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Grand Jury Hears Ferguson Shooting Case; The ISIS Threat

Aired August 22, 2014 - 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: Back on Monday, Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager killed by police nearly two weeks ago, will be laid to rest this upcoming Monday.

And you're looking at video here from his graduation from high school. This is obtained by ABC News. With the calm, even more focus goes on the case.

And this just into the CNN NEWSROOM here, racial and gender breakdown of the grand jury, 12 jurors in total. Seven are male, five are female. And as far as racial breakdown, you have three African- American members of this grand jury, one man, two women. And nine are Caucasian, six men, three women.

So let me bring in CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins and Mark Geragos.

So, Mark, since you're sitting next to me, I will pick on you first.

First of all, are you surprised about the gender and racial makeup of the grand jury, which is supposed to be super secret, behind closed doors, that's even out?

MARK GERAGOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, that doesn't surprise me. All they have to do is sit outside the grand jury and reporters do that with this kind of attention.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: -- reporters, but OK.

GERAGOS: Exactly. And they will figure it out.

What I think is very enlightening about this, because this case, like all cases in the criminal justice system, are going to be determined by race, this does not bode well for an indictment. So --

BALDWIN: Because the majority, nine white people, three African- Americans.

(CROSSTALK)

GERAGOS: Exactly. And I think this is going to break along racial lines, as it almost always does in the criminal justice system.

BALDWIN: Mel Robbins, do you agree with Mr. Geragos here? MEL ROBBINS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Not really. I was a former public

defender in Manhattan. And I found some of my toughest jurors, frankly, in the crimes where I was defending people were African- American women.

So I don't know that you can just make a blanket statement that in a grand jury, that it's going to go by race lines. It's a very low burden of proof. I personally think we are going to be -- I'm going to be shocked if they return an indictment at all, but we will see.

GERAGOS: Well, the standard for an indictment is, is the client breathing, is what I always say. It doesn't take much to get past probable cause. But there is -- it's still a pretty split community there.

BALDWIN: But explain to me, Mark, explain why it's not a probable cause here, why this has gone to grand jury.

GERAGOS: Because if -- in order to get to a probable cause hearing, somebody has got to file criminal charges. And this guy is not filing criminal charges at this point.

BALDWIN: OK.

GERAGOS: For -- you could be cynical and say he's going to leave it up to the citizens to decide. And if they don't return a indictment, he can say, look, it wasn't me. I put all the evidence in there. They decided not to indict. And there you go.

BALDWIN: Right.

GERAGOS: Punt it.

BALDWIN: Mel, what about the issue of the dash-cam? Because here we know, at least from reports I have seen, that the dash-cams existed within the Ferguson Police Department. They had just yet to install them, which could have been, you know, a game-changer as far as pictures a lot of times don't lie. I know it depends on the angle of the video camera.

But, you know, when you have all these different witness and eyewitness accounts, dash-cam video sure would have been nice.

ROBBINS: Oh, it would have been fantastic. Mark will tell you that the worst kind of evidence is eyewitness evidence.

And the Innocence Project recently did a study where they looked at almost 300 death penalty cases that were overturned; 73 percent of them, the convictions hinged on an eyewitness. They are notoriously unreliable.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And why is that? I have heard this time and time again.

(CROSSTALK) ROBBINS: Mark, go first, and then I will explain.

BALDWIN: So polite here. Mark, go ahead.

(LAUGHTER)

GERAGOS: Thank you, Mel.

Look, what happens when you have eyewitness testimony, nobody when they start off looking at an event, unless you have been pre-warned -- normally, an event just happens.

BALDWIN: Right.

GERAGOS: So the brain and the mind works in -- it may be attention to a gun. There may be attention to yelling. And then the mind starts to fill in the blanks later on, and then in this case, when you have a situation where there's so much kind of media attention, and you hear all the other stories and then you're influenced by the way that people think, and which side you're going to take, bias seeps in, and the next thing you know -- and it's not like it necessarily is conscience.

It can be unconscious, and in most cases it is, where your recollection just all of a sudden becomes fine-tuned by things that have nothing to do with what you actually saw.

BALDWIN: You know, one person who we heard almost immediately was Dorian Johnson, right? He was the one, he was the eyewitness, he was with Michael Brown. And so what's been interesting, A. he's gone away. I imagine it's his lawyer is saying, let's stop talking. But, B, also news of a previous arrest, previous criminal history.

But do you think, Mel, that that is germane to this current case? Could that affect his credibility here in testifying about his friend Michael Brown?

ROBBINS: Well, it's not going to go before the grand jury. Could it affect a jury trial? It certainly could.

I mean, what's going to happen is the prosecution -- he's their star witness. So if they know what they're doing, they're going to make sure he dresses up in a suit and tie and then he starts off by explaining his past, so that it's not coming out as a surprise later. But I think what you're going to see the defense do is they're going to try to argue, not necessarily that he's just a liar, but that this is a young man that distrusts the police and that, in the past, he has filed a false police report, he distrusts the police, he lies to the police and that he did the same thing in this case.

So they're going to go to motive for lying and using that. I don't know if they're necessarily going to get it in, because it is -- you know the prior acts kind of evidence is very difficult to get in. So unless they catch him in a lie and they open up the door to be able to try to discredit him, I'm not sure it will come in. But if I were the prosecutor, I would have him explain it right to the jury from the get-go.

BALDWIN: And just quickly, why wouldn't he be testifying at the grand jury?

GERAGOS: His lawyer may say, unless you give me immunity, I'm not going to testify. And they may not want to give immunity. It's hard to say. This prosecutor has said he's going to put everything in front of the grand jury. But we will wait and see.

BALDWIN: We will wait and see.

Mark Geragos, thank you so much.

Mel Robbins, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Quickly, quickly, what's your thought?

ROBBINS: I was just going to say, it's that there is no cross- examination in front of a grand jury. People just talk and so he's not -- the criminal record is not coming in. He will testify, but the criminal record is not coming in.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: OK, Mel, Mark, thank you both very much.

And yes, some of the answers will come from witness accounts. Some will come from the trio of autopsies performed on Brown's body. Remember, it's the county, it's the independent and federal level.

The one performed by Saint Louis County medical examiner will contain the most detail.

So CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, reports on what that autopsy can tell officials and what it can't.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are dueling narratives about what happened between Michael Brown and police officer Darren Wilson. A friend of Wilson's version goes like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michael just bum-rushes him, just shoves him back into his car, punches him in the face.

COHEN: CNN has confirmed that account matches the one officer Wilson told authorities. But lawyers for the Brown family say his autopsy showed no signs of a struggle and that Wilson is the one at fault.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This officer should have been arrested.

COHEN: Helping settle disputes like this is the job of forensic pathologists, like Dr. Pat Ross. This is her morgue in South Carolina. She has performed more than 7,000 autopsies.

(on camera): So can you show me on our mannequin where would you look for these signs of struggle?

DR. PAT ROSS, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Anywhere on the arm forearms, the hands, fingers.

COHEN: And you're looking for bruises or scratches?

ROSS: Bruises, scratches, yes.

COHEN (voice-over): Dr. Ross says she checked Brown's knuckles. A bruise there might indicate he had thrown a punch.

(on camera): Would you definitely be able to see it in the knuckles, or would it have to be a pretty hard bunch?

ROSS: It would have to be pretty hard.

COHEN: How do you know if it was from that struggle or maybe he had them before?

ROSS: That's a good question, because you can't -- you really can't age a bruise exactly. You know, it may have happened two hours ago or five days ago.

COHEN (voice-over): Another dispute, Wilson's friend says Brown rushed at the officer full-speed, so Wilson started shooting.

But some witnesses say Brown had had his hands up in the air in surrender.

(on camera): So Michael Brown had several bullet wounds here and here. If you were doing an autopsy and looking at the body, could you tell whether he was up like this, or whether he was charging at someone? Can you figure that out on an autopsy?

ROSS: No.

COHEN (voice-over): And an autopsy might not help with this either, why Brown had a gunshot wound right at the top of his head.

(on camera): How would that happen?

ROSS: Very likely, the victim was bent over like this.

COHEN: And why would someone be bent over like that?

ROSS: They're either dodging or maybe trying to run.

COHEN (voice-over): Michael Brown's first autopsy was done by the county, the second commissioned by his family, the third completed Monday by the federal government.

(on camera): This is now the third autopsy that's been done. And it seems like a lot of people are putting hope that it will help answer some of these questions and solve some of these arguments. Do you think it will?

ROSS: No. It will be -- it may produce more questions. But I say, unfortunately, things take time and people need to be patient and let everybody get together and get all the facts together.

COHEN (voice-over): Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Newberry, South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Elizabeth, thank you.

Just ahead here on CNN, a new witness coming forward talking to CNN. Does this gentleman's account contradict the others?

Plus, the U.S. says it has never seen a terror threat like ISIS. And one father whose son disappeared to join jihad risked his life to go and find him. And not only did he come face-to-face with those fighters; he is now helping other dads find their sons who are joining this militant group. Don't miss this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, before we tell you this stunning story about a father going into rescue his son from joining ISIS, just a couple of headlines as we were watching this White House briefing at the top of last hour.

Ben Rhodes speaking, deputy national security adviser, speaking of course, for the administration, focusing, but fielding a lot of questions on ISIS, especially in the wake of the beheading of American journalist James Foley.

So, just a couple notes that I jotted down. He agreed with the former deputy CIA chief, Mike Morell, in saying, yes, this act of the beheading in his opinion constitutes the first terrorist attack on the United States, and, secondly, he was asked multiple times about -- of course we know about the U.S. campaign, the airstrike campaign in Iraq, but questioned just as Defense of Defense Hagel was questioned yesterday about potential airstrikes in Syria to decapitate ISIS.

And that answer more or less the same as the secretary of defense -- we will explore all options, but no commitment there.

So, back to the father here. This one man has a unique perspective on ISIS and its recruitment of young men from the United States and Europe.

Dimitri Bontinck risked his life to saver his 18-year-old son from al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria. So, now this father is helping other Western dads bring home sons who have joined ISIS. He's actually in Syria right now doing exactly that.

And "The New York Post' asked if he volunteered to try to save American James Foley from the ISIS militants who beheaded him this week. And all Bontinck would say was, "It's so secret, we can't talk about it." More on this father and his son from CNN's Atika Shubert.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As a teenager, Jejoen Bontinck danced in this music video. But within a year, he went from this to this -- a young Muslim convert preaching in the streets of Antwerp.

DIMITRI BONTINCK, FATHER: He started to become very religious, always praying. He don't wear western clothes anymore, he only wear jalaba. So we really see the signs of radicalization.

SHUBERT: Then Jejoen said he was leaving to study in Cairo. But when he missed his younger sister's birthday, his father knew his son was actually in Syria.

BONTINCK: On that day, no phone call, no message from the brother. That day I know 100 percent something is going wrong.

SHUBERT: Bontinck began to search the Internet for any sign of his son.

BONTINCK: I discover a video from television station. Inside that video I see friends from him, from this radical Muslim organization, from this city from Antwerp. They even speak the language from Antwerp. So when I saw that, know that my son is there.

SHUBERT: Against the advice of police and his lawyer, Bontinck decided to go after Jejoen himself. He kept a video diary that he gave to CNN.

His search began in the north of Syria with the free lawyers of Aleppo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You sure this is your son? He said it doesn't seem.

SHUBERT: The trail eventually leads to Syria's Islamic extremists.

In this video, Bontinck seems to sympathize with them trying on their weapon, but also capturing extraordinary moments, a jihadi fighter sits down to play a grand piano in an abandoned luxury home, scenes that change his views on Islam and the Syrian conflict.

BONTINCK: The only something I know about Muslim and Islam and it's like people that kind of civilization who cannot live in peace.

SHUBERT: But you changed your mind.

BONTINCK: I changed my mind, yeah.

SHUBERT: How, why?

BONTINCK: Why? Because I have been in Syria. And I have meet so many Muslim people groups -- fighting groups like Jabhat al-Nusra with al Qaeda and they are terrorists and I'm not a Muslim. And if you see what these people done for me. They arrange for me slipping food. They search for me everywhere.

SHUBERT: But Bontinck did not succeed at first. It took nearly a year and two trips before he could track down Jejoen. He says he found him months later with the Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra.

BONTINCK: They beat me. They almost killed me. They took all my clothes out. They put a cap on me. They hide me, because they suspect me -- oh, you are CIA. But at the end, they believe me and they let me go.

And this same leader, he let my son return volunteer.

SHUBERT: What was it like when you saw your son?

BONTINCK: We were crying, like -- I never cried before when he was missing when I don't know anything. But the first physical contact I hold him like a small baby. It's like children who lost the path, you know, the way.

SHUBERT: He was release without charge, now monitored by Belgian police, but barred from speaking to the press.

He is also facing charges of recruiting jihadists to fight in Syria due in court at the end of June.

His father insists his son is innocent, but it's easy to see where Jejoen gets his taste for adventure and perhaps an inflated sense of his own importance.

BONTINCK: I have eaten with leaders of Jabhat al-Nusra, with sheiks. They pray for me. They respect me. And why, because for them it was amazing, amazing that a father from the west, who is not a Muslim, tried to risk his life to come to a war country to look for his own son, a son who is one of them, who become a mujahideen. So I was a hero for them. I was a hero for them.

SHUBERT: A hero, or an adventurer, a lost child or a jihadi. Many questions unanswered, like father like son.

Atika Shubert, CNN, Antwerp, Belgium.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: How about that father?

So staying on ISIS, the Pentagon says it is "beyond any terror threat they have ever seen." But as the U.S. bombs ISIS in Iraq, are there sleeper cells on U.S. soil?

And find out why the head of ISIS is extremely motivated to attack the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A narcissistic psychopath, he wants to be bigger than Osama bin Laden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's just take a little bit more time and focus on the potential threat to the United States from ISIS, the terror group that beheaded American James Foley.

ISIS has stormed its way across parts of Syria and into Iraq. But could it bring its brutality right here to America?

CNN's Brian Todd takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Moments before beheading James Foley, his executioner, an ISIS terrorist warns of more attacks on Americans.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any attempt by you, Obama, to deny the Muslims their rights of living in safety under the Islamic caliphate will result in the bloodshed of your people.

TODD: Tonight, new indications that ISIS could harm more Americans and others in the West. A U.S. intelligence official tells CNN they have indications of ISIS cells in Europe which could attack U.S. embassies and other American interests. The official says it's not clear if those terrorists were ordered by ISIS or if they went on their own.

An ISIS fighter threatened the West telling Reuters, quote, "We have also penetrated them with those who look like them."

Does ISIS have cells in America? Former CIA officer Bob Baer believes they do.

ROBERT BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I have been told with no uncertainty there are ISIS sleeper cells in this country.

TODD: But two U.S. officials tell CNN they have no indications of ISIS cells inside America right now. Still they are very concerned that ISIS fighters with Western passports could travel to the U.S. and launch attacks. Officials believe a handful of Americans have fought with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and CNN's Peter Bergen says others have tried to help the group.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Here, you've got three Americans who've been indicted for joining ISIS within the last year including, by the way, a woman which is quite unusual. Luckily they were arrested before they could leave the country. But clearly ISIS is sort of -- if you're interested in this ideology, that's the most exciting thing to go and join right now.

TODD: Tracking Americans in ISIS is getting more difficult especially on the ground in Syria and Iraq. A senior U.S. intelligence official tells us the footprint for American human intelligence in that area is not extensive.

Analysts say the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has extra motivation to send his fighters to the U.S.

HARAS RAFIQ, QUILLIAM FOUNDATION: Baghdadi who is the head of ISIS is a narcissistic psychopath. He wants to be bigger than Osama bin Laden. And one of the ways he will measure that is how effective and how big the terrorist activities he can carry out in the West are compared to what bin Laden was able to do.

TODD: Analysts say al-Baghdadi is also taking a page from bin Laden's propaganda book. They say he gets shock value. He knows how chilling it is for Westerners to hear someone with a Western accent speaking to the camera, then carrying out a horrifying, barbaric act like the killing of James Foley.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Let's talk more about what you just saw there in that piece.

I know, Josh Rogin, CNN, senior political analyst and senior correspondent for The Daily Beast, we just heard -- it's frightening, the assessment of the potential threat from ISIS to America. But just broadening out, I'm sure you were watching as we were live on CNN Ben Rhodes, from the White House, speaking from the Vineyard, suggesting that even if ISIS were not to attack the U.S. mainland, it still poses this grave threat us here in the U.S.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.

BALDWIN: How, exactly?

ROGIN: We have heard administration officials say for months that ISIS had aspirations to attack the homeland.

What's changed in the last few days is that now we have General Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that they're an imminent threat to U.S. interests, Ben Rhodes saying we would go after them without regard for borders, which means inside Syria, Chuck Hagel making some very strong statements about the group.

We have seen a huge change in rhetoric, which reflects a recognition inside the administration this threat is real and growing and could be brought home soon. What we haven't seen yet is what the change in policy will be. We have got very few details on how the administration actually intends to combat ISIS and destroy it.

And then we have also got very few details about how this fits into a larger strategy to combat their ideology, to solve the overall problems in Iraq and Syria. So, yes, everyone now admits that this is a big problem that threatens us directly. But no one has told us what the U.S. government will do to actually solve it.

BALDWIN: Well, let me just get to some more news. This is what we're learning as we're speaking. We're learning that ISIS fighters in the Iraqi city of Jawala are reported to be surrounded by these guys.

These are the Kurds, the military, the Peshmerga. They're on our side, the U.S. said. They're also the same group that reclaimed the Mosul dam this week after the U.S. strike pushed ISIS out of there. U.S. officials suggest this momentum -- we heard this the last couple days as well, the momentum that has been really built up by ISIS, specifically by Iraq, is losing steam.

Do you think that's true, and how significant would that be?

ROGIN: I don't think there has been a change in momentum on the ground that is significant, from what my sources on the ground are telling me in Iraq, but especially inside Syria. I spoke with a senior FSA -- that's a Free Syrian Army -- commander who is fighting against ISIS, only minutes ago.

And he told me that in the last week, and this is breaking, this is first on CNN, that the U.S. has contacted Syrian rebels to help -- to get them to help them fight ISIS, just the same they have done with the Kurds in Iraq, but that they haven't actually seen increased support and they actually haven't seen ISIS really change at all.

So the strikes as they are limited. They can push back ISIS in specific locations. But they are not actually combating the overall strength and growth of the movement. They can use strikes to secure a dam here or there. But, overall, we're talking about 12,000 fighters, mostly in Syria, who control cities, oil refineries, air bases, lots of equipment, billions of dollars.

So these strikes are not meant to and so far have not changed any of those basic facts on the ground.

BALDWIN: OK. And that is directly -- talking about the momentum, we heard from the Pentagon yesterday saying yes, the momentum has slowed. That is interesting what you're getting from your sources in Syria. Then you have the beheading. Go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

ROGIN: Yes, I mean, they can slow the momentum of any ISIS unit. We have enormous resources in our military combined with the Iraqi forces and all the other countries who are fighting ISIS.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: But not bigger picture, you're saying?

ROGIN: But not only has there not been a change in the bigger picture, there hasn't been any change in our strategy to address the bigger picture.

In other words, we can look at these piecemeal victories, but they don't paint the larger picture us fighting ISIS as an organization, as an ideology, as a financing movement. This is what the administration is grappling with right now. And they just haven't come up with a solution right at this moment. BALDWIN: And to Ben Rhodes' point, in terms of, is the goal contain,

is it destroy, his answer was, listen, they have been -- been in that part of the world for 10 years. It's going take a little while to evict them.

Josh Rogin --

ROGIN: It also takes --

BALDWIN: -- thank you so much.

ROGIN: Yes. You're welcome.