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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Man With Knife Shot by Anti-Terror Unit; FBI Using Surveillance Planes Over U.S.; TSA Administrator Removed Over Lapses; China Cruise Ship Sinks; Secret Deaths of St. Mary's. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 02, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:27] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We want to begin this hour with breaking news that comes to us out of Boston. A man under surveillance by the FBI's joint terrorism task force was shot and killed after allegedly pulling a knife on Boston police and federal agents. Moments ago, Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans spoke briefly to reporters. Have as listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMMISSIONER BILL EVANS, BOSTON POLICE: At approximately 6:59 this morning, officers, in conjunction with the joint terrorism task force, had a suspect under surveillance here at this location. At that time our officers, along with the FBI, confronted the suspect, identified themselves as Boston police and FBI. At that particular time, the suspect turned, he pulled out a military-type knife. The officers asked him several times to put that knife down. They gave him several commands. He - the officers tried their best at retreating. Again, several more orders to put down. And at that point, he came within the proximity that the officers use deadly force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: CNN's Deb Feyerick has been working the phones, literally just got off the phone seconds ago.

So, look, I'm used to hearing about police shootings -

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BANFIELD: If someone's waving a knife, but I am not used to hearing that a police officer and an FBI agent both opened fire. What is the back story?

FEYERICK: OK. Well, this was a joint terrorism task force out of Boston. Police officers and FBI agents working together. The man we know was on radar. He was under surveillance by these terrorism investigators. It's not clear whether this was part of a long-time investigation or whether this is something that sort of happened just today or within the last couple of days where they really felt they needed to approach him. But what we do know is that about 7:00 this morning in Boston's

Rosslindale (ph) section, they - the two officers went up to the man and they wanted to speak to him. He turned around and he was holding what they described as a fairly large military-style knife. Now the JTTF (ph) investigators repeatedly told this man to drop the weapon. He did not. And at one point he actually came at the investigators. And so that's when the two opened fire. The Boston police officer shooting first. The FBI agent following suit.

The man was taken to an area hospital. He died of his gunshot wounds. The two investigators were not injured, we are being told, but this is all under investigation. You can see on the right there, that is the head of the FBI in Boston. On the left, in the blue cap, that is the police commissioner. This is an active investigation and they're really trying to figure out exactly why this man made it on to their radar.

BANFIELD: So, I mean, I think a lot of people immediately want to know if he was in the midst of actually conducting some kind of terror attack because if there was - if the feds were on him -

FEYERICK: Right.

BANFIELD: And the same time that police were on him. But are they just keeping this all extremely close to the vest?

FEYERICK: Well, what we are learning in very vague terms is that apparently this man made threats against police officers. It's unclear whether he intended to act today. It's unclear whether these were posted on social media. But authorities did believe it was sufficient and significant enough for then -

BANFIELD: Wow! He had a military-style knife.

FEYERICK: Yes, exactly.

BANFIELD: I mean who knows how big a big military style knife is but that is awfully disconcerting to say the least.

FEYERICK: Yes.

BANFIELD: I know you're busy working both of those phones, so I'll let you get back to it, let us know if you get any other details.

FEYERICK: Of course.

BANFIELD: Deb Feyerick on that story for us. Thank you for that.

Other big breaking news story that we're watching as well. The FBI, it's eyes are in the air. I'm going to talk to you a little bit now about some secret surveillance planes you might not have known about until now. Senior law enforcement officials are telling CNN that the FBI has a fleet of planes that are used for surveillance purposes and that are registered under fictitious company names. The official said that the fake companies were used because, quote, "any time you mask your activity for operational or safety reasons, you use a front company."

CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes is former assistant director of the FBI, knows a thing or two about how things work. The first thing I thought, Tom, was, it sounds kind of sinister when you hear the government's got a secret fleet of planes that it uses to spy on American citizens. But walk me back from that and tell me why this isn't as bad as it sounds.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, first of all, Ashleigh, the program started - this is really breaking news, it just started about 35, 40 years ago, and it was originally initiated to supplement ground surveillance following spies, you know, in counter espionage investigations and following real organized crime figures, members of the American Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, and other organized crime people, drug cartels, who would be very surveillance conscious and would be looking around at what vehicles on the ground are following them. The aircraft in the air would enable the ground agents to back off, unlike what you see in the movies where they bumper lock each other and it's no secret that someone's being surveyed.

[12:05:34] So, that's what the original purpose was. It's ill used for counter espionage, counter organized crime, drugs and terrorism. And it was used for terrorism when I ran the Chicago FBI surveillance squad in the late 1980s, we were following gangsters and we were following members of the FALN Puerto Rican terrorist group who had conducted bombings in Chicago and in New York, and had killed people. So those are the types of cases, as well as counter espionage cases, which are still highly classified.

BANFIELD: So -

FUENTES: So this is not a new program. That's why the aircraft were covert was to protect their identity against gangsters and foreign powers.

BANFIELD: So, Tom, I hear everything you're saying and it sounds perfect except for the fact that the gear we employ today is very new. The program may be older, but all that fancy technology we have on board those airplanes, they can do things like collect data of all the cell phone users down below. They can collect information on who's where and there's no need for any warrants, you know, on this kind of - this kind of data collection or information gathering and it brings me to the old Fourth Amendment, search and seizure. Is this something that we need to start looking into in terms of policy given the fact that those planes may have been flying for a while but they have some extraordinary material that might be an affront to our civil rights?

FUENTES: Yes, it might be, but it isn't. And these programs have been looked at very closely by inspector general offices, DOJ, other agencies have looked at this and have not found that they were conducting illegal surveillance. That the means and methods that are being used in the sky are similar to what's available either on the ground or ground telephone company towers.

You know, like right now, outside your building in New York, the Time Warner building, there are probably NYPD cameras on that street corner that don't say NYPD. So are they spying on you when you leave the building to go to lunch or dinner, or is that just, you know, in the modern era we conduct surveillance like that. The difference between one of those cameras and an FBI plane is about 8,000 feet elevation and mobility. But we've used those aircraft. We use infrared photography and capability in those aircraft. Used to find Tsarnaev in the boat behind the guy's house in Boston.

BANFIELD: Yes.

FUENTES: You see the white shadow of the body. That's the use of infrared photography. Infrared is also used when a child gets lost in the woods from a camping trip with their parents and we send the planes up with that or the state police or local police send planes or helicopters up with infrared.

BANFIELD: Agreed.

FUENTES: So there's a variety of non-law enforcement, non-spying means.

BANFIELD: Yes.

FUENTES: But - and, by the way, the FAA knows who the planes are. The numbers that they use are in their directory because they may ask for access to controlled air space, other means. So they're all conscious of -

BANFIELD: You would hope the FAA was aware of it as, I mean, airspace is - airspace is busy.

FUENTES: They are aware of it, yes.

BANFIELD: So, you know, I see - I see all the pros you're talking about, without question. I'm always mindful, though, of the potential cons, the landscape we don't know yet, but -

FUENTES: Well, that's true, Ashleigh. You know, agents are very great but they're not Superman. They can't get up in the sky and look through the roof of your building or the walls of your building and see into things -

BANFIELD: Sometimes I wonder about that because we had a - we had a Supreme Court case that actually ruled on that, you know, going into the - going into look through buildings in California and actually seeing potentially with gear that could determine whether there were people in buildings and the Supreme Court said it wasn't (INAUDIBLE) -

FUENTES: Well, in some hostage cases they can use infrared equipment on the ground.

BANFIELD: Yes.

FUENTES: But, you know, from the sky, it's not - it's not a tool that's up there being used.

BANFIELD: Yes. It's fascinating stuff. Tom, I so appreciate having you, of all people, today. It was great that you could lend your insight into this. Thank you.

FUENTES: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Tom Fuentes live for us in Washington, D.C.

Our other big story today, the TSA missing 95 percent of the weapons and fake bombs that those testers tried to sneak on board the airplanes. And you can imagine that that has inspired a shakeup at the TSA. A shakeup might be an understatement. Find out what head is actually going to roll with a grade like that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:13:00] BANFIELD: The top man in charge of keeping weapons out of our airports and off of our airplanes is no longer going to the office. The shakeup comes after a report reveals weapons and fake bombs made it past those TSA screeners a lot, like 95 percent of the time, during an undercover testing sting. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux has more on the problem and the man who's being reassigned over these colossal failures.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An interim TSA administrator is stepping in, replacing the now former director Melvin Carraway. Acting Deputy Director Mark Hatfield now at the post.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson reassigned Carraway amid alarming security questions about the TSA's effectiveness. The Department of Homeland Security discovered TSA officers failed 95 percent of the time during undercover operations. The officers failing 67 out of 70 tests to detect mock explosives and weapons at airport security checkpoints.

CHAD WOLF, FORMER TSA OFFICER: These are anomalies that TSA screeners and/or their equipment should it locate at least flag for an additional screening.

MALVEAUX: The department's red teams posed as passengers, attempting to pass through checkpoints with the mock weapons.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am putting a detonator into the plastic explosive.

MALVEAUX: Back in 2008, CNN was there for a similar, covert operation. That time, it was TSA testing its own officers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't see anything?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I can't see anything.

MALVEAUX: At the checkpoint, the testers wanded and patted down, right where the fake explosive device was concealed, but the screener missed it. It's not until the tester lifts up his shirt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I see it now. MALVEAUX: In response to the troubling failures, Secretary Johnson

said in a statement that he is immediately directing the TSA to revise its screening procedures, conduct training and reevaluate their screening equipment.

[12:15:03] REP. JOHN MICA (R), TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE: This has grown completely out of control. It isn't doing the job we need to. What we need to do is be able to connect the dots, get intelligence information, go after people who pose a risk, and they can't do it with the current system.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: And Suzanne Malveaux joins us live now from Reagan National Airport.

Suzanne, I was reading an account from a formers TSA officer who's very, very critical of the machinery, the training, and just about everything, and he said, when he asked his trainer coming out of his program what he thought about the machines they were using, the trainer said, we wouldn't be able to distinguish plastic explosives from body fat and that guns are practically invisible unless they're turned sideways in a pocket. So it looks like machines are bad, trainers have no confidence. It almost sounds, if you believe that account and what your reporting just said, the entire system needs an overhaul.

MALVEAUX: Well, you know, one of the things that the secretary said, Secretary Johnson, that was really key, there were two points that he made, one of them was that you really have to reevaluate and retest the equipment itself, the security checkpoint equipment. He made that point. And the second thing, he said that's the short term. But he said, in the long term, the TSA needs to adopt new technologies that he said specifically these tests actually address vulnerabilities. So there are new technologies there.

Those two points are critical because what he is saying is that not only do all of these TSA officers need to reevaluate and be retrained essentially, the supervisors as well, looking at them, evaluate them, but that the technology itself is not up to par, it is not up to speed in terms of detecting the kinds of weapons and the kinds of mock explosives that they used in these tests, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I am sure that all of those people behind you are none too thrilled about the reports that are just coming out as they're heading on to airplanes today.

MALVEAUX: That's absolutely right.

BANFIELD: Suzanne Malveaux, thank you. Thank you for that. She's doing the job for us at Reagan today in Washington.

One of the world's great rivers may be the scene of one of history's great maritime disasters. Coming up after the break, we're going to get the latest on this rescue operation in the Yangtze River in China.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:28] BANFIELD: In eastern China, rescuers are racing to get hundreds of people who are trapped inside a sinking passenger ship. Divers used hammers to knock on the ship's upturned hull, looking for survivors who may still be trapped inside. This is called the Eastern Star, and it capsized on Monday in stormy weather. More than 450 people were on board this. And here is the horrible statistic. Just 15 people have been found alive. Fifteen out of more than 450, including this woman who was pulled from the murky waters of the Yangtze River.

CNN's David McKenzie filed this report from China just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As the hours stretch on and night has fallen, they're still desperately searching for survivors here in the Yangtze River in China. That glow behind me is the staging ground for the search and they've had hundreds of people rushing to the scene using their specialist skills to try and find people trapped underneath the water inside that vessel. Scores, in fact hundreds are still missing. They've only managed to pull out a few alive today and they've only been a few bodies removed.

The captain and the chief engineer were both able to escape alive. They've been taken into custody now. So questions being asked what exactly happened. Most of these traveling on board were pensioners, elderly Chinese, enjoying an 11-day cruise on the famous river here in China. Now hope is fading fast that any more will be brought out alive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Our David McKenzie reporting for us from China.

If you ever need serious reliable information, it is without question when your children's lives depend on it. Yet, that can be the time when facts are hardest to find. Straight ahead, we are keeping them honest. Children's hospitals that try to keep secrets at the expense of their tiniest patients.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:26:12] BANFIELD: If you or especially your child might be in need of a serious operation, of course you're going to want the most skilled and experienced surgeon that you can find in a hospital with a proven track record. But the parents you're about to meet wanted those things too for their critically ill newborns in the state of Florida. Instead, though, of the facts, they got promises from a hospital and a doctor they now deeply regret having trusted. CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has a keeping them honest segment right now, an investigation, "The Secret Deaths of St. Mary's."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just weeks into life, this tiny baby Layla McCarthy, needed heart surgery. Here at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, Dr. Michael Black performed the delicate procedure to widen Layla's narrow aorta, a defect she'd had since birth.

CHRISTINE MCCARTHY, LAYLA MCCARTHY'S MOTHER: He just made it seem like he was the best person to do this.

MATT MCCARTHY, LAYLA MCCARTHY'S FATHER: It was a - very like, no sweat, don't worry about it. You know, it's a walk in the park.

COHEN: But the surgery was a disaster.

C. MCCARTHY: I looked at her, and her legs had started - they had stiffened up a lot and they started going in an almost table-top position.

COHEN: After the surgery, Layla was paralyzed. Here she is today. The McCarthy's had no idea that their daughter's tragedy had a disturbing backstory. One that no one had told them.

Just three months before Layla's operation, a baby had died after heart surgery by Dr. Black. And five months before that, Alexander Gutierrez Mercado had died. And a month and a half before that, Keyari Sanders had passed away.

C. MCCARTHY: It's horrible that you go into a program like that and they can be dishonest with you and they don't feel the need to tell you what has happened there before.

COHEN: One week after the surgery that left Layla paralyzed, Amelia Campbell died after heart surgery. Then Parish Wright a few months later and Landon Summerford (ph) eight months after that. St. Mary's keeps its death rate a secret, revealing a death rate, they tell CNN, could "potentially lead to providing misleading information to consumers."

But CNN has calculated a death rate based on these internal hospital reports, which include surgical caseloads. We calculate that from 2011 to 2013, the death rate for open heart surgery on children at St. Mary's Medical Center was more than three times higher than the national average.

These are all parents who lost their babies after heart surgery by Dr. Black at St. Mary's. They hadn't met each other until they sat down to talk with us.

DANTE WRIGHT, PARISH WRIGHT'S FATHER: He really sounded like he knew what he was doing.

MARQUITA CAMPBELL, PARISH WRIGHT'S MOTHER: All I could do was believe in his words and it was the opposite of what he said.

COHEN (on camera): So your baby was transferred to a different hospital?

RAMONA STRACHAN, KEYARI SANDERS' MOTHER: They couldn't do anything for her. She was a vegetable. Her organs had shut down, everything.

COHEN: At the second hospital, did they explain what happened in the first hospital?

STRACHAN: The previous doctor, Dr. Michael Black, kinked (ph) her artery and that's why it wasn't getting any blood flow to the left side of her heart.

NOIKA (ph) CAMPBELL, AMELIA CAMPBELL'S MOTHER: This is really difficult to hear. Just to hear what other mothers went tough and that the same (INAUDIBLE) pervasive.

COHEN (voice-over): St. Mary's, owned by Tenant Health Care, said CNN is wrong about the program's death rate but refuses to provide what it considers the correct death rate. The hospital and the heart surgeon, Dr. Black, rejected requests for an on camera interview, so we tracked down CEO Davide Carbone to give him a chance to explain.

COHEN (on camera): Hi, Mr. Carbone. It's Elizabeth Cohen at CNN. Hi, Mr. Carbone. It's Elizabeth Cohen at CNN. How are you, sir? Sir, we want to know why the - what the death rate is for your babies at the pediatric heart hospital in the - your program?

[12:30:10] COHEN (voice-over): He also wouldn't answer the parents' question, why did so many babies die at