Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Fredricka Whitfield 2

CNNW CNN Newsroom With Fredricka Whitfield April 11, 2015

Scott before he was killed. As you look at pictures outside the Funeral Services now. Dash cam video the passenger could be seen on the Police Cruisers dash cam circled to the right. This is new video of the passenger in the striped shirt talking with another officer. State Authorities Say they have met with this person and he has been released without charges. Cnn is in summerville, South Carolina where the Funeral Service is about to get started. What more can you tell us about the passenger and any information that person may have . You know fred its going to be key to the investigation as we try to hear more from this person whos really just being considered at this point the mystery passenger. Thats part of the very crucial part of the investigation not only for the defense but for the case itself. Meantime back out here live to what is summerville, South Carolina in the last few moments, Significant Development here large procession just arrived here at the head of that several limousines we believe that was, obviously transporting mr. Scotts family. At this point we do know that this is happening ahead of that scheduled start time for this funeral ceremony still scheduled to begin here any moment now. At this point we do understand that this facility will likely exceed its capacity. Weve seen a very large crowd gather outside of ward ministries here in summerville. I can tell you that crowd im looking at here fred far exceeds the 400 person limit that is expected here. Now at the same time we are being told that the ceremony could potentially last at least three hours. So this will be perhaps one of the longer ones weve seen here in recent days. Now as for the community itself here its what were seeing is really several members of the Community Rallying behind the scott family. We heard from several of their supporters who said they plan to really pull back or hold back on any protests or demonstrations today is really about being there for the scott family a day after those eight shots rang out. Fred . And Polo Sandoval, again, looks like a lot of people who are there outside of that church and when, of course, the Funeral Service gets under way we will bring more information on that and keep us updated on the investigation. Meantime in california an investigation under way into the apparent Police Beating of a man after a chase on horseback. Officials says the suspect fled on a horse as deputies were trying to serve a search warrant. The chase ended with the suspect falling off the horse and then spreading his hands out above his head. And then as you see in these images right here deputies using a taser and beating the suspect as a news helicopter filmed the whole incident. This is what the attorney for the man being arrested had to say. Somebody should go to prison over this. What i saw on the television was thugs beating up my client. Thats what i saw. And these questions about what was he doing. What did they do . This is far worse than rodney king. All right. Lets bring in our panel lot to talk about, civil rights attorney Avery Friedman is here in atlanta with me usually out of cleveland, and we are lucky to have him in atlanta and cnn political commentator van jones joining us from los angeles. Good to see you as well. Gentlemen, a lot to talk about. Lets talk about the situation in california. Van, thats where you in los angeles. What more is being said in circles there about the imagery this caught on a news helicopter showing a man who appears to be sur rendering, but then being subjected to the tasering and the beating . Well you know, the first thing that comes up for everybody is rodney king. But this is a very different situation in that you its not just some guy with a little shaky camera off to the side. You have a news helicopter above clearly recording the entire thing and that seems to be no deterrent for these officers. Clearly the guy thought, if i just lay down here spread out 100 im not resisting maybe i will be in good shape. That didnt happen. This news is just being absorbed here in california but i think youre going to see a real demand that these kinds of things now, we live in a different world where you have, you know cell cameras, you have helicopters, youve got atms have little cameras on them a little more Video Evidence of both wrong doing whether its civilians or whether its Law Enforcement. I think youre going to have an expectation now from the public that when this sort of stuff happens there is a Quick Response from the authorities that people do get arrested or fired or disciplined and demoted quickly and that is a new development i think for Law Enforcement. Not just here in california but across the country. And then to vans point, avery, we talk about Quick Response but the response only comes as a result of things like this being caught on camera. In this case news helicopter the South Carolina case one week ago today, with walter scott whos being laid to rest. If not for the videotape of an innocent bystander and passerby we wouldnt be having this dialog. What does this tell you about either the state of relations between police and the communities in which they serve or the state of this nation being very watchful and catching things onvideotape revealing it tough things to watch . You know it really digs even deeper than that, fredricka. It goes to the Police Academies now training officers. You have to assume if youre in Law Enforcement that theres a video watching. If its not one set up by the government its one involving citizens. The whole approach essentially would be if you wouldnt do Something Like that in front of your mother, for example, dont do it in public because youre going to get caught. Frankly the michael the scott slager case is so important, i think its a game changer on where Law Enforcement will be dealing with these kind of issues. In what way . In terms of training of Police Officers looking at the character of a potential, you know Police Officer recruit, or having a more watchful entity of officers once they are wearing the badge, what do you manyean in terms of Game Changers . It means theres been an assumption if you go into Law Enforcement basically you got a frees pass. If something is going to happen, no one is going to catch you. Right now given citizen video, given the nature of scrutiny through video, Police Officers better play it straight or else were going to see these kind of events replicated time and time again. Has there been an erosion maybe even of the knowibility of a Police Officer, the feeling by many people in various communities, there is a lack of respect, there isnt a feeling of trust the Police Officers when you have videotaped imagery like this it doesnt help the cause . Well i think that unfortunately that may be happening. I think we may be going through a cultural rehpset which may wind up being healthy which says a Police Officer is not a saint or superhero. A Police Officer is a City Employee doing a very tough job and you have a range, some are excellent, some are not, some are incredibly honest, some not. The incentives are for Police Officers to be less than honest on a Police Report if they did something wrong. They tonight want to get in trouble. They dont want to go to jail. Start treating Police Officers as human beings who can make mistakes. The reason youre having such outrage right now is because this idea of a free passive you have on a blue uniform has i think been in the eyes of many people abuse. I want to point out some cultural shifts. You saw Time Magazine with the headline black lives matter. That was surprising to see a Time Magazine adopting the slogan of some of the protests. Indigo go and go fund me refuse to put up a crowd sourcing for this officer even though the officer that killed mike brown got a Million Dollars online. Youre starting to see real alignment online a reset culturally not every Police Officer should be seen as a saint or superhero. Avery you will be back with us because i want to ask from your perspective how does a defense attorney we know it to be andy savage a prominent South Carolina attorney represent a Michael Slager in a case like this which a Police Officer three days after people are to learn of it is now facing murder charges and in jail. Thanks so much. Van appreciate you from los angeles as well. Still ahead, a simple handshake between president obama and cuban president raul castro. But the symbolism continues to resonate worldwide. A live report from panama next. Headache . Motrin helps you be an unstoppable, letsrockthisconcert likeits1999 kind of mom. Back pain . Motrin helps you be the sideplanking keepingupwith yourgirlfriend eventhoughyoullfeelit later kind of woman you are. Body pain . Motrin helps you be an unstoppable, icantotallydothis allinonetrip kind of woman. When pain tries to stop you, theres motrin. Motrin works fast to stop pain where it starts. Make it happen with new motrin liquid gels. Whether you need a warm up before the big race. Or a healthy start before the big meeting theres a choice hotel thats waiting for you. This spring, choose choice twice, get a night at no price at 1,500 hotels. Book now at choicehotels. Com i just got charged for my credit score. Again. You should check out credit karma. Theyre like free. Yeah . Yeah. How . Ads. Credit karma . Yeah. Cool yeah. Credit karma. Really free credit scores. Really. Free. Word. To your mother did you call your mom . I should probably call her. You should probably call her. Its her birthday. This just in to cnn. We are learning a second suspect has been arrested in connection with a kansas mans plot to bomb a u. S. Army base. The Justice Department says Alexander Blair knew about john bookers plan to detonate a car bomb at ft. Riley but didnt report it. Booker who is 20 years old known as Mohammad Abdullah hassan is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to damage property by means of an explosive and attempting to provide Material Support to isis. The fbi says it was bookers Facebook Post that first got their attention last year. This particular defendant has been under investigation for some time by the Fbis Joint Terrorism Task force. Its alleged that since march of this year hes been plotting to construct an explosive device for an attack on american soil. He repeatedly stated his desire to engage in violent jihad on behalf of the Islamic State of iraq. Other than known as isil. Cnn Law Enforcement analyst tom fuentes is on the phone with us right now. All right. So tom, this case had a very detailed federal surveillance. The feds apparently have been watching booker since his comments on facebook last year when he called killing in jihad a, quote adrenaline rush and now the second arrest of a 28yearold who apparently knew of his alleged plan. What does this tell you about the detail of this alleged plot . Well, it tells me how much the intent was there on this part to conduct this attack. Actually it wasnt the fbi that monitored the facebook account. A private citizen called the fbi and said that they had seen these postings and were disturbed and notified the fbi to look into it and the investigation started a year ago in march 2014. So the fbi went and interviewed him and, you know, said are you serious . Because these cases are nuisance nuisance. The fbi has hundreds of cases where people are putting out the postings and they dont know if theyre just bragging or not. They actually go check them out. And so here he knew the fbi was looking at him and still decided he was going to go forward and telling people he was going to join the army so that he could do an attack and kill highranking officers once inside the army. So, you know apparently before the arrest he booker allegedly met with this federal agent, obviously he didnt know it was a federal agent, but if investigators have been looking at him for at least a year is it odd or is this fairly, you know normal in your view that an arrest would come one year later . Why was there not enough perhaps is the question a year ago if they already if flags were already raised about his potential involvement . Because they ended up getting two informants in to dealing with him in this case and they wanted to make sure that they wouldnt have a defense to say i was just kidding, i didnt mean it. They dont help the person do the plot. They afford him the opportunity to do what hes already said he wants to do which is conduct the attack. He was scheduled to enter the army this month in april, but when the army learned and the fbi notified the army of what this was about they terminated his entry a month ago. So once that happened he decided thats it im going to assemble a bomb and put it in the trunk of my car and be a suicide bomber and crash the gate and blow it up. The other subject arrested in connection with it knew thats what he wanted to do helped him rent a garage space where he could store the explosive that he was going to acquire and provided significant help to him. It was more than just he knew about it and didnt inform the authorities. He knew about it and was helping him go forward with this even though he wasnt going to be a bomber himself. This 20yearold john booker arrested second arrest of 28yearold Alexander Blair, in your view might there be others . Not that i know of. I think this had gone and im not aware or they would have probably already been arrested. I think there was enough here for the fbi to be certain that these were the two and only the two involved in this and to go ahead and make the arrest and terminate the case. Dont forget when the arrest is made he believes hes got the bomb in the car and is on his way to go detonate. Tom fuentes thanks for being with us. Appreciate it. Well be right back after this. Know your Financial Plan wont keep you up at night. Know you have insights from professional investment strategists to help set your mind at ease. Know that planning for retirement can be the least of your worries. With the guidance of a pnc investments financial advisor, know you can get help staying on track for the future youve always wanted. Meet the worlds newest Energy Superpower. Surprised . In fact, america is now the worlds number one natural gas producer. And we could soon become number one in oil. Because Hydraulic Fracturing Technology is safely recovering lots more oil and natural gas. Supporting millions of new jobs. Billions in tax revenue. And a new century of American Energy security. The new Energy Superpower . Its red, white and blue. Log on to learn more. Headache . Motrin helps you be an unstoppable, letsrockthisconcert likeits1999 kind of mom. When pain tries to stop you, theres motrin. Motrin works fast to stop pain where it starts. Make it happen with new motrin liquid gels. We move to a historic turn ins u. S. cuba relations. President obama and cuban president raul castro shaking hands several times at a summit in panama. Today the two leaders may sit down face to face and that would mark the first highlevel talks between these two countries since 1959 when Vice President Richard Nixon met with then Prime Minister fidel castro. Peter is in panama city author of back channel to cuba. On the phone with me now, what is the impact if these two leaders, indeed, meet face to face break bread so to speak and talk . Right. I have an image of them strolling in the gardens and smoking a cigar together that raul castro has brought as a peace offering to the United States. As i understand it they may be meeting as were speaking. This would be the first actual substantive meeting between these two president s. Theyve made history by being in a Conference Room together and, of course, there was a meeting between foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez and secretary of state john kerry on thursday night. You have a succession of events here in panama of changing the course of u. S. cuban relations, putting the perpetual hostility of the past in the past and opening the door to as obama himself has said a new era, a new beginning in u. S. cuban relations. What would they be talking about . This isnt the first time weve seen them in each others company. Recall during the Nelson Mandela funeral, they actually shook hands then and

© 2025 Vimarsana