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Storm Dumps Two Feet of Snow on Amarillo, Texas; Grand Jury Declines to Indict Police Officer in Tamir Rice Shooting; Alan Kurdi's Aunt Tima Reunited with Relatives Who Fled Syria; Most Unforgettable Crime and Justice Stories of 2015. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired December 28, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00] COL. ROBERT MAGINNIS US ARMY (RET.): There is reason to be optimistic but keep in mind what the Caliph Baghdadi said just the other day, you know. He said this war is not over. And you know, we take casualties, however, the reality is we are going to continue to fight all over the region but elsewhere in the world. And I think that goes more to the poll and the sense that, you know, this war is continuing. And it has morphed elsewhere across the world so people are concerned.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: That 24-minute address from al-Baghdadi that you referenced certainly managing expectations for his followers strategy there. They will continue to fight.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Maginnis, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. And happy holidays, sir. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Same to you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, an emotional reunion in Canada. Look at these pictures. This is new video taken moments ago as surviving relatives of the Syrian toddler who drowned just a couple of minutes ago, arrived there in Canada. It is a sliver of good news as thousands of refugees try to escape the unspeakable horrors of war. Do not miss this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:34:32] BALDWIN: Really want to share these pictures with you as you are about to see in Vancouver right now. Bitter sweet reunion is underway there in Canada. These are pictures of Syrian refugees who just touched down there. And these are relatives specifically of that drown Syrian toddler whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey. You know the picture. Images of this little one brought international attention to the perils faced by refugees fleeing Syria.

The tiny 2-year-old has a name. Alan Kurdi. His mother and brother also drowned on that day in September. And at least another 100 refugee children have reportedly drown since. But it is in this picture of tiny Alan that shamed the world. The child's aunt says her nephew has become a symbol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [15:35:25] TIMA KURDI, AUNT OF SYRIAN TODDLER WHO DROWNED: I have very strong feeling that boy is God isn't him to the world in this planet because there has to be a solution to stop it. I want the whole world to step in, put hand together, come up with a solution. Share a plan. They have to finish this, end the war, do something, help those refugees. It's too late to save Alan and (INAUDIBLE), but not too late to save the other millions of them that are desperate. They need help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: It is precious faces. Right now, Alan Kurdi's aunt Tima is being reunited with several relatives who fled Syria in search of a safe place to live.

And Paula Newton is following all these developments for us there from Canada.

So Paula, I mean, we will put the pictures back up, but just the faces, these relatives who are arriving today in Vancouver, the emotions, tell us more about the back story.

PAUL NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, they are great pictures, aren't they. Finally some measure of relief for Tima Kurdi. You know, she told me, look, there was no way she believes this would have been possible a few months ago. I mean, Brooke, she tried to get her family there. That brother and his wife, five kids, tried to get them there earlier in the year. Also, of course, Alan, his older brother, his mother and his father, the Canadian government said they didn't have the right documents. That is the point in time when this family where they got desperate.

And she was, you know, she always regretted giving them the money. She gave them the money to get on that boat that eventually led to their deaths. And she just says that in that story, that desperation has to be felt around the world. And what she really is hopeful about is not just bringing her own family to Canada. But the fact that in the last few weeks, there's been some sliver and put it well, Brooke, it is only a sliver of hope that there would be some type of peace support. That somehow there was some peace will be brought to Syria and a lot of the suffering can stop.

And she says, Brooke, you know, I don't want people to forget that picture. I want that picture to mean something. Of course, it pains her, it pains her entire family, but she does believe that it changed public opinion around the world and obviously especially here in Canada -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: That picture speaks for itself.

Paula Newton, thank you so much.

There's so much more to this story of this family in search for a safe place to call home. And so, that story is being told in this phenomenal piece in "The New York Times" today entitled "Syrian family's tragedy goes beyond. Iconic image of boy un-beach." Anne Bernard wrote the story. She is the Beirut bureau chief for "the

Times." She joins me now from Beirut there in Lebanon.

So Anne, thank you so much for your time. I mean, talk about just these extensive interviews, the research, you know, three generations of Alan's family. But let me just begin with Alan's final hours.

You in reading your piece, you were able to get, you know, this firsthand account from his father, who was on the boat with him. You write about how the boat flipped over and Alan's father telling his family to keep above water. What did the other survivors tell you what happened next?

ANNE BERNARD, BEIRUT CHIEF BUREAU, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, it was complete chaos. Everyone was thrown into the water. There was another couple on board who lost two children. There was a woman who had a son with her who had been wounded in the war. And so, everyone was trying to stay afloat. You know, people buy life jackets which are fraudulently made and sold. They appeared to stay afloat if you test them for a few minutes. But if you're going to be in the water for a-while, they will get saturated and sink. So, you know, it was complete chaos.

There was reports early on after the tragedy suggesting that Abdullah had been a smuggler. But what we later found out is, in fact, it is standard procedure for smugglers to have an ordinary refugee drive the boat sometimes in exchange for a discount. Now, Abdullah says he wasn't even doing that. And he just grabbed (INAUDIBLE) after the smuggler bailed out and that everyone was trying to control the boat in the chaos. So, you know, it was just a desperate situation.

BALDWIN: So that's a sense of the chaos and the desperation. Tell me more of what you learned about, you know, how Alan grew up. Because I want to quote this heartbreaking words from Alan's father. Quote "they sat in the house all day. The only thing they were waiting for was me."

I want you to tell me the story of how he and his brother would jump into their father's bed.

[15:40:02] BERNARD: Well, Alan and his brother (INAUDIBLE) had ended up in Istanbul as refugees after they were driven out of Kobani (ph), Syria by the Islamic State. And earlier, his family had fled from Damascus because their neighborhood was under great pressure from the government and from other factions in the war. So basically those kids had nothing to do, nowhere to go. The main thing they had to look forward to was some play time with their dad. They used to come into his bedroom in the morning and snuggle up to him. And one sort of very physical memory of parenting that he remembered and which really brought tears to his eyes when we met him is very far away in Iraq's Kurdistan later, he remembered putting lotion on them every day for a skin condition they had and how he would just carefully put that all over their bodies, even though he was worried it cost $2 a tube, it was him taking care of them in a physical way. It was one thing he could do for them.

BALDWIN: It's those little things of what will forever stick with a parent.

Anne Bernard, thank you so much for your time, "the New York Times" there in Beirut bureau chief with just a pretty unbelievable story.

Coming up next, 11 people killed and hundreds of buildings damaged in violent storms that slammed Texas. We are on the ground where the long process of clean-up has only just begun.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:44:40] BALDWIN: Back to our breaking news here out of Cuyahoga county, Ohio. We have been talking a lot about the news that the grand jury has finish their investigation into the death of 12-year- old Tamir Rice who was shot and killed by police November 22nd of 2014. We talked a lot about how they came to this conclusion, that they are not bringing criminal charges. There will be no indictment of these officers despite cries for the opposite result from the family.

I now have -- this is a statement. I want to just read part of it for you just to get the perspective from the family. This is from the family attorney here of Tamir Rice's parents.

Quote "today more than a year after Cleveland police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a grand jury voted to not indict the shooter. Tamir's family is saddened and disappointed by this outcome but not surprised. It has been clear from months now that Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty was abusing and manipulating the grand jury process to orchestrate a vote against indictment. Even though video shows the police shooting Tamir in less than one second, prosecutor McGinty hired so-called expert witnesses to try to exonerate the officers and tell the grand jury their conduct was reasonable and justified. It's unheard of and highly improper for a prosecutor to hire experts to try to exonerate the targets of a grand jury investigation. These are the sort of experts we would expect the officers criminal defense attorney to hire, not the prosecutor."

A couple graphs down. They are grateful to the community for the support and they end with renewing the request if for the department of justice to step in to conduct a real investigation into the tragic shooting of a 12-year-old child. This again from the family attorney of Tamir Rice's family there in Cleveland.

Let's move along to weather. Twisters, flooding, blizzards, right now large parts of the country bracing for rounds of extreme weather after outbreaks killed dozens of people including four soldiers.

Let me show you one picture. Garland, Texas, look at this. Garland, Texas is a suburb of Dallas. Five tornadoes were reported in this one area. One was an EF-4 with 180 mile per hour winds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[15:46:53] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That sound, I just can't get that sound out of my head. To hear some would, buildings crack, I mean, ripping stuff up, all we could do was run to the closet and pray. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have no heat, no electricity. As long as they

are safe, I'm happy with that. Regardless of where I'm at.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And this is Amarillo, Texas. Panhandle where the storm dumped more than two feet of snow. A blizzard warning just expired this afternoon. Also areas of Kentucky and Missouri, they are under flood warnings today. In fact, in Missouri, one area got a foot of rain just over this weekend.

I want to take you to Garland, Texas, as one of the areas hardest hit here. Nick Valencia is there in the midst of the destruction.

Nick Valencia, I mean, I covered a lot of these, you know. It's like one thing to see it on TV. It's totally different to be there in person and witness this firsthand.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We were there together in Moore, Oklahoma, two years ago. And it really is reminding me a lot of exactly what we went through there, Brooke. The damage that we saw there. The scope and scale, the magnitude of this force of tornado that ripped through Garland, Texas.

You can just see it behind me. It really is all around. The intensity, you talk about those 180 mile per hour winds that ripped through this area. Many people were home at the time that this tornado came through here on a Saturday night. People just enjoying the family time. Some say they have very little warning that the force and the strength and sound of this storm was so strong that it overpowered those tornado sirens that would have given a warning of at least 10 to 15-minute warning to the residents here.

I was talking to the mayor a little while ago and he said it's a miracle that no one lost their life in this apartment complex. There were several injuries. People did suffer some serious injuries. I'm just going to step out of the way so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. It stretches as far as the eye can see. That forceful tornado coming through the area. Thousands of people still without power. Dozens of families still displaced. The American Red Cross is here and has set up a shelter for the families who have been affected.

Over the course of the last couple hours, we have been speaking to residents and hearing these courageous stories of survival and the leading to this report we heard from the Johnson family. They huddled together in a closet putting a mattress by the door and said they had just had very little warning just a couple of minutes before they knew that they were in the eye of that tornado.

That is perhaps the most uplifting part about this is hearing the stories and hearing people say that they are going to take a step forward. I talked to a man named Josh White who said that he feels as though he has been given a second chance at life. He was convinced that this was the way he was going to die. That this was it for him when that storm came through here on Saturday. But he says now that he has a second chance, he's going to try to do better. He says ordinary people look at situations like this, you see them on TV and you think about them for a fleeting moment. And then you move on. And that's exactly the kind of situation he had had had found himself in on Saturday. He says what he wants now to do going forward is help people who have suffered from similar storms. A lot of people are getting help here from the city government for the emergency management folks here. And the mayor is doing as much as he can and the locals here really banding together from what we have seen from our vantage point - Brooke.

[15:50:03] BALDWIN: They need folks' help. Nick, thank you so much.

I know for those of you watching and seeing the destruction on your TV screen or your computer, you can help. I want to encourage you to go to our impact your world page. That is where we have compiled this list of vetted organizations that are on the ground helping these folks in harm's way. It is all at CNN.com/impact.

Minutes from now the mayor of Cleveland will be holding a news conference on the breaking news that those officers involved in the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice will not be charged. Again, that is coming up at the top of the hour.

Stay with us. Quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:54:02] BALDWIN: CNN's Jean Casarez takes a look at some of the most unforgettable crime and justice stories of the year 2015.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A biker shoot out caught on video surveillance. Nine people killed and 18 wounded May 17th at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas. One hundred and seventy seven bikers were arrested. Police recovered 480 weapons.

In this video finally released, an officer fired his weapon after police say the suspect was carrying a knife and acting erratically. An African-American teen Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times. The Chicago police chief Garry McCarthy fired after dashboard video after a suspect being killed was kept under wraps for over a year.

MAYOR RAHM EMMANUEL, CHICAGO: Public trusts in the leadership of the department has been shaken.

CASAREZ: The officer Jason Van Dyke has been charged with first degree murder while many in the community continue to rally calling for the mayor to resign.

The scene heart breaking and too familiar.

[15:55:08] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: We are just getting word here of a school shooting.

CASAREZ: A shooting on a school campus, this time at Umpqua community college in Roseburg, Oregon. Gunman Christopher Harper-Mercer shoots and kills nine people. He dies after a gun battle with police at the college.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine, my response here at the podium ends up being routine. The conversation and the aftermath of it, we have become numb to this.

CASAREZ: As Bill Cosby maintained his silence, more women came forward saying the television star has sexually assaulted them in the past.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He made me kneel down and I'm not going to repeat what happened next. All I know is that it was the most horrifying thing that could happen to any young woman.

CASAREZ: And Cosby turned the tables on some of his accusers in December filing suit against them for defamation of his character. Mr. Cosby states plainly that he neither drugged nor sexually assaulted the defendants.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my very, very sad duty to report Allison and Adam died this morning shortly after 6:45 when the shots rang out.

CASAREZ: WDBJ television journalist Allison Parker and Adam Ward shot to death by a disgruntled former colleague during a live broadcast for their morning news. Heinous acts recorded by the killer himself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just horrifying and shocking. These were young people. Allison Parker what, was 24-years-old. Adam Ward was 27- years-old. It is just unbelievably sad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been gut wrenching for me to get through anything without breaking down in tears.

CASAREZ: The killer, Bryce Williams, shot himself as police closed in.

The scene read like a movie, an escape tunnel chiseled away by inmates leading to a manhole on the street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have new developments for you about the man hunt that's crippled part of upstate New York.

CASAREZ: David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped from the Clinton correctional facility in Plattsburg, New York.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Richard Matt not only didn't surrendered. He picked up the shotgun. He aimed it at the agent who then shot three times.

CASAREZ: Matt was killed. David Sweat is back behind bars. They were on the run for more than three weeks. Prison worker Joyce Mitchell who helped with their escape but got cold feet for the planned get away is now serving up to seven years behind bars. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did wrong. I deserve to be punished. But,

you know, people need to know that I was only trying to save my family.

CASAREZ: In 2015 a jury sentenced bomber Dzakhar Tsarnaev to death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The convicted Boston bomber Dzakhar Tsarnaev will meet his end by lethal injection for his crime, actions that killed four people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even in the wake of horror and tragedy, we are not intimidated by acts of terror or radical ideals.

CASAREZ: Nine people died inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina when Dylan Roof opened fire at a bible study. Roof was arrested the following day. According to police he confessed and told investigators he wanted to start a race war. Roof faced families of the victims who spoke directly to the killer from court.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have killed some of the most (INAUDIBLE) people that I know.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I have been through a lot of these hearings. This was the most emotional and the most powerful I have ever listened to.

CASAREZ: State is seeking the death penalty.

An arrest caught on tape. Freddie Gray died in police custody leading to riots in Baltimore that devastated the city.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And as soon as the firefighters walked away or turned their backs somebody walked up with a knife and cut two holes into that fire hose.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, THE SITUATION ROOM: I want you to be really careful over there because it looks like the police are moving closer and closer.

CASAREZ: Gray was placed in a police van and sometime during the journey suffered an injury that ended his life one week later. The officers involved charged for numerous crimes including not calling medics and not buckling Gray inside the van. In the first of six trials, a hung jury.

Law enforcement calls this the worst terrorist attack since 9/11.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tonight new answers in the act of terror there that took 14 lives. That is how it's now being investigated, an act of terror.

CASAREZ: Fourteen people shot dead by a co-worker and his wife.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is now a federal terrorism investigation led by the FBI. CASAREZ: Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik pledged their support

to the terror group. This incident, law enforcement's worst fear, lone wolf terrorist.

(END VIDEOTAPE)