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Police: Dallas Shootout Suspect Had a Record of Domestic Violence; Prison Escape Plan; New Tamir Rice Police Report. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired June 14, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00] CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Nine days on the run. Yes, we are on nine. Police in New York still trying to find these two escaped prison inmates, ramping things up today. This morning, what these convicts had planned to do once they escape. That's what we have learned.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Eighteen months after Cleveland police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, we're now learning more about what happened the -- the contradictions between officers and eyewitnesses. And what were officers told in the minutes leading up to that shooting?

PAUL: We are so grateful for your company. It's 7:00 on a Sunday morning even. I'm Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: Pleasure to be with you. I'm Victor Blackwell.

PAUL: Yes. Let's talk about investigators in Dallas, first off, this morning, because they're trying to piece together all of this evidence, hoping to understand how exactly suspect James Boulware, a man with a long and violent criminal past, was able to pull off a violent attack on the police department with guns, pipe bombs and an armored van.

We do know that the father of the suspect in the attack on Dallas police is giving us a sense of who his son was. Jim Boulware is his name and he tells us that his son was angry, he was desperate, but this was not a domestic terrorist act.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: He's been called a lot of different names after what's happened. And one of the names is domestic terrorist. Is he a domestic terrorist?

JIM BOULWARE, SUSPECT'S FATHER: No, no.

He told me he didn't care. Anarchy would be better. I said, no.

SIDNER: He said he didn't care about the police.

BOULWARE: No, you don't want anarchy. You don't want it. Yes, it would be better. Yes, he did say that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: CNN's Sara Sidner live in Dallas with more of this emotional interview.

Sara, when you sat down with this man, what stuck with you most?

SIDNER: You know, what stuck with me is that one moment, he'd be laughing, and the next, he'd be absolutely in the depths of despair. He is going to the shock of learning that his son has been killed. But he says he does not blame police. They did what they had to do.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOULWARE: Every one of us has a breaking point, every one of us.

SIDNER (on camera): Did your son hit his breaking point?

BOULWARE: He hit his breaking point.

SIDNER (voice-over): Jim Boulware is teetering on the edge himself, filled with grief after his son James attacked police and was killed for it. He says James was the man behind the attack on the Dallas police headquarters. Three hours before the attack, he was sitting right here with his dad.

BOULWARE: He told me he loved me and he was going back to West Texas. And I told him, have a safe trip.

SIDNER: But that is not what happened. Before the sun came up, James Boulware was dead, killed by a police sniper after threatening to blow police up for taking his child. He could have. His van was laden with explosives that police eventually detonated.

BOULWARE: He left from here. He mowed my yard yesterday, edged it. Told me he was going to be back in ten days to mow it again.

SIDNER (on camera): Did you have any idea when he left?

BOULWARE: No. No. I knew he was angry at police. He blamed them for taking his son.

I tried to tell him the police didn't do it. The police were doing their job to enforce the laws. If you want to get to that, you've got to go back to the liberal people who put these laws in place to where CPS now can grab kids out of the way from them (ph). They are just enforcing the laws.

SIDNER (voice-over): James Boulware had recently lost custody of his son to his own mother, the boy's grandmother, a family fight in 2013 preceded the custody battle.

BOULWARE: His mother, her half brother and James had a fight in her house. SIDNER: James Boulware was arrested in Paris, Texas, for multiple

assault charges on family members. The charges were eventually dropped.

BOULWARE: When he was here, he said, dad, I've lost my house, my tools, my son. I'm going through every dime I've got. I can't find a job because I've got domestic violence on my record. He said, I've lost everything. And then you have hopelessness.

SIDNER (on camera): Why didn't he get some help?

BOULWARE: Where? Where does a white male get help?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: And those were the very strong word of the father of James Boulware.

He also talked about the van in which James was able to pull this all off and where he stored these explosives. He had no idea his son even had a gun, never mind explosives. It was always a big shock to him, but he did understand what police had to do.

[07:05:01] PAUL: Poor man has a lot to reconcile.

Thank you so much, Sara Sidner. We appreciate it.

BLACKWELL: Some answers there and some reflection from James Boulware's father. But investigators, they have some questions they need answers to, the major question for them, why? And maybe they got some answers from Jim Boulware.

But they're now combing through dispatch recordings and cell phone video they have to get some answers to how can they prevent something like this from happening again? We heard from the chief that they're reviewing and reconsidering security measures at the headquarters and seven substations.

Let's see what we can learn about this growing investigation from CNN's Nick Valencia. He is Dallas where this attack happened.

Nick, what are you learning?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Victor.

What we saw happen last night and is continuing is the FBI, ATF and local law enforcement here, Dallas Police Department, digitally mapping the crime scene, trying to figure out how this all played out. They want to know where the suspect was before, how he was able to lay down these four suspicious bags containing small scale pipe bombs. And there was a lot of people out here on a Friday night, early Saturday morning.

So, a lot of amateur video, a lot of amateur cameras. They want all of that video in order to understand, to better understand exactly the details of how this was carried out. They believe that this was coordinated, and they're actually pretty shocked that he was able to pull it off, Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right. Nick Valencia there for us in Dallas -- Nick, thank you so much.

Let's try to learn more about James Boulware. We've got with us, criminal profiler Pat Brown.

Pat, after hearing the interview with Boulware's father, Jim Boulware, what's your takeaway?

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, Victor, you know, I really feel for the father. You can see he's completely, you know, distraught by what has happened. But what I've also see is the problem we often have which is called minimizing. We see this by families, when somebody has a mental health problem.

I do believe James Boulware has a mental health problem. I read some of his writings, sound very delusional and psychotic to me. He has a history of violence. He has history of threatening people.

So, he has behaviors over a long period of time, which are very concerning, which is one reason probably he's really not a healthy person to keep his son, and that engender some rage in him because he's not in control. And the family is trying to deal with him.

But a lot of times these things get minimized. He probably really needed institutionalization if this was his condition. And it's interesting too because he's been to court. He has his history. I read one part about the judge being threatened.

So, we in society also minimize mental health problems. So, he's left out there. So, you know, at some point, when you have a person in this situation, you don't know what he's willing to do. In this case, I think it's a little bit of cop -- suicide by cop, along with rage. He's just picking any target and going after it because he is paranoid and delusional and he needed mental health help.

BLACKWELL: You mentioned the judge, let's listen to more about this threat against the judge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE KIM COOKS, DALLAS FAMILY DISTRICT COURT (via telephone): When he had a court appearance and when we thought he could be in court, the security was always heightened in the building. In my courtroom, I had extra security put in place, because he was always a threat to us. So, we just didn't know what he would do or when he would do it, or, you know, what was going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: That was Judge Kim Cooks who over saw the custody case back in April. She said there had been several threats against her.

You made a point about the family and minimizing. No one ever wants to believe that it is his or her child who will do something like this.

BROWN: Yes. Well, I'm sure they never believed he'd go this far. They knew he had problems. But that's the thing, in minimizing things, he'll be OK, he just needs this, he just needs that.

He needed a lot more. Unfortunately, they weren't paying attention to that. They didn't find a way to get him help. They said they didn't know how to get him help.

But, you know, again, where was society? Because if he's out there threatening judges, why is he running around? If he got such a criminal history, why is he out there? Why is nobody paying any attention? And I think that is one of our problems today, is that when somebody does show severe psychotic problems, you know, no one's there to do something about it, and then we're all at risk.

BLACKWELL: Well, let's bring in CNN law enforcement analyst, Cedric Alexander.

Cedric, let's pick up where Pat has left off there. Is it realistic to expect that there would have been some surveillance considering the stretched and strained resources of local departments?

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, you know, in a case like this, Victor, it's very, very difficult to do more than oftentimes we know that needs to be done.

But I just want to touch on one thing here for a moment. I myself a trained psychologist. And we go back and we look at these cases involving subjects where there was very early information that there might have been some mental health condition. And then, we later learn that they go out and they do something that's harm to someone else or to themselves.

[07:10:04] So, we're really going to have to look at ways in which we're going to have to be able to intervene a lot earlier when we see people that are struggling with mental health illnesses. It appears to be too many signs and symptoms here that suggested that this subject could have used some help even before all of this took place. What I'm really disturbed about is that the shooting in and of itself could have got officers right here in Dallas hurt because somewhere along the way, things were not dealt with him the way they should have been.

That's not placing blame on anyone. But I think in our system, we're really going to have to start paying more attention with those who may be crying out for help in some way so we don't get our police officers hurt, we don't get our citizens hurt. That is going to be an ongoing issue which we have to deal with as a nation.

BLACKWELL: Yes, and let's hope that this re-examination, as we heard from Chief David Brown of the Dallas Police Department, extends beyond just the police department to look at the mental health element there in Dallas.

Pat Brown -- ALEXANDER: Absolutely correct.

BLACKWELL: -- Cedric Alexander, thank you both. We'll continue the conversations throughout the morning.

PAUL: Well, police are expanding the search area this morning for those two New York escaped inmates. And we have new details about what they planned to do, those inmates, once they escaped.

Plus, a murder mystery in Ohio this morning. Four people are dead inside a Columbus home. And that shooter could be anywhere at this point, still on the loose. We'll give you the latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Fourteen minutes after the hour now. And we have new details in the hunt for convicted killers Richard Matt and David Sweat. The search is now in its ninth day. It's shifting to the east. Take a look at this map.

Also, the district attorney reveals to CNN new details about the escape plan and the seven-hour drive that Matt and Sweat planned to take with their alleged accomplice Joyce Mitchell, according to Mitchell.

[07:15:05] Meanwhile, Joyce Mitchell has reportedly been moved to a different county jail so that she won't have any contact with people she may known or worked with while she awaits her next court appearance on Monday.

Let's start with CNN investigations correspondent Sara Ganim, live in West Plattsburgh, New York.

And, Sara, what's the latest on the hunt -- the manhunt for Sweat and Matt?

SARA GANIM, CNN INVESTIGATIONS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Victor.

Still a very active search here this morning. You see the road is closed behind me. No vehicle gets through this intersection without going through a vehicle check. And like you mentioned, they have expanded the search area to move further east away from the prison.

Now, last night, we learned some new details. I spoke to the district attorney. You mentioned that seven-hour drive that they were planning on taking. I asked him, what was the plan A? Where were they going to end up if Joyce Mitchell picked them up as planned?

He said that information came from interviews Mitchell did with authorities before she was arrested. And she told authorities it was the two convicts who picked that destination. All she knew was where to pick them up and to be prepared for a long drive.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANDREW WYLIE, DISTRICT ATOTRNEY, CLINTON COUNTY, NY: The information that we have looking at the statement is that they were going to meet down by the power plant, drive -- I'm not going to say into the sunset because it was after midnight and it was dark out. But they were going to drive to an area, potentially to an area that was about seven hours away. She never indicated to us where that location was. It was just the information that she was told by Matt and Sweat, that it was about seven hours away. She did indicate one of the reasons she didn't show up was because, you know, she did love her husband and she didn't want to do this to him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GANIM: Now, obviously, this is where the active search is for these two men. But I did ask the district attorney, have they been in contact with other relatives and friends and acquaintances of those two who may live within that seven-hour area, that driving distance. He said that they had but none of those people reported back that they heard from either Richard Matt or David Sweat since they escaped.

Now, we also talked about cell phones. I asked the district attorney if these two had cell phones, if they believed that. He said they had no indication that they do right now. However, there were inmates inside the Clinton correctional facility who remember seeing those two with cell phones before they escaped.

We also talked about planning. This was obviously a very elaborate plan to escape. And the district attorney told me that they believe that those two had been planning weeks up into weeks leading up to the escape, by crawling through the walls, going through those spaces, climbing potentially around the pipes to see where they could go that will lead them out of the prison. They may have been doing that in the middle of the night for possibly weeks leading up to their escape.

He also told me that they're also not ruling out that they may have had help from additional people aside from Joyce Mitchell. And he also told me that there's some technology available to them. They had access to computers inside, to a library. And that there are certain places inside that prison where you can see over the wall if you're an inmate, into the community. And they may have been able to scope out where they wanted to go -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: Well, we'll learn very soon when those two men are caught, if they planned as meticulously the time out of prison as the plan to get out of prison.

Sara Ganim for us in West Plattsburgh, thank you so much.

PAUL: Let's bring in CNN law enforcement analyst and former NYPD detective, Harry Houck.

Harry, I saw you shaking your head up and down when Sara was talking about the fact that they're wondering if they had help outside the prison once they got out, even though apparently Joyce Mitchell ditched her part of the plan. Do you believe that they are being aided? HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, there's got to be a

question here, was there a plan B in the event she didn't show up? I mean, this break was so well planned out, for them not to think of a plan B might be a little bit ludicrous.

So, what I'm trying to -- what I'm thinking right now is maybe those guys aren't anywhere near that search area. We're on nine days now with no supplies, no food, nothing's been stolen that we're aware of, no cars have been stolen.

So, when they came out of the prison, did they make a phone call with one of those cell phones they had and have a plan B go into effect. You can see also, the state police are talking about, you know, they have law enforcement in Texas looking for the one guy. So there is a good chance these guys are nowhere in the area, because I don't know how they survive for nine days.

PAUL: Right. You know, Pat Brown earlier today said she doesn't even believe Mitchell is telling the truth because she obviously has committed a crime here as well.

[07:20:02] Do you think she could be lying about that seven-hour drive perhaps to protect them?

HOUCK: That's a possibility. I mean, they've got to try and verify this information that she gave them.

Listen, they didn't break out with just a hacksaw and a couple little tools. They had to have other power tools. Where did they get them, all right? Maybe she's trying to think maybe these guys shoot it out with the cops, they get killed. Therefore, you know, her story is the only story they're going to have. So, that's a possibility, what she's trying to do right now to try and aid herself in a possible prosecution down the road.

PAUL: All right. Harry Houck, always appreciate your voice in this. Thank you so much.

HOUCK: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: Well, it was supposed to be a celebration, a joyous occasion. You know, the wedding happens, then a great reception. People were taking photos inside a famous New York landmark, a great hotel. Then the gun went off. We've got the latest in a bizarre shooting, next.

And 18 months later, we finally get new insight into the deadly shooting of a 12-year-old boy in Cleveland. Prosecutors now released a detailed report on Tamir Rice's death. We'll break it down in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: In Columbus, Ohio, police have a murder mystery on their hands this morning as they search for the person who shot and killed two men and two women in a home there. BLACKWELL: And outside, a 16-year-old girl was found.

[07:25:00] She had also been shot. Columbus police say it may have been a robbery. So far, no suspects and police are asking for the public's help.

PAUL: The Pentagon says it will store tanks and other heavy weapons in Eastern European countries that used to be part of the old Soviet Union. "The New York Times" reporting it's the first time since the Cold War, that those weapons will up American soldiers who are stationed there. The move is aimed at deterring further Russian aggression in the region, especially after a takeover of Crimea.

BLACKWELL: A wedding reception at one of the world's most famous hotels, the Waldorf Astoria, ended with a gunshot. Police say people were taking pictures in the lobby when a gun in a guest's pocket accidentally discharged. A bullet ricocheted, grazing a woman's head. Now, she was not seriously injured fortunately. Three other people were hit by flying glass. No word whether that guest will face charges.

A new report released into the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Was the officer who opened fire justified in those actions? We're going to break down the findings with the attorney for the victim's family. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Bottom of the hour now. And we're starting this half with new details in the death of Tamir Rice.

He was the 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer. Well, this is surveillance video from the incident. That was last November.

And investigators have now compiled this report of the shooting, and it's just now been handed over a grand jury. They will now study the report and decide whether or not to indict the officers. And this comes days after a judge says that he believes there is enough evidence to move forward with charges.

Well, back to the report. Martin Savidge delves deep into the latest findings.