Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Feds Considering Civil Rights Charges; Prosecutors Revisit Zimmerman Trial; Lessons From The Zimmerman Trial; "Glee" Star's Autopsy Set For Today; Carnival Forms Safety Review Board; Boy Scouts Face New Fitness Rules; NFL Stars React To Zimmerman Verdict

Aired July 15, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Also, he was considered the glue of "Glee." Cory Monteith found dead at the age of 31. And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: My friend's son, he got stuck in a sand dune and he's like under the sand and they can't get him out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: A desperate rescue to save a 6-year-old boy swallowed by a sinkhole while playing on a sand dune. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Good morning. Thank you so much for being with me. I'm Carol Costello. The George Zimmerman verdict is in, but the case is far from over. From Sanford, Florida to the San Francisco Bay protesters rallied against his acquittal and the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin. Most of the demonstrations were peaceful, but things did turn tense and ugly in Los Angeles.

Last night some protesters pelted police with rocks and batteries, and officers responded by firing bean bags into the crowd. But the biggest fight may now shift to a federal court, where Zimmerman could face new charges.

CNN's George Howell is in Sanford with that part of the story. And our guests, Pastor Jamal Bryan and radio host, David Webb, will discuss the federal investigation that's under way. But George, I want to begin with you. Specifically, what are the feds considering?

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, good morning. So we're talking about the Department of Justice and the possibility of more legal action. Keep in mind the NAACP and its president, Ben Jealous, they believe that race may have been a factor and they believe the Department of Justice should look into it. Now, we're also hearing from Trayvon Martin's parents.

Keep in mind we heard Sybrina Fulton over Twitter basically calling this her darkest hour. We heard from Tracy Martin over Twitter saying that he will always love his baby Tray. And we're also hearing from their attorney, Benjamin Crump, who expressed what this family is going through after the verdict. I want you to listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR TRAYVON MARTIN'S FAMILY: They went through the grieving process. They cried, they prayed, they went to church Sunday morning and when Sybrina Fulton came home from church, she said, Attorney Crump, this verdict will not define Trayvon. We will define Trayvon and I was so inspired by her. They've been so dignified and graceful throughout this, you know, just terrible situation that has been laid upon their doorstep.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: So when you talk about self-defense, that statute here in the state of Florida, there is a line, that word that we've all referred to, the stand your ground clause, it's within self-defense. It also provides people with immunity. So we did hear Defense Attorney Mark O'Mara say, you know, if there are more lawsuits to come, they will seek and his quote, "we will get immunity."

COSTELLO: All right, George Howell reporting live from Sanford, Florida this morning. Coming up, we're going to hear from the NAACP, its Washington Bureau Director Hillary Shelton will join us live at the bottom of the hour, as we told you. The NAACP is pushing for federal civil rights charges to be filed against George Zimmerman.

Also this morning, we're hearing from prosecutors. HLN's Vinnie Politan, himself a former prosecutor, has just finished an interview with the entire team. Vinnie joins us now from Jacksonville. Tell us. What did they say?

VINNIE POLITAN, HOST, HLN'S "AFTER DARK": Carol, I sat down for more than an hour and it was pretty fascinating to hear from these prosecutors, going behind the scenes, trying to get into their minds. The trial strategy, why they made decisions, and how they defended themselves. Now, one thing that I wanted to find out, and this is a self-defense case, and 99 times out of 100 in a self-defense case the defendant takes the stand. That didn't happen in this case because prosecutors played George Zimmerman's statements for the jury. So he never had to testify, never be cross-examined and that was one of the questions I asked them about. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERNIE DE LA RIONDA, PROSECUTOR: You know, we're stuck with the evidence we have. We would --

POLITAN: Are you being nice right now?

DE LA RIONDA: Well, no. It's the truth. We don't get to pick our witnesses. We've got to deal with what we have. We got to do the best we

ANGELA COREY, FLORIDA STATE ATTORNEY: There was a wealth of hard cold physical evidence, DNA and everything else, that showed that George Zimmerman lied in his statements to the police.

POLITAN: There was no sort of narrative that this jury could follow, that America could follow.

DE LA RIONDA: Well, the problem you've got in a trial is you can't say jury, don't speculate and then ask them to speculate. And so we're left with the defendant's story, and what we attempted to do as best we could is to prove that his story was false. Therefore, why would he be lying about something? Something minor about trying to get an address. I thought that was blatantly obviously a lie. And when I was talking to the jury, when I was arguing to the jury, I saw them nodding their heads.

POLITAN: So what was the deciding factor, and was it a group decision?

DE LA RIONDA: Yes. And the problem you have is that there was enough evidence, even though I would argue it was insignificant or very little, that there was self-defense. You had John Good. You had other people. So they were going to be able to get an instruction as to self-defense. And once we knew that was coming on, we felt we needed to put his statement on and just disprove it.

COREY: And you had the injuries. And the injuries indicate there was some sort of a struggle. Our position all along, we never said that Trayvon didn't do something to George Zimmerman. What we said is you can't take a concealed weapon and encourage or incite a fistfight, which is what he did by stalking a teenager who didn't know who he was, and then whip your gun out and shoot. And that's what he said.

"I just got my gun out and shot him." Never explaining the details of how he was able to pull his gun if he was being beaten as brutally as he claimed. And so we had to put all of that in and then we clearly refuted it with the physical evidence. No DNA on Trayvon Martin's hands, who supposedly were covering his bloody nose. You know, so many other things and those lies were put in front of the jury one after the other after the other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

POLITAN: And you know what, Carol? One of the other things, Bernie De La Rionda still thought George Zimmerman might take the stand just because George Zimmerman had always spoken before and, you know, somehow he would be considered a coward if he didn't take the stand, but ultimately, he didn't. And that may very well have made the difference in this case.

COSTELLO: Just unbelievable. What was your most surprising moment from the interview?

POLITAN: Well, on "After Dark" every night I go around with my experts and I ask them give me one word to describe something. And it's usually something that happened in court that day. Well, today I had the prosecutors there and I asked them give me one word to describe George Zimmerman. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLITAN: One word to describe George Zimmerman. COREY: Murderer.

POLITAN: George Zimmerman.

DE LA RIONDA: Lucky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Wow.

POLITAN: Murderer. He was found not guilty, but Angela Corey -- she got emotional at that moment. She believes that George Zimmerman, despite what the jury said, is a murderer.

COSTELLO: Fascinating stuff. Thank you so much, HLN's Vinnie Politan. Thanks for joining us. And tune in tonight to see Vinnie's full interview from the prosecution team.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM, you're going to hear from George Zimmerman's lawyer, Mark O'Mara. That's at the bottom of the hour right here on the CNN NEWSROOM.

But right now we want to focus on what we can learn from this trial. Many in the country, especially African-Americans, are struggling to come to terms with the verdict. No punishment for a man who shoots and kills an unarmed African-American teenager.

Reverend Jamal Bryan is pastor of the empowerment temple church in Baltimore. He led a rally in Sanford, Florida back in March of last year. Also joining us is David Webb. He's the co-founder of the New York City Tea Party and host of the "David Webb Show" on Sirius XM Radio. Welcome to both of you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So let's start with the prosecution team and how they describe George Zimmerman. And I'm going to pose that question to you, David Webb. The prosecution team called George Zimmerman a murderer still and lucky. Do you agree?

DAVID WEBB, HOST, "THE DAVID WEBB SHOW" on Sirius XM: That's what I expect from any prosecutor to do after they've lost a case. They believed in their case. So they're going to continue that. To not do that would say we had a weak case, which they did from the beginning. And frankly, they overcharged with second degree murder, which lessened their chances of even getting a conviction. So I expect that to be their comments and the line, if you will.

COSTELLO: On the other hand, Reverend Bryan, many African-Americans probably think those adjectives are quite appropriate.

REVEREND JAMAL BRYANT, EMPOWERMENT TEMPLE CHURCH: That would be an accurate description. The reality is that an innocent teenager who was unarmed is killed and George Zimmerman is walking around. So that would in any definition make him a murderer.

COSTELLO: So the Department of Justice is now considering whether to file federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman. Robert Zimmerman, George Zimmerman's brother, told "NEW DAY" this morning that he thinks that would just agitate things more, that would increase tensions and that we should just let it go because after all, a jury has deemed George Zimmerman not guilty. David, is Robert Zimmerman right?

WEBB: They're going to try and of course they're going to follow through with an attempt at a civil rights prosecution. But in doing so they'll have to meet the burden that the evidence in the criminal trial puts forth, which is how do you get a civil rights -- a civil judgment when you already have an acquittal on not just second degree murder, but on the lesser charges and the judge's instructions.

It's going to be very difficult and we need to get past not the death of a young man, which is a tragedy without a doubt, but we need to get beyond just the need to find some form of predetermined justice and look at what we need to do, have a real conversation about issues that lead up to these kinds of situations in our country and the aftermath where a community is broken, the American community is what I'm talking about, and you have calls for violence on one side and the calls for rational discourse go unheard or barely heard.

COSTELLO: Well, Reverend Bryant, why can't we just have a conversation and take, you know, some of the lessons that came out of this trial and talk about them and learn from them?

BRYANT: Yes. Well, number one, I think that we have grounds for a civil suit considering that Trayvon had the civil right to go home. We cannot forget that he was two blocks away from home. He was not at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was not with the wrong crowd. He was headed home. Secondarily, M Zimmerman has the means in order to give compensation. He has collected -- he's amassed somewhere in the orbit of $500,000, averaging $30,000 a week since he's opened up his online giving.

And I think that the family needs to be compensated for their grief and they really cannot in fact pay for that life. What African- Americans are really championing is that what that verdict says is that you are reducing the value of black children, that there's nowhere in the world a young man killed down in cold blood, that the murder is walking away, and to add insult to injury you give him back his gun. If we look on the news and see an African-American go to jail for dog fighting, an African-American go to jail for shooting himself, but when one of our children are killed the message that goes out to our children is that your value doesn't mean anything.

And so what we want to do through that civil suit, and let me add that the family requested that over a year ago, so this is not reactionary. And to Mr. Webb's counterpoint, we are not struggling between being violent and being rational. It's 48 hours later, and still there is no uprising. For one year we've been challenging the system, been demonstrating with young people across the country in hoods, and there's not been one arrest, not one business has had to close, no incident, no accident, and no crime. This is civil rights and we're doing so logically, albeit enraged about how it is that the process is moving forward.

COSTELLO: I saw go ahead David shaking his head. Go ahead, David.

WEBB: You know, this is the line that was being pushed through at the NAACP meeting down in Florida this weekend and as people fed back to me from that meeting. We're not talking about whether someone's civil rights were violated here or not in a rational course. Because what the reverend's talking about is we need a determined outcome to fit the narrative. There was a local issue, local law enforcement issue, which has now played out in the courts. We have a young man, and two people that frankly should never have crossed paths, and they met and a tragedy occurred. We don't know what happened in that time. So you can't come up with --

You can't come up with a predetermined outcome that says he had this right, he had this right. Both parties had rights. Both parties had culpability, and a tragedy occurred. But rather than dealing with this in the context of the law, the justice system, the jurors that have made a decision on the evidence presented, we now have an attempt to take this beyond that. And what we need is a talk about what the real problems are in this country, what the real problems and solutions are --

COSTELLO: David, you say these two people should have never met -- so what lesson should we be taught? What should we take from that? What should we center on? If it's not race, what is it?

WEBB: Carol, for one thing this was not a case of race.

COSTELLO: Was it because George Zimmerman had a gun? What is it?

BRYANT: Carol --

WEBB: No, no. Let me finish. It was because he profiled a figure. Even in his 911 call initially not sure of it so it's not profiling of black man.

COSTELLO: So if I'm wearing a hoodie he's going to profile me in neighborhood? That's what it's about?

BRYANT: Carol, the contradiction of David's remarks is that he's saying it's a law enforcement issue. And I want to remind David and those who sympathize with Mr. Zimmerman that Mr. Zimmerman is not a part of law enforcement. He was operating with law while being out of order. The 911 dispatcher said stay in the car. Had he in fact followed --

WEBB: No, the 911 dispatcher said we don't need to you do that, and that is not a lawful order.

COSTELLO: I don't want to go back over the case. I really want to center on what lessons should be learned from this trial and what happened and what we should center on. And I'm asking David -- WEBB: Let me try to answer your question. Then let me try to answer your question. We have real issues of racism in this country that need to be addressed. They are minimized when you have a constant ongoing 40-plus-year line. We've evolved as a country. But that evolution is never taken into account when it comes to what certain quarters want to push, which is it's always all about, or the dominant issue is race.

We need to talk about what children are doing, what education is doing, what needs to be done in the black community to give them better options. They don't deserve to be profiled. They don't deserve to be shot. That's what they want to sell you. But what we need to talk about is how we fix a community and what has been their return on investment after 40 years of undying loyalty to both organizations and people who've led and provided really no solutions.

COSTELLO: OK. I've got to wrap this up, but I will say that Trayvon Martin was in a mixed community that was probably mostly white. He was wearing a sweatshirt and pants --

WEBB: There's 48 percent white, 29 percent black, and a mixture of Hispanic and otherwise. That is the makeup.

COSTELLO: OK. I've got to go. So Reverend Bryant, please, please make it short. Go ahead.

BRYANT: Yes. I think the walk-away is we've got to re-evaluate the criminal justice system, that we continue continuously allow penitentiaries to become new plantations when you're dealing with black rogues and white justice or the new crow laws. The second thing very quickly is that Zimmerman is telling us authority that we've got to be able to look over our own communities.

When the Black Panther Party tried to supervise their own community, it was looked at as a threat against democracy. So maybe we need to start again patrolling our own communities and revisiting how it is that there is a disconnect when African-Americans are 12 percent of the population but 59 percent of the prison population, something is out of order.

COSTELLO: I've got to end it here. Reverend Jamal Bryant and David Webb, thank you for the interesting conversation. I could talk all day to you two. Thank you so much. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Later today, authorities in Canada will conduct an autopsy on the body of "Glee" star, Cory Monteith. The 31-year-old actor was found dead Saturday in a hotel room in Vancouver. Police have ruled out foul play. CNN entertainment correspondent Nischelle Turner has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Cory Monteith entertained millions as the singing football player, Finn Hudson, in "Glee." Sadly, that voice was silenced Sunday. The 31- year-old actor was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room.

LISA LAPOINTE, BRITISH COLUMBIA CHIEF CORONER: The cause of death was not apparent on initial examination and further examination and tests will take place to determine cause of death.

TURNER: As Canadian authorities investigate what killed him, the shocking news of his death hit friends and colleagues hard. His on- again, off-again girlfriend, and "Glee" co-star, Lea Michelle is grieving privately. In a statement, her rep asked, quote, "That everyone kindly respect Lea's privacy during this devastating time." Unlike his clean-cut alter ego, Finn Hudson, Monteith had a troubled youth. He described himself as an out of control drug and alcohol abusing teen who was skipping school to drink and smoke pot by the age of 13.

CORY MONTEITH, LATE ACTOR: For me, it wasn't so much about the substances, per se. It was more about, about not fitting in. Just a lack of not really having a self-image at the time, which is, that's like typical teenager stuff.

TURNER: Despite his success in "Glee," Monteith continued to battle his substance abuse demons. Earlier this year, he checked himself into rehab. His friend, "Glee" Director Adam Shankman, spoke to Monteith hours before he was found dead.

ADAM SHANKMAN, FRIEND OF CORY MONTEITH (via telephone): I had several interactions with him yesterday, where he said to me that he was feeling amazing, and even said, "I'm feeling fantastic again."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Nischelle Turner is following the story from New York. How are Monteith's co-stars including his girlfriend Lea Michele reacting to this?

TURNER: Well, you know, Carol, you just heard there in the piece us talking about her asking for privacy and you can imagine she's taking this very hard. She has been supporting him all along the way in his battle with substance abuse. When he entered rehab back in April, she was right there by his side. She put out a statement at that time saying that she loved him and that she would support him.

So you have to imagine that she's taking this very hard. Other of his co-stars did take to social media this weekend, saying they just couldn't believe this news, that he was a really great guy and like a brother to a lot of the other people on the show. You know, on the show, Carol, he's kind of the moral compass. You know, Finn is the do-gooder. He's the good guy.

But they say even though he was battling substance abuse off the set he was still kind of that moral compass to a lot of his co-stars and a lot of them went to him to talk and that he really always lent an ear to anyone who asked, anyone who need it.

COSTELLO: So sad. Nischelle Turner, thanks so much. Still ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM, some people took to the streets over the Zimmerman verdict. Some NFL stars like New York Giant Victor Cruz took to Twitter. Now they're feeling the heat after vocalizing their outrage over the Zimmerman verdict.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: NSA leaker Edward Snowden wants asylum in Russia. He made the declaration on Friday in his first appearance since landing in Moscow three weeks ago. In the meantime, the reporter who broke the Snowden story has also spoken again. Glenn Greenwald told a newspaper in Argentina that Snowden still has information that would be the worst nightmare for the United States if it is released. He claims that Snowden has the blueprint for how the NSA works and sets up its surveillance programs.

Swarthmore College is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for the alleged mishandling of sexual assault cases. The probe comes after students complain the Pennsylvania liberal arts school doesn't properly prosecute assault cases and underreports them.

Carnival Cruise lines taking steps to improve its image and boost its safety. It has appointed four top experts including two admirals to the company's new safety and reliability review board. You probably remember a series of mishaps aboard several carnival cruise ships earlier this year, the most publicized, an engine room fire that left the Carnival "Triumph" adrift in the Gulf of Mexico with more than 4,200 people on board.

Today marked the start of the Boy Scout Jamboree 2013. This year's event features a heavy focus on exercise. It's part of the organization's effort to combat obesity. And for the first time the thousands of scouts and their leaders were required to meet body mass index standards to participate.

On the subject of angry, vile tweets and lots of them, let's talk NFL players and their unfortunate use of the Twitterverse. More than one NFL player expressed his displeasure at the Zimmerman verdict inappropriately. Example, Roddy White of the Atlanta Falcons, this was his tweet, "All them jurors should go home tonight and kill themselves for letting a grown man get away with killing a kid."

And this one from the New York Giant Victor Cruz, quote, "Zimmerman doesn't last a year until the hood catches up to him." Both apologized, but some are clamoring for the NFL to punish these players for what they tweeted. Joe Carter is here to talk about that. So can the NFL take action?

JOE CARTER, "BLEACHER REPORT": Sure. Sure. I think it's up to the discretion of Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, and also to the individual teams, the Atlanta Falcons and NEW YORK GIANTS. But Saturday night, I mean, if you follow anybody on Twitter, there were a lot of opinions flying except a lot of those opinions were of citizens, not people that are represented by the most popular sport in our country.

So could these players be punished? Could they be fined? Absolutely. The Twitter policy for the NFL is very simple. You don't tweet during games. Other than that they can tweet. But they have contracts just like you and I have contracts that have conduct codes in them. If you break the conduct code, you can put yourself up for being reprimanded. So do I expect something to come down? Possibly. It's Monday 10:30 Eastern Time perhaps.

I mean, obviously, the commissioner's got a little bit of an image problem in the NFL almost 40 arrests thus far into the season. One of his players, or ex-player charged with the murder of Odin Lloyd. So there are definitely some issues to go through. But the commissioner has always said from day one when he took this job that he is here to protect the shield, the shield of the NFL.

So I think through all of this people are watching, a lot of kids. Obviously, Roddy white has over 100,000 twitter followers. Victor Cruz has over 300,000 Twitter followers. These guys have voices. They have an audience, a built-in audience --

COSTELLO: And it wasn't just they were voicing their displeasure. These tweets were threatening.

CARTER: They are. And it's really a matter of think before you hit send. No matter your opinion, whether you sit on one side or the other, it's about showing a little bit of dissent, a little bit of discretion, and thinks about things before you emotionally charge a tweet out there because everyone's going to read it.

COSTELLO: It wasn't just NFL players either, right?

CARTER: Yes.

COSTELLO: There were other tweets out there.

CARTER: There was a conversation that was being started online very quickly after the verdicts related to what happened with Michael Vick, people saying, you know, that because he did what he did with dogs and was involved in a dog fighting ring --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: He went to prison right?

CARTER: Spent two years in prison, 19 months almost, and then you've got someone like Plaxico Burress. He shot himself in the leg, spent two years in jail. There was other people out there like Marcus Vick who's Michael Vick's younger brother, drawing comparisons saying why is that fair? In a much more volatile way drawing comparisons saying how is that fair, that this guy can go to -- get let go scot-free from that --

COSTELLO: But to me all of that -- that's great conversation. And we should have that conversation. The other tweets, though, were threatening.