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Train Derailment Investigation Continues; Rabbi Teaching Self- Defense

Aired December 03, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And, first just on that phrase in a daze, that he's not saying he was asleep at the wheel, but that he was in a daze.

Does that help him, hurt him move forward? Does it matter?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: It's a very, very strange phrase, Brooke.

When prosecutors look at a case like this, in New York, they are looking at, do we have a criminally negligent homicide case? And, frequently, we see these kinds of cases let's say when somebody is driving a car while drunk and they're speeding. You have two factors there, two areas of real gross negligence, reckless conduct, and somebody dies. That's a crime, criminally negligent homicide.

BALDWIN: OK.

CALLAN: Now let's go to the train. In this case, unless he has a medical condition that he did not know about...

BALDWIN: Which we don't know.

CALLAN: .. which caused him to be in a daze that he couldn't be aware and concentrate on his job, he's going to have a major problem. A medical condition, sudden onset with no advanced knowledge, I don't think this would be criminal conduct. This will just be an unfortunate accident.

However, if he had notice of the medical condition and he continued to act as an engineer, you are operating a very dangerous piece of machinery and the lives of many people are at stake, or if in fact he heard the warning, there's a warning that goes off before you hit this curve and he was doing 82 miles an hour, he knows you are only supposed to do 30. It looks like it would be a very strong criminal case against him.

BALDWIN: If convicted, how much trouble could he be in?

CALLAN: Oh, he would be in major trouble, if indicted and if convicted.

He's looking at a very lengthy jail sentence as a result of a felony conviction. By the way, there's precedent for this. A subway engineer a few years ago was indicted on a very, very similar fact pattern. And of course we see indictments of people who drive cars negligently all the time.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: What were the two factors proven then?

CALLAN: In that case, it was a case where he should not have been driving because he knew of a medical condition that he had and he was warned that he was going too fast and continued to go too fast. You have always got to find two factors, two factors of gross negligence and it constitutes criminal conduct in New York.

BALDWIN: Paul Callan, thank you very much for your expertise. Obviously, we're following, we are staying all over this story. Four dead and at least 67 injured there in New York.

Delta passengers, Delta passengers bound for Atlanta on Thanksgiving Day are bumped, and you will never believe why. They were apparently bumped off this plane to make room for the University of Florida men's basketball team. This is the information. This is what we are getting from "The Gainesville Sun."

They're reporting that passengers departing Gainesville Regional Airport in Florida were told their flight had been canceled. They are sitting and wondering obviously why. Well, they start to realize when they are looking out the window and they see the basketball players, this sports team boarding this Delta flight. "The Gainesville Sun" is reporting one of those passengers, one of those bumped passengers actually missed a funeral because of this.

One missed a moving truck. Delta has released a statement saying an internal review is under way and "Delta connection partner, ExpressJet, which operated both the charter as well as the regularly scheduled flight, made the operational decision to swap aircraft as the maintenance work was expected to be done quickly. Unfortunately, it was not. And Delta Flight 5059 was canceled. Delta made every effort to reaccommodate those customers on alternate flights and we apologize to the 50 customers who were inconvenienced."

A lot of people get really serious about their frequent flyer miles, maybe you, maybe me, including this musician who always buys two seats, one for himself and one for his cello.

Stephen Colbert even had a little fun at his expense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Delta Airlines kicked me out of their sky miles program.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE COLBERT REPORT": Tell them why, Lynn.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a cello and they confiscated miles for my cello. And they punished me for having a cello.

COLBERT: No, Lynn. They punished you for opening a frequent flyer account for your cello. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I deserve this. I paid for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK. That brings us to Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg. His story is absolutely no laughing matter. This man got kicked off a Northwest Airlines frequent flyer program. The airline said he just complained too much. He sued. And today his case made it all the way to the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, where he insisted his complaints were not trivial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RABBI BINYOMIN GINSBERG, PLAINTIFF: And I wasn't complaining that there was too much salt on the peanuts. That wasn't the nature of the complaint. But if we sat on the tarmac for a few hours waiting for notification of what's happening, why the delay is, I think you would agree that that's a lack of decency, courtesy, whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Our crime and justice correspondent Joe Johns joins me from Washington.

Joe, OK, he's talking. He says this is not about salty peanuts. Do tell me. This went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. What is the legal issue here?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

OK. Honestly, Brooke, most people are going to look at this thing and probably think of it as a case of David and Goliath, the little guy against the big corporation. But the legal issue is a little more nuanced than that. It's about whether frequent flyers can sue in state court if they think the airline isn't being fair and isn't acting in good faith and keeping its promises to people who signed up.

And you might say, of course, they can sue. But here's the problem. There's a federal law dating back to the '70s, the Airline Deregulation Act, which says you can't sue the airlines in state court over services. That's what the court is wrestling with.

BALDWIN: Can I be honest? When I first read about this story, I thought, why is the U.S. Supreme Court taking up this case with a guy who lost his frequent flyer miles? Why did they do this?

JOHNS: Yes, you're right. It's a very unusual case to make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

But bottom line is, there's big money involved. It doesn't just affect the airlines or a few people. Frequent flyer programs have partners, hotels, rental car companies and just a lot of other brands that sort of feed into the frequent flyer clubs and all of those could be affected depending on how the court rules. The question is how much legal power the traveler is allowed to have.

BALDWIN: Joe Johns, thank you, Joe.

Also in Washington, the House has just voted to renew the law that bans undetectable guns. These are plastic guns that can get past metal detectors. This extension moves now to the Senate, where some Democrats want to strengthen the ban to explicitly cover weapons produced by 3-D printers.

But since the current ban expires on Monday, the Senate might actually approve the extension passed by the House and address the new technologies here a little later.

Coming up, here is a question I probably never thought I would be asking, but are chimps people? One activist group taking this argument to court. But will it impact animals at the zoo, at SeaWorld? We are "On the Case."

Plus, a rabbi here in New York is teaching self-defense to his community after the string of attacks. We have been covering this, the so-called knockout game, people are sucker-punched on the street. The rabbi will join me next and he will demonstrate what he's trying to teach people. Do not miss this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

BALDWIN: And now to some of the hottest stories in a flash. We call it "Rapid Fire."

Roll it. First up here, a star dancer sentenced to six years behind bars for masterminding this attack on a ballet director. Remember this back in January? Someone threw acid on this guy's face, which nearly blinded him, by the way. The Russian dancer told the court he just wanted his boss to get a beat-down for not giving him better roles.

In Kentucky, this is my favorite story of the day. You know they sure do value their liquor there, because someone made off with 65 cases of a rare bourbon. This was back in October. And now with the help of an anonymous donor, a $10,000 reward being offered in this heist of bourbon. But watch out, bad guy. Sounds like the manhunt is getting hot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAT MELTON, FRANKLIN COUNTY SHERIFF: The net is shrinking. It's coming in. And we feel pretty positive about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Looking for that -- a 57-year-old man fishing from a kayak off of Maui has died after a shark attack. Police say the shark bit the man's foot as it was dangling over the edge of a boat. And a nearby tour boat rushed in to help. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We noticed in the distance there was a body lying flat out in the kayak. We all helped get the entire kayak with the body into the boat. He passed away some time before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The beach is now closed after this attack. This is the 13th shark attack in Hawaii this year. That is well above the yearly average, we're told.

Coming up, a rabbi is teaching self-defense to his community after a string of attacks known as this knockout game. He will join me next. Don Lemon will join me and they will demonstrate. Don't miss this.

Plus, chimpanzees, should they have the same rights as humans? This new law, this group says absolutely. One group is demanding liberty for chimps. How does that work? We will explain their argument next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The nation of Iceland is rocked by an event the United States experiences repeatedly, a deadly police shooting.

For the first time in Iceland's history, officers killed someone. An iReporter recorded this crime scene on Sunday. Local media report the victim fired his shotgun as SWAT officers and then they returned fire. Here in the United States, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports from 2003 to 2009, police killed more than 2,900 people.

OK. A court case is taking animal rights to a whole new level. Hear me out. A group called the Nonhuman Rights Project is suing to have a chimpanzee be seen as "a legal person." It's admitted the suit on behalf of this 26-year-old chimp named Tommy. Lives in a cage, the group says, on a trailer lot.

Tommy's complaint is one of three suits the group will file this week. All of them are to give these animals -- quote -- "the right to bodily liberty."

We have to talk about this.

CNN legal analysts Danny Cevallos and Sunny Hostin, where do we begin, because I know, I know, I hear the collective, like, what is she talking about, chimps be classified as people? What is the argument for this?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think there's actually a pretty strong argument.

And if you sort of liken it to corporations, here in the U.S., at least, corporations have been given status as humans, as legal persons, and that's how we sue corporations sometimes. Right? You are not really suing a person. You are suing the entire corporation.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: But we are not trying to sue chimpanzees.

HOSTIN: That is true. But that's sort of I think the legal reasoning, that if you can have a corporation be a person, then why couldn't you have an animal be a person?

I think it does pass legal muster. I think it makes a bit of legal sense in a wonky way. Practically, though, what court is really going to afford a chimpanzee humanity, legal rights?

(CROSSTALK)

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: When I first heard about the case, I thought this is ridiculous. Chimpanzees, animals are chattel. They're property.

That's bar review 101. But when I read this petition, I had to admit, you guys are pretty good. It's a very well-written petition. It's based on the idea, how do we define personhood in society? Well, according to cognitive measurements of personhood, it's autonomy. Can we care for ourselves? Do we have sequential memory? Do we deal with numbers? There's a lot of science showing that chimpanzees have some of these attributes.

However, not so fast. I think ultimately we are going to have to define personhood as meaning whether it's human or not human.

BALDWIN: But then I always ask, well, then why? Why does this group want to qualify chimpanzees as humans? And really I guess in this case of this particular chimpanzee, they want this chimpanzee out of a cage, right, and that's the reason why.

(CROSSTALK)

HOSTIN: Yes. They want him out of a cage and they want him placed in a sanctuary.

And so I think it's quite possible that a court will say, I'm going to give this chimp some animal rights, maybe the right not to be confined.

And I do think, Danny, that it helps the argument, especially that people do consider chimpanzees the closest animal to human beings. And they do we know from studies do have a lot of qualities that are so similar to us. Is it really fair to have a chimpanzee kept in captivity for the rest of his or her life?

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Something I had never thought about until I started reading about this. So, we will see if they get those animal rights or this personhood.

(CROSSTALK)

CEVALLOS: We shall see.

HOSTIN: Good to have you in New York.

BALDWIN: Yes. Thank you very much. Don't go anywhere, because I'm coming back to you all in just a little bit. So, stand by, Danny Cevallos and Sunny Hostin.

Moving on, though, coming up, this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Six days, six nights of no food, no water. I was laying on top of my dead friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This man's incredible survival story, how he made it six days without food or water and trapped with his dead friends, his story coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Near the bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

You have probably heard -- I know we have certainly done some reporting on the so-called knockout game. But if you haven't heard about what is apparently happening, this is essentially it. You have these thugs who are walking the streets apparently looking for these innocent victims who -- basically walking up to them out of the blue, sucker-punching them, some of them elderly, from behind, just absolutely out of nowhere.

And I just want to stop and show you one of the worst attacks we have seen. So, this victim here, look at this, taken down. This is a woman. And the attacker, you can watch it again, takes her from behind before she goes.

Philadelphia, this was Philadelphia. This was last year. And this is the kind of thing that really gets you to sit up in your seat and pay attention and wonder what the heck is happening here.

That said, in the past three years, documented knockout attacks have been confined to a handful of states, mostly here in New York City. Some are suggesting that perhaps we in the media are just blowing this whole so-called game way out of proportion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAYMOND KELLY, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: The press has named it the so-called knockout game. We don't discount that that exists, it's a possibility. We have investigated and we continue to investigate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: With me here, Rabbi Gary Moskowitz. He's a former cop, lives in Brooklyn. He's teaching fellow Jews to defend themselves against these so-called knockout attacks, has a black belt also in karate and is known to fellow cops as Rambowitz.

RABBI GARY MOSKOWITZ, FORMER POLICE OFFICER: Not fellow cops, but a lot of people picked it up in different news media pieces.

BALDWIN: Don Lemon also joining me here as well, because we're previewing part of your show tonight at 11:00, "THE 11TH HOUR." You are going to talk about this so-called knockout game.

But first to you, Rabbi. We know in reading about this that one of the investigations at least here in the New York area is being investigated as a hate crime because one of the victims is Jewish. Do you think that Jews specifically are being attacked?

MOSKOWITZ: Well, the issue is, they are not just attacking Jews theologically.

What they're doing is, they're attacking weaker people. It's like -- very much like the animal kingdom. They are attacking weak people. So, they attack elderly women, they attack children. And Jewish people, unfortunately, especially the Orthodox community, are considered weak.

And they probably deserve that reputation in many ways because they don't practice healthy living styles here. They don't eat right often. They don't exercise regularly. They don't study martial arts here like their counterpart in the secular community here.

So, what I'm doing now is, I'm training a lot of Jewish kids over many years and even more so now, because people are scared and they want to learn how to defend themselves.

BALDWIN: We will get to the training and how exactly -- and demonstrating how you're telling people to defend themselves.

But can you even get someone to defend themselves when these people are coming from behind, sucker-punching these people?

MOSKOWITZ: Sure.

It's really not that difficult here. I know it looks like it's spontaneous, that they catch you off-guard. But truth is, a good martial arts person who is training here is training to be aware. That's the first thing. We have actual physical and mental exercises to train you to be aware. And one of the ways to be aware is that if you train and you see three or four...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Be aware of your surroundings.

MOSKOWITZ: Totally here. There's a whole training. There's a whole mental imagery thing that we teach people that we do in martial arts on a regular basis here. It's a very important concept.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Have eyes in the back of your head.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Can I say just something?

Knockout game, there's no denying the video. You can see the video there and you see that it's happening. Random acts of violence happen all the time.

BALDWIN: All the time. This is nothing new.

LEMON: And there's no concrete evidence that this is some phenomenon that is -- that there are teenagers marauding around the streets that are knocking people out.

I think it's confluence of videotape, cell phones, and this is all being all caught on tape now. Now, whether or not it is, police will determine that, but, so far, no police department has determined that there's any such thing as a knockout game.

BALDWIN: And you say? I was reading you said you were -- you were beat up growing -- growing up.

LEMON: And I'm all for people -- you should be teaching people to defend themselves.

MOSKOWITZ: Right.

LEMON: But there's no -- there's -- there's really no firm evidence that there is a knockout game.