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Chicago PD Under Scrutiny After Shootings; Dallas Area Tornado Outbreak; Peyton Manning Denies Doping; Trump and Clinton Battle Over Sexism. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 28, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, protesters in Chicago are calling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel's immediate resignation after two more deadly police shootings over the weekend, shootings that left a grandmother and a college student dead.

[09:30:04] Yesterday, the teen's mother spoke out about her son's death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET COOKSEY, QUINTONIO LEGRIER'S MOTHER: No mother should have to bury her child, and especially under these circumstances. You call for help. The police are supposed to serve and protect us. It's a badge to kill. I mean, where do we get our help? When is the mayor going to step up?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Overnight, that mayor, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, ordered a series of reforms in the wake of the controversy. He also issued a statement saying, quote, "there are serious questions about yesterday's shootings that must be answered in full by the independent police review authority's investigation. While their investigation is underway, we must also make real changes within our police department today, and it is clear changes are needed to how officers respond to mental health crises."

CNN's Rosa Flores is live in Chicago with the very latest for us.

Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Christine.

Let me take you through this. Here is what we know from authorities. They tell us that a domestic disturbance call came into dispatch very early on Saturday morning. When police officers responded to the scene, they say that they were, quote, "confronted" by a combative individual, which resulted in the shooting and killing of two people. First of all, 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier and 55-year-old Bettie Jones.

Now here's what we know from their families. From that teen first. His mom telling CNN that LeGrier was actually in his house with his dad. That his dad actually called the police. Now, this mom also said that her son was shot seven times, and that he was not a combative person.

Now, as for Bettie Jones' family, they say that the grandmother, the mother of five, simply opened the door to her house before she was shot. Now according to the coroner, she was shot in the chest. Now from her family, they're asking for solidarity and calm in this time of pain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAHMAL COLE, NEPHEW OF BETTIE JONES: I think the entire city's integrity is in question when institutions fail to respond responsibly. I think that, you know, right now is not a time for politics. I think right now is a time for us to remember that we're all Chicagoans and, you know, we all share this short moment of life together and we want to be happy together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now the police officer is on administrative duty for 30 days. Mayor Rahm Emanuel releasing a statement, saying in part, quote, "I directed the new acting chief administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority and the interim superintendent of police to meet with each other as soon as possible to review the crisis intervention team training around how officers respond to mental health crisis calls."

And we should add that LeGrier's family is not confirming that he was having a mental health episode at the time. In fact, Christine, they say, regardless if he would have been having a mental episode at that particular time, that the teen was not armed and that deadly force was not justified.

Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Rosa Flores, thank you so much for that. In Chicago, Rosa Flores.

Still to come, NFL quarterback Peyton Manning accused of doping. Why he strongly denied it, calling it garbage. And, guess what? The first man who made the accusations, well, he's denying it now, too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:36:20] ROMANS: Utter devastation in north Texas this morning after a deadly tornado outbreak strikes near Dallas. Hundreds of homes lay splintered across lawns. Look at the pictures of this devastation. Eleven people killed. The city of Rowlett taking a direct hit from a powerful EF-3 tornado. With me now on the phone is the mayor of Rowlett, Texas, Todd Gottel.

Mayor, thank you for joining me.

First, tell me what your community went through this weekend. I mean the pictures, just -- just devastating.

MAYOR TODD GOTTEL, ROWLETT, TEXAS (via telephone): Well, first off, Christine, thank you for having us on. I will tell you that we are -- we are definitely in full recovery mode

at this point. The EF-3 tornado hit roughly about 7:00 p.m. We were very fortunate. We were able to give significant warning. So we -- we only -- we wound up with basically 23 people injured out of it. And at the end of the day, it -- we e did suffer significant damage through that particular area. We have roughly about 1,000 homes that have been impacted and about 150 of those are completely destroyed, with 200 of those having major structural damage.

ROMANS: Where are those residents today? Are they in temporary shelters? What -- what have you set up for the people who have been displaced now?

GOTTEL: We actually have a shelter that -- that is open. Many of the folks have gone to spend the night at relatives or friends homes that -- that are in the area.

ROMANS: Right.

GOTTEL: So the shelter is not anywhere near capacity at this point, but we do have services available should they need them.

ROMANS: Let's talk a little bit about how people -- you said people had a good sized warning here. And we know that people survived by hiding in bathtubs, in closets. What are some of the stories your residents are telling you about where they hunkered down?

GOTTEL: Well, first and foremost, we were fortunate. We actually had -- we actually have tornado sirens. We set them off three different times to make sure that people had fair warning. Additionally, we also have texts and e-mail, as well as phone call information that we send out to all of the residents notifying of this. Most of the people hid in closets or evacuated the area or just got into bathtubs. And some of the stories are pretty amazing. I mean they -- you look at a house that's completely devastated --

ROMANS: Yes.

GOTTEL: Just demolished, and after -- as soon as it was over, you had three people walk out of there. Some with injuries, of course, but they're very happy to be alive.

ROMANS: It's just amazing. And, you know, where I'm from, I'm from Iowa, where we get tornado -- you know, tornado activity quite frequently. And, you know, we have basements. It's routine to have basements in the Midwest. But not necessarily routine where you are. I mean people -- you have storm shelters or they're hiding in an interior closet or in a bathtub.

GOTTEL: Yes, that -- that is correct. They typically go under a closet in the stairs or in a bathtub, small bathroom, an inside room, and they basically get down on the floor, some people would lay a mattress on top of them.

ROMANS: Right.

GOTTEL: Whatever they have to do to try to stay safe.

ROMANS: But an EF-3 or an EF-4, I mean it's hard to survive something like that. You know, some -- that is major.

GOTTEL: Christine, the damage is significant.

ROMANS: Yes. I mean that's 180-mile-per-hour winds for an EF-4. Tell me what is your biggest obstacle? What do you need from today moving forward into the new year? What is your message for people?

GOTTEL: I think the biggest thing that we need right now, we have plenty of resources at our fingertips. The biggest thing that we'd like to ask is that people just stay out of the impacted areas right now. Let the emergency crews do their work. We have Oncore (ph), which is the electric company, Atmus (ph) is the gas company, to make sure that all the gas lines are off. We believe they are. They're doing secondary and third (ph) checks. The power companies are going through and it's not a power line down. We have telephone poles after telephone pole snapped in half. And so they have to remove all that and we're doing our best to restore electricity to those areas. But let the -- so, you know, we need to let the emergency service workers do their job so we can get in to start to cleanup.

[09:40:07] ROMANS: Right. Yes, OK, very good advice. And we hope everyone can try to be as safe as possible in the days ahead as you've got to get through all of that debris and start to move forward.

Thank you so much, Mayor Todd Gottel. Thank you so much.

GOTTEL: Thank you, Christine. Appreciate it.

ROMANS: For more on how you can help storm victims in Texas and across the country, visit cnn.com/impact.

Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is denying an explosive report. The al Jazeera documentary claimed Manning ordered human growth hormones through his wife. It claimed -- it claimed -- this report claimed to link several pro-athletes to doping. The future Hall of Fame quarterback isn't the only one calling this report garbage. He's furious. He had some choice words about it. CNN's Andy Scholes joins us now.

Andy, Manning has strongly denied any link at all to performance enhancers.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Christine, you know, Manning immediately came out and he basically called this entire report a complete joke. He went on, you know, to say, he couldn't believe that al Jazeera was actually going to air something that the source of the report even came out and said wasn't true.

Now, Charlie Sly is the source of the documentary. He was an intern at the anti-aging clinic in Indianapolis that Manning went to for treatment. And in the documentary that aired last night, Sly, on hidden camera, said that Manning used to get shipments of human growth hormone in 2011 while he was recovering from neck surgery. Now Sly claimed the shipments would actually go to Manning's wife Ashley. But according to a statement from the anti-aging clinic, the Guyer Institute, Sly was an unpaid intern and he was only there for three months in 2013, which is well after Manning was even treated at the Guyer Institute. Now, in speaking with ESPN, Manning called the allegations by Sly in the report complete garbage. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEYTON MANNING, DENVER BRONCOS QUARTERBACK: I can't speak for any other athlete. I know what I've done. I know how hard I've worked during my 18 years of playing in the NFL. There are no shortcuts in the NFL. I've done it the long way. I've done it the hard way. And to insinuate anything otherwise is a complete and total joke, it's defamation and it really ticks me off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now Sly has recanted his entire story. He says everything he said in this report were lies. And he actually posted a YouTube clip where he says al Jazeera should not even air the documentary. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLIE SLY, PEYTON MANNING ACCUSER: The statements on any recordings or communications that al Jazeera plans to air are absolutely false and incorrect. To be clear, I am recanting any such statements and there is no truth to any statement of mine that al Jazeera plans to air.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now, Christine, Sly says he made up all of the lies about athletes and performance enhancing drugs to test Liam Collins (ph), who is a former British hurdler. He was the guy secretly taping Sly, posing as someone looking to get some performance-enhancing drugs to get back into the Olympics. And, you know, this is, for sure, going to continue to develop, Christine. You know, Peyton Manning told Peter King from "Sports Illustration" he's likely to sue for defamation. And then there's baseball players involved in this as well, Christine. Ryan Howard of the Phillys, Ryan Zimmermann of the Nationals. Their lawyer say they are also likely to sue for defamation.

ROMANS: And is there an investigation into this, the NFL? I mean any other response from the NFL?

SCHOLES: Yes, the NFL and Major League Baseball are going to look into these claims, as, you know, as anyone would, especially, you know, with what was in the report.

ROMANS: Right. Of course.

SCHOLES: There's -- there's -- but there's -- the only thing that was concrete in this report that hasn't been refuted is there was a baseball player that admitted basically to taking steroids in the report. So I'm sure Major League Baseball is going to look into that. ROMANS: All right, Andy Scholes, thanks for that. Such an interesting

story.

All right, still to come, call it the clash of the political titans, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton trading jabs over charges of sexism. Could we be looking at the preview of the 2016 election?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:47:28] ROMANS: They are the front runners in the 2016 battle for the White House and increasingly Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are looking past their party rivals and training their fire on one another. At the center of their feud, well, at the moment, it's the issue of sexism. Clinton calling out the Donald last week, saying he was -- has, quote, "a penchant for language that is derogatory toward woman," after he used a vulgarity in describing her 2008 loss to President Obama. Trump firing back on Twitter, first warning Clinton to, quote, "be careful," saying he has respect for women. Then later, he took a shot at Bill Clinton, tweeting, "Hillary Clinton has announced that she's letting her husband out to campaign, but he's demonstrated a penchant for sexism. So inappropriate."

Trump elaborated during this interview Sunday on Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think he is fair game because his presidency was considered to be very troubled, to put it mildly, because of all of the things that she's talking to me about. I mean, she's mentioning sexism. I actually turned her exact words, I don't know if you saw the following tweet, but I turned her exact words against her from that standpoint.

She's got to be careful. You know, she's got to be fair. And we all have to fight fairly and we have to fight for the good of the country, for the good of the people, for the good of everybody. But we have to fight fairly. And she's playing the woman's card and it's like, give me a break.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: All right, here to discuss, Errol Louis, political anchor for New York 1 and a CNN political commentator. And Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center; he also a political science professor.

So Donald Trump tweets and he references his tweets when he has interviews on television. He said these words: Be careful. And he says that Hillary Clinton is playing the woman's card. What do you make of it?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it is a misguided attempt to sort of counterpunch in an area where Donald Trump is extremely vulnerable. Upwards -- in the latest poll, upwards of 60 percent of women say they have a less than favorable opinion of Donald Trump. And he has, in fact, publicly used words, calling women dogs and slobs and pigs, and all of this kind of thing, disgusting.

Rather than back away from any of that stuff, he sort of doubles down and says, well, I know I am, but who are you, kind of thing. This sort of childish response and trying to drag Bill Clinton into it. Bill Clinton had a lot of problems. That was not his problem. He didn't go around calling women dogs and pigs and slobs and all of this sort of stuff. He obviously was part of a sex scandal, but that's not nearly the same thing.

And it's unfortunate that this is where Donald Trump wants to sort of take the conversation. I think Hillary Clinton is more than ready for it.

ROMANS: You mention those poll numbers. I want to talk about those with you, Andy.

[09:50:02] For Clinton or Trump to win, they have to get the backing of female voters, who make up more than half of the U.S. electorate. Here is the recent CNN/ORC polling -- 61 percent of women have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared to 45 percent unfavorable view among women for Hillary Clinton.

Can Trump, Andy, compete with Hillary Clinton in that area? Especially like, she's trying to become the first female President of the United States?

ANDY SMITH, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE SURVEY CENTER: I think it's going to be a difficult challenge. Women have been going for Democratic candidates for president as well as other top offices by a fairly significant margin over the last several election cycles. Typically in the evenly divided state, being a woman candidate, especially if you're a woman Democratic candidate, gives you about a 5 percent to 6 percent advantage over your opponents.

This time around -- but the flip side of that is that there's been a growing gender gap among men favoring Republican candidates. So, I think what we may see, if this debate continues the way it is, is that you'll have a more polarized electorate based on the gender of the voter, with Trump or Republicans able to swing many more men voters, male voters, and Democrats, if Clinton is their nominee, many more women voters.

ROMANS: The optics are so interesting, Errol. Long ago, they were all embracing at Donald Trump's third wedding and now people are wondering this morning whether there's going to be some public spat between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

But it's not just the Clintons that Trump's going after. He's also gone after the South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy, the Benghazi committee chair, who we're told is going to be campaigning with Marco Rubio. And he's gone after the Virginia GOP. So this is Trump that is in fighting mode.

LOUIS: Well, that's right. And keep in mind, again, Trump's base is Republican-based voters who are disaffected by and angry with the Republican mainstream. That includes the party organizations like the Virginia organization. That includes almost everybody in Congress. Although Trey Gowdy I think is a slightly different case. I mean, he's the one who found the e-mails; he found the Clinton e-mails. And I think he's going to always have a certain amount of credibility with the conservative base. The fact that he's sort of defecting from Trump and going towards Rubio is where this anger is coming from.

ROMANS: Interesting. All right, Errol Louis, Andy Smith, I could talk about this for hours. Thanks, guys. So interesting.

All right, I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:32] ROMANS: The Chicago Police Department and the mayor under scrutiny yet again after an officer shot and killed two people while responding to a domestic disturbance call. One victim, Quintonio LeGrier, was a 19-year-old college student. The other, Bettie Jones, was a 55-year-old mother of five and grandmother. Police are calling her death a tragic accident.

Tom Verni is a former NYPD detective and Danny Cevallos is a CNN legal analyst. You know, Tom, I want you to listen to a friend of Bettie Jones who spoke out at a rally on Sunday. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACQUELINE WALKER, CHILDHOOD FRIEND OF BETTIE JONES: Why you got to shoot and ask questions later? It's ridiculous! You all, somebody need to do something about this. This is ridiculous! What about the tasers? Tase (INAUDIBLE). Don't start shooting people, innocent people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Why do you have to shoot first and ask questions later? What about the taser? Did she have a point?

TOM VERNI, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Yes, she absolutely has a point. Listen, anyone who loses someone, especially when police are involved, are going to be understandably upset. They're going to be very angry. And, yes, cops should be outfitted with tasers, because it would give them one more tool to go to instead of having to necessarily resort to deadly physical force unless deadly physical force is being used against them in that moment and they feared for their safety.

ROMANS: Well, let's think about that, that moment. That moment, according to what the police are saying, that 19-year-old, his father had called police on him. They were calling it a domestic disturbance. He had a baseball bat, aluminum baseball bat, and was coming down the stairs towards police officers.

Domestic disturbances are volatile by nature and very, very common. Should there be a rule, a different rulebook, in Chicago for how to handle those? Was this a mistake in how they handled it?

VERNI: Well, I don't think we have enough information to make that determination as of yet. There was some reporting that the young person had potentially mental illness, which, if that is the case, that may also have come into play.

You know, domestic violence falls under one of the most dangerous jobs that a police officer is going to respond to. They're highly volatile. They're completely unpredictable because you're walking into someone's house or someone's apartment and you have no idea what you're about to walk into. If someone is running down the stairs with a baseball bat, especially if they're challenging a police officer, well, you're going to be under the assumption they're going to use that baseball bat. And the police officer's safety is paramount at that point to protect not only themselves but also the people that are there to help.

ROMANS: They called police because they wanted help for that person, not for somebody to get shot.

Danny, the officer has been placed on administrative duty for 30 days. What do you see happening to him, at this point?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: First, you have to have an investigation to find out if the force was warranted. And to do that, we're going to be taking a look at the force escalation model --what was presented to the officer and was his response reasonable? As Tom was talking about with training, police officers are taught to escalate force depending on the amount of force they're confronted with, from near presence to verbal demands to nonlethal force, all the way up to lethal force.

But the other thing Tom will tell you is that police are trained that that escalation can happen very, very quickly. And this always comes down to, No. 1, training, and the actual facts. What was the force that this officer was confronted with at the time of the incident? And with one caveat.

ROMANS: Right.

CEVALLOS: Remember, the Supreme Court has said that we will not use hindsight Monday morning quarterbacking to determine whether the force was reasonable. We will use the officer's information that was available to him or her at that moment.

ROMANS: Danny, you know, the families of these two people have a case against the city. The nephew of Bettie Jones was on our air on "NEW DAY" this morning and said that they've been mourning and they've been fielding calls from lawyers. Lots of calls from lawyers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAHMAL COLE, NEPHEW OF BETTIE JONES: What I think is we need to show compassion towards not only the family, you know, not only us, but I think we need to show compassion towards police officers. I think the peace starts with us. The peace starts with me. And the peace starts with the officers that first showed up on that scene.

So I think everybody is going to be impacted by this situation, and we need to use this as an opportunity to get better as a city. It's not a time right now for hate. It's not a time for swift decisions. This is a time towards compassion towards the suffering of people that live in West Garfield Park, and compassion towards people that live in the Loop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: That's Jahmal Cole, the nephew of Bettie Jones, talking to Poppy yesterday on the air. We talked to him again this morning and he said, you know, they're getting a lot of phone calls from attorneys now.

[10:00:04] Do they have a case?

CEVALLOS: Well, it's always hard to determine whether they have a case until an investigation is complete.