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Funeral For Slain New York City Police Officer Today; A Look Back At The Top Media And Sports News In 2014

Aired December 27, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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


POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me here in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Poppy Harlow.

Tens of thousands of police officers flooded the streets of New York City today for one purpose, to honor a fallen brother. NYPD Officer Rafael Ramos, the 40-year-old father of two, was gunned down in his patrol car one week ago today. He was along with his partner and Officer Wenjian Liu. And today, Ramos family was given the flag that lay across his casket.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

HARLOW: The man suspected of killing Ramos and his partner was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound right after the shootings, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, posting threat on his Instagram account before that shooting. He was believed to be vowing revenge for the death of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

But today it was not about that. It was about all brotherhood and the camaraderie between police officers not only in this city but from across this country, from Canada. It was an incredible, remarkable sight. These pictures give you a sense of the spectacular turnout. More than 25,000 police officers were there, as I said, from across this country. Obviously, most of them couldn't even fit inside that church, so they filled the streets of queens.

Police commissioner Bill Bratton and vice president Joe Biden were among those that spoke this morning. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm sure I speak for the whole nation in which when I say to you that our hearts ache for you. I know from personal experience that there is little anyone can say or do at this moment to ease the pain, that sense of loss, that sense of loneliness. But I do hope you take some solace in the fact that as reported by the press, over 25,000, 25,000 members of the same fraternity and sorority as your husband who stand and will stand with you the rest of your life -- and they will -- it's an uncommon fraternity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Miguel Marquez joins me now. He has been there throughout covering this story from the beginning. What was it like, Miguel, to be there today?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, to say it was moving is to say too little. It was incredible to see the show of force in the way this only NYPD can do to see so many, this ocean of blue, to see the number of motorcycles, about 400 motorcycles that led the cortege to the cemetery. To see the helicopters come over, had little -- just to rumble, this so close to you, you know, to rumble your soul. To see this that turnout of the city because of all the strife that has happened here, one of the people at the center of that, Patrick Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the union that represents beat cops here, he was in the crowd here and he was one of those police officers. And he made a point to come over and talk to us.

This is the guy who after those shootings, the shooting of Officer Ramos last week and Officer Liu that the blood was on the hands of the administration, of the mayor and of city hall. And today, he had a slightly different thing to see when asked whether the officers out here should have turned their back on Mayor de Blasio as he spoke.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK LYNCH, PRESIDENT, PATROLMEN'S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION: I have 31 years on the job. I've never seen such a show of support as we saw here today. We're eternally grateful.

MARQUEZ: You know how tough things are and I know that your words earlier in the week kicked off quite a bit here. A lot of police officers, hundreds, if not thousands of them, turned their back as the mayor spoke on the surge. Do you think that's OK?

LYNCH: The feeling is real. But today is about mourning. Tomorrow is about debate.

MARQUEZ: What would you tell those police officers?

LYNCH: We have to understand the betrayal that they feel. But today, we also come to bow our head in mourning and tomorrow we'll debate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: There seems to be a slight change in tone here after his initial words kicked off this firestorm last week. And he is saying, let's everybody chill out, go through these two funerals, pay our respects and talking about debate now, not the incendiary discussion we had earlier, but perhaps this is the beginning of the debate -- Poppy.

HARLOW: And Miguel, if you would, just tell us a little bit about this remarkable man, this remarkable officer. I know he was known to those who were friends of him, who lived him as Ralph. And people talked about how kind he was, that you could see it in his eye and every action of his?

MARQUEZ: Everybody talked about how much he would smile. His kids certainly looked up to him. Everybody who spoke at the funeral talked about you can tell the measure of a man by his family. And they spoke, the governor, the mayor, the police commissioner, the vice president, they spoke lovingly of this family and what great kids they are.

And this is a guy who saw, who loved public service. He was a member of this church for 14 years, became a cop only three years ago at 37 years of age and then had been on the force for three months or three years when he was shot and killed. This is a guy who was about to become a chaplain. On that day, he would have gotten his license to be a chaplain here at this church. So this was somebody who saw a public spiritedness as part of his life. For him to be struck down by this individual is probably as horrible a target as one could pick in conducting such a crime -- Poppy.

HARLOW: No question about it. But an amazing sight this morning. I'm glad they were all there to honor him. And that you were there to bring it to us.

Miguel, thank you very much.

Joining me now to talk about this, Tony Herbert, community advocate and president of the associate advocates, rather, Without Borders Network, also Michael Daly, special correspondent for "the Daily Beast."

Let me begin with this. Thank you both for being here.

Michael, you were there this morning.

MICHAEL DALY, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, THE DAILY BEAST: I was.

HARLOW: I can sense it talking to you that you were on our air covering this when it happened last Saturday. You called this officer the boy with the perfect nickname became the perfect cop.

DALY: Yes. This is a young man in New York's toughest neighborhood, east New York, this guy was known as Pote, which derived from a Puerto Rican expression, a jar of goodness. And that goodness in the midst of a lot of violence and a lot of poverty, the goodness stayed with him, it guided him, it shown on others, it directed him to become a police officer and a chaplain and remained through all of us to admire and to follow.

HARLOW: You have, Tony, spoken on behalf of the family through this. We saw his wife standing there holding that flag and the two young boys, beautiful young boys who have lost a father to a senseless, senseless crime. What good can be achieved in the days and weeks and months to come? What would he want? What does his family want?

TONY HERBERT, COMMUNITY ADVOCATE: You know, just having had the experience of being around the family the first day they were able to do a news conference with the help of John Rodriguez, I felt a lot of sincerity with regards to the fact that he was a community guy. You know, to think that he would go to work that day and not come home, I know a lot of people, you know, not only just officers, but everybody in general, it's painful. So I would think that to see this outpouring and hopefully that would

change that method of dialogue between community and police, I think it he would be proud of it if we can make this positive (ph).

HARLOW: Michael, tell us a little bit you wrote a fascinating article about him as a man, who he is in "the Daily Beast." And you talked about going to the school where he served as a safety officer before he was a police officer talking to the principal there. Tell us a little bit about what they said about him because I know the kids just loved him.

DALY: They did. And first of all, it is the police officer Rocco Lawrie (ph) School named after a police officer who was assassinated along with his partner in 1972.

HARLOW: Right.

DALY: And each day, Ralph Ramos would sit at a desk with a huge portrait of Lawrie's shield behind him. And he still wanted to be a cop. And he talked to the principal and he said that, you know, he never shouted at the kids. He walked through the halls and give respect and get respect. If the principal's trying to figure out what he said, ell, you know, there's a lot of he said, he said, in intermediary school and Ralph was always able to get the truth. They would tell Ralph things they wouldn't tell anybody else.

So he was a guy who was boat the police and the community. I mean, that to me is -- that's why he was such an example. And that is why, I mean, he brought that together in himself. And so I think it was pure magic and for us to lose him is just tough.

HARLOW: Pure magic.

Tony, when you see these images of the sea of blue, right?

HERBERT: Right.

HARLOW: And the way that William Bratton, the police commissioner described it is we are the thin string that ties this city together. Were you surprised at the outpouring that we've seen?

HERBERT: Not at all. I mean, it's relevant with regards to the scene where the shooting took place.

HARLOW: Yes, the flowers.

HERBERT: I mean, I have never seen -- I mean, I've been involved with several shootings, you know, of civilians, quite frankly, and other police officers, but I've never seen this kind of a massive turnout.

So it goes to say that there is definitely a need for us to be able to communicate, but communicate in a sense that we can get this resolved that can build the relationship between police and community.

HARLOW: So we're going to talk about that more throughout the hour, but what does that look like? Because we heard from Mayor de Blasio where a lot of the criticism is being pointed right now, from some of those officers, some that Miguel said who turned their back on him. But we didn't hear Mayor de Blasio address any of that in his remarks at the funeral. Do you think it is incumbent upon him to make a statement to lead this change? Where do we go?

HERBERT: Well, I think it's classy for both he and Pat Lynch right now to have not made any comments until this burial is over. As you heard Pt say, the debate will take place thereafter and I'm sure it will because politics will rear its ugly head again.

But I see, as this time, this mayor has to show his battle. In a way I support what Pat says. Everything that happens in this city falls, you know, falls at the doorsteps of our elected officials. They have the keys to make this community work. And if they're not on the same page as the folks they've sworn to represent, then we have a problem.

HARLOW: We have seen Bill Bratton, I think, the police commissioner, pretty much standing in line with the mayor. It is going to be interesting to see what they do going forward. We are going to talk about it more. We are going to take a quick break here, gentlemen. Stay with me and we'll talk about this more, the motto of so many police departments is summed up in four words, to protect and to serve. Right now, though, as we've been discussing, there have been a lot of hard feelings between some communities and the police. What can we done to bridge the gap because this has to be solve, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BRATTON, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY POLICE: Remember what it means to take the job, those of us who are privileged to call ourselves cops. No other profession will give you as much or sometimes take as much. The job can reward you like no other, but one day it might demand from you everything in return. For the Ramos family, today is that day and here we are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton paying tribute to fallen officer Rafael Ramos. Those words so simple, so pointiant (ph) and here we are.

As the brotherhood of police officers mourn and we all wonder how did we get here? How did it come to this?

Let's bring back in Tony Herbert and Michael Daly. Let's welcome also CNN contributor and legal analyst Mel Robbins. Thank you all for being here.

A very somber day. I was watching it on television.

Michael, you were there at the funeral this morning. Very hard to watch, especially the two young boys and his wife holding that flag, as you said. You've described him as the perfect officer. So I know not all officers are perfect, but they're also not all bad. And the majority of them are great. So how did we get here?

DALY: I think we get -- we got here by people judged all cops by the actions of a small number, that just as, you know, there was kind of a reverse profiling, it was like people were saying judging police officers not by who they were but what they were. And they were not looking at Officer Ramos and saying, what a guy. Came out of east New York, always wanted to be a cop because all he wanted to do was help people. He gives people respect, he gets respect. He puts his life on the line. He helped transform the city of New York from a war zone to the most safest big city in America. And nobody ever said thank you to him.

HARLOW: I had the pleasure of moving to New York in September of 2001 right before 9/11. So when I moved to the city, I could walk around many places at night, doesn't matter the hour, feeling safe because the NYPD and because of the transformation. I also know what it was like before that, and that's a very important point you make of what they have done to transform this city.

To you, we should also obviously, we are talking about Officer Ramos because of the funeral today, but his partner Wenjian Liu volunteered that day to go with him to this neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, tough neighborhood. At the time, there has been some increase in violence volunteered to go there. It's remarkable. And I wonder if you think perhaps community members need to learn the stories of those that police them a bit more, to know them?

HERBERT: Well, I think that's an interesting point. Because we've actually talked about that on several occasions where we're also invited, not only the media, but other community leaders to go in and try out the simulator they have, the firearm simulator so you can get a sense of what it's like to be out on patrol. So we're encouraging a lot of our colleagues to join us in that aspect.

Everything slows down so they would actually have a hands-on with regards to being out there and being involved in a police activity, so to speak, so they can see the quick judgments that have to be made. And I think once we have that kind of a synergy, I think polls will be a little bit more cognizant of how it works on the street.

HARLOW: To you, Mel, it's an interesting point. I work with the boys and girls club in Brooklyn where I live. And one of the programs they have there is that they know the police officers and the firefighters come once a week, I think it's Wednesday night, and they play sports with the kids, right? So this is officers working with kids at a really young age. Should that be more the norm just so people know who is serving them and protecting them and they know each other more?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR/LEGAL ANALYST: Poppy, it's an excellent observation. And you said something about communities understanding the officers. And I think it's also about the officers understanding the community. And we need to go back to more of a community policing model.

We have the same exact thing, not only in the town I grew up in Michigan, but also at the town that my husband and I are raising our three kids, where the police are very much intertwined with the school in an advocacy role, in a there for the sports games role, they're at a very young age so that they know who the kids are in the community.

You know, I also think that you asked this question earlier, Poppy, about how did we get here? I will take a look at the NYPD and I think you've got one of the finest police forces in the nation in terms of diversity, in terms of training, in terms of the number of complaints per, you know, per police officer. When you look at the ratios of that, they lead the charge, but in many, many, many towns across the country, there hasn't been that level of training. And there hasn't been that level of focus on making sure that the force is diverse and also reflects the community that they're policing. And those are some things that would probably be very helpful to take a look at nationwide moving forward, Poppy.

HARLOW: And that's a big part of the discussion in Ferguson, Missouri. Exactly.

I wish we had a lot more time. We don't. We are going to continue to follow this through the hour with our guests. Mel, Tony, Michael, thank you very much.

Coming up next, it's been a year filled with absolutely fascinating stories. How those stories were covered, though, became a story in and of itself, from Ferguson, those protests to the discredited rolling stone rape article.

Much more on all of it straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The deaths of two black men, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, at the hands of police set you have protests across the country. Some were peaceful pleading for a thoughtful conversation about police violence and police relations with their community. Others were not. And led to scenes of violence, sometimes looting and these protests the aftermath, the way they played out in realtime and online were one of the top ten media stories of the year.

Brian Stelter looks back at the others.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: Our media top ten starts with number ten, a changing impression of America's dad, Bill Cosby. Bill loved as Dr. Huxtable on "the Cosby Show" but not so much anymore. A new media that had mostly ignored the old allegations of sexual assault by Cosby suddenly paid attention this year, partly because of this joke.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so it kind of bring down a couple notches.

STELTER: Now his NBC show is no more. His stand-up shows are in peril. But Cosby is not admitting guilt and he's never been charged with any crime. Now to number nine, the future is streaming. Aereo died at the

Supreme Court this year, but its idea lives on as CBS and NBC introduced new ways to stream their station. Up soon is HBO, launching online subscriptions early next year joining the likes of Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon.

Up next number eight, fact-checking failures, most memorably at rolling stone. This bombshell story about an alleged gang rape of a college student blew up as discrepancies were discovered. And the magazine had to apologize for not even trying to talk to any of the alleged attackers. Critics be known (ph) of viral news culture that values clicks more than verifications.

Number seven is video changes everything as Ray Rice can tell you. This year would have gone very differently if there hadn't been that surveillance camera footage showing him knocking out his fiancee back in February. It prompted a crisis for the NFL and the hiring of domestic violence experts.

And after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the lack of video have changed everything. Now, calls for body cameras on police officers.

Now to number six, media moves accelerating. Joe Abramson fired from "The New York Times," New editors at "the Guardian" and "Bloomberg," too. On TV, Josh Elliott leaping from ABC to NBC and David Gregory losing "Meet the Press" to Chuck Todd.

And number five is a big one, the biggest aviation mystery in modern history, Malaysia airlines flight 370. Its disappearance shocked the world, a world that seems so connected where nothing can go missing for very long, but it still has not been found. CNN went wall-to-wall with the story for a month. Part of the strategy to own big breaking news stories that even had its critics to be met.

And number four, speaking of breaking news, Ebola, it spread in Africa, then arrived in the United States and caused short-lived hysteria partly due to social media, but the same outlet that spread fear also spread facts.

Number three, is the media consolidation wave. Comcast trying to buy Time Warner cable was just the first domino to fall. Then AT&T sought to acquire Direct TV. And Rupert Murdoch went shopping with an $80 billion bid for CNN's parent company Time Warner, but the company was out of reach and Murdoch gave up, at least for now. In the next few months we'll see if the Comcast Time Warner cable merger gets what it means. That a thumbs up from the government.

And number two is the Sony cyber attack. There were titillating emails, there were embarrassing documents, there private medical records, all published online by anonymous hackers tied to North Korea. A preview maybe of future battles, this story is just starting.

And number one most importantly the digital revolution accelerated. Content is still king but with every passing month more and more obvious how media companies live or die by the whim of tech giant. Facebook tried copy to BuzzFeed until it doesn't. Amazon promotes a chef's books until it doesn't. The movie studios need Netflix, game makers need Apple, but some stars have been able to resist. Taylor Swift, still not back on Spotify.

The bottom line is that Americans want all their media, everything, to be online and on their phones, so media companies have to follow.

Brian Stelter, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: All Brian, thanks so much for that.

Don't miss this coming up, the top ten of 2014. It's a special on CNN hosted by our very own Brooke Baldwin tomorrow night 6:30 p.m. eastern on CNN.

Coming up next after a quick break, we are going to talk about all those stories that Brian just ran through, top 10 media stories of 2014 is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Alright, before the break we talked about the top media stories of 2014. Brian Stelter brought us that piece. It also talk about how those stories will reported and frankly, perhaps influenced by the media, by all of us.

We're joined again by Michael Daly and also coming from Boston, CNN commentator Mel Robbins and in Atlanta, Terence Moore, a CNN.com contributor, also journalism professional at Miami University in Ohio.

Michael, let me start with you. Looking at what you, first of all, what you think the top media story of the year is and how it led to major protests across this country. And if you think the media fanned the flames?

DALY: I think the top media story to me began when the daily news photographer named Ken Murray (ph) was driving home in Jersey and he heard on the police scanner level one mobilization, but they didn't say why.

HARLOW: In Staten Island.

DALY: In Staten Island. And so, he knew they don't say why probably a cop was involved. And he drove right to Staten Island and arrived at the scene where Eric Garner just died and there was a kid standing there who are taking a video and Ken got the video and the next thing you knew "the Daily News" put it up. And that's all media smarts becomes new media testimony, I guess you call it. And the result was, you know, the city got offended.

HARLOW: Do you think that the media covering the protest in Ferguson and across this nation after the non-indictment of the officer in the Eric Garner case fanned the flames or just told the story. DALY: I'm not sure they fanned the flames, but the one thing that I

think that was missing that I'm a guilty party, too, is noting the relative size of the protests. I mean, these weren't tens or hundreds of thousands of people. I mean, you had a climate change administration in Manhattan, a couple of hundred thousand people, as far as you could see.

HARLOW: And it wasn't cover as much. We've covered it here, but it wasn't covered as much.

DALY: But if you looked at Ferguson and New York, you would think that it was crowds like that, and it really wasn't.

HARLOW: Yes, good point. Terence, what do you think? You're a journalism professor, do you agree?

TERRENCE MOORE, CNN.COM SPORTS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I mean, I think that there's been no perspective when it comes to those protests. And once again, I've been in the media for 40 years. I hate to say it, but we will over sensationalize anything. And I'll give you microcosm just happen the last couple of days.

Christmas day in Oakland, California, there was a big deal made of the fact that you had a bunch of looters and making taking ornaments off Christmas trees and damaging property. And then the next day, yesterday, across the bay in San Francisco where I used to live for five years, you had more violence that took place. Well, guess what? You're talking about a hundred or so people.

And contrast that with the demonstration, the protest that took place a couple weeks ago in New York, 25,000 people. And the only incident that anybody could discover was on the Brooklyn Bridge and that just got played up over and over again. In other words, we have a tendency and the media does this because this is what public wants, to take the little things and just small groups and make them big if it's exciting.

But again, if you look at these protests in totality, they've actually been very, very peaceful, but you would never know it by watching and following the media.

HARLOW: Mel?

ROBBINS: Well, you know, kind of going off of what Terence just said, I want to make a point that we tend to follow the things in the media that people have a gut emotional reaction to, which means stories like Ray Rice or domestic violence in the NFL or Donald Sterling and racism and whether or not, you know, you can be taped privately and business ownership. These are things that everybody can have an opinion on. Interestingly, though, do you know what the number one Googled search was this year in 2014?

HARLOW: What?

ROBBINS: According to "Time" magazine, Robin Williams and his death. And the reason we wouldn't cover that for weeks on end is people -- they have an interest in it, but they can't sustain their interest. Which is why I'm shocked that the number one story, Poppy, wasn't the missing airline. It's only the biggest mystery of the 21st century. And you know, the idea that we still don't know where that plane is, is just mind boggling, Poppy.

HARLOW: It is incredible. As you know, we covered it a lot, all the media and especially on this network.

Mel, I do want to ask you about the "Rolling Stone" article on the alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia. That article was shocking, it was abhorrent. It brought a lot of us to tears. We had the author of the article on the program. It unraveled. There's a lot of questions, a lot has been discredited now. Do you think how "Rolling Stone" handled that, that the fact checking process, the agreement not to go talk to the accused is going to hurt the case of encouraging rape victims to report their attackers?

ROBBINS: I sure hope not. I don't think that the backlash of the "Rolling Stone" article is going to be the first thing that's on somebody's mind if they're the victim of sexual assault. I think it's going to be the first few people that they encounter, whether in an emergency room or at a campus security or in a Dean's office and whether or not they're encouraged to go forward and they feel safe and protected or whether or not, as was alleged in this article, and has been reported by many women that are survivors and also men, survivors of sexual assault that in the campus setting oftentimes you're discouraged from reporting and you are often times asked to consider how this might impact the alleged rapist.

So I don't think it will have a long-term chilling effect. But we do have a long way to go in terms of training those first responders and certainly training people in academic settings around how important it is to take these crimes seriously, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, so Terence, Mel brought up the story of Ray Rice, right, Ray Rice, knocking out cold his then-fiancee and now wife. We've all seen the video play over and over. Interestingly this week, ABC News got some more of that video through a freedom of information act request that was shown. What do you think this does, the media covering this a lot, talking about domestic abuse, Roger Goodell having to confront it and change policy in the NFL, progress, moving forward hopefully?

MOORE: Well, I'll give you the good news and the bad news. Which do you want first? I'll give you the good news.

HARLOW: I want the good news.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: OK. I mean, the good news is that the NFL has tried sincerely to work with domestic violence groups to educate its teams and its players by trying to stay away from this type of thing. And by the NFL doing that, it helps everybody, even beyond the NFL and even beyond sports. The bad news is this is not going to stop. Having covered the

national football league since the late 1970s, I'm telling you something that this is inherent in a lot of these players to be knuckleheads. I'm not saying everybody. I'm saying a lot of them. And I'll give you the classic example.

Red McDonald who is a star (INAUDIBLE) player for the San Francisco 49ers, right before the season began, he was accused of domestic abuse to his fiancee, OK. And then the 49ers looked the other way because they want to try to get to the super bowl, let him play, OK? Now once all this other stuff started blowing up, lo and behold a couple weeks ago, he is being arrested again and accused of sexual assault and this time they drop him from the club.

My point is you would think after all this stuff has happened between Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice and these other people, that he would have learned his lesson. But they never learned.

HARLOW: Guys, a lot more to discuss but we're out of time. I got to get a quick break in.

Thank you very much all of you. Mel stick around, more for you later in this hour. We appreciate it. Michael and Terence, thanks for being with us.

All right, let's talk about this next. After more than a decade at Guantanamo Bay, some detainees being released and sent abroad, but could the president's desire to shut down get make us less safe here at home?

Also, can we trust other these countries to keep these detainees from joining terror groups again? That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Any day now as many as five detainees could be moved out of Guantanamo Bay. And the Obama administration hopes to transfer dozens within the six months. There are still 132 detainees being held, about half of the detainees are eligible for transfer either to their home country or to a third party country. Most of the other half have been deemed too dangerous to transfer or are awaiting trial including those accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Many detainees have been held for a decade, most of them without being charged with a crime.

Joining me to talk about this is CNN national security analyst Bob Baer and CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins joins me again.

So Bob, you got 132. This is way down from the height of about 800. You still got 50-plus from Yemen who the U.S. will not really back to Yemen. A lot of people say why not hold some sort of special court and try them.

ROBERT BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Poppy, I think the real problem is there's not a good evidence against a lot of these people. I mean, they've tried for all these years to collect it. They've interrogated them, questioned them, they've had counsel and the rest of it. And I think the military has decided that most of these guys are, a good number of them are -- there's no case to be made against them. And so, why not let them go if you can't take them to trial.

And frankly, I think it's a good decision. You know, when they round these people up at the beginning of the Afghan war, they didn't know who they were. And you know, some of them were arrested by mistake and they were released quickly. And the other ones just hadn't committed a crime against the United States, so let them go.

HARLOW: Well, there is a court down there at Guantanamo Bay. Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes" did a fascinating report inside, you know, inside of that. But, OK, you say let them go. But let me ask you this, releasing them to two different countries like we've seen happened over the last few weeks, Bob, what assurance does the U.S. have that they have the capacity, the ability to monitor them closely enough to make sure none of them join terror groups?

BAER: Well, Poppy, there's no assurance at all. I mean, a lot of these guys are going to go back and return to normal lives and not join a Jihadi movement. Some of them will look like they're completely, you know, and not a threat at all and they will get back and they will join. There's just nothing you can do about it.

I spent a couple months interviewing jihadists in Israeli prisons. And they didn't know the Israelis. And they had been at these years, and they still would let them go, a few of them they'd re-arrest. It's just the price of doing business when you're fighting a movement like this.

HARLOW: Mel, what do you think? I heard you chime in a little bit there when Bob said let them go. Do you agree let them go, don't let them go, I mean, can you really hold them endlessly with no charges.

ROBBINS: Well, that's the question. And let's, you know, forget about the facility. What you got are a bunch of people that were presumably supposed to either be tried as terrorists in civilian court or be tried by a military tribunal and be declared military combatants and become POWs and none of that has happened. And so, these people have been held in limbo by us, some for a freaking decade, which is crazy.

And the problem is, is that we can't move them to civilian trials as terrorists because Congress has passed legislation blocking us. We can't move some of the folks that we do deemed to be dangerous to U.S. prison because Congress has passed a law blocking us.

We also under the law, Poppy, cannot release people to countries where they may be tortured. And on top of that, you've got countries like Yemen that won't even take their own people back. And then you add to it, Poppy, the fact that one in six and some reports say one in four of these detainees return to terrorism. What should they do with the 86, the roughly half that we cannot prove a case against or whom we believe is no threat, they should be released immediately. What do we do with the others? Well, we should probably try them.

But I don't know how we're going to clear the legal hurdles on this one, Poppy, it remains to be seen.

HARLOW: Yes. And is Guantanamo Bay going to indeed be closed under this president? I don't know. But we'll be watching closely. Again, five could be released very soon, possibly dozens in the next six months.

Bob, Mel, thank you both. Appreciate it.

All right, well, coming up next, 2014, a huge year of sports stories beyond the trophies and the titles, there were moments and scandals that left us all grappling with some really tough questions. We'll look back at those next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The 2014 sports are year will be remembered not just for highlights on the field, but also some pretty low moments off of the field.

CNN's sports anchor, Rachel Nichols, count down the top ten sports stories of the year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: This year's sports seemed to touch nearly every corner of American society dealing with issues way beyond the playing field, domestic violence, racism, feminism, gay rights. Everywhere you turned sports was part of the national conversation. Of course, the games were pretty good, too.

(voice-over): A 13-year-old little leaguer who completely changed what it means to throw like a girl. Monae Davis became a sensation in August. She's the first girl to ever pitch a shutout in the little league world series and the first little league of any stripe to make the cover of "Sports Illustrated."

Seattle Seahawks corner Richard Sherman unleashed legendary trash talk after the NFC championship game, but a backlash strongly tinged by racism soon followed.

RICHARD SHERMAN, SEATTLE SEAHAWKS: For the people that did react that way and throw the racial slurs and things like that out there. It's really sad. I'm not out beating on people or committing crimes or getting arrested. I'm playing football game at a high level.

NICHOLS: But it was Sherman who had the last laugh. The attention earned him millions in new endorsements. And a couple weeks later in the first cold weather outdoor super bowl, he and the Seahawks thrashed Peyton Manning and the Broncos.

There have been plenty of gay athletes in the four major American sports, but none who has been out while still playing. That changed this year. SEC defensive player of the year Michael Sam came out before the NFL draft. Sam was taken by the Rams and the openly gay basketball player Jason Collins signed with the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets made it to the second round of the play-offs, then Collins retired.

Florida state quarterback Jameis Winston started his year off on a high note leading his team to a comeback victory over Auburn in the national championship game. But off the field, Winston was a lightning rod for controversy. He was cited for shoplifting crab legs from a grocery store and suspended one game for publicly shouting vulgar language. In December Winston was the subject of a student conduct hearing investigating allegations he'd sexually assaulted a fellow student two years ago but the investigation did not find enough evidence to punish Winston.

Olympics are not usually known by a hash tag. But even before this year's opening ceremonies Sochi problems became shorthand for everything from shoddy construction to housing shortages for security concerns for Russia's first-ever winter games. In the end the event went off without major issues highlighted with a big hockey win of team USA over Russia.

It had been 29 years since the Kansas City royals even made the play- offs but this fall's scrappy postseason run took them all the way to game seven for the World Series. Unfortunately for Kansas City fans, the only thing hotter than their team was giant's Madison Baumgardner. His legendary performance clinched the championship.

The tapes released by TMZ were shocking. Clippers owner Donald Sterling making racist remarks about his own players as well as NBA legend Magic Johnson. It was a baptism by fire for new Commissioner Adam Silver. But his response was swift and significant, banning Sterling from the league for life and announcing his intention to force Sterling to sell. Sterling fired back.

DONALD STERLING, FORMER CLIPPERS' OWNER: I think you have more of a plantation mentality than I do. Do you know what, and I think you're more of a racist than I am.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, AC 360: How so?

STERLING: Because I'm not a racist. And I've never been a racist. I've never be a racist.

NICHOLS: But the final move belonged to Sterling's estranged wife, Shelly, who sold the team for a record $2 billion.

The world cup stormed into Brazil and while the event was peppered with criticism over construction costs and dismay over the host country's on-field collapse, it was also ripe with thrills. Germany was mechanical in its title-winning domination and team USA made a rarely seen level of soccer fever in the states advancing out of the group of death and making a star out of goaltender Tim Howard.

This was the year of the return of the king, Lebron James, came home to Cleveland. The place where just four years earlier fans had been burning his jersey. This time James was greeted as a hero. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: LBJ's back, baby.

LEBRON JAMES NBA PLAYER: I had dreams about going back home. It's where I bled, it's where I sleepy, it's where I cried, it's where I laughed, still not even worth it right now.

I love you, I'm back.

NICHOLS: The NFL spent much of this year fighting to regain its credibility after a series of scandals. After Commissioner Roger Goodell only suspended Ravens running back Ray Rice two games for knocking his wife unconscious. A backlash started to build. Exploding after TMZ released an elevator tape of Rice's punch. Goodell's handling of the incident put the commissioner under fire.

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: I got it wrong in the handling of the Ray Rice matter. And I'm sorry for that.

NICHOLS: And then there was the case of Vikings running back Adrian Peterson. Again, the league was slow to act after a Texas grand jury indicted Peterson on child abuse charges for his heavy discipline of his 4-year-old son.

Of course, as the calendar turns to 2015 and the NFL kicks off its play-offs, despite all that's happened, fans will likely still follow each pass and each scramble with their usual gusto. After all, that's the promise of sports. Even after a difficult stretch or an exciting stretch, after the highs, the lows, the moments we'll never forget, there's always still a next game, a next quarter, a next year. And we'll all be watching.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: And Rachel Nichols will be right here to bring it all to us in 2015.

Rachel, great piece. Thank you for that.

Quick break. On the other side, we are going to talk about all those stories and how they affected not just the athletes, the domestic abuse cases, everyone, the leagues, that is next. And then tomorrow night you can catch all of our top ten lists right here on CNN 6:30 p.m. eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. Well, we just counted down the top ten sports stories of the year so let's talk about it all with Terence Moore. He is a national sports columnist and CNN.com sports contributor.

Terence, let's start with this, the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson domestic abuse cases brought the issue front and center. The NFL was blamed harshly for dragging its feet. Do you believe under the leadership of roger Goodell the NFL is changing for the better in a material way? MOORE: Not really. Because I'll tell you something, Poppy, those

things believe it or not had pretty much zero effect on the NFL. And I say that because, you know, trying to affect the image of the NFL in a negative way totally, is like trying to get rid of one of those plastic bags you get at a grocery store. You can't destroy it, OK? And this is all you need to know, despite all these controversies this year, if you look at the TV ratings from September at the beginning of the NFL season to the end of November, 28 of the top 30 TV shows were NFL games.

HARLOW: Yes.

MOORE: And here's the other thing. "Forbes" magazine reported that the average worth of an NFL franchise now is $1.4 billion which is up 23 percent over last year in spite of everything.

HARLOW: Wow. Well, I hope it changes things on the domestic violence front at least that people take more action.

Quickly, 30 seconds, happier note, Lebron James bringing a title to Cleveland in 2015?

MOORE: There is a reason why Cleveland has not won a championship in any sport professional sport in exactly 50 years. Cleveland would have a better chance to win a world championship, the Cavaliers, if Lebron James was a witch doctor.

HARLOW: What?

MOORE: Because I tell you, Cleveland is curse forever. Whatever it is, something is wrong with the city when it comes to professional sports.

HARLOW: Come on. Come on, my friend.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: All right, Terence Moore, thank you. Happy New Year.

MOORE: Yes, same to you.