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Colorado Suspect Lived in Tiny Yellow Shack; Slain Officer Remembered For Courage, Faith; Clinic CEO Lauds Patients, Staff After Shooting; Hostage Saw Gunman Open Fire Near Clinic; Four Arrested During Laquan McDonald Protest; Putin Willing To Fight ISIS With U.S.- Led Coalition; Tensions Escalate Between Russia, Turkey; New Fears Airport Staff Could Undermine Security; Tough Calls Police Make in Taking Out Shooters; Trump Talks Feud with "New York Times." Aired 5- 6p ET
Aired November 28, 2015 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[17:00:27] UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: We're getting active gunfire.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM -- the day after.
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: A shooter is constantly shooting keeping these officers down.
BROWN: Shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood. Three are dead, including a police officer. Today, new details on the victims. And what could have sparked the standoff.
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER: He started shooting. I was looking at his face. Five seconds, we stared at each other. And in that five-second period those bullet holes went through my windshield.
BROWN: Breaking now -- France on edge, denying entry to hundreds of people deemed a security risk.
Magnificent mile protest. Thousands taking to the renowned shopping district to protest the shooting death of Laquan McDonald. Today we're asking, did the protests work?
And Carson in Jordan. The Republican presidential candidate making a surprise trip, going overseas to visit refugees. But will the trip silence critics of his grasp of foreign policy?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And you're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Pamela Brown in Atlanta, in for Poppy Harlow. And brand-new details are just emerging in that deadly rampage in Colorado Springs. At least four survivors have been released from the hospital. And at this point we believe five people are still being treated. Suspect Robert Deer is due in court on Monday. He's being held without bail in Colorado. And I want to show you this.
Take a look at his residence. This tiny yellow shack located in the woods near Black Mountain, North Carolina. This is the place where Robert Deer allegedly lived before he traveled to Colorado and unleashed his gunfire. Police say the names of the two civilian victims will not be released until Monday at the very earliest. Authorities are still conducting autopsies. And one of the three fallen victims was University of Colorado Officer Garrett Swasey. The 44-year-old father of two was well-loved in his community.
Our Sara Ganim joins me now. Sara, you've been talking to people who knew him. Tell us what you've learned.
SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Pamela. You know, Officer Garrett Swasey was 10 miles away from the scene, waiting for a different police department, when he heard that shots were fired at a fellow officer. He rushed to the scene to help. And everyone who we've talked to today says that that's who he was. He was a selfless man in everything he did from his family to his former career as an ice skater, his colleagues there, his fellow skaters, to his involvement at the church. Everyone who knew him is in mourning today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GANIM (voice-over): Officer Garrett Swasey was a loving father of two, a former championship ice skater, and a leader at his church. He was also a devoted police officer, killed Friday in the line of duty, when a man opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.
OFFICER: The shooter is shooting at officers now.
GANIM: Forty-four-year-old Swasey was an officer for the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs campus. He was on duty Friday when he heard the call of shots fired and rushed to the scene.
KURT AICHELE, CO-PASTOR, HOPE CHAPEL: I've known him for about ten years and throughout that entire time, watched him faithfully serve others and place others before himself in nearly every situation.
GANIM: Kurt Aichele, a pastor with Swasey at his church was there when Swasey's wife had to tell their two young children what happened to their dad.
AICHELE: The cries and the sobs of her children learning that their daddy was never returning is something that would probably be etched in my mind for the rest of my life.
GANIM: Swasey was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, a graduate of Melrose High School. The mayor there saying, "As a class of 1989 graduate, I remember him to be a kind and caring young man with many friends dedicated to skating career and excelling at all areas." A six year veteran of the police force law enforcement was his second career, after retiring from figure skating. He competed in the 1995 national championships and won a junior national title in 1992 in Orlando.
CHRISTINE FOWLER BINDER, FORMER ICE SKATING PARTNER: Garrett is or was the most selfless person I knew. Always there as kind of my confidant, my brother. He put up with me.
GANIM: His skating partner Christine Fowler Binder talked to Swasey's mother on the phone.
BINDER: She just wanted me to say that, to remind everyone that, you know, Garrett died in the line of duty, protecting everyone in our country, and that there's no time that he ever would not have done that.
[17:05:11] GANIM: In the early 1990s, Swasey moved to Colorado Springs to train at the Olympic training center. Friends at the church where he led groups and played guitar say he defined himself through his faith.
SCOTT DANTENVILLE, CO-PASTOR: Here's a man who stands on principle, loves Christ, and obviously, you know, he might not be in alignment with the abortion industry, but he would be willing to go in and lay down his life for those people.
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GANIM: Pam, there was an absolutely packed vigil today at a Colorado church for all three of those victims who were killed in this shooting. And today, every single sporting event that's being held at the University of Colorado will include a moment of silence in honor of their fallen officer.
BROWN: And our hearts and thoughts go out to his family. Thank you so much, Sara Ganim. This is new video, by the way, of one of the vigils being held for the victims of the shooting, a crown gathering at the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Colorado Springs to mourn those killed and also honor survivors and first responders. And among those speaking, the president of the local Planned Parenthood clinic that was targeted.
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VICKI COWART, PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS: Yesterday we know that the people in our health center responded quickly and with love. The 15 Stalwart, smart, brave people in that health center, women and men, did when they needed to do to protect everybody in that building. They got them into safe spaces, they got them into lockdown, and they waited. They got quiet. They turned their phones off. Our entire system was warned, don't call anyone in Colorado Springs. And we didn't. We waited a long, long wait. And today, all of our staff are okay. They're home. They're safe. They're with their families. And I know that they're going to be back.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: And amazing that all of the staff survived. And we're also hearing from incredible survivors held hostage at Planned Parenthood for hours. One of them is a 22-year-old Kentanya Craion, she is pregnant and went with her boyfriend to Planned Parenthood to get an ultrasound.
And I want to bring in Dan Simon in Colorado Springs. Dan, you spoke to this brave young woman. I'm going to play your interview and talk with you again afterwards. She starts by describing that last moment that she saw her boyfriend before the gunfire erupted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When you saw the gunman outside, what did he look like?
KENTANYA CRAION, HELD HOSTAGE INSIDE COLORADO CLINIC: Like he had no remorse, and that this was just a game to him.
SIMON: Did you immediately recognize those as gunshots?
CRAION: No, I didn't. It took someone to tell me to get down, you know, that there's a gunshot. Even then I couldn't register, because it felt so surreal. And at that point when I had heard the gunshots, I was able to make out a picture of what was going on, because I saw the gunman, and I saw him shooting. And once I realized that this is really happening, is when I flee the scene and went in the back room. I ran down the hall. I tried to open one door. It was locked. I opened another door. And there was two people there. One was a nurse, and one was an actual patient, when I heard the second gunshots, you could clearly tell it was in the building. It was near, it was close.
One of the ladies besides me started screaming. I had to tell her, remain calm, everything's fine. Because like I said the gunshots were there, clear as day, you could hear it. We actually had a gun bullet go through our wall, it came through one and went through the other, and you could see the gunpowder, and smell it. And it was just frightening at that point. We all just wanted to get out. About I'll say 30, 45 minutes later, a police officer had contacted one of us. And he let us know that he's coming, they're coming to get us. He wanted to know what end of Planned Parenthood we were in. He explained the procedures on how we would know it was him. And then after that phone call, maybe 20, 15 minutes after that, you hear people walking in the hall. Then we heard the procedure. And we opened the door. And there was a S.W.A.T. team.
SIMON: I know this was a sensitive topic with your boyfriend. You haven't heard from him. What do you think? What do you think may have gone on or happened?
CRAION: I'm trying to be positive. I don't know if the people that were injured have reached out to their families or if he just doesn't know my number. But I'm just hoping everything's okay.
SIMON: Because his number may have been stored in your phone? CRAION: Exactly. I mean, I've called his phone when it was
happening, I called him, I texted him, there was no reply. That his phone was active. At a certain point my sister have called him and heard someone pick up, and then they hung up twice, and then after that his phone has been dead ever since.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[17:10:26] BROWN: So, let's bring Dan back in from Colorado Springs. This must be so agonizing for her. Is she getting any help from the police to track down her boyfriend?
SIMON: You know, Pamela, at this point it's still very much a mystery. I just exchanged a text message with her a short time ago, and at this point she still doesn't know the fate of her boyfriend. They came to the clinic together. They were at the ultrasound together. He had gone to the parking lot just before she was going to leave. And there were those gunshots. And throughout the chaos of it all, they got separated. And of course she's feeling very anxious over his disappearance. Hopefully there's, you know, some logical way to explain all of this. But of course she is fearing the worst. And she just wants to know what happened, Pamela.
BROWN: It's amazing that she's able to stay so calm throughout all of this. Dan Simon, thank you.
And it was video that a city held its breath waiting to see. A Chicago police officer was shooting a black teenager 16 times in just 15 seconds. We'll talk with the journalist who made it possible for all of us to lay eyes on this graphic video and what he says may still be missing.
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[17:14:52] BROWN: Well, some shoppers in Chicago are not taking kindly to being barred from stores during police protests that happened on Black Friday. The front-page of the Chicago Sun-Times calling it "Mad Mile Rage," a reference to Chicago's premier shopping district, The Magnificent Mile where the protest took place. And here was the cover of the Chicago Tribune. One headline reading, "Protestors put some out on Black Friday, others support, but irate shoppers feel wrongly implicated."
And Chicago police telling CNN they have arrested four people during those protests brought on by the release of this dash cam video right here. It shows a white police officer fatally shooting a black teenager, firing at him 16 times. Most of the shots came after the teen, Laquan McDonald, was already on the ground. The officer is now off the force and charged with first-degree murder.
And joining me now is freelance journalist Brandon Smith, who filed the lawsuit to get the Chicago Police Department to release that shooting video. Brandon, now, I just read you're pushing to get all documents related to this case posted onto the internet. Why do you feel that's so important? BRANDON SMITH, FREELANCE JOURNALIST: It's a really tough time here in
Chicago, and it has been since 1986. The data shows police have killed one person per week on average since 1986. That's when I was born. So I think protestors are really upset about that situation and how the leaders here have not really responded in a manner of reform.
BROWN: And Brandon, you believe that a good step for the city to take would be to tear down and rebuild the independent police review authority. Why is that?
SMITH: Well, that agency is tasked with investigating police misconduct here in Chicago. And the agency has found that all but one of police-involved shootings in the past five or six years have been not justified. So -- or rather, just one was not justified, right. So all of them were justified but one. And to a lot of people that doesn't make much sense.
BROWN: So you don't buy what they're saying, that all of them were justified by one. Why is that?
SMITH: Well, I'm not so sure what I buy. I don't have evidence that any of them are, you know, botched, necessarily. But there has been a whistleblower, Lorenzo Davis, who was an investigator for that agency. And he was fired. And he later provided documents to reporters showing that he was asked to change his investigation to find that the police were in the right. So if there are others like him, the investigations are not being done properly.
BROWN: Well, protestors, we know, are calling for the top city officials including the mayor to step down. What's your sense, being there in Chicago, do you think that will actually happen?
SMITH: It's tough to say. It really comes down to what else comes out in this case. You know, it's gotten national news coverage because there's so much covered up already, and it took so long for the prosecutors to charge this officer with murder. Thirteen months, when there was clear investigation or say, clear video of what happened there that night. So it's hard to say. There could be more that has been covered up. And we'll know soon. My lawsuit is continuing, and it's seeking more documents in the case, more evidence like video and what happened. We're trying to figure out what happened to the audio on the videos that have been released so far.
BROWN: Yes. A lot of people have been asking about that. Brandon Smith, thank you very much.
And it's one thing to judge another person's actions. But if it's your turn to make the life and death decision to shoot or don't shoot, what would you do? That's next.
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[17:22:38] BROWN: France is boosting security as world leaders begin to gather for the Paris climate conference since the deadly attacks two weeks ago. France has denied entry to nearly 1,000 people deemed to be security risks. And now nearly 15,000 officers are stationed along France's borders.
Our Alexandra Field is in Brussels, Belgium. And Alexandra, in the wake of all this tightened security, we're learning that the most wanted man in Europe, Salah Abdeslam, is said to have lounged publicly in a cafe in Brussels the day after the killings. This is after authorities let him go and crossed the border. How did this happen?
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, it does sound sort of almost unbelievable, Pamela. But you have to think back to what was going on in the aftermath of these attacks, the chaos that followed. And you have to recognize that it did take authorities some time before they were able to determine who it was that they were looking for, which is precisely the reason that Salah Abdeslam was able in the aftermath of the attacks to cross the border from France into Belgium, in a car with two other men, despite the fact that police actually stopped that car.
What we're learning now is that once he arrived in Belgium, he was picked up in Brussels by a childhood friend, Al Ulkadi (ph), who picked him up in his car and then took him to a cafe. Ulkadi's attorney is saying that the men had a conversation in the car, during which Salah Abdeslam said that his brother Brahim had killed people in Paris and then blown himself up. Ulkadi is now under arrest by Belgian authorities. But his attorney says, the only crime here, the only thing he did wrong was failing to let police know that he had picked up Salah Abdeslam once he learned about the manhunt for his childhood friend -- Pamela.
BROWN: And Abdeslam is not the only one that authorities are searching for. Who else are they looking for at this hour?
FIELD: That's right. Look, the investigation continues both in France and in Belgium. And officials here have said that they will continue operations to try to root out anyone who is connected in any way to the cell that perpetrated these attacks in Paris. We know there's a manhunt concurrently with the manhunt for Salah Abdeslam for a man who was seen with him just two days before the Paris attacks. That was Mohamed Abrini. He was actually seen driving one of the cars that was used in the attacks on November 13th. He was actually seen November 11th in that car with Salah.
There have been six arrests in total by Belgian authorities of people who they say could be connected in some way to these attacks. These are arrests of people based on this investigation into the attacks and based on the motive now motivation of authorities to find anyone who could have connections here. These are people who have faced charges related to terrorism. They do include the arrest of Ulkadi, the man who drove Salah Abdeslam once he arrived in Brussels. They also include the arrests of the two men who drove Abdeslam from Paris to Brussels -- Pamela.
BROWN: Frightening to think others connected to the attacks are still out there on the run. Alexandra Field, thank you.
And meanwhile, tensions are escalating between Turkey and Russia after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane this week. This despite Turkey today saying, it wants to open dialogue with Russia. But Russia is firing back with economic restrictions and saying its, quote, "Fully mobilized to fight what it calls a threat from Turkey."
With me now, Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, a CNN military analyst and retired army commanding general, Europe and Seventh Army. Thank you so much for coming on, General. Do you think that this relationship between Turkey and Russia will only go downhill from here? What do you think will happen?
LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It hasn't been very good for the last couple of years, Pamela. And I think we're going to see certainly some tenseness this week in Paris. These are both very mercurial leaders. They both have their very strong views on the way things should be happening. And they're not hesitant at all to act, as we've seen Turkey do this week, and Mr. Putin do for over the last year and a half.
But we've seen these kind of tensions between these two countries not only for the last few years but actually for the last hundred years or so. So, you will see some tenseness in Paris this week. I don't think you're going to see Mr. Erdogan apologize, although he did come close to that today by saying that he was sorry that this incident happened. But he had given warnings on multiple occasions to Russia to stop flying in his airspace. So, I don't think you're going to see an apology and I think you're going to see Mr. Putin play this for all its worth.
[17:27:13] BROWN: And these are two countries though that still in a way need each other. I mean, Russians vacation in Turkey a lot, people from Turkey do a lot of business in Russia. I mean, what's going to happen with all that?
HERTLING: Yes, this is going to be interesting, because first of all, they have two of the worst economies in Europe. Russia has been reeling over the last year because of their adventurism, first in Ukraine and now in Syria. Their military is not in very good shape, even though they portray themselves as being strong. They've been having problems in Syria.
And again, their economic situation is not very good. Turkey is not far behind. So when you talk about a country, Turkey, being told that they can't sell goods to Russia anymore, remember, Turkey is one of the last European countries that hasn't put any constraints on Russia after their invasion of Ukraine. The rest of the EU is actually causing some problems for Russia. So, you know, the vacation piece, the stoppage of goods at the border, the preventing of visas, all of that I think is word play right now. You're going to see that eventually dissolve. But they will get back to a normal poor relationship as opposed to the tense relationship they're under right now.
BROWN: And let's switch gears and talk about Syria here. Because I want to show you this graphic, where the U.S., France, Russia, Australia, and Canada are all bombing Syria. People look at this and wonder, how can ISIS survive with so many countries bombing Syria? HERTLING: Yes. Well, that's not like ISIS is a grand maneuver force
where you can take out combat formations. These are individuals who have inserted themselves within the public. They have -- they're beginning to use human shields. But you're right, I think the intensity of the bombing campaign over the last month, since France has joined in, the United Kingdom will soon join in. There's about seven or eight different NATO nations that were actually conducting operations.
But remember, Russia has taken some of that pressure off by not becoming ISIS, even though they said they had, and in fact they're bombing some of the people who are against fighting ISIS, the Turkmen and several of the other opposition groups. So it's a horrible situation in Northern Syria right now. There are all kinds of players with all kinds of political requirements and political objectives that don't match. And yes, you would think that ISIS would be in significant trouble with the amount of fire that's being rained down on their heads. But they continue to thrive, to a degree. But there are much more contained than they were several months ago.
BROWN: And to that point,
[17:30:00] I've heard a lot of experts like yourself say, if only all these countries would just come together and coordinate. And Russia is now saying that it wants to be part of the U.S.-led global coalition against ISIS. How exactly would that work?
LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, I don't think it would, truthfully. I think, again, this is what the Russians call Moskarovka (ph), or intensifying the media approach but not really doing what they've said. Mr. Putin is not concerned at all with ISIS. He is concerned with backing a regime and protecting his strategic ports in Latakia and Tartu (ph). So while he says he is bombing ISIS, while he says he's going to against ISIS, what he in fact is going against is those who oppose Mr. Assad. And he is not taking the fight to the enemy. So it's going to be very challenging because of the different players and because of the different national objectives. The French, the Turks, the Russians, the United States, the coalition, all of them are looking at different targets. It's going to be very difficult to get a consolidated approach to defeat ISIS when there are so many other players involved.
BROWN: That's too bad.
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, thank you.
HERTLING: Thank you, Pamela.
BROWN: This time tomorrow, the NSA is set to end its mass telephone metadata program. The government must stop collecting phone record metadata in bulk. So going forward, the NSA can only ask the phone company for records on a case-by-case basis. This comes just more than two years after Edward Snowden disclosed classified details about surveillance programs.
Still ahead in the NEWSROOM, what we're now learning about the gunman accused in the deadly attack of a Colorado Planned Parenthood.
And the tough calls police have to make about whether to take out a shooter.
Stay with us.
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[17:34:56] BROWN: Checking our top stories this hour, retailers report fewer sales because of shoppers going online to shop from home. According to data, shoppers spent near $4.5 billion online during the Thanksgiving and Black Friday holidays. Overall, e-commerce sales on Thanksgiving were up 29 percent from last year. Online sales for Black Friday up 14 percent.
Nasty winter weather created major problems on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. In Oklahoma and Kansas, several people have been killed in crashes caused by icy roads.
And in Texas, it's flooding that's the problem. At least three people have died after being swept away by high water. The Dallas area getting seven inches of rain in just the last day.
And as so many of you plan to pack up and head home tomorrow after the long holiday weekend, there are new fears that radical jihadists could be working at major airports around the world. At Brussels, authorities stripped some airport employees of their security clearances for having close ties to people who left for Syria. In Paris, at least 50 airport employees no longer have access to planes over fears they, too, had become radicalized.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Samy A. Amimour (ph), one of the eight Paris attackers who blew himself up at the Bataclan Theater --
(EXPLOSION)
BOSTON: -- had been a bus driver in France until 2012. That same year, authorities charged him with collaborating with a terrorist enterprise after he allegedly tried to fly to Yemen. That's one reason French officials say they have been investigating whether radicalized Islamists have been working at transportation hubs.
JUSTINE GREEN AVIATION ATTORNEY: Security is only as good as the people doing security.
BROWN: Since January, 50 employees in France with access to the tarmac and aircraft have been refused access for being too radicalized, according to a police official.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: In the wake of the Paris attacks and the downing of a Russian jet liner from a bomb believed to have been placed in the plane's cargo hold, CNN has learned French airport police conducted searches at several companies whose staff work at the airport.
BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: How do you vet thousands and thousands of people? As we always say, they only have to get lucky once to close our aviation down. This is a real threat.
BROWN: In the U.S., an airport employee in Minneapolis with access to commercial airplanes traveled to Syria and died while fighting for ISIS.
BAER: That was somebody who was radicalized. Just as easily, he could have slipped a bomb on an airplane.
BROWN: Today, director of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, says oversight of airport employees has been ramped up in the last several months.
JEH JOHNSON, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: In April, I put out a directive to tighten up airport security, specifically around those who work at airports. Fewer access points, more continuous random screening of airport personnel, and we're evaluating whether more is necessary right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So as it stands right now, most airport employees do not get screened when they go to work every day. As we heard from Jeh Johnson, back in April, DHS did increase the amount of random checks on airport employees.
We'll be right back. Stay with us.
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[17:41:58] BROWN: Colorado's governor today ordered flags in his state to be flown at half-staff to honor the victims of that deadly shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic. The man accused of killing a police officer and two other people is set to appear before a judge on Monday. Right now, 57-year-old Robert Dear is being held without bail.
The alleged gunman held police at bay for six hours yesterday before surrendering. Five officers and four other people were also wounded, and five of the injured are still in the hospital in good condition, we're told.
The police chief says because of department policy on officer-involved shootings, more than a dozen officers have been placed on administrative leave. And during this siege, police officers discussed with each other the
standards of how to defuse the gunman without hurting anyone else. Deciding when to pull the trigger in a tense standoff is always difficult. When it's a one-on-one situation between an officer and a suspect, the decision to shoot can be a controversial one.
With the help of former FBI special agent and CNN analyst, Jonathan Gilliam, CNN's Carol Costello went through a tactical training course where she saw firsthand how a responding police officer decides whether to pull the trigger.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT Are you Miguel Richardson?
(voice-over): A weapon training scenario.
JONATHAN GILLIAM, CNN ANALYST: A mother from a victim received a call from her daughter that her boyfriend had a knife and was threatening to kill her. The victim is deceased. A male fitting the description of this individual named Miguel, olive complexion, 5'6," to 5'8", tan pants with a black shirt with some logo on it and also some black or dark colored cap.
COSTELLO: It's my judgment call. I'm playing the role of a responding police officer. It's my job to protect the community and to decide whether to use lethal force.
GILLIAM: It's been confirmed he just murdered somebody, and now he's loitering in the middle of the street. We know that he murdered with a knife. So the potential of him having a knife is very high. And you should consider that in your use of daily force.
COSTELLO (on camera): Is your name Miguel Richardson?
GILLIAM: Si. Yes. Si.
COSTELLO: I'm going to have to ask you to stop moving.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO (voice-over): My heart rate increases, peaking as I engage with the possibly armed suspect.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO (on camera): Stop moving now. Get on the ground. Show me your hands.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO: Get your hands out of your pockets.
(voice-over): What would you do? Shoot or hold your fire?
(on camera): Get your hands out of your pockets.
(SHOUTING)
COSTELLO (voice-over): A difficult call. I decided to shoot.
GILLIAM: Let's see what he had in your pocket. OK.
Tell us what your thinking was.
COSTELLO (on camera): He refused to take his hands out of his pocket. I knew he might have been armed with a knife.
GILLIAM: Right.
COSTELLO: And so I felt if he -- he was close enough to me where if he took his hands out of his pocket with a knife, he could have killed me. I shot him.
Now, he didn't speak English, which is the only caveat there.
GILLIAM: And that throws a whole other wrench in the ball game.
[17:45:07] COSTELLO (voice-over): It turns out I made the right choice. But it was a choice I made not knowing whether the suspect was indeed armed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A person with a knife at 21 feet, if you weapons is holstered, can get to you and stab you. 21 feet.
COSTELLO (on camera): He was much closer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
The whole thing is space gives you, what? Time.
COSTELLO: What if he didn't have a knife in his pocket?
GILLIAM: The threat is imminent. What is it? What is not known to you is what's in his hands. But you can't take the risk, as a law enforcement officer, that that guy is going to kill you, because then he can take your gun away and kill other people and just further his killing spree.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't have to assume that risk because you're a police officer. You're here because of the intelligence. The person not complying, then that gives you notice. That's one of the really difficult things to actually deal with.
GILLIAM: Had we taken his knife away from him and he didn't have a knife, you still would have been justified in what you did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.
COSTELLO: Wow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: CNN law enforcement analyst, Cedric Alexander, joins me now on the phone to talk about this.
Let's talk about this training. I'm curious, do all police officers go through this type of training? And how important is it for them?
CEDRIC ALEXANDER, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (voice-over): It's very important. Certainly the training is a little bit more in-depth than what you have just seen there, what your audience has just seen. But it certainly does get down to training. It gets down to experience over time, being in the field. And you certainly do have to make those judgment calls.
But the most important thing is, you rely on your training, but in addition to that, at the end of the day, whatever decision a police officer makes, he or she has to be able to do articulate that threat. And it has to be reasonable in order for them to get past that particular scenario legally. And it's part of the job. It's one of the challenges that comes with the job. It's not something that we see every day, but certainly upon occasion these types of events do occur. But it also will come back to the training that you received out there.
BROWN: And let's talk about the difficulty of taking down a gunman barricaded in a building, the challenge there shooting a suspect without hurting anyone else.
ALEXANDER: In a scenario such as that -- and each scenario is going to be very, very different -- I believe we're able to reasonably assume yesterday that he barricaded himself inside a wall or within a room and was firing from within. However, in situations where you do have hostages, the police officers' ability to aim or take fire, they're going to be much more reluctant to do so because we don't want to create the type of injuries to innocent people.
That's something the bad guy never has to worry about, but law enforcement has to concern themselves, knowing their backdrop, meaning what's behind the person that they're targeting and what's in and around that person, because we don't want to hurt or injure innocent people. It becomes a little more sensitive. In this case yesterday, it was pretty clear that they were able to fire back or take shots at their target, Mr. Dear. Fortunately, that ended without further incident.
BROWN: Absolutely. They did a tremendous job yesterday.
ALEXANDER: Yes, they did. Courageous job.
BROWN: Just fascinating to listen to those SWAT teams communicating with each other over the scanner.
Thank you so much, Cedric Alexander.
And we'll be right back.
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[17:53:00] BROWN: Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, not shying away from talking about his ongoing feud with "The New York Times." Today, Trump told a crowd in Florida he never mocked one of the paper's reporters for having a physical disability, and he thinks the paper should apologize for even suggesting otherwise.
CNN's Athena Jones has more from Florida.
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Pamela. Donald Trump spoke before a boisterous and very excited crowd near Sarasota. As he often does, talked tough on ISIS, talked plans to build a wall along the Mexican board somewhere hit rivals hard. He blasted the president, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and John Kasich, in particular, and also the media. Trump spent several minutes talking about is dust-up with "The New York Times" this week, after seeming to mock the physical disability of one of the paper's reporters, Serge Kovaleski.
Trump said again today he didn't mock Kovaleski, that he didn't know this reporter, and didn't know he had a disability. Take a listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: So I was expressive in saying it, and they said I was mocking him. I would never mock a person that has difficulty. I would never do that. I don't know him. Now he's -- he knew me, we were on first name -- Give me a break. Give me a break. The problem is, he's using what he's got to such a horrible degree. I think it's disgraceful. And I think "The New York Times," frankly, should give me an apology.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: There you have it, Trump repeating his call for an apology from "The New York Times."
Also, once again, accusing this reporter, Serge Kovaleski, of using his disability to his advantage.
One more thing I want to make note of. There was a brief interruption early in Trump's speech, a protester shouting. While it was difficult to make out what the protester was saying, Trump made a point of asking the crowd to be nice to the person, don't hurt the person, and asking security to nicely escort her out. So, a very different story from what we saw with the protester in Birmingham, Alabama, last week -- Pamela?
BROWN: Athena Jones, thank you so much.
We'll be right back. Stay with us.
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[18:00:04] BROWN: You in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Poppy Harlow.
