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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Clean Up at Dallas Apartment of Man With Ebola; Judge Rules Ferguson Police Violated Constitution With Protesters; Police Smash Window, Use Taser in Traffic Stop

Aired October 07, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: This news just in to CNN, the aid group, Doctors Without Borders, says one of its staffers in Sierra Leone apparently has Ebola.

That patient is a Norwegian national who apparently had flown to Oslo for treatment. He or she was put in isolation on Saturday, the group says, after running a fever, but there are no other details being released right now.

But at the same time, a hospital in Spain is now monitoring three more potential cases of Ebola after a nurse's assistant contracted the virus in Spain. The hospital says it's now monitoring her husband as well.

And then it's also monitoring a man with a suspected case who traveled overseas but has tested negative so far. It's monitoring a woman who was exposed to Ebola but was wearing protective gear at the time.

And it's keeping an eye on 22 other people who had contact with the nurse's assistant who was diagnosed after treating a Spanish missionary and priest who died after they had returned to Spain from west Africa, and, again, unusual case, because she contracted it in Spain.

Here in the United States, the Liberian man with Ebola contracted in Liberia and a man who traveled here is now in critical condition in Dallas. Thomas Eric Duncan has been given the experimental drug Brincidofovir. Duncan did not get this treatment until he'd already been sick for 10 days.

And speaking of Mr. Duncan, a hazmat crew has finally gone and cleaned up the Dallas apartment where he had been and had been very sick before he went to the hospital.

Look at some of the mist as the workers spray, and what's troubling is something that we just heard yesterday. The photographer who was infected with Ebola, the NBC photographer who came home, he told his dad that he might have actually been infected by spray hitting him while he was helping to clean a vehicle in which someone had died from Ebola.

But it is not certain how he actually got the disease. It's just that we heard that yesterday, and then we see these pictures of the spray at the apartment where other people are still living.

Here's what Gary Tuchman found during the clean-up in Dallas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What you are looking at is the first time in American history a hazmat team has worked an Ebola cleanup scene. Men dressed like astronauts who work for a Texas company, destroying everything in the apartment Thomas Eric Duncan was staying in that could still have the living Ebola virus.

Brad Smith is the vice president of the company.

BRAD SMITH, VP, CLEANING GUYS: Anyone that can give us advice from this, we've taken it and we've gone a step further in our own training and taken care of it.

TUCHMAN: This is kind of a surreal spectacle. You see the workers going in, in protected hazmat suits doing their job, while parents and children wander around on nearby balconies.

Look closely, you see mist from whatever is being sprayed in the apartment. For much of the time the door of the home is open while the spraying is taking place. And look right next door, a child on the balcony who can't be more than 40 feet away. The apartments on both sides were occupied the entire time the apartment was being cleaned. People from all over the world live in this area, very little English is spoken.

Lorenza Cardia (ph) has seven children and lives in the complex next door where she can watch what's going on. She has no idea if it's safe for her or her family to be there. No official has told them anything.

She tells me, "I am scared of what's happening. It's bad because we don't know anything. We don't know if it's going to spread. I keep my kids inside the apartment."

Joseph Thomas lives even closer. He's been told nothing either. But is resigned to fate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm trusting my god. I'm trusting my god. He will protect me. If he don't want me, I am ready to die.

TUCHMAN: Brad, the neighbors here, the neighbors here are all coming out the balcony watching. Your people are going in with their hazmat suits and they're just wandering around 30 feet away. Is that safe for them?

SMITH: I don't want to comment on that. That's not my expertise.

TUCHMAN: But that's not your job to tell people maybe they should leave this apartment complex?

SMITH: No. Absolutely not. I can't say I'd leave my family here.

TUCHMAN: The CDC says there's virtually no risk of Ebola being spread to these neighbors during the cleaning. Ebola does not spread through the environment. But even if it's just to play it safe, it's not clear which local officials would be responsible for giving the residents information and/or temporarily moving them out.

A spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human services department says, we perform contact tracing, investigations and public health follow-up. We will not comment on something that is not in our purview.

The spokeswoman said get in such with the spokeswoman for Dallas county. But she hasn't responded to us as of yet.

The work has taken over three days and now the job is finished. The hazmat trucks start driving off to an undisclosed location.

SMITH: We've totally cleaned the apartment, from the ceilings to the floors, removed everything out of the apartment, carpet, drapes, blinds and then obviously put a final decon on everything to make sure nothing is living in there. And it's all been removed.

TUCHMAN: The hazmat team is now gone but it appears that most of the neighbors never left.

Gary Tuchman, CNN, Dallas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: I want to take you to Ferguson, Missouri, next. You have probably heard often, move along, folks, nothing to see here, especially when police don't like protesting.

Well, a federal judge has just weighed in on your right and those people's rights and every American's right to stay put and not move along here. I'll explain it in just a moment.

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BANFIELD: Police in Ferguson, Missouri, told peaceful protesters to keep on walking, that they could not stand still for more than five seconds on the sidewalk. Even those who were moving, they were told that they were walking too slowly at times.

We saw it all unfold here on CNN with our own Don Lemon back on august 18th. Here's the proof in the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, "CNN TONIGHT": We've been standing here all day --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go. Come on, let's go.

LEMON: That's what's happening here. People are here and they're standing on -- you can see what's happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go! LEMON: They told us -- I can't move. I'm not going to resist a police

officer. I'm being pushed by a police officer. This is exactly what the citizens have been dealing with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: And that's what a lot of people were putting up with, trying to just stand in place and peacefully protest being told, nope, no standing.

Just yesterday, a federal judge ruled that police violated the Constitution with the policy that they adopted that day and continued to enforce as recently as September the 27th.

I want to bring in CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin and CNN legal analyst Paul Callan, defense attorney and former prosecutor.

This is almost like shooting fish in a barrel, this one. It just defied logic. Where would any police officer come off thinking that you could actually do that to someone standing peacefully on a sidewalk?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's surprising. Certainly officers are trained about constitutional rights. It's a core constitutional right, the right to peacefully assemble, certainly the right to demonstrate, the right to express yourself, freedom of speech.

And so the fact that this policy was implemented from up above, I think, was probably the problem.

BANFIELD: This was coming through roll call. They were being told from the highest levels, this is the new normal. We're going to continue moving people.

And, Paul, you've heard some of these things -- five seconds. If you're standing for more than five seconds, you're in violation, could be arrested. You're walking too slowly or you can't just walk back and forth --

HOSTIN: Who came up with that?

BANFIELD: They were making it up as they went along.

HOSTIN: Who came up with that? Did they have any legal counsel?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I don't know. But we should be clear, though. The police do have the right to tell you to move on and not stand where you are if you are interfering with a crime scene or you're obstructing an arrest or -- there are a variety of things that you can be doing that would give them the right to push you along.

But where you are demonstrating and peacefully assembling, the Constitution protects your rights, and it can't be restricted unless there's an overwhelming interest otherwise.

BANFIELD: And let's really hammer down on that, because the judge -- look, right on page two of this injunction, said that nothing in this preliminary injunction -- and I'm just going to truncate a little bit -- prevents Missouri failure to disperse law or any other law.

Law enforcement must be able to use the full range of lawful means to control crowds, including ordering a crowd to move and disperse if law enforcement believes the crowd is assembled for the purpose of violence and rioting.

Sunny, then the decision maker, the decider is the guy on the sidewalk, that guy who is saying, don't walk back and forth -- it becomes willy-nilly, doesn't it?

HOSTIN: It really does. But, again, our officers should be trained in protocol and constitutional protocol, really, and how to do this correctly. Yes, you have to disperse if you're in a crowd that's committing a crime, a violent act, if something is going on that doesn't protect the public and can harm the public.

But that is certainly not what happened here, and we know that that right, the right to assemble, Ashleigh, the right to demonstrate -- it's so very important and goes back to -- we remember hearing it and seeing it in the civil rights movement.

That sort of assembly is so very important to our people --

BANFIELD: Try doing freedom of assembly in Iran. I showed up in Iran with a camera and I was almost arrested. You just can't be --

HOSTIN: We saw Don Lemon being pushed back, a reporter with a big CNN microphone. I was just really shocked.

BANFIELD: I have something -- if you think that's shocking, I have something for you coming up next.

This is just in, some video that we've got -- not this particular video -- but the video we got, two kids in the back of a car, a routine police stop for a driver and a passenger.

They weren't wearing seat belts, apparently, or at least one of them wasn't, and what happened next, tasing, children screaming, crying, a family in disarray and a police department responding and saying why this happened the way it did. You're going to see it all next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: OK, gear down for this one. We're going to show you some video that is really disturbing, distressful. Police in Hammond, Indiana, smashing a car window and using a taser on the front seat passenger. All of this just starting out from a routine traffic stop over a seat belt. What may be a little different from some other things you may have seen, two kids were in the backseat when all of this happened. And you can hear as this unfolds how traumatized they were. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, (INAUDIBLE). No, I'm not making it worse now. I'm scared for my life because he just pulled a gun on us and we didn't -- we don't have a gun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE), just so you know, (INAUDIBLE) -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go ahead (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I suggest you come out of the car.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE). I'm asking for (INAUDIBLE). I want to know what's going on. I just gave him my information. I want to know what's going on, man.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right. Right. That's what I - look -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With who?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Listen, listen, that's what I'm trying to tell you, OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know what's going on. I never got out of the vehicle from being in the passenger side, you know what I'm saying? I never got --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He pulled me over because (INAUDIBLE) seat belt. I rolled the window down. He asked for my license and insurance. I gave it to him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Now he asked the man -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You all got a (INAUDIBLE) too.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) sitting beside me. He asked me if I did - he didn't have any ID.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) right there (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I just gave you my information.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE). So they asked then, you know, (INAUDIBLE) and I said - I said --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just gave both of them my information. You all got my information, (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) give me a ticket.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean if you want to give me a ticket for no reason -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you do with that - what did you do with that piece of paper?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For no seat belt. If you're going to give me a ticket for no seat belt, right here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) of your car -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then just give me a ticket so I can go to the hospital because the doctor called me to tell me to come in because my mom is about to pass away. All right. So I guess he's in -- he's looking for his information in his book bag. When he digs in his book bag, they pulled a gun out. What was the purpose of a gun? And now they're asking us - and now they're asking me to open my door so I can get out. I'm scared they -- if you can pull out a gun in front of two -- there's two kids in the backseat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you understand?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, don't mess with - now they're about to bust my - no!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm (INAUDIBLE) this vehicle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now they're about to bust my window.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So if you - if you do that, all right, I'm not the - I'm not the operation of this vehicle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to open the door?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you say somebody's not going to hurt you? People are getting shot by the police.

Ah! Oh!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Damn! (CRYING)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was crazy. That is horrible. This is a horrible (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is (INAUDIBLE) -- are you recording that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is terrible.

(CRYING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take it off!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take it off!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, mommy (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told you I was going to (INAUDIBLE), man. Why would you all do that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They done bust out the car window and everything until they (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Daddy (ph), say you're OK (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: That is just so disturbing on so many levels. I want to bring in CNN's national correspondent Susan Candiotti, Paul Callan and Sunny Hostin are still here as well. Fill a little more of the backstory on this if you would.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All right, this happened September 24th, Hammond, Indiana, south side, Chicago, Illinois. In the car, a mother, her two children in the backseat, seven-year-old daughter, 14-year-old son. He is the one --

BANFIELD: Seven. Seven.

CANDIOTTI: Seven-year-old girl.

BANFIELD: A little seven year old girl.

CANDIOTTI: That's right, 14-year-old son. He's the one filming this from the backseat. There's an adult passenger male, that's the man that you can see sitting in the passenger side. They're stopped, as you heard, for not wearing seat belts. The issue arises when they're asking him to get out of the car and he won't do it, the police say. Their - he -- they wanted some identification. He didn't have an ID with him and they're sorting around looking for -- he's looking for some other ID.

This goes on, police say, for at least 13 minutes. Ultimately, you see a police officer come up -- back-ups are called. In the meantime, the driver, the mother, is on the phone with 911. That's who you hear her talking to, to say, what's going on? When he refuses to get out, you finally see another officer approach with that ax, crashing the window, smashing that window. That's when you hear the children react as they do. And they Tas him and finally get him out of the car.

These people have now filed a lawsuit against the police department saying -- alleging excessive force, using the Taser. They were assaulted by the police officers. Police officers say, you know, we saw him moving for something and there could have been danger involved, so we had to get in there.

BANFIELD: Can you - can you give me the statement -- they made a statement. Just quickly, because I want to get our lawyers' takes on it. This statement from the police department.

CANDIOTTI: Well, they back up their actions saying safety was at issue. But it reads in part, "police officers who make legal traffic stops are allowed to ask passengers inside of a stopped vehicle for identification and to request that they exit a stopped vehicle for the officers' safety without a requirement of reasonable suspicion."

BANFIELD: Paul Callan, is that going to be enough when they're looking at a lawsuit for what happened?

CALLAN: Well, this thing functions on two levels, reasonable human being and legal, OK? The cops screwed up here. I mean, come on. I mean there are kids in the backseat. They should --

BANFIELD: A seven-year-old.

CALLAN: OK, they should have handled it differently. But, the law, I think, will back them. And you have to understand that --

BANFIELD: Will back them, the family?

CALLAN: Yes, because you have an obligation to produce identification. If they tell you to get out of the car, get out of the car.

BANFIELD: I'm sorry, did you say the law will back the family or the law will back the officers?

CALLAN: The - no, the law will back the cops. You -- they have the right to ask you to get out of the vehicle, show identification. And you know why? Cops get killed every day, about 50 a year get killed in incidents like this.

BANFIELD: Sunny, I have also been told, as a single female driving on a road that if I see someone trying to pull me over, I have the right to continue to a populated area, because if I am in fear, I don't have to stop on a road in the dark. Is this the same kind of fear? These people were afraid? The police pulled a gun.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Of course they were afraid. And I've got to tell you, I'm so upset. I think actually Paul is correct. But this is the hazard of being a black person in the United States today. I mean there's a family in a car and they are completely complying. You see that she has called 911. He isn't even driving the vehicle. He has provided several pieces of paper. This family was -- of identification. This family was tortured for over 13 minutes. Those children were traumatized. And, guess what? The law, as it stands right now, probably protects the police officers' actions.

And as a woman of color, I don't know what to do because this could happen to me. This could happen to my child. This could happen to my father. This could happen to my husband. What do we do about the inherent racism that we're seeing over and over and over again in these United States during this traffic stops?

CALLAN: There's no - there's evidence here that this is -

HOSTIN: Give me a break. This is about race.

CALLAN: There's no evidence that this is a race incident.

HOSTIN: Give me a break, Paul, this is about -

CALLAN: If it was a white family, it could have -

HOSTIN: This wouldn't have happened. This would not have happened.

CALLAN: No, it could have. You have no idea.

HOSTIN: I do have an idea because I live in the United States as the person that I am.

CALLAN: It's wrong. It shouldn't have happened. But to turn everything into a racial issue I think is incorrect.

HOSTIN: It's not everything but this is. This is.

CALLAN: And, legally, the cops can ask you for ID, ask you to get out of the car.

BANFIELD: Stay here -

HOSTIN: If you were with your family in that car, this would not have happened, period.

CALLAN: Hey, listen, the advice I give to my kids, don't get into an argument with a cop because you're never going to -

HOSTIN: They weren't arguing.

CALLAN: Because you're never going to win. And --

BANFIELD: I think you're both right. You both have a lot of merit in what you've said. Susan, thank you for the reporting. I don't think that's the end of

it. I think this is going to go on and I think this could be one of those things where you see people taking to the streets out of the kinds of frustration that Sunny has elicited.

Wow, thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

And thank you all for watching. Appreciate it. Wolf starts right after this break.

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