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New Shooting Witness Speaks Out; Lawyer Defends Eyewitness Account; ISIS Demanded $132M For Foley

Aired August 21, 2014 - 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: All right, as I said, things were relatively calm in Ferguson last night, but police did make six arrests, but that's compared to 47 the night before, a sign that even though tensions remain high, calm is returning to the community at least for now.

Also this morning, we're hearing from a brand new witness. He is debunking the theory that Brown bum-rushed the officer who shot him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": So when do you first realize something is happening?

MICHAEL BRADY, WITNESS TO MIKE BROWN SHOOTING: Well, this is a little bit after 11:30ish. A friend of mine actually woke me up out of a nap. He comes over, I stepped outside with him for like 3-5 minutes. After that, I comes in, say something to my fiancee in the kitchen, then I goes into the bedroom, but the two minutes in the bedroom, I hear an altercation outside.

COOPER: So what did you do then?

BRADY: As -- when I heard the altercation, I look out the window and I see somebody at Ferguson police window, some kind of tussle going on here.

COOPER: The police car. The police officer was still in the vehicle.

BRADY: Inside the vehicle. Some kind of tussle going on. He also had a friend also. He runs on the side of the car because all of a sudden they take off running.

COOPER: Did you see --

BRADY: I didn't.

COOPER: What the tussle was around? Was one person being pulled in or pulled out?

BRADY: Exactly at the window. May have looked like he was trying to get away.

COOPER: You couldn't tell exactly what was wrong? BRADY: Yes. But I just seen some kind of tussle through the window. He has a friend also. He was standing like in the front of the police cruiser on the bumper side on the passenger side, but like five feet away from it, though.

Like I said all of a sudden they just take off running. Mr. Brown, he just runs directly down in the middle of the street and his friend, there's a car that was parked on the sidewalk, the Ferguson cop, his vehicle was in the middle of the street diagonal so like I said they take off running.

COOPER: Had there been a shot when there was still that tussle in the police car?

BRADY: I didn't hear the shot. I didn't hear the shot. Quite a few people that was around said they heard a shot go off in the car.

COOPER: The important thing is what you heard. You did not hear it?

BRADY: Right. I definitely didn't hear that. Like I say, his friend takes off running and like I said, the parked car was on the side on the sidewalk. And like I said, probably like five feet away from the police cruiser in the middle of the street. Like I said they just takes off running and I see the officer get out of the car emerge and just immediately start shooting. So --

COOPER: You say he immediately starts shooting. You're saying he didn't say anything, he didn't --

BRADY: Like I said I didn't hear because everything -- I'm still in the window. I'm still in the window. So when he gets out the car, I see the first shot as Mr. Brown, like I say, he directly in the middle of the street running with his back turned, running away. He's probably what, about 20 feet down.

His other friend he's around the car on the trunk side of it. So I see him, you know, looking up at the cop just to see where he's at. When he gets out of the car he lets out one or two shots. At that time he's already passed his own police vehicle.

And Mr. Brown's friend, he ran to, he -- as he was in his gun shooting range position, he walked past the vehicle to where his friend ran to. So I think that the officer knew where his friend was. I'm just saying showing me he wasn't shooting at his friend.

COOPER: Did you see -- you said there were one or two shots do you think?

BRADY: Yes. The very first one. The first one when he gets out.

COOPER: Did you see if mike brown was hit by any of those shots?

BRADY: I don't think he was at the time because like I said, he was 20, 25 feet down, so obviously he was still running.

COOPER: Right. Because we don't know -- the autopsy said that there were at least six shots that hit Mike Brown. We don't know how many shots may have been fired, if there were other shots that were fired, if other bullet casings have been collected. We don't know. You heard one or two and then what happened?

BRADY: I definitely seen one or two. Like I say I still has his back turned and I noticed he passed his friend up to where his friend ran to. So that's when I decided, I'm going to run outside with my phone and see what I can get. So I run outside so quick. About time I get outside, he's already turned around, facing the officer.

He's balled -- he has his arms under his stomach and he was like -- like I said, just like the body, I took a few pictures in the video, but how his body is on the ground just like with his arms tucked in, that's how he got shot, whatever.

But like I said before he went down he was already like this and he took like one or two steps going towards the officer and he like I said, let go about three or four more shots at him.

COOPER: You're saying it's your impression that he was essentially falling down on to the ground or going down on to the ground?

BRADY: Yes.

COOPER: Not because there isn't an account by the friend or allegedly a friend of the officer said that the officer is claiming and sources with the investigation back this up is what the officer's claim is, is that Mike Brown was running toward the officer. Did you see him running toward the officer in any way?

BRADY: no, no not after when he was running away, no not at all. By the time I come outside, I'm thinking that he's now hit after I seen the officer shooting at him while he was running away. So I'm thinking that he's hit because now he's turned around.

Now like this, like he was going down. It didn't even look like that he was giving up. It just looked like I'm hit. I'm going to go down now. That's what it looked like.

COOPER: That was your impression?

BRADY: Yes, yes.

COOPER: So from what you saw there weren't hands up or anything?

BRADY: Yes, I really -- that's the thing. I didn't see no hands up. I probably just missed it from going out from my bedroom going outside.

COOPER: There's a gap in what you saw?

BRADY: Yes. On top of that also a gap of -- from the officer pausing as he was shooting. Like I say, I'm in the window and he shoots a couple of times and by the time I get outside he's shooting again. I really didn't hear a shot between running, he probably did, you know, maybe -- COOPER: You don't know.

BRADY: Yes.

COOPER: This entire thing about how quickly did -- from the time you first heard what sounded like a tussle and started seeing that tussle to the time Mike Brown was down on the ground, how long do you think?

BRADY: It was -- what should I say? I would definitely say not even a minute.

COOPER: It all was quick?

BRADY: Yes, it was just quick, definitely quick. Probably within 30 seconds, 40 seconds maybe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN HOST: All right. That new account is slightly different from what we've heard before. Michael Brown's friend, Dorian Johnson says after being chased, Brown turned around with his hands up to tell the officer that he was unarmed.

Another witness Tiffany Mitchell says Officer Barren Wilson was d shooting as soon as he got out of his car while chasing Michael Brown down the street. Piaget Crenshaw who shot the aftermath from her apartment balcony also says Brown was running away while the officer continued firing at him.

But a friend of Officer Wilson who calls herself Josie says Michael Brown shoved the officer back into the car and grabbed for his gun and Officer Wilson shoved Brown away and shot him in self-defense.

Now that we've heard the differing accounts of that day, CNN's Chris Cuomo spoke with the attorney for Dorian Johnson. He's the teenager, like I said, who was with Michael Brown the day he was shot. And in the days after the shooting he was not shy in telling his part of the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: The way he describes it is the officer says get out of the street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CUOMO: They do not get out of the street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, they do not.

CUOMO: He says something to the officer, the officer takes some kind of disrespect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CUOMO: Backs up. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CUOMO: When he backs up then your client says that opens the door into them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He says, what are you saying? He attempts to try to get out of the car.

CUOMO: What happens when he tries to get out the car?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's so close to him with the vehicle, he can't get the door open. My client says he couldn't get a foot out.

CUOMO: Michael Brown doesn't do anything to the officer?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not at that point.

CUOMO: There is no altercation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is some arguing some cursing, some exchange.

CUOMO: And then what happened?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then the officer reaches out and grabs him by his throat.

CUOMO: Reaches out through the window with his left hand and grabs Mike Brown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By the throat.

CUOMO: Who's like 6'3", 6'4"?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's 6'4", 275 or something.

CUOMO: So he's able to reach out of the window and grab him by the throat?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Briefly.

CUOMO: Is that believable to you that you can reach out of a window and grab someone that tall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's unmanageable.

CUOMO: You believe your client?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I do.

CUOMO: Then what happens?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mike says, man, why you grab me by my throat and start cursing and starts moving away from him. Now the officer grabs a hold to the shirt pulling him closer to the car.

CUOMO: Does mike brown hit the officer at any point? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Mike has cigarelos in his hands.

CUOMO: The little cigars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still got them. He's trying to maneuver. Of course, he's big so he's doing a pretty good job and finally he's maneuvering away and the officer says I'm going to shoot you. My client says he sees a gun. Pow. The gun goes off.

CUOMO: Never sees Mike Brown touch the officer?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

CUOMO: Have you heard that the officer sustained injuries?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've heard now seven days later, yes, I have.

CUOMO: The chief didn't say it at one of the early press conferences?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They said his face was red at one early press conference. Now then his eye was hurt. His eye socket is messed up. Here we are seven days later, they just now releasing that. We don't have a police report.

CUOMO: Has your client changed his story in terms of what you're telling me right now versus saying I did see Mike wrestling for the gun with the police officer?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My client never said that.

CUOMO: All he does is hear the gunshot after a threat from the officer that he will shoot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. But they are at the car, Mike is trying to get away from him.

CUOMO: Trying to get away, but you say your client says never touches the officer in terms of hitting him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

CUOMO: He's just trying to get him off him. Maybe there is contact, but wasn't aggressive assaultive contact.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Possibly.

CUOMO: That's a fair statement?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: All right. Chris Cuomo is live in Ferguson with more on this. So does it bother this attorney that there are differing versions of the story? CUOMO: No. First of all, the attorney says that that's what job of the system is, to vet the credibility of stories, to let 12 men and women decide. He's also OK with this going to a grand jury instead of an immediate arrest because he believes that with law officers it's often rare, very rare that an arrest would be made.

He's OK with the grand jury process. Then comes down to what have we heard, Carol? I think that the frustration is that Anderson's interview with the newest witness, this is a good witness. Eyewitness testimony is very dodgy stuff.

When you're in law school they have somebody run down the hallway in a lecture hall and run back out and they start asking people what did you see? Everybody sees something different. Eyewitness testimony is a difficult thing to begin with. I like this witness. He's older. He had maintained vision.

He seems to have a very clear recollection of things. Here's the problem. He misses the most important point of the event. Whether or not Mike Brown stopped running turned around and ran at the officer.

And that -- in that moment the officer was reasonable in thinking that there was a danger to himself sufficient to use his weapon is the critical question.

COSTELLO: All right. Chris Cuomo reporting live from Ferguson this morning, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the kidnapping and death of James Foley from a failed rescue mission to a massive ransom demand. We'll ask whether the U.S. policy toward kidnapping victims puts even more Americans at risk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: We're learning more about the events leading up to James Foley's death. The company he worked for as a journalist "Global Post" says that it did receive a ransom demand from ISIS, this terrible terrorist group for $132 million. That's what ISIS was asking for, for Foley's release.

We don't know what "Global Post" did with that demand, but we do know that the United States did make an effort to rescue Foley by sending an elite team of commandos on what was supposed to be a rescue mission, but unfortunately they could not find Foley.

I want to discuss this, I want to bring in Arsalan Iftikhar, an international human rights attorney and Charlie Cooper, a researcher, counter extremism think tank, and Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, the chairman for the Cordoba Initiative. His goal to improve relations between the Muslim world and the rest. Welcome to all of you.

Charlie, I want to begin with you and the investigation. British authority says they can identify this person, this terrorist, who executed James Foley. They say he might be a member of this trio of three that call themselves "The Beatles." What can you tell us about them?

CHARLIE COOPER, RESEARCHER, QUILLIAM FOUNDATION: Well, first of all it doesn't come as a surprise that Britain has executed an American citizen in this manner. Foreign fighters, particularly from the west, immense propaganda value for the Islamic state. Using one in this example shouldn't be a surprise.

Security services in the United Kingdom are working tirelessly to try to identify this man. It is going to be a difficult job, but I do believe in the next couple days we will see something come into fruition.

COSTELLO: Really in the next couple of days they can identify this guy supposedly by taking scans of his eyes and his hands?

COOPER: Well, there's that side of it, but there is also the hope that someone from Britain who used to know this man, will recognize his voice and come forward and alert the authorities in that way.

There is also a huge amount of resources being expended in trying to source who this man is. Also, there are individuals who are in contact with foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq at the moment over social medium platforms like Twitter who will be working tirelessly to see if they can find out who this man is.

COSTELLO: Arsalan, even al Qaeda has denounced this group because of its savagery yet some young men including Americans, about 100 are drawn to it. President Obama likened it to as cancer that's spreading. What's the attraction?

ARSALAN IFTIKHAR, HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER: Well, Carol, I think the first thing people have to understand is ISIS tends to call themselves the Islamic state, everything that they are doing including the execution of James Foley is completely un-Islamic. The vast majority of Muslims worldwide condemn the act of people like ISIS.

Even the grand of Saudi Arabia recently called ISIS and al Qaeda public enemy number one for Islam and Muslims and so it's important for people not to conflate Islam and Muslims with the acts of ISIS. It's more of a cult, similar to the Kamara Rouge was in Cambodia in terms of an ideology that calls for want terror and murder.

You know, instead of the Islamic State, ISIS, should probably be called something like the ignorant sacrilegious intolerant society. We Muslims worldwide want to show people that we are as horrified with the acts of ISIS as anyone else.

COSTELLO: I know you said something similar to me off camera that is shouldn't be called ISIS, correct?

IFTIKHAR: Absolutely. Absolutely. We have to fight them on four major fronts. We have to fight them ideologically, in terms of their branding. We have to fight them militarily. We have to fight them economically. As pointed out, we should not even call them Islamics.

We should call them the terrorist assassins of Syria and Iraq. You know, we should rebrand it that way and we should all universally agree because that is important in terms of shaping the perception of both non-Muslims and Muslims about this group.

COSTELLO: Let's talk a little bit about how you defeat this horrible group. A lot of people wonder why more Arab countries aren't coming out in condemning James Foley's death. Qatar came out, for example, but people are expecting a huge cry from other Arab nations that it hasn't come.

IMAM FAISAL ABDUL RAUF, CHAIRMAN, THE CORDOBA INITIATIVE: The chief of Saudi Arabia and this is all part of the general witch's brew that we're seeing right now happening in the Middle East and especially in Syria and Iraq.

We have Sunni-Shia conflict in which the Saudis and the Iranians are the major geopolitical centers promoting this and ISIS, or this group, let's call them the terrorist assassins of Syria and Iraq, are basically the most virulent.

Like when you is have an antibiotic you don't take it for the full week, you take it four or five days, the most virulent strain of the attempts to establish Islamic state.

COSTELLO: Imam, honestly, I think that we all realize that, but it's the United States that's tasked with the fighting in Iraq to defeat these ISIS forces. I mean, other Arab nations aren't sending weapons into Iraq to help in the fight.

RAUF: They should.

COSTELLO: Or boots on the ground.

RAUF: They should.

COSTELLO: Why aren't they?

RAUF: I can't answer that question. All I can say, I'm not a military expert. I'm not a political expert on why -- I mean, there are reasons. We know, for example, that the appetite for American boots on the ground, the capacity for people for boots on the ground, this is part of an ongoing narrative.

We have seen how this has come out of anti-Sunni sentiment by the Iraq/Shia leadership. This is like a perfect storm. The perfect circumstances which allowed this particular virulent strain of promoting the Sunnis.

And now becoming purely terrorists in that they assassinate anybody who is seen as an impediment towards the political agenda.

COSTELLO: Let me just pose that question to Charlie because I want to get at the involvement of Arab nations and whether that would make a difference. Charlie?

COOPER: Yes. Well, I agree with the imam, they should get involved. There are clearly political workings going on that mean that they are hesitating, but I would really implore regional countries to get involved in this. It is their responsibility as well as the United States, the United Kingdom and France, for example, it's their responsibility to act on this as well because it's their problem.

It will reach to their borders and it's imperative that another country or countries within the region act on this. Because besides anything else, just having western countries attacking their positions in Iraq and Syria will play into their crusade of paradigm.

This is immensely valuable for the Jihadist ideology. So we need other countries to get involved in this to show this is not the case to create that paradigm into.

COSTELLO: Arsalan Iftikhar, Charlie Cooper and Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, thank you so much for being with me. I appreciate it.

Still to come, the president takes in a round of golf less than an hour after addressing the brutal death of that American citizen at the hands of ISIS terrorists. And he's facing scathing criticism for it. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: President Obama struck exactly the right tone when he condemned the grisly execution of journalist, James Foley by ISIS terrorists. He called ISIS a cancer that must be stopped. Mr. Obama's tone was so sombre, emotionally charged, CNN's White House correspondent, Michele Kosinski said the press corps was struck speechless.

But then a short time later, President Obama went golfing which did not go unnoticed. The president was quickly blasted for zipping from his news conference to the tee, unlike his British counterpart one day into his vacation Prime Minister David Cameron decided to high tail it back to find out who was responsible for beheading an American citizen.

Let's talk about this. Joining me now CNN political commentator and columnist for "The Blaze" Will Cain and CNN political commentator and host of "Huff Post Live," Marc Lamont Hill. Look at "The Daily News." It says it all. Can we just all agree that the optics was bad?

WILL CAIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. That seems fairly obvious, right.

COSTELLO: What can you say?

CAIN: I hate talking about optics, Carol, to this extent. It has a disconnect from actually the substance. Do we think -- do I think that President Obama cares about James Foley clearly. Do I think he's planning action in how to respond to the death of James Foley? Yes.

But I guess you also have to analyze optics in kind of its own world, its own sphere. That's just clearly bad. I don't -- like wearing a t-shirt to a funeral does it mean you didn't care about the person you lost? Not necessarily. Boy it's just bad, bad imagery. COSTELLO: OK, so it's bad imagery, Marc Lamont Hill. I'm sure you would agree as well. But I want to talk substance here and what we can really do about this problem. Because let's face it the White House and the administration they're in a tough place.

There was a ransom demand for James Foley, but you can't pay terrorists $135 million, right? So what do you do? Special Forces tried to rescue James Foley and they failed but they tried. So what do you do?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I mean it's an absolutely tough circumstance and again, I echo what Will said. I don't doubt the president's sincerity on this issue or his energy and efforts on this area. The question always becomes is his strategy appropriate?

For me to some extent, I don't want to cry over spilled milk, but to some extent our hasty withdrawal from Iraq only intensified this. Of course, there were reasons why, I mean, the sovereign nation told us to go. There were security issues among other factors.

But ultimately I think we need to reimagine what the relationship will be there in terms of a military presence between the United States and Iraq and ultimately maybe even Syria because ISIS is expanding at a rate we didn't expect.

And until we have some sort of physical presence there beyond arming Kurds, beyond arming opposition forces, I think we're going to continue to see this problem and the president to some extent may have boxed himself in a corner by saying limited air strikes or air strikes only, no boots on the ground.

No one wants war. No one has an appetite for war, but you want to talk optics, American journalists dying not only a human crisis and unbelievable it's awful.

COSTELLO: There is another American journalist, right, that's in captivity by the same ISIS terrorists who --

CAIN: Right.

COSTELLO: -- I hate to say it but what if something happens to him, what then?

CAIN: To one point Marc made, what the president is saying in response to this, what you don't want to do is tell ISIS, tell your enemy what you're not going to do. We're going to have limited air strikes but no boots on the ground.

We need to at least make those who are enemy think we're willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish our goals. Now, identifying that goal is key. Yesterday you and I talked and I said this horrific inhumane act can move the American people to supporting whatever it takes to get rid of them.

A harder question, should it? Should we let isolated incidents or as you asked me perhaps another one, should we let us drive that into something without a clearly defined goal?

I mean, the cleared defined goal seems to be or should be stamp ISIS out of existence. Are the American people prepared to commit what would take to do that, which would be more than Iraq and Syria and include boots on ground?

COSTELLO: Last word, Marc.

HILL: Here's an interesting thing, Will. One slight disagreement. I think it could have a very targeted strike in Iraq that will be effective, irrespective of what we do in Syria. This is where we should be talking about optics.

Because I think very interestingly the American public doesn't have an appetite for war and the language of drawing down troops, the language of not intervening is something Americans on both sides of the aisle tend to be in favor of at this moment.

It's not wise to be talking about ramping up. The president is in a position where he has nothing to lose politically, which is probably why he's golfing right now quite frankly. I think right now he could do the right thing.

And again, I'm not pro-war, not saying we should be intensifying war, I'm not saying we shouldn't have left Iraq, but security forces were the issue then and the issue now is not limiting the scope of our response to ISIS because ISIS is only going to grow.

I would love to see the president have a strategy that's a little more robust or at least doesn't leave so many options off the table. The optics of the political moment are making it tough for everybody because the Democratic Party doesn't want to say we're going back in.

CAIN: Step one, identify a mission.

COSTELLO: I have to wrap it there. Will Cain, Marc Lamont Hill, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

Still to come, a protester is threatened in Ferguson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My hands are up, bro. My hands are up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up. Hands up. Get back. Get back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Yes, you probably guessed it. This police officer was suspended, removed from duty. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)