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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Woman Blames GM; Las Vegas Shooting; Examining Mass Shooters; Bergdahls Watching Hagel Testify

Aired June 11, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Possibly, if it's legal to start with, and that's another issue the president brought up yesterday, that we've had a tough time in Congress getting anything sort of enacted to keep guns out of hands of dangerous kids.

Let me get Dave to weigh in on this, but you just heard what Chris said. If we scared the living daylights out of these kids who may not what it looks like when a tactical team breaks down your school walls and comes at you loaded for bear, do you think the kids fantasize and don't realize what really is coming their way?

DAVID CULLEN, AUTHOR, "COLUMBINE": I think they do realize. That's an interesting proposal, and it might do something. The biggest problem I have is that these are suicides. These are really vengeful suicides.

Almost all of them -- there's the one sort of great report that everybody should read that the Secret Service did which is the definitive report on this.

BANFIELD: The final report and findings of the Safe School Initiative.

CULLEN: Yes. Yes, and I've got it linked on my Web site. You'll probably put it on yours. You can Google it. Most of the kids are deeply depressed, suicidally depressed for a long time. And everyone who has watched this knows that nearly all of them die in the act. So they're best understood as vengeful suicides.

CHRIS HEBEN, FORMER NAVY SEAL: That's my very point with speed.

BANFIELD: Do you think that these kids, Chris, would be scared enough of this kind of suicide by cop?

HEBEN: They end up -- it's usually not suicide by cop. They end up shooting themselves, which goes back to my first point of speed. The police officers need to get in there.

Beyond that, though, we don't need to wait for a SWAT team to get there. An individual patrolman needs to have a tactical vest and a Kevlar ballistic helmet, and he has to have that training to get into the structure as a first responder.

That is -- it's key. Speed is key. The assailant usually shoots himself. It's hardly been suicide by cop. That's been the plan. I'm going to shoot, 10, 15, 20, 30 kids, and then I'm going to shoot myself. So speed is key here.

The fact that you want kids to hide under a desk or put a ballistic blanket over them, that's insane. A child -- what they should do is barricade doorways and then get out of that building. Throw chairs through windows. Get out of the building, hang drop, leave.

If there's no students in the school, the guy or person can't shoot anybody. Bunkering in place is terrible. Think about this. Is it easier to shoot fish in a barrel or fish when they are moving and swimming?

BANFIELD: Something has got to give. I just keep saying, as an anchor on a network newscast, daily, I can't remember some of the significant school shootings and I have to look at details if they don't have some strange, branded fact to them, like a Joker face or something else.

It is getting just -- it's just too much to bear. I understand where the president comes from when he says what he says yesterday.

Chris Heben, always good to have you. Thank you, Dave Cullen. I say always good to have you, but I don't really know that I mean that. I'm sad to have you on the air. And you are one of the wisest minds on this.

Thank you both. I do appreciate it.

I want to also let you know that with regard to the secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, on Capitol Hill, we've been monitoring this. And guess what? We're not the only ones who've been watching the SecDef facing down the armed service committee.

Guess who else is watching him? It turns out Bob Bergdahl has been watching these hearings. CNN, through our source, has learned that the father of Bowe Bergdahl has been watching as the secretary of defense said that his son was, in fact, a POW and that he is disgusted, my words, but effectively disgusted by the treatment of the Bergdahl family.

When we come back after the break, a friend of that family is going to join us, talk a little bit more about this. Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Welcome back to LEGAL VIEW.

We are keeping a live view on Capitol Hill as the secretary of defense, a Republican himself, is facing down the Senate armed services committee, kind of a gentle entry into this about two and a half hours ago, as the committee chair effectively gently handled the secretary of defense regarding the Taliban prisoner swap for the rescue of Bowe Bergdahl after five years of captivity.

I want to bring in two people who know intimately the significance of this, not only for the Bergdahl family but also for -- well, for the political situation that not only Congress but the administration finds itself in right now.

David Gergen is a CNN senior political analyst. And Matthew Hoh is a friend of the Bergdahl family, but also you've got your background. You're a former military corps captain, and former State Department official in Afghanistan. You know a thing or two about the system.

First to you, I gave up my source here. The Bergdahls, the family, at least Bob, they're watching the SecDef as he answers questions at this point.

MATTHEW HOH, FRIEND OF BERGDAHL'S PARENTS: Yes, they were watching. Bob and I talk often. And I'm not a representative of the family or anything official. We're friends. And so he knew I was on. He was watching. He sent me a text message. And he seemed to be very --

BANFIELD: What did he say? In the text message?

HOH: The first text message corrected me on something. And then the second text message seemed to indicate his appreciation that the president and his entire national security team, so Secretary Hagel, General Dempsey, Secretary McHugh, they all supported this decision, that there's a unanimous support for the trade of these prisoners for Bowe Bergdahl.

BANFIELD: Did he mention anything about the notion that the secretary of defense articulated from that hot seat that he was, quote, "offended and disappointed at the treatment of the Bergdahl family?"

HOH: No, he didn't. And Bob and Jani are not publicly commenting. They're entirely devoted to their son right now to making sure that he gets home healthy, that he continues his reintegration recovery process and that he has the best to regain his life. Right now, their sole devotion is him.

BANFIELD: David, I want to switch gears. It's all the same topic. That is this. When Buck McKeon -- look, this is your business, not mine -- tenderly questioned the SecDef, he seemed to allude that. had Congress just been given that 30-day notice, heck, we might have just gone ahead and agreed with you on this Taliban prisoner swap.

And that is not the rhetoric you're hearing on Capitol Hill right now. They're not happy with the swap. They don't like the 30-day notification, and they don't like these five guys are back out there.

And I'm going to get a two-for out of you here if I can. He used the terms for these five "enemy belligerents" not enemy combatants, "enemy belligerents," and he said it twice.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: To the first question, the chairman's opening statement to Secretary Hagel was surprisingly conciliatory.

After all the hostility we've heard up on Capitol Hill, he seemed to be saying exactly what you said. Hey, if you had just come and done this right, we would have voted for you. And, by the way, don't ever do it again. Then about 10 minutes later, he got back into the argument. He said, I didn't mean to leave the impression that we were happy. We have a lot of sharp disagreements. I had a sense somebody in his staff gave him a note and said, Mr. Chairman.

BANFIELD: You said something the rest of us having been saying.

GERGEN: You might want to toughen this up.

BANFIELD: Was this an error? Was this a misspeak?

GERGEN: I don't think it was. I think it was intentional. He knew what he was saying.

But I do think it was surprising. I think he did toughen it up. It has become more hostile since. But overall the temperature is much, much lower in these hearings than the conversation has been in the country. I think Chuck Hagel has done the administration a favor by coming in with a balanced approach.

BANFIELD: It doesn't hurt that he's a Republican.

GERGEN: It doesn't hurt he's a Republican. It would have helped if he had been the point man from the get-go and not had that celebration in the Rose Garden.

BANFIELD: Speaking of point man, I think it's really important to point out, pardon the pun, that he said emphatically, I didn't make this decision. The president did.

Because there was some thought within the last 48 hours that it wasn't the president that signed off on this operation, that it was Chuck Hagel. And I think that was a mistake made by some congressmen in their briefing.

GERGEN: That may be. Let me just -- on the belligerence, I'm not sure what the legal significance of that is, to be honest with you. There's so many different legal parsings about who's called what, combatant versus hostages, as you know.

BANFIELD: Enemy combatants has been a real convenient term for some real, nether world people who don't fit into civilian justice in the United States and they don't fit into Geneva Conventions. Enemy combatants has been the catch-all safety phrase for 13 years.

GERGEN: That's right. But when the war ends, whenever we declare it over, Hagel has made the point and his assistants have made the point, we no longer can keep these people in Guantanamo as combatants. So it may be that this may be that this is laying the groundwork of saying, well, they're still belligerents and you still have the authority.

But can ask Bob something I've really been curious about? "The Washington Post" has come out with a story this morning with a treasure trove of notes and background materials to -- that Bergdahl wrote, and he sent them to a woman who's a friend of his back home.

And they show, first of all, he was in the coast guard and he was discharged after 26 days for -- apparently for psychological reasons.

BANFIELD: CNN doesn't have that cleared at this point. I know it's a "Washington Post" piece.

GERGEN: It is a "Washington Post," but it's making the rounds, and my question is --

BANFIELD: Let's make sure that that -- do you know if he was discharged from the coast guard?

HOH: Oh, I don't know. This is the first I'm hearing it today. I don't know.

GERGEN: Was he a fragile individual? Did you have a sense that he was psychologically troubled.

HOH: Oh, I don't know. I've never met Bowe. I just know the family.

BANFIELD: We have to be clear. You know Bob and Jani, his mom and dad. And you've been close with them ever since he was taken captive but never did meet Bowe. So these would be news to you as well?

HOH: That's news to me. I know by the character of Bob and Jani he's very strong willed, very smart, very outgoing.

He has a very strong ethical -- one of the things that we understand was troubling him greatly in Afghanistan was that the American unit he was with ran over an Afghan child and that the reaction to that was very callous on the American side.

He got the feeling that his leaders didn't care that we had run over this small child. And that may be one of the reasons that caused him to leave and go talk to the Afghans, but I do know that about --

BANFIELD: Gentlemen, just quickly, since you brought it up, I'm going to attribute this to "The Washington Post." This is not CNN reporting, but the "Washington Post" has reported that some of these entries in the journal -- and I'm just going to quote them straight from the newspaper. These were Bowe Bergdahl's writings.

"I'm worried," he wrote, before he deployed. "The closer I get to ship day the calmer the voices are. I'm reverting. I'm getting colder. My feelings are being flushed with the frozen logic and training, all the unfeeling cold judgment of the darkness.

"I will not lose this mind, this world I have deep inside. I will not lose this passion of beauty, trying to keep myself together." And I am putting ellipses in there, because these are collections of what he's had to say.

Have Bob and Jani alluded at all to some of these notions before he deployed to Afghanistan, that these were the things he was feeling?

HOH: No. In something like that, of course, it's difficult to understand just by itself cut out what's the context. He was, as I said, quite intellectual. He did ballet. He was a thoughtful, caring, compassionate person. That, again, the first time I have heard it. It's out of context.

But that to me means he is now this young man who has a spirit of adventure, who has been an independent thinker, his own personality, and now he's in this military system and it's rubbing him the wrong way. That very possibly could be it. It could be just his own personality clashing with the military life. But again, I don't really know. It's the first time I've heard it and, you know, it's difficult to speculate on those things.

BANFIELD: I have to wrap it up there, sadly, because I could go on and on forever. But, you know, Matthew Hoh, as always, thank you.

HOH: Thank you.

BANFIELD: And keep us posted on how things are going -

HOH: Will do.

BANFIELD: If you could.

HOH: Will do.

BANFIELD: Respecting the privacy that the family would obviously expect of you as well.

HOH: Sure. Of course. Yes.

BANFIELD: And, David Gergen -

GERGEN: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Always a pleasure. It's nice to see you here in person.

GERGEN: It's good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks, Matthew.

HOH: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Thank you both. Appreciate it.

I have another story that we've got working. It's really quite something. And it's not perhaps the headline that you're expecting to hear. There was a woman who pled guilty in a car crash that killed her fiance. But now there's evidence that a faulty ignition switch in her GM car might have actually caused the crash. The trouble is, at the time she pled guilty, she knew nothing about this. So, does she have a case against the automaker? And while we're at it, can she get that whole criminal record thing to go away?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: By now you know that General Motors is facing a lot of lawsuits for that faulty ignition switch that's linked to at least 13 deaths. But Candice Anderson's disturbing case against the car manufacturer just might stand out. Certainly it's different than the others. Here's a picture of Anderson as she's buying her brand new Saturn Ion in 2004. One of the millions of cars that GM has since recalled. Later that year, Anderson was in a horrible single car accident that actually killed her fiance, Mikale Erickson. Anderson, thinking that she had caused the accident, and rife with guilt at the time, pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide. And this is the mugshot from that time.

Now let's fast forward 10 years. Anderson just found out that she may not, in fact, have been at fault. A few weeks ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and that's the federal agency that regulates car safety, well, it sent her a letter. And in that letter, information that her fiance's tragic death is one of the 13 deaths linked to GM's faulty ignition switch. Now, why didn't she get that letter from GM? GM has not released the names of the 13 victims linked to that defect.

And now Anderson is starting to fight back. And she's asking for the negligent homicide charge to be vacated and she's suing GM for fraud as well. Anderson and her attorney, Bob Hilliard, join me live now to talk about their case against GM.

Thank you both. I so appreciate it.

Let me - let me begin with you, Candice, if I can. What did you think when you received that letter from the government suggesting that your fiance died as a result of an ignition switch and not as a result of you?

CANDICE ANDERSON, PLAINTIFF IN GM LAWSUIT: It's been a roller coaster of emotions. I mean to think for 10 years that I caused the death of Mike has been very much overwhelming. You know, a part of me that day died, too. You know, it's really taken the spirit out of me as well. And overcoming the hurdled of the past 10 years, trying to reconsolidate my life and make things happen, I mean, it's been very emotional.

BANFIELD: So - but let me ask you this, Bob. The legal tacks that you have to take, there are several here. Number one, she's got a criminal conviction. Number two, she accepted a settlement for the air bags not deploying, but that really had nothing to do with the cause effectively at the time. So that she accepted a $75,000 settlement. And you want that vacated because, if I understand it, you feel that GM wasn't on the up and up with you when it made that deal. Is that correct? Are those the two tacks you're taking?

BOB HILLIARD, PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY: That's absolutely correct. They were not only not on the up and up, they actually affirmatively misrepresented, lied during the civil proceedings. Keep in mind that the lawsuit and the criminal justice system were working at the same time. So General Motors saw Candice going through the process. They knew, as a fact, during the time that she was not responsible and yet they kept that information in their briefcase. They didn't tell the district attorney, who now tells me that it would have made a big difference because they couldn't figure out any other reason that in the middle of the day this accident could have happened.

BANFIELD: You know - HILLIARD: So during the civil lawsuit, they provide the information to the plaintiff's attorneys and to the judge saying the car's not defective, the driver's at fault and the case should be dismissed.

BANFIELD: OK.

HILLIARD: And the $75,000 wasn't just to Candice, it was to Mike Erickson's two children and Mike Erickson's mom. And it's basically the cost of defending the case.

BANFIELD: Well, I will, without question, be very interested to see what happens. And as we always do, we look to the other side of the story. And we reached out to GM. The executive director of communications, Greg Martin (ph), sent us the following response to your lawsuit, Candice. And I'm just going to read it straight out.

"While I can't provide specific comment on Ms. Anderson's claim, I can say more broadly what our CEO, Mary Barra, made last week, we are taking responsibility for what has happened by taking steps to treat victims and their families with compassion, decency and fairness. We made serious mistakes in the past and as a result we're making significant changes in our company to ensure they never happen again."

We will see what that means with respect to your litigation.

Candice Anderson, Bob Hilliard, I wish I had more time, but we will talk again. Thank you for being with us today.

ANDERSON: Thank you.

HILLIARD: Thank you.

BANFIELD: So, like I said, we'll continue to watch for that.

In the meantime, we have some brand new surveillance video from inside that Las Vegas Wal-Mart where a weekend shooting spree came to an end. We're going to bring that to you right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: I have said this several times, that I am getting tired of reporting on shootings, whether they be in schools or movie theaters or parking lots. And it is hard to keep them all straight, but I know you'll remember in Las Vegas just days ago two people, a husband and a wife team, shot two police officers as they were having lunch and then shot another man in a Wal-Mart parking lot before she killed him and ultimately he was gunned down too. Our Kyung Lah is in Las Vegas right now. There is apparently a live news conference that's either underway or about to get underway by the Las Vegas Police Department and Kyung joins us live on the phone because she's trying to get ready for that coverage.

Is there any news that they're going to make today on this - this, yet again, terrible shooting, Kyung.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): The news conference actually just ended and this - we got quite a few details.

BANFIELD: I can't hear Kyung. I'm not sure if - thank you, Kyung, I'm sorry, I missed the top of what you said. Go ahead.

LAH: The news conference actually just concluded a short time ago. And there were a lot of details, including some surveillance video that was played. The surveillance video shows the final moments when the two suspects were cornered inside a Wal-Mart. And they played this in part because they wanted to correct the record. In the first news conference, they said that the female gunman, Amanda Miller, shot her husband, Jared Miller. That did not end up being the case. But it was so chaotic that it appeared to be the case.

So the part of the video that they played, you actually see Amanda Miller raise her hand, her gun. It appears she's shooting her husband. She does not fire a shot. He had already been fatally shot by the police. He was still alive in a clip that they played for us. And then she turns the gun and you don't see it on video but she ends up shooting herself.

Police say they wanted to release it and -- what you're looking at now is, as we're seeing it, it's quite disturbing but, again, she does not fire the shot. The video fades to black before she shoots herself. What police want to clarify is that the gunman, Jared Miller, was killed by police and that the female gunman, Amanda Miller, ended up shooting herself.

We also learned other details in this news conference, which was quite wide ranging. The police say that there were three weapons used by the suspects, two handguns, a .9 mm and a 38 revolver, as well as a pumped shotgun. They appeared to be not registered. The ATF trying to track down exactly their whereabouts. They were purchased, it appears, in Indiana.

And as far as any prior contact that these suspects had with police, the most alarming one was in February 2014 when counter-terrorism officers actually interviewed the suspects at their apartment, Ashleigh, but at that point they said that when they spoke to them, no red flags were raised to officers.

BANFIELD: Oh, I just can't believe we're having this conversation again, that this couple actually had an encounter with counter terror law enforcements prior to this incident. Kyung Lah reporting live for us from Las Vegas from that news conference, the headline being that ultimately that female shooter did not shoot her husband. She shot herself. And the police were able to finally take down the husband after they took down two fellow officers -- two fellow officers of the officer speaking and another innocent bystander just going to Wal- Mart.

Thanks for watching, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. My colleague, Wolf Blitzer, takes over right now.