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North Carolina Police Shooting Video Released. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 23, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: We now have our first look at Keith Lamont Scott's final moments during a fatal encounter with police this week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Let me be clear. This video you're about to see is not the dash cam video or the body camera video from police. That has not yet been released. This is video from the Scott family. This video was shot by Keith Scott's wife on her cell phone.

It does not show us the shooting itself, but you will hear the shots that led up to all of it and what led up to all of that. You will hear the shots fired. I do want to warn you, before we play this for you, what you're about to see is graphic and very disturbing. Here it is in its entirety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAKEYIA SCOTT, WIFE OF KEITH LAMONT SCOTT: Don't shoot him. Don't shoot him. He has no weapon. He has no weapon. Don't shoot him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun! Drop the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) gun!

SCOTT: Don't shoot him. Don't shoot him. He didn't do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun! Drop the gun!

SCOTT: He doesn't have a gun. He has a TBI.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun.

SCOTT: He is not going to do anything to you guys.

He just took his medicine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun. Let me get a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) baton over here.

SCOTT: Keith, don't let them break the windows. Come on out the car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun.

SCOTT: Keith, don't do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun!

SCOTT: Keith, get out the car. Keith! Keith! Don't you do it! Don't you do it! Keith!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun.

SCOTT: Keith! Keith! Keith! Don't you do it!

(GUNSHOTS)

SCOTT: Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him? He better not be (EXPLETIVE DELETED) dead. He better not be (EXPLETIVE DELETED) dead. I know that (EXPLETIVE DELETED) much. I know that much. He better not be dead.

I'm not going to come near you. I'm going to record, though. I'm not coming near you. I'm going to record, though. He better be alive, because I'm coming -- you better be alive. How about that?

Yes, we here, over here at 50 -- 50 -- 9453 Lexington Court. These are the police officers that shot my husband, and he better live. He better live, because he didn't do nothing to them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is everybody good? Are you good?

SCOTT: He good. Ain't nobody touch nobody, so you all good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You good?

SCOTT: I know he better live. I know he better live. How about that I'm not coming to you guys, but he'd better live. He better live. You all hear it and you see this, right? He better live.

He better live. I swear, he better live. Yes, he better live. He better (EXPLETIVE DELETED) live. He better live. Where is -- he better (EXPLETIVE DELETED) live. And I can't even leave the -- I ain't going nowhere. I'm in the same (EXPLETIVE DELETED) spot. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

That's OK. did you all call the police? I mean, did you all call an ambulance?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right, in that, you hear police repeatedly saying drop the gun, drop the gun.

You also hear Scott's wife, Rakeyia, telling her husband to get out of the car. She also repeated the words don't do it, don't do it. But it's not clear from this video who she's speaking to. Is she speaking to the police or is she speaking to her husband?

Police say that Scott had a gun as he exited his vehicle. I just spoke with the family's attorney, Eduardo Curry. Here's part of what he told me about the video and why they released it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDUARDO CURRY, ATTORNEY FOR SCOTT FAMILY: The team of lawyers got together with the family.

And, as you notice, Mrs. Scott has not made, other than a written statement, any sort of public appearance. And she wanted the world to be able to see the video, see what it is based on the facts.

The video is not enhanced, it's not doctored, it's not cut. In fact, it's really kind of difficult to see some of the things, but that's what she took with her own cell phone.

That's what she took when she was present there. And she wants the world to actually see, this is what we have. This is what I know. And we're being as transparent as we can, because we want accountability to be had.

HARLOW: Has the Charlotte Police Department, have they viewed this as well? Have you given it to them as well?

CURRY: We sent it to them. I don't if they have viewed it or not. They have dash cams and they have body cams and they have their form of -- they haven't released that, but we're hopeful.

HARLOW: The decision to release this video now today, it comes after the police department up to this point has not released their dash cam video, not released their body cam video, debating whether or not they're going do that or not.

Is this an effort in part to push their hand on that, to say, look, we want the public to see everything you have?

CURRY: Well, we want the public to see that everything. And we don't object to the police department disseminating everything that they have. And so we want the facts to be clear and objective as we seek the truth.

[15:05:05]

HARLOW: The wife -- you hear Rakeyia Scott in this video saying multiple times, don't do it, don't do it. Do you know or has she told you who she is speaking to? Is she speaking to the officers or is she speaking to her husband?

CURRY: Well, if you notice, if you listen to the conversation, she's saying, Keith, don't let them break the windows, don't do it.

But there's so much going on, that it's really hard to tell how she's speaking or who she's speaking with, but, you know, it's clear that she's telling them he doesn't have a gun, he's not going to hurt you, those things and on the line -- so, what we're waiting is for the truth to be ascertained.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Let's bring in CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Laura Coates. Also with me here in New York, Tom Verni, former NYPD detective, and "CNN TONIGHT" anchor and my colleague Don Lemon is back with me.

Don, let me just go back to you, what we were talking about, because now you have heard from the attorney. You have been in touch with the attorney, we have seen the video. There's also an image from one of our affiliates that we will bring up here in a moment.

What stands out to you now that we have this one vantage point, but it's very important to say this comes at a time when we don't have police video at all.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And it's also important say that according to the family and to the city officials who have watched the video, they say it's ambiguous. You can't tell if he was carrying a gun or a book or whatever the object is.

But if you play the video, I think what the attorney is saying to me is they don't want to accuse anyone of anything, but I think what they're saying is that they don't see, all of a sudden, this object doesn't look like it there's and then all of a sudden it appears.

HARLOW: Right. So maybe we can do that for our viewers on one side of the screen put the video and on the other side this object, because that is what the attorney is saying. He did say to CNN we're releasing this video because we want the public to look at this tape and see what was in the video before he was shot and what was there afterwards.

LEMON: Not accusing anybody of anything, but they just want it out there.

But we have -- Tom and I have been looking at the video and it's really shaky to see what's there. Looks like a shadow, but what it looks like they're throwing it on the ground, someone hands someone something. It looks like two black surgical gloves that fall to the ground. It doesn't look like a gun. It doesn't hit the ground like a gun. If you roll the video, you can look at it.

HARLOW: And it's so hard, Tom.

You're a former NYPD detective. When you're dealing with not a full set of information, and that's what we don't have. We don't have any of the video from the police officers, so therefore you have the family releasing this video. I asked the attorney live on the air are you saying it's a gun? Are saying that a gun wasn't there before and then it was? What are you saying?

He said I'm not saying that. I'm just saying assess for yourself to the public. It's very difficult to do. Should the police chief release this video now?

TOM VERNI, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Yes. The short answer, yes.

I was speaking with Tom Fuentes earlier with Wolf Blitzer, and we're at a point where I understand the concept of not wanting to breach the integrity of an investigation. I have been there, I have been in shootings. And that's all fine and well.

In this day and age, where we now have dash cam and/or body cam cameras, they have that video. The video, it's not going to change. So once they take in that initial video for their investigation, now the public is going to expect a level of transparency with that video.

That's the whole point of having the body cam video, so you see the police officer's viewpoint and as to whether -- why he or she feels that they are in danger of their safety.

HARLOW: So their point is, we are still investigating, we are still interviewing witnesses, we are still obviously interviewing our own officers and we don't want anything to get in the way of that.

At the same time, they have to balance it with the public's desire to know and frankly the public's right to know.

Laura Coates, from a purely legal standpoint, does the city of Charlotte have any legal ground to stand on to not release this video?

LEMON: This is the part right here that is in question.

HARLOW: The department funded by taxpayer dollars.

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, in about eight days, they will under this new law that says you can block any access to police videos. And the chief...

HARLOW: But not now.

COATES: Not right now.

But the chief is being very disingenuous here, because the same language they're using in the statute to justify why they don't want to release footage is what's being told to the public right now. It might compromise an investigation, it would add to public distrust of a police department.

But, fundamentally, the issue here is that if an officer is allowed to watch these videotapes ad nauseam and the public cannot, the officers get an advantage to have a 20/20 hindsight interpretation and justification of all of their actions. And they take what's otherwise a fixed-in-time and static set of facts and make it such that it will now justify whatever force was used.

And that double standard just cannot promote transparency or trust in a system. And that's why it must be released. As a prosecutor, frankly, when you're telling an officer not to release that information, it's not so you can avoid having transparency. It's so you can avoid releasing to a suspect facts in the case that will suggest that the officer trying to compel a confession.

[15:10:07]

It's not so the public can't understand what happened in a case. HARLOW: One thing I think is important to note is that Justin

Bamberg, also an attorney with the family, came out yesterday when the family was going to have a press conference and said, look, the Scott family is not emotionally at a place where they can have this, so he spoke on their behalf.

But he did talk about the video, the police video, the dash camera video, and also, guys, he spoke about the body cam video and he said it's impossible to discern from the video what, if anything, Mr. Scott was holding in his hand. So he's also talking about the fact that that video doesn't give us any clarity.

Because of the lack of answers, Don, you're talking about going into the weekend, you're talking about a Friday night. The protests last night were peaceful. They were not peaceful the night before.

LEMON: And the night before that.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: And the night before that.

And a 26-year-old died in them. What is the scene tonight?

LEMON: Can we look at this? If we can pull this forward, this is the video. This is what's in question. If you look at the video between -- see the guy in the red shirt and then you see Mr. Scott on the ground.

HARLOW: Right.

LEMON: Right between those two, there's nothing there. That's what the family is saying, OK, and then if you watch when it goes back around if we can look at this. I wish we could slow it down.

And so right in this area here, someone is going to throw something to the ground in the area where they believe the gun was, right? So watch closely. So, see, there's nothing there now? There's one thing there now and then all of a sudden they throw something else. Watch.

And you're a police officer, Tom. You can tell me, but to me -- see that?

HARLOW: Right there to the side.

LEMON: Yes. And that's what I think they believe something is there and then all of a sudden it's not.

That looks like gloves, right?

VERNI: If it would have been a gun, I think a gun would kind of have hopped a little bit. It's so hard to tell because the video is moving, and justifiably so, because she was very upset. So, you can't blame her for being...

(CROSSTALK) LEMON: But then if you see the picture of the -- from our affiliate is highlighted, then you see the gun clearly.

So they're saying there's nothing there.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: We don't know what that is. We don't know if that's a gun.

LEMON: We don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: So that could be a glove. It could be a glove.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: I think the bigger picture here -- and, Don, to you. You're on the air when these protests -- your show was on the air when the protests really heat up.

So, you're going into the weekend. It's Friday night. Now there are frankly more questions and fewer answers than before because we have this family's video, so we have this one vantage point, but not the others. What does that mean?

LEMON: It means, as Tom said and as most people with level heads said, that they should release the video.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Before tonight?

LEMON: Absolutely. You're going into a weekend, and it's warm there and people are going to be out. We saw what happened last night.

The governor is right, the National Guard did a great job, the police did a great job last night, but you don't want something recurring or occurring which happened two nights before that. But I think if they -- the whole idea of this is transparency.

HARLOW: Hillary Clinton just came out, just to interject, but that she just came out and she just tweeted that they should release the video. She said: "Charlotte should release police video of the Keith Lamont Scott shooting without delay. We must ensure justice and work to bridge divides."

COATES: Poppy, but here's why the officers are averse to doing this, because they treat this in North Carolina until this law is enacted as a personnel file.

Dash cam footage is not an automatic public record to them. It's that it's a reflection of what the officer is doing on their daily job and the personnel, a complaint against them, et cetera. It's really the same way, that it's personal to the officer. And you cannot have it out in the public to have them just willy-nilly have a court of public opinion.

But, again, if that's the rationale for making it a personnel file, that's exactly counterproductive and intuitive and to having it be part of transparency. It's not to protect the investigation, but the investigator. And that's not lawful.

HARLOW: Tom Verni, how does this work with the -- you're former NYPD. Would this be the protocol with NYPD too?

VERNI: Every police department is going to have their own protocol. Every city is going to have their own protocol regarding the police and the release of any video regarding any incident.

And what is interesting is, in Tulsa, they released the video right away, right? And what happened? We clearly know went what went down there because we had the police officer's view.

HARLOW: And the officer has been charged.

LEMON: And he was not armed.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: You saw a very peaceful reaction in Tulsa of the community coming together, black, white, all ages coming together.

VERNI: Yes, because it removes that perception, because perception is nine-tenths of the law nowadays.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: It removes the perception that they're hiding something. And as long -- listen...

VERNI: Even if they're wrong, they should release it and just get it out there and then just deal with the ramifications of, you know, sometimes mistakes happen.

(CROSSTALK)

VERNI: And I hate to say it. It results in the death of an individual, which is awful. We have to admit that as well, that someone died here as a result of their interaction with the police. And that's not nice either.

HARLOW: Stand by. We obviously have a lot of breaking news this hour, both this and on the political front as well.

[15:15:03]

Thank you all very much, Laura, Tom and Don.

Don will have, of course, much more tonight on his show.

Coming up next, though, we will speak live to the former police chief in Ferguson, Missouri, the place where the Black Lives Matter movement was born after the shooting death of Michael Brown. This is the man who was in charge of the police at that time. We are going to get his take live on all of this.

Also, the breaking political news this hour, multiple sources telling CNN Ted Cruz has decided who he is endorsing for president, a stunning reversal. I will get reaction from his former spokeswoman next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. PAT MCCRORY (R), NORTH CAROLINA: I think the chief of police has stated his concerns extremely well. And I would concur that you have got to be careful on how and when to release information, because I hope you don't take this in the wrong vein, but I have watched a football game last week on TV and saw four different replays and each showed something different.

[15:20:07]

Camera angles and everything mean a lot, and there are a lot of circumstances involved in other situations. And it's not just the camera that is involved in an incident. There are many other factors involved. And it would be inappropriate for me to discuss those other factors. But the main factor, we have to respect the law and the process of the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: There you have it, North Carolina's Governor Pat McCrory speaking just moments ago talking about the police video of the shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott and when and if it should be released, saying you have to be very careful as to when and how this is done, saying many camera angles mean a lot of different things.

He also said that the National Guard will remain deployed in Charlotte throughout the weekend. Obviously, they were there last night amid the protests. They are preparing for the possibility of more protests tonight, possibly violence, possibly looting and vandalism, as we saw earlier this week.

This all follows the fatal police shooting death of an African- American man, Keith Lamont Scott.

Joining me now is Brynn Gingras. She is our correspondent who is in Charlotte. She has been there.

Look, Brynn, last night was very different night than Wednesday night. It was mostly peaceful. I know you're outside of police headquarters.

In terms of just the last few hours, as we received this video from the Scott family of the wife's vantage point to her husband being shot and killed, does that change things tonight? What are the activists there saying?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, Poppy, we're really not sure if it is going to change things.

I was listening to you talk with Don and the rest of your panel and analyzing that video and questioning, is it a surgical glove, is it a gun, is it nothing at all, and even hearing the governor say different cameras show different angles.

And that's pretty much what's lighting up on social media right now is looking at that video and what does each person see? And this was a big concern of police when they talked about not releasing any video because they want to show all the facts at once.

But on the flip side, this is what the Scott family wanted. Right? They wanted to release to the video because they thought transparency was important.

So that's we're hearing in the community right now is what each person thinks. And it's unclear at this point, what is that going to mean for tonight? Peaceful protests last night, but tonight could be a different story, as people react to this video, the first video that has finally been made public about the altercation between Mr. Scott and the police department.

We know that the National Guard will be here. Go ahead, Poppy.

HARLOW: Elizabeth -- I mean, so, Brynn, so we're just hearing these increased calls from law enforcement officials, from Hillary Clinton who just called for video to be released. You're outside police headquarters.

The governor said you have got to be judicious and careful about when things are released. Do you get the sense there that the police department will today release this video, the dash cam video, and the body camera video, now that we have the vantage point of the wife?

GINGRAS: Well, certainly, we're getting -- they're getting more pressure.

But at the last news conference, the police chief even said, this is the last time I'm going to talk about it, because you know what? This video, this whole subject is not even in my hands anymore. It's now at the state investigative level, so now it's up to the police to decide if they want to release the video and if that is the right decision.

So, it's unclear, but certainly the pressure is on now that this video has been released, Poppy.

HARLOW: That's interesting, so it's not up to the police chief at this point. Is that right?

GINGRAS: Say that again. I'm sorry?

HARLOW: That it's not up to the police chief at this point, you're saying?

GINGRAS: Correct. The police chief said that he is no longer going to even be giving

news conferences regarding the investigation because it's all now in the hands of state investigators, Poppy.

HARLOW: OK, important to know. Brynn, thank you for the reporting on the ground there in Charlotte. We appreciate it very much.

Again, we're continuing to follow this breaking news, as we have just gotten this video from the wife of Keith Scott, who was shot and killed on Tuesday.

Coming up next, I will speak live with the former police chief of Ferguson, Missouri. He knows firsthand what it's like to deal with these types of protests and also you remember all of the calls on that department to release all the video and information they had related to the death of Michael Brown. We are going to get his perspective on all of this next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:40]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HARLOW: Long before the deadly police shooting in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the unrest that has followed, Ferguson, Missouri, was ground zero for the national protests and the debate over the relationship between law enforcement and African-Americans.

It's also where the Black Lives Matter movement really began. It began in August of 2014 in the small Missouri community that was the scene of large, large protests that got worldwide attention following the shooting death of Michael Brown by police officers there.

The 18-year-old African-American man was shot and killed during an encounter with officer Darren Wilson. Complaints of racial discrimination and the department's militarized response, as some described it, to the protests paved the way for the resignation of Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson.

He joins me to talk about his take on what is happening in Charlotte right now.

Thank you for being with me.

THOMAS JACKSON, FORMER FERGUSON, MISSOURI, POLICE CHIEF: Thank you for having me, Poppy. It's nice to see you again.

HARLOW: It's nice to see you as well.

I want to get your reaction to the video that the family released in just a moment, but, first of all, the city of Charlotte and the state of North Carolina to this point is refusing to release dash cam video and body cam video of the shooting of Mr. Keith Lamont Scott.

So, all we have now is video that his wife has released, her cell phone video. Should the department release all the video they have right now?

JACKSON: Well, they're in a tough spot, really, because, depending on what the rules on -- for example, where -- where I am, in Saint Louis County, the prosecuting attorney really owns all that stuff...