Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

French Attack Thwarted; Markets Dive; Hospital Death; Cruz Citizenship Issue. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 07, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:27] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We're going to begin this hour in Paris, where the specter of terrorism is never far away, least all on the one-year anniversary of the "Charlie Hebdo" attack. Today, anxiety is mixed with some sense of relief that police were able to foil a brand-new attack by a man who was armed with a meat cleaver and what turned out to be fake explosives. At the very hour when the gunman burst into the magazine offices one year ago today, the lone attacker this morning was shot dead outside of a police precinct in the northern part of the city. The Paris prosecutor says the man had a piece of paper with an ISIS flag on it and a claim of responsibility. You can see his weapon circled in red just a short distance from his dead body.

CNN's Jim Bittermann joins me with much more.

It is no surprise perhaps to Paris residents that there was some kind of an attack today, being such a significant anniversary. How are people handling this latest incident in their city?

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think people are a lot on edge and they were on edge even before, so this has just increased the nervousness here. Basically, this attack came almost to the minute, to the one year after the attack at "Charlie Hebdo." And police were worried about this kind of thing happening. This does not seem to be a very particularly well-organized attack. Like you said, the vest that he had on, the bomb vest that he had on, apparently was fake. He came with a meat cleaver. He had a hand-drawn flag. It was found on - in his pants. And he had a cell phone that was on him. The police are going through that right now, trying to find out if there's any information, if they can find out who he called and whatnot.

No identity papers, so they don't know who he is just yet. But he did have that - that claim of responsibility in which he mentions that he is loyal to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who is the head of ISIS. So it's, for all intents and purposes, a terrorist attack. It's just a question of exactly how organized this individual was and, thankfully, the police were able to stop him. They fired at him and apparently hit him twice and that brought him down.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So, Jim, it's just after 6:00 at night where you are now, so I can only assume that people have been able to digest a lot of the news of what happened today. That many of them are heading home from work. I don't know what the plan was for the city to commemorate what happened one year ago today at the "Charlie Hebdo" offices, but I did want to ask you about the magazine itself. I know that they are not shying away from being bold about what happened there. Their cover showing that as well. Just walk me through what they did.

BITTERMANN: Well, in fact, they put out a million copies for an anniversary edition. And the cover says the assassin is still out there and depicts someone who's supposed to represent God. I asked the editor yesterday if that, in fact, was meant to be Muhammad, because that's what got the magazine in trouble in the first place. He said, no, it's not Muhammad, it's some greater God than Muhammad. Something that might also get him in trouble.

But in any case, they're still out there. They're still pushing the envelope as far as religion is concerned. They're very much against all forms of religion for the kinds of things that come out of it. And the Vatican, in fact, has condemned that cover that came out yesterday. So they're out there just like they were. In fact, in some ways, financially, particularly, they're in better shape than they were a year ago because right after the attacks their circulation jumped by six times what it was and they got millions of euros in donation from well-wishers around the world. So they're actually financially better off than they were a year ago.

BANFIELD: Jim Bittermann live for us in Paris, thank you for that.

We have other breaking news that we want to bring you too. This also happening overseas today. Someone drove a truck bomb into a police training center in Libya and it went off. The net result, at least 50 people were killed. All of this happening when hundreds of police officers and trainees were gathered for a morning assembly there. It is not clear who did this, which group did it, who's responsible for the bombing. Several extremist groups, including an arm of ISIS, are, in fact, active in Libya, and have, in the past, carried out violent attacks there. We're on this story. We will update you as soon as we know more about who's responsible for this massacre.

[12:05:10] Some urgent financial news to bring you back here in the United States. It's the day the markets wish they could start all over again. Those are the kinds of numbers, folks, after the opening bell, that you panic about. Many do. Many don't. But the bell was still echoing after the Dow sank like a rock. Right now it says 206, but it was down close to 400 points. Almost 300 immediately. The rest of the day has been sort of playing a catch-up game. Analysts are blaming China, they're blaming cheap oil. Christine Romans has a few more ideas up her sleeve as well. She joins me live from New York.

So, listen, there's been all these hiccups going on in China. They've put those governors on trading there. They're trying hard to control what happens there. What's the lesson for China in all this that affects us? CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, the lesson for

China is trying to control your trading really only means a line of people who want to sell stocks. And they're learning that lesson, Ashleigh. The - we're learning now that Chinese regulators are not going to stop trading if stocks fall tomorrow in China, and that actually is something that might be why stocks here are off their worst levels of the day. You can see big losses here, 209 points for the Dow. The S&P, this is most likely what your stocks in your 401(k) are reflected in these 500 stock, down below the 2,000 mark, and the Nasdaq lower here too.

This is because of China. This is because of what happened in world markets. Shanghai woke up, started trading, fell 7 percent, and then they stopped trading. Then that fear and that anxiety spread around the world. Asian stocks fell. U.S. market opened big and badly down. So now when you look at the damage report for the week, Ashleigh, you had the Dow down 518 points before today. Today is Thursday. It's losing another 200 points here. That's 700 points in just four days. It's one of the worst starts to the trading year we've had in years - in years. And it's all because of concerns about slowing growth in China, Ashleigh, and what that's going to mean for the rest of the world.

BANFIELD: So that's China. But then there's America -

ROMANS: Yes.

BANFIELD: And how America's coming out of its seven-year long dip. And tomorrow's another big indicator of how we're doing. So walk me through what's going to happen tomorrow.

ROMANS: I think that's a really great point to look ahead here because we know there's a jobs report tomorrow. It could be a jobs report that shows strong growth and maybe even wage growth. That's what we're really looking for. We know that auto sales were a record likely last year and are forecast to be a record again this year. You don't buy a car unless you feel good about the money in your bank account and the money in your paycheck. And Americans are buying cars like crazy. So there are domestic indicators that show the U.S. economy is still OK here. Maybe profits won't - profit growth will have to slow for big companies because of oil prices, what's happening in the oil patch, because of a strong dollar that could help their exports. Overall, if you start to have people look back internally at the U.S., it doesn't look as gloomy as the rest of the world.

BANFIELD: OK, keep an eye on things. We're sitting pretty now, just about 200 down, Christine. But as we all know, things can go south or north -

ROMANS: Oh, yes.

BANFIELD: Depending on those people who like to buy discounted stocks.

ROMANS: That's right.

BANFIELD: Christine Romans, thank you for that. ROMANS: Yes.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, she was forced to leave a hospital in handcuffs. She was escorted outside by the police. And that is where she collapsed, right in front of their police car. And the dash cam was rolling the whole time. The problem is here, folks, that woman, seen in better times, died not long afterwards. How do you die in a hospital parking lot after you've been told to leave a hospital? That story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:12:03] BANFIELD: Breaking news and we've just learned the United States Army is going to conduct a military legal hearing on the morning of January 12th at Ft. Bragg and this is for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl and his case. You will remember properly that he was arraigned last month on the charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, but he didn't enter a plea back then and he also didn't indicate a preference as to whether he wanted to be heard by a jury or by the judge on the bench alone. Bergdahl, you will recall, was captured by the Taliban back in 2009 after he left his base in Afghanistan and he was a POW for five years.

The family of a Florida woman is calling for justice today after a police dash cam shows that she was forcibly removed by an officer from a hospital where she had gone, only to collapse in the parking lot of that hospital, actually in full view of the dash cam. The medical examiner's office says that Barbara Dawson died shortly afterwards from a blood clot in her lungs. Dawson went to that hospital and complained of abdominal pain, but medical staff examined her and discharged her. When she refused to leave, the hospital called the police. The police handcuffed her and that's when she started to scream. Take a listen to the dash cam video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER: Please put your hands - you have had every opportunity.

BARBARA DAWSON: (INAUDIBLE).

OFFICER: I'm putting handcuffs on you now.

DAWSON: No, please.

OFFICER: It's too late.

DAWSON: No, please.

OFFICER: So please put your hands -

DAWSON: Please, don't let me die.

OFFICER: Behind your back.

DAWSON: I don't want to die.

OFFICER: Please put your hands behind your back for me, OK?

DAWSON: No, please, (INAUDIBLE).

OFFICER: Miss Dawson - Miss Dawson (INAUDIBLE) -

DAWSON: Please, stop. Don't hurt me.

OFFICER: I'm not trying to. You're hurting yourself.

DAWSON: (INAUDIBLE).

OFFICER: I need you to put your hands behind your back.

DAWSON: Help me!

I can't breathe.

OFFICER: Yes, you're getting -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (ph): (INAUDIBLE) handcuffs (ph).

DAWSON: (INAUDIBLE) I can't breathe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Disturbing to say the least at first blush. Alina Machado of CNN is going to pick up this story from there.

Alina, help me to - I mean watching that is - it's blood curdling. I want to ask about Ms. Dawson's history. It was not the first time she'd been at that hospital. She'd had certain instances there before. So walk me through the context of this video.

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Ashleigh, it's not the first time that Barbara Dawson had been at that hospital. And it's worth noting that she collapsed a short time after, saying that she could not breathe and she never regained consciousness.

Now, this all happened on December 21st at Calhoun Liberty Hospital in the Florida panhandle. Dawson's family has retained civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who released that dash cam video yesterday to the media. The video is more than two hours long and what you just heard is what happened inside the hospital. According to the police report obtained by CNN affiliate WTXL, when Dawson and the officer got to the patrol car, Dawson collapsed. The officer is heard saying that he thinks Dawson fell to the ground as a way to stop being - stop from being taken to jail. But within a few minutes, hospital staff came outside and here's what happens next.

[12:15:05] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER: Check her real quick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

HOSPITAL STAFF: Give me your hand. Ms. Dawson, come on now. Ain't nothing wrong with you. She's not (INAUDIBLE).

(INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's 98 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) the whole time she's here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Got a good pulse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's completely all right (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's fine.

OFFICER: Ms. Dawson, you need to get up, OK?

HOSPITAL STAFFER: Ms. Dawson, get up! There's nothing wrong with you. And I know you can hear us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACHADO: Now, Dawson was eventually taken back inside the hospital where she later died of a blood clot in her lungs. The hospital says pulmonary embolisms are very difficult to detect and can be impossible to treat. Dawson's family, meanwhile, intends to file a lawsuit against both the hospital and the police department. We don't know yet when that will happen, but we do know there are several agencies investigating, including the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Calhoun Liberty Hospital says they received a copy of the dash cam video from the media. They are reviewing it. And they also say they welcome the investigation from authorities. The latest statement released by the hospital says, in part, "to the fullest extent permitted by state and federal law, we will continue to be transparent and forthcoming with our community and the public."

It's also worth noting, Ashleigh, that we've reached out to police, but we have not heard back yet.

BANFIELD: Alina Machado, thank you for that, reporting live for us.

I want to discuss this case further with people who really matter when it comes right down to next steps in this story. Our legal analysts, Danny Cevallos and Joey Jackson, join me live now.

Guys, listen, there is nothing worse than watching someone struggling and hearing others say, there's no struggle here, there's no story here. But there are different contextual issues that do play in for all parties involved. Number one, Ms. Dawson had been at that hospital several times before and had incidents at that hospital and had been kicked out of the hospital before. Does that mitigate any of the behaviors of the police or of the hospital? And, Danny, I'll start with you.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Generally under the EMTALA, it's the federal anti-dumping law, the hospital is -- hospitals with an emergency room must perform appropriate screening. The problem is, is that this requirement often comes head to head with the concept of employee safety when you have an unruly patient. But it's important to note, as a general rule, what emergency departments call frequent flyers, people who come to the emergency room often, they're entitled to the same screening as any one of us off the street who almost never go to the hospital. Hospital under federal law must do the screening. And if, it's a big if, if they detect some emergency, they must stabilize the patient. They can't transfer them.

But that federal law was designed to address not a standard of negligence, but instead turning away patients based on their ability to pay. It's not some federal medical malpractice standard. So the critical issue here is whether or not the hospital performed an appropriate screening procedure. And it's true that in many cases, if someone is a contentious, agitated patient, that may mask a more serious illness. So it's important to perform the MSC, the medical exam, and determine whether or not there is an emergency condition.

BANFIELD: OK. So, Joey, what about what we just heard? When Alina Machado was reporting, she played that sound of the hospital staffer and the police officer speaking with Ms. Dawson. And I'm just going to quote what the hospital staffer said. "Ain't nothing wrong with you. She's got a good pulse. She's fine." And she was dead shortly afterwards. So, Joey, it's just troubling to me. Is it - I mean, look, anything's possible in medicine, but is that going to be the linchpin to any kind of case that might be filed against the hospital or the police, assessing her as "just fine" right before she dies?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I certainly think so, Ashleigh, good afternoon. Let me invite you into a courtroom for just a minute and let's talk about the issue of negligence. Do you have a duty to that patient? And does that duty mean that you have an absolute obligation to ensure if someone's in your emergency room complaining to you that they're ill, that you will assist them as opposed to calling the police to tell them to get out. Now, after you get through that duty, do you breach that duty by not adequately and appropriately seeing what kind of condition they may have so that you can treat that condition.

And then let's move to the issue of causation. She's dead hours later that she was in your care in the emergency room. So what diagnosis did you perform? And if she came at a prior time, do you just feel that she was the frequent flyer that Danny Cevallos was addressing, or did you have an independent obligation to assess her condition then, as you did on all other times, and as a result of your failure to assess, she ends up, you know, dead, not alive, gone. Look at what it does to her family and look at what it's going to do to a jury.

[12:20:07] I think certainly, if you come into a hospital and the end result of you coming to the hospital is the police being called upon you, you collapsing and the very thing that you're complaining about happens to be the cause of your demise, that hospital has significant liability. The facts need to be determined, all of them. But on its face of it, it's very troubling.

BANFIELD: I want you both, if you can, to weigh in on the - I can only say sort of extraordinarily competing statements that have been released by the police department and released by the hospital. I'm not going to go in and read the entire statements on either of these parties. But if you do read them, there is a strong tone when you read the police statement that this is the responsibility of the medical professionals. And when you read the hospital statement, they are sad and they are sorry and they say they're going to investigate thoroughly. Does it make any difference what your statement is or is that something that any defense attorney who wants to launch a civil action against either of these parties is going to seize upon right now and run with? Danny, I'll start with you.

CEVALLOS: Any statement released has probably been combed over by legal counsel, so you're not going to find a lot of ripe material in there to attack the party that releases it. They're going to look instead at the hard evidence. They've got video evidence. They have audio evidence. And they're going to have medical records. They're going to have call-out logs from the - from the police department. There's going to be a wealth of documentary evidence. The after the fact statements issued, probably by legal counsel, isn't going to have as high an evidentiary value as the records that were generated approximately or right around the time thereof.

BANFIELD: So, Joey, I mean, look, can you sort of assess, from the very limited scope of evidence we can see in front of us right now, if there is one party that is more liable and responsible for the death of this woman?

JACKSON: You know, Ashleigh, in evaluating it, and obviously everything has to play out, but police do what they do, that is, you call them, you give the indication that there's an unruly person and they come and they don't have any independent training to assess medical conditions. They view it as someone's unruly, we need to get rid of the problem and that's what they do. The hospital is in a much better position to assess what nature of care needs to be provided, to provide that care, and to ensure that the patient doesn't leave until everything is OK. And so in terms of evaluating the police conduct and the hospital's conduct, while they'll both be embroiled from it, it seems to me, from a common sense, a legal and a practical perspective, that the hospital certainly has a significant more - significant more liability here.

BANFIELD: Well, listen, this family of Barbara Dawson has retained legal counsel. But as to broadcast time, there has not been any action that's been filed. So I'm going to keep you guys on waivers on this one and if something does happen, I'll get you to weigh in on it.

Thank you, Joey. Thank you, Danny. Appreciate it.

JACKSON: Thank you, Ash.

BANFIELD: And then also tomorrow, I hope you'll tune in for our program, because we've actually been able to speak with a close family member of Barbara Dawson and we're going to have not only that family member on but the family's attorney. It's very, very early in this process. They've only just seen the video of what happened to Barbara. So, clearly, this is a very tender time. Hopefully they'll have a chance to settle in and tell us a little bit more tomorrow. Coming up next, you need to hear what these two men have to say

because there's a pretty good chance that one of them could be your next president. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz both talking to CNN about Clinton and Obama and citizenship and guns and North Korea and everything else they like to talk about. The nuggets are next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:27:10] BANFIELD: Donald Trump now says the GOP cannot allow one of his biggest rivals to win the nomination. That rival is the guy on the right, Ted Cruz. The issue, which Cruz insists is a nonissue, is where that Texas senator, Ted Cruz, was born. It was Canada. The United States Constitution says that only, quote, "natural born citizens" of the United States can be president and Cruz is a U.S. citizen because his mother was. The natural part is the legally murky thing. And for Trump, politically advantageous. Here's a little bit of his sweeping interview yesterday with my CNN colleague Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If Ted should eke it out, and I hope that doesn't happen, and he's got this cloud over his head, I don't think it's going to be possible for him to do very well. I don't think it's actually possible for the Republicans to let it happen because he'll have this cloud. So what you do is you go in immediately, like tomorrow, this afternoon, you go to federal court, you ask for a declaratory judgment, that you want the court to rule. And once the court rules, you have your decision.

WOLF BLITZER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": But that could take a long time for the court to -

TRUMP: No, not to - not a declaratory - declaratory just -

BLITZER: Because I don't think the - the Supreme Court has never really ruled -

TRUMP: I know.

BLITZER: On what is a natural born citizen.

TRUMP: That's the problem, is this doubt. People have doubt. Again, this was not my suggestion. I didn't bring this up. A reporter asked me the question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So because this is a legal show, I'm going to point out that what Trump is proposing, a quick and simple ruling in federal court minus an actual case, that does not happen. Our Constitution requires a living, quote, "controversy," with two opposing sides. All the paperwork, yada, yada, yada.

And speaking of controversies, you may know more than a half a million Brits have signed a petition demanding that Donald Trump be barred from ever entering the U.K. The Trump organization is now listening and it is warning that if that happens, it says it's going to cancel $1 billion worth of investments in its golf resorts in Scotland.

P.S., you can see Trump's entire interview with Wolf Blitzer next hour right here on CNN.

Candidate Cruz sat down with CNN's Dana Bash while crisscrossing Iowa on a blitz and tried to put this whole Canada thing behind him. Dana Bash joins me live now from the aptly named community of Storm Lake.

And may I just say, you look adorable. You look nothing like the lake behind you.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.

BANFIELD: So here's the thing, I am, at one time, was Ted Cruz's fellow Canadian. I am now currently Ted Cruz's fellow American. I cannot run for president, but Ted Cruz can. How is he going to make that case clear to other people? I get it, but how is he going to make that case clear to voters?

[12:30:02] BASH: Well, he started to try, much to his dismay. He tried to make a joke about it, you know, with his tweet about jumping the shark and Fonzie way back in "Happy Days." But that has not worked, it's not been enough because Donald