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Dallas Police Ambush; Clashes in South Sudan; Obama Seeks Stability in Brexit; 400K Evacuated as Storm Hits China; All Eyes on Ronaldo for Euro 2016 Final. Aired 12-12:30a ET

Aired July 10, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

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AMARA WALKER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Security tensions flare near police headquarters in Dallas, Texas, two days after the shooting that killed five police officers.

Plus:

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I firmly believe that America is not as divided as some have suggested.

WALKER (voice-over): President Barack Obama addressed racial tensions in the U.S. as protesters across the country demand equal treatment from police.

And looking for a crucial win: Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal get ready to take on France in the Euro 2016 final.

Hello, everyone, thanks for joining us. I'm Amara Walker and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

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WALKER: Well, Dallas, Texas, is a city on edge following Thursday's mass shooting and authorities are taking every potential threat seriously.

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WALKER (voice-over): On Saturday, the city's police department tweeted it was looking for a suspicious person in a parking garage near its headquarters. A search did not turn up any suspects but police say they are tightening security throughout the city because of an anonymous threat.

This after a sniper killed five officers and wounded seven others in the mass shooting on Thursday. CNN's Stephanie Elam has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Some tense time outside of Dallas police headquarters after there was reports of a suspicious person in the police officer parking lot.

Not wanting to take any chances, the police officers cordoned off an area around the building and were going floor by floor looking to see if there was anyone suspicious found. No one was found.

And then as an extra precaution, they went back with canine units to make sure there was nothing there. After the all clear, we did see that police officers opened up the streets and cleared out the area.

But while this was going on, there were some tense moments. Police officers were positioned at different parts throughout the area. We saw media being pulled back away from that memorial that we have seen of the two police cars in front of Dallas headquarters here, Dallas police headquarters.

But at this point, the streets have been reopened and, luckily, for this very devastated community here and this devastated police department, this turned out to just be a hoax of a threat -- Stephanie Elam, CNN, Dallas.

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WALKER: In the meantime, the Dallas police are defending using a bomb attached to a robot to kill the man behind Thursday's attack. Police say the robot was the safest option to kill Micah Xavier Johnson and that it was used as a last resort.

Officials say they tried to negotiate with the 25-year old during a lengthy standoff but the military veteran was not cooperating and shot at officers. Sources say this is the first time police have used a robot to kill a civilian.

Well, the Dallas transit officer killed in that terrible ambush was escorted to his home town outside the city; 43-year-old Brent Thompson served as a Marine in the Middle East and recently married a fellow officer.

Of the seven officers wounded, three worked with Thompson for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority. Two of them have now been released from the hospital.

And the Dallas sniper shot a total of 12 officers and as that tragedy was unfolding, local hospitals began receiving victims bearing the wounds of domestic terrorism. Our Kyung Lah has that story.

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DR. STEPHEN BERGER, ER DOCTOR: Police officers basically loaded them in their cars and got here as fast as they could. Some of them --

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KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Loaded them in their squad cars? BERGER: -- yes, and came screeching around the corners. The squad cars themselves apparently were shot up.

LAH (voice-over): Officer after injured officer arriving at Baylor University Medical Center's emergency room. On duty, Dr. Steven Berger, also a Navy physician who recently returned from the Middle East.

LAH: When you heard mass casualties, multiple victims, what came to mind?

BERGER: The first thing?

LAH: Yes.

BERGER: Back in Afghanistan.

Second thing is, all right, we need to get order of this chaos.

LAH (voice-over): Nurse Sherry Sutton heard on the news what was happening in downtown Dallas and sped into work. Her husband is a Dallas police officer.

SHERRY SUTTON, NURSE: When you start seeing people that you know or, you know, officers that come in here all the time, you always think that, you know, that could be your husband.

LAH: Can I ask you about this picture?

The front page of the morning paper.

Do you remember this moment?

SUTTON: The officer is a DART officer. And they had just learned that their colleague had been killed in the line of duty. And it was a moment where you -- you felt so sad but I still had a job to do and it was to take care of them.

BERGER: Thousand-yard stare, as they've lost a buddy --

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BERGER: -- or they know that one's in critical condition. It's -- sorry. It's hard. That's when it hits you.

It's hard to swallow that this is happening in our community, that this is happening in our nation, that we as a nation are broken.

LAH (voice-over): These doctors and nurses, pledged to save lives, could not save two of the police officers. A coroner's van waited outside the emergency room to carry away their bodies. The ER staff linked arms with police.

LAH: What was that like to see all those officers saluting and saying farewell in your ER? SUTTON: They put on that badge to defend the community. And to see them in the situation where when you're at work, you, you know, you're being shot at for things that are out of your control, we came together as a team and you -- for community, to support each other because that's the only way you're going to get through it.

LAH: Nurse Sherry Sutton's husband, a Dallas police officer, was on duty at the time of the shooting. She would later learn that he did respond to the call but he was not hurt -- Kyung Lah, CNN, Dallas.

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WALKER: Well, U.S. President Barack Obama will be leaving Europe and heading back to the U.S. early because of the tragedy in Dallas. He's in Spain right now, after attending the NATO summit in Poland. That summit was largely dominated by the shootings and the Brexit. Mr. Obama spoke three times throughout the week about gun violence in the U.S.

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OBAMA: And Americans of all races and all backgrounds are also rightly saddened and angered about the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and about the larger persistent problem of African Americans and Latinos being treated differently in our criminal justice system.

So there is sorrow. There is anger. There is confusion about next steps. But there's unity in recognizing that this is not how we want our communities to operate. This is not who we want to be as Americans. And that serves as the basis for us being able to move forward in a constructive and positive way.

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WALKER: We are following ongoing protests across the U.S. in the wake of the deaths of two black men at the hands of police.

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WALKER (voice-over): In St. Paul, Minnesota, these are live pictures you're looking at, hundreds of protesters have shut down a major highway. You're looking at live pictures, as I said. Police are using smoke to disperse the crowds. Three officers have been injured there.

Also, here in Atlanta, Georgia, crowds marched through the city again Saturday. Protesters temporarily blocked traffic on one downtown highway overpass. Two protesters were arrested in a demonstration Friday night.

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WALKER: Seth Stoughton joins us now via Skype. He's a law professor at the University of South Carolina and a former police officer.

Seth, thank you for coming on.

SETH STOUGHTON, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

WALKER: You wrote this op-ed in "The Washington Post," titled, "Is the police community relationship in America beyond repair?"

And there's a line in there that says, where you write, "I am afraid, not of the violence itself but I am afraid of the impact these events will have on the already strained relationship between police and the communities they serve."

Tell me more about that.

What kind of impact are you talking about?

And can that relationship between the police and the black community get even more strained at this point?

I mean, it seems like it's reached its tipping point.

STOUGHTON: Well, I think it certainly can get more strained or even more fractured. And that's really what I'm afraid of. I was referring there to the Dallas shooting, the loss of life of five officers as well as the injury of seven others.

I can't conceive of a single act that would have further damaged police community relations. You see, like any relationship, we need police agencies and officers and communities to come together.

But when both feel like they're under attack and when those feelings are manifested, as we saw in Dallas, makes that relationship very, very difficult to keep stable, let alone to improve.

WALKER: So what needs to be done to improve that relationship, build the trust between, I guess, two sides?

I don't want to paint it in that way but you know, how do you improve the situation?

STOUGHTON: Well, I think there are many things that need to happen. And I think we need a long time to do them. The situation that we're in now is --

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STOUGHTON: -- not the result of a couple of incidents that happened overnight. It's the result of decades and decades of history. And I think it's going to take decades and decades to get us to where we need to be.

The first thing that both sides need to keep in mind is that they need to connect. They don't need to agree on everything. But they do need to come together and connect.

That means acknowledging and respecting positions that they don't necessarily agree with, from the Black Lives Matter movement or the Blue Lives Matter movement. Both of them have grievances that need to be addressed and that need to be respected by the other side before we can get the type of progress that I think we need.

WALKER: You're a professor. You talk to people all the time. You're interacting with the young people. Kind of give us a gauge of how people are feeling right now in this country.

You know, especially when you hear from President Obama, who says it's been extremely painful this week but he's reiterating, he said, quote, "I firmly believe America is not as divided as some have suggested."

But if you talk to people on the outside who are looking in, looking at the United States, they're seeing a very divided America.

Is perception reality?

STOUGHTON: Yes, in many cases, perception is reality. But that should include the perception that I think is often overlooked in times like this, and that's the tendency for people to come together. We saw it after the shooting in the Charleston church. We're seeing it in the aftermath of the horrific attacks in Dallas.

Even groups and individuals that have strong disagreements with each other can come together as people, as humans, as Americans. So there is a lot of divisiveness. But I think that there is also a lot of core humanity that comes together in times like this.

WALKER: And just quickly, you end the article by saying that you're optimistic that things will get better.

Can you just expand on that before we close?

STOUGHTON: Sure. So over the last two years, we have seen police agencies start to take a new tack and get a new appreciation for community input. We have seen, yes, a lot of spotlight from the public on law enforcement but also a lot of involvement, also a lot of feedback from the community about what they expect from their law enforcement agencies.

And it's that working relationship that I think we're going to see more of and, hopefully, in an even improved tone in the coming years. So I am afraid but I am also very optimistic.

WALKER: Good to hear. Seth Stoughton, thanks for your perspective.

STOUGHTON: Thank you very much for having me.

WALKER: Turning to another story we are following, Australia's federal election may finally have a clear winner. Channel 7 News Australia reporting that the country's opposition Labor Party has conceded defeat, clearing the way for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to officially declare victory and remain in office.

The vote counting will continue but the Labor Party leader says Turnbull's National Party Coalition will secure enough seats to win. The election was held last Saturday but voting results were too close to call.

We're going to take a short break here. When we come back, the U.S. President heads to Spain after the NATO summit wraps up in Poland. We'll have a recap of the events and the promise Barack Obama gave to his European allies.

Plus: what was once super typhoon Nepartak has now been downgraded but continues to leave this path of destruction, as you see, as it moves through Eastern China.

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WALKER: Glad to have you back with us.

Turning to another story we're following: people in South Sudan's capital warned to stay indoors because of gunfire.

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WALKER (voice-over): The fighting comes as the region celebrates its fifth independence day. Officials say nearly 150 people have been killed since Friday. The victims include civilians and soldiers.

Authorities say clashes broke out between supporters of the country's president and backers of the vice president. South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011.

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WALKER: Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes have retaken an air base from ISIS near Mosul. At least 38 ISIS militants were killed in the operation. Al Qayyara is one of the biggest air bases in Iraq. Its recapture means it can be used in further missions against ISIS.

Iraqi forces retook the ISIS stronghold of Fallujah just weeks ago and the Iraqi prime minister says his forces would eliminate ISIS in Mosul the same way, adding ISIS, quote, "fled like rats in the desert," end quote.

U.S. President Barack Obama is in Spain to show that country's importance as a NATO ally. He will speak to American troops Sunday and tour a U.S. warship docked at a Spanish base on the Mediterranean.

But before he left the NATO summit in Poland, Mr. Obama confronted a long list of challenges. Nic Robertson has more now from Warsaw.

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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: You know, one of the important things for President Obama coming here was to get everyone on board to maintain the current position, the economic sanctions and the unity and strength against Russia, seeing it build up forces on the Russian side of NATO's border.

It has happened here, President Obama outlining the additional troops that are coming from the United States, from Britain, from Canada, from Germany as well, bolstering some of those eastern states in Europe.

OBAMA: In good times and in bad, Europe can count on the United States. The United States will be the lead nation here in Poland, deploying a battalion of American soldiers.

The United Kingdom will take the lead in Estonia, Germany and Lithuania and Canada and Latvia. This will mean some 4,000 additional NATO troops on a rotational basis in this region.

ROBERTSON: President Obama also addressing the issue of ISIS, how that will be tackled in Afghanistan, how that's being tackled in Iraq as well. Also on his agenda here, he wanted to get across his message to the European Union, to Great Britain as well, that he wants to see a stable exit of Britain from the European Union because the world markets right now, as he said, are not at their most stable.

OBAMA: Our primary interest is to make sure that the negotiations and this process are as orderly and as sensible as possible, recognizing that it is in the interests of both sides to get it right.

It's important that neither side harden positions in ways that ultimately do damage to their respective economies and ultimately to the world economy at a time when, you know, our world economy is still pretty wobbly in places.

ROBERTSON: Now President Obama did have meetings with British prime minister David Cameron and with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. He did get commitments about that smooth transition but he knows, leaving Europe behind, that there are differences of opinion on how to deal with Russia, on how Britain should exit the European Union.

So those worries are going to travel home with him -- Nic Robertson, CNN, Warsaw, Poland.

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WALKER: A diplomatic spat is intensifying between Russia and the United States. Russian officials say they have declared two American diplomats persona non grata after they what call an unfriendly move by the U.S. That appears to be a reference to the U.S. expelling two Russian --

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WALKER: -- diplomats last month. Washington said they were kicked out because a Russian policeman attacked a U.S. diplomat, trying to enter the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Russian officials say the policeman was just trying to protect the embassy.

The owners of a Beverly Hills bakery are being ordered to pay 11 former workers more than $15 million for labor abuse.

For one employee, it seemed like a great opportunity: leave her home country to work in an upscale French bakery and make more money than she could in the Philippines. But it also meant leaving her loved ones behind, including her 6-year-old son.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For me, like, OK, this is a sacrifice that I have to make for a better future for my son. So I have to do it.

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WALKER: Well, make sure to join us Monday when Sara Sidner takes us inside that bakery, where promises to these workers and trafficking laws allegedly were broken. It's all part of CNN's Freedom Project series, all this week on CNN.

Well, the remnants of what was super typhoon Nepartak has forced nearly a half a million people from their homes in Southern China. The storm has led to heavy flooding, as that was the major concern, and severe damage in the Fujian province.

Five airports are closed. Hundreds of high-speed train trips have been cancelled. Nepartek was a super typhoon when it hit Taiwan. It killed three people there.

So what's left as Nepartek continues to menace Southeast China?

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is following all of this.

And the last thing China needs right now is more rain, right?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And we have to give credit where credit is due for the Chinese government, because they're responsible for relocating these 400,000-plus people in Southeast China. What a massive effort. But they're really learning lessons from previous typhoons.

And it is paying off because, so far, no fatalities in Southeast China. But look at what they're having to deal with. Some of the area has poor construction. So when you mix in heavy rainfall, extremely heavy rain, which we'll get to in a moment, strong winds, you're going to have results just like that.

And as Amara just mentioned, high-speed trains canceled, 400 flights cancelled and over 5,000 buses, as well, delayed or canceled, when winds packing up to a force of 100 kilometers per hour slammed into the Fujian province.

Let's get to some of the pictures here behind me. And you can see some of the cars being tossed around. Remember, it only takes a half a meter of rushing water to lift up an entire vehicle, let alone an entire SUV, off of its wheels and down the road. Unbelievable stuff.

And you can imagine, once the water starts to recede, the health emergency that will no doubt be plaguing this region because, well, standing water is not a good thing, obviously.

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VAN DAM: Now to another part of the world, this being France, I don't know if you heard but there's apparently some big football match taking place this afternoon. That's right. We have got the UEFA finals, Portugal versus France later this afternoon.

And guess what, it's looking fantastic. Anybody celebrating in Paris, we have got the final match taking place later this evening at Saint- Denis stadium in Paris and we have no expected weather concerns.

Who are you rooting for, Amara?

We got France versus Portugal?

WALKER: I was rooting for Germany.

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WALKER: I guess I'll just have to choose Cristiano Ronaldo, of course.

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WALKER: By default, his team.

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WALKER: How about you?

VAN DAM: The same, actually.

WALKER: You are?

VAN DAM: Yes, I will root for him.

WALKER: They are the favorites to win, right?

VAN DAM: He is, and they are, their team.

WALKER: We're talking about a single person or the team.

All right, good to have you and good to see you. Thank you for that.

All right. We're going to take a short break. And as Derek was saying, Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo are set to face off against France in the Euro 2016 final. We, of course, will have a look ahead to the match when we come back.

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WALKER: Welcome back.

So, as you know, France is gearing up for the final of the Euro 2016 football championship. They will take on Portugal and global football icon, Cristiano Ronaldo. The 31-year old has had immense club success over the years but some say this may be his final chance to win senior international honors. Our Alex Thomas has more from Paris.

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ALEX THOMAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I wouldn't call it a controversy but it's been interesting to see that Portugal have had to laugh off suggestions that Cristiano Ronaldo is going to play for his country for the last-ever time in the Euro 2016 final.

Our analyst, Owen Hargreaves, is here.

And whether or not Ronaldo does hang up his boots on the international stage, he's really up for this huge match, isn't he?

OWEN HARGREAVES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He will be. And look, he's 31. He's going to play a lot longer; physically, he's in incredible condition. He looks after himself so well. And I think he realizes this is a crucial moment for him.

One thing missing from Cristiano Ronaldo's trophy cabinet is that trophy with Portugal. I think he'll be desperate to try and add that. And I think he'll be up for it. The big question is, will his teammates?

THOMAS: Yes, the fact that his close rival, Lionel Messi, is calling it quits with Argentina doesn't play into the equation. Owen and I are excited about this . It couldn't be set up any better. It's Portugal against the host, France, for the Euro 2016 title, here in Paris on Sunday night -- Alex Thomas, CNN, Paris, France.

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WALKER: It's going to be an exciting one. That's our time now. Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Amara Walker. "BUSINESS TRAVELER" is next. But first, I will be back with your headlines. You're watching CNN.

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