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Texas Police Shooting; Ferguson Violence; Trump Under Fire. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 10, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: A barrage of bullets overnight forcing peaceful protesters to run for cover one year after Michael Brown was shot and killed.

It sparked a national movement to protest police treatment of African- Americans specifically here, at least four people behind bars after multiple shootings, including one incident that has left one man in critical condition.

And we have more video for you, but I just have to warn you, it's graphic to watch. It's tough to look at. But police here -- this is from last evening -- you will see them surrounding a suspect's body after police say he used a stolen handgun to fire at plainclothes officers.

I have Ryan Reilly on the phone with me now. He's The Huffington Post justice reporter.

And, so, Ryan Reilly, can you just bring me up to speed? I know we spoke a couple of minutes ago. You are there amidst these protesters outside of the federal courthouse in Saint Louis. You have witnessed yourself, you told me, several dozen arrests. Can you tell me what you are seeing right now?

RYAN REILLY, THE HUFFINGTON POST: Yes.

And now there's another group that actually sat there and we had a new group up who (INAUDIBLE) and many of them are actually members of the clergy who were just taking into custody. This all started when the Saint Louis County police or some, rather, Saint Louis City police moved into the area.

It originally had just been police for the federal courthouse, federal protective services and courthouse security and that sort of thing. So it's unclear right now I guess who they are going to be facing charges from. They were taken into custody by people from -- police officers with the city, but they were on federal property at the time.

BALDWIN: OK. And then also, this is the federal courthouse and it was the federal government tasked to investigate the Ferguson Police Department and that was when they recovered some pretty racist e- mails. Can you remind us what the DOJ found? REILLY: Yes. They found evidence that racist e-mails were exchanged in high-ranking members of the police department, including the city court clerk, who essentially had a lot of power within this municipal court system that is essentially designed as a revenue source for the city, rather than a real courtroom.

The way the system works sort of around here is that you have people playing different roles with blatant conflicts of interest, where they play prosecutor in one town and in a town right next door, they are judge. And a lot of them are obviously interpersonal relationships, a lot of law firms that are essentially run off of this entire situation where they just make all of the money by, you know, working for these municipalities that are fining people for things like baggy pants and dress that is too high and sending out arrest warrants when they miss a court date for that.

The way that arrests are used around is really that I think is extraordinary and somewhat unique, although not entirely unique, compared to the rest of the country.

BALDWIN: I know it is a message from a lot of these people that they are frustrated. And that message is also pervasive in Ferguson, not too far where you are, Ryan.

Let me bring you in, Sara Sidner.

You were in Ferguson from just about day one last year when Michael Brown was shot and killed through the nonindictment of the police officer and now even through last night and those protests that did in part turn violent. Tell me what you saw last night.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what happened is -- and the police have been pretty clear about this. They do not believe that this was part of the protests.

In their words, they say this was people who got into an altercation. They called them criminals, saying that there was a shooting away from the protest, but still along West Florissant.

As I was talking to and listening to the police chief, the new interim chief, we suddenly heard the sounds of gunshots, not one or two, not three or four, but dozens of gunshots going off over and over and over and over in very rapid succession. Then that stopped.

Everyone started running and everyone scattered, the police included who were standing along across Ferguson just telling people to disperse. Everyone got out of the way. And then after that, we heard another set of gunshots. That, we believe, is when police actually ended up shooting a young man who they have just named, 18-year-old Tyrone Harris, who is in critical condition at this hour, we are told, in the hospital.

Police are blaming him for a lot of different things, but family members say they simply don't believe that. And I can tell you that that really ratcheted up people's feelings of course on the ground, but it also dispersed a lot of people. A lot of people left after that. There were a few left chanting at the police, but it really changed the dynamic. There's a lot of frustration within the protest movement because they feel like a lot of times when these sorts of things happen, it's not a part of what they want to show the world.

They say they simply want justice and they want black people to be recognized as equals when it comes to how police see them -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Sara Sidner, my thanks to you, and Ryan Reilly also there in Saint Louis with The Huffington Post. Thanks to both of you. We will stay in close contact with you and those pictures there at that federal courthouse in Saint Louis.

Now to the race for the White House. And before Thursday's presidential debate, Donald Trump would not say if in fact he was preparing for it, but a leaked memo reveals the nitty gritty of Trump's coaching ahead of that debate.

[15:05:10]

Bash banks, deny global warming, and go after one specific competitor on that stage. Go after Jeb Bush. All of these details after a hectic weekend of Trump trying to explain what many consider a sexist, offensive comment he made about a FOX News anchor.

So, I have senior medical correspondent Brian Stelter on Trump's upcoming interview with FOX. That's in a moment.

But first to CNN political reporter M.J. Lee.

Now we have this leaked memo. What was he told to prepare for, to really hone in on last week?

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: So this was a memo prepared by Roger Stone, the political strategist who, as of this weekend, is no longer working for Trump. He was either fired or resigned. Depends on how you ask.

Three things really stood out to me from this memo. The first thing is, Roger Stone tried to coach Donald Trump on acting more presidential.

BALDWIN: What does that mean?

LEE: Essentially, his advice was, look, you have two options. One, you can be the attack machine that you have always been. Others will attack you if you go down that route.

The second option is, if you focus on issues, if you don't go down the route of being an attack machine, then you have the opportunity to come out looking more presidential. I think it's clear to all of us watching the debate on Thursday night that he chose to go the first route, that he wanted to attack folks. It was clear right away that he wanted to have this exclusive performance.

Second thing, the first thing that really caught everyone's attention when Trump raised his hand when the moderator asked everyone... BALDWIN: Right out of the gate, about the third party question.

LEE: Right out of the gate. Right. Is there anyone here who is not willing to pledge not to run as a third-party candidate? Trump was the only person who raised his hand. The memo shows that this was planned. The line that Stone had in this memo was, when you're asked about a third-party run, say all options are on the table.

So this is something that Trump I think was advised by his advisers to say. Don't rule it out. The third thing, and you mentioned this, is, the only Republican candidate mentioned in this memo is Jeb Bush. Goes to show that, in Trump's eyes, Bush is the one that is probably the person that is at the top tier, the only one that he really feels like, at least at this point, is worth going after and is real competition.

BALDWIN: And thus we have now this Instagram video of Trump taking a jab at Jeb Bush.

But let me follow with you on this now apology that Donald Trump is demanding from Megyn Kelly over at FOX, who was one of the moderators. He thought Kelly was too rough on him during the debate. He stoked the fire with a comment that seemed to refer to her menstruating. He says not. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her whatever.

I was going to say nose and/or ears, because that's a very common statement.

I went to the Wharton School of Finance. I was an excellent student. I'm a smart person. I built a tremendous company.

Who would make a statement like that? Only a sick person would even think about it.

Who would say such a thing? No. If I would have said that, it would have been inappropriate. The interesting thing is, I really said nothing because I stopped because I wanted to get onto jobs or whatever the next subject was. The fact is, she asked me a very inappropriate question. She should really be apologizing to me, you want to know the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: He says she should be the one apologizing.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: You laugh.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I don't mean to laugh, but Megyn Kelly is not going to be apologizing. (CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: No, I don't think so. I'm coming to you, Stelter, I promise.

But staying with you, M.J., listen, I said it before, I will say it again, I can't believe we're talking about women's periods on national TV as it involves politics, but whatever. There's always time for something unthinkable.

The follow-up would how women are reacting to this and also specifically how the base is reacting to this, because there have been a number of missteps thus far. His supporters obviously stand by him. Might this be the one issue where people do this?

LEE: I know that is the million dollar question right now. Will this be the moment where Donald Trump's campaign actually starts to decline?

Over and over again, we have not seen that happen yet. His polls numbers in fact have only gone up. There are two reasons why I think the Megyn Kelly moment episode, whatever you want to call it, might be different. One is the fact that she's an extremely popular person, both within the media. She has a large fan base. Republican voters, they really love her.

She's a very popular and well-known person. The second thing is simply that she's a woman. Jeb Bush made the point over the weekend, and he asked this question, are we really as a party willing to isolate 53 percent of voters? Women make up 53 percent of the voting base. Do we really want to offend such a big part of the voting bloc, when the presidency is in line? And Trump seems to be doing that, according to his critics.

BALDWIN: She's great at her job, though, Megyn Kelly.

But to you, when we see Trump go on FOX tonight, I mean, I can't imagine he goes on her show. What are you hearing?

[15:10:07]

STELTER: Yes, I'm told I'm highly, highly, highly unlikely that Trump will be on Megyn Kelly's show.

However, he's now preparing to go on FOX now for the first time in several days. This Megyn Kelly issue is really notable, because FOX has ignored it entirely. They haven't been talking about it. They are disgusted privately by what he said about one of their star anchors.

They haven't wanted to cover it. But this war against FOX has been a one-way war. Trump has been attacking FOX for days. It seems like now he's starting to cool down. Look at what he said after this morning. He said, Roger Ailes, the chairman of FOX News, had just called him. He said: "He's a great guy. He assures me that Trump will be treated fairly and his word is always good." I have been peaking at my phone because FOX is just now confirming that, yes, he is going to be on tomorrow morning; he is going to be on their morning show. For the first time, he will be talking about this, presumably talking about his relationship with FOX, maybe trying to reach a truce of some sort, because it's not a winning strategy for the GOP front-runner to be bashing the most popular channel among Republicans.

BALDWIN: And such a massive voting bloc in that.

M.J. Lee, Brian Stelter, thank you both so much. To be continued.

LEE: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Next, growing questions in Texas after an unarmed college football player was shot and killed in this confrontation with police at this car lot. But we have the surveillance video. What is happening here? What's the full story? We will ask some really important questions.

Also, a brutal murder in California. Police say one of the men behind it is an undocumented immigrant who, by the way, had been arrested four times. Why was he out on the streets at all? That's ahead.

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[15:16:01]

BALDWIN: CNN has new video from the Texas car dealership where an unarmed Texas teen was shot and killed by police. The FBI is now being asked to investigate following the death of Christian Taylor. This comes after this unedited surveillance video shows Taylor wandering around. You can see him here. This is a car dealership lot climbing up on cars and some moments smashing through some of the windshields there.

And then we have another piece of video that you can see him in a moment driving this Jeep through this window of the dealership itself into the showroom. Police did later arrive on the scene, these two officers. And officials say some sort of altercation occurred. We're still waiting for details on that leading the officer to shoot Taylor four times.

Ed Lavandera is on this in Arlington, Texas.

Ed, I know you have been inside that car dealership. You have talked to the owner. What, he's now shown you new video from inside. Let's just start there. You tell me what you understand happened.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We were there just a short while ago. You can see the remnants of the boarded-up window, of the glass wall that Taylor had driven through or police say he had driven through it, and then inside, where the shooting took place.

The owner tells us there are about 32 cameras on the outside of the building. He allowed us in because he says he wants to be "as transparent as possible with everyone." A lot of people not believing that there weren't cameras, with as many cameras as there are on the property, that there were not cameras inside.

When we were inside, we looked around. We did not see any surveillance cameras inside the showroom of that area. But that is where police say Christian Taylor was told to lay down on the ground and that he did not follow those commands and then started running off.

But what is interesting and the question here will become, why did one officer react differently from the other? One officer pulling his firearm, 49-year-old Brad Miller, who is the rookie police officer, and fired four times?

The medical examiner says that Taylor was hit in the neck, chest and abdomen. The other officer that was with Miller, officer Miller, pulled out his Taser. So that is the big question now and investigators are really looking and focusing in on, we're told, that altercation they say took place between Taylor and the two officers to try to determine whether or not this shooting was justified, Brooke.

BALDWIN: And so we still don't know. Ed, when we hear altercation from police, are we talking a verbal altercation? Do we know any more?

LAVANDERA: They were asked about that. They would not specify whether it was physical or verbal or what exactly that altercation was about.

If you listen to the police scanner traffic as this event was going on, from the moment where the officers arrived on the scene described seeing that they see someone inside the showroom to where they report shots being fired was about two minutes and 11 seconds. It seems like a short amount of time, but if you think about it, two minutes and 11 seconds can be quite long.

So, obviously, that's the time frame that they are really focusing in on, because whatever happened during that time will go a long way to determining whether or not this shooting was justified.

BALDWIN: And just quickly, do we have any idea why this young man was acting erratically?

LAVANDERA: We don't. The only details that have been released from the medical examiner's report is where he was shot, in the neck, chest and abdomen. There is no toxicology information, whether or not it was under the influence of drugs or any kind of issues there that were at play. None of that is really known at this time.

BALDWIN: Ed Lavandera, thank you so much in Arlington.

Next, strong words from the police chief after a woman was murdered, allegedly, by this undocumented immigrant. Next, hear why the chief says there is a blood trail that starts from the U.S. Capitol.

Plus, the suspect had been arrested four times in the past six years. Why wasn't he still behind bars? That's next.

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[15:24:05]

BALDWIN: A second firefighter now has died while battling these wildfires in California. Officials say 21-year-old Michael Hallenbeck was hit by a tree over the weekend, all of this happening during the initial assault on this wildfire that broke out in Northern California.

More than 10,000 firefighters have been dispatched to fight more than a dozen wildfires across the state.

Staying in California, where a local police chief is blaming state and federal policy over this one woman's death. Authorities say two men broke into Marilyn Pharis' home last month, sexually assaulted her and beat her with a hammer. Pharis, who worked for the Air Force as a civilian contractor, died as a result of those injuries.

The men accused in this crime had records. And one of them, Victor Martinez, is an undocumented immigrant who had been arrested four times since 2009.

So first, Stephanie Elam, let me come to you with more on this. I know the police chief in this case is incredibly frustrated over what has happened. How did this happen?

[15:25:10]

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's the question that everyone wants answered, Brooke.

And we know that he's been arrested at least four times in Santa Barbara County, to be specific about that. And the fact that he has tangled with law enforcement before is what is so frustrating to this particular police chief. This is Ralph Martin, police chief of Santa Maria. Let's take a listen to what he had to say after this arrest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RALPH MARTIN, SANTA MARIA, CALIFORNIA, POLICE CHIEF: Two weeks before this murder, Santa Maria police officers arrested him for possession of meth. And you know what we had to do? We had to cite him out.

That's the problem with this system. This is a national issue. I think it starts in Washington, D.C., with this administration that we see and their policies. And I am not remiss to say that from Washington, D.C. to Sacramento, there's a blood trail into the bedroom of Marilyn Pharis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: Very clear how he feels about this, Brooke.

And Just take a look at Martinez Ramirez, to take a look at his history here, we know that he was arrested in 2009, but it's the arrest in 2014 that is catching some issue. And the reason for that is because it was a felony drug and assault that was changed to misdemeanor battery.

ICE at that time did request that law enforcement, local law enforcement hold on to him, but they say they then found out that he was released before they could get there to detain or take custody of this individual. Now, the police department is saying we didn't feel like it met our requirements to detain him, so we let him go.

As far as this most recent case, Brooke, they said that they did not make any efforts, ICE did not make any efforts to detain Victor Martinez because they said that there was no prior of him having any felony charges. Remember, that other one had been reduced.

This obviously changes the case and that's why some people are saying that the system here needs to be revamped because of that.

BALDWIN: I have so many questions on your final point. Stephanie Elam, thank you so much.

Let's go to Danny Cevallos, out CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney.

To her last point, because the obvious question is this is someone -- and she qualified it -- in Santa Barbara County alone -- had been arrested since 2009 and from the 2014 arrest, which was a felony down to a misdemeanor, what was it, one group wasn't talking to another, the fact that one group wasn't aware that he was even released? How does that happen?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's more problematic than that and it's actually a constitutional crisis.

Here's why. The federal government is the supreme law of the land, but under what is the anti-commandeering principle, the federal government cannot force local enforcement to carry out federal policy. No more can they order the New York Police Department into battle against ISIS, they cannot force local law enforcement to carry out immigration laws and policies.

And, remember, immigration, deportation removal is a civil action in nature. It's not a criminal action. So, with that in mind, a lot of people say, well, then why don't these local law enforcement agencies just cooperate and help out so we can avoid these problems?

BALDWIN: Right.

CEVALLOS: That sounds rational but in practice, it's much more complicated than that.

First of all, you're asking local law enforcement to basically add an entire additional infrastructure, where they will detain people for 48 hours. And when you do that, you assume liability and you assume all kinds of additional problems based on just the federal government's, please, will you help us do our job? The other part to that is with this federal government detainer -- we

keep throwing this word around. A detainer is not like a detainer in criminal court where you have another case with another judge and they hold to you make sure you make your court date. A detainer is not a court order. It's nothing more than a piece of paper saying, gee, local law enforcement, please hold this guy and do us a favor and do us a solid and acquire and feed him, house him, acquire all of this liability and potentially, and arguably most importantly, violate his or her Fourth Amendment constitutional rights because you're holding him without probable cause that he's committed an additional crime.

We're not saying, look, if he's committed a crime and you have reason to hold him without bail because he's committed a serious crime, then fine. But if he makes bail and he's otherwise released or beats his case, you can't hold him that additional 48 hours without a good reason.

I know. I know. It sounds like there would be an easy fix. But it really is -- they're going to point the finger at each other. It really is a constitutional problem at its core.

BALDWIN: We have to keep talking about this. Thank you so much, Danny Cevallos, for now. Constitutional crisis, it sounds like indeed. Thank you.

Next, we have to move on. He is one of the highest ranking Democrats to oppose this nuclear deal with Iran, Senator Chuck Schumer speaking out today, explaining how he came to the decision to be a no-vote.

Also, back with our breaking news, the state of emergency now has just been declared in Saint Louis, Missouri, as, as I'm looking at these pictures, more and more people are gathering -- this is outside the federal courthouse in Saint Louis -- to protest. Stay here.

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