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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Missouri Shootings; Missing Canadian Teens; Militants Attract New Members; Texts in Hernandez Trial

Aired February 27, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And, hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We've got breaking news to begin with. Seven people dead, one person hurt and one gunman dead as well in a Missouri shooting spree. Police are now fanning out across two counties. And there are six, believe it or not, six active crime scenes. They are finding bodies now in four different homes, the count thus far. The violence erupting overnight in the city of Tyrone. Officers responding to a call to 911, shots fired. They went door to door ultimately discovering seven bodies and plus one other woman apparently dead from natural causes. Later, in neighboring Shannon County, police found a ninth body, the suspected shooter, dead himself of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. CNN's Alexandra Field has been working this story. She joins me now. Also with us, CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes.

Tom, stand by for a moment.

Alexandra Field, what is the latest they are telling us at least about what happened last night?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, a horrific night in Tyrone and now a very difficult job today of starting to notify the next of kin. We are expecting that a little bit later today. We will finally know the identity of the victims who were killed overnight. At that point, we might be able to begin to understand whether or not any of these people were related to one another and what relationship they may have or could have had with the shooter in this case.

This all starts when a juvenile female, that's how police are describing her, picks up the phone, she calls police because she hears gunshots. She runs for safety to a neighbor's house. Police respond to the house that she was in. They find two bodies there. They go on to three other homes where they find five more bodies, people shot to death, and another person injured. And then they go on to one more home where they find a woman who had died apparently of natural causes.

Just a little while ago, officials who were investigating overnight talked about some of what they saw and experienced overnight. Listen to this, Ashleigh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. JEFF KINDER, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL: In our job, we see a lot of bad stuff. And this is bad. This is -- this is also hard on the police officers who are working that there. It's not -- it's not natural to see that sort of thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: Tyrone is described as a rural community, obviously grief- stricken today. And coming off of a very difficult night, neighbors there have told some of our affiliates that they were woken up by police officers who came to the door to try and check and see if anyone was wounded or killed inside their homes. People were also being told to stay inside while police determined what was going on. Ultimately, Ashleigh, as you know, police did find the suspected shooter dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound parked in a car.

BANFIELD: So they have a huge job ahead of them, Alexandra. I have a question though about the person who was injured. I don't know if they're saying anything. Can that person talk? Are they able to talk to that person? Are they getting any information out of the person who may be the only survivor of all of this?

FIELD: This person could be critical to the case. But at this point investigators are not telling us whether or not they have been able to glean any information from that person. Only we know that that person was taken to the hospital. As for motive, because that's what ever -- what everyone is asking right now, investigators not speaking publicly about what could have motivated this kind of shooting. The only details that we really know are that the sheriff's office is involved with the investigation and that also the Missouri State Highway Patrol's division of drug and crime control are key on this case. They're the ones who are speaking out this morning. So we should be getting more from them, Ashleigh.

All right, Alexandra, stand by for a moment.

Tom Fuentes, if you could just weigh in on this. I mean this is a bizarre situation where we have six different crime scene, that's including the car in which this perpetrator apparently killed himself after, you know, exacting his carnage. And then this very odd circumstance about one woman dying of natural causes in one of the homes and four other homes with dead people in each one. Does this pattern tell you anything or is there going to be an extraordinarily long investigation for law enforcement, even though there's nobody to prosecute at this point?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, it could be a long one, Ashleigh. It will take a while to put all this together and you have a number of agencies that will have to work together because these are rural counties. So you're not going to have the array of crime scene investigators, evidence technicians to process all of these crime scenes simultaneously unless you get help from neighboring counties, the state police and maybe even the FBI if they ask for the help. Now, the jurisdiction or the control will still rest with Texas

County. And I'm assuming that the town of Tyrone may not -- it may not have a police department. It may be patrolled by the county sheriff's office. So the county sheriff of Texas County would have the case or may defer it to the state police and say, this is just out of our league. You take care of this. And the state police assume authority, which they can also in terms of jurisdiction.

Now, you have the nearby county where the person they believed was the shooter is dead in a car in what they also believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So that's another crime scene death investigation that has to go on here.

BANFIELD: And who knows if there may be other victims that we just don't know about -- or survivors, I should say, who witnessed this.

FUENTES: Right.

BANFIELD: So, all right, Tom, thank you for that. Alexandra, thank you as well. We'll continue to update as we get more information on this extraordinarily strange story in Missouri.

Up next, some more fears now. North American teenagers up and leaving, heading off to Syria to join ISIS. The frantic search right now is on for a group of missing Canadian college students. Their parents in shock as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: At least four families in Canada say they believe their worst nightmare may have come true, that their kids may have traveled to Syria to join ISIS. Four and actually maybe even more at this point, the count is not finished. Four kids, some of them even classmates at a college in Montreal. Canadian officials saying it looks like they flew to Turkey with the aim of hooking up with Islamic extremists and crossing into Syria.

Stay right there because where they are and what they might be motivated by, we're going to talk about in a moment. But also today there is a California family that's dealing with the terrifying possibility that some of their own are among those hostages being held by ISIS in Syria. You've probably heard this story that human rights groups are estimating more than 250 people, all of them Christians, are now being held as hostages by ISIS. The U.S. attorney general tells CNN that Americans in danger overseas, that gets his full attention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Whether it's through the use of our military, through the use of our law enforcement capacity, if you harm Americans, it is the sworn duty of every person in the executive branch to find you and hold you accountable.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Do you think that we would go as far as sending in our U.S. troops to find him and hunt him down? HOLDER: I wouldn't put anything off the table.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So we mentioned those Canadian teenagers who are missing and might be trying to join ISIS. Their families, obviously, worried sick. Their school is cooperating with officials, too. And there's a link there.

But right now, where those young people are today is a very troubling mystery. And CNN's Rosa Flores is following every part of the story.

The school is sort of a linchpin here for at least these first four, and if there are more, we're not sure yet. But can you break down the story about what role the school played or at least people who were connected to the school in all of this?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, I've got to start with this, because the professor who the school alleges had hate speech and who this professor has now been suspended, he just spoke to the media, Ashleigh, and he says that he refuses his suspension and that, in fact, that if his classes are canceled, that he will sue. Now, he went on to say that this is actually a witch hunt, he used, and I'm quoting here, "a witch hunt and the devilization of the Muslim community."

Now, just to give you a little background, Ashleigh, because there's a lot of moving parts to this particular story. But the college, the community college, said that they immediately started investigating after they heard from authorities that some of these students were students at this college and that they found hate speech related to this particular professor and so he was suspended. And now we've heard from that professor.

But also to give you a little bit of background about this professor. In 2003, he was charged by authorities for being a, quote, "terror cell." And then in 2009, he was completely relieved from any culpability related to that. So there has been some frustration that has been posted on social media. But as you might imagine, he was probably very frustrated, Ashleigh.

So, again, lots of moving parts. We just heard from the professor and that's the very latest.

BANFIELD: All right, keep us posted, Rosa. Certainly if they find any more details, you know, tangible details about where those kids are and how many more there may be that are missing. Rosa Flores live for us in New York. Thank you.

FLORES: You're welcome.

BANFIELD: You know, believe this or not, the beheadings and the burnings and the other vile acts that make ISIS so repugnant, they happen to be the very things that make it so attractive to wannabe jihadists all over the world. And here's the big question, are we losing the online war against those who want your kids and maybe even you to join their ranks? Here's a tip, the FBI says, yes, it might be so.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Everything that ISIS stands for is pretty much offensive to anyone who's even halfway rational. Don't believe in their cause, you're dead. Find yourself taken hostage, you just might be butchered in front of a video camera. They take over entire cities by force and with fear and they quickly become the most dangerous militant group on earth. Somehow ISIS tries to make their world attractive to outsiders in their effort to recruit new members. Think that's impossible? Here's CNN's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You might think this is a commercial from the tourism board of Canada. It's actually a video from ISIS posted on social media, aimed at convincing wannabe jihadis to join ISIS in Syria.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm your brother in Islam here in Syria. I originally come from Canada.

KAYE: Andre Koline (ph), a Canadian convert, was the ultimate pitchman for ISIS until he was killed fighting for them. But even that won't stop would-be extremists from searching out ISIS online, connecting in member-only chat rooms. But is it really that easy to just contact ISIS online?

KAYE (on camera): When these wannabe jihadis say they're e-mailing ISIS, are they really e-mailing ISIS?

MICHAEL WEISS, AUTHOR, "ISIS: INSIDE THE ARMY OF TERROR": Well, they're e-mailing a coordinator or a liaison of ISIS.

KAYE (voice-over): Michael Weiss, who wrote a book about ISIS, says there are thousands of online forums where jihad is the draw, available in all sorts of languages, including English.

KAYE (on camera): Why aren't they being shut down?

WEISS: Well, I mean, some of them are hard to find. How do you -- what are you going to do, shut down all of Twitter or all of FaceBook? There's one called (INAUDIBLE). If you're from Chechnya or Dagestan or Georgia or Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, you have the language, you have Russian. You can easily link up with networks on here.

KAYE: And find somebody to go do jihad with?

WEISS: Sure.

KAYE: It's that simple?

WEISS: Yes.

KAYE (voice-over): In fact, one of the suspects from Brooklyn, just arrested this week for trying to join ISIS was using this Uzbekistan website.

KAYE (on camera): But this is a group that beheads people, crucifies others, subjugates its female members. The list goes on. So what exactly is the attraction? According to Weiss, everything I just mentioned.

WEISS: The grotesquery that they exhibit is designed to attract the jihadis because they're showing the people that were going after Yazidis, Christians, whatever, their (INAUDIBLE), they're worthy of only death.

KAYE (voice-over): Even more frightening, hooking up on social media may mean these wannabe extremists don't even have to leave their home. ISIS assigns them deadly tasks from afar.

WEISS: Stay where you are. We'll inspire you, radicalize you if you're not already radicalized, and then we'll teach you how to build a fertilizer bomb in your basement.

KAYE: And dangerous directive from a group whose popularity is only growing online.

Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in Phil Mudd right now, he's our counterterrorism analyst and former CIA member himself.

So, Phil, the question I have is that the FBI has actually said the words, we are losing the online war against ISIS. Do you believe that to be true because it seems hard to believe when the Internet flows two different ways. They may be trying to get, but you can also get into them via the Internet too.

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Sure you can, but you're dealing with a problem of volume here that you can't control. You're not talking about looking at 10 people or 50 people. As Michael Weiss was saying earlier, you're talking about thousands of people. I don't care how many investigators you have, you can't stay on top of thousands of people, particularly when you understand that they're practicing their free speech rights. It's OK to be radical in the United States. And even if it weren't, you can't follow that many people simultaneously.

BANFIELD: The U.S. administration has said before that it is putting a huge oomph behind a propaganda campaign, a counter-propaganda campaign. Where does that stand? What's happening?

MUDD: Look, the U.S. government is making an effort here. But let's have one simple proposition, how is it that people who are regarded as the enemies of ISIS have legitimacy in presenting a message to ISIS? I applaud what the U.S. is trying to do. I was a U.S. official for 25 years. I don't think there are big prospects for success.

Before you get discouraged, though, Ashleigh, think of one thing. ISIS will fail, but it's because their propaganda put out by themselves is going to bring the organizations down. They can recruit the radical fringe by beheading people. You can't recruit an entire population.

BANFIELD: And that's fascinating because there have been lots of commentary -- there's been a lot of commentary made about the levels of who is ISIS. The complete freak show and the sociopaths, those who are ultra-religious and those who are just looking for a little action and every time they see people being burned alive in cages, that is very dissuasive to them.

On that same tack, there has been lots of reporting that they are losing in their ranks, that they need more bodies, they need more fighters and they don't have enough coming in. Does that tell you that they will do more efforts to bring people out of these countries than they will to ask those members to wage jihad inside their countries, like here in the United States?

MUDD: Look, they're not just bringing people out of these countries. I don't think the foreign fighters going in, foreign fighters by that I mean people from the United States, Canada, western Europe, going in will be -- ever be core to ISIS. But what ISIS is trying to do is to stage a revolution globally at the same time that they stage a revolution within Iraq. So they are trying to bring in these people so that they can send a message that there is one place to go for this revolution, and that place, whether you're in Britain or New York or Chicago is Iraq or Syria.

One quick thing, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Yes.

MUDD: They're not just bringing people in. They're a magnet. There are people saying, I wasn't recruited by ISIS, but there's one place I can go where the religion is being purified and where people are living a pure life, and that is in Syria.

BANFIELD: Dear God.

MUDD: So it's not just an effort by ISIS to bring people in, it's a magnet for people who think they're going to a better life.

BANFIELD: Purifying people by burning them in a cage.

MUDD: That's right.

BANFIELD: Which is very unpure in Islam. Phil Mudd, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you.

MUDD: thank you.

BANFIELD: We're seeing another atrocity that's being committed by ISIS. This is different, though. It's not being committed against people, but it's certainly against a very important part of world history. Take a look.

These are ISIS fighters inside what appears to be a museum in Mosul, Iraq. They are smashing and toppling and ultimately destroying things that have stood for centuries. Some of them as old as 700 years before Christ. These are antique statues. They are historic. They are priceless works of art. Valuable pieces of culture that can never be replaced. The exact reason ISIS is doing this is not clear, although one man on the video quotes, "God ordered us to destroy these statues." And there's lots of evidence to show they are also stealing and selling a lot of these so that they can, you guessed it, make money for their cause.

Think all of those text messages you send are private? Make sure that you don't become a witness or a defendant in a trial. Personal text messages taking center stage and being read aloud today in the Aaron Hernandez murder trial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Live pictures of the House of Representatives for you because people in the House, as their minority leader addresses them, Nancy Pelosi, are poised to vote, not on what you thought, instead of something small, a short-term funding bill, just so the Department of Homeland Security can keep on running, keep us safe, for another three weeks. It's what you call a good old can-kicking. This vote's going to come after the Senate approved a longer term -- the long-term funding bill that actually ended up taking out all those provisions that would block President Obama's executive orders on immigration. But guess what? Whatever the House does, this whole short-term can-kicking, it's going to have to go back to the Senate, too. So there's that.

Aaron Hernandez is sitting in court, no doubt really, really uncomfortable today because the jury is hearing some of those messages he sent to one of his friends, happened to be an alleged accomplice at this point in his murder trial. Those messages were sent in the days and hours before Odin Lloyd was murdered. Hernandez was texting Ernest Wallace, several times in fact, messages I'm sure he didn't want anyone else to see, least of all his fiance, Shayanna Jenkins.

At 2:14 p.m., a day before the murder, he texts Wallace, "all y'all trying to step tonight. My girl getting on my nerves. What up. Hey, just don't be too late my "n" word, please, kutz ain't trying to be stuck with her all day and night."

She's in courtroom, usually. And this is evidence she probably knows about. But she is standing by her man.

I want to bring in CNN commentator Mel Robbins and HLN legal analyst and defense attorney Joey Jackson.

Mel, first to you. Yes, that's dramatic. Yes, you can probably see her facial reactions if she has to listen to that in court. She probably already knows about it. But ultimately she's still standing by her man. And does it speak at all to the actual key question, did he kill Odin Lloyd? Does this help or hurt? Does it do anything, Mel?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR: It does absolutely nothing. I mean it's interesting to talk about. What's going to be fascinating is when she takes the stand. And, Ashleigh, she's going to be forced to take the stand in this case. They've granted her immunity, which means they've backed her into a corner. She's going to take the stand. They're going to ask her questions and she's either going to lie, which she's alleged to do in front of the grand jury 29 times, in which case the jury themselves will access her credibility, or she'll refuse to testify, in which case she'll be held in contempt. Either way, it's her behavior on the stand that will weigh in this case, not these text messages, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So I also want to just bring in some video. I'm not sure if we have it ready to go. But, Joey, there was some video that was being shown in court of a -- it's surveillance video at a gas station where these alleged co-conspirators showed up without Odin Lloyd in the car just hours before -- look at them and how they're behaving. Some people have characterized their behavior as dancing. Aaron Hernandez is seen in the video almost a bit sort of, I don't know, really flippin joyous. And this is, again, within hours of the death of the man they were just about to pick up, just about to pick up Odin Lloyd.