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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Police Reveal 4th Van Stop; Report Given to Prosecutor. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 30, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:05] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield, coming to you live from Baltimore. This is LEGAL VIEW.

Behind me, city hall. And the tulips are blooming and it is a beautiful day in Baltimore. And it is a very different scene. If you just go several blocks away from here, where it doesn't quite look as clean and as swept and as pretty and the flowers aren't blooming, yet there is no violence. And let's hope it stays this way.

If you've been watching CNN, you know of a big surprise that the Baltimore Police investigation put forth in the death of Freddie Gray, not necessarily in the findings, those have not been made public necessarily. It is the timing of this report. It was due to be presented to the Baltimore state's attorney sometime tomorrow. But something changed, and no one knows why. Instead, at 8:50 this morning Eastern Time, just in the last hour we heard about this, it was turned over to the state's attorney and the commissioner, Anthony Batts, spoke briefly to reporters about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMM. ANTHONY BATTS, BALTIMORE POLICE: This does not mean that the investigation is over. If new evidence is found, we will follow it. If new direction is given by the state's attorney, we will obey it and we will follow through with the investigation. We will also further investigate at the request of the state attorney to bring forth any other witnesses that we find.

I understand the frustration. I understand the sense of urgency. And so has the organization and that is why we have finished it a day ahead of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: A day ahead of time. We did learn one brand new detail where every word counts and every development counts. A fourth and previously unknown stop by that van, that paddy wagon, that took Gray on a lengthy route to the western district police station on the morning of April 12th, four stops. Not three as earlier thought.

And earlier today, "The Washington Post" had quite a report on the prisoner who rode in that van, part of the way, along with Gray. He told investigators that in his estimation Gray was thrashing about in what seemed to be an effort to hurt himself.

Separately, a relative of one of the six officers who are now being investigated in Gray's takedown and transport has told CNN that Gray's fatal injuries happened before he was put in the van. That relative also says there's a reason that Gray was not belted into the van. That he was irate and officers supposedly feared that he might bite them or spit on them.

I want to bring in CNN's justice correspondent, Evan Perez, who's standing by.

Such a surprise to hear this, not only that we got this report delivered to the state's attorney a day early, but that they actually released one piece of information, that there is a fourth stop that here to for they had not known. And it happens to be the second stop of the paddy wagon. Why do you suppose they would release that kind of information, and just that?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, this is - they previously released a timeline, Ashleigh, and the fact that this was omitted is actually very shocking because this is something that was - had - should have been known certainly from when they released the timeline, which was, you know, more than a week ago. And the fact that they say that there's no record of it other than private surveillance camera video that came - that they - that they uncovered as part of the investigation, it's kind of disturbing, frankly. I mean this is not the way an investigation's supposed to go. I'm not calling out the Baltimore Police Department for what they're doing, but it's just - what it does is it undercuts the trust that they say they're trying to build with the community here to make - to let them do their job and to come to the right conclusions.

BANFIELD: And yet - and yet, Evan, the commissioner himself coming out with his deputies, those who were actually spear-heading this task force, and giving that information presumably in an effort to be more transparent. It seems like a lose-lose situation.

PEREZ: It is a lose-lose.

BANFIELD: You try to be transparent, you try to give new information, you get the criticism, how could you have not known this before?

PEREZ: That's right. And the issue too is that, you know, they've been giving us drips and drips and drabs of information. And that's never a good way to do this. I mean, you know, obviously he didn't -

BANFIELD: Maybe it comes in, in dribs and drabs.

PEREZ: He didn't know what he didn't know at the time and, you know, he's been criticized both ways, right?

BANFIELD: Here's another question - here's another question for you, and that is, why is it, as the commissioner and his deputies announced, that this new information - by the way, new to us, new to us, not necessarily new to them, just announced to us today.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: This new information about the second stop came to them via a private camera. Whether it's a cell phone camera, whether it's someone else's surveillance camera or security camera, it's not one of the government's CC - you know, CC cameras that are positioned along the stop. Wouldn't that information be logged by police when they make these transports?

[12:05:00] PEREZ: It certainly - it certainly should be logged. Certainly, every time the police stop this van, they should -- they're supposed to radio back and there's supposed to be a record of this back in the police department. So that's surprising as well. I'm not sure why - what was the matter here.

Now we do know, according to the police, that Gray was being combative, that he was being irate. So was this something that was distracting them? Again, this just adds to the questions that we have, and that makes the job of the state attorney's office even more difficult. More complicated for them to decide whether to bring charges in this case.

BANFIELD: And speaking of that, the state attorney now with that information on her desk, and I say that just illustratively. Clearly there is a large team she'll be working with that's going to have to process what they get from the police. And we should also mention as well, and this is critical, while the investigative process is over in one sense -

PEREZ: One sense.

BANFIELD: Evan, it is not over as the commissioner said. They will continue to take in information as they get it. They will continue to solicit information. They will continue to ask for videos, ask for witnesses, and analyze all of that. Being a justice correspondent, I have to ask you about the timing. It has been just over a week since the death of Freddie Gray. This is incredibly fast. To have this kind of investigative work buttoned up and delivered in just a matter of ten days or so.

PEREZ: It just goes to show, you know, the amount of pressure that they're having in this case. This is not a normal case. You know, you have people rioting on the streets, you know, a week, as you said, after this - after these events began. And the other thing is that, you know, they - they're turning this over without yet having the benefit of the medical examiner's report, which is still in the works, which may be weeks, perhaps even more than a month away. These - these are - this is a report that's going to have the benefit of additional outside experts that they hope is going to establish what the cause of death of Freddie Gray was.

BANFIELD: Right.

PEREZ: Because, at this point, we still don't know.

BANFIELD: Yes, I mean, this is a lightning fast report. You want to be happy that there's at least information coming in a timely manner because there is a lot of impatience out there.

PEREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: But at the same time, you want the most, you know, credible investigation to be done, thorough investigation to be done.

PEREZ: Thorough, correct.

BANFIELD: Double checked, triple checked, get witnesses back. If something doesn't look complete, get it complete. So let's hope that they were able to do what they needed to do.

Evan Perez, thank you for that. I appreciate it.

And not only that, this is something that someone who is fairly new in her office, at 35 years old, is going to have the weight of the world on her shoulders while she works through this. This is the state attorney who is receiving this material. Marilyn Mosby is going to have a very, very big responsibility in trying to assess the next step, the next step being, will there be indictments in this case, will there be six, will there be five, will there be one, will there be none? And what will those indictments be, if anything at all?

Joining me now with their thoughts on all of this are CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, and also with me - he's also former FBI assistant director, we should let you know, a very long resume of law enforcement knowledge. And then also with me is Baltimore civil rights attorney A. Dwight Pettit.

Thank you so much for both of you being with me.

A. DWIGHT PETTIT, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Thanks for having me.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Thanks.

BANFIELD: I just want to get your reaction from both of you, from the different perspectives that you come from. Mr. Pettit, I'll speak with you first, if you could. The lightning fast way in which this report has now landed at the state's attorney office, really a week and a half since the death of Freddie Gray, and now the state's attorney is supposed to somehow make sense of everything that the investigation has yielded. Too fast? Fast enough?

PETTIT: Well, normally it would be you might say fast or too fast. But in this instance, with the public scrutiny and the national spotlight, I think they had to do the right thing by devoting as much attention to the resolution or at least the gathering of facts. Now the gathering of facts may not conclude all of the facts, but it's enough to give the state's attorney's office an initial review of terms of what they're looking at in terms of applying the law as to whether or not there was any criminal conduct.

BANFIELD: Yes.

And, Tom Fuentes, at this - this - all of a sudden is announced that came out of the blue that the report would be delivered today. And it was delivered at 8:50 this morning, instead of tomorrow. Do you think, from a law enforcement perspective, this may have been a way to offset what might have been tomorrow, because we all know this report is not going to be public. We all know it's not going to make, you know, it's not going to end the case and yield heads on a platter tomorrow. And that could be a problem for a lot of people who maybe think it might.

FUENTES: I think that's exactly what happened in this case, Ashleigh. I think the police were realizing that, minute by minute, hour by hour, everybody is hyping the expectation for tomorrow and the possibility of an even greater disappointment tomorrow when at the close of business, if there's no police officers in handcuffs. So they decided, we're done, it's good enough, we had 50 detectives work on this, hand it over. Hand over what they got. And they still don't have the medical examiner's autopsy report. That will be yet to come. And there's still a possibility of these videos coming in from private sources.

[12:10:04] Now, this could be a private security camera that was on a business looking down the sidewalk and the street in front of their business that maybe just got turned over recently to it. So I think that to associate a nefarious reason why the police didn't talk about this. This is why they investigate. More facts come up gradually. And when you have private citizens turn over videos to be looked at, they may not have realized it was that van. They may not have known that the business owner may not have known it had anything to do with this case and therefore no reason to do it.

Don't forget, the FBI look at over 10,000 videos in the Boston Marathon bombing.

BANFIELD: Right.

FUENTES: So this is a very difficult, laborious, resource-intensive job to look at every video, especially the ones you don't know you have or no one's turned over yet. So -

BANFIELD: Yes, what you don't know that you don't know.

FUENTES: Right. Right.

BANFIELD: And what you do know that you don't know. I know that's complicated, but so is the case.

FUENTES: No, it's true.

PETTIT: See, the difficulty here is the commissioner comes out and gives a deadline.

BANFIELD: Yes.

PETTIT: And that was a big error in itself to say, my target date to - as if he's going to -

BANFIELD: Is May 1st. Yes.

PETTIT: Is release something that's going to be - BANFIELD: Profound.

PETTIT: Major and profound.

BANFIELD: Yes. Yes.

PETTIT: That put him in a catch 22.

BANFIELD: Yes.

PETTIT: And so it - I'm so glad that the state's attorney did not make that a commitment. So she can apply the way that she should apply the law and get - have integrity in the investigation.

BANFIELD: Let's hope that message, which is so articulate, gets through to those who sometimes only hear a headline, May 1st, I want answers. Tomorrow's May 1st. Some answers have come today. They are not public. They're not supposed to be public. And they will not yield an arrest necessarily. So, gentlemen, thank you. If you could stand by for one moment.

We still have a whole lot more coming up. In fact, next, the previously undisclosed stop by the policeman on the day that Freddie Gray was fatally injured. And how this new piece of information fits in to a very broad investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:17] BANFIELD: We're live in Baltimore with an earlier than expected handover of that much awaited police report on the unexplained death of Freddie Gray. Now, be clear here, the contents are still very much under wraps, but police did reveal some very telling information. Intriguing information. There was an additional stop that that paddy wagon made. That van that took Gray to the police station 18 days ago. So what about that? And why would that have been released today?

Joining me now, our legal analysts Mel Robbins and Paul Callan, both in New York.

Mel, first to you. I don't understand how that information comes from a private camera when police are involved in driving the van, monitoring the van. There's a dispatch connected to the van. And you would assume that those kinds are stops are all logged, if not investigated. Why would it take a camera to yield that information?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Ashleigh, that is an absolutely excellent question, and I would add to the long list of things that you mentioned, the fact that they found out about it after doing this investigation where they interviewed over 30 people. And you know that they talked to every one of the officers that was involved, and so those officers no darn well how many stops. So what that says to me is, if it's going to take a closed circuit private camera to show the stop that they were not getting that information from the police officers during the investigation, Ashleigh. BANFIELD: All right, Paul Callan, I want to switch gears somewhat with

you because there's other information that we're finding out about, and that is that the investigation into what happened afterwards, those riots, all of the looting and the burning, the arson, that is also in full force. And the ATF is here. And we're now getting word, Paul Callan, the ATF is not only trying to investigate how those fires started, what started them, were there accelerants, and who might be on camera, or at least who might be fingered by witnesses as being a part of those arsons, they could actually face attempted murder because people were injured in those arsons. It's alarming to sort of hear attempted murder charges potentially for those who were involved in the riots.

CALLAN: It is surprising and I'm very surprised that federal authorities would be involved in investigating the riots because that generally is a state case and a state investigation. So that's very unusual on both counts. But on the other hand, we have seen cases in the past where there are riots, and somebody sets a building on fire and someone's hurt or killed. That can result in a homicide indictment. So it's something that is very interesting, Ashleigh, that that's going on while we're focused on the Freddie Gray case.

BANFIELD: Right. And I should mention, I was in the community just a short time ago at the CVS that was burned out and it's very calm there, and a lot of it has been cleaned up as well. And I didn't see any evidence of ATF agents, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't there.

Paul Callan, Mel Robbins, thank you for that.

I just want to draw this attention to this scene behind me. City hall. It just looks like a beautiful, central square in Baltimore, and it's hard to believe that so much else is going on. And with that revelation today, that report that's being released early, that there might have been another stop that that van made, what might that do to this quiet, beautiful city with a 70-degree sunny day, once nightfall comes? Could there be more violence? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:22:12] BANFIELD: Live in Baltimore. And we are learning more today about how Freddie Gray died while in custody in this city, in custody of the police. The police handed over their investigative report just a short time ago to the state's attorney's office. Athena Jones is joining me live now with more on the progressive route that Freddie Gray was taken on in that police van.

The police made a fourth stop. We, up until now had thought there were three stops that that van made before it arrived at the police department's western district. It turns out there were four stops. And the new stop in question that up until now we had not known about, is the second stop.

And, Athena, if - correct me if I'm wrong, are you at the corner of Freemont (ph) and Mosier (ph)? And I understand we have a delay between us, but take me there and explain where you are. ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ashleigh, I'm at the corner of Freemont, North Freemont Avenue, and Mosier Street in west Baltimore. We're not very far from where Freddie Gray was picked up. And we're also not very far from the western district, which is where that police van was headed.

As you mentioned, this was just revealed today in the press conference that the police gave a short while ago in conjunction with turning over that - those findings to the state's attorney's office.

This is a grocery store, owned by a Korean family. We understand from a neighbor who knows the family that they don't speak English very well. And we also believe that we know the neighbor told us that this store was looted on Monday night, which is when we believe the cameras, you can see the security cameras outside of that store, those wires have been cut. But we believe, of course, they were working, and that's how the police were able to get this video.

BANFIELD: Wow.

JONES: But, of course, this is a new - this is a new piece of information. It doesn't lead us closer to knowing exactly what happened inside that van, but it's very interesting to learn that there is a second stop.

And let me just quickly go through you - go with you through what we knew before. We knew as of last week that there were three stops. The first one was to put leg irons on Freddie Gray. The second to, quote, "deal with Mr. Gray," an incident that is under, of course, investigation. And the third was to pick up a prisoner in an unrelated matter.

Well, this turns out was the second stop. We don't know what happened here because, of course, we're just now learning about this stop. So now, not three stops made, four stops made. That's a key new piece of information, and people are eager for that information.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Yes, and that whole issue of dealing with Mr. Gray, I mean those words are scary to hear and everyone wants to know what that means. At the same time, some insight from "The Washington Post" suggesting that they saw a document, a police document, where the prisoner who was in that van, although albeit separated by partitions, said it seems that that prisoner, that Mr. Gray was intent on hurting himself. So what dealing with Mr. Gray means could be two different things depending on what your perspective is here.

[12:25:07] Athena Jones, thank you for that, at the corner of Freemont and Mosier, the new second stop, a critical piece of information in this puzzle.

And while we wait to see how the community is going to react to this news, whether there will be indeed more rioting or will things return to normal? So here's something odd. I just spoke with a Baltimore city councilman who says it's the last thing he wants for these areas to return to normal. And he makes perfect sense too. You'll find out why in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BANFIELD: Hello, everyone. Breaking news here on CNN. I'm Ashleigh Banfield live in Baltimore.

And we've got more details now on the death of Freddie Gray, whose police custody death sparked nationwide protests. City police officials, just a short time ago, handing in findings from their investigation into Gray's death, which happened on April the 19th. And one deal we had - or one detail we had not heard yet, there was one additional stop that was made by that police transport van between the time Gray was arrested, and the time he arrived at the police department.

Now, despite giving us that one piece of information, the police officials were not going to elaborate on that. Instead, they handed that report over to Maryland's state attorney's office. And now it is officially their case.

[12:30:06] Protesters again filling Baltimore's street after dark last night, but this time, there wasn't fighting, there wasn't tear gas. There were no flash grenades that we

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