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NYC Cops Kills Synagogue Stabber; U.S. Braces for "Torture Report" Backlash

Aired December 09, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Poppy Harlow in today for Carol Costello.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

HARLOW: And we begin this hour with breaking news, a deadly confrontation between police and a knife-wielding man who had just stabbed a worshipper inside of a Brooklyn synagogue. This happened in the early morning hours. It was all captured on camera.

Over the next couple of minutes, you are going to see exactly how this unfolded. We want to warn you first, though, the language is raw, the images very disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throw it. Just throw it. Just throw the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) knife. Step away. Go over here. Hands up. Put your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) hands up. Stand over there. Stand over there. Hands up.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay away from me. Hands away from the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) knife right now, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to arrest me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey. Hey. Whoa, whoa, drop the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) knife. Drop the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) knife. Drop the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) knife. Drop the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) knife. Drop the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) knife.

Don't (EXPLETIVE DELETED) move. Don't (EXPLETIVE DELETED) move. Don't (EXPLETIVE DELETED) move. Stay down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're shooting. They're shooting. Get away. Get away. Get away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't (EXPLETIVE DELETED) move. Don't move.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) shot in the neck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't (EXPLETIVE DELETED) move.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. We've got one man. Head down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did anyone see anyone got shot?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who's my first on scene?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's inside. He's over here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The shooter? Who's this guy?

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Obviously very, very disturbing to watch.

I want to bring in our Rosa Flores, she has been monitoring this, a police news conference about the incident just wrapped up.

What did they say, Rosa?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, imagine the horrors, Poppy, of going through this and for all of the people who are watching, we were just watching that video, I talked to the individual who shot this video, just moments ago, and he tells me that the moments were very, very tense.

And I want to share with you and kind of take you through kind of what was happening on the outskirts of the -- while this was being shot. The individual who shot this video tells me, Poppy, that the individual who was stabbed, the victim here, was actually reading his bible, and so he was not paying attention to his surroundings, and he says that the suspect came in, and he actually tried to stab other people in that room, but this man, who was stabbed, he was so focused on his bible that he was not looking around as to what was going on.

And then of course now, police tell us, that he was stabbed with, and I'm going to quote this here, "a nine-inch knife and a four and a half inch blade." So imagine those tense moments. People, of course, rushed to his rescue. Police then come into the scene. We see it in this video. There's a back and forth between police and the suspect, and according to police, the suspect does drop the knife, and then picks it up, lunges at police and that's when he was shot and killed -- Poppy.

HARLOW: And do we know at this point who shot the video?

FLORES: Yes, so I talked to the individual.

HARLOW: Right.

FLORES: He's actually a business owner here in New York City, and it's very interesting, because he tells me that he normally goes to the synagogue at the end of his shift, at the end of the day.

HARLOW: Right.

FLORES: And leaves food for people to simply just take from the synagogue. It's just something that he does to give back to his community, and so he was there. He hangs out there for a little while, prays usually at the synagogue for a little while, and then this scene unfolds in front of him.

Now he says that he remembers opening the door for the individual, for the suspect in this particular case, before any of this happened, and the suspect came in, and I asked him, I'm like, where were his hands? Did he have a knife? You know, did you see anything?

HARLOW: Right.

FLORES: He said that his hands were simply inside his pockets. It's cold in New York City, as you know, so he was wearing a coat, his hands were in his pockets, and so then all of this unfolds.

HARLOW: Right.

FLORES: Of course, very tense moments for him and all of the other people who were there. You kind of see a few others in that video.

HARLOW: And of course these are religious institutions. They're open all night, all day and anyone is welcome inside. I do know that the police have said that they will be beefing up security at different religious sites around New York City today so thank you for monitoring for us, Rosa. We appreciate the reporting.

FLORES: You're welcome.

HARLOW: This morning's police shooting comes at a time of heightened tension over law enforcement's use of lethal force, but beyond the headlines, here's a question.

Is it fair to compare this case with the recent police killings that have fueled so much outrage?

Let me bring in David Klinger, he's a former LAPD officer. He shot and killed a suspect when he was a rookie on the force.

Watching that tape, David, you hear the police time and time again ask the attacker, yell at him, drop the knife, drop the knife. Do you believe that the suspect made the shooting and ultimately his own death unavoidable?

DAVID KLINGER, FORMER LAPD OFFICER: Absolutely. From what I can see from the video, the officer involved, whoever it was that fired the shots, had no choice. If you look at the video, I've seen the exact same video that you just showed your viewers, but I've seen two different versions or two different lengths of it.

Anyway, what happens is the officer is trying his best, his level best to deescalate which is what we train officers to do. He's using verbal commands, he's being forceful. He eventually succeeds in getting the individual to put the knife down, then the individual picks the knife back up and attacks. And in a situation like that, officers are trained, you cannot wait. You have to shoot if you believe your life is in jeopardy.

The individual I shot stabbed my partner in the chest with a butcher knife, knocked him to the ground, jumped on top of him, was trying to drive it through his throat. I made a mistake. I tried to take the knife away. It didn't work. I actually endangered my partner by being too hesitant to shoot and ultimately I had to shoot the guy.

And when police officers and suspects with edge weapons are in close proximity, officers have no choice. I think this officer and the other officers involved did a fine job in protecting all of the people that were in danger in that area.

I think the New York City Police Department should be proud of these officers from everything I can see.

HARLOW: So one of the things you hear in the video, if you listen closely, is they say that he's shot in the neck, and the suspect is still alive when they cuff him and take him to the hospital. I think a lot of people would ask, when is the decision made as to where to shoot, to stop the suspect? Do you shoot at the largest body mass? Do you shoot at the leg to disable them? What do you do?

KLINGER: What you do is you shoot to stop the threat. Police officers all around the country are trained, they're trained to shoot center mass of the body, as you indicated, but in dynamic situations, people are oftentimes moving, and so what an officer is trained to do, shoot to the largest part of the body that you believe you can put an effective round into, and so I don't know where this individual was shot, but one of the things that's interesting, that I think a lot of people don't understand, is most police gunshots, indeed most gunshots that anybody survives -- excuse me, that anybody takes from any type of individual who shoots them, most people survive gunshots.

And the individual that I shot, he fought us for that knife for another 30, 45 seconds, and so what happens is, you shoot, you believe the threat is passed, then you go ahead and you try to take control of the individual, and the fact this individual survived for a protracted period of time is indicative of the fact that police gunfire doesn't immediately stop people. I think that's really important for your viewers to understand.

And once again, it appears to me that these officers showed a great deal of restraint, used deadly force when it became apparent to them that they were about to suffer grievous bodily injury or death if they didn't shoot. They did the right thing from everything I can tell. HARLOW: All right. David Klinger, thank you for joining us and thank

you for your time on the force and serving the people of Los Angeles. We appreciate it.

KLINGER: Thank you for having me.

HARLOW: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, U.S. troops on alert around the world, Washington is on edge. We are going to look ahead at this morning's release of a so-called torture report. Concerns about it are growing at this hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Thousands of U.S. troops around the world are on alert right now as Washington braces for this morning's release of so the called torture report. It will reveal very controversial, possibly even brutal techniques used on terror suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

It is an official report. This is not a leak. We've been expecting this, but still the potential for violent backlashes caused U.S. embassies and military bases around the globe to ratchet up security.

Our Barbara Starr is on top of this story. She joins us this morning from the Pentagon.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy. This report from Senate Democrats has been in the works for months. The question now is what will happen when the world reads it?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): This morning, thousands of U.S. military personnel on heightened alert. Anticipating the release of a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee on top secret interrogation tactics and torture of CIA detainees.

REP. MIKE ROGERS (R-MI), INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and death.

STARR: The Marines are positioned in key areas, ready to respond to potential violent reactions directed at U.S. embassies and military bases around the globe. Believed to be included in the report, details of waterboarding and other interrogation tactics in the years after 9/11.

The CIA believes the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding provided key information that prevented other terror attacks, and led to the capture of Osama bin Laden. But the report questions the effectiveness of those procedures.

Critics of the $50 million report question the timing of its release.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: When would be a good time to release this report? And it's difficult to imagine one. Particularly, because of the painful details that will be included.

But again, the president believes that it is important for us to be as transparent as we possibly can be, about what exactly transpired, so we can be clear to the American public and to people around the world that something like this should not happen again.

STARR: Former Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed the Senate report, saying the CIA's interrogation methods were, quote, "absolutely totally justified".

Cheney, who hasn't read the report, strongly defended CIA leaders, arguing the program itself was worth it. Adding, "As far as I'm concerned, they ought to be decorated, not criticized."

That sentiment was echoed by former President Bush.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT: These are patriots. And whatever the report says, if it diminishes their contributions to our country, it is way off-base.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: Current and former CIA officials will tell you that they say they were following what they were told were legal orders from the White House. The question this report may raise is whether the CIA told the White House everything it was doing -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Who knew, what, when? We'll soon find out, when we read the report.

Barbara Starr, thank you for the reporting this morning.

And as U.S. Marines prepare for the potential of extremist violence in response to this, Washington is bracing for, of course, the political backlash.

Let's bring in our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash, also senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

So, Jim, let me go to you if. Can you detail at least what we know ahead of this executive summary being released in terms of the interrogation and detention techniques?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think most of this is known already, Poppy. You know, the chief enhanced interrogation technique that's really at issue here is waterboarding, which John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, has called torture. President Obama has said we have tortured people.

And then earlier this morning, Senator Angus King, the independent member of that Senate intelligence committee, said to CNN "NEW DAY," did we torture people? Yes. Did it help prevent attacks? No.

So, there are lots of different opinions on this. Lot of this is going to center on these waterboarding techniques that were used during the Bush administration. President Obama, when he came into office, one of his first executive

orders was to ban the use of these enhanced interrogation techniques. I was told by a senior official last night, Poppy, that this report was handed over to the Feinstein committee yesterday after it had been through a review process in the intelligence community. This report according to this administration official is 93 percent, quote, "93 percent unredacted."

So, redactions were made, but according to this one official, much of this report is going to be released to the public, at least this executive summary, which boiled down from 6,000 pages to something like 600 pages and also in the words of this administration official, Poppy, there's not going to be anything, quote, "lost in the narrative."

So, it sounds like when we see this report when it's released, it's going to be unsparing in terms of what the intelligence community was doing at the CIA in some of these sites, where enhanced interrogation techniques were going on, at least according to this intelligence community and intelligence committee report, Poppy.

HARLOW: And, Dana, looking at the politics, this doesn't really split along party lines completely, right? You have, as Jim mentioned, you've got the dependent Angus King supporting it. You got Republican Senator Susan Collins supporting it.

I'm wondering -- did some Republicans vote to declassify some of this? Are some backing the White House in this push?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Some of them are, John McCain as Jim mentioned is a perfect example. He has been out there on issues of torture -- against torture as somebody who was tortured. He was, of course, a prisoner in Vietnam for seven years.

He says this has to come out, that we have to tell the American people, and the world, that the United States is different from other countries who engage in these tactics, and that was the point that Angus King, the independent from Maine, made this morning on "NEW DAY."

Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: This is who we are as a country. We tell the truth, and if we make a mistake, we admit it, and we move on. I've had military interrogators tell me that, getting the report out would actually help them, because at least it starts to erase the stain that this has put on our national character.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, the flipside of that, the opposing argument, Poppy, is that this is going to hurt the United States. That is why, as Barbara reported, military personnel are on alert, embassies around alert around the world because those who want to, for whom the United States is an enemy, will use this as a propaganda tactic.

But the other thing I want to underscore here is that this has been years in the making. This has been a battle between the Senate Intelligence Committee, which oversees the intelligence community and the intelligence community for a very, very long time.

Getting the information, first of all, about what these tactics were and then the whole concept of releasing it to the public has caused major, major tension between these two, and this is -- just to take a quick step back, this is a really important committee, because one of Congress's main jobs is to oversee the executive. When it comes to the intelligence community, which by its nature is secretive, this is the key committee that has to do that because we don't have any information as public citizens.

HARLOW: And they poured through some 6 million documents as you said, Dana, over years to get to this point.

Now, Dana Bash, Jim Acosta, appreciate it this morning.

Let's talk more about what Dana brought up, the security of America and our forces oversees.

Bob Baer, former CIA operative, joins me now.

So, to that big question, Bob, will the safety of Americans and our armed forces be increased or jeopardized by the release of this?

BOB BAER, FORMER CIA OPERATIVE: Poppy, I don't think it's going to be jeopardized. I think this is being exaggerated.

Look, we're fighting a war in Syria. We're bombing ISIS. We're still dropping drones in Afghanistan and Yemen. There's a war all over the world.

And having the facts come out about enhanced interrogation/torture, I mean, it's all been out. I don't think there will be any reaction.

I think the reaction is going to be political in the United States. I think a lot of Americans are going to be shocked by what happened. But more than that, they're going to be shocked how ineffective the torture has been.

HARLOW: Well, the Justice Department, their lawyers, right, Bob, said that these techniques did not constitute torture. On the other hand, the Obama administration using the word "torture" to describe what happened to some of the detainees. I think it's interesting for our viewers to know, I'm certainly curious, who does the CIA answer to in terms of that, whether or not it's torture?

BAER: Poppy, it answers to the department of justice. And don't forget Congress, all of these techniques passed both intelligence committees, the Senate and the House. The CIA, this was not a rogue operation. At every stage they went to Congress, said, this is what we're doing and told them in complete detail.

So, it's not like we're looking to CIA went out on its own.

HARLOW: It's interesting because former V.P. Dick Cheney told the "New York Times" to portray this as a "rogue operation" is, quote, "a bunch of hooey." I do think it's important, given the fight against ISIS right now, and the coalition forces doing that, to consider what our allies may think reading this. What do you think?

BAER: Poppy, that's the problem. Countries that have cooperated with us after 9/11, Poland, Thailand, and the rest of it, you know, leaking all this out and issuing this report in the future they're going to be reluctant with terrorism. The deal was we were going to keep it out of their politics and we failed to do that. That's going to be the real damage.

HARLOW: That's a big problem.

BAER: The United States can't keep a secret. It's always been a problem for the United States and it's going to be worse.

HARLOW: Bob Baer, thanks for joining us this morning. Appreciate it.

Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: a new Ferguson grand jury document, a lot of documents released, and one very notable one is missing. It's not there.

The FBI interview with this man, the eyewitness, Dorian Johnson, Michael Brown's friend who was with him, when he was shot and killed. Why? We'll discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Emotions ran very high last night in St. Louis. Look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hands up!

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hands up!

DEMONSTRATORS: Don't shoot!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hands up!

DEMONSTRATORS: Don't shoot!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hands up!

DEMONSTRATORS: Don't shoot!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That was when protesters disrupted the second Ferguson Commission meeting aimed at tackling issues like racial profiling and diversity and police departments. Protesters filled the aisles, demanded better answers from St. Louis Police Chief Tom Dotson as he spoke. Some say his remarks were, quote, "unhelpful and not specific."

Well, this very tense meeting came as a batch of Ferguson grand jury records from the Michael Brown shooting were made public for the first time. The newly released documents include: (a), federal autopsy report, there were three autopsies. The one of those, also alleged audio of officer Wilson's gunshots, in addition police radio traffic from the day of the shooting, and hundreds of pages worth of witness interviews.

But here's the thing -- several key documents, they're not there, including namely the FBI interview with Dorian Johnson, Brown's friend, who was with him the day he was shot and killed. He was walking with him at that time. He is the closest eyewitness to it, in addition to Officer Wilson.

He has always claimed his friend's hands were up in surrender before he was fatally shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DORIAN JOHNSON, FRIEND OF MICHAEL BROWN: His weapon was already drawn when he got out the car. He shot again, and once my friend felt that shot, he turned around and he put his hands in the air, and he started to get down, but the officer still approached with his weapon drawn and he fired several more shots and my friend died.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let me bring in HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson. He joins me with more.

I mean, this is the question. Why is the FBI lengthy interview with Dorian Johnson not released?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, great question, but here's what the local authorities say, Poppy. What they say is, look, they're in the midst of a federal investigation. You know that federal investigation deals with separate issues, right?

HARLOW: Civil rights.

JACKSON: Absolutely, whether he should be indicted -- that is Darren Wilson -- for various offenses relating to the murder, second-degree, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter.