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Anger Grows, Protests Intensify in Baltimore; What Happened to Gray Inside Police Van; Passed-Out Passengers Force Emergency Landing; Ex-CIA to Learn Punishment Today; Bush 41 Home Alarm Broken for Over a Year. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 23, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:11] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN: Thanks, Chris.

It is time now for "NEWSROOM" for Poppy Harlow in for Carol Costello.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN: Hi, Poppy.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, guys. That's my favorite part of the show, "The Good Stuff." I think we should end every hour. Every hour with that. What a great story.

Have a great day, guys.

CAMEROTA: See you later.

PEREIRA: You too.

HARLOW: NEWSROOM starts right now.

Happening now in the NEWSROOM, tense moments in the streets. Protesters in Baltimore compared to a lynch mob by the police union. Hundreds of people demanding to know how did Freddie Gray die in police custody.

Also, another embarrassment for the Secret Service. Does it really take 13 months to fix an alarm system at the home of a former president?

And then this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was holding on to my bible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Turbulence so bad. Passengers on this flight got sick. One even had to go to the hospital. Why the flight had to land in Boston after an international trip.

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Good morning, everyone. I am Poppy Harlow in today for Carol

Costello. Thanks so much for being with me. It is 9:00 here on the East Coast. Good morning to you all and this morning, we begin with a city on edge. Baltimore bracing for more protests and the angry demand for answers.

Protesters calling for transparency in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man detained under murky circumstances and suffering a fatal spinal cord injury before even arriving at the jail. New cell phone adding new questions.

This shows the police van stopped less than a block away from where Gray was arrested. It may be the last time that he was seen before the fatal injury.

Our Suzanne Malveaux is in Baltimore. She has been covering this story from the beginning. She joins me this morning with the latest.

What do we know at this point, Suzanne?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The protests, these rallies, have really grown in intensity day by day. We also expect that they're going to grow in size at noon. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is going to be holding a rally. That is where Freddie Gray was first apprehended, and then 3:00 today is when we expect thousands of people to be here outside of city hall, the NCAA, the pastor of the family, as well as the mother and stepfather of Freddie Gray. All of them asking the question, what happened to that young man just a week ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): Protests continuing into the night in Baltimore. After another tense standoff with police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch yourselves. I got you.

MALVEAUX: Hundreds of protesters demanding answers in the death of Freddie Gray. People frustrated, filling the streets, blocking traffic. Some even laying down on the middle of the intersections.

This as new video shows Gray minutes after his initial arrest, the last time he was seen publicly and alive. The video shows Gray not moving, laying half in, half out of the police van. This is when police say they shackled his ankles.

JACQUELINE JACKSON, WITNESS: He was not responding. His head was down, his feet was like this. And they picked him up and threw him up in the paddy wagon.

MALVEAUX: What exactly happened to the 25-year-old when he was placed back in that van remains a mystery.

MICHAEL DAVEY, FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE ATTORNEY: Something happened in that van, we just don't know what. MALVEAUX: An attorney for the Baltimore City Police Union tried to

answer questions Tuesday despite calls from protesters demanding the arrest of the six officers involved.

The Fraternal Order of Police defending the officer's actions.

DAVEY: In this type of an incident you do not need probable cause to arrest, you just need reasonable suspicion to make the stop and that's what they had in this case.

MALVEAUX: More than four days after Gray died from a nearly severed spine, CNN has been told the body will be released from state custody soon, and the family wants an independent autopsy. His relatives hoping for a second opinion on the cause of death.

MARY KOCH, FREDDIE GRAY FAMILY ATTORNEY: The most that you can say about Freddie Gray's family is that they are totally devastated. They tried to process the loss of their son, their brother, their friend.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: And the Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, she has reached out to the family, she wanted to meet with them to express her condolences and her support. The family declined, they say now is not an appropriate time. Their priority now is figure out arrangements to bury their son -- Poppy.

HARLOW: And I know they still want to do that second independent autopsy before they even have a chance to bury him, so it may be a while.

Suzanne Malveaux, reporting for us live in Baltimore this morning. Thank you, Suzanne.

[09:05:08] And while Wednesday's protests were smaller, demonstrators were just as angry.

On the ground, a chaotic scene as the call for answers gets louder by the day. Some of the most compelling images include this one. Taken by our very own Brian Todd, it shows young children participating in this protest helping to block a major intersection.

Joining me now to talk about it, Faraji Muhammad. He's the host of the radio show "Listen Up" on public radio station WEAA in Baltimore. He has also been involved with protests against police brutality since early March.

Thanks for being with me. I appreciate it.

FARAJI MUHAMMAD, RADIO HOST, "LISTEN UP": Good morning, Poppy.

HARLOW: Good morning. I want to read you part of a statement from basically the Fraternal Order of Police, so the police union here, referring to some of the protests as, quote, "a lynch mob," saying here, "The images seen on television look and sound much like a lynch mob and that they are calling for the immediate imprisonment of these officers."

Given the context around those words, though, what is your reaction to hearing that?

MUHAMMAD: I mean, what we're seeing right now here in Baltimore, especially in west Baltimore, we're seeing the people that have been are tired of the contentious relationship between the police and their community, and I think that it's not a lynch mob, and I think that type of language characterizes a group of us who are striving to make sure that things on the ground are in a way that is not going to be threatening to each other and to other folks, but at the same time people are really angry.

And I think that it's important that we understand that the anger, the raw emotion that you are seeing right now in Baltimore is a result of a lack of justice, and when there is an injustice there is going to cause an imbalance, whether it's in peoples' response, whether it's in peoples' behavior, but the emotion comes out of the fact that throughout this case there has been any -- there hasn't been any resolution, there hasn't been any justice, and most importantly, when there is an injustice, that's because there hasn't been really any truth that has been shared with the community, with the family, about what happened to our brother, brother Freddie Gray.

HARLOW: So take a listen to this. Our affiliate, WJZ there in Baltimore had a chance to sit down with the Baltimore police commissioner, and I want you to listen to something he said. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY BATTS, BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT COMMISSIONER: Rushing to judgment or skipping over evidence or cutting it short to just give an answer, to give to an answer is not fair to that family, it's not fair to those police officers, it's not fair to the community as a whole.

We're going to have to have the community come together and calm our community. I have been in full scale riots, I've been in multiple times, and I have seen what cities look like after these things take place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: He is saying, do not rush to judgment. Are you at all concerned that anyone is rushing to judgment here?

MUHAMMAD: Well, I think that's always the concern because in the course of an emotional outcry like this, we don't want to -- we don't want to overlook the opportunity to have truth presented in this whole process. However, the rush to judgment is something that I think that needs to be really evaluated because this community in particular is considered to be what they call a high crime, high drug activity community.

But you still have people there, good people, who are -- who live there, who've been a part of that community for many, many years, and so I think that in order for us not to rush to judgment, let's hear all the facts. There should be full disclosure as to what happened.

HARLOW: Yes.

MUHAMMAD: From the time brother Freddie got in that paddy wagon to the time that he got to the district, the Western Police District. So we're saying -- not to rush to judgment, then we should have a greater rush to making sure that those facts are should be made clear and public so people can have an understanding. Right now everybody is in the dark. We don't know what happened. We don't know what actions the police took. We have a little bit of limited video footage, but at the end of the day we need truth and we need justice to come from that truth.

HARLOW: And you have said that you feel like the hands of the mayor and the police chief are tied. What do you mean by that?

MUHAMMAD: Well, I said that because I know that they have limited -- they only have limited powers in this whole issue. Myself and many other young activist in the city of Baltimore, from the time that this whole process started back in January as we were dealing with the Ferguson case, we went down to the state capital of Annapolis and we testified and we lobbied along with many others, many other community organizations, we lobbied to make sure that there was some type of police accountability reform in bills.

And do you know, Poppy, that when we went down there in spite of the great support that we got, in spite of all of the energy that we brought, that those 17 police accountability bills were dead on arrival. They went through the Senate but they went through the House of Delegates, but at the same time they were tabled and not one of those 17 police accountability bills were moved by the Maryland state legislature.

So when we have this conversation about police accountability, police reform, transparency, and I recognize that a lot of the things that happen with police officers exist beyond a state level because of the fraternal order of police, their policies, the law enforcement bill of rights, but when the state decides that it's not going to move further along on this issue, then what resolutions do you give to the people?

How can we be justified or how is it justified to ask young people to be respectful of those in authority and in uniform when those in uniform don't show respect for us?

HARLOW: And I know, Faraji, you're talking a bit about this law enforcement officers bill of rates to the mayor of Baltimore. Has actually lobbied to change and make several revisions to, but has not been successful in that effort at this point. We're going to talk about that more with our next guests but to you --

MUHAMMAD: That's crazy.

HARLOW: To you, Faraji, thank you very much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

You know, one of the big questions that the protesters want answers is what happened inside the transport van that was carrying Gray. On Wednesday Captain Steve (INAUDIBLE) from the Cobb County Police in Copper Georgia, took CNN inside a police van just like the one carrying gray that afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. STEVE FORD, DEKALB COUNTY GEORGIA POLICE?: There is a metal partition down the middle, that way we have the capability of separating prisoners if we need to, and once the arresting or transporting officers, takes the prisoner inside the van, the van is equipped with 10 seatbelts all the way down, so typically a prisoner would be handcuffed behind their back, and they would seat belt the prisoner in the van for safety.

Our public safety director , Dr. Cedrick Alexander, as well as us, we're always very concerned with the safety of the prisoners we are transporting. The van is equipped with air-conditioning and heat as well as interior lighting. Interior lighting is so that the transporting officers can view what's taking place inside through the partition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, Paul Callan, joins me now.

One thing we did not see, Paul, in that van, our camera. Should there be cameras?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, there probably should be, given what we've been seeing happening across the United States with police- prisoner interactions. I mean, we're --- it's like an epidemic of behavior that is just very, very disturbing. Now we have to see what all the facts are in this particular case.

HARLOW: Right.

CALLAN: Certainly I think video cameras would help both sides.

HARLOW: We've been hearing a lot about this law enforcement officers' bill of rights, and that's part of why, for example, we haven't heard any statements from the police officers, right? They have 10 days before they have to say anything at all to a supervisor in a case like this. What protection does it give to the officers and how do you think it walks that line between their rights and the public's right to know?

CALLAN: Well, this is not unusual, especially in big cities. Unions have negotiated contracts on behalf of the police officers, allowing them to get a lawyer if they are facing criminal charges just like a normal citizen would be able to, and certainly because it is their job to report the facts of the alleged crime, they have a job that requires them to make a statement, but on the other hand an ordinary citizen can remain silent.

So you have to find a way to balance those rights when a police officer becomes a suspect. So I'm not surprised by the Maryland rules.

HARLOW: Yes.

CALLAN: It's similar in other cities.

HARLOW: You know, there's a really important pursing of words going on here, and that is, was it legal to pull over Freddie Gray in the first -- at the first -- in the first place, to arrest him, right? There is this difference between probable cause and reasonable suspicion.

You heard the attorney for the officers bring up a very important Supreme Court ruling and say that they were justified given this ruling. What is it?

CALLAN: Well, the Supreme Court has handed down a number of decisions in this area but the most important one was the "Illinois versus Wardlow" case, which says essentially that if somebody runs away from you and you're a police officer, believe it or not, that does not give you reasonable suspicion to stop somebody. However, if it's a high crime neighborhood, if the person is, say, reaching for his belt in a way that might be indicate reaching for a weapon, they can stop, frisk and detain.

And that's what police are saying here. That he was not only running but he was in a high crime neighborhood which gave them the second prong of the test allowing them to make the stop.

HARLOW: So their attorneys saying those reasonable suspicion here. What is also interesting is that the attorneys for the police said yesterday, "Our position is something happened in that van. We just don't know what."

It's a very vague statement. It's hard to read. What are they saying? Who did what wrong? Were you surprised that they came out with a statement like that?

CALLAN: Yes, I am surprised because when you look at him being detained and apprehended and being put into the van in the video, he looks incapacitated to me.

[09:15:02] He looks like he's hurt. So, you wonder why didn't they leave him on the ground and call an ambulance. Once he is put in the back of the van and the van maybe pumps and, you know, get jostles as he's on his way to the station, something happens to his spine. Now, the police are responsible for his welfare once he is in custody, and it's criminal -- it's criminal negligence if they don't make sure he's OK. But I'm not sure the blaming the van is going to get the cops off the hook here.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: There's also that 30-minute period between the time that, you know, Freddie Gray asked reportedly for medical assistance and when he actually got it, when the paramedics were called.

CALLAN: Exactly, yes. HARLOW: It's something that's being called into question.

Paul Callan, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Still to come here in the NEWSROOM: a plane forced to make an emergency landing. Three passengers passing out, and now, we are getting new information this morning about what happened on board.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Welcome back.

We have new information on the scary emergency landing yesterday in Buffalo, New York. The pilot of a SkyWest flight from Chicago headed to Connecticut had to land in New York state yesterday after three people on the flight lost consciousness.

The jet descended 28,000 feet in just three minutes. That's incredibly fast for a descent. People on the flight said it felt like a roller coaster.

CNN correspondent Jean Casarez with me now following it all.

It would be one thing if it was one passenger that think maybe it was a medical issue, and three passengers, and it sounds like they're not sure why.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And it originally was one passenger, SkyWest Airline said. But this was a United Express flight yesterday that was going from Chicago bound for Connecticut.

[09:20:01] It made that emergency landing, and SkyWest Airlines has just confirmed with us that three passengers reported to lose consciousness on that plane, but there was no indication at all of a pressurization problem.

Now, Poppy, they took us through, SkyWest confirms, that the pilots believed there was a pressurization problem initially. So, follow the proper protocol for descent. And we do know from Flight Radar 24 that the flight descended from 38,000 feet to 10,000 in three minutes.

HARLOW: And it usually takes about 20 minutes to, you know, when you get that, so, we're descending, takes about 20 minutes.

CASAREZ: But here's the question: we don't know why the crew believed there was a pressurization problem. There was no indication at all, when the plane landed it showed there was not.

But we want to take you into what that plane and what those passengers felt. Listen to some of what they went through.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE MARCIL, PASSENGER: We had a few people that were passing out. You could feel the rapidness of the drop of the airplane coming down very, very quickly, some rattling and shaking. Like a steep roller coaster coming down very quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: It's just so scary. And there are more questions than answers. The FAA is investigating. But we really need to know why there was a pressurization problem, they will not say the chronological events. Was it because people started passing out? And the ultimate question is, why were people passing out?

HARLOW: Yes. And did more people pass out because they had such a fast descent? That's the question as well.

Jean, thanks for the story for us. I appreciate it.

Still to come: we're going to talk about this -- a big story today happening at a court in North Carolina. General Petraeus getting his day in court. Why his expected plea deal has critics crying foul.

Pamela Brown is following the story from Washington.

Good morning, Pamela.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Poppy.

That's right. Coming up, we are going to tell you about what the government is recommending his sentencing to be, and why many say that's not enough.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: General David Petraeus learning his fate today. The former CIA director is expected to get a relative slap on the wrist for spilling classified secrets to his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell.

Some critics argue that his punishment points to a two-tiered justice system for people who leaked state secrets. Consider this, Chelsea Manning is right now serving 35 years behind bars after he handed over classified documents to WikiLeaks, and Edward Snowden is still living in exile in Russia on the run from the government for revealing classified information about the NSA's surveillance program to the media.

Pamela Brown is following what we are expecting to see in court today for Petraeus.

Good morning, Pamela.

BROWN: Good morning to you, Poppy. We can expect it to be a quick procedure today in Charlotte, where the retired 4-star general is expected to arrive for his sentencing at 2:00 today. It's unclear at this point whether he's going to make a statement of any kind.

But here's what we know, the former CIA director struck a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge for providing top secret classified information with his biographer and former lover, Paul Broadwell.

Court records show that Petraeus lied multiple times to federal agents investigating this case, but he was never charged for that. Critics as you point out have been quick to pounce on the Justice Department for not going after Petraeus more, saying that he was given special treatment considering who he was.

Now, the back story here, the married general's fall for grace began with his affair with Broadwell while he was the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Broadwell, a former major in the army reserves was writing a book on Petraeus, and according to documents, Petraeus gave Broadwell eight black books full of classified information regarding covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and other national defense information.

And today, Poppy, the government is expected to ask for two years of probation, and a $40,000 fine. To put this in perspective, no jail time is allowed under the plea deal struck. The maximum for a misdemeanor charged is a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. The deal he has is different from what he could be facing.

HARLOW: Absolutely, one of the lawyers representing somebody else who is a government leaker in jail now wrote to the Justice Department saying this shows a profound double standard. So, we'll wait for the sentencing today and I am sure there will be a lot of discussion about it afterwards.

Pamela Brown, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

BROWN: Thank you.

HARLOW: Also just in new, another black eye to the Secret Service. This time, the service failing to replace a broken alarm security at a former president's home for over a year.

White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski joins me now with what went wrong.

It just seems like the hits keep coming for the Secret Service.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I know. I mean, the facts here aren't even in dispute either. It's not coming from some unanimous tipsters.

This is the inspector general office put out a report on this on what they discovered. It started back in 2010, and one of the Secret Service's own security experts kind of flagged a problem, saying at former President Bush Sr.'s home in Houston, the system needs to be replace replaced, kind of ran that of the flag pole, and the request was denied. Well, three years later, the alarm breaks completely, and the Secret Service did then put an officer in a kind of roving post around the home, but the Secret Service could not tell how long it has been broken and that new post created. There could have been a period of time when there was very little security at the home at all.

Also, they did finally buy a new alarm system once it came to light in 2014, and then it took a year to install that new alarm system. One of the Secret Service officials that was interviewed by the inspector general, said, well, even if there was an interim measure of putting the officer roving around the property, he did not think that would be adequate security. And the report just kind of goes on and on -- I mean, it says that Secret Service officials explained more serious security equipment problems exist at former president X's residents and X resident, you know, part of this redacted for security reasons.

The result of this, the Secret Service's new director has agreed that these are problems, they put in place a system to track and monitor security problems that are out there and deal with them as well as evaluate the current state of security at former presidents' homes. You can say this problem started in 2010, and it's about time that there was even a process in place to look at problems like these, Poppy.

HARLOW: And we're just finding out about it now. It's a little too long.

Michelle Kosinski, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Still to come here in the NEWSROOM: protesters demanding answers. Why did a man die while in police custody?