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Police Audio Shows Baltimore Officers Told to Stand Down; Republican 16, John Kasich, Joins Presidential Race; Police Dash Cam Video of Sandra Bland Arrest to be Released; David Sweat Talks Escape. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired July 21, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:04] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: So after these initial riots, I know Evan Perez sat down with Anthony Batts, who is no longer the commissioner of the Baltimore city police, but Evan asked him, what about these comments, as officers are saying, they were told not to engage, and he said that that was incorrect. Have you heard anything more from the cities since this has come out?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The police have said all the way around that that is not correct. The police are going through their own review of what happened in those days and what orders were give and how they responded. Batts has said that they were not trained up and they didn't have the right equipment. He's admitted that. He denies all the way along that he gave an order to stand down. But clearly, they took a very -- as the police union called it, a very weak stance towards the rioters in not pursing them and in not being more aggressive and laying down lines and moving out there so people weren't able to get to fire hoses. I saw the fire engines pull up and have to retreat because they couldn't get close it without throwing bottles at the police.

BALDWIN: Miguel Marquez, thank you so much.

Next here, we have new video from inside the jail where that African- American woman was found dead. What that tape could tell about the way she died. CNN takes you inside.

Also, new details about prisoners. David Sweat and Richard Matt made their dramatic escape out of that prison. They've been comparing themselves to the "Shawshank Redemption." A former inmate at the Clinton Correctional Facility gives his take on the escape details. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:35:42] BALDWIN: Sweet 16. We're talking about the next Republican to enter the race for 2016.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KASICH, (R), OHIO GOVERNOR & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And guess what, I am here to ask you for your prayers, for your support, for your efforts because I have decided to run for president of the United States. (APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's go to our CNN senior political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson.

Here we have it. Number 16. Let's talk about the governor of Ohio.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, the governor of Ohio won 64 percent of the vote last time he ran. He's got pretty good approval ratings. They like the way the economy is going and he actually sorted hinted at an exploratory committee but dropped out before the Iowa straw poll. He's got overall a pretty good political resume, pretty good for a general election, more so than a Republican primary campaign. He's going to have trouble, I think, in states like Iowa because of his stances on Medicaid, expanded in Ohio. That's going to be a problem for him but if he's pitching for a more of a general election audience, he can tell folks that he did very well among African-American voters, won 25 percent in 2014. He's got some things there to brag up. The problem is, he's getting into this thing so late and a lot of the donors and oxygen out there has been swept up by these other candidates, folks like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and Scott Walker.

BALDWIN: Just for folks watching and I like the graphics, when it comes to this stage, 10 of them will take place in the Republican presidential debate.

Nia-Malika Henderson, thank you so much.

HENDERSON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: A police dash cam video at the center of this controversial death investigation, it's expected to be released today by authorities in Texas. And what this video is supposed to give is a better picture into what happened between 28-year-old Sandra Bland and the trooper who pulled her over back on July 10th. Three days later, Bland was last seen alive in this jail cell. CNN got access to these images inside this county lockup. In fact, it was the very same cell. The family is waiting for those results from its independent autopsy.

Meantime, this police surveillance video from inside the jail shows the chaos just moments after authorities discovered Bland was unresponsive.

The district attorney here says he's treating this case as a murder investigation and that there will be a thorough and exhaustive review.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELTON MATHIS, WALLER COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: So it is very much too early to make any kind of determination that this was a suicide or a murder because the investigations are not complete.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Bland's family stands by their belief that she did not kill herself. The results of the private autopsy could be ready today.

CNN's Ryan Young is in Prairie View, Texas, following all of this.

Ryan, you talked to the family, to the sheriff. Let's just begin with that. What did the family attorney think about this encounter after watching the dash cam video that has not been released?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, so much going on here. I can tell you there's a state official here that will meet with law enforcement and then they will hold a news conference and then release that dash cam video. The attorney has seen the video. He sat down with us and discussed it at length and talked about what he saw in the video. What he says is she was pulled over and there was a conversation between her and the trooper and at some point the trooper asked her to put out a cigarette and Sandra Bland didn't want to put out her cigarette. Her point being, why am I asking to get out of the car for a traffic violation. The conversation accelerated from there. The attorney says there is no reason for the door to be open. And then, at some point, the trooper opens the door, stands back with a taser and points it towards Ms. Bland, then she complies.

According to the attorney, you can hear him on the video saying, you were just going to get a warning and now you're going to jail, and then a struggle starts, but you don't see the struggle on camera. I think a lot of people may be disappointed by the fact that they won't see that on the camera. It happens off to the edge of the camera and you can hear her screaming and yelling.

The attorney says he wants to dig deeper into what the investigators have found so far.

BALDWIN: So --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[14:40:25] CANNON LAMBERT, BLAND FAMILY ATTORNEY: I'm interested in seeing what, if any, medical treatment was rendered to Sandy when she was first booked. I'm interested in seeing what type of communication she was afforded when she was booked and after. Those are the types of things that you really, really want to get a grasp for. We want to be able to talk to the people that were involved. We want to talk to the person who found her. We want to talk to the people who claim to have responded to her. I want to see where she was when she was found and in what position.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Brooke, we have talked to a lawyer and family members and they are very measured in terms of all of the evidence coming in because they want to be a part of this conversation. I can tell you, though, the communities involved in this, the #aboutSandyBland, is why people are paying attention to this case.

BALDWIN: You were allowed into her jail cell. That exact jail cell. What did you see?

YOUNG: Well, Brooke, that just happened in the last 45 minutes or so and we were allowed in. It's cell number 95. It's all the way in the corner and apparently she was by herself. Her food is still left inside that cell. In fact, we looked at a sandwich that she was intending to eat or someone had brought her and you could see the mold growing on that. You could see how the room was set up. The sheriff pointed us to all different directs. He showed us the window in which a jailer looked through and saw apparently her feet dangling and that's when the frantic try for help to get her some help and then when they went inside they had to bring her down and tried to give her 911 and resuscitate her and call everyone.

You can see the conversation with the sheriff and he says, look, anytime somebody walks down this hallway, they know someone is down this hallway and at no point did they see anyone going down the hallway in between the last time there was contact with her and the last time she was found hanging on the cell. There's a lot of conversation about how she was able to do it with a trash bag, and it was twisted and that's what the sheriff was saying, and it was put up on a bar on the top side. We got to see all of this and I can tell you it's a little eerie to be in a room like that knowing what happened in the last seven days or so.

BALDWIN: And again, the family wanting the answers. The independent autopsy results should be available as early as today.

Ryan Young, thank you, from Prairie View, Texas.

Next, we are learning how prisoners, David Sweat and Richard Matt, made their daring escape. Apparently, Sweat spent months in the tunnels beneath the prison while guards were asleep on the job. Totally snoozing. We talk to a former inmate from the Clinton Correctional Facility and get his take.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:47:17] BALDWIN: Captured killer, David Sweat, is spilling the details on exactly how he pulled off one of the most daring escapes in U.S. history. This photo here, this shows the cloth covered hacksaw blade Sweat and Richard Matt used. A CNN source saying when the lights went dark in the cell block, these convicted killers would crawl through the escape holes exploring the catwalks and tunnels nearly every single night for months and months. How did they get away with it? Good question. According to "The New York Times," the guards, Sweat says, were fast asleep. And when his cell neighbors questioned the sounds of hacksaw cutting, Matt said that was stretching of canvas for paintings he was working on.

Let me bring in Erik Jensen, former inmate at the Clinton Correctional Facility. He knew both of these escaped killers.

This is the beginning of the details are coming out as far as how they pulled this off. Sometime between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 in the morning, he was crawling into this hole, exploring, cutting. How could someone be missing from his cell for that many nights? ERIK JENSEN, FORMER INMATE: It's not possible without the officer

sleeping or doing their job, making their rounds. They are supposed to come around every hour, do a body check and make sure the body is in the cell. Most of the time they didn't come around until 5:30 in the morning which is the standing count.

BALDWIN: Did you see guards doing rounds?

JENSEN: They will come down the gallery, walk down the gallery where all of the cells are. If your radio is too loud, television too loud, making too much noise, talking. They will tell you to shut up because they want to relax. A lot of these officers are doing double shifts. So they will work their eight hours during the day and put in double time at night and pretty much sleep the whole time.

BALDWIN: So the notion of having something that you should never have in a prison cell being hacksaw blades and who knows how many blades there were, the correction officer is implicated for bringing the hacksaw blades in, in the meat. Did you see shake-downs in cells?

JENSEN: The only big shake-down that I seen was in August of 2011. That was when there was a riot and shots were fired in the yard and everybody was confined to their cell for three days. The jail was shut down. They brought meals to your cell and actually went to every cell and searched every cell.

BALDWIN: Searched how thoroughly?

JENSEN: Thoroughly. Anything you're not supposed to have, they take. They come in with mirrors and look under your bars, under the bed and cracks.

BALDWIN: You're telling me that's atypical, from your experience?

JENSEN: Well, yeah. That was the only shakedown that I had seen and I was there nine months.

BALDWIN: I thought you were supposed to have random checks every morning at 5:00 a.m.

[14:50:12] JENSEN: They didn't do that. They never had random checks.

BALDWIN: You never had that happen?

JENSEN: No. I never had a random check. If they come through and see you putting -- like if you have a TV you're not supposed to have, they will see if you bought one at commissary.

BALDWIN: He's talked about "Shawshank Redemption" and took him 20 years and apparently he was bragging that it took him 10.

JENSEN: And he got away, I believe, at the end of the movie. This was a well thought out plan, but it failed.

BALDWIN: Do people talk about "Shawshank Redemption" in prison? Is that a thing?

JENSEN: Everyone in prison.

(CROSSTALK)

JENSEN: Yeah. They dream of pulling something like that off, but very few try it.

BALDWIN: The fact that he had these hacksaw blades, right, and so he's cutting, he's cutting. How is it that, you know, somebody else had wondered what the noise was and, you know, the other one said it's just the stretching of my canvas. Do you think the other inmates bought it?

JENSEN: I don't think they bought it at all. They knew something else was going on. If you were going to say something like that to Richard Matt or Dave, and they were plotting on their freedom, there would have been consequences of that. They would have made you be quiet.

BALDWIN: Wouldn't you want in on that plan?

JENSEN: Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, me personally, when I was there, I had less time than a lot of people there.

BALDWIN: What about people who had a lot of time?

JENSEN: Of course. That's probably one reason they took extreme measures to keep it a secret because they didn't want everybody knowing because they would have to take them along or do something to them to keep it quiet.

BALDWIN: With all of these trial runs, we're hearing that he shimmied in the bowels of the prison all these many night. The word that comes to my mind is patience.

JENSEN: It is patience. I read when he escaped at night inside the bowels of the tunnels, that he felt like he was free. He felt like he was already away from that because it was something new. He was in this prison for 10 or 11 years. And, you know, he's just walking around down there.

BALDWIN: Waiting for the right moment. When he actually found his way, you know --

(CROSSTALK)

JENSEN: And it was new, like exploring, so he felt free in a sense. And then when he found his way, you know.

BALDWIN: Free and then not.

JENSEN: Free and then not. Free and then not.

BALDWIN: Erik Jensen, thank you.

JENSEN: You're very welcome, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Coming up next, a political rally like you've never seen before. Donald Trump has been called everything from a "jackass" to a bloviater. Moments ago, he said he will not take it and gave out a personal cell phone number of one of his opponents, a sitting Senator, and used rather colorful language to describe others. Why did he do it? We'll talk to our chief congressional correspondent. Dana Bash joins me, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:57:57] BALDWIN: Tonight, a groundbreaking special. Jada Pinkett Smith investigates sex trafficking in Atlanta, Georgia. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JADA PINKETT SMITH, ACTRESS & ACTIVIST: When my daughter was 11, she came to me and said, mommy, did you know that there were girls being sold for sex at my age in this country? And I was like, I think there's a mistake, that doesn't happen here. After that, it was just -- I remember I was stuck to the computer for days, story after story after story, and I couldn't believe that I didn't know.

(voice-over): Dalia Racine knows. She's the DeKalb County's assistant district attorney.

(on camera): Would you say there's a difference between prostitution and trafficking?

DALIA RACINE, ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY, DEKALB COUNTY: Trafficking is the manufacturing of children for the sex trade. They are getting sold and passed on from one exploiter to another. And a lot of times, it's because they don't know another life after this.

SMITH (voice-over): Those exploiters can come from anywhere.

(on camera): Is there such a thing as trafficking occurring in airports?

RACINE: It is the world's busiest airports which lends to being a hub. That man can get on that computer anonymously, say I'm coming in to go have sex with this child. He'll fly in on a 3:00 flight, meet the child at 6:00 and be gone on the 8:00. How are we to ever find them? How are we ever to know who they are?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[14:54:51] BALDWIN: Be sure to catch CNN's special report, "Children for Sale," tonight here on CNN at 9:00 p.m.

Of course, to find out how you can help, go to CNN.com/impact.

And we continue on. Top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.