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Police Taking Extra Precautions; Police Leaders Blaming Mayor de Blasio; Internet Outage for North Korea; Protests over Non- Indictment Court Decision in Milwaukee; Major Breach in Airport Security

Aired December 23, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye in for Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me this morning.

We begin this hour with a milestone for the Dow and a stunning turnaround in how Americans view the economy. Just after Wall Street opened, the Dow broke through the 18,000 point ceiling for the very first time. The S&P 500 also surged to a new high.

This comes as a new poll shows a majority of Americans have a positive view of the economy for the first time in seven years.

CNN's Christine Romans is having a very busy morning tracking all of this.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It has been a busy morning. Look, when you see that 18,000, that is the first time you've seen that number for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. And what's really remarkable to me is 18,000 is kind of a big, round number. What's important about that? What's important about that is, since December 16, the Dow has risen 1,000 points. In just a couple of weeks, 1,000 points. That means that's real money in your 401(k). That's real money that investors have made in the stock market. So 1,000 points in just a couple of weeks is something that's pretty remarkable.

For the year you've got the Dow up 8 percent, you've got the Nasdaq up 14 percent, the S&P 500 up 12 percent. That means it's likely another double digit year of returns for stock investors. Really, really a strong performance.

KAYE: And new GDP numbers out this morning.

ROMANS: New GDP numbers that show the strongest economic growth in the U.S. in the third quarter in five years -- more than five years. Five percent is the number. The strongest economic growth in 11 years. So those are really showing us that the economy has been robust. The second quarter that was a strong performance. Five percent in the third quarter, and now there is very strong performance for the economy.

KAYE: And we also have some brand new polls just out at this moment.

ROMANS: And they show us that Americans are feeling this. They're feeling an economic -- look at this. Economic conditions are good. This shows you by income level. Among all demographics, income, race, sex, gender -- gender and sex are the same thing. But, you know, people feel better about the economy. Now look at the overall numbers. 51 percent of Americans polled today say the economy is good. This is on a different screen. 51 percent say the economy is good compared with only 38 percent in October. That's the first time in seven years that a majority of Americans say the economy is good. I think --

KAYE: When you are able to see.

ROMANS: It is. And I think when you look at this number and you look at that - the income breakdown that we just showed you, gas prices are low so everybody's feeling that no matter how much money you make, you're feeling the low gas prices. Job market is coming back. Higher income -- mostly higher income earners, they're really feeling the stock market returns. They're more likely to be in the stock market. Great return to the stock market this year so for the first time in seven years, we are seeing in a majority of Americans are feeling good, say the economy is doing well. So that GDP number, low gas prices, the stock market put it all together, they're calling it the Christmas rally.

KAYE: And even minimum wage we're expecting to go up as well.

ROMANS: There will be 20 states where minimum wage will rise come January 1. So even though there's been a lot of consternation about how wages in general are not rising, wages are the part of this economic recovery that have not been there, the states are raising those minimum wages in 20 states, and so people will have a little more money in their pockets.

KAYE: Right. All right, Christine, thank you for the good news.

ROMANS: You are welcome.

KAYE: A little Christmas gift there.

Meanwhile, a police departments across the nation are warning their officers to take extra precautions and some are even making changes after Saturday's massacre of two New York City police officers. In Massachusetts, the "Boston Herald" reports state troopers are being urged to do the following, they are being asked to wear body armor, not let anyone approach their cruiser from the outside while they are seated inside and watch for suspects who appear to be conducting surveillance of officers. In other cities like Dallas, the focus is on having officers ride in pairs. WFAA is reporting that Dallas officers are also being advised not to place themselves in situations where they would be outnumbered.

And in New York, officers are also being directed to work in pairs. Union leaders say it's important to put their own safety first and to respond to every call with two cars and not to make arrests unless it is absolutely necessary.

CNN's Brian Todd is live in Washington this morning and, Brian, there's now concern from what we understand that the fallout over these murders of these two NYPD officers could lead to a spike in crime.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Randi. A former police commissioner in New York has given an ominous warning about that. He's concerned about the changes in police behavior stemming from this sequence of events. Also this morning, top police union leaders are telling us they're making a direct link between the recent protests and the murders of those two officers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: Two fallen officers, a city convulsing with tension and a sense that the strain between police across the country and the public they protect is growing. Police are angry that recent demonstrations turned into personal attacks against them.

JIM PASCO, NATL FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE: We can certainly blame them and I think that to the extent that this deranged individual acted on Saturday, there's little doubt that he thought that there would be a wave of sympathy from within the community based on what he's been hearing from the agitators.

TODD: In the days before the police officer's murders, police in New York had been assaulted during protests, on the Brooklyn Bridge. And at the Staten Island ferry.

CROWD: I can't breathe!

TODD: As the tensions escalated, police increasingly pointed blame at New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, accusing him of being less than supportive and giving protesters too much leeway. The police union in New York circulated a form letter, which officers could sign saying they didn't want de Blasio coming to their funerals if they died in the line of duty. Police turned their backs on the mayor on Saturday when he appeared at the hospital after the officers' deaths and there was this angry outburst from the police union chief.

PATRICK LYNCH, PATROLMEN'S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION: That blood on their hands starts on the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor.

TODD: De Blasio's office calls that overheated and irresponsible, an ominous concern from former New York police commissioner Howard Safir that out of concern for their own safety, police across the country won't take the extra steps they usually take to protect the public.

HOWARD SAFIR, FORMER NYPD COMMISSIONER: Somebody gets a call that there's a domestic dispute in an apartment. They pull up the apartment building, they don't see anything, they report it as unsubstantiated.

TODD (on camera): Without even going in? They won't even go in?

SAFIR: I'm not suggesting that would happen, I'm suggesting it's possible. (END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: Howard Safir says he remembers back in the 1970s and '80s in New York when during a time of more violence toward the police, the police were often called "blue flower pots" because they often sat in their cars not doing much. Now, neither Safir nor Jim Pasko of the Fraternal Order of Police believe that we're headed back to a period like that, but Safir does worry about how police are going to behave in very heated situations if they continue to feel unappreciated. Randi?

KAYE: Brian Todd in Washington, Brian, thank you very much. So, let's talk more about the tension between the public and the police. Joining me now is Reverend Marcos Miranda, the founder and president of the New York State Chaplain Task Force and Vince Warren, the executive director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Nice to see you both, thanks so much for coming in.

Reverend, let me start with you. I mean you heard Brian Todd's reporting there. Do you think that this tension between the NYPD now and city hall could actually lead to a spike in crime?

REV. MARCOS MIRANDA, FOUNDER & PRES., N.Y. STATE CHAPLAIN TASK FORCE: I believe that the answer always is in peace and in love. And I still believe that we have the greatest police force in the world as well as policing the greatest city in the world. And we prove that 9/11 that we can come together as a people, that we can flourish, and we did it during the Crown Heights riots as well and I believe we can do it again.

KAYE: Vince, you - critics, of course, have been coming forward and saying that these nationwide protests against police brutality have really created this anti-police environment. Your organization from what I understand recruited more than 300 volunteer lawyers to represent protesters in Ferguson. What would you say to those who feel this way now?

VINCE WARREN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: Yeah, the protests against bad police policies are completely separate from this terrible act of a lone person killing police officers just because they're police officers. They are two very different things. It is possible in our society to both condemn wanton killings by police officers of unarmed African-American men and to protest and to stand against the killings of police officers. They're not incompatible. And I think the problem that we're seeing here is that there's a blame game that's happening. The police unions and everybody else are trying to blame everybody else for what is essentially a bad police policy. And the nation as a whole needs to come together and mourn the deaths of both the police officers that are killed in the line of duty and the civilians that are killed for no reason at all.

KAYE: So, we hear a lot that they need to come together but what should be said? I mean what do you - what should the mayor say? What should the police say? WARREN: Well, I think the mayor's initial response was the right one,

which is that people are angry because of what's been happening in Ferguson and Staten Island and they should be angry and the police officers are angry because of what's happened to these officers, which is terrible, and they should. But the mayor needs to bring everybody together and the answer is not to decide to shut off the First Amendment for one group of people in order to service another. It's possible to want to change police practices without being anti-police and that's what this movement is about, regardless of what Rudy Giuliani or Pat Lynch say.

KAYE: And let me ask you, Reverend, about Officer Rafael Ramos, just a little bit. Because I understand that he was training to become a lay chaplain and he was actually supposed to graduate, if you would, just hours after he was shot and killed that Saturday over the weekend. What was he like? You had a chance to get to know him, work with him?

MIRANDA: Amazing man. When you looked into his eyes all you saw was kindness radiate from his eyes. He completed our ten week intensive training, he excelled and he was due to graduate on the afternoon of December 20.

KAYE: And why was it, do you know, that it was so important to him to work to become a chaplain?

MIRANDA: In my conversations with Officer Ramos, he even believed that being a member of the NYPD was a sort of ministry. That he was serving his community and protecting his community. And so he was so excited because he actually thought that he couldn't be a chaplain, he thought only clergy members could be chaplains. And however we allow lay leaders to also be chaplains, and so he was excited that he could actually continue to help his community and he saw himself as doing this sort of chaplaincy ministry in the future after he retired from the NYPD to continue to serve his community.

KAYE: Sounds like a very special man. Reverend Miranda, Vince Warren, thank you both. Appreciate your time.

WARREN: Thank you.

KAYE: Remember when President Obama promised to respond to North Korea's hack on Sony pictures? Well, beginning yesterday someone or something has been repeatedly wiping North Korea off the Internet. Experts say all signs point to an ongoing hack. Check out this graphic here from Dyn research. Those white gaps show when North Korea is blacked out from the web. Intermittent outages, of course, are expected but this is really out of the ordinary. At its peak, North Korea was offline for more than nine hours on Monday. CNN's Kyung Lah has all the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: North Korean television broadcast without a hitch, leading the news, Kim Jong-Un visiting a fish farm. But in cyberspace, the country went dark. State-run web site KCNA blank, or blooming with flowers. Web security expert Matthew Prince was watching what he calls the map of the Internet.

MATTHEW PRINCE, CEO & FOUNDER, CLOUDFARE: The North Korean Internet had effectively been erased from that map.

LAH: When you say "erased," what do you mean by erased?

PRINCE: The tube that connects them with the rest of the world has been cut.

LAH: Cut by a hacker? By America? President Obama promised the U.S. would respond to the Sony hack.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We will respond proportionately and we'll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.

LAH: Given the rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, DPRK watchers doubt the U.S. would bother or be so transparent. Could North Korea have cut the cord?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want us to kill the leader of North Korea?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?

LAH: In the movie, "The Interview" would manage to sneak in or a preemptive move on a future cyber-attack. Regimes like Egypt and Syria have switched off the Internet before. Or could it simply be coincidence? System failure at a time when the world watches? Cyber experts say that's unlikely. An outage of hours upon hours, even for North Korea, a country known for not having electricity or food for its people, is unusual. As Matthew Prince and I weighed the possible culprits, a surprise on state-run web site KCNA.

(on camera): Oh, wait, wait, hold on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The CNA is back up.

LAH: We are actually, I'm hearing that KCNA - KCNA appears to be back up.

(voice over): That, says the editor of a "Hacker" magazine, points to the most likely culprit, the rogue hacker, the on and off of North Korea's Web the hallmarks of a denial of service attack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd say any 14-year-old kid in this country could probably pull it off and any toddler in Germany. It's not hard.

LAH: Some hackers online have said they're responsible, but the hacking and security community are extremely suspicious of anyone claiming credit. We'll likely never know who did this. Adding to the long list of things we already don't know about North Korea. Kyung Lah, CNN, Seoul.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KAYE: CNN's Barbara Starr joining me now for more on how the U.S. might fight cyber-terrorists. Barbara, what are you learning?

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Randi. You know, for the U.S. military this is just not a new issue. I'd say over the last decade plus the military's really been focusing on the cyber world and this whole notion of cyber warfare. In fact, they have now an organization in the military called the U.S. Cyber Command just like Central Command, European Command, Pacific Command. This is the cyber command that is equipped to fight a cyber-war in cyberspace. Not on any one piece of ground around the globe.

The cyber command is really an interesting organization. Let's take a look at some of the things they do first. You know, they are first and foremost prepared to provide cyber-support to those combatant commanders out there on the front line. If the commanders in the Middle East, in the Pacific are getting hacked, the cyber command will help them deal with that. It will help them form plans to even conduct attacks in cyberspace. So they also defend the military networks against attackers. If North Korea was to attempt to come against U.S. military computers systems, it would be cyber-command that has the systems in place to defend against that.

And in recent years, they've also reached out to defense contractors, to the sort of environment in which they operate because so much of the classified work actually isn't really even done in the military, it's done with a major contractors out there. So they, too, have to be protected. And we're talking big money here. The budget for the cyber command has grown in recent years, just in the last three years alone in 2012 it was $118 million and now it has skyrocketed to over $400 million a year in their budget to help do all of this. War in the cyber world is becoming a very serious issue. How to defend against an attack and, if you want to, how to launch an attack. Randi?

KAYE: It certainly sounds like the U.S. is ready. Barbara Starr, thank you my friend very much. Appreciate it.

BARBARA STARR: Sure.

KAYE: We're back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: 17 minutes past the hour. We want to show you some new video right now. That's New York Mayor Bill de Blasio there in Brooklyn. He is visiting the street corner and the memorial where these two NYPD officers were ambushed over the weekend on Saturday afternoon. He has met with the families. We did have that video for you. He has met with the families, and this is his first time visiting the memorial there.

Meanwhile, now to Milwaukee where protests against a police-involved shooting are taking place after the district attorney there decides not to charge a white officer in the death of a mentally ill black man. The federal government is now looking into the case. CNN's George Howell spoke exclusively with the victim's mother and joins me now from Milwaukee. George?

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Randi, good morning. Before the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, before the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, people here in Milwaukee, they have been protesting, they have been waiting for a decision in this case. The decision came yesterday and the victim's mother tells me she is frustrated.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Charlie was my youngest son. He should have been burying me.

HOWELL: Surrounded by friends and family, Maria Hamilton is speaking out for the first time since learning the former police officer who shot and killed her son will not face criminal charges. For this mother ...

(on camera): When you heard the decision of this prosecutor, what did you think?

MARIA HAMILTON, DONTRE HAMILTON'S MOTHER: I wasn't surprised. We're prepared for the worst.

JOHN CHISHOLM, MILWAUKEE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Any time I have to tell a family that I can't bring justice to them when one of their loved ones has died is always tragic.

HOWELL (voice over): District attorney John Chisholm says Officer Christopher Manney acted in self-defense in the confrontation with Dontre Hamilton even though he didn't realize two officers responded before he did to the report of a man sleeping in the park and they concluded Hamilton was not a threat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 46, 12-46, shots fired, shots fired, officer involved.

HOWELL: This is the call Milwaukee police officers heard over their radios April 30 when Manney called for backup. He claimed Hamilton resisted when he tried to frisk him then he says they both exchanged punches before Hamilton grabbed hold of his baton, hitting him.

CHRISTOPHER MANNEY: He started beating me, started beating me, he grabbed my baton, he was hitting me in the head with my own baton, shots fired.

HOWELL: Manney fired his weapon 14 times before help arrived. You see him here after it happened.

MANNEY: I may have been hit with a baton, but I'm OK, I'm off the air now.

HOWELL: The police chief fired Manney for his actions that day saying he allegedly instigated the confrontation and though he correctly identified Hamilton as mentally ill he did not follow proper training. People have been protesting what happened here months before Michael Brown's death in Ferguson and Eric Garner's death in New York. HAMILTON: It's not just about Dontre in Milwaukee. It's about all

the lives that has been taken.

HOWELL: Maria Hamilton believes her son died at the hands of an overzealous cop. In fact, she points to a bizarre incident caught on tape back in 2012. The same officer seen here scuffling with a clown on the streets. Police say the clown was darting in and out of traffic, spraying cars with a squirt gun and that he resisted arrest. Hamilton says it's another example of Manney taking it too far.

HAMILTON: We actually pay their salaries to protect us, to serve us, to make us feel safe. It's a slap in the face to our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: It is important to point out that clown in the video was a known activist here in Milwaukee. Though certainly a bizarre incident many people are pointing to question, the judgment of this officer when dealing with suspects, the mother of the victim questioning whether he had good judgment as well. We did see a round of protests here in Milwaukee overnight. The protests were peaceful, many people are looking to see the Department of Justice now stepping in, Randi, to also review this case.

KAYE: Certainly an interesting case. George Howell, thank you very much for bringing that to us.

And still to come, it's being called one of the biggest security breaches in recent years. More than 131 guns and weapons including AK-47s and AR-15s allegedly smuggled on flights between two of the country's busiest airports. We'll have the details for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back. Authorities have broken up an alleged gun and weapon smuggling ring between two of the world's busiest airports. Two men, including a baggage handler for Delta Airlines, have been charged now with sneaking 131 weapons in carry-on bags on flights from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta to JFK in New York. Weapons included -- get this -- AK-47s and AR-15s. And what's more, some of them were actually loaded. The arrest warrant calls the operation "One of the biggest security breaches in recent years." CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh joining me now live with the very latest on this. Rene, a lot of people shaking their heads over this one. I mean how could a guy get guns on flights in a carry-on back-pack in this day and age?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. That's the question. And what's so alarming is this is an inside situation, these are people who work within the airport and have access to those secure areas. Here's how investigators say it all went down, Randi. They say that the gun supplier was an Atlanta-based Delta Airlines baggage handler. His name is Eugene Harvey. He used his airport security clearance to essentially bypass security checkpoints and get the guns into the secure area. Once his accomplice, who was a former Delta employee, Mark Henry, cleared TSA, the two men would communicate via text message, they meet up in an airport bathroom and that's where the transfer would happen. And that's how more than 100 guns were smuggled on to passenger planes during a seven-month period.

Investigators eventually closed in on this earlier this month. They arrested Henry once he landed at JFK and I want to show you just a breakout of what they stumbled upon, essentially. He had 18 handguns in his bag, seven of them were loaded. At the end of this all, there were a total of 129 handguns and two assault rifles smuggled on to these commercial planes.

What was happening was, they were selling them on the streets. The problem was, they didn't realize that the buyer was an undercover cop. This happened on at least five Delta airlines planes. But really, this comes down to be an airport security issue. I have reached out to Atlanta Hartsfield airport to find out if there are any upcoming changes in their security procedures. Haven't received a call back yet, Randi.

KAYE: And the question is also, I mean how often does this happen, Rene? I mean it's not just the guns that we're talking about, but what about drugs and who knows what else?

MARSH: You know, it happens a lot. More than we would like to see happen, whether it is drugs, whether it is weapons. You know, there was an AirTran employee who was sentenced to ten years for agreeing to smuggle weapons as well as cocaine on to a commercial plane. Many other similar stories there that I can run down for you. The situation at many airports in speaking to folks is that these airline workers and airport workers, what happens is they undergo security vetting when they're hired. They get their badges that gives them access to the secured area. But they don't have to go through TSA's screening like you and I do on a daily basis. Because they went through that prior vetting.

But I spoke with many people who say the problem is you're banking on one background check lasting for the entire time this person is an employee of either the airport or the airline and, you know, things happen and people do things and so this may be a loophole that needs to be addressed.

KAYE: And what about Delta? What are they saying?

MARSH: Well, the airline says that they are cooperating with the investigation. You see a statement from the airline there on your screen, they say they take this very seriously. That any activity that fails to uphold our strict commitment to safety and security of our customers and employees it is something that will not be tolerated. Again, they say that they are cooperating with investigators, Randi.

KAYE: All right, Rene Marsh, thank you very much for the update on that story.

Still to come, a nightmare. That's what some say Bill de Blasio is facing right now. Longstanding tensions between New York's mayor and the city's police force threaten to boil over. The latest fallout in the wake of two slain officers coming your way next.

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