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Another Secret Service Scandal; Chaos in Ferguson as Two Police Officers Are Shot

Aired March 12, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, hour two. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks for being with me beginning with our breaking news out of Ferguson, two officers shot, a manhunt under way.

What will happen tonight in this Missouri city? Police there have now come under attack in a way protesters say they never wanted. One officer was shot in his face just under his eye, another in his shoulder. And all of this happened around midnight last night as people were leaving this demonstration in front of the Ferguson Police Department.

Let me just show you one photo here. This is the helmet of one of these police officers here splattered with blood. A protester actually captured the shooting on video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Acknowledgement nine months ago would have kept that from happening.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, there was just gunfire and now cops have guns drawn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Again, that was midnight. Fast forward to this morning and these pictures here, SWAT team members on a roof of this home, all in connection with this manhunt.

More on that in a moment, but that raid happened less than two hours after the chief of Saint Louis County police describe what happened to one of the officers. The chief said the shooter was about 125 yards away, taking aim from a hill likely with a handgun.

And just last hour, we heard from Attorney General Eric Holder offering all of his federal resources at the top level here to find this gunman to aid in this investigation, speaking, did not at all mince his words, cowardly, repugnant attacks, his words. Holder called the shooting and the shooter a damn punk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: What happened last night was a pure ambush. This was not someone trying to bring healing to Ferguson. This was a damn punk, a punk, who was trying to sow discord in an area that's trying to get its act together and trying to bring together a community that's been fractured for too long.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Very direct, very tough words from the attorney general. I have got Jake Tapper, host of "THE LEAD." He's there in Ferguson for us today.

We got a lot to cover, Jake. I know you have been there off and on for months and months, so you have that perspective, but first let me ask about this tactical operation at this home this morning. What has happened in the wake of that?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, the three individuals who were in that home were taken into police custody. They have not been arrested and the police are not discussing what's going on, but they are being questioned about the shooting that took place last night.

This is a familiar place to any of us who were here or watching the coverage back in November when that grand jury failed to return an indictment against officer Darren Wilson. And apparently what happened was, there were about two dozen police officers there shortly after midnight and shots were fired, police say, from roughly 125 yard as way up the hill on Tiffin, which is the road right there.

This is the same area that we heard shots back in November when we were covering the unrest after the grand jury made its decision, Brooke.

BALDWIN: And so when you saw the picture, when the Saint Louis County police chief shared the picture of one of those officers' helmets and you see the blood and you realized the bullet entrance was just two inches below his eye and is still lodged somewhere in his ear and the other officer, it is incredible to me to hear they're both out of the hospital.

TAPPER: No, it's incredible. It's strange to use the word lucky when it comes to a police shooting, but the idea that one police officer would be shot in the right shoulder, have the bullet go out through his back and the other police officer would be shot right under his eye and the bullet still lodged behind his ear and apparently the bullets missed any vital organs, both police officers have been released, it's an incredible blessing and incredible, again, it sounds strange to say good fortune, you know, but in this context it's lucky the injuries were not more serious or even fatal, Brooke.

BALDWIN: If and when there are more protests tonight and you have a now resigned police chief of Ferguson, Missouri, Jake Tapper, who is in charge?

TAPPER: Well, it's -- obviously, the Ferguson police will be in charge. Saint Louis County police will be in charge.

We have heard talk that there is being discussion right now, there is discussion about a curfew of some sort. That's not to say they have decided to impose it, but we have heard discussion of a possible curfew. Obviously, this is a town that is very much on edge with these two police officers having been shot.

There's also a lot of disagreement right now. Chief Belmar, who you mentioned just a few minutes ago, Brooke, said at his press conference these protesters were among the shooters who shot at the police officers. Well, protesters, they disagree with that vehemently. They say that the shooters were not among them, that they were in this parking lot area and the shooters were up on the hill yards away, but you have the police chief saying that the shooters were among them.

And that's certainly a strong charge being hotly disputed by many, many witnesses, many protesters, Brooke.

BALDWIN: That's part of the frustration, the confusion. You know, you have these in-town peaceful protesters, even those who come from out of town, who want to be part of this message and they're obviously trying to distance themselves from whoever this individual or individuals who tried to assassinate these two officers.

Final question to you, just perspective-wise, what's your sense in the community as far as what people think should happen to the Ferguson Police Department? Because you have one group that says, nix the police department, just have Saint Louis County in charge, and the others saying, no, we need our own police department, just take out a couple bad apples. What's the situation?

TAPPER: Well, there are a lot of different opinions. We should talk about the fact that obviously this -- the group of people who come out here to protest is not a monolith. Most of them are peaceful protesters. Most of them want change, whether it's institutional change or a specific change, such as disbanding the Ferguson Police Department, that's up to the individual.

There are also sometimes with these Ferguson protesters a smaller group of angrier individuals who are cursing, who can be potentially violent. And to say that this whole group wants one thing does a disservice to the protesters here.

BALDWIN: OK. Jake Tapper, I know you're there live for your entire hour and through the evening. We will be watching for you in the next hour. Thank you so much.

As we mentioned, we heard from Eric Holder, the attorney general, just a little while ago speaking, condemning the attacks, not the only person to call the attack on police in Ferguson an ambush. Listen to the chief of the Saint Louis County police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON BELMAR, SAINT LOUIS COUNTY, MISSOURI, POLICE CHIEF: This is really an ambush is what it is. I mean, you can't see it coming. You don't understand that it's going to happen and you're basically defenseless from the fact that it is happening to you at the time.

And that is something that is very difficult to guard against when you have a group of officers standing in a large group. And then, you know, you have gunfire, certainly gunfire directed at them. We were very close to having happen what happened in the NYPD with

officer Ramos and officer Liu. We could have buried two police officers next week over this. And I didn't really expect the amount of agitation at times that we saw last night out of the crowd based on the news that happened yesterday. And not everybody there expressed agitation, but we certainly are always cautious, but I didn't expect obviously either that we would have two police officers shot last night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's stay in Ferguson. I want to bring in a reporter who was in Ferguson overnight and witnessed the shootings. He's John Eligon. He's the Midwest correspondent for "The New York Times."

John, welcome.

JOHN ELIGON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Hi.

BALDWIN: Just begin. You were there. Tell me what you saw, what you heard.

ELIGON: Yes, well, at the time I was in my car when the shooting happened. It was actually settling down a little bit and I was in my car charging my phone actually and I was like right across from the police station facing the backs of the protesters. And I could see the cops.

And then I was actually contemplating going home because -- going back to my hotel, because it quieted down and it seemed like it was fizzling out. And then probably about five minutes after I had that thought in my mind, you just hear pop, pop, pop, pop, and I really just saw -- I saw all the cops just hit the ground. I saw a bunch of protesters hit the ground and I saw people running every which way.

And initially I wasn't sure how big of a deal it was because I covered protests back in August and November and I have heard gunshots before, but you never -- in those cases, no one was shot. And so at this point I wasn't sure if this was just shots again, but then it seemed like there were some officers who were being dragged by other officers, so that was my first kind of clue that maybe something was off here, but I wasn't really sure until later that they confirmed that there were officers shot.

BALDWIN: Did you ultimately get out of your car? I ask only because aisle curious to hear how these other demonstrators responded to the pop, pop, pop that you heard?

ELIGON: Yes. Well, I sat in my car for awhile because what happened with all of that right away was, you saw a lot of cops who, you know, were crouching down behind, you know, cars, behind retaining walls, behind gates and they had their weapons drawn. And I don't want to just pop out of a car and make any sudden moves, for obvious reasons.

BALDWIN: Of course. ELIGON: And you saw some demonstrators were actually literally crawling on the ground and then there were others who were walking by with their hands up.

So there was a lot of -- you know, a lot of tension. It was a very tense atmosphere with the cops looking around and then eventually the cops -- a tactical unit seemed to go up the hill across from the police department, where they thought the shots came from. And they were hidden behind like -- behind a shield and they had their weapons drawn.

And one of them flashed his lights toward my car and I turned on my inside dome light on and kept my hands up, so they saw that I wasn't a threat. And later as I saw it settle down, then I eventually got out of the car and started to talk to people and talk to cops and stuff about what had happened.

BALDWIN: So, John, if this is midnight or overnight hours at this point, are we talking dozens of people out and about or about a hundred? I'm just trying to picture this.

ELIGON: Well, you mean when the shooting occurred?

BALDWIN: Yes.

ELIGON: Yes, I would say less than a hundred or so.

I would say at a tight -- it was probably around 200 -- more than 200 folks out there, but at this point I would probably say a hundred or less or fewer people were out there.

BALDWIN: And from whomever you're talking to today, what might Ferguson look like tonight? What might Ferguson look like in the next month? And might there be more violence? What are you hearing?

ELIGON: Yes, well, I guess that's the million-dollar question. I talked to a couple of activists today and they said they might actually not protest tonight, that there might be a vigil of some sort that they will go to.

And I think out of respect they might hold off on the protests. But people in the movement have been staunch that the movement will continue and that they are not to blame for what happened. You know, they are just as mad about, you know, the people who fired the shots as the cops are. So it's going to be interesting to see what comes forward, because I think even before the gunfire happened, that there was some tensions and there were people saying, you know, this is what's to come all summer as it gets warmer, as people start not having school anymore and people start coming out.

So I think there is genuinely a lot of concern about what's going to happen here going forward.

BALDWIN: John Eligon there for on the ground with "The New York Times," thank you so much, John. We will obviously stay with you.

And our crew is on the ground.

Coming up next, we will speak with a police officer, an African- American police officer. This is a young man currently active on a police force in the United States, what he says, why he says things have gotten worse since being an officer since all of this really became part of our national conversation and why officers, he says, are now afraid to do their jobs.

Plus, one of the Secret Service agents on the president's personal detail a apparently crashed into the White House barricade possibly after a night of drinking, and there is word he and another agent got special treatment -- the brand-new scandal rocking the agency ahead on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Breaking news here on CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A manhunt now under way for the gunman who shot those two police officers overnight in Ferguson, Missouri. I can tell you at least this is some positive news. Those two officers are now out of the hospital. But the situation is incredibly tense there and all of this -- just think of the timing here -- this comes on the heels of months and months of unrest in Ferguson following the killing last summer of Michael Brown.

As those demonstrations gained momentum, one police officer, an African-American officer in New Mexico, penned this open letter specifically to African-American protesters. His name is Anwar Sanders, and said it was -- quote -- hard for him to "sit in silence."

Let me just read part of this letter that he wrote some time ago. "What I think is lost in the raw emotions of Ferguson is that we must be careful not to create a deeper chasm between communities of color and law enforcement. The historical skepticism that blacks have of law enforcement has merit, but we all have to work together to end institutional racism in America. Both sides need to do away with the stereotypes that prohibit us from seeing each other's humanity."

And officer Sanders is joining me again.

We keep calling you up, Anwar, because you just -- we just -- I appreciate your voice and your perspective, so thank you very much for coming back on the show.

ANWAR SANDERS, NEW MEXICO POLICE DEPARTMENT: No problem. Thanks for having me again.

BALDWIN: You know, you wrote this letter to these Ferguson protesters last year. And can you just tell me, in the months since then, what has changed for you as an officer of the law?

SANDERS: Oh, there's absolutely been an increase of violence. There's been vandalism on police vehicles. There's been just a constant threat. You know, we get the people who will come up to us and say, hands up, don't shoot, you know, trying to test you and try to get a reaction out of you just based off these other situations that happened across the country, so...

BALDWIN: I also understand you were saying that some officers were acting slower because they're afraid to use deadly force because of any potential backlash.

SANDERS: Right.

There's officers I see in the department who, you know, are in potentially very violent, lethal situations. One case comes to mind where there's a subject barricaded in the house, brandishing a knife and he's threatening to kill whoever comes in and the officer Tases the man and rolls around with the individual that has a knife. And that's potentially a dangerous situation where one might use a firearm instead, because, you know, that knife gets in you, you're going to potentially die.

So I see that officers are more reluctant to use real deadly force because they're afraid of the actual backlash, which is -- that's the complete opposite, because at the end of the day, your goal is make it home at the end of your shift, to go home to your family.

BALDWIN: That's exactly what the attorney general just said in reference to his own retired law enforcement brother.

Let me get you, Anwar, to react generally. We had this Department of Justice report in the wake of Ferguson, the city and the police department, essentially saying that police were unfairly targeting African-Americans in this community, you know, writing tickets, you know, were giving them fines just to raise money for the police department and for the town. And obviously was part of it was financially motivated. Part was of it was just sheer discriminatory.

As a police officer, how do the steps work just to make sure this kind of discrimination doesn't happen?

SANDERS: I don't know. I guess it would be different within each department.

I just -- I always have a hard time with the singling out individuals' cars and stuff like that because it's -- that's not how it works. You need probable cause and you need reasonable suspicion and you need all these other factors to actually initiate a traffic stop, so somebody just being black or being white isn't enough to pull a car over legally.

So I always have a hard time with that. I know when I work I don't even know what color the person is until I actually get to the window to see him, so I'm not -- I can't really speak on that because I'm sure in exact detail how these officers are -- they're saying these officers are discriminating against these people. Like, is the demographics of this particular neighborhood mostly African-American, where mostly African-Americans will be subject to being pulled over by law enforcement?

So there's a lot of questions that you got to -- when you deal with that. BALDWIN: Well, we do know the community in Ferguson is majority

African-American and that it's not reflective on the force, something a lot of people are calling for change for. Anwar Sanders, thank you so much for coming on again and also, of course, for being a police officer and protecting us. I appreciate you.

SANDERS: Thank you very much, Brooke. Take care.

BALDWIN: You got it. Same to you.

Just ahead here on CNN, what investigators could be doing right now to try to find the gunman who shot those two police officers in Ferguson around midnight.

And next, two Secret Service members in big trouble after their car crashed into the gates around the White House, one of the agents very high up, President Obama's number two guy as far as his personal detail goes. Did they get special treatment after a night of partying?

You're watching CNN. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just in to CNN, the Coast Guard is suspending its search for 11 service members missing after that helicopter crashed off the Florida Panhandle just during a training exercise.

Search-and-rescue coordinator said the decision was made -- quote -- "with heavy hearts." Teams have spent more than 36 hours going over this 94-square-mile area. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the tragedy is -- quote -- "a reminder to us that those who serve put themselves at risk both in training and in combat."

And, today, yet another scandal jolting the Secret Service, bringing more public shame to the beleaguered agency tasked with protecting the president and his family. Two senior agents are now reassigned and under investigation after crashing a government car into a White House barricade last week, possibly after a night of drinking.

Neither was arrested, neither given a sobriety test, and this is just the latest embarrassment. I know you remember some of these, agents caught soliciting prostitutes in Colombia, agents too drunk to stand in Amsterdam, agents to quickly notice and stop a White House fence jumper.

Let's go to the White House for our correspondent there, Michelle Kosinski.

So, I could continue on. I know you know these examples as well.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I was just thinking that.

(CROSSTALK) KOSINSKI: The list is so long now.

BALDWIN: It's long and it's growing. What does the White House have to say?

KOSINSKI: Right. And it's almost year by year you see one of these incidents. This is something that the White House is embarrassed by as well. I mean, they just appointed this new Secret Service director. He was officially named permanently to that position less than a month ago, so they don't really want to talk about this, but they really have to.

So what the White House is saying is that, yes, the president is disappointed. He knew both of these agents who have been reassigned, so they're until with the Secret Service at least as of now, but they have been reassigned to nonsupervisory, nonoperational roles.

We were talking to a White House administration official about the timing of this. I mean, there is the allegation that there was something of a cover-up here, that these officers had crashed into some barricades, that people on the scene wanted to test them to see if they were drunk, possibly even arrest them.

But the allegation is that a supervisor who was on duty, a supervisor with the Secret Service allowed the two agents to just go home. But the White House says they understand that that's the allegation. They're not giving any more detail, but they don't think that the Secret Service tried to keep information from the White House.

And the White House says, well, that would have been impossible anyway. But this administration official does say that even the White House at this point does not know all of what happened that night and that's why it's now under investigation with the inspector general's office of the Department of Homeland Security, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Sure, and I'm sure they want to wait until all those details and T's are crossed, I's are dotted before coming out.

(CROSSTALK)

KOSINSKI: And I think what's interesting is that all of these details that come out -- and they come out almost hour by hour -- it's very similar to the fence jumper incident, when we find out what really happened, that the guy was really armed, and we found out that a full day later.

But the Secret Service is saying absolutely nothing about this.

BALDWIN: Michelle Kosinski, thank you.

We will take you back to our breaking news here, a manhunt under way in Ferguson, Missouri, for the person or persons who shot two police officers last night. We're live with Don Lemon next. He was there for many of these protests in the past couple of months and just spoke with a young person who lives there -- that perspective coming up. Also ahead, crime scene investigation, how investigators looking at those shell casings, talking to eyewitnesses, trying to track down the gunman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)