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Ohio Man Arrested for Planning Jihad in the U.S.; Russia Murder Suspect Blow Himself Up; Mystery of MH Flight 370; Madison Community Gathers After Teen Killed

Aired March 08, 2015 - 17:00   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. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Poppy Harlow in New York, 5:00 Eastern. And we begin in Moscow.

A shocking twist into the murder investigation of the high-profile Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. One of the suspects in that brazen killing has been blown himself up following a standoff with police. That is according to Russian-state television. Who was the suspect and what did he know? We will go to -- go live to Moscow in just a moment.

Also exactly one year to the day after Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, the mystery that gripped the world remains unsolved. And for the families of the 239 people on board that plane, no words can describe their pain.

The global hunt triggered widespread interest from people across this country and around the globe. Everyone still wants to know, how, how can a jumbo jet vanish without a trace? We will bring you Malaysia's brand new report on the investigation. Also our experts return with fresh insights on what could have happened to Malaysia Flight 370.

And there are still many questions after the shooting of an unarmed black teenager Friday by police in Madison, Wisconsin. The officer who fired the fatal round had used deadly force before. The teen who was killed also had a criminal history. Our team just spoke with Madison's police chief. We will bring you what he said later this hour.

But first two teenagers from Australia are being investigated right now after border guards stopped them from leaving the country, reportedly in an attempt to join ISIS. The two are brothers. They are from Sydney and police say something found in their luggage raised the red flag. And of course then they were arrested.

We don't know many more details at this point, but we do know that they were going to what the Australian authorities call a conflict zone.

The concept of Westerners joining ISIS is not a new one. Take a look at some of this government statistics. The U.S. government estimating there are about 20,000 so-called foreign fighters in the ISIS ranks from 90 different countries. North Americans, Europeans, Western citizens make up more than 3,000 of them, it is estimated. And terrorism officials here say about 150 U.S. citizens are believed to have joined ISIS.

Remember just 10 days ago two men in Brooklyn, one man in Florida, all U.S. residents, were arrested before they could follow through on their alleged plan to join ISIS. Also for the first time right here you're about to hear the voice of a 20-year-old American man from Ohio who said that he wanted to carry out terrorist attacks in this country and wanted to kill the president of the United States.

We're talking about Christopher Cornell. He was already on the FBI's radar when he was arrested back in January. And now a local television station has exclusively spoken to him in jail by phone.

Take a listen to this short, edited clip of their one-hour conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER CORNELL, SUSPECTED TERRORIST: The event in which I planned on Tuesday, September 20th, in Washington, D.C., would have been a great attack against America. Even with my capture its repercussions will not stop. Although it would have been a major attack against America, events that will follow are dangerous and more enormous.

I'm with the Islamic State. I have connections with many brothers over there, even corresponding for quite some time actually. The FBI finally caught on this past year.

TRICIA MACKE, REPORTER WXIX: Was it their idea for you to plant pipe bombs at the capitol and have people running outside to shoot them?

CORNELL: It was a mix of both our ideas.

MACKE: When did you fist come in contact with them?

CORNELL: I won't say that in specific either.

MACKE: You have to give me some more insight on how somebody would go about contacting someone. How would I do that? How did you do that? Do you do that through, you know, YouTube videos?

CORNELL: Through encrypted messaging.

MACKE: Can you give me an idea of other things that you would write on encrypted messages?

CORNELL: Talking about how we should wage jihad in America. We should form our own groups and alliances with the Islamic State, and I say groups, I mean, you know, what you would call sleeper cells.

MACKE: Right. How dedicated were you to carry out this plan to wage jihad in America?

CORNELL: I'm very dedicated. Like I said, I'm a Muslim. I'm so dedicated that I risked my life. That should say a whole lot. MACKE: If you weren't arrested that day when you were at a gun store

buying two guns and 600 rounds of ammunition, what would you have done?

CORNELL: What have I done?

(LAUGHTER)

I would have took my gun, I would have put it to Obama's head. I would have pulled the trigger, then I would unleashed more bullets on the Senate and the House of Representative members and I would attack the Israeli embassy and various other buildings full of Kafir, who want to wage war against us Muslims. That's what would have happened.

Obama is an enemy of Allah, therefore enemy of us, of the Islamic State.

MACKE: And you said that the plan that you wanted to implement and you intend to, if you ever get out, I would imagine?

CORNELL: Yes. Inshallah, yes.

MACKE: Is in retaliation for what?

CORNELL: The continued American aggression against our people and the fact that America, specifically, President Obama, wants to wage war against the Islamic State.

MACKE: I want to hear what you think is coming.

CORNELL: What I think is coming? Many things. There will be indeed many, many attacks. There will be, you know -- like I said, we'll raise the banner over the capitol. I'm not going to give away too much.

MACKE: Were you, up until January, in contact with people overseas?

CORNELL: I won't give you that information. But I would tell you, I'm in contact with many.

MACKE: How organized is the Islamic State?

CORNELL: The thing is, we are indeed here in America. We're in each and every state. We're here in Ohio.

(LAUGHTER)

We're here in Ohio. We're in every state. We're more organized than you think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Again, that was part of an hour-long conversation between our affiliate in Ohio, and Christopher Cornell, who is in jail, an American allegedly planning to terrorize this country as you heard him say in his own words, and claiming that ISIS is here, as he said, in every state and as he also said, more organized than you think.

Let's discuss is with Chris Dickey, foreign editor for the "Daily Beast." Also joining me from Baghdad, retired Lt. Col. James Reese, now a CNN global affairs analyst.

Chris, listening to that, what is your -- what's your takeaway?

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, FOREIGN EDITOR, DAILY BEAST: Well, he's basically reciting the boilerplate of ISIS propaganda, which is all based on the idea that Muslims are under attack, they're being attacked by America, attacked by the West, attacked by Christians. And what they're doing, all these atrocities, all these things are justified in their own minds as some kind of self-defense.

It's a classic thing. I mean, I wrote a novel 18 years ago about bringing terror to the United States in which all those same arguments were rehearsed. It's absolutely classic stuff.

HARLOW: Colonel Reese, what do you make of his claims that he repeats a few times that ISIS is more organized than we think?

LT. COL. JAMES REESE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I believe they are. They do have some organizational skills. I don't think they're as organized in the U.S. I think its claim that, you know, they're in 50 states, sure, I believe it. We heard over the last couple of weeks the FBI director say they have about 1,000 counterterrorism investigations going on in every state.

I think very candidly I think he's blowing a lot of smoke.

HARLOW: Why do you think that?

REESE: You know, again, he's a young kid. I think he's looking -- you know, he's looking for the spotlight. Right now he's sitting in prison, and I think his lawyers are telling him that, you know, he's got a long road ahead of him, and I think right now there's a lot of bravado coming out of him. He might have some communication with some folks overseas. They're trying to bring that bravado up, but I think at the end of the day when he sits in his cell for a very long time, because the FBI did a great job of hunting him down, he will start to realize that.

You know, my frustration is I know lots of Muslims. And they would shake their head at this young man, especially coming from the U.S., knowing that this is not what Islam is all about.

HARLOW: Right. Yes. No question about that. I mean, they said, how dedicated are you, and he said very dedicated, I'm a Muslim, when indeed what he's trying to do is completely against the faith. But --

DICKEY: Wait. He's a Muslim convert. And you've heard the phrase the zeal of the convert?

HARLOW: Right.

DICKEY: Which is typical. They tend to cherry-pick things that they think -- are making them Muslims. They don't grow up in the culture. They don't understand the culture.

HARLOW: Right.

DICKEY: His name is Christopher, after all. Not a typical name for Muslims.

HARLOW: Let me ask you this, this is one example of what we've seen so much of especially recently. You've got these two Australians now being held by authorities. They thought that they were possibly going to join ISIS. You've got the two men arrested here in Brooklyn, the one arrested in Florida just a few weeks ago. You've got young women in Great Britain traveling to allegedly join ISIS.

Why is ISIS so successfully winning at least the propaganda war?

DICKEY: Well, it's really good at propaganda, even as you look at the clips we were just showing of ISIS troops training. It's like choreography, they're all sort of dancing across the screen as if it were in fact some kind of recruiting video. And that's exactly what it is.

They have beautifully designed recruiting videos that target young men ages, say, 14, 15 to 25 or 30 that are very seductive, especially if you're an aimless loser lice Christopher Cornell, who decides he's going to adopt his idea of the religion of Islam and then wants recognition. What he wants is recognition. That's why he calls up a journalist and talks for an hour on the telephone.

HARLOW: Right.

DICKEY: Even though obviously it's going to destroy his case in course.

HARLOW: You know, Colonel Reese, Chris Dickey was saying to me yesterday that he really believed that we in this country -- in fact other people say we are losing the propaganda war. Like we're not doing enough, whether it's the government or other parties, to fight this on the Web, if you will.

But I just wonder what really can be done that actually these people that are falling into ISIS' hands would watch and follow instead of the ISIS recruitment videos?

REESE: Sure. Well, I agree with you. I mean, I don't think we are doing a very good job of countering this information. I mean, I said several weeks ago, why wasn't there a public service announcement during the Super Bowl? Why don't we look at these big events where Americans and young kids are going to watch, are on YouTube where they do these things. So I think we have that.

You know, pretty interesting, you know, I'm over here with Ben Wedeman, CNN's senior correspondent. And some of -- several of the commanders that he's been talking to, and I've been listening to them, you know, over here, the Iraqis, how they talk about it is that ISIS is -- and they're trying to put it in perspective for the U.S. listeners. ISIS is just like a gang, you know, the Cripps and the -- so whatever.

This is all this is. Gangs, these young kids are coming to a gang, because they're looking for some type of -- you know, prospect to be part of. So I thought that was pretty interesting that they talked about it over here that it was very similar to the gangs in the U.S.

HARLOW: All right. Colonel Reese, Chris Dickey, thank you both very much.

We're going to take a quick break on the other side we're going to also get to that breaking news out of Moscow that a critic of Vladimir Putin who was gunned down. One of the suspects who was said to be arrested in that blew himself up rather than being taken into police custody.

A live report from Moscow next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Conspiracy theories are swirling in the brazen murder of a Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov. In the latest twist, a suspect in his killing has reportedly blown himself up. The suspect, a 30-year-old man who was holed up in a building in the capital city of the Chechen Republic. Well, as police closed in, he tried to escape apparently throwing grenades at officers before blowing himself up. This all according to Russian state television.

Now the news comes as five other suspects have been arrested in Nemtsov's murder, but word that the sixth suspect is now dead raises a lot more questions about this investigation.

Joining me live from Moscow, our senior international correspondent Matthew Chance, who has been following this all along.

Matthew, a lot of people had questions as to whether or not anyone would be arrested at all in this murder, given that it was the murder of such a high level Putin critic.

What do we know about the suspect who apparently blew himself up?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, people had doubts that anybody would be arrested, but people also had doubts that those that may have been arrested would simply be scapegoats in an attempt to distance the authorities from the actual killing of Boris Nemtsov. Remember a lot of people who support the opposition in this country believe the Kremlin is ultimately responsible, even though they deny any links.

HARLOW: Right.

CHANCE: So far, though, there are five people in custody. You mentioned that one individual, he detonated a grenade as police were trying to arrest him in the Chechen capital of Grozny, which is in southern Russia. Five other people have been in court today. One of them a guy called, Zaur Dadaev, a Chechen -- ethnic Chechen as well from southern Russia, has apparently confessed to the killing, and the four other suspects have been -- one of them has been charged. Three others are being held under arrest where they face charges over the next couple of days, I expect -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Matthew, does it strike you as odd that one of these suspects would just confess to it so quickly?

CHANCE: Possibly, possibly odd. I mean, I expect there will be a lot of skepticism out there that this is too convenient. On the other hand, you know, Chechnya is a lawless place. There are guns for fire there. And it's quite possibly that these individuals could have been hired by somebody who wanted Boris Nemtsov dead, to carry out the killing.

And so, you know, if these people are indeed responsible for the killing, it doesn't necessarily shed any light on who would have ordered that killing. As I say, it's a very lawless place in Chechnya. There are guns for hire. And these could just be the triggermen. And it may not give us any more clarity on why or who ordered the killing.

HARLOW: This information is all coming to us from Russian state television. The presumption there is they're getting it straight from the Russian authorities.

Do you believe, Matthew, that we can take these names, these names of five people in their mid 30s, as key suspects in this assassination? Can we take them as face value?

CHANCE: I think so. I think so, in the sense that they've all appeared in court today. Moscow, we know that independently, that's not coming to us from state television. Certainly the investigative committee that's been formed by the Russian government, which involves all sorts of branches of the Russian security services, say that they have strong evidence from telephone records and from forensic evidence that these people are indeed linked.

We've got that confession as well. But again, you know, it's -- of course it's possible, but again, the real issue is not who pulled the trigger to kill Boris Nemtsov, but who ordered the killing. And the big concern is that we're no closer to finding out that that.

HARLOW: Right.

CHANCE: Than we were at the beginning of this process.

HARLOW: And very quickly, before I let you go, Nemtsov's daughter has been speaking about this. What is she saying?

CHANCE: Well, I spoke to Joan Nemtsov a few days actually just after the first arrests had been made. And she made the point that, look, you know, it's the Kremlin that she believes is ultimately responsible for the killing of her father, Vladimir Putin, if not responsible for pulling the trigger or for ordering the killing, then at least responsible for creating an atmosphere in which opponents of the Kremlin are regarded as enemies of the state. She also said that she did not believe that the true killers would be

brought to justice in this investigation. There's going to be a cover-up, was what she was saying.

HARLOW: Matthew Chance, live for us in Moscow. Thank you very much, Matthew.

We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, it has been one near to the date since MH 370, that flight with 239 souls on board, disappeared. We're going to talk about a new report out from Malaysia, what it did have to say.

Also families trying to grieve one year later. What obstacles did they run into in Beijing. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Well, if you can believe it, more heartbreak for grieving families of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One year to the day that that plane disappeared, some families wanted one simple thing -- to honor their loved ones at a Chinese temple. They were denied.

Our David McKenzie was with them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is family members who are trying to grieve, and you're stopping us? 239 people died on this plane and you're telling me they can't come here to commemorate?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: More on that coming up, but first, a new report from Malaysian authorities revealed a crucial battery on the plane expired more than a year before the flight's disappearance. The battery was on the underwater locator beacon, and as you know, a global hunt for the plane scoured 4.8 million square kilometers, nothing, not one single piece of debris has turned up yet.

When Malaysian Airlines 370 disappeared, the worldwide coverage was huge and intense for months. People around the world were obsessed, demanding the latest details around the clock. People wanted to learn about aviation, ocean searches, radars, satellites. The lack of answers really still seems pretty unreal in this age of technological advancement.

We're bringing back our aviation experts with their latest opinions on the mystery of this flight. Joining me to discuss, Les Abend is with me here in New York. He flies the 777. Also pilot and aviation analyst Miles O'Brien and our Richard Quest, aviation correspondent and host of "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS," joins me as well.

Richard, let me begin with you. One of the key things that stands out to a lot of people in this report is that the battery for the underwater locator beacon expired, maintenance made a mistake, they didn't replace it. Is that a big deal or not necessarily?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It is if it's true. It's on page 60 of the report. Some people in Malaysia are questioning that and saying, actually the battery really was replaced, but the paperwork was faulty because of a computer problem. But the reality is the inspector says in this report that the battery was not replaced because he has to go on the computer files on the data, and there's no record.

If the date -- I mean, it expired in 2012, so it was two years out of date. It probably still was working, but we just don't know. The cockpit voice recorder pinger was working.

Yes, it is serious. If it's true. It's serious because so much effort had to go into finding this plane and it relied on pingers, or one of them, which might not have worked.

HARLOW: And they were supposed to be able to work for 30 days under water.

QUEST: Yes.

HARLOW: If it's older, expired, then it very well might not do that.

To you, Les, do you believe possibly -- we know that this plane in the cargo, they were carrying some key batteries. Right? Some -- some key batteries, some lithium batteries. Some have said look, that's dangerous, that can cause fires, others have said, you have no way of knowing.

You think that that could be part of the cause?

LES ABEND, 777 PILOT: Well, it's definitely a possibility. I mean, this wasn't just some batteries. This was 5400 pounds of lithium --

HARLOW: And we're talking about the big ones.

ABEND: Well, no. They were -- from my understanding they were -- they were in small packages.

HARLOW: Right.

ABEND: But they came from the island of Penang, the western edge of Malaysia, and were transported by 737, another Malaysian Airlines flight, to Kuala Lumpur and then to be transported to be going service in Beijing. 5400 pounds is a lot of batteries. We've learned a lot. The FAA has revisited the explosion aspects of lithium batteries from the fact when they go in a cargo pallet that's completely enclosed, it creates its own little bomb inside.

And the lithium batteries, they have a characteristic of reigniting again. So this sets something off in my head that my particular airline does not even allow any lithium batteries in the cargo hold.

HARLOW: Really? To carry any cargo at all. That's interesting.

Miles, you wrote an op-ed about this and talked about outdated technology and that that may be part of the mystery here. Why?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, you know, it's interesting. You think about this pinger, for example, the fact that in this day and age we're looking for a multimillion declare airliner by dropping a microphone in the water and hoping we hear a distant ping. You know we know now by the way that it wouldn't have mattered if the pingers were working. They weren't looking at the right place.

We verified that isn't where the wreckage is, so it's really scandalous that the aviation industry has allowed this to rock on. Particularly since Air France 447 years prior where we don't have some way, either of making it impossible to turn off transponders, for one thing, or additionally creating some sort of capability to stream data from an airplane that's in trouble. It can be done.

HARLOW: It can be done and actually an airline in Canada, First Air, is doing it right now.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

HARLOW: So to you, Richard.

O'BRIEN: Yes. It costs money. It cost some money.

HARLOW: It does cost money, but in the grand scheme of things, a search like this costs more.

Richard, do you -- I mean, I know you talked to people at ICAO, the international sort of governing body in this. When is this going to happen? When we're going to have this real-time streaming data?

QUEST: Well, that's -- whoa, whoa, not real-time -- real time streaming data is not coming yet. There are -- there are some quite serious issues about bandwidth, computer and satellite capabilities. What we're looking at by the end of 2016 is that all aircraft over oceans will have to be tracked at least once every 15 minutes.

Now ICAO and IATA don't care how an airline does it so they're not prescribing a particular way in which it has to be done. This is a performance-based rule that said -- that will say every airline has to be able to be tracked every 50 minutes. Many airlines are doing it more frequently anyway. And Miles is absolutely right. The scandal and disgrace is that post-447, it wasn't done, and it's taken a year to get so-called ICAO consensus since MH 370.

HARLOW: Les, you are a pilot who flies 777s. You fly without this technology. Is it scandalous? Is it something that should not be allowed to happen again?

ABEND: I do fly with this technology. And it's a technology called ADSB, Automatic Dependence Surveillance Broadcaster contract with the airlines. I go across the pond to London with that technology.

Scandalous? I wouldn't call it scandalous. What I would call it is we found a hole in the system that should have been covered a long time ago. I don't see anybody conspiring to have ignored the situation. It's just a situation that's been going on for years, and we just discovered it with this incredible mystery that we're still dealing with.

HARLOW: Miles, to you, final word on if you're hopeful that things are going to change?

O'BRIEN: You know, I see a lot of inertia in the aviation industry on this particular issues of streaming data. The bandwidth issue is a red herring. We're talking about just uploading data when there's trouble at an aircraft. There's some technical details that need to be ironed out, but it can be done. And I think if we all insist upon it, and that means all of us who fly, there's a chance.

HARLOW: All right. Miles, Richard, Les, thank you very much.

Much more on this throughout the evening. Appreciate it from all of you.

And coming up next, I'm going to speak with the wife of a passengers on board Flight 370. She refuses to call herself a widow. She wants answers, because she -- you see the pictures there of her with her husband of 20 years and their children. She will join me live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: For the families on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the pain is still excruciating. Exactly one year after that flight disappeared questions are many and answers are few. But for the families of Chinese passengers, even just the process of trying to pay respects for their loved ones is a difficult one.

Here's our David McKenzie.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE (on camera): The family members of those on board MH-370 had planned to come here, to the Lama Temple, which is in Beijing, to pay their respects one year on. But frankly, there are more police here than family at this point. Some of them say they intimidated. Normally, I would be able to get through this area.

Excuse me. Don't push him.

Normally, I'd be able to get through this area. But through here is where there are some family members, maybe about 10 and they're not letting me get in.

Just come inside, please. You can't -- you can't do this. Don't touch me. This is -- this is family members who are trying to grieve and you're stopping us. Two hundred thirty-nine people died on this plane and you're telling me they can't come here to commemorate?

(Voice-over): "I just want to know why the police are treating us like this," says Ming. "We didn't do anything illegal. We are just looking for our families. Why are they doing this? On March 8 last year, my husband was on MH-370, was supposed to land at this time and he never came. I'm just looking for my husband."

(On camera): Though they want to come and commemorate one year after MH-370 has vanished, they are basically intimidating the families and many of the families have said they are being detained several times by the Chinese authorities and it's pretty tragic a year on.

David McKenzie, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Extraordinary. 239 people on board, 239 families' lives changed forever.

Joining me now via Skype from Melbourne, Australia, Jennifer Chong.

Thank you for being with me, Jennifer.

JENNIFER CHONG, FAMILY MEMBER ABOARD FLIGHT 370: Hi. And thank you for having me.

HARLOW: Your husband of more than 20 years, the father of your children was a passenger on this flight. What do you want people to know about him one year later?

CHONG: Yes, I want people to know that the family has to (INAUDIBLE) and it is a horrific year for the family, so much, so much, just to find answers of where our loved one is, and it is so frustrating that one year on we still don't have answers of what happened that night on the plane and the whereabouts of my husband and the rest of the passengers.

HARLOW: I know you have said that you do not consider yourself a widow.

CHONG: Yes, I don't consider myself, and I hope that (INAUDIBLE), you know, call me as widow because I haven't (INAUDIBLE) because I'm still holding on hope that I wouldn't give up my hope until I see some evidence, even one piece of wreckage.

HARLOW: Are you satisfied with the search so far?

CHONG: No. No. Because even those they spent so much on the search but there's no result coming out from the search, not even one piece of wreckage. So obviously I'm not justified.

HARLOW: This big report just came out from the team investigating what happened to the plane. I know it's long, and I'm sure you haven't read through the entire thing, but from some of the headlines, is there anything that stands out to you about it that concerns you?

CHONG: Yes, one of it would be the -- the flight data recorders, I find that the airlines actually allows a plane to fly with dead batteries, and yet they are not treating the families properly. This is -- I'm speechless.

HARLOW: You know, Malaysia Airlines is getting a new CEO. He's coming in to take over. And I wonder what you can say in terms of being a voice for a lot of these families. What do you guys want to happen differently in this next year that begins today of the search process?

CHONG: The search process we hope that the airlines will support the families for keeping the search on until they found the plane and the passengers, and I hope that what we want from the airlines is transparencies and answers. So I hope that they will treat us with more care and sensitivities. And would try to provide more support to the families and organizations as well so that we can work together to provide support to these individual families.

HARLOW: Jennifer, I'm so sorry for your loss. And we're thinking about you and all of the families of the 239 people on board, MH-370, especially today. Thanks for being with me.

CHONG: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up next, we're going to take you live to Madison, Wisconsin. You see a lot of police cars there. That is the site of the shooting of an unarmed teenager. Protests again in Madison, Wisconsin last night. A live report next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: So is one of the most fascinating places on the planet fast becoming a paradise lost? Tonight on "THE WONDER LIST" our Bill Weir takes us to the Galapagos Island where he found a bird with quite the evolutionary back story. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL WEIR, CNN HOST, "THE WONDER LIST": I am headed to a deserted island with a cold-blooded killer.

All right. This is cool. People don't get to step on this.

CARL CAMPBELL: No, no, people don't get to come here. Champion island.

WEIR: His name is Carl Campbell, big hearted in his love for animals, but cold-blooded in what he's willing to do to save them.

I hear the chip, the chirp.

CAMPBELL: Yes. So there's one just up here. We go a little bit further.

WEIR: Look, he's right here.

CAMPBELL: Yes.

WEIR: And he's brought me to this tiny haven to look for the one creature that inspired Darwin's ideas more than any other.

Hey, what's up, buddy? We came a long way to see you. The Floriana mockingbird.

My goodness. Look at that. Fully he doesn't mind us being here. He doesn't even seem to mind.

CAMPBELL: Yes. When Darwin came here, he collected these guys with a stick.

WEIR: Just whacked them with a stick?

CAMPBELL: Just whacked them with a stick. That's how naive they are.

WEIR: They didn't know to fear man yet.

CAMPBELL: They didn't know how to fear anything. They don't really have any predators out here.

WEIR: And there's maybe 90 left in the world.

CAMPBELL: In the world. Total. This is one of the world's rarest birds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Bill Weir joins me now here in New York. I love this episode.

WEIR: Thank you.

HARLOW: I love that your clothes had to be quarantined before you went.

WEIR: It's really amazing. Yes. They are so careful because on this islands even an air, a seed or one fly or mosquito, if it sneaks in on a plane, or through cargo, it can throw the whole ecosystem out of whack.

HARLOW: Wow.

WEIR: So I think that island, Champion Island, we were the first human beings to set foot there in a couple of years.

HARLOW: Wow.

WEIR: So we had to take all the clothes we're going to wear, give them to the Ecuadorian government, to the national park, and we didn't get them back until we're going right ashore.

HARLOW: The story that you bring us in this begins with how Charles Darwin got there, after Divinity School.

WEIR: That's right. People don't know this. The captain of "The Beagle" was sort of a manic-depressive, and his family wanted him to have a traveling companion. His best friend bailed. And he settled on this 23-year-old guy, just out of Divinity School because the captain was a devout Christian, and he has to -- was given a ship to sail in South America, and he thought this is my chance to prove the Book of Genesis.

HARLOW: Yes.

WEIR: And little did he know who he was bringing along.

HARLOW: Wow.

WEIR: Would change that idea for a lot of people.

HARLOW: So I've never been to the Galapagos. Most of our viewers probably have never been. These lava burps as you describe them create very different islands.

WEIR: Exactly.

HARLOW: I mean, some flats, some mountainous.

WEIR: And that's -- that was sort of the seed of Darwin's theory that on this island, which has high mountains, that means clouds stop, more rain, grass, so there's tortoises that come there. And over on this island it's flat and desert.

HARLOW: Right.

WEIR: And so that's more iguana country, and each creature over a millennia adapted to its prey, its predators, and the conditions around it. And so if you're an animal lover, this is the happiest place on earth, because it's like going back in time.

HARLOW: Sure.

WEIR: Pre-human existence.

HARLOW: But even not all species are able to survive forever there, right? George.

WEIR: Right.

HARLOW: The last of this certain type of tortoise. I think we -- a lot of us associate the Galapagos would eventually died.

WEIR: Right.

HARLOW: So you talked about this inner battle of having to play God, basically.

WEIR: Right.

HARLOW: On the island and what species to keep alive.

WEIR: Sure.

HARLOW: And what may have to be sacrificed.

WEIR: Yes. You'll see a lot more later tonight, but in the case of these giant tortoises, goats, these invasive goats that were brought to the islands by whalers and pirates had eaten all of the turtle food. And so they were starving to death. Then they realized my goodness, there's less than a hundred of these left. What do we do?

Well, what they did was they hired snipers and helicopters to shoot a quarter million goats over the course of five years in order to save this one creature. That worked. That was sort of a groundbreaking experiment in species survival.

HARLOW: Sure. And having to make that tough decision.

WEIR: Right. Yes.

HARLOW: So tourists are allowed on.

WEIR: Yes.

HARLOW: And I think 240,000 a year, which is actually not a lot at all.

WEIR: Yes. Compared to most resorts, yes.

HARLOW: When you were there, did you think at all about whether or not we humans should even be allowed to be in such a special place?

WEIR: Absolutely. That is a real sort of a fault line debate among conservationists right now, there are these sort of Garden of Edenists, who think certain corners of the planet should be no go zones for human beings.

HARLOW: Yes.

WEIR: But others would say that's not -- that's not realistic. You know. We got seven billion,. we're headed towards 10 billion in this century. We've got to learn how to coexist with these amazing creatures and be respectful of it, but still progress, and that's what this hour is really about.

HARLOW: Well, it's beautiful. You're pretty lucky you got to go. You and your team.

WEIR: I am. Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: Exceptional cinematography and storytelling. It's fantastic. Tonight 10:00 p.m. only here on CNN tonight. "THE WONDER LIST" with Bill Weir.

Thanks, Bill.

WEIR: Thanks, Poppy.

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HARLOW: Still so many unanswered questions in Madison, Wisconsin, tonight following Friday's shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer. Officials say the Officer Matt Kenny had used deadly force before shooting a man back in 2007, but that he was cleared of any wrongdoing in that case, describing the incident as suicide by cop.

On Friday Kenny was responding to a call when police say he was attacked by 19-year-old Tony Robinson and then forced to fire.

So where does the case go from here?

Let's discuss it. Joining me live in Madison, our reporter Rosa Flores, also Kristen Barbaresi of our affiliate WKOW.

Thank you, guys, for being here both.

Rosa, to you, at this point, what more do we know about the circumstances of what really happened on Friday night?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Poppy, if you look at the house that's behind us where this incident actually occurred, it's actually two units. It's a house, but it's two units. I spoke to the woman that's right next to the unit where this incident happened and she tells me she heard everything unfold. So while we haven't heard from an eyewitness, this is definitely a hearing witness.

She says that she heard all of these events unfold, the situation escalated. She -- he heard the gun shots and she of course has talked to authorities about all of this, but it's just very telling because she says, you know, these walls are paper thin, and so, you know, I asked her, were you afraid for your life? And she said of course, I was, so she went to the ground because of it.

So, again, investigators still here which is very telling. You see the crime scene tape, you see the investigators and one thing that's important to know, Poppy, is that the police cruisers that you see are from Madison Police. Now they're only protecting the perimeter.

HARLOW: Right.

FLORES: Because let's not forget that the investigation agency in this particular case is a state DOJ.

HARLOW: Right. Right. Right. Of course, the police can't investigate their own incidents. That's law in Wisconsin.

Kristen, to you. I thought it was interesting that Madison's police chief chose not to discuss Robinson, the teen's criminal history at this press conference, saying, quote, "I am not here to do a character work-up." What did you make of that?

KRISTEN BARBARESI, WKOW REPORTER: Well, the police chief has tried, I think from -- even before this incident happened to really kind of let people express themselves and not really inject himself into what's going on beyond what he says his duties are which he says are to protect the right to assemble and the right to free speech and I think the chief, after especially meeting with Robinson's grandparents which he did do, he's really sensitive to what they're going through and he just doesn't really want to -- I guess, play off their grief and intensify the situation.

HARLOW: Yes. And he said look, I'm not going to do that with a kid this young, right? A teen this young.

Rosa, do we know if this officer was wearing a body camera because that got so much attention after Ferguson.

FLORES: You know, I just talked to the police chief, Poppy, and I asked him that question and he said that indeed, no, that his police officers do not have body cameras. Now the obvious question is would he want body cameras for his officers and he said, you know, if the community wants body cameras he's not opposed to it, but he did say that a lot of the times what happens is it gives you transparency, but it might not give you what people believe is accountability, and I said what do you mean?

HARLOW: Got it.

FLORES: Because the transparency is always great. What do you mean about accountability, and what he said was, he said, it's about the laws. Because what people see in this video might be lawful, but people might not agree with it. So he says that it might add some tension, and we were talking earlier and she was actually telling me that this police chief is very forward and you can probably talk about this more, but regardless of what the circumstances are he's been out here and you were telling me regardless of day or night, he's out here talking to the media.

BARBARESI: Yes. Any time we've had any kind of shooting, not officer involved, but just shots fired, the police chief does -- Saturday, Sunday, whatever day of the week -- come out, addresses the public, lets us know what's going on, and that's kind of been his policy since he took office back in April.

HARLOW: Right.

All right. Ladies, thank you both. Appreciate the reporting. We'll stay on top of this story and bring you more when we have it.

Quick break. We're back in a moment.

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