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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Analysis Of The Crimes And Recruitment Tactics Of ISIS; Loretta Lynch Visiting Baltimore Today; ATF Offering 10K Reward For Information On Arsonists That Set Fires During Baltimore Riots; Victims Of Aurora Shooting Take Stand In James Holmes' Trial; Tsarnaev Family's Dark Secrets Emerge During Sentencing Phase Of Boston Bombers Trial. Aired 12:30-1p ET.

Aired May 05, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:05] MUBIN SHAIKH, FORMER COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIVE: Of course, the hateful rhetoric that you hear on Twitter, I mean that's all the time. The U.K. has a term now called "spontaneous violent extremists" who, I mean suddenly, they're going to decide to ax and you got a group of 10 guys who might ax, who show all the signs but only two or three might do it.

So, unless you either perpetually surveil them until that moment they ax, you're really not going to be able to stop this kind of spontaneous attack.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: I'd love to get your opinion on some of these people, I mean we had an ax attack on officers here in New York, we've now got this. We've got scattered encounters with people who say they're inspired online. Are these people brand new wannabe killers? Or were the already crazy and just didn't take out their rage, in say, a movie theater or a shopping mall where we've had these kinds of killings before, they just were under a different banner?\

SHAIKH: Yeah. Well, I wouldn't call them crazies. They're, you know, psychopathology is very rare especially in terrorism. Mental illness does play a role in, you know, regular act of shooter scenarios. But these individuals by all accounts, they were very normal, again, most people are not going to suspect, they're not going to show all those kinds of signs even when you look at murder investigations. Very often, people say, I never would have suspected or, you know, he wasn't that kind of guy.

So these are your ISIS zombies really. The -- ISIS has put out the call, look, do an attack, if it's legit, if it's good enough and it gets the press, we'll take credit for it. That's exactly what you have here.

BANFIELD: So the problem -- the only problem I have with that is that often times when we in the past have covered say the movie theater shootings or other kinds of mass killings, we've got people who are troubled, we've got neighbors and family and friends who say, "you know, he was a little different," or he was troubled, he was seeing, you know, some kind of mental health professional. But what I'm asking is, is ISIS getting those people who are already hell-bent on destruction anyway and they're just getting them to do it under a different banner? Or are they creating new ones?

SHAIKH: They're not creating new ones. I think these are people who are so inclined as it is. They don't need to be -- I mean, they may appear normal, and in fact, look, most normal people don't kill other people, that's really an abnormal act. But ISIS is really looking for the lowest of the low-hanging fruit. And these are going to be people like this who, whatever their internal dynamics are, make it -- incline them towards committing such attacks.

BANFIELD: Mubin Shaikh, it's always good to talk to you. Thanks for taking the time today.

SHAIKH: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Moving on to other news, after Freddie Gray's death and the looting and the riots and the arrests that followed, some people see police as the criminals and killers and others see them as the heroes in this story. But everyone agrees, there might be some better ways out there to handle many of these confrontations? So how do we fix the problem? Some sensible solutions you may not have considered, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:36:30] BANFIELD: I want to show you some live pictures coming to us out of Baltimore, specifically the University of Baltimore, and the woman in the center of the right-hand part of the desk on your screen is Loretta Lynch, the newly minted attorney general of the United States. You probably know well that one of the first of orders of business for her is the DOJ investigation of what happened in the death of Freddie Gray. She's visiting Baltimore today, meeting with city officials and members of Congress and law enforcement, as well faith and community leaders.

We've got the raw pictures coming into us, you're seeing them as I'm seeing them at the same time and all at the same time, we're also getting some updated numbers, numbers of arrests, numbers on injuries during last week's violent riots. Police have arrested 486 people since April 23rd. They say 113 police officers were injured.

In the meantime, the city is certainly trying to get back to normal. You probably heard the National Guard troops are drawing down, but there's still that state of emergency in place, and they're saying that it might just be lifted by the end of this week.

So the death of Freddie Gray, and the other recent controversial deaths around the country are shining a bright spotlight on police procedure. Backlash is causing some police departments to rethink their policies now and there is one police department that knows a lot about this. Joining me now is Oakland, California's police chief, Sean Whent, who is changing how and when his officers use deadly force.

Chief Whent, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me. And certainly at such an important time as well. I read some work in the New York Times about the 21 foot rule that I think since 1982 has really been the golden rule for a lot of police officers as to just how dangerous the space between you and a potential bad guy is ultimately 21 feet having been decided back then, that's how much time it will take for you to draw your weapon. So if you're within 21 feet, you don't have much of a shot. Is that still good science?

SEAN WHENT, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA POLICE CHIEF: Well, there's been a lot of studying to human reaction times. And so, there is a piece to that, but I think we have really look at all the training we do and see where we can make adjustments and learn from modern science.

BANFIELD: Well, one of the adjustments I'm curious about, and again, this is from the New York Times, they're stating the statistics and this comes to us courtesy of the Police Union in St. Louis, is that police get on average, 58 hours of training to use their weapon. About 49 hours of defensive tactics, but only about 8 hours in learning how to calm situations down like deescalation. Do we need to start changing the metric of those numbers and boost those eight into the same numbers that, say, you know, gun and defense get?

WHENT: Yeah. We absolutely have to increase the amount of training we give to verbal persuasion, conflict management, conflict resolution and also dealing with the mentally ill or persons in crisis. All of those things that help reduce the uses of force. And so it definition is something that we are paying more attention too. But that doesn't mean you can detract from, you know, the defensive tactics training as well.

BANFIELD: So there's this fantastic code I want to read to you, and it's from the Police Executive Research Forum, the head of it, Chuck Wexler says this, "People aren't buying our brands," meaning police officers. "People aren't buying our brands. If it was a product, we've taken it out of the market place and reengineered it." Is that something that you as the chief of the Oakland police think about a lot? Have you been doing it? And if you have been doing bits and pieces of it or all of it, is it working?

[12:40:12] WHENT: Yeah. Well, I think this is something we've been trying to work on over the last couple of years. We're really may trying to build community trust, build community relationships, sort of job one, figuring that success there is going to lead to crime reduction. You'll have more people wanting to cooperate with the police. We've began to see that. We've had more increased cooperation with our criminal investigations. So I think we're beginning to see the results of that.

At the same time, we've also seen very significant reductions in uses of force through a number of steps we've taken to try and make a difference there.

BANFIELD: Well, it's good to have you and I appreciate your voice in this. I think, you know, there are a lot of voices that need to come into a big national cocktail of how to fix this emerging situation. It's not new. It is certainly emerging. Thank you so much, Chief Whent, good to see you.

WHENT: Thank you. BANFIELD: Coming up next, tracking down the vandals, arresting the arsonists in Baltimore. Does setting a fire to a building with people inside amount to something as high as attempted murder? You bet. So what about the investigation? You'll see some of it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Investigators are on the hunt for rioters who started multiple fires in Baltimore last week. The ATF is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the people responsible for fires like this one you saw live on television. And these arsonists may be facing some really stiff charges like as high as attempted murder if they knew that people just might be inside those buildings that were set ablaze.

Last week I was in Baltimore and I found the ATF already hard at work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Driving around Baltimore, you see a lot of evidence of what's been going on but this isn't an unusual site. We were just driving through the University of Maryland Medical Center area and we saw this burned out Rite Aid. It is completely surrounded by crime tape and while there are police on site, this is the ATF and they look to be investigating every area of the Rite Aid. The entrances, each corner that's locked up.

Gentlemen, can you tell me what you're doing today and if you're investigating the possibilities of arson here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll have to direct all the questions with (inaudible), very confidential.

BANFIELD: I understand. Thank you.

So, one of the issues that we do know about is that the ATF has arrived in Baltimore to look into so many of these fires that were set on Monday for the possibility of arson. And what's intriguing about it is that because there were injuries, it could actually lead to charges. Upwards of attempted murder charges were told. So this is a critical investigation, understandable that there would be this many officers on site. This Rite Aid is completely off limits.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:45:02] BANFIELD: Joining me to talk about this investigation and others, the potential charges, is HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson.

So when I circled around that Rite Aid, they were chipping away at the char on one of the entrances with microscopes. There were at least 30 different officers there. And still, Joey Jackson, hundreds of people were all over the city, dozens of people may have descended upon that Rite Aid.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Sure.

BANFIELD: How do you get a charge like that to stick in an environment like that?

JACKSON: OK. Now you know that they're looking and the charge you're talking about in terms of the char and everything else, it's the investigation. But, now you got to find people and hold them accountable. The attempted murder charge though is a bit problematic and here is why. When you charge someone with attempted murder, legally, we call it a specific intent crime. What does that mean in English? It means you have to show that I intended to kill you in order for that charge to stick.

Now, to be clear though, when you're looking at an arson charge, arson charges could be punishable by up to 30 years in jail. So to the extent that an attempted murder charge may not stick, an arson charge where you established that someone intentionally and maliciously set fire to a structure that someone else could be in, boy, that still a heck of a punishment.

BANFIELD: So let's talk about the other side of that banner on the bottom, the arsonists and the looters. There were dozens upon dozens of people on television live with their big mug showing as they walked out with everything at any store --

JACKSON: That's right.

BANFIELD: -- that could be broken into with, you know, had to offer. 200 people, 200 different businesses lost their livelihood.

JACKSON: And maybe more.

BANFIELD: And maybe more, but how do you -- how do you prosecute when that much is going on and I'm going to say it again, in an environment where cops are really mad and these looters were mad too. Joe, it's not status quo.

JACKSON: No.

BANFIELD: It's an elevated level of angst within the system --

JACKSON: Chaos and pandemonium, no question about it. But how you prosecute it is, is you determine who are the people who were going in there, what was their intent when they were going in there.

BANFIELD: You're going to ask witnesses?

JACKSON: Did they take someone out of there.

BANFIELD: Wait a minute, you're going to interview witnesses?

JACKSON: No, but you have video and that's the thing about this and we're seeing on social media certainly a lot of video with establishes what the people are doing. And when you have video, Ashleigh, when you have that, you don't really need a witness to tell you what a person is doing going in and coming out.

BANFIELD: Does the video tell the whole story?

JACKSON: Definitely not.

BANFIELD: Yeah.

JACKSON: It doesn't tell the whole story but it tells a big part of the story that the prosecutors are going to use moving forward.

BANFIELD: All right. Speaking of story, we got a lot of them. So, Joey Jackson I'm going to move on but thank you. We're not done on this topic.

JACKSON: Right, no.

BANFIELD: It's still going on and on. Joey Jackson, live for us and that other story, the prosecution in Colorado.

In the movie theater shooting trial, they are trying to paint James Holmes as a monster, as witnesses describe the terrifying attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It sounded from what I could determine that the gunman was just walking back and forth in front of the screen just spraying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Such emotional testimony, live to Colorado, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:51:41] BANFIELD: What happened in Theater 9 on July 28th, 2012 was horrific and this morning more victims of the Colorado movie theater shooting took the stand to describe that bloody scene.

James Holmes is on trial for the murder of 12 people, 70 other people were hurt, including Denise Axelrod a newlywed who went to see the new Batman movie with her brand new husband and a friend and that's when she heard a pop and the first gunshot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENISE AXELROD, VICTIM: And my husband grabbed me firmly by the back of the neck and threw me to the ground. And he tried to cover me with his body.

My head was roughly in between his knees and he was covering me upper half of me. He told me "Don't scream."

So I just -- I tried to be quite. I told him that I love him because I didn't know if it would be the last time that I would be able to do to so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Ana Cabrera joins me live outside the courthouse in Centennial, Colorado. Ana what happened to her husband? ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well both of them were injured in fact Ashleigh. Denise more seriously, she was shot in the buttocks. Her husband suffered some torn ligaments as he was trying to escape the theater they were at the theater that night with their friend Joshua Nowlan who was the most serious injured of their group.

He almost lost his arm and his leg. But they both took the stand vividly describing what they saw as the figure who was spraying in their word bullets across the theater at one point that hit their friend Joshua in the arm. He let out of scream and Denise describes is looking up and seeing that most of his arm was blown off.

And then they say Josh went silent and so Brandon Axelrod says that's when he knew they needed to make a run out of the theater and they were able to get out just as first responders were arriving Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Well those first responders got their hands on James Holmes, pretty darn quickly and he spoke to them. And now we're starting to find out more about what he said to them. What did he say?

CABRERA: What we heard a recording from one of those police interrogations in the hours after the shooting, after they got him back to the police station. And what we'll play for you a little bit of the sound but I just want to set it up it's inside one of these interview rooms after they were in police station there are two detectives who are questioning James Holmes.

And first they asked him if he want something to drink. They get him some water, they ask him if he needs anything else and he says oxygen. And then before the more formal interview there's this exchange I want to play a clip and they'll be some subtitles because it's hard to hear. But watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you need to see some help or are you good to talk to us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Help as in counsel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, as in, to make sure you're OK physically. Paramedics check you out. Are you OK there? You're good to talk to us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. There wasn't any children hurt were there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. We'll get to that, I don't know, OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So at the end you heard James Holmes asked them, there were any children hurt were there and we do know that at least one of the victims was a child, six year Veronica Moser-Sullivan, who was among the 12 people killed that night Ashleigh. BANFIELD: Sure sounds like he knew that that would be wrong and that is a huge tenant of the case.

Ana Cabrera joining us live. Thank you for that.

Coming up next, portraying the dead brother as the bad guy in the Boston bombing.

[12:55:04] Tsarnaev friends and family reveals Tamerlan's troubled past. A twisted past hoping to create some sympathy for the one who survived Dzhokhar who may though be up for the death penalty.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The dark secrets of the Tsarnaev family are coming out in the sentencing phase of the Boston bombers trial. While the jury is hearing about Dzhokhar much of the testimonies actually focused on his big brother Tamerlan and his twisted past, including his alleged abusive relationship with his soon to be wife Katherine Russell.

Perhaps the biggest shocker in the courtroom today, testimony that Tamerlan has sex with Russell and then afterwards joked that he had AIDS that was before they were married.

Our murder coverage -- a special coverage of murder at the marathon airs tonight at 9 P.M. Eastern right here on CNN.

With some live pictures to show you of a blue mass being held in St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Washington honoring National Police week, let should listen in for a moment.

This has been a week long tribute to law enforcement service and to sacrifice that held each May just moments ago the communion ending. But how timely is this? Because the governor of New York is ordering flags on all state government buildings to fly at half staff in memory of the man on the right of your screen.

N.Y.P.D. Officer Brian Moore. Officer Moore was shot in the line of duty on Saturday while trying to question a man in Queens and he succumbs to those injuries, he was shot in the face, he died yesterday. Flags will remain at half staff until after Moore's funeral.

[13:00:02] In the meantime authorities have asked the charges against the shooter be upgraded to first degree murder.

Thanks for watching everyone. You'll heard more in the terrorist attack later throughout the CNN's coverage in the day. In the meantime, Wolf starts right now.