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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Waco Biker Shootout Video; Another Police Shooting Examined; More on the School Security Officer's Actions. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 29, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: CNN is the only T.V. news outlet to get their -- race tops to the hospital for treatment.

[12:30:04] And the police just arrested everyone who was there, basically rounding up a 170 people in charging them.

But CNN is the only T.V. news outlet to get their hands on this material. The first round of discovery as this series of legal cases sluggishly moves forward.

And we're learning some details about what happened in Waco that the videos don't necessarily show. Ain't that always the case?

Our Eddie Lavandera is in Waco. He's live with the story. So walk me through some of the documents that have come in this is this discovery dump so to speak. What are we learning that we really have been wondering about all along?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well the documents paint really a dramatic picture, Ashleigh. And this is something that has been talked about extensively. The Twin Peaks shootout since it happened has been the focus of a great deal of scrutiny. But we're going to show you the side of this story that you haven't seen yet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: this was the scene inside the Twin Peaks restaurant in May, just before the violent shootout that killed nine people and ended up in the mass arrest of 177 bikers.

A fight and shootout erupts just off camera between a group of motorcycle clubs called the Bandidos and the Cossacks. The reaction tells the story of the chaos and horrific scene that unfolds as the gunshots started exploding.

Members of the Cossacks club are sitting on this patio. They duck for cover. Some grab firearms and other weapons. One biker is seen on the surveillance video running through the patio and firing a shot toward the park lot.

Dozens of bikers rush inside the building, hide in bathrooms and the restaurant kitchen. John Wilson is the president of the Waco Texas area chapter of the Cossacks motorcycle club. He was on the Twin Peaks patio that day. JOHN WILSON, BIKER: The whole incident probably didn't last more than 90 seconds. It seemed like an hour when you're laying there, people are getting shot around you and bullets with whizzing by you.

LAVANDERA: And dozens of police interviews, Cossacks and Bandido bike club members blame their rivals for starting the deadly melee. After it was all over crime scene photos capture the nightmare scene. Bodies left in the parking lot by toppled motorcycles. Hundreds of weapons all over the place, handguns even left hidden in the restaurant toilets.

CNN has obtained more than 2,000 pages of documents, crime scene photos, many too graphic to show and surveillance video given us the most detailed accounts of what unfolded last May.

Waco police and prosecutors have consistently defended the mass arrests of the 177 bikers that day, all charged with organized criminal activity.

PATRICK SWANTON, WACO, TEXAS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I think you can see by the number of weapons that we have recovered from here today, they didn't come here to eat and have a good time with their family. They came here for a reason. We think part of that reason was criminal activity.

LAVANDERA: But many of the bikers and their attorneys say investigators and prosecutors overreacted by carrying out mass arrests. Some say these videos show the vast majority are innocent of the criminal charges.

SUSAN ANDERSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: They just did a roundup and arrested everybody before they determined who was involved.

LAVANDERA: These are just some of the videos investigators are using to piece together what happened that day five months ago. A shootout that one witness said looked like the gunfight at the OK Corral.

So Ashleigh, 177 people still waiting anxiously to figure out what exactly this grand jury is going to do, how many of them will be indicted as we talk about murder charges haven't even been filed either. All along, Waco police and prosecutors here in Waco refused to comment on this story, citing the gag order that is in place, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Wow. And when that gag order is lifted, as it invariably will be, they'll probably be another amazing segment you'll bring to us.

Thank you for that, great reporting and great material you got your hands on, thank you.

And for more on this report, Erin Burnett has going to have a special report coming up on OutFront tonight at 7:00 P.M. eastern right here on CNN, make sure you stay tune in for that.

[12:34:05] Up next, the investigation is complete. The officer who shot and killed a 19-year-old in South Carolina in a drug bust is not going to be facing charges. You're going to hear what the young man's family has to say about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The family of a South Carolina drug suspect is objecting to a prosecutor's decision not to bring charges against the police officer who killed him.

You're going to watch right now, a dash cam video of the last moments of 19-year-old's Zachary Hammond's life.

Lieutenant Mark Tiller of the Seneca Police department, fires into the driver's side window as Hammond tries to speed away from that fast food parking lot.

Now Tiller says this was in self-defense. Hammond's family says the unarmed 19-year-old was just executed.

Victor Blackwell joins me now.

Walk me through a little bit about what Zach's mother is saying in her public statements.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ashleigh we heard from Angie Hammond today, Zachary Hammond's mother. And obviously, she's disappointed about the decision not to charge Lieutenant Mark Tiller.

But she also says that much of the investigation that led to that decision was misguided, focusing primarily on her son, instead of Lieutenant Tiller.

When you go back to that day, July 26th, of this year, Lieutenant Tiller said that he believed that that car was going to run over him and he shot in self-defense.

Here's what Angie Hammond and her attorney Eric Bland have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANGIE HAMMOND, ZACHARY HAMMOND'S MOTHER: The video showed my son when he pulled away did everything to avoid hitting Tiller.

[12:40:01] Zach cared more about Tiller's life than Tiller cared about Zach.

ERIC BLAND, HAMMOND FAMILY ATTORNEY: You would need a set of glasses that doesn't even exist to say Lieutenant Tiller was in danger of being struck by that automobile. Lieutenant Tiller put himself in that situation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Well, the solicitor in this case says that that lieutenant had about three seconds to make the decision in that moment whether to shoot in a matter of self-defense or if that indeed was or was not a threat to his life.

But she also admits that there were mistakes made. In this letter to the state using also some outside experts, she writes, "Lieutenant Tiller took an improper approach and position. The proper position would have been for Tiller to stay behind his car door when ordering Hammond to stop the car. And we all agreed, and case law supports that any potential violation of policy in the approach to the vehicle in this instance does not amount to criminal responsibility."

But yes, he violated policy in this department, but it was not a crime or violated any state law.

BANFIELD: Victor, does the -- and you heard the mother saying they focused so much on Zach and he had hundreds of text messages that they had read.

And, you know, a lot of these were really frightening. The fact he was in full outlaw mode. He would go out shooting. He had outlaw tattooed on him. And this was a prolific drug dealer. I mean did any of that factor into the policy and the behavior and the reaction of that officer who shot?

BLACKWELL: Well, those were certainly things that were mentioned in this eight-page letter to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. But what's important here is that the officer also said he didn't know Zachary Hammond when he approached that car. He didn't know about any of the text messages. He didn't know about what we found later was drugs in his system, drugs in his pocket.

So what the investigators found was what was important here, the moment that he approached that car, did he believe that car was going to run over him and did he have in those three seconds the ability to prevent his own death by firing those shots?

They agreed that he did and he did not violate any state law.

BANFIELD: OK, so we have the prosecutor's decision not to bring state- related charges. But that's not the end of the story. There are the feds, there's the investigation, probably civil rights issues at play. Where does that all stand?

BLACKWELL: Well the FBI investigation, the federal investigation continues. Also we heard from their attorney today that they're asking the state attorney general to reopen this investigation, likely under the purview of a special prosecutor. We called the attorney generals office. No response yet if that's likely to happen.

Victor Blackwell, great reporting, thank you.

BLACKWELL: Sure.

BANFIELD: A day after South Carolina deputy was fired for dragging a high school student out of her desk but really for what happened after, the throwing her across the room.

A lot of people are asking, should he have even been in the classroom in the first place? Should officers like him be in schools in the first place? Rethinking this, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:10] BANFIELD: The School Resource Officer in South Carolina might be out of a job today but the debate over whether he should have been in the school in the first place is very much front and center. Undoubtedly, you have seen this video. Probably over and over again. Of a schoolgirl, 16 years old, very roughly removed from her desk and thrown across the classroom. Jason Carroll reports here that plenty of people around the country today want those school resource officers to be much less hands on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Since these disturbing images went viral, the spotlight focus not only on the now fired sheriff deputy and his actions, but also on the role of school resource officers in the nation's schools.

SHERIFF LEON LOTT, RICHLAND COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA: Should he have ever been called there? You know, that's something we're going to talk to the school district about. Maybe that should have been something handled by the teacher and that school administrator without ever calling the deputy.

FRM. DEPUTY BEN FIELDS, RICHLAND COUNTY SOUTH CAROLINA: Are you going to come with me or am I going to make you?

CARROLL: Former Deputy Ben Fields was called to the classroom after the 16-year-old student refused repeated requests to leave by both her teacher and a school administrator. Resource officers are used as a law enforcement tool in some schools.

Just this week in Sacramento, a resource officer called to help break up a fight involving about a dozen students. The school's principal tossed during the fight. Police ended up arresting three teenagers. Breaking up school fights or trying to manage a defiant student are part of a resource officer's duties, but it is not all that officer's responsibilities.

MO CANADY, NATL. ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS: We want them involved in informal counseling within the context of their job. Really getting to know students, building relationships with them.

CARROLL: Part counselor, part enforcer.

According to the National Association of School Resource Officers, their numbers grew in the late '80s under the dare program developed to help children stay away from drugs and violence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I shot a few more times and all...

CARROLL: Growing more following the shooting in Columbine, Colorado, in 1999. After schools felt a need to have access to armed officers. Now some 82,000 SROS are working full or part time at 43 percent of public schools. And with more officers, more cameras, comes more scrutiny. A school resource officer in Kentucky faces federal charges for hand coughing two misbehaving children with disabilities.

In this video, a third grade boy struggles with the cuffs. Now in South Carolina, an officer fired from his job and under a federal investigation that could result in even more punishment.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So a couple of pictures came out yesterday of the former Deputy, Ben Fields. And this was in the morning before he learned his fate. Presumably before he went into the hearing and found out he was fired.

[12:50:10] They show him laughing and smiling and et cetera. And they've certainly made a lot of rounds by this point. But there may be some more serious court action ahead. Don't know yet. But Mark O'Mara has some legal analysis on this one.

So a lot of people have weighed in on this. The sheriffs have weighed in on it and said the flipping and the egregious video, that you see the optics are terrible, but that's not the infraction, the infraction was he tossed her afterwards.

MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Might have been.

BANFIELD: It was a rough arrest as police do make. Does this officer have recourse to actually sue the department for being dismissed?

O'MARA: I think he very well make a couple of reasons. Let's look at his actions and take it from the context of a law enforcement behavior. There's a spectrum of force he's supposed to use. One, command voice. He did it. Two, repeat the command force. Three, he told her what the results were going to be if she didn't comply. Then he took physical control of the situation. Then he got her in the ground. Every one of those, who though him the academy, to do exactly that same passion.

BANFIELD: So non of that is infraction. As ugly as it might look, like.

O'MARA: Non of it whatsoever. Look, when you walk. I mean, you bring the cavalry into a situation, that's what happened here. Should he have been there? Probably not. Should we have cops do discipline, absolutely not.

BANFIELD: but that's not he's decision or he's fault.

O'MARA: But once they brings in, he's the cop. He has lawful authority to tell you to do something. You have the responsibility to do it. When you don't do it, he's allowed to up the spectrum of force to get you to do it and that's what he did.

BANFIELD: The sheriff said exactly as you just did. Everything he did, he had the right to put his hands on that intransigent teenager. But where he fell out of protocol was when he then tossed her to the front of the classroom. Is there any argument he can make for having done that where he can still come back at the sheriff and say this is an unawful termination?

O'MARA: If I'm representing him, then I say that very minor infraction of moving her over this way and that way by tossing her instead of dragging her. Don't forget, dragging her would have been okay. So the two or three for toss. If I'm representing him, I'm saying you're not firing me for the two or three-foot toss, you fired me because of the optics, because this hit national T.V., and you look bad, I look bad conflict (ph) bad. When you know you should be standing behind us and protect us because everything I did for the most part was appropriate. All I did was to react to a situation that I'm trained to react to.

BANFIELD: Or Could he say, I was clearing, you know, a combative person away from the students, away from myself.

O'MARA: You are supposed to take control of the circumstance, protect yourself and the other people involved by whatever means are necessary to do so, and you do it in a way where you control a situation, that's what he did.

BANFIELD: Mark I'm going to interrupt you only for a second. I just got some Breaking News in my hands right now. I want to go live down to Tarmac in Fort Lauderdale. There is a plane, looks like dynamic airline, not an airline I've heard of, but it is on fire on the Tarmac. These pictures coming to us courtesy of our affiliate WSVN. Very little I can tell you about this at this early stage. Apparently, this caught fire earlier today. It's a 767 passenger jet. It was taxiing when the left engine apparently caught fire. And you can see clearly the black smoke residue on the left hand side, just behind the wing of that 767.

This is a plane that can carry between 180 and 290 passengers, but we're not aware at this point how many passengers were booked on that flight on that dynamic airlines flight, nor if it was a full plane. We've got some reporting from witnesses who saw several people who were walking away but then you can see live pictures now. I just want to clear with our controller these are live, these pictures of that stretcher. Yes this is live. So this is new witnessing showing that somebody was on a stretcher being taken to that ambulance. But other witnesses have said they saw people walking away. And you will probably have heard before that a lot of people can be injured when they exit an airplane through the chutes. You can see the chute deployed in the front part of that aircraft. Oftentimes people are injured when they come down those chutes. It is not a graceful exit to an aircraft by any stretch.

We have been told everybody made it off the plane safely. So at this point, we're not learning of any smoke inhalation injuries. We are told the folks who made it off the plane did so safely. But you saw for yourself just now live but there was someone on a stretcher. The spraying has been predominantly on this left side and on the left wing. That picture on the left just the first picture now coming into CNN right now of it sort of would appear to be fully engulfed by this point on the Tarmac. We don't know what time into the flight or into the taxiing that photograph was snapped but it clearly looked like it snapped out the window of another aircraft. You can see in the foreground there was wing, so that could be out the window of another aircraft that was also taxiing.

[12:55:04] If you're just joining us, this is an image coming to us live on right-hand side of your screen from Fort Lauderdale. And now we've got pictures on both sides of your screen. Our other affiliate WFOR delivering another vantage point of this aircraft fire. A boeing 767 passenger jet in Fort Lauderdale that caught fire, on left-hand side. Dynamic airlines or at least that's what the paint says on the side of the aircraft is the airline in question. And that 767 was taxiing. So whether it was coming in or leaving, we're not clear at this point. But we're going to collect a lot more of the information as it comes into us from emergency personnel and our correspondents who are headed to the scene. That is all for me though.

Thank you so much for tuning in. It's been nice to have you with us for this hour. Stay tuned. My colleague Wolf Blitzer starts right after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:10] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan in for Wolf Blitzer. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thank you so much for joining us.