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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Video of Terror Suspect's Death Released; New York Prison Break; Cop Throws Teen to Gound at Pool Party. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 08, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, exactly. This guy included.

Thank you all for joining us "AT THIS HOUR".

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news at this hour.

Boston police finally revealing this, the disturbing video, a terror suspect with a military knife, gunned down in a confrontation with counterterrorism police.

Also this hour, two dangerous killers on the run, a community on high alert, after a daring prison break in upstate New York. Two hundred and fifty police officers now joining the search, but they admit these guys could be anywhere.

And outrage over the police takedown of a teenager in a bikini. But why were police called to this neighborhood pool party in the first place? The investigation is far from over.

Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield and welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We've got breaking news right off the bat out of Boston because officials there have just released that surveillance video of last week's very public shooting death of a terror suspect there. His name, Usaama Rahim, in the yellow circle. He was killed near this CVS pharmacy in Boston's Roslindale neighborhood and allegedly because of flashing a knife and advancing on counterterrorism officers. Officials say they were tracking Rahim because they believe he was about to carry out a plan to attack a Boston police officer. CNN's Alexandra Field is in Boston and also joining me is Harry Houck, CNN's law enforcement analyst and also CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos.

So, Alexandra, I want you to just sort of walk me through the whole process whereby the authorities released this video to us, the public.

ALEXANDRIA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ashleigh, we've known that this video existed for almost a week now and obviously investigators were taking a close look at this. Members of the clergy, community leaders had all been given an opportunity to see this at the police department headquarters. The family of Usaama Rahim had also seen it. They had asked the district attorney's office to wait to release it to the public until after the funeral. That was held on Friday. So today we met here at the district attorney's office and that video was played for the media for the first time.

And in many ways, Ashleigh, it was exactly what we expected to see. We had been forewarned that this was surveillance video that was shot from some distance. It's somewhat grainy. They do zoom in on the video at one point so that we can try to get a clearer picture of what happened. Frankly, you cannot see a lot of the details, but this does confirm the police narrative that we've been hearing if days now. You do see Rahim approaching a bus stop. You see three officers approach him and then two more officers approach him. You see those officers all retreat at one point and then you see the moment at which those shots are fired and Rahim falls to the ground.

What we understand from police officers who have been here to talk to us today is that the first three people to approach were two FBI officers and a Boston police officer. They shout "knife," and, Ashleigh, that's when you see two other FBI agents running out there surrounding Rahim and then pulling back before firing those shots.

Ashleigh, you will also see a school bus that drives through the frame at one point after the shooting. That's something that was talked about in this office. Obviously, officers and investigators saying that this was not the ideal situation. Nobody wants to confront a terror suspect in a busy parking lot on a busy street, 7:00 in the morning, but they received information that morning that Rahim was planning an attack. They say this was the first opportunity to confront him. One of the officers has reported to investigators that he actually saw a bus coming buy and he reserved fire waiting for the bus to pass before firing the shot. Ashleigh, two officers shot, killing Rahim.

BANFIELD: That was terrifying. I saw it just as you were narrating that, the school bus passed right within the shooting distance. I mean, literally the shooting was right towards the direction of that school bus.

Alexandra, hold on for a moment because I - that podium behind you was just active only moments ago and I want everyone who's watching right now who might be just joining us to hear from the Suffolk County D.A. Dan Conley and how he sort of praises a lot of those who were involved in this incident and what they did afterwards. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL F. CONLEY, SUFFOLK COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I have nothing but great respect for Commissioner Evans and Special Agent In Charge Lisi, but they do not participate in my analysis or my charging decision in this case or any other. My office is independent. The investigation is independent and the charging decision is independent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So, Danny Cevallos, I want you to weigh in on that if you can. I mean that's very specific. He wants the public to know on the day that the public is seeing this video that this is his call. This was his work and that it wasn't the police commissioner or anyone else who was able to sway him in his decision making.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think they feel very strongly about what they've seen in the video from day one. Police officers are trained over and over and over again that if somebody is advancing on them with a knife, it doesn't have to be a gun, it doesn't have to be a bazooka, but any deadly weapon, any movement toward them and they are trained, as Harry, I'm sure, will explain to us, to shoot to stop the threat. Not shoot to shoot the knife out of the hand, not hit him in the kneecaps to slow him down, but shoot to stop the threat.

[12:05:15] So once you're in, when you have those facts, advancing and you have a deadly weapon, and make no mistake about it, a knife is a deadly weapon, then you're going to have some very strong facts in your favor. And I have to believe that when they viewed this video, together with the testimony of the other officers, if it all aligned, then he felt very strongly making the decisions that he has.

BANFIELD: So I want to ask our control room to just replay the critical moments leading up to the actual shooting, which is right before that school bus, and then, Harry, I want you to just walk me through this because I feel like I might be the only one who's seeing an officer advancing on him and yet everyone else who's seen this, community leaders, religious leaders, all say it was clear he was advancing on them. What am I missing? He's in the yellow circle, I'll remind our viewers.

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Right. You can see that he's behind the - that pole that's there and that he's -

BANFIELD: But as he goes down -

HOUCK: Right.

BANFIELD: It looks as though that crouching officer was firing.

HOUCK: The one officer was going closer to him. I think maybe while he was firing his weapon. You can see there - the other two officers, the one that was moving to the rear -

BANFIELD: Uh-huh.

HOUCK: And another officer who was to the left of us was moving to the rear at the same time. So, you know, when somebody pulls a knife like that on you, if you don't have your gun in your hand, that guy, within 22 feet, which is the killing zone, can get close enough to you to stab you and kill you. So, you know, police officers were probably ready for something to possibly happen at that time and then had a backup because they didn't have that clearance to be able to take the shot. And that what had happened.

BANFIELD: And, Danny, just from a legal perspective, looking at that video, you've heard a lot of lay people saying, look, it's grainy, it's not perfect - it's obstructed in circumstances. But from a legal perspective, is it clear as a bell? CEVALLOS: I don't know. We've seen a lot of video lately and some of

it is clear as a bell, but that's a little hazier and it's hard to differentiate between the figures. And, you know, from a geometric point of view, if you have a suspect surrounded, almost any direction he walks he's going to get shot in a place that - that is somewhere he's moving away from. So there's that argument to be made.

But, again, you come back to what police are trained, that a person with a knife or a weapon can advance anywhere up to 20 feet, 30 feet within a second and a half.

HOUCK: Right.

CEVALLOS: And I'm sort of - I'm sort of estimating. But there's some actual studies that show that people can cover great distances in a short amount of time.

BANFIELD: Twenty feet is (INAUDIBLE).

CEVALLOS: So even an initial movement in that direction could be significant.

HOUCK: We'd like - we'd like to have clearer video, but we don't have it, all right?

BANFIELD: You get what you get.

HOUCK: But there's nothing - nothing to indicate that this was a bad shooting.

BANFIELD: Can you just tell me, from a police, you know, perspective, police have been taking a lot of heat lately.

HOUCK: Right.

BANFIELD: Maybe rightly, maybe wrongly. So, but from a policeman's perspective at this point, is this the kind of thing they had to do at this point? They had to share this video?

HOUCK: Oh, no doubt about it.

BANFIELD: It's sort of unprecedented. It's unprecedented.

HOUCK: There's no doubt about it. There's too much talk about police hiding information, police hiding evidence, all right? So they had to like - I watched when this first came out. They were so clear on putting this video out there today, there can't be any questions at all regarding the police shooting.

BANFIELD: All right, thank you to Harry Houck, and Danny Cevallos, and our Alexandra Field, who's doing the work for us up in Boston as well.

So up to - well, 250 police officers plus or minus are on this case and yet no one feels safe because these two dangerous killers are somewhere out there after a prison break pulled off with power tools that is Hollywood-style and then some. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:11:56] BANFIELD: The New York governor calls it a, quote, "crisis situation" for the state. But guess what? It's a crisis situation potentially for your state as well because two extremely dangerous, extremely resourceful maximum security prison escapees are out there somewhere. They're on the loose well after - well over 48 hours after the guards first noticed they were not in their cells. At this point, state police say Richard Matt, on the left, and David Sweat, on the right, quote, "could literally be anywhere."

Just getting out of Clinton Correctional Facility ensures that these two have got a place in the annals of crime. They likely had help, though. And a law enforcement source now confirms that a prison employee, a female prison employee, is being questioned. As you're watching this report from CNN's Polo Sandoval, remember, remember, it is not a movie, it actually happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK: When you look at how it was done, it was extraordinary.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, taking a tour of their elaborate and almost unbelievable escape route discovered around 5:30 Saturday morning.

CUOMO: Must have kept you awake with all that cutting, huh?

SANDOVAL: After stuffing makeshift dummies into their beds so guards thought they were sleeping, the inmates somehow obtained power tools to cut this hole in the back of the cell. Cutting through solid steel, they exited onto a cat walk. On the cat walk, they had to shimmy down into a tunnel below. Once there, they had to break through a 24-inch brick wall, then cut through a 24-inch steel vertical pipe, which they then shimmied into, continuing for a significant distance until cutting another hole, making their way into the city's sewer.

Then, when they reached a manhole, they had to cut through a steel lock and chain, finally disappearing into the neighborhood about a block away from the prison. But not before leaving this racially offensive drawing for prison officials on a Post-it reading, "have a nice day."

DR. LISE VAN SUSTEREN, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: It's clear that they had help. There's no way. Power tools don't just materialize inside prison cells. This has been being planned for a very long time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: And Polo joins me live now from the village of Dannemora. It's just 20 some odd miles from the Canadian border.

Polo, as I watched your report and looked at the Labyrinthian escape, and the high tech nature and the needs of the kinds of tools and battery power that they would have had to have, it just sounds like there's no way they could have done this alone.

SANDOVAL: It sounds like a movie screenplay, Ashleigh, I think you mentioned that a few moments ago, because what they did pretty much is they cut their way through some of the steel walls in their cells and then they cut into some of the drains and the intricate network of piping underground and then they popped out of a manhole cover just not far from where I'm standing here. And so now the challenge for authorities is to try to keep people focused on the threat and not so much on the fact that this was truly an elaborate escape. But, again, mainly on the fact that these people, as you mentioned, are extremely dangerous and extremely important that they track them down at this hour.

[12:15:06] BANFIELD: When you say "extremely dangerous," it's almost euphemistic for these guys are butchers. I mean one of them actually cut up his victim. Can you just run through the nature of what these two on the loose did to put them in that place called Little Siberia?

SANDOVAL: Yes, Ashleigh, you're referring to Richard Matt. He was - what's concerning here is that he actually sprang out of a county jail back in the mid-'80s for a separate non-related case, eventually caught, served out that sentence, ran into more legal trouble and then this incident here where he's accused of kidnapping a man, beating him death and then, as you mentioned there, dismembering him.

And then his accomplice, at least in this prison break, Richard Sweat. You know, I spoke to investigators down in Broom County, New York, which is south of here, and to them this search is personal. You see Sweat is actually convicted of shooting one of their deputies in 2002, 22 times, leaving his body in a parking lot. So in speaking to supervisors there at that police agency, they're saying that really if anybody wants to see these individuals, particularly Sweat, back behind bars, it is them because they've had time to heal. Not only them, but also that deputy's family. And so what this does, it basically tears these wounds back open again. So the main priority right now is to track these guys down, Ashleigh, and then find - try to find out exactly how on earth they were able to escape.

BANFIELD: All right. Well, when we have that in mind, there's still this notion that it's the first escape ever since that prison was opened. And I'm just looking, I think it was opened in 1845. So to have these guys break out of that 170-year-old prison and for them to be the first to do so, it's remarkable.

I'm a little concerned, clearly, about the neighborhood, understandably. What are they doing about kids going to school, people going to work, neighborhoods just trying to prosecute normal life?

SANDOVAL: Yes, we heard from some of the school districts here in Dannemora, New York, who say they actually teamed up with New York State Police to search all of their campuses, all of the buildings on this school, to make sure that they're in essence clear of any potential threats. They're making sure that these two individuals aren't here. So they're really, if you're out here, you hear the sights (ph), you see the sounds of life really back to normal, except for the fact that these individuals who live in and around the prison area are having to go through several check points. We actually had to - we had to stop about two or three times just to get to this location. State police and correction officer, might I add very heavily armed state police and correctional officers, had to check out our vehicle, look at the trunk space, because, again, they are not taking any chances as they try to find out exactly what led to this prison break.

And then this new information that's just surfacing now, Ashleigh, which is very concerning here. An official, a law enforcement official confirming for CNN that they are questioning a female prisoner here at Clinton Correctional Facility as a possible accomplice here. However, they would not elaborate. So they won't say exactly how they would or would not have helped these two individuals. So we do hope to learn more information about that.

BANFIELD: Yes.

SANDOVAL: Were they the ones who may have provided some of these tools that were used? A lot of unanswered questions still here in upstate New York, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So many. And I'm just noticing here that this prison employee isn't a guard, necessarily. It's an employee being questioned. And people should know that there was - there were contractors and construction going on. So if anyone's wondering, how can you possibly use power tools and hammers to break through concrete, wouldn't everyone hear it, not if there's already construction ongoing. So at least one mystery might be solved there.

Polo Sandoval, let us know when you hear anything new. That's just a remarkable story and, obviously, a lot of people on edge. Thank you for that.

Coming up next, the neighborhood pool party that has triggered national outrage amid the growing debate over overzealous police. We're going to show you this video where a gun is pulled on a group of teenagers, some of them in bikinis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:22:26] BANFIELD: A Texas police officer is now on leave and under investigation, this after allegedly using excessive force on a teenager at a pool party. Several officers were responding to a disturbance at the pool. It's in a Dallas suburb. It happened Friday night. And, you guessed it, all caught on tape, or at least part of it.

So you're about to see an edited version of the video that is sparking the outrage. And you will see an officer who's running, taking a fall. And then later you will see that same officer take down a 14-year-old girl in a bikini.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move! (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was his.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) let me see it. Don't - don't take off running when the cops get here.

What's that mean (ph)?

(INAUDIBLE) thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was - it was that -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some guy. One of these cars (ph) -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, guys, I appreciate it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: None of them were involved (INAUDIBLE). I know who was involved.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was this guy. It was that guy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get on the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold up, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told you to stay! Get your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) down on the ground! Right now you're staying. Don't make me (EXPLETIVE DELETED) run around here with 30 pounds of (EXPLETIVE DELETED) gear on in the sun because you want to screw around out here! Y'all keep standing here and running your mouth you're going to go, too. Get out of here. I already told you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't care. Leave! You're leaving now.

(CROSS TALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're leaving now! You are leaving now!

(CROSS TALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That way! Then get your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) home!

(CROSS TALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep running your mouth!

(CROSS TALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo, jumper (ph), what the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is going on? (INAUDIBLE).

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. Call my mama (ph)! (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Call my mama! Call my mama! Oh, God!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On your face (ph)!

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm on the ground!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you doing to her? What is he doing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:25:03] BANFIELD: I now want to show you another angle of that same takedown that you were just watching. And this is captured by another bystander's camera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you doing to her?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are you holding her down for?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On your face!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm on the ground!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you not - can you not drag her -

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are you dragging her? What did she do?

(INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What (EXPLETIVE DELETED) she doing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) didn't tell you all to leave here (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know I'm (INAUDIBLE), OK, but you chill out, back off.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I literally have freedoms.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have freedom of speech. I have freedom - I have freedom of speech. I have freedom of speech. I have freedom of speech. I have freedom of speech.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am filming it. I am filming it. I'm at 33 seconds right now. I'm filming it. I'll send it, OK? And then y'all will hit me, too? He hit me, too, though. He hit me in the face, OK, because that's abuse. You know that, right, for freedom of speech?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He asked you to move three times.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I was walking away and I started walking away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, like (INAUDIBLE).

(CROSS TALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in our law enforcement experts to talk about this extraordinarily chaotic situation. Joining me, CNN legal analyst, attorney, and former police officer himself Phil Holloway, who's in Atlanta, and then CNN law enforcement analyst and retired NYPD detective Harry Houck.

So, Phil, I want to just get your take upon seeing those two pieces of video, understanding that we did not see anything beforehand and we may not be seeing the entire picture.

PHILIP HOLLOWAY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's true, Ashleigh, you may not be seeing the entire picture, but I have seen enough of this and I've watched the unedited version of this and the amount of profanity, the amount of sheer violence on the part of this one officer. Note, it's only the one. The other officers are relatively calm, they're relatively collected and they are deescalating the situation.

What this particular officer is doing when he's running around screaming and yelling, he's escalating the situation. So in addition to being unprofessional, I cannot conceive of why he would pull his weapon out under those circumstances. We are trained not to pull our weapons out as police officers unless we are prepared legally and otherwise psychologically even to use that weapon. And I can't see any justifiable basis for that. And when I saw that, I literally cringed. And it looked like the other officers who were on scene with this person who was their supervisor, they looked like they were cringing as well.

BANFIELD: Harry, do you see any kind of defense at all with - again, the snippet that we've seen, and I, too, have seen the unedited version. It's only seven minutes long and it doesn't give us a whole lot more insight.

HOUCK: Right. Yes, you know, I agree with Phil here. That officer was totally out of control. I mean he was the only one. You know, you saw part of that video there where an officer was talking to one of the kids and he was -

BANFIELD: He said "thanks man" or something polite, yes.

HOUCK: Right. Right. He was very polite to the kid. And I think that this officer definitely escalated the situation here where, you know, when you arrive at a situation like this, you try and just find out what happened and then just tell the kids to move on. I mean if there was a fight, it was a damage or property or something like that, you might have to make an arrest, all right? But you talk to the kids. Come on, guys, let's go, the party's over, move on, and they usually will move on, all right? You might have one or two agitators you have to deal with, but that's it. But here, and like Phil said, when I saw that officer draw his weapon, even that bugged me. I said, I can't believe this officer's drawing a weapon.

BANFIELD: Even though there were two larger gentlemen coming around behind him?

HOUCK: Well, I saw there was one guy coming around by him, but there was another officer there. Maybe he thought he was going for a weapon. I don't know, all right. But to me, it didn't look like that he should have been pulling his weapon at that time because there were two other officers right behind that man.

BANFIELD: Who put their hand on his arm at that time as well, right?

HOUCK: Right. Exactly. Right. And when you see the officer come around towards the other people as they're walking away, the two other officers come to the side and I bet you one of those officers are saying, what are you doing pulling that gun? Put it away.

HOLLOWAY: Yes.

BANFIELD: So - so, Phil, I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt and I always caution viewers, especially those who see a YouTube clip and then put comments as though they were there -

HOLLOWAY: Right.

BANFIELD: To please think about all the things that may have happened off video. And I could hear a lot of agitation and a lot of really rough talk on the behalf of the kids. But I, too, was a kid who, you know, went to pool parties and was probably a brat, et cetera. When do you know that this is just kids and exactly as Harry said, just scatter, kids, and when do you know that maybe something could turn into a mob mentality and cops are under fire right now and maybe could become targets themselves?

HOLLOWAY: Well, Ashleigh, it looked like the police had things sort of under control and the crowd was dispersing until this one officer sort of runs out of his car and he goes crazy. And it's like, you see him getting out of his vehicle - this is in broad daylight - he's holding his flashlight as if it were a billy club and he's running as fast as he can. He falls down, he trips, he gets back up and he's just running from person to person screaming at them, yelling profanities and it gets into this us against them police mentality -

BANFIELD: Right away.

HOLLOWAY: That sometimes creeps into the law enforcement culture.

BANFIELD: So - HOLLOWAY: And police agencies would be well served to get into the idea of community-oriented policing and get away from this us against them idea.

[12:30:05] BANFIELD: And what about just the 911 calls? Because clearly that was made. There was some report made to the police. Harry, will that help to shed light on what was in the