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At This Hour

Two NYPD Cops Shot Over Weekend; Killer Left Digital Footprint on Social Media; Police Blame NYC Mayor; Interview with Rep. Charlie Rangel

Aired December 22, 2014 - 11:00   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: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. John Berman and Michaela Pereira are off this morning.

And @THISHOUR New York is a city in mourning and on high alert after the targeted killing of two police officers who were ambushed as they sat in their squad car on Saturday. New York's police commissioner says the men were, quote, "assassinated" by 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley.

Brinsley began his murderous mission after posting two ominous warnings on Instagram, and here they are. Quote, "I'm putting wings on pigs today." And then there was this. Quote, "They take one of ours, let's take two of theirs," end quote.

Police say that second one was in reference to Eric Garner's death. Police are also now investigating threatened copycat killings. They're looking into at least 15 online threats.

Tensions between police and the mayor's office, already strained by weeks of protests over alleged police brutality, came to a breaking point on Saturday night when police officers turned their backs on their mayor, Bill de Blasio. This happened when he showed up to pay his respects to the slain officers.

Earlier this morning, former New York police commissioner Ray Kelly said the mayor may need to tighten control over protests in his city.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY KELLY, FORMER NEW YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: I think if you allow people to take over bridges and roadways it's only going to ultimately embolden them.

Here you have 35,000 uniformed officers. You don't have to make a lot of arrests. You can just prevent people from going on the bridge, prevent them from taking over a roadway or move them quickly.

But I think there is an issue if you tolerate a lot of things, and, of course, that impacts on other people's lives, too, that it will embolden them to do more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Another voice weighing in this morning, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. He says that Mayor de Blasio has helped create an anti-police tone and that what happened was inevitable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR: Let's give the police a break. I mean, this has been three months of anti-police hatred, rhetoric, anger. I don't hold the mayor responsible for this death, but three weeks ago, four weeks ago, I'm telling people, a cop is going to get shot here.

All this stuff that Sharpton is saying, all the stuff the mayor is saying, all this stuff Holder is saying, I know law enforcement better than I know anything. Somebody somewhere is going to shoot a cop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: As the NYPD mourns two of their own, police investigators are learning more about the shooter, the killer.

Our Alexandra Field is following this investigation. She joins me live on the phone from Brooklyn.

Some of these facts are late-breaking, and they're fast-breaking as well, Alexandra. So what are you learning this morning?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yeah, that's right, Ashleigh. We've been digging into his background, and we know that this person had a lengthy rap sheet, some 19 arrests. He was in prison for two years. At one point he told a judge that he was suffering from mental health issues.

We're now hearing police who have been talking to his family members. His own mother told officers she was at times afraid of him, that he had been violent at times and that he was troubled. We know he was estranged, partially, from his family.

The rest of the story gets told by some of the social media posts, which police were quickly able to flag. Not only was he railing against police officers and laying out a plan for attack, but he was also expressing his hatred of the government, really spewing some of this stuff online.

We know that once he arrived here in Brooklyn, he spoke to two people on the street, and he directed them toward his social media accounts. He told them to check out his Instagram page and then warned them to watch what he was about to do.

It's right after that, Ashleigh, that he walked over to that patrol car and that he gunned down two completely unsuspecting, defenseless police officers.

BANFIELD: So then, Alexandra, what else in this investigation -- we don't have a case that has to go to court. We don't have a defendant. We have a dead man, obviously a crazy dead man.

But what are the police doing to find out what more they might have on him, who he may have been involved with, if anyone, and what else -- you know, his digital trail is going to tell us?

FIELD (via telephone): Sure, there's still questions that need to be answered. Police are telling us there are no signs of these attacks being motivated by any kind of religious extremism.

They tell us that he had no gang affiliation, that this wasn't terrorism related, but people still want to understand how these events unfolded, because you have to look at this with an eye about how to stop this kind of thing in the future.

This is an interesting case, Ashleigh, because there actually was a warning, but it went out very late. Here's what happened. This all started in Baltimore, Maryland, on Saturday morning. Police say that the gunman forced his way into his ex-girlfriend's house. He shot her. She was injured but able to identify him as the shooter to police.

He stole her cell phone. Police were able to use the cell phone to track his movements. That's how they realized that he was in New York City. They then started doing the social media investigation and realized that he could be targeting officers.

And, Ashleigh, what they did is contacted authorities in New York to give them the heads up that this person could be in their area and that he seemed to have a vendetta, but that warning came frankly just too late. It was being received at about the same time, officers tell us, as the two officers were ambushed.

BANFIELD: Alexandra, just quickly before I let you go, that girlfriend did not die, so this is a witness, or at least someone who knows a lot more about this killer than the rest of us.

Have they been able to interview her yet? Is she in any condition to do any kind of debrief with the police?

FIELD (via telephone): Police say that they were able to start speaking to her yesterday. She's in the hospital, she was intubated. They've got to be sensitive to the fact she is injured.

She did not want this gunman in her life, police are saying. The couple had broken up. This was the ex-, that they had met a year ago, that he, again, had forced his way into her home. He was not welcome there.

But what's kind of a bizarre twist here, Ashleigh, is that police say that the gunman stole her cell phone, that Brinsley stole his ex- girlfriend's cell phone, and then after the shooting, he called her mother to say that he had shot her by accident.

He then apparently made a few other phone calls to his ex-girlfriend's mother, so she will also be a key piece of evidence in talking to police and being able to relate some of what he was saying, hopefully being able to help police understand more of what was motivating him to come to Brooklyn and unleash this frankly horrific attack.

BANFIELD: Alexandra Field live for us this morning. Continue to update us when you can, Alexandra. Thank you for that.

So we have a man who police say basically broadcast his intention to kill police and did so using social media. Mr. Brinsley gave ominous clues about what he planned to carry out in New York.

And CNN Money tech correspondent Laurie Segall joins me live now with that. The whole notion that so much of his planning actually came up via Instagram before the killing, what more are we learning about this person, his motives and potentially any co-conspirators?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: We know, Ashleigh, that he left an extensive digital footprint. Right after this, I was able to access his Instagram account before it was taken down, and we have a screen shot of it.

I want to read this to you and what he said ahead of the shooting. He said, "I'm putting wings on pigs today. They take one of ours, we take two of theirs." It goes to -- he puts hash tags "RIP Eric Garner," "RIP Mike Brown" He put gun emojis there, and he said, "This might be my last post." You're looking at a screen shot of it right now.

He also posted on Facebook right ahead of this attack, 11 hours before the attack. He said, "I always wanted to be known for doing something right, but my past is stalking me, and my present is haunting me." He also, an hour before that, said, "Why live if you don't love to live?"

So, obviously, Ashleigh, as police officers were trying to figure out what the motive was, they searched online. They found that he had an extensive digital footprint. And also NYPD sources are telling me they are combing through his social media to see people commenting, to see if anybody else is threatening the police.

Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: So, talk to me a little bit about that, because, look, the police get thousands of threats per -- I want to say per day almost but certainly per month.

But this is something different. There could be support tweets. There could be support Instagram messages that are as daunting.

What do we know about what they're finding from other people who have sort of jumped on the bandwagon?

SEGALL: We know that they were chasing about 15 leads. I spoke to a source at the NYPD today that said they have one very specific lead that they're following, they're chasing. It was a potential gang member who posted on Facebook a cartoon depiction of a cot being shot.

But they also questioned someone in Memphis who had a very specific message. I want to read it to you, Ashleigh. He said, "Good job, kill them, I'm on the way to New York now to hash tag shoot the police. Two more going down tomorrow." They've questioned this man, so obviously this is a place they're looking for any more potential threats against the NYPD, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So, to be clear, they've got this guy. He's not going to New York to take down two more officers.

SEGALL: They've questioned him. Absolutely.

BANFIELD: Laurie Segall, doing the digital trail for us, thank you for that.

SEGALL: The police unions in New York are pulling now punches in blaming Mayor Bill de Blasio for what they say was the cold blooded shootings of their officers over the weekend.

The rift between the mayor and the police is so deep -- look at your screen. That's a picture of the police turning their backs on the mayor as he came through the crowd to pay respects to the fallen police officers. That is powerful.

Others have signed a police union petition, one that asks Mayor de Blasio not to attend their funerals if they so happen to be killed in the line of duty. An online petition calling for the mayor's resignation now has more than 50,000 signatures on it.

Among the reasons for the department's dislikes of Mayor de Blasio, he campaigned against stop and frisk as an overreach of police authority. When Mayor de Blasio said two NYPD officers were, quote, "allegedly" assaulted by demonstrators, the police union was livid. They said the assault happened; it wasn't alleged.

And when a grand jury decided not to indict an officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner last July, mayor de Blasio's said he was, quote, "astonished" and called it, quote, "a very painful day."

The rhetoric from the union president was especially harsh over this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK LYNCH, PRESIDENT, PATROLMEN'S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION: There's blood on many hands tonight, those that incited violence on this street under the guise of protest that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did everyday.

We tried to warn it must not go on. It cannot be tolerated. That blood on their hands starts on the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Not mincing any words there.

Mark Novak is a former captain with the NYPD, joins me live now on the set.

I don't think I've ever heard anything as poignant and as pointed and as accusatory as that comment. That is harsh. Appropriate?

MARK NOVAK, FORMER NYPD CAPTAIN: I'm not going to make that judgment, but what I'll say is in my basically 30-year affiliation with the NYPD, both as an active and retired officer, I've never seen officers this angry.

And in speaking with colleagues, both retired and active within the department, there is a real grass-roots anger there. And what it stems from is basically officers feel that the mayor has symbolically turned his back on them.

Now I'm not going to make judgment, and none of the officers are saying there should not be protests, but from speaking to other officers, what the feeling is that as these protests escalated to the point where you have protesters calling for the murder of police officers, and the mayor and none of the organizers standing up and saying unequivocally this is unacceptable, that's where officers feel that they've abandoned.

Because I would say replace the word "cops" with any other segment of society, and you tell me where this is justified, you tell me that where that would be acceptable. And I think that's what officers were feeling.

BANFIELD: I think there were protests that were fairly recent, and video surfaced this weekend of protesters marching through streets of New York, and I -- correct me if I'm wrong, folks but they were marching and yelling, "What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!"

And it wasn't just small. It was loud, it was big, and there were dozens upon dozens of people repeating this over and over and over again. And that's difficult to watch. No matter what you think about any of this, it's difficult to watch the sanctioned killing of people.

NOVAK: The feeling is from speaking to people there was an escalation. These protests went from taking over the streets, taking over the bridges, to assaulting officers to calling for the deaths of officers.

And no one associated with the protest that I saw stood up unequivocally and said this is unacceptable.

BANFIELD: So let me ask you this. We're just looking at the pictures from New York's protests on Friday, just on Friday. Clearly the anger is still in the streets.

When the mayor said he and his wife had had to regularly counsel their son who's African-American, who's biracial, Dante, to be careful of his behavior around the police, I think there would have been hundreds of thousands of people in New York City who said, "Yeah, we have to tell our kids that too."

So finally someone in a high place is just stating the obvious, that we've had to secretly live with and endure for so long.

Is the mayor not just sort of caught between a rock and a hard place? He's not going to appease either side if he doesn't say anything.

NOVAK: I think the way he said it sort of is taken that officers looked at this and took it as the threat to his son is not from the criminal element out there or not from -- but from the police officers.

Now, if you're going to say how do you deal with the police officers? Yes, you can caution your children to comply with the officers' requests or orders, provide identification, don't make moves when the officer is preventing that, but to say that --

BANFIELD: Can I say something, Mark?

Howard Safir, former commissioner here in New York said very, very pointedly that what he thinks is going to happen over all of this is that police are going to do one of these.

"Fine, I'm getting in my cruiser, and I'm not going to respond to the vandalism, to be the B&Es, to the assaults, to the murders, and you watch what happens." These are his words. He said, "We will return to the crime rates of the '70s and '80s, and then maybe there will be some appreciation for the police."

Do you believe that?

NOVAK: I think there will be officers who will take a step back.

BANFIELD: By the way, in all communities. In all communities. Black, white, Hispanic, mixed race, all communities.

NOVAK: I think that there will be officers that will take that position, but by and large, they're going to go out there and they're going to do their job. They're going to do their job in an incredibly difficult circumstance. Why? Because they realize that by doing that, you're going to hurt the innocent and average New Yorker. The person who supports the police, but may not be vocal about it. That's the person who's going to take the hit. So, yes, I believe that can potentially happen. I hope that it wouldn't.

BANFIELD: Mark Novak, thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. It's good to talk to you.

Still ahead @THISHOUR, the continuing coverage and fallout after those two police officers were effectively assassinated in cold blood on New York's streets. The echoes of those gunshots are reverberating through the halls of Capitol Hill. Congressman Charlie Rangel joining us next to discuss what is next for this community, for his city's mayor, and what the president also needs to do as the tensions continue to rise. We're right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The cold-blooded killing of two NYPD officers is intensifying a risk between Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City and the force that he leads. The killer who ambushed the officers ranted online about targeting law enforcement. Police say he wanted revenge for the death of Eric Garner, that's the man who died after being put in a chokehold by an officer on Staten Island. Now, city Police Chief Bill Bratton says that he has seen tension like this before.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT LAUER, THE TODAY SHOW, NBC: Have you ever seen a time like this of tension and a divide like this in a city?

BILL BRATTON, NEW YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: 1970 when I first came into policing, my first ten years were around this type of tension. Who would have ever thought, deja vu all over again, that we'd be back where we were 40 some odd years ago? I think this one is a little different, though, in the sense that social media capabilities to spread the word constantly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Joining me live now, Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel. It's good to have you, Congressman, here live in the city. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances. This is a bad time. This is not a good time in New York City. I'm going repeat that same question that Matt Lauer asked. Have you ever seen it this bad?

REP. CHARLIE RANGEL, (D) NEW YORK: I've seen hard times in New York. I'm a New Yorker and I truly believe that we're going to overcome this like we overcome everything else. You know, 9/11 was a heart breaker because we lost so many Americans. And losing New York City policemen, no matter what the press says, is felt by all of the communities because we so badly need them. But just like everything else that happens in a multiracial city like New York, there's layers to this. Mental illness, guns, violence, racism, the relationship between the community and the police force. And to have rhetoric while we should be mourning these two heroes, and people pointing their fingers at each other, when people should expect that the head of the police and the head of the city and religious leaders ought to at least take one peel off this at a time.

BANFIELD: And let them bury the dead.

RANGEL: Of course they should.

BANFIELD: I want to talk about this in a moment, but I want to go back to what you just said about 9/11. We've been through tough times in New York City. After 9/11, there was no greater hero nationwide than NYPD and NYFD. They were lionized. What happened between then and now? Or am I missing something? Did the black community, did the biracial communities, the Hispanic communities, did they feel as endeared to officers after 9/11 that everybody else across the country did? That's a pendulum swing like I've never seen.

RANGEL: I am telling you, you go to any community that has more than its share of poverty and crime and they will tell you how much they appreciate policemen. If it gets to the point -- the biggest problem that I see, and I said, let's bury our heroes and not get involved in too much of the weeds. But there's one problem that we have and that is the blue wall of silence. And that is that a handful of wrongdoers in any unit, especially a paramilitary unit, they could have problems of adjustment, but it's those people who stand on the side and see these things happen but feel a stronger commitment to their comrades in uniform than they do for what they know is not decent and not the right thing to do. But I don't think this is the time to talk about it because --

BANFIELD: But it is the time, Congressman. There are people marching through the streets calling for dead cops in New York.

RANGEL: They are not. They are not.

BANFIELD: We've got the video. Control room, I need you to see if you can go to the 12:00 rundown, I think there's some video I've got to show you, that released this weekend. It's heartbreaking to see people marching through the streets of New York saying, "What do we want?" "Dead cops." "When do we want it?" "Now." And they said it over and over again. It is time. I mean, it's tragic to think that this is acceptable behavior.

RANGEL: It's not acceptable.

BANFIELD: For them it was.

RANGEL: Well, they're ill people and in any type of -- you find emotion, you find crazy people involved and we should condemn it, but we shouldn't just concentrate on that. There's mentally ill people, there's a copycat tradition, there's a feeling that people are not appreciated for the work that they do and the courage they have each and every day. But you know, if we're going to take this intense thing where we've lost two people of our family, and that's what the police are, they don't just belong to the police department, they belong to us, and I say, for God's sake let's pour out -- you know, when you think about in the this crazy city that we love so much, we find an Asian American, you find a Latin American, you find a black American perpetrator, you find an Italian-American mayor, you find an Irish-American head of the police department and here we are in a circle shooting at each other. Let's pause. Let's take it easy.

BANFIELD: Is this the most - if not the most diverse police department across the country? Certainly, one of the most. It's remarkable that the NYPD --

RANGEL: And that's in recent years now.

BANFIELD: Right. So you've got a guy, the mayor of this city, who has a biracial family, who clearly has suffered pain to what he's witnessed his young son go through. I've got co-workers who try to come to work in the middle of the night and they're black and they get stopped and they get asked were they're going and what they're doing regularly. I hear from my black co-workers who are just coming to CNN. They wear their CNN badges on the streets of New York. So there's pain and suffering out there. What is he to do? What is Mayor de Blasio to do? What side of the fence? How does he ride that razor-thin line?

RANGEL: You know, you listen to the president, you listen to our attorney general, you listen to our mayor, but when the Police Benevolent Association hears talk like this, automatically it's anti- police. And it is not. But you know, you raised the question of race and I'm glad that that you did. If I raise it, I'm race-baiting. This is an issue that has to be dealt with and the biggest problem we have is people don't talk about it.

BANFIELD: I am a white Canadian immigrant, if I raise the question of race, I hear -- you should see my Twitter account if I even ask the questions. I think we're dammed if we do, black or white, and dammed if we don't. And this divide is getting deeper.

RANGEL: Well, it doesn't have to be. And I'll tell you, the deafening silence of our religious leaders, with the exception of Cardinal Dolan, I think this is the time where we -- especially during the Christmas season -- that if we have a problem, and God knows we have a major problem, instead of talking about who the blood is on their hands and instead of just being dramatic and working up emotions, we ought to be sitting down and talking. New Yorkers deserve the heads of police department, fire departments, the mayors, the politician to be talking to each other and bring a resolution and not working them up emotionally.

BANFIELD: Come to my house for Christmas dinner?

RANGEL: Okay. That's a great offer.

BANFIELD: Top of the season to you, Congressman Rangel. Always a pleasure to see you. Thank you, Especially coming on a holiday. It's very nice of you.

RANGEL: Thank you so much.

BANFIELD: We're going to have a whole lot more coming ahead on the rising tensions in New York and around the country.

Ahead, but @THISHOUR now, North Korea issuing even more threats to the Sony Corporation and continuing to taunt the Obama administration over the movie "The Interview." Is the best defense against Kim Jong-Un an all out cyber attack against his country? Do we actually go to cyber war? My next guest says, heck yeah, and he's going to tell us why. Details and the dangers of cyber retaliation coming at you next.

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