have to be, you know, willing to,
you know, look deeper into who I am and realize that me and my wife had one
bad night and I took full responsibility for it. And one thing about my
punishment and everything going along with anything that happened is that
I`ve accepted it. I went fully forward with it. I never complained or I
never did anything like that, I took full responsibility for everything
that I did. And the only thing I can ope for and wish for is a second
chance.

(BEGN VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Janay Rice basically agrees with her husband ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAUER: What`s it going to take in your mind,Janay, for another team to
take a chance on Ray Rice?

RICE: For them to look passed the situation which I know is going to be
hard. But at the end of the day, he`s a football player and that`s what
they should be really be focused on. Because he`s proven himself as a
football player for seven years. There`s never been a question on what he
can do on the field.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Janay Rice made it clear in an interview with Matt Lauer that aired
on The Today Show this morning, she wants her husband back on an NFL team
now he`s been cleared to play.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAUER: Do you think an owner and fans of a team can get that image or
those images from that elevator tape out of their minds?

RICE: With time. We know it`s going to take some work.

So, I think once he shows them who he is, and, you know, they reach out to
people here and they find out the things that he`s done, then I think it`s
definitely, you know, could help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now, Dewan Smith Williams, wife of former NFL player
Wally Williams. She says the league all but ignored her when her husband
became violent. And Dewan, we`ve spoken before about what happened with
you and your husband several incidents, the league kind of coming in and
basically saying don`t go to the police.

How are you reacting to watching Janay Rice talk about her side of this?

DEWAN SMITH-WILLIAMS, WIFE OF FRM. NFL PLAYER: Well, I found it very
interesting that she had a similar situation where she was kind of scripted
in what would be said and kind of led how they wanted them to represent the
team.

I think a lot of things that are being held out or withheld is that with
this fight that they had, they were intoxicated. So when you have a mind-
altering drug in your body, there`s a lot of people that have things during
-- being drunk or being intoxicated that they`ve regretted.

So, my first interview that I did with CNN, I always said that I knew Ray
would definitely be able to play again because I found it completely
unbelievable that the NFL had no knowledge of that tape and what really
happened.

HAYES: So, do you -- when you are hearing this story are you feeling like
you`re basically with her, that like you believe it only happened once,
people make mistakes. He should be given a second chance?

SMITH-WILLIAMS: You know, I can`t speak for Janay. I would like to say
that I believe her. And I`m not her judge. But just because of the nature
of the violence, it just happened too quickly. So, to me, that just, you
know, it was too easy to happen that way. I don`t believe that -- I just
can say from my situation it was more than one time.

HAYES: Dewan Smith-Williams, thank you very much for your time.

Joining me now, Mike Pesca, host of the Slate daily Podcast The Gist; and
Katie Ray-Jones, CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Katie, I wanted to play that interview at length, because it seemed to me
Janay Rice had been kind of reduced to this mute figure in her own drama.
All we got to see is this tape played over and over and over and no one got
to hear from her. Here she is telling her own story.

And it`s also representative of survivors of domestic violence across the
country thousands of times a day in every courthouse who basically say this
was a mistake or this happened once or this was under the alcohol and I
want the person who did this to me to have a second chance.

What is your reaction to hearing that?

KATIE RAY-JONES, CEO, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: You know, I definitely
was
not surprised by Janay Rice`s comments and statements, it`s what we hear
from many
women every day at the National Domestic Violence Hotline. We often spend
time as advocates working through what their experiences are, what their
abuser did to them, educating about the power and control dynamics that
exist in a relationship before someone really understands the complexities
of what`s happening in the relationship.

So her statements were very typical for what we hear from many victims and
survivors who contact us every day.

HAYES: Mike, I don`t think it was, to what Dewan was saying to me, I don`t
think it`s surprising the arbitrator ruled against the NFL, because it was
always complete bunk that they didn`t know what they were doing.

MIKE PESCA, THE GIST: Yeah, and if you want to -- if you`re mad that Ray
Rice is now allowed to play and it`s questionable if he will get hired by a
team, being mad at Roger Goodell because he screwed up the process and
that`s what the arbitrator said.

When I watch that tape, you know what I see? I see humanity in a way that
Roger Goodell never showed us when he did his robotic press conferences.
And by humanity, I don`t just mean frailty, I mean it`s so complicated.
And there she is pleading for her husband`s job, her own livelihood.

HAYES: It`s very hard to watch that.

PESCA: And, you know, there`s another thing there. I think most of us get
that. And most of us understand what Katie was saying that, you know,
domestic victims will often say this is really one time.

I would also on the same hand, hate to discount her and say that`s just so
typical of domestic violence...

HAYES: This is exactly -- Katie, this is the trap. This is the trap. The
trap is, at one level, basically saying I don`t believe you, you`re stuck
in, you know, dynamics of a violent relationship, the evidence shows it
very rarely is just one time. But that is condescending like who the heck
am I to say that to Janay Rice? She`s an actual adult human being with
agency over her own life like, so then how do you interpret that? What do
you do with what she is saying?

RAY-JONES: I mean, we always approach as she`s the expert of her life.
She`s going to disclose what she wants to disclose, whether that`s because
that`s
the truth or that`s for safety reasons, no one knows. I mean, that really
is her story that she will only know the truth of ever, her and Ray Rice.

So from an advocate perspective, we would always talk with Janay and she
see what she wants to do and support her regardless of what decision she
wants to make.

HAYES: Then that`s a key policy conundrum here, right, because you have a
criminal justice system in which you -- you can`t prosecute if the witness
who it happened to does not cooperate and then you get, it seems, the other
side, you get
these patterns of abuse that seem to go unpunished.

RAY-JONES: Right. And most of the time, you don`t have a video that shows
you what really happened either.

PESCA: Katie, can I ask you a question. I`ve talked to prosecutors. We
heard Janay there say that she did something wrong, too, that`s why she was
arrested. I talked to a prosecutor who said that`s improper. That needs
to be reformed.

HAYES: That she was arrested?

PESCA: Yeah, what`s the best practice on that?

RAY-JONES: Well, we definitely hear from women who reach out to us and say
that they were arrested sometimes even defending themselves. So we know
that it`s possible and we really encourage anyone who reaches out to us to
have that conversation about if violence breaks out, what`s the safest
thing to do, because there are many instances where the victim in the
relationship actually gets arrested, because she threw something at him,
she hit him, she spit at him, whatever that might be. There can be
repercussions for that, certainly. So we want to educate people about
that.

HAYES: Mike Pesca and Katie Ray-Jones, thank you, both. Really appreciate
it.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Today, dear viewer, is Cyber Monday. And everybody knows what that
means, it`s the official day to do all of your holiday shopping online, to
take advantage of a bunch of supposedly huge discounts. Although, I have
to say, for a
group of people who came to age at a certain point in the internet`s
development like me, hearing the name Cyber Monday is always going to be a
little bit funny.

Of course, Cyber Monday comes on the heels of what has developed into a
sort of consumerist holy trinity. The day after Thanksgiving, we have
black Friday in which people line up in person while it`s still dark
outside or in some cases while it`s still Thanksgiving for the big sales in
the big box stores.

And there`s Small Business Saturday when everyone is supposed to shop at
their local neighborhood stores, even the first family partook this year at
Politics and Prose.

Sunday, we rest. Then, Cyber Monday, you go online and spend whatever you
have left.

But in this season of spending billions of dollars on consumer goods,
Tuesday, that`s tomorrow, offers the opportunity for something a little
different.

Giving Tuesday is a day to put your money or your time toward a cause you
believe in. For the third year in a row, a lot of folks will be making a
concerted effort tomorrow to support philanthropic organizations, whether
it`s giving to international groups like UNICEF and Human Rights Watch, or
volunteering at your local soup kitchen or mentoring programs or supporting
the Ferguson library.

This year, two charities my wife and I are supporting that I find
particularly important are Partners in Health and Doctors Without Borders
both of which provide frontline medical care in some of the poorest, most
devastated countries around the world, both have playing major roles in
combating the Ebola pandemic in West Africa.

But their work, like so many other organizations, is far from done. So
tomorrow, if you have the resources or the time to give, give it to support
a cause you believe in. And we`ll figure out something you can buy again
on Wednesday.

That is "All In" for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right
now.

END

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

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