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Athletes React to Zimmerman Verdict; NAACP Wants Civil Rights Probe; Zimmerman's Brother Slams NAACP; Asiana will Sue Over Offensive Names; Biking Teen Heroes Save Kidnapped Girl

Aired July 15, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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

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

JOE CARTER, BLEACHER REPORT: Yes.

COSTELLO: There were other bad tweets out there.

CARTER: You know, 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.

CARTER: Threatening. Yes. And for that -- and for that I wouldn't be surprised if something happens. Both were very quick to apologize. So clearly somebody got to them. Well Victor Cruz deleted his altogether quickly after sending that out.

But -- but the next day, Sunday, yesterday Roddy White was very expressing his very much regret. And he was very apologetic. And I'm sure at least somebody within the organization or his agent or manager or whoever got to him and said --

COSTELLO: It's very hard to take words back, though yes.

CARTER: Yes.

COSTELLO: Joe, thanks so much.

The NAACP wants the feds to file a civil rights suit against George Zimmerman. But do they have enough evidence to support their claims? I'll talk to the NAACP next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: George Zimmerman is a free man ruled not guilty by a jury of his peers. But it isn't over yet. The NAACP is pressuring the federal government to file criminal civil rights charges against Zimmerman. And its significant pressure an online petition now has 450,000 signatures.

The Department of Justice is investigating whether Trayvon Martin was targeted because of his race. But if it does decide to file those kinds of charges, it won't be an easy case to win. Hilary Shelton is a -- he's the Washington bureau director for the NAACP. He joins me now from Orlando where the NAACP is holding its annual convention. Good morning.

HILARY SHELTON, NAACP WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning. It's great to be with you.

COSTELLO: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. George Zimmerman's brother Robert this morning, he said the NAACP's efforts are agitating an already contentious atmosphere. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, GEORGE ZIMMERMAN'S BROTHER: I would encourage Mr. Jealous, who I describe as a self-professed civil rights leader. I don't think he does anything for civil rights by perpetuating a narrative that has now been proven false. And calling for an arrest and then a conviction, and it didn't happen, so now there's more agitation by the same players that were insisting that George was a murderer and a racist to begin with. I would encourage them to cool their jets, give, you know, everyone some time to kind of process what's going on. Agitation doesn't help us. It doesn't do anybody any good right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Protests across the country have for the most part been peaceful. But is Mr. Zimmerman right? Will your efforts just agitate things further?

SHELTON: Not at all. The NAACP wants to see justice in this case. But very well Mr. Jealous is absolutely correct. When we look at what came out of this situation, we have someone that actually targeted someone because they met a profile in their mind, wearing the hoodie.

You continue to talk about how this person was part of "they". They think they can get away with this all the time, they think that they can do these kind of things in our community, "they".

He didn't know Mr. Martin. But indeed, he decided that he met the profile. And yes, race is a component of the profile that he's talking about.

COSTELLO: But I think that many people say the problem with that is George Zimmerman is not a police officer, he's a citizen. He has the right to walk up to anyone he wants and say what are you doing here?

SHELTON: Well, here you have a case where he followed him. Basically, he stalked him. If you listen to the recordings, talking to the 911 dispatcher, the dispatcher told him to stand down, to stay away from him. They would send a professional police officer out to address it.

But he decided that he needed to stalk this guy, to stop him, to assault him, to begin asking him questions about why he was there, what he was doing. And of course Mr. Zimmerman was armed and dangerous as he approached him. That raises a lot of concerns.

COSTELLO: But all of these -- all of these things were raised at trial and a jury of six women said that George Zimmerman was not guilty. So what do you think about that jury?

SHELTON: Sure. The biggest problem is the laws here in the state of Florida. Florida has a very narrowly crafted and very dangerous and reckless self-defense law. The only issue there was whether or not Mr. Zimmerman felt threatened by Mr. Martin.

But the threat was actually created by an exacerbated situation. They could not even address the issue of the concerns of him being profiled from the beginning. If you listen to the discussion between Mr. Zimmerman and the 911 operator, he describes what was going on in a very disturbing way. Here they are. They keep doing these things. And he says I see somebody suspicious. They tell him to stand back, but he goes and confronts him anyway. Here you have a 17-year-old kid walking back from the 7-Eleven with candy and tea trying to get back to his father's fiancee's house but being confronted by someone that he thought was a stalker and out to do him harm.

COSTELLO: Ok and I know the NAACP is talking to the Justice Department. How many signatures do you have on your online petition now?

SHELTON: We have over 450,000 and it continues to grow. People are marching all over the country. I want to make one thing very clear. The NAACP believes that it would be really disingenuous and quite frankly it would be extremely problematic for any of these demonstrations to become violent. You don't do a violent demonstration to protest violence. And in this case we're protesting the deadly violence against an African-American 17-year-old youth.

COSTELLO: In the spirit of Dr. King. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it, Hilary Shelton.

SHELTON: It's a pleasure to be with you.

COSTELLO: When we come back, we're going to talk to a former Department of Justice lawyer to see, you know, the criminal civil rights, criminal charges are possible in the Zimmerman case.

And if the DOJ can win. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: Before the break you heard the NAACP explaining why it's pushing for the Justice Department to file criminal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman. And what's the likelihood of that actually happening? Samuel Bagenstos is a former deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. He joins us now from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Welcome, sir.

SAMUEL BAGENSTOS, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: Thanks very much.

COSTELLO: Thank for being here. Does there appear to be enough evidence to bring civil rights charges against George Zimmerman?

BAGENSTOS: Well, you know, it's not something that we who are outside of the investigation can really tell right now, but I'd say it's not looking like a very easy to prove kind of a case. So this is an investigation that the Justice Department has been undertaking for a while. I'm sure they're going to continue to look at the evidence they have. They're going to review carefully what happen in the state for a trial and make a determination --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Well, why isn't this an easy case? Why -- why isn't this an easy case?

BAGENSTOS: Well, the basic reason why it's a difficult case is to prove a federal hate crime the government has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that George Zimmerman acted because of Trayvon Martin's race. And this is not a case where you have a lot of people standing around witnessing what George Zimmerman said at the time. This is not a case where you have lots of statements of someone going out to look for someone because of a particular race. This is something that happened between two people, one of whom doesn't have to testify and one of whom is dead.

So it's going to be very difficult, I would think, based on the evidence I've seen to prove that George Zimmerman acted based on Trayvon Martin's race beyond a reasonable doubt.

COSTELLO: And when you profile someone after the hate crime statute, I guess, it has to be in a public space. But this was in a gated community. Might that make it difficult too?

BAGENSTOS: No. That -- that actually wouldn't make it difficult. So that used to be the case. It used to be the case that had to be in a public space. Under the Shepherd Byrd Hate Crimes Law that President Obama signed in 2009, all that's need to prove a federal hate crime is bias-motivated violence. The difficulty is going to be proving the bias motivation that that George Zimmerman acted because of Trayvon Martin's race.

COSTELLO: Samuel Bagenstos, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

BAGENSTOS: Thank you very much. COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Asiana Airlines is taking action. It's suing a television station that reported the pilots of Flight 214 as having racist names. Only they use the names they reported were fake.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Now to a bizarre twist in that deadly crash of an Asiana Airlines flight last week in San Francisco. Airline officials say they will sue a San Francisco television station after it aired phony and racially offensive phrases and said they were the names of the pilots of the doomed flight. The names were mistakenly confirmed by an NTSB intern. KTVU has apologized.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tonight we want to take a moment and say that we are sorry. Earlier today during our noon newscast we misidentified the pilots in the Asiana Airlines crash. We made several mistakes when we received this information. First of all, we never read the names out loud -- phonetically sounding them out. Then during our phone call to the NTSB where the person confirmed the spellings of the names, we never asked that person to give us their position within the agency. We heard this person verify the information without questioning who they were. And then we rushed the names onto our noon newscast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining me now is defense attorney Page Pate and in New York former prosecutor Beth Karas. Welcome to you both.

PAGE PATE, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Thank you.

BETH KARAS, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Hello.

COSTELLO: This is such a bizarre story. I can't even believe that this actually happened. But the television station, you heard, they went on the air immediately and apologized. Will that help them, Beth?

KARAS: Yes. Indeed it will. In fact, the law does take a look at and take into account if someone apologizes, acknowledges, retracts a statement, a defamatory statement. What this does is not let a media organization off the hook, but it does limit the kind of damages that a plaintiff, the airline, the pilots could get. And let's face it their reputation right now is suffering by virtue of the crash. I don't know how they could even quantify damages related to these statements.

COSTELLO: I was just asking Page, I mean, it was a terrible thing that happened. I can't believe the NTSB would let an intern answer reporters' questions. That's just insane. No offense to any interns out there. But you're inexperienced. You shouldn't be put in that position. Plus, you know, you have to wonder what was in the intern's head because surely the intern knew too.

PATE: Ask somebody else.

COSTELLO: But what I was going to ask you is what real harm did this do to the airline?

PATE: Well, that's a critical question. This type of lawsuit is called a defamation lawsuit. And you have to prove two things. One, they said something false. I think that's clear here. And two, that there was harm to the individuals they were talking about. So I think that's going to be the real challenge here.

And it's also a different standard when we're talking about suing a TV station versus suing the NTSB. You cannot simply sue the government for something like a defamation claim. You have to go through a special statute. And that's a lot more difficult.

COSTELLO: Well, Beth, the names that were confirmed by the NTSB, I mean, Sum Ting Won. It seems like it would be obvious to even that intern that he was confirming erroneous information.

KARAS: Oh, absolutely. In fact I had seen it when it was circulating on YouTube, and I remember thinking how could anyone write this, prepared the graphic, read it on air? It went through several individuals, you would think, from the intern to whoever prepared the graphic to the anchor who read it maybe or producer. It's hard to believe someone didn't know this was a joke and a rather offensive one.

COSTELLO: And you know, Asiana, as Beth said, Page, has other problems to deal with this. I mean why even bother with this?

PATE: I think it's more an issue of reputation. If you want to defend your reputation, you have to be aggressive about it sometimes. So sending a message that if you say something about us, you say something about our pilots, you'd better be right or we're going to take action.

COSTELLO: Page Pate, Beth Karas, thanks so much. We appreciate it as always.

KARAS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome. Coming up, sticky humidity and high temperatures hit the northeast. People are sweating it out there. We'll tell you about the heat wave next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: 55 minutes past the hour. Time for a quick check of our top stories.

Tens of millions of Americans are bracing for a heat wave this morning as the hottest temperatures of the summer bear down on the northeast. New York City, Washington, and Philadelphia could see temperatures ten degrees hotter than normal. High humidity could make it feel much, much worse. The first heat advisories now extend from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts.

Two teenage boys heroically chased down a van to rescue a kidnapped five-year-old girl in Pennsylvania. Sounds unreal, but it actually happened. Teenager Tamar Boggs chased the suspect's car for 15 minutes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAMAR BOGGS, NEIGHBOR: He stopped at the end of the hill and let her out and she ran to me and said that she needed her mom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: She did. The suspect noticed he was being followed and he let Jocelyn Rojas out of the van. Boggs returned the little girl back to her mother. Police are still looking for the suspect.

Emily Krause and her boyfriend were running late to a Dave Matthews show when they spotted a guy with a busted bike on the side of the road and before they knew it the couple was ferrying the pop star himself and his bum bike to his own concert.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILY KRAUSE: We didn't know how to make conversation with him, in fact. And so we were talking about his tour and stuff and where he had come from. And they had just been in Cincinnati. He was just a very humble guy.

I woke up this morning and I said, ok, yes, that really happened yesterday. It was -- it's just -- it was surreal. We couldn't believe it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I can't believe he was riding a bike to his concert. Matthews was so grateful he invited the couple to dinner and then backstage. He also set them up with front row seats and gave them a shout out during the show.

Blockbuster author J.K. Rowling pulls off another act of wizardry. The "Harry Potter" author has revealed that she penned a new mystery book. "The Cuckoo's Calling" was hailed as a brilliant debut novel. Rowling wrote it under a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW PIEKNIK, MCNALLY JACKSON BOOKS: I was surprised. I was caught off guard. I didn't know that J.K. Rowling was up to anything else at all.

SEAN CARROLL, STRAND BOOK STORE: I'm sure the printing presses were kind of going full force at this point. But we'll order, you know, a lot is all I can really say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Until this weekend her secret book sold only about 1,500 copies, but now sales are skyrocketing, going up more than 500,000 percent on Amazon.com, making the book the number one-selling book.

And royal baby watchers are doing just that -- watching and waiting. The duchess of Cambridge is reportedly past her due date -- hyping up the media frenzy around St. Mary's hospital. Well, the media may be on their toes awaiting the new arrival. Kate can have her feet up. She's staying at her parents' countryside home in Bucklebury, of course, after the baby's born.

And we end this hour with this -- they're back. It's been seven months since Twinkies graced store shelves, but all that changes today, it's not just the Twinkies, though. Hostess Twinkies manufacturer is putting all of its original sweet products back in the stores. That includes those pink things with the chocolate. You know those things.

Last November the company filed for bankruptcy, but its products are back to a new company. Thanks for joining me today.

CNN NEWSROOM continues after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Michaela Pereira in for Ashleigh Banfield.