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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

UCLA Shooting Examined; Preview of Clinton Foreign Policy Speech; Cincinnati Zoo Latest; Prince Death Investigation Latest. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 02, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Corinne Sommers who says she was fired. This is in a deposition -- sworn out. She was fired because Donald Trump's supervisor at the school complained that I would have to take days off for military service.

[12:30:14] BORIS EPSHTEYN, DONALD TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, she doesn't know why she was fired. That was her opinion. I would have to read the whole deposition as an attorney to give you a full opinion. But as we all know in an ongoing case, you can't just take one excerpt deposition and make anything really important out of it, you have to read the whole thing. And you have to hear the other side of the story. What is the actual person who did the firing say, it could be completely opposite and I assume it would be so.

BANFIELD: And probably under other depositions and other filings that right now we don't have.

Boris, always good to have you, thank you for that.

EPSHTEYN: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

BANFIELD: When we come back, breaking news on the shooting out of UCLA. We're getting more details about that said hit list, that's coming up. And then we are off to California as well where the Democratic presidential horse race now can be considered a real dead heat.

United Shades of America host W. Kamau Bell weighs in after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:35:26] BANFIELD: And still more breaking news this hour on that shooting out at UCLA. Police now say the gunman in that case killed a professor and then killed himself actually had a kill list.

And the woman on the list has has now been found dead in another state, in fact in Minnesota where the gunman was from.

Kyung Lah, CNN Correspondent, now joining us from Los Angeles with more.

This is quite chilling. Tell me about the details.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well initially Ashleigh we had heard that this Minnesota student/teacher dispute that was what LAPD was looking for. But we're getting new comments from the LAPD police chief Charlie Beck and some recent comments he made, he says that this is unfolding to be a much more complicated story. We know that the gunman is a 2013 UCLA Ph.D. grad, Mainak Sarkar. The person he killed was his professor. And then he once considered his mentor. That professor's name is William Klug.

Now, after all the mayhem yesterday when law enforcement were finally able to get into that room to examine the gunman's body, what they found on him two handguns, two handguns legally purchased in Minnesota. He also had weapon -- some rounds in a backpack.

They also found a note. And on that note were a number of names. The police chief describing that note as a kill list, some names that were on that list according to the LAPD chief, there was another UCLA professor, that professor is fine. But based on that note, they did go to Sarkar's Minnesota residence and at that residence they found the body of a woman who had been shot and killed.

Now, the LAPD is asking for help to find Sarkar's car from the time line that they are beginning to piece together, they believe that Sarkar drove from Minnesota here to UCLA and then the mayhem from yesterday occurred.

So Ashleigh, a still very much an unfolding investigation, but this certainly appears to be extending beyond just the student/professor dispute. Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: All right, Kyang Lah reporting live for us for Los Angeles. Thank you for that.

Right now, I'm going to stay in California.

Hillary Clinton is preparing to deliver what the campaign call as major foreign policy speech in San Diego and it is designed to paint the Republican nominee, presidential nominee as unfit for the job of president.

For Hillary Clinton the speech kicks off a five day campaign, you know, swing in California ahead of the Golden State primary which is on June 7th. And the newest poll out of California shows the Democratic race is in a dead heat.

There you have it, well within the margin, 45 to 43 for Hillary Clinton.

Here to discuss, CNN Politics Executive Editor, Mark Preston and Comedian and host of CNN's United Shades of America, W. Kamau.

Mark, I'm going to start with you if I can. This has been quite a week for Hillary Clinton. Almost that what you would call manna from heaven in terms of the issue that she had to attack from on. I'm not sure why she was giving the foreign policy speech. Maybe it was already pre- organized. But she had a veterans' news conference with the press in which the first or that he did -- in which the first prong of Hillary Clinton's attack against Trump that he's volatile was on display and how he treated the media.

And then he had the issue of the university, Trump University and the depositions. That's the second prong of her attack. She wants to show his business record as a con man, that's what she said. And then you have this quote today coming out that Donald Trump back in the '90s said things like to ABC that putting your wife to work is a very dangerous thing, going on and on with more things that sound chauvinistic to the average voter. That was three of her prong. Why is she doing a foreign policy speech?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, it's dangerous, isn't it. I mean let's be honest here. Putting your wife to work of us very ...

BANFIELD: stop it. Stop it.

BANFIELD: No, actually -- so that's a couple -- right, right ...

(CROSSTALK)

PRESTON: No, those were couple things that we need to unpack. He held that news conference at a time when the Trump University papers were coming out a couple days ago. A big smoke screen that certain distracted the media's attention from focusing entirely on Trump University.

And to this point we're still kind of talking about his attack on the news media as well as trying to focus now on Trump University and exactly what happened. But it was still cloudy, a tactical move on his part. The comments that he made back in the 90s, well, if he's doing terrible right now with women, we have seen that, we don't expect him to win women in November.

But I always, I'm so confused by Donald Trump because in many ways he has put women in powerful positions in his company. If you look at his daughter, certainly she might very well be for her age the most intriguing public figure right now of our time. She is extremely smart. She's extremely well spoken. She's beautiful and what have you. And at the same time, you see Donald Trump saying these comments. So it's a bit confusing.

[12:40:18] BANFIELD: It's a bit confusing, there's nothing confusing about the demographics in California. You just went, spent a lot of time come out with the Latino demographic in California trying to wrap your head around that idea. And here is Hillary Clinton who should typically be walking away with California with the dems even the dems was in California et cetera and history of politics there. And yet we've got this NBC news "Wall Street Journal" poll that was taken, California Democratic choice for president, it could not be closer. Hillary Clinton 49, Sanders is right there at 47. This isn't the one that I had. I had 49-47, but that last one that you just saw was a field poll. Look it shows effectively the same kind of thing. It's a tight race in California. Why?

W. KAMAU BELL, CNN HOST, UNITED SHADES OF AMERICA: One second is, it's 47.1 for Bernie Sanders because I'm going to vote to him, too. And I live in Berkeley, which is he's probably 99 to 1 Hillary at Berkeley.

I think that there's just a -- there is a conflict a lot of Democratic voters who would, he would think would vote for Hillary are conflicted because of a history of the Clinton's campaign, Clinton's -- the Bill Clinton, it's complicated -- it's not an easy like we hate Donald Trump, oh, we'll just vote for Hillary. But I think people would want to have choice if they feel like Bernie is more progressive choice.

BANFIELD: But poll do show that on Hispanic population, Latinos do not like Donald Trump's rhetoric about building walls and deporting 11 million undocumented workers. So that sort of brings -- it does seem more simple, it does more seem, and yet that's a really tight poll.

BELL: Yes, yes because I think that -- I mean, you know, California is, we try to be the most progressive state. We don't always do that. We -- and so I think there's a lot of people out there who really want to vote for Bernie. Like even if they know that it may not make a difference, if it's a protest vote, they want to vote to Bernie.

BANFIELD: I know one guy who is not going to vote for Bernie in the New Jersey primary next week and that's one Senator Cory Booker. And if you want any proof, here he is last night. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think of Cory Booker for V.P.?

CORY BOOKER (D) NEW JERSEY: Hey, first of all I'm already her V.P. or vegan pal.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yeah, we have to work on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I am already her V.P. vegan pal. All kidding aside, Cory Booker is a B -- we'll I'll say we have the big deal. He is a big deal. Yeah, big deal, you can insert the freaking deal. And we're still talking about the possibilities of her V.P. choice.

PRESTON: Intriguing choice. In fact and I really hadn't thought about Cory Booker been in the senate for a couple years now. Mayor of Newark, you know, a -- an urban city where he helped try to turn away, still has a lot of problems, but Cory Booker part of the Republican -- excuse me, the Democratic establishment, OK.

By no means this progressive voice that Bernie Sanders is not surprising that he is getting behind Hillary Clinton. And just to your point about when we started this conversation about foreign policy, Hillary Clinton sees that as Donald Trump's biggest Achilles heel right now, OK.

She served as secretary of state for four years. She was in the senate for eight years she is very well versed in these issues and that's why we're going to see her go after him today. BANFIELD: My brain hurts, I honestly from this week alone, the number of issues that have landed on our desk, that we have four minutes to purse per issue. It's really -- it's tricky stuff which is why I asked why bother with the foreign policy this week, you got so much else to ...

BELL: People are not voting for him because of his foreign policy expertise.

BANFIELD: And you got a big show coming this week, what you got?

BELL: United Shades of America, I'm going to Alaska.

BANFIELD: I love Alaska.

BELL: Yeah, I went to Alaska.

BANFIELD: I love that, I got to go.

BELL: It was cold.

BANFIELD: (Inaudible), you can open up to me.

BELL: OK, all right.

PRESTON: ... whale, so I did that too.

BANFIELD: How was that?

PRESTON: It was also cold.

BELL: No, they don't cook it. (Inaudible) for me, so it's just like ice chips and blood.

BANFIELD: So where there something you've got out of Alaska, I mean I've always been fascinated because it's the tipi-top of where Canada is effectively. And this is how I dress, so I don't find that odd at all. And that is what the air look like when it was 40 below zero on my way uphill to school and uphill on the way back.

BELL: That lady was wearing shorts by the way the lady I was talking to right there. I mean -- in the lower 48, which they call us, we talk a lot about the sort of occasionally talk about Native American community, but in Alaska, that up to is 60 percent Native American.

So they are talking about it a lot more than we talk about low 48. And they talk about it because 20 years ago they were like 90 percent Native Americans, you know. And so I think it's an idea about -- we talk a lot about the Native American people in Alaska, which I feel like that's a discussion we don't have in the lower 48 enough and certainly in Alaska we talk about it.

BANFIELD: Started to have it a little last week with the Pocahontas comments from Donald Trump. But it would be intriguing to hear more Alaskan politicians and leaders in that community weigh in, as well.

Mark Preston, as always thank you, Kamau Bell, I love your show, I love your t-shirt too. I'm not going to lie.

Look at you.

(CROSSTALK)

[12:45:09] BANFIELD: Thank you both. And you can see more of Kamau in his show United Shades of America only on CNN.

That brand new episode Sunday night coming up 10:00 eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: And our breaking news is that the gorilla killed at the Cincinnati Zoo, the enclosure that has been off limits to the public. Cincinnati Zoo just released details that they plan to reopen it.

The Gorilla world exhibit will be open again by next Tuesday. Our correspondent Jessica Schneider joins me live on the phone with the plan.

The delay sounds like there was a good reason for it. What is it, Jessica?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, the good reason Ashleigh, the zoo said that it has spend the past several days reevaluating that barrier. Of course the barrier that existed, on Saturday was just a metal railing that was about 3 feet high according to zoo officials. And it had space in between it and the ground so they say that that 3- year-old boy climbed through it, got through about five feet of bushes and then into the moat below.

[12:50:04] What they say will be changed when it reopens on Tuesday will be several things. It will be new barrier railing that will actually be about 6 inches higher. It will go up to 42 inches. It will have a solid wood beam at the top, and then this is key, a knotted rope netting which means that presumably no one will be able to climb under it. They may be able to try to jump over it, but at 42 inches, that's pretty high for a child.

So those new measures taking effect by the time the exhibit opens on Tuesday, and the zoo did stress that the previous barrier that the child got through it did pass multiple inspections at the Association of Zoos and Aquarium and it did adhere to safety guidelines. But given the incident on Saturday and all of the outrage after it, the zoo has said that they have found it prudent and necessary to make these changes.

So again, the zoo reopening on Tuesday with those new changes, raising the height of the barrier and also making it more difficult to get through by putting that knotted rope netting in it.

So Ashleigh making some changes and also to note the investigation has wrapped with the Cincinnati Police Department. The prosecutor now looking at what the investigation show and they won't have anything they say before tomorrow, so waiting to see if they decide to file criminal charges, as well. BANFIELD: Relatively speaking, it's a fairly quick investigation having turned that over the prosecutors. We'll await their announcement about what they found from the police. Thank you for that, Jessica Schneider.

Other breaking news for you now that I want to bring to you, this about music legend Prince, we now can say that he died as a result of an opioid overdose, this according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune which cite as source with knowledge of the singers death investigation.

I want to bring in CNN Sara Sidner, who's been following the story of the tragic death and the tragic lost of Prince.

I don't have her just yet. But this is one of the stories that we've been waiting on because we've been waiting on the forensics and toxicology results. It usually takes weeks for toxicology results in the death investigation to come in and it has now in fact been weeks since the Minnesota tragedy, you know, actually occurred.

Dr. Larry Kobilinsky, a forensics investigator and professor joins me now to talk a little bit about this.

I'm loath to say this is not surprising, Dr. Kobilinsky. But given the news that has come out since Prince died, perhaps this is really what we were expecting.

LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: I think you're right Ashleigh. I think after that emergency landing of Prince's plane in Illinois where he apparently had a Percocet overdose and fortunately the physicians in the emergency room rescued him, unfortunately they did not -- there was nobody there to help him on April 21st.

And as you pointed out, I think people were kind of expecting to hear that either there was an opioid overdose or that there was an accidental synergistic effect of more than one drug, the opiates and maybe sedatives, benzodiazepines or maybe even alcohol because those are the keys. This is the way people die from drug abuse, they end up taking what would normally be the usual dosage of the opioid, but then they combine it with other drugs.

So apparently in this case it was strictly an overdose of opioids. And what that means is that, you know, breathing is showed down, the cardiac rate is slowed down. There is insufficient oxygen to the brain and literally in a matter of minutes a person dies. And if there's nobody there to rescue them, and it's really a pity because they have this drug Narcan or naloxone as it's called which can rescue somebody, completely reverse the effects of an overdose.

So it was unfortunate that they didn't have this on hand. And they weren't able to save him. But there are tens of thousands of people are dying from opioid overdoses every year in this country.

BANFIELD: And to be completely clear, with the toxicology reports that come in and your knowledge as a forensics investigator, as a forensics scientist, you spent many and hour in a courtroom testifying as to the effects of these kinds of findings. Would this lead this kind of a finding, just the knowledge that this is actually the cause of death, would these lead investigators anywhere else that they aren't already going?

KOBILINSKY: Well, that's a very good point. The question is were these legal drugs because, you know, opiates, just saying opiates, we don't know if we're talking about heroin or something illegal or whether they are just legal drugs. But the question, if they are legal drugs, for example Percocet overdose, then the question is what doctor gave him the Percocet and in what amount. Or was he doctor shopping and collecting drugs from various doctors.

[12:55:23] So there are a lot of questions that have to be answered. If these were illegal drugs, then that raises a whole other specter of where he got these drugs from. But it just so sad that at 57-years- old, this has gone to opiate overdose, it's a terrible, terrible loss.

BANFIELD: Seven time Grammy Award winner. There is so much that you can say there in the loss there to the community. But perhaps the bigger picture Dr. Kobilinsky is what we can learn from this. I am still curious about the forensic findings, whatever the toxicology will put forth to investigators. Look, this is the one line that we can give you courtesy the Star Tribune saying that it's an opioid overdose.

But you mentioned it before, oftentimes these deaths are not just from the opioids but there's a combination with the benzodiazepines. And would the toxicology report also indicate clearly and concisely that benzodiazepines also may have had an affect or be partially, you know, to blame for the death. And thus we might be able to see other prescriptions or non-prescribed drugs in the house? I'm just trying to figure out where investigators would go to find out who supplied drugs that could have killed him.

KOBILINSKY: Well, you're right, the toxicology report will determine what they find in his system and look in various organs, stomach, liver, the vitreus of the eye. And they will determine what drugs are present if there were any possible synergistic effects, they will tell how much they found, what quantities and they will even describe the technology used to come to their conclusions.

BANFIELD: You know, other than toxicology and this I'm assuming that this will be considered in the cause, you know, there's always cause and manner, Dr. Kobilinsky, I've heard you testify to this many a time. The difference between cause of death and the difference between manner of death. And that may be significant here as well can you enlighten our audience?

KOBILINSKY: Sure, absolutely. The cause of death is the medical explanation for why an individual died. It could be cardiac failure, loss of blood. I mean there are all kinds of medical explanations as to why a person dies. The manner of death is a key call by the medical examiner. Sometimes people die of homicide, it could be suicide, death due to natural causes.

So there are five different categories and the medical examiner has to make that determination. If the medical examiner says this was an accidental overdose, it doesn't become -- it doesn't reach that level of a criminal investigation.

On the other hand if there were for example they found heroin in the system, then there would be questions raised by the medical examiner where did he get that heroin, the heroin caused his death, who sold him the heroin.

So I suspect this will be called an accidental death due to opiate overdose, but we have to wait to see what the autopsy actually says what the medical examiner concluded.

BANFIELD: Yeah, I mean, just an opioid overdose is certainly isn't the entire picture. There are so much more that needs to be determined and clearly that needs to be elucidated for the public as well that so curious.

Our Sara Sidner, CNN correspondent is on the phone with me now with further reporting on this. Sara, this is quite a headline that we're getting that the Star Tribune has said, Prince died from an opioid overdose. What else are you hearing?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it's quite a headline. But it isn't one that is surprising to anyone has been following this case. Initially law enforcement forces told CNN that they did find pain killer on his purse and on his body when he was found slumped over in an elevator inside Paisley Park.

And they also found medications in his home, as well, painkillers, opioid base painkillers. So, you know, a lot of people has jumped to the conclusion that we do need to make clear that until we see the actual documentation from the medical examiner's office, the autopsy, the toxicology report, you know, we have to be careful as to exactly what happened.

And there has no official, there has not been any official declaration of how Prince died.

We will only get two things from the medical examiner's office. One, the manner of death and two, the cause of death. So we may not find out all that was in his system, Ashleigh.

[13:00:01] BANFIELD: All right, our Sara Sidner, reporting live from Minneapolis, thank you for that. And thank you for everyone for being with us. Please stay tuned. Wolf starts right now.