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South Carolina Cop Charged with Murder; Insider Attack Kills U.S. Soldier in Afghanistan; Court Answer Juror Question on Boston Bombing Trial; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 08, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:34] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening in the NEWSROOM, outrage growing over another police-involved shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL SLAGER, OFFICER CHARGED WITH MURDER IN SHOOTING: Shots fired. Subject is down. He's got my taser.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: An apparently unarmed black man shot to death. The deadly shooting caught on tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The person who filmed the video is a hero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: What happened before that tape started rolling?

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin in South Carolina where outrage is growing after a police-involved shooting leaves an unarmed black man dead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what we're trying to push forward. This understanding that we don't want to be divided amongst a race.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That was the scene just moments ago on the steps of the North Charleston City Hall where a rally is taking place. The officer in question now in custody and charged with murder. An FBI investigation has also been launched after that shocking video filmed by an anonymous source shows the deadly encounter.

I want to warn you, the video you're about to see is disturbing. The man, 50-year-old Walter Scott, you can see him running from the officer. This incident began with a traffic stop over a broken taillight. That officer, Michael Slager, firing multiple times at Scott as he's running away. As I said, Slager has now been charged with murder.

CNN's Martin Savidge is in North Charleston in front of city hall. Tell us more, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. There's a demonstration going on as you so pointed out. And it is under the broad banner of black lives matter. There are people who are here from both the local community and also from elsewhere. And there's probably several dozen people.

They've been expressing a number of points of view. One of them has been that there should be the stepping down of the mayor of this community. Also, too, they pointed out that there is a difference between the racial mix of the police officers, which is about 70 percent white, versus the community which is about 50 percent African- American. And then on top of that there is just the anger over the shooting itself.

Here's some of what was said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This has been a long standing affair. This has been a long standing occurrence and something that we've had to live with. So what you're going to hear is the passion of the people right now. Not reacting to a video like you might be reacting to but reacting to a lived situation and the opportunity to finally share with the world, to finally put the spotlight on North Charleston City Hall. It's time. It's time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: And there has been talk that it is time for change. And that's pretty much what people have been saying here. No one is espousing any kind of violence. No one is espousing any kind of actual physical anger. What they're saying is change is needed here. Change politically. Change in the attitude of law enforcement, even change in the attitude of local media which they say has too often been on the side of law enforcement and ignoring the side of victims -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Martin Savidge reporting live from North Charleston, South Carolina.

As it stands now, that officer is charged with murder. The Department of Justice, the Civil Rights Division, is now working with the FBI to figure out exactly what happened and so are we.

With me now, HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson. Also here former New York City police detective Harry Houck.

Welcome to both of you.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

HARRY HOUCK, RETIRED NEW YORK CITY POLICE DETECTIVE: Good morning. COSTELLO: Good morning. Harry, I want to start with you.

HOUCK: OK.

COSTELLO: You've watched this tape a lot.

HOUCK: Yes.

COSTELLO: At any point as you watch that tape, did you say to yourself, oh, this officer is in fear for his life?

HOUCK: No. No. This was definitely not a justified shooting. I can't even see why the officer would have drew his weapon. This man was definitely running away from him. And in a situation like that where he automatically drew his weapon and fired eight times at this man, I mean, I'm just as shocked as everybody else seeing this video. There is no way this officer can justify. He has absolutely zero defense, you know, in trying to protect himself from prosecution in this case.

[10:05:03] COSTELLO: One of the most disturbing aspects of the tape to me is the officer fired seven shots and then he paused.

HOUCK: Right.

COSTELLO: And fired again. You don't learn that at the police academy, do you?

HOUCK: Well, I can't tell you why he fired eight shots, seven shots, paused then fired another shot. I really can't tell you what's going through this guy's mind. I'm trying to think what's going through his mind and I can't -- I can't understand it at all.

COSTELLO: OK. We don't know what started it all, right?

HOUCK: Right.

COSTELLO: We know that this Mr. Scott was pulled over because his taillight was broken, right?

HOUCK: Yes.

COSTELLO: Why would he get out of the car?

HOUCK: Well, what I've read is that apparently there's a warrant out for him for --

COSTELLO: Back child support.

HOUCK: Right. For back child support. And it's really funny because people run for a lot of stupid things. You know? I've had it happen to me before. You know, and at the end I've said, what are you running for? This is nothing. You know, it's a collar. I'm taking you in and you're out. All right?

Here apparently the guy did not want to be arrested. Ran off. And they got into an altercation where the officers tased him. All right. Apparently the taser didn't work or he got the taser away from the officer. But still, he was running away from the officer. All he had to do was wait for his backup. If -- if the officer did not want to fight him, thought he was too big or something like that, all the officer had to do was follow him. Run behind him. Wait for his backup to come and then take the guy in custody.

COSTELLO: Well, when you're going to arrest someone because you go back to your police car and you find out there's a warrant out for this guy.

HOUCK: Right.

COSTELLO: Is it -- is it protocol to arrest him yourself or do you wait for backup?

HOUCK: Well, it depends. I have made many arrests on my own. It depends on -- you know, when somebody starts resisting arrest, then the whole thing changes. Now you could be -- well, you know, this guy can hurt me. You know, it depends on how you would feel as an officer. I always used to call for a backup first, then place the person under arrest, and then hopefully if we got an altercation, my backup would arrive on time.

JACKSON: Right.

HOUCK: You know, and that's when I was by myself. But most of the time it's two officers in a radio car. Apparently in North Charleston it's one. All right. And that could be a problem. Maybe if there were two officers here maybe this might not have happened today.

COSTELLO: Well, it happened. OK. So there are protests going on right now at city hall. People are angry. Yet this officer has been charged with murder. Some people are wondering what more do you want?

JACKSON: Well, he has been, Carol. And if you examine it, first you have to look at the law and you have to match it to what the officer was doing. And there are really three things that need to be evaluated here. The first thing you're going to look at is the immediacy of the threat. Was there any imminent danger to the officer such that he might have been justified in drawing that weapon much less using the weapon.

The second thing then you turn to, Carol, is the proportionality of the threat to the force that was used. And did he act in a way that was grossly disproportionate to any danger or threat that was posed to him. And then the third thing you look at is the reasonableness of the conduct. And I think that's what ultimately a jury will be looking at. Now to the credit of this community, there was an arrest here. There was a charge here. And the mayor even is saying, you know what? When you're wrong you're wrong.

Ultimately we have a system of justice. It will be left to that system of justice. But by all accounts, Carol, when you examine that against the backdrop of the three things that I mentioned to you, and then the other troubling facts, the shots to the back. The fact that when you look at the entire video you see the officer looking at and placing what appears to be some type of weapon next to the body. The fact that he's unarmed. I mean, so many things are very troubling about this case.

COSTELLO: But I think that the people in that community are wondering, there's been a lot of police shootings in the state of South Carolina. I just have some statistics here, thanks to Paul Callan. So South Carolina police fired their weapons at 209 suspects in the past five years. A handful of officers were accused of pulling the trigger illegally but none has been convicted. That's according to an analysis by the state newspaper.

In South Carolina it remains exceedingly rare for an officer to be found at fault criminally for shooting at someone. In this case, there's video, right?

HOUCK: Correct.

COSTELLO: So if you're living in that community, you would wonder how often does this happen and what don't we know?

HOUCK: Well, I don't think we can't really say that. I mean, you know, as a detective, you know --

COSTELLO: 209 shootings and nobody is held accountable in any of them?

HOUCK: Right. Did you know the majority of people that were shot in South Carolina were white? I think it's 41-37 or something like that.

COSTELLO: I think it's --

HOUCK: All right. I'm just saying.

COSTELLO: Every shooting is -- should be investigated.

HOUCK: Making -- turning this into some kind of a racial issue. All right. We don't know if it's a racial issue. We don't know what was in that officer's mind at the time. Would he have shot the man if he was white? I don't know. And anybody who says who does know is lying. They have no clue. I got no clue.

JACKSON: White, black or green, I think that we all can evaluate that video and make the judgment that the actions are seemingly unreasonable under those circumstances.

HOUCK: Exactly. Exactly.

JACKSON: Particularly when you're not close. I mean, the person is running away. There's a distance, 10, 15, 20 feet. I don't know. We don't have a measurement.

COSTELLO: The Department of Justice is coming, with its Civil Rights Division, to investigate that very thing.

(CROSSTALK) JACKSON: (INAUDIBLE)

COSTELLO: Is this in part racially motivated?

[10:10:00] HOUCK: Right. And you know, and that's going to be hard to prove here, I think. Unless this man says that listen, yes, I did shoot him just because he's a black man, all right, it's insane. And you know, you know that the standard of proof for a civil rights violation is very, very high.

JACKSON: It's high.

HOUCK: All right?

JACKSON: It's intentional deprivation of a right. You know, but if you look at this, it's just very troubling, why shoot? The person is running away. What was the other justification and sometimes, Harry, you just have to look at the surrounding circumstances to get what the intent of the individual was.

And to your statistics there about South Carolina shootings, I mean I think we could agree that it's very difficult anywhere to sort of get police officers -- I don't want to say to have them held accountable, each situation is different. But law enforcement officers, certainly, you know what, they have to act under split second direction. This person seemingly had time to act and that was the choice that he made. I don't know that it was the proper choice.

HOUCK: Right. You can't go on the assumptions because there were that many shootings, that all the shootings were bad. All right? And because some --

COSTELLO: You can't go on the assumption that all shootings were good either, can you?

HOUCK: Well, but -- but, you know, I'm sure all of them have been investigated or they went to court. All right. And then they were either exonerated or they went to jail. OK. That's the system we've got to work with. All right. So we can't make an assumption that because there are so many shootings then a lot of them were bad and a lot of them --

COSTELLO: So I will say this. Hold on. I will say this.

HOUCK: OK.

COSTELLO: The officer in this video, he didn't appear stressed out at all to me.

HOUCK: No.

COSTELLO: He appeared very calm.

HOUCK: Yes.

COSTELLO: And supposedly he dropped that taser near the victim's body to cover up his crime. Couldn't that be a cultural problem?

HOUCK: Well, I don't know if that's a cultural problem. But I know that's a problem. If he did -- if he did, now in the video you really can't see what he's picking up. I can't tell if that's a taser or not.

COSTELLO: That's -- you can't. You can't tell.

HOUCK: All right? So I'm sure we're going to find out whether or not it was a taser or not. And this officer did go back to where he first fired the shots. One grabbed that taser and then put it down near the body, and this guy is in enough trouble the way it is. He's going to jail for the rest of his life.

JACKSON: Two things now quickly. The fact that he's picking up anything and bringing it next to the body is troubling and it goes to what we call a consciousness of guilt. If what you did was proper and appropriate, why would you need to do that in the first instance. The second issue, we don't need to assume in this case. Why? Because of these things. Right? These cell phones. People have them out. And that recorded exactly what we see. So should we believe our lying eyes? The reality is, it says and it seems to suggest what we say, and we see. I mean, period.

HOUCK: Exactly.

COSTELLO: I've got to leave it there.

HOUCK: I'm just saying.

COSTELLO: Harry Houck, Joey Jackson, thank you so much.

JACKSON: Pleasure, Carol.

COSTELLO: To both of you for your insight. I appreciate it.

HOUCK: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, an inside attack. A member of the Afghan National Army opens fire killing a U.S. soldier. An investigation now under way. We'll talk about that next.

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[10:16:23] COSTELLO: An American soldier is dead after being shot with a machine gun by a member of the Afghan National Army. Now it's unclear whether the gunman was a police officer or military but here's what we know.

The incident happened earlier today in Jalalabad. That's about 150 miles from the capital of Afghanistan. Officials say several service members have been wounded. U.S. troops were attacked. A senior U.S. embassy official finished a meeting with provincial leaders inside the governor's compound. Officials say the gunman has been killed.

Let's bring in CNN's senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh. You were just in Jalalabad. Tell us more.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, in this area U.S. troops are very limited in where they go. There are very few places in Afghanistan where they actually get out of their major bases and this is clearly a meeting being held in the governor's compound in Jalalabad with Afghan officials. There are U.S. diplomats there and of course security is called by U.S. military who are in position outside the building, we understand as well.

Now this meeting ended and the U.S. diplomats and military came out to take the helicopters according to Afghan Police that normally ferry them around that area. That's was when what we're told by Afghan officials, an Afghan soldier on top of an Afghan military vehicle opened fire with a heavy machine gun.

Now obviously in these situations because these insider attacks called Green on Blue instance in which rogue Afghan security forces attack NATO personnel because they are increasingly common. There's something called the Guardian Angels now in place which is a security detail of U.S. soldiers whose job is specifically to protect U.S. soldiers as they interact with Afghan security forces.

Imagine that surreal departure now in how the Afghan war is going. Now it seems as though these security detail would have fired back because the Afghan assailant was killed. Two other Afghan security forces were injured as well. It's unclear if they were also involved in the attack or quite how that came to be. As we know at this stage, one U.S. soldiers killed. That's the first fatality we've known publicly for U.S. forces since December and it's possible that there are some other members of the coalition forces there injured.

Mostly U.S. in that area. Polish, too. Unclear the nationalities here but a stark day really. A reminder of the threat now still in place for our U.S. forces on the ground there even though their mission is so much more limited, slightly extended by the White House by an announcement a few weeks ago but still America's longest war drawing to a close with this chilling insider threat against U.S. personnel. Fatal for one American soldier today -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Nick Paton Walsh reporting live for us. Thank you so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, day two of deliberations in the Boston bombing trial now under way. Jurors sending back questions to the judge as they try to reach a verdict. We'll talk about that next.

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[10:22:47] COSTELLO: Right now jurors are behind closed doors trying to decide the fate of Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. On Tuesday the jury deliberated for more than seven hours. No verdict was reached but jurors did send two questions back to the court.

So let's talk about that. Let's bring in CNN national correspondent Deborah Feyerick. I'm also joined by HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson. Welcome to both of you. Welcome back, Joey.

JACKSON: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So, Deborah, we now know what those questions were. What were they?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We do. There were two notes. And what it really shows is that the jury is paying very, very close attention to the language, the precise language being used. They had a question as to conspiracy. They also had a question as to aiding and abetting. With respect to conspiracy, they wanted to know whether conspiracy was a single event or whether it would take place over a continuing amount of time. The judge said it's not limited. So they could -- so yes, it's over time.

They also had a question about aiding and abetting. They wanted to know whether that was two separate ideas or whether it was one. The judge said it was one. So when you think about what they've asked about, conspiracy, conspiracy applies to count one, count -- using weapons of mass destruction, using a bomb to destroy a public place and destroying property. Two of those are death penalty eligible.

So they're being very careful on that. They also had a question when you look at the verdict sheet, the verdict sheet has the counts that are listed and then they've got to vote sort of on subcategories and they wanted to know if they find him guilty of a particular charge, do they then have to go to the subcharge. So can they just say yes, he's guilty of using a weapon of mass destruction or does he have to find that he killed Crystal Campbell, killed Lucy Lu, killed Sean Collier. The judge said they had to be unanimous on all of that.

COSTELLO: Wow. OK. So they're asking about conspiracy questions intrigues me because they're thinking very hard about whether, you know, Dzhokhar --

JACKSON: The brother --

COSTELLO: The brother.

JACKSON: Sure.

COSTELLO: Might convinced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to commit these crimes.

JACKSON: You know, I like the fact, Carol, that these jurors are asking questions like this because it's certainly our system at work. And these are people who you look at the nature of the heinous act could certainly phone it in and say you know what, it's enough for me that this person enacted so much devastation upon our community that I'm going to go back and vote guilty.

But they're not doing that. They're looking at what does conspiracy mean? Is it an intent to agree? And do -- you know, does everyone, the two have to agree to commit an act? Is it over a period of time? Is it not? Could you aid but not abet, or is aiding and abetting part of the same? [10:25:06] And so I think it's very significant that they are going

back in determining, do the facts match the law which would match, Deborah, that verdict sheet?

FEYERICK: Exactly.

COSTELLO: So Judy Clarke is probably saying to herself, maybe a small glimmer of hope?

FEYERICK: Well, it's interesting because she's the one who said, look, Tamerlan brought the pressure cookers, Tamerlan bought the backpacks, the BBs, the smoldering gun. It was Tamerlan's fingerprints who were all over this. And so now they are basically saying, OK, that conspiracy, does he have had to physically have touched that or is just knowing that this was going on, knowing that his brother was doing this, does that mean he aided and abetted? So it's parsing language on very serious death eligible accounts.

JACKSON: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: OK. So there are 30 counts. So the jury may or may not decide today whether he's guilty of all of them or some of them, and then the death penalty phase of the trial begins. And it's interesting. You know, before the trial starts, all of them were asked how they felt about the death penalty. And it was interesting to read some of their comments at the time.

So juror number 138 who's on the jury, he's a white man who works for the water department. He said, "Death can sometimes seem like an easy way out. It can go both ways I guess." Juror number 395, who's an executive assistant at a law firm, said, "I always thought I was against it but once you think about it, things change." Then there's juror 229. A homemaker. "If you would ask me this question 20 years ago I would have said definitely not."

So while some might think because of the heinousness of these crimes that it would be either easy to sentence someone to death, it really isn't until you have to do it, right?

JACKSON: It's so true, Carol. And you see it there from their comments. And what do you want on a jury? You want people like this who can be open-minded and now say, you know, absolutely kill. But you know what? It's a consideration. I'll keep an open mind. It's difficult. But I may apply it, I may not apply it. But we have to remember that these jurors are death penalty qualified.

That it's all those people, Carol and Deb, who came into that courtroom and said under no circumstance will I apply the death penalty, they're not on this jury. Those with open minds, they're sitting there.

COSTELLO: OK. Let me ask you something, Deb. So Judy Clarke is trying to paint this kid as, you know, somebody who is like enslaved to his brother's beliefs, but a lot of people in Boston feel that he should not get the death penalty because that would mean he would become a martyr. And it would be a much harsher penalty if he spent the rest of his life in prison. Why didn't she go that route?

FEYERICK: Well, and that goes to the whole, do you believe in the death penalty or do you not believe in the death penalty, from a philosophical point of view. But the reason she didn't go that route is look, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, for all intents and purposes, thought he was also going to die that day. The note he wrote in the boat, he was jealous that his brother died and he did not. He thought, OK, well, God has a different plan for me. I'm here. I'm going to tell my story of why I did this.

Judy Clarke says no, he was brainwashed. Some people say, look, let him rot in prison. Why are we going to give more of these want-to-be jihadis cause to come and do this since they're going to reach, you know, heaven.

JACKSON: Right.

FEYERICK: They're going to reach their own version of paradise. So it is an interesting question about, you know, why -- whether he should stay in prison. And that's what the jurors -- as Joey said, anybody who said, I'm against the death penalty, they're not sitting on that jury right now, and Judy Clarke has said, keep an open mind, just as you just said.

JACKSON: And we're going to see a lot more about that, Carol, when the penalty phase begins. I think we can all presume there'll be guilty here, there'll be a penalty phase, and we'll hear about mitigating, that is, why shouldn't you put him to death or why should you put him to death.

COSTELLO: Should be fascinating.

Joey Jackson, Deborah Feyerick, thanks so much.

In the meantime, another jury is trying to decide the fate of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez. The former New England Patriots player is charged with first-degree murder for killing Odin Lloyd. Among the evidence being weighed, testimony by the Patriots owner Robert Kraft as well as surveillance footage from Hernandez's home security system. Jurors could come back with a verdict in that case as early as today.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, newly minted White House hopeful Rand Paul says he will take aim at Hillary Clinton's character, in particular how honest she is. We'll dig into that.

And telling all about the Clintons most private moments at the White House. A new book has stunning revelations. We'll talk about those, too, next.

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