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France Foils Imminent Attack; DOJ Opens Civil Rights Investigation on Baltimore Shooting; Interview with Representative John Conyers; Paris Prosecutor on Foiled Terror Attack; U.S. Warships Monitoring Waters Off Coast of Yemen. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired April 22, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:03] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

You're looking right now at live pictures out of Paris, France. At any moment now the prosecutor there is expected to hold a news conference about a foiled terror attack. We'll bring you any new developments when they happen.

Here's what we know right now about the suspect, though. Government officials say a 24-year-old man was planning to strike one to two churches in suburban Paris and then travel to Syria. He's described as an IT student. He's also been linked to the weekend killing of a woman.

According to our affiliates, police searched the suspect's parents' and sisters' homes this morning. They live in a town about three hours east of Paris.

Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is following the story for us.

Tell us more, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, this seems to be a situation where France, if you will, has very, very literally dodged a bullet. That police were responding to a call that someone had been injured. When they arrived, they thought they were witnessing -- and this is according to the French president who spoke just a few minutes ago.

He said that they thought they were witnessing a victim but they realized that he was actually under investigation. The French prime minister has said that this man had been under investigation last year and this year by the police and when they came across this man, they also with him found a vehicle, they say, there were weapons of war, which they describe as pistols, flak jackets, communications equipment, computer equipment as well.

And they say from all the material they found in the vehicle, it was very clear he was about to attack two churches and also that he planned to try to go to Syria as well. So the French believe that they have -- that they have narrowly averted over the weekend on Sunday this attack against the churches. But they also say -- the prime minister has also said it's because they're on a heightened state of alert, heightened vigilance that the police were able to quickly realize what was happening and thwart this attack -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So the main target of this man's attack two churches? Can you tell us more about that?

ROBERTSON: The police haven't identified the churches. He was picked up in the southwest of Paris on Sunday. But around about the same time, a French woman, a 32-year-old French woman was shot and killed. She was in Paris apparently for what the police are describing as professional training. She's a lady who had a 5-year-old daughter. And why this man killed her, that's still under investigation -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Nic Robertson, we'll let you get back to it. Thanks so much.

In other news this morning, outrage, anger and a growing demand for answers on the streets of Baltimore. This is what it looked like on Tuesday. Hundreds of demonstrators rallying to protest the death of Freddie Gray. The 25-year-old suffered a fatal spinal cord injury after being taken into police custody. The Department of Justice now opening a criminal investigation. The six police officers involved in that struggle now identified and suspended with pay.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is in Baltimore with more for you. Good morning, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. I was at that protest last night and it was just incredible the level of emotion, the height of emotion from the family members, the mother of Freddie Gray collapsing in grief. The brother who was screaming, wailing, and chanting with the crowd.

Well, those protesters, the family members, the people in that community, they're going to be gathered here at city hall. That is going to happen tomorrow because they are so incredibly frustrated they don't have answers. We're talking about 10 days after Freddie Gray was apprehended by police, three days after he died. Very little information.

And, Carol, I've been in touch with the legal team of the family. They've been very in close contact with family members who really have not had the strength to talk that much in public about what they are feeling and experiencing. And one of the frustrating things -- rather, two things is, one, they have not received the preliminary autopsy report which they would like as soon as possible.

And the second thing, and this is something that they said that they were told they would be receiving yesterday that they did not receive, and that is the body of Freddie Gray so that they can start making burial arrangements.

Well, I spoke with Billy Murphy, the family attorney, and this is how he describes, how he says the family, what they are coping, what they are dealing with now in light of the fact that they have so little. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLY MURPHY, GRAY FAMILY ATTORNEY: They're grieving because this has been so catastrophic and so sudden. Can you imagine how his mother feels that he's no longer here? Can you imagine how that community feels that yet again there's somebody victimized who didn't deserve it?

I mean, it's been traumatic for them. And in addition to being in grief, they are outraged. Outraged that the police did it to them this time after they've seen it done to others so many other times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:05:06] MALVEAUX: So what's happening today, Carol, there are three things. The Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights essentially prohibits a supervisor from interviewing those police officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray for 10 days. Well, that expires today. So it is the potential now for the police to directly talk to those who were involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray to get more information.

The second thing that is happening is at 5:00, it's expected that there will be another protest outside of the Western District Police Station. That is where we were yesterday. And third, we have been told by someone inside of the mayor's office that they are organizing working on potential of a press conference sometime in the afternoon to put the mayor again before cameras to take some of those questions, those tough questions to see if she has any more details to give the public as well as the family -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Suzanne Malveaux reporting live from Baltimore this morning. Thank you.

The death of Freddie Gray just one in a string of recent cases highlighting racial tensions and police violence. In just a few hours, Democratic congressman and ranking minority member on the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, will introduce legislation aimed at ending racial profiling. He joins me now.

Congressman, thank you for joining me, sir.

REP. JOHN CONYERS (D), RANKING MEMBER, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: What a pleasure.

COSTELLO: Thanks so much. A pleasure for me, too. Can you explain what's in your legislation?

CONYERS: Well, what we are trying to do here is for the first time federally criminalize racial profiling. We mandate retraining of officers and re-begin data collection on the subject racial profiling by police for the first time and then we collect data and we give grants for good police practices. That's essentially what the bill is about.

COSTELLO: Do you think what happened in Baltimore, sir, was the result of racial profiling?

CONYERS: I suspect that it probably was.

COSTELLO: And I ask you that -- I asked you that difficult question because the neighborhood was largely African-American. It has a crime problem. And some people say isn't it possible even if Mr. Gray were white that this could have happened.

CONYERS: You know, we're getting back to the message all lives matter. And what has happened, in the predominantly African-American communities is that police practices and racial profiling has become a thing that's been going on for decades now. And so I started introducing a bill to prevent racial profiling back in 2001 and had been introducing it in Congress ever since.

Now with these eight lives that have been taken, we've got a new look at it, a new approach, a new attorney general, and so things are moving far more rapidly than in the past.

COSTELLO: Well, let me ask you -- let me ask you the question this way. The Justice Department, you know, it investigated several of these cases, right? And it ruled out civil rights violations in two controversial cases. For example, in February of 2015, the Justice Department said it would not file civil rights charges against George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case. In the Michael Brown case, federal authorities declined to prosecute Officer Darren Wilson.

Would your bill do anything to make it easier for the Justice Department to file civil rights charges in such cases?

CONYERS: Well, I think that by making this a federal crime, it changes the approach quite a bit. But the bill wasn't aimed to do that specifically or exclusively. What we wanted to do was get a broad prohibition that makes it a criminal matter of where racial profiling occurs. And it's a federal crime, and that, we think, will be very helpful in reducing the number of incidents that occur.

COSTELLO: There is another problem that some say we have. For example, we have no idea how many suspects are actually killed by police because they're not required to keep those numbers. Should lawmakers deal with that issue, too?

[10:10:02] CONYERS: We do in the bill. We have a data collection requirement and that will take care of that problem.

You're right. It is a big concern if we don't know what the numbers are that we're dealing with on this matter.

COSTELLO: Congressman John Conyers, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

CONYERS: A pleasure, Miss Costello.

COSTELLO: Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a U.S. -- I'm sorry. Let's go to Paris, France where a press conference is now being held

by French prosecutors in this terrorism charge against the suspect who apparently targeted two churches in Paris. Let's listen.

FRANCOIS MOLINS, PARIS PROSECUTOR (Through Translator): Traces of blood on the driver's seat through the window of the car and the presence of bags. After these assessments and in fear of the attitude and suspicious behavior of the individual, he refused to have his vehicle searched.

The police decided to search the vehicle where it was discovered a Kalashnikov gun loaded and three cartridges, a revolver Sphinx .9 millimeter fully loaded, three mobile telephones, a laptop, a USB key, a sat nav and handwritten documents which contained information on personal targets and information in the terrorist division of the Paris prosecution. Was led to arrest people with regards to categories A and B of terrorist attempt.

It's a new breach of the new law of 2014, which applies to individual -- the crimes committed. The investigation was given to the Paris legal division and the director-general of the Ministry of Interior. The individual was detained in the context of this inquiry and a search was carried out at his home, which allowed the discovery at his home of three Kalashnikov guns, a charger, three -- fireproof vests, police arm bands, a camera, a hard disk, 2,000 euros in cash as well as SIM cards, documents in Arabic mentioning al Qaeda and IS.

The operations carried out on computerized information at his home allowed to establish that this individual with another person who was in Syria with whom he exchanged information with a view to committing an attack and the latter asking him to target a church. This target was confirmed by the sat nav that was seized and handwritten documents in the car. In view of all these elements which was targeting, it seemed, a church and also involving a third party.

It was concluded that there was the preparation of one or more crimes and a criminal offense by criminals with a view to preparing crimes. The examination of his personal computer and his sat nav to reconstitute the movements that the individual when he was arrested allowed one to assert his presence in -- on the 19th of April in Villejuif. At the time when Aurelie Chatelain was assassinated when she was in her vehicle seated on the passenger seat of the car consulting her laptop.

There have been churches in the area. The victim was killed less than two kilometers away and her vehicle has been flashed on the (INAUDIBLE) in direction of Paris and it was seen again at 8:40 going in the wrong direction, a journey which corresponds that logically one takes when one comes back from Villejuif to the residence concerned.

[10:15:14] The inquiry by the prosecution of (INAUDIBLE) after the assassination of Chatelain allowed to assert that she was killed by one bullet and not three. One bullet through the shoulder, went through the body and came to lodge itself in the seat of the car. Blood was found on the driver's seat of the car, whilst firemen show that they had not moved the body of the victim and I remind you was seated on the passenger seat. Similarly, a .9 millimeter gun was found on the passenger side. We quickly discovered that the same inscriptions were to be found --

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to jump out of this news conference. But you hear these prosecutors in Paris, France, describing how they stopped this terror suspect from targeting two churches but the suspect also managed to murder one woman who just happened to be sitting in her car near one of the targeted churches. Prosecutors also say they found an arsenal of weapons and references to al Qaeda and ISIS on this man's person or among his belongings.

We'll have much more on this and what went down in Paris and how authorities were able to stop this man when we get it here on CNN.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a U.S. backed government in ruins and an alleged cease-fire in limbo. We'll have the latest in the tug of war over Yemen.

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[10:20:22] COSTELLO: The U.S. and its allies are apparently not ready to back away from Yemen. Less than one full day after Saudi Arabia announced the end to its month-long airstrikes there it unleashes a new attack on rebel fighters in Yemen. It comes within hours of the U.S. launching drone strikes on militants there. The attacks on land are mirrored by a showdown at sea with Iran.

U.S. and coalition ships want to prevent Tehran from delivering weapons to those rebels who've already toppled the U.S. backed government. President Obama on MSNBC breaks from his administration's talking points and concedes yes, this is a strong message that Washington is sending to Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When it comes to the seas, we are obviously the dominant force and we're coordinating closely with all of our allies in the region sending a message that rather than another conflict in the region, we need to settle this down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Iran is also speaking with extraordinary bluntness.

Let's head to Tehran and CNN's Frederik Pleitgen.

Tell us more.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Certainly these new air strikes are something not very well received here in Tehran. This apparently happened at a base in the town of Taiz that was the rebels were trying to take there and then airstrikes were called in and apparently that attack was then repelled. However, of course, all of this is causing further tensions in the relations between the U.S. and Iran. At the same time of course you have the nuclear negotiations going on

which right now are going into the really decisive phase where they are trying to hammer out the technicalities for that final nuclear agreement.

There is still an unbelievable amount of distrust towards the United States here in Iran. I was able to speak to the commander of Iran's ground forces. This is a man who normally never speaks to international television. Here's what he had to say about what the Iranians think of the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. AHMAD REZA POURDASTAN, COMMANDER OF IRANIAN GROUND FORCES (Through Translator): At the moment, we consider the United States to be a threat to us because its policies and actions are threatening to us. We would like the U.S. to change its rhetoric and tone of voice so that our nation could have more trust in U.S. military leadership.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So there you have it. They still consider the U.S. to be a threat and of course right now with that standoff going on there on the high seas there with those Iranian ships, the Iranians are saying they never wanted to try to bring weapons into Yemen. They say that all their ships there are doing is carrying out anti-piracy missions. Nevertheless, of course, the U.S. has upped its presence and it's not something that's going down very well here in Iran again in this diplomatically very, very decisive time -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Frederik Pleitgen reporting from inside Iran this morning. Thanks so much.

Let's talk more about this with CNN global affairs analyst and former U.S. Delta Force commander, Lt. Col. James Reese.

Welcome.

LT. COL. JAMES REESE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Hi, Carol. Good morning.

COSTELLO: OK. Let's tackle first of all what that military official from Iran said today. He said he considers the United States to be a threat to Iran. Just talk? Should we be concerned?

REESE: Well, Carol, you know, both sides have been a threat to both sides for years. Let's call a spade a spade here. Iran has been an enemy of the United States and we have been an enemy of Iran for years ever since the -- you know, the overthrow and the capture of Americans at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. So I think it's a lot of rhetoric going on.

You know, the thing that I find very interesting is these -- you know, these are cargo ships that are being brought down from Iran, but cargo ships really don't do a lot of anti-piracy work. So I think that's kind of an interesting spin on, you know, cargo ships coming up Tehran that are going down to do anti-piracy work.

COSTELLO: OK. So it is necessary for the U.S. warships to be there in other words and you don't believe Iran when it says, hey, we're not delivering arms to the Houthi rebels.

REESE: Well, I think, Carol, you know, from my experience in the past, I've watched this, you know, both sides don't have a lot of trust. And I think if Iran wants to provide support, nonlethal support, you know, whether it's humanitarian, then they should have no problems to allow the Saudis to inspect those. And what we are moving that carrier group into the region that just gives us options. And it doesn't give us, it gives the Saudis options and different courses of action because of our premiere, you know, sea power that the U.S. brings to our --you know, our coalition.

COSTELLO: OK. So let's talk about how Saudi Arabia is conducting itself at the moment. So yesterday it says we're going to stop the airstrikes and we're going to begin a new operation called the Operation of Renewal of Hope. And then Saudi officials said, you know, we really want to seek a political resolution to this crisis and then the very next day they launched airstrikes again. What's going on here?

[10:25:20] REESE: Well, you know, the bottom line is they really wanted to get President Hadi back into power, the official, you know, guy that was elected to go in. That hasn't happened yet. And they met some of their requirements of destroying some of these artillery and major gun, you know, weapons positions but now they have to look at how do we get him in power? And if the Houthis continue to fight against forces that are backing or support President Hadi, then those forces don't have an air force and the Saudis will continue to support those ground forces with close air support just like we're doing to help the -- the Iraqis against ISIS.

So I don't believe that it will be a prolonged operation. I think -- or attacks. I think what it'll be is, if those forces that are there to help get the new -- the president back into power come into contact with the Houthis, the Saudis will support them with close air support.

COSTELLO: So you think --

REESE: And then back off.

COSTELLO: You think Saudi Arabia has a plan and it's just not conducting these airstrikes willy-nilly? There is a plan. Some plan.

REESE: There is a plan. There is a plan. Absolutely there is a plan. The Saudis have a very -- you know, very robust air force and military. There is a plan. They're not just going in there to do this, like you said, willy-nilly.

COSTELLO: All right. Lieutenant Colonel James Reese, thanks for your insight as always. I appreciate it.

REESE: Thanks, Carol. COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Italy overwhelmed. Another

boat full of migrants rescued at sea. Where this latest boat was coming from next.

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