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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
Oklahoma Football Player Slugs Co-ed; Women Jail Guards in Danger; A 3-Year-Old Killed in Road Rage Attack, Shooter on Run; Parents Take Down Teen After He Fires Gun in School; Infant Boy and Mom Found Dead in Bed; New Charges Against Student Suspected in Sex Assaults; Tons of Cocaine Seized; Man Wrongfully Convicted, Spent 29 Years in Prison. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired December 19, 2016 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST (voice-over): This is not the tape you want your mom to see, a sickening video of Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon cold
cocking a woman, breaking her jaw and her cheekbone. What on earth could justify this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve learned a lot of things, and to move forward, be positive (INAUDIBLE)
BANFIELD: Dangerous job. A prison inmate brutally clocks a female guard when she catches him with contraband, just one of three female guards
attacked by male inmates, and one of the women is now dead. Where was the backup?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a little precious baby, innocent baby!
BANFIELD: A 3-year-old boy and his grandmother out Christmas shopping when a driver fueled by rage shoots the child dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He fired into the vehicle. That`s when the child was struck.
BANFIELD: Now the manhunt is on, and he better hope the police get to him first.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Enough is enough.
BANFIELD: Tonight, a coward and a killer is on the loose.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lock the doors, turn on the alarm.
BANFIELD: His victim, a helpless baby found dead beside the body of his mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s very scary.
BANFIELD: Who would do such a thing just days before Christmas?
And Robert Durst finally serves up an excuse for why he admitted he killed them all on a hot mike.
ROBERT DURST: Killed them all (INAUDIBLE)
BANFIELD: (INAUDIBLE) for creativity, but the millionaire murder suspect says he was high on meth.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD: I`m Ashleigh Banfield. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.
Surveillance video of Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon punching a female student has just surfaced, and it`s been released by his lawyers. Before
Mixon`s first season started, he got into some kind of hot water for this, punching a co-ed at a local eatery. Mixon is 6-1, 225, and it is far to
say Amelia Moletar (ph), the woman he`s winding back and letting loose on, is considerably smaller. Ouch! Horrible! I think everyone can agree.
So is he remorseful?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you learn from your suspension?
JOE MIXON, OKLAHOMA RUNNING BACK: What you mean, what did I learn?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you learn anything about yourself? What did you have to do to get back on the team?
MIXON: I don`t know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Again, Joe`s already expressed a desire to only answer football-related questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Well, there will be a lot more questions. Jane McManus is a reporter with ESPNW, and she joins me now. What happened in that
confrontation?
JANE MCMANUS, ESPNW: Well, I think you can see what happened. There were a group of people and they came across a group of players one night, and
they had words back and forth. Joe Mixon says that she used a racial slur, but then you can see that he follows her into that restaurant, and you
know, as you can see, what can unfold. She lashes out at him, and he lashes out at her.
I think we could all agree that, you know, it`s not OK to hit anybody, but also, such a disproportionate reaction from him when it came to responding
to her.
BANFIELD: I`ll say! I mean, it is unbelievable! And we should note when it looks like she`s calling something out as she`s walking into the
restaurant, it`s not to him. He`s behind her. He`s not in the restaurant yet. He follows her into the restaurant, and this is the result. I mean,
it`s awful to watch. She can barely stand up. She`s bleeding profusely from her face. Her jaw is broken.
MCMANUS: Three places, four places.
BANFIELD: Her cheekbone -- four places. Her face is broken in four places! The amount of power and aggression that it would take to do that
kind of damage to this woman -- and we`re just now seeing it. Did they know each other? Was there some relationship?
MCMANUS: Don`t think that there was. I think that they were just people who happened to intersect, you know, as you do in a college town. You come
across people here and there that you may have had in class or you may have seen on campus. But I don`t think there was a relationship there.
BANFIELD: All right, this happened -- I can`t even believe I`m having -- you can`t write this stuff, but this altercation happened one day, one day
after the NFL suspended Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, who was infamously caught slugging his then fiancee and laying her out in an
elevator unconscious. So this is one day after that massive storm hit the media...
MCMANUS: Right.
BANFIELD: ... and this action played out in that restaurant. And ultimately, he was charged with a misdemeanor assault. He got one year
deferred sentence for this. But Jane, the question is, not a lot of people saw this video.
[20:05:02]MCMANUS: You know, the people who did see the video -- the people who saw the video were his coach and the AD in Oklahoma. So when
they were deciding what the penalty would be for this action, they were able to see this video. They knew what was going on.
And in the backdrop, as you mentioned, was the outcry over the Ray Rice tape, the initial Ray Rice tape before that came out, the outcry over the
two-game suspension, which as you mentioned, came the day before this video, the day before this punch happened.
BANFIELD: Oh!
MCMANUS: So you have...
BANFIELD: Every time I see it...
MCMANUS: Yes, it`s really. It`s too much.
(CROSSTALK)
MCMANUS: So you have this playing out where they know the outcry for it. They know how much people want to see players, anyone to have consequences
for this kind of action, particularly in a sports context.
BANFIELD: So he was there -- he was on a scholarship at this university. He did not lose his scholarship.
MCMANUS: He didn`t lose his scholarship. What they did, basically, was they took him off the field for a year. He was -- in essence, they do this
every year with a number of students. They red shirt them, right, where you can go to the facility, you can train as a football player, but you`re
not going to play on the field.
And essentially, that`s what they did with him. They didn`t do anything above and beyond with that. He had to do some counseling. There were some
other things. But in terms of affecting his eventual football career, there was nothing that Oklahoma did, that Bob Stoops (ph), the coach at
Oklahoma, did that would have long-term affected his ability to be a player on the field of consequence.
BANFIELD: And he was still allowed to go to class and he was still allowed to get his financial assistance all that time that he had this suspension -
- again, a misdemeanor assault, no jail time, one-year deferred sentence.
I want to show you another attempt that reporters made at finding out if there was some kind of contrition after all of this. And I`m just going to
let you make your own judgment. Here`s Joe Mixon being interviewed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have any regrets at all to anything, Joe?
MIXON: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you had a desire, Joe, at any point to answer non-football-related questions?
MIXON: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think that you should?
MIXON: Not here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At any point? Do you think that you owe that to the fans?
MIXON: No, not here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: May I just add that part of the deal for that misdemeanor assault and the one-year deferred sentence was mandated behavioral
counseling. I wonder if it worked.
Joining me now, former prosecutor Christine Grillo, and defense attorney and CNN and HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson.
I thought that justice is supposed to be served when someone gets something like that and they go to the mandated behavioral counseling, and then they
actually show contrition to those who were asking, Did you learn something from this?
CHRISTINE GRILLO, FORMER PROSECUTOR: When we`re talking about this and we`re talking about misdemeanor versus felony, what needs to be explained,
and sometimes it`s hard to understand -- when he hit her -- and even as a prosecutor, this would be very hard for me to accept. But when he hit her,
he hit her once. And all of that damage came from that one hit.
BANFIELD: Hard!
GRILLO: Yes. Yes, but there is something...
BANFIELD: He hit her hard!
GRILLO: ... on the books called the one-punch rule. And it is that he hit her once. So his intent was not to break her face, or it could be argued
by our best defense teams that he did not intend to break her nose or break her face because it`s one punch.
BANFIELD: Can we roll that video again so that we can talk about his intent and what that one punch was like? Because that one punch -- what
was it, Jane, four places?
MCMANUS: Four places, and her jaw was fractured. And you know, mouth had to be wired shut for weeks as it healed. It`s -- you know, the thing is,
like, football players, any sort of professional athlete, you have a strength, and you know you have a strength because you`re making money off
of that strength, or you`re hoping to...
(CROSSTALK)
JOEY JACKSON, CNN/HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, he`s not a professional athlete yet. Let`s -- let me just discuss this...
BANFIELD: He was 18 at the time...
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: ... an adult.
JACKSON: He was in high school. He just graduated from high school. It was July before -- let me be clear about this. it`s never appropriate,
it`s never right to hit anybody, particularly a defenseless woman, at all. So let`s not apologize for the behavior. Let him accept responsibility.
He needs to.
However, let`s be clear about this. He pled guilty to a crime. A misdemeanor is a crime. The tenets of the justice system are deterrence,
punishment and rehabilitation. With respect to punishment, he did 100 hours of community service. When it relates to young people, you focus
more on rehabilitation, not on putting him in a cage for the rest of their live.
From a civil perspective, he`s also being sued. He has no money yet. However, it will, in fact, at the time that he enters the NFL draft, which
he will -- he`s very good at his job.
It happened two-and-a-half years ago, before he spent -- before he took one down with the Sooners, he was suspended for a complete year. And you know,
look, he was penalized for what occurred. It shouldn`t have happened. It`s horrific that it happened. It makes me sick to watch that tape. But
everyone is entitled to make a horrific error and then build their life...
BANFIELD: Well, I...
JACKSON: ... and be a better person...
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: I would have liked to see the behavioral counseling show results, and that interview where I saw, Nope, nope, and I don`t need to
answer those questions here, to me is...
[20:10:04]MCMANUS: Would any other player...
(CROSSTALK)
MCMANUS: Would any other person at Oklahoma, any other student where that had happened, would they have gotten the same accommodation?
BANFIELD: I`ve got to wrap up. I have a lot more...
JACKSON: He had a year suspension. He pled guilty to a crime. He`s civilly sued. When he gets money, he`ll have to pay her for that. Let him
go on, live his life to try to be a well-adjusted citizen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But what happens with some other student who didn`t have a fabulous set of legs and a really...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that`s what we see in sports all the time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... powerful arm.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s right.
BANFIELD: All right, guys. I appreciate your passion on this. And I can`t mask mine, that`s for sure.
Want to take you to California right now where an independent state agency has cleared that judge in the Stanford rape case, cleared him of judicial
misconduct. Santa Clara County Superior -- county judge Aaron Persky (ph) sentenced former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner to just six months in jail,
which drew outrage from near and far. Turner was convicted in the sexual assault of an unconscious woman outside of a party, by a dumpster.
The Commission on Judicial Performance said in a letter that it found no clear and convincing evidence of bias or abuse in the authority of Persky`s
decision. The grass roots campaign to recall the judge issued this statement in response, and I quote, "We will continue to proceed with the
recall election as it is important for Santa Clara County voters to decide whether Judge Persky should remain on the bench. We strongly disagree with
the commission`s conclusion on judicial bias. We believe that Judge Persky has, in fact, demonstrated a clear pattern of bias in cases of sex crimes
and violence against women."
Do you remember the case of Robert Durst? Robert Durst has something to say these days, that he was high on meth. He`s admitting that because it`s
important when he was high on meth. He says he was high on meth during that whole hot mike when he was being interviewed for HBO`s program "The
Jinx." And then they caught him saying something he probably would have preferred them not to hear. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) killed them all, of course.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Well, this is, of course, now what he has told the Los Angeles prosecutors about that bombshell statement that he made on that hot mike.
Here he goes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole long weekend when I did the interviews for "The Jinx," I was on meth. The whole time I was on meth. And when I
looked at the little pieces of (INAUDIBLE) should have been obvious. Surprised my lawyer let me go ahead with it because it just (INAUDIBLE)
there was something going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Christine and Joey, how does that work when you`re facing first degree murder? Is that an excuse for saying stuff, I was really high on
meth?
(LAUGHTER)
JACKSON: Not quite an excuse at all.
BANFIELD: Not quite.
GRILLO: No.
BANFIELD: Not quite.
JACKSON: No, not at all.
GRILLO: It`s admissible because it`s a statement against his interests. And it`s also something that we saw all the time because a lot of the
defendants, how we would catch them -- they like to drag about what they did, and that`s just what he was doing.
JACKSON: Yes, but you would hope that there`s other evidence other than a statement from the defendant to make the prosecutor`s case.
BANFIELD: I can`t even begin at this juncture to go over all of the things that Robert Durst been charged with and what`s been litigated against him.
JACKSON: Not in this hour, not in the next hour.
BANFIELD: Chopping up bodies -- that I can say with complete conviction because it was a conviction, not murder conviction but a chopping up a body
conviction. But this is interesting that he has had to answer, and publicly, everyone now knows that...
JACKSON: Very convenient.
BANFIELD: Very convenient, his excuse for saying that he killed them all, of course, is he was high on meth.
Next, a jail inmate who uses his laptop -- yes, his laptop -- there, he`s holding on tight to it -- from behind bars does this to the guard when she
tries to take the contraband. Yes, no surprise what happened next. You`re going to find out all about this next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:17:58]BANFIELD: In Chicago`s Cook County jail, an inmate suspected of attempted murder, so not a particularly safe fellow, using a laptop to make
his own TV show from behind bars. So while you digest that, I`ll let you know the program was called "My Back Against the Wall." So obviously,
that`s not really allowed, you know? That`s kind of a no-brainer.
But when this happened, the female guard comes in to take the contraband laptop away from the inmate, Jimmie Smith, that`s what he did. That`s what
he did to that female inmate. (sic) And that`s what happened to him right after because the male guards were right behind her.
He`s trying to rip a lot of that laptop apart. You can see him trying to do some damage to it. And she`s saying, Give it, give it. And he`s
saying, I`ll give it. And that`s what happened.
I also want to tell you something else happened. This weekend, an officer was killed, a female officer, a guard was killed and a jail employee was
injured, a female jail employee, again, injured in an attack by an inmate at a county jail in south Arkansas.
Chris Spargo is reporter for Dailymail.com, joins me live. What happened in that first incident? Like, what was the back story behind that Cook
County laptop-using inmate? I have never been to jail, but I know you don`t get laptops.
CHRIS SPARGO, DAILYMAIL.COM: Yes. So Jimmie Smith is this gentleman`s name, and he was apparently defending himself on some charges he ended up
getting charged with while he was in jail. He was facing additional charges. And in preparing his defense, they allowed him a laptop. Now, it
appears he should not have still had the laptop, and while it was in his possession, he began to film this talk show, in addition to also taking
lewd photos of himself around the prison.
BANFIELD: OK, I want to play a little of this talk show. I seriously can`t believe that I am actually in possession of a piece of tape from a
prisoner`s talk show from behind bars, but I`ve got it. And now you do, too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMIE SMITH, INMATE: Hello, this is Jimmie Smith. Welcome to this episode of "My Back Against the Wall" coming to you live from the Cook
County jail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) before voting (ph) (INAUDIBLE) resource organization (INAUDIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:20:12]BANFIELD: So that we`re clear, you`re getting to hear not only the inmate, Jimmie Smith, but you`re also hearing the announcements that
regular inmates would hear on a regular basis. And that inmate has been hearing announcements like that for seven years because that`s how long
he`s been in the jail, not prison.
That`s how long he`s been in the jail because he has a long sheet of charges that he needs to be dealt with -- attempted murder, aggravated
kidnapping, criminal sexual assault, contraband within the penal institution. He allegedly attacked his own public defender in 2014. He
allegedly solicited murder of a judge and a prosecutor. So there`s all of that.
And Major Amanda Lambert is with the Prince William Manassas regional adult detention center, and she joins me now. I wanted to ask you, Major, about
being a female corrections officer in the presence of someone like this man, like Jimmie Smith, with a sheet behind him that I just listed out.
Is there something that is afforded to you in terms of protection that`s any different from the male guards who would be in the same confrontational
possibility as you are?
MAJ. AMANDA LAMBERT, AMERICAN JAIL ASSOCIATION (via telephone): Typically, males and females are given the same background and training in terms of
weapons. Weapons are not introduced into a jail facility for very obvious reasons.
BANFIELD: What I don`t understand is why this female corrections officer, who clearly does not have the kind of weapon that she would need against
the kinds of weapons that he`s got in his hands -- why there wouldn`t be a first line of defense with the male officers who had to rush in afterwards?
Does that look like a tape that makes sense to you when you see this all play out?
LAMBERT: It`s not uncommon for females to be at the front lines to attempt to deescalate. We have found that females serve a very critical role in a
jail environment, based on their communication skills alone. Unfortunately, based on his background, I don`t know that there were (ph)
the steps that jail administrators should have taken.
BANFIELD: And Major Lambert, make no mistake, I salute you for the work that you do as a female corrections officer working with some of the most
dangerous people, working with men with this kind of background. I don`t know how you do your job every day. I don`t know how you can be that
brave.
But at the same time, I understand that you say that they can do a lot of deescalation perhaps in a different way that men can`t. But is it worth it
to take that chance?
We just now have an incident from this weekend where one inmate did so much damage that he may have killed an officer. She`s dead. He`s going to be
tried for it, but it was an attack on two corrections officers, both of them women, one is injured, one is dead. Is it worth it?
LAMBERT: Well, you know, when you go into public service and you work in a jail environment, there is an inherent risk. You are not dealing with the
best citizens in the job that we do day in and day out. It is a very tough job.
But we know the danger in doing what we do. It is a growing profession. It is one that requires an awful lot of skill and training to go with that.
Administration, the folks that lead jails, have to be on board and have to provide everything that`s necessary to do your job and to do it well and do
it in the most safe manner possible.
BANFIELD: Major Lambert, please be careful as you go back to work tomorrow and the days after. I never want to have to report on you the way I`ve
reported on these three women tonight. And I thank you for sharing your insight with us tonight. Do appreciate it.
LAMBERT: Thank you.
BANFIELD: I want to tell you now about a desperate search. Someone decided to pull the trigger on this little guy, a 3-year-old boy who was
just sitting in his carseat with his little baby sister and out holiday shopping with his grandmother. But someone had road rage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: Where did he got shot at?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s shot in the neck!
911 OPERATOR: No, no, no, no, no. Where at? What street?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`re at JCPenney`s. He`s 3 years old.
911 OPERATOR: No. He`s how old?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Find out what they`re offering now if you can help find him.
And then this video surfacing. This is a police bodycam video as he is called to a school. It`s silent, but he`s about to encounter a young
student who has pulled out a shotgun and shot into the ceiling of a classroom full of kids. You`re about to find out what this policeman saw
when he encountered the young man.
[20:25:02]And I do want to tell you this. It is a remarkable conclusion. Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: A 3-year-old boy excited about Christmas is out shopping with his grandmother when their car came to a stop, a stop sign, in fact, at
Little Rock, Arkansas. There was a driver behind her who honked at the grandmother. So the grandmother honked back.
But the other driver then decided to get out of the car and approach the grandmother`s car and shoot into the grandmother`s car and hits the toddler
who is in a carseat. The grandmother did not even know that child had been hit and continued to drive 10 miles before making the discovery and then
the 911 call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:30:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I don`t know. Ma`am, do you know who did it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was at the stop sign and the guy threw the horn at me and I threw it back and he shot, but I thought he shot in the air. He
shot at the car!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: That little boy died at the hospital, and police are now looking for the killer. And his car. They know only that it is a black Chevy
Impala. Sarafina Brooks is a reporter at CNN affiliate KATV in Little Rock. Sarafina, I just absolutely cannot get over this. They really do believe
that the motive behind was just anger at the stop sign?
SARAFINA BROOKS, REPORTER, KATV: That`s exactly what they believe. They say the grandmother, Kim King-Macon, pulled up to that stop sign. And let me
add this isn`t a busy highway or anything like that. This is a residential area.
She pulled up to that stop sign and the man behind her started honking his horn. She said she didn`t think she was moving fast enough. So she honked
back and that`s when he got out of his car and fired one shot.
BANFIELD: Sarafina, do we know if she got a good enough look at him to help police to track down this mad man?
BROOKS: At this point, I don`t think so. The only description she gave was he was tall, he`s a black man, and he`s driving an older model Chevy
Impala. And like you mentioned, after he fired that shot, she continued on to her destination. So I don`t think she got a good look at him.
BANFIELD: I mean, imagine the terror. She`s probably screeching out of there as fast as she can to try to protect those babies. That little boy
had his little sister in the car as well. So I can see that she was just trying to get away and not even know that this precious little child had
been hit.
Lieutenant Steven McClanahan is at Little Rock Police Department. Lieutenant, do you know anything more? Do you have any better leads
tonight? Do you have any surveillance video? Do you have anything in terms of who this person was?
STEVEN MCCLANAHAN, LIEUTENANT, LITTLE ROCK POLICE DEPARTMENT: Ashleigh, we have no surveillance video, but we have received numerous tips. Just a few
minutes ago, probably about an hour ago, we announced that the reward was going up to $40,000. Our local FBI office contributed $20,000 around 5:30.
So we`re hoping with the $40,000 reward that we can get some tips that are useful.
BANFIELD: $40,000 for anyone out there who can help to connect someone to this horrifying crime. A 3-year-old baby was shot dead because his
grandmother spent maybe a few many seconds too long at a stop sign. That little boy is dead. If you know anything, $40,000 to find the person who
took this child`s life. Lieutenant, is there any connection between this driver and this family? Do you think there`s any connection at all?
MCCLANAHAN: No. We did an extensive interview with the grandmother and we also did check for surveillance video. After interviewing her, we believe
her story to be accurate and true. She has no relationship at all with the suspect. Both the (ph) grandmother.
BANFIELD: Lieutenant, I`m sorry to interrupt. There was a road rage incident just a few weeks ago where a 2-year-old was killed in Little Rock.
And I`m just curious if you think there`s any connection between these two?
MCCLANAHAN: Absolutely not. The 2-year-old`s death was very tragic. However, that was not a road rage incident. They were in a feud with a
group of people, and that child (inaudible) victim was shot. There was no road rage involved in that at all. So we do believe that the one happened
(inaudible) is an isolated incident.
BANFIELD: Lieutenant McClanahan, I wish you and your department all the luck in the world in tracking this person down. The unbelievable amount of
compunction for humanity to do this, to take the life of that little child for a stop sign infraction in his book. Thank you for being with us. Good
luck, and we will check in with you to see if the tips continue to roll in, sir.
MCCLANAHAN: You`re welcome. Thank you.
BANFIELD: I have -- really there`s no other way to describe this other than a remarkable video. You are almost never in a firsthand person position to
listen to an officer respond to a call where there is a child in a school who has shot a gun. But the body cam was going and so was the audio and I
just want you to -- I just want you to walk through the school and listen to what this officer heard as he got the call.
What it was like walking into the school, knowing full well what we`ve seen before, and then what he came upon because it turned out that that kid has
really good parents. Those parents had a really good hunch something was wrong. They followed their child to school, and when you see this video,
ultimately the two people you`re going to wonder who they are, they`re the parents. So let`s roll it.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
[20:35:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Student with a gun at Mueller Park Junior High School.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, we`re gonna have to come right back, okay?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police department!
BANFIELD: That is the weapon. That is student`s mother, and the person who is holding the student`s hands is the student`s father.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).
BANFIELD: And they were able to disarm him and deescalate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).
BANFIELD: All of that ammo was taken to school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible). Leave all that stuff there, please.
BANFIELD: All of those weapons were taken, and the officer says, is it just you? And off they go. Christine and Joey are still with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: If there were a textbook case of deescalation, that`s got to be caught.
GRILLO: I don`t know about deescalation, but it certainly is the grace of God that those parents were able to have the wherewithal to know that
something was up with their son. Because who knows what was going on in that young man`s head and what he plan to do. And you have to thank God and
those parents that they had the sense to go in there.
BANFIELD: What was so amazing is how quiet it was.
JACKSON: Yeah. And you know, Ashleigh, after seeing it and unfortunately having discussed so many school shootings where there are people who are
dead and they are young people, to have this end in the way it did is remarkable. But you do have to give the parents credit for finding out, as
you mentioned in the beginning, you`re having a sense that something was amiss with their child.
BANFIELD: Follow the hunt (ph).
JACKSON: . going -- absolutely. They did that. They went to the school. They brought matters under control. And who knows psychologically or
anything else may have been going on with him. And also, Ashleigh, thank goodness when he fired that shot upward that no one was injured from that
as well.
BANFIELD: Fired it into the ceiling. So that young man -- 15 years old I believe is facing two counts of felony theft of a firearm, that`s for the
parents` guns, one count felony discharge of a firearm, two counts misdemeanor possession of a short barrel shotgun on school premises.
But obviously, everyone is now safe. I`m sure there`s a lot of emotional damage to all the rest of those kids in the classroom, but thank God that
all we are reporting on tonight.
JACKSON: Absolutely.
BANFIELD: And then there is this. Someone killed a brand new mom, but that wasn`t enough. They decided to kill her 3-month-old baby as well. And they
did it by cutting both of their throats, and that person is out there somewhere tonight.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s very scary. Not knowing. It totally (inaudible). So now, I`m more on edge, because not knowing any suspects.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: A man opens the door at night to discover his wife and his infant boy dead, in a bed, in their Fort Worth, Texas home. Both are homicides
according to the Tarrant County medical examiner. And both of the victims slashed in the neck. And so far, no one knows anything about who did this.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Normally at something like that, you know, they start looking at people that are familiar with the family to begin with. But I
would be more concerned if I found out it was just random.
BANFIELD: The mother, Shanna Riddle Vandewege, was a nurse. She was home on maternity leave. She has had three miscarriages before giving birth to baby
Diederick, who was just three months old when he was murdered. Susy Solis is a freelance reporter who joins me live from Dallas. Susy, were they
found hobbled together? Were they in the same bed? What are the circumstances that we know about the crime scene?
SUSY SOLIS, FREELANCE REPORTER: Apparently they were in the same bed. But according to witnesses, they tell us that Craig Vandewege actually came
home from his job around 9:30 at night. He expected to find, you know, dinner served at home and instead what he found was his home in disarray.
Sources tell us that it was actually a very gruesome scene and then he found his wife and baby in a bed together, both of their throats had been
slit. That`s when he called police and the investigation began.
BANFIELD: But was there something taken? Did it seem obvious as to why someone would perpetrate such a violent and unnecessary kind of crime?
SOLIS: Well, that`s the weird part about it. As you said, the couple had just moved to Fort Worth about six months ago. So it`s hard to imagine who
would have -- who would have known the couple so well to do something so gruesome and so violent.
Police have not released information about whether it was a home invasion or if there was a forced entry into the home. All they`re confirming right
now is it is a double homicide.
BANFIELD: And so the father, who came upon the scene, was at his job at Costco. My presumption is that he would punch in and punch out and have an
alibi. But the police are saying that nobody is being ruled out, correct?
SOLIS: Correct. They are saying that Craig Vandewege has cooperated with them the entire time, but again, they aren`t naming any suspects or even
persons of interest at this point.
So it really is a mystery and that is really what is alarming many of the people in that neighborhood, which is a quiet neighborhood in north Fort
Worth where, you know, it`s a bedroom community.
[20:45:00] And a lot of families are there with young kids, so it really was an alarming incident to take place in that area of Fort Worth.
BANFIELD: Just bizarre to say the very least. Susy, we`re gonna keep following this. So when you -- when they start releasing more because
clearly they`re keeping a lot close to the vest, we`ll check back in with you and find out what`s the new developments are.
I also want to share with you this story about $700 million. It wasn`t actually in cash, it was in drugs. But this is what it looks like when it`s
in the version of cocaine. This will not be hitting the streets. Thanks to some pretty fancy moves by law enforcement. And guess where they found it?
On the high seas. The very high seas.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Got an update for you on a story out of Wisconsin. I`m sure you`ll remember the story about the University of Wisconsin student Alec
Cook who was facing 15 counts sex-related for alleged rapes of students on campus.
[20:50:00] He had a $200,000 bail that just got reduced to $100,000 and he was able to post it. So he`s out in time for Christmas. But not before six
more charges were added to the roster he has to face. Disorderly conduct, stalking, involving five additional women.
So the count is now up to 10 women, who all say they`ve been victimized by this young man. And Danny Cevallos was added to our panel. Christine Grillo
and Joey Jackson are still with me. I do not understand how it works. More charges and less bail all at the same time. Anybody.
GRILLO: The bail was too low to begin with, first of all, but that`s all I`m gonna say.
BANFIELD: $200,000 was too low.
GRILLO: $200,000 was too low.
BANFIELD: And it got lowered to $100,000.
GRILLO: I`m sure my defense attorney are gonna disagree.
JACKSON: The purpose of bail is to ensure a defendant`s return to court. I`m more concerned, Ashleigh, about the underlying prosecution about his
accountability or lack thereof, where he did or didn`t as to -- as I am about what the bail is.
BANFIELD: Are you making this up?
JACKSON: Yes. Naturally.
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: But I`m always listening.
GRILLO: Danny is listening at this point.
JACKSON: It`s true.
CEVALLOS: It`s true and let me add that if there`s no change in circumstances, it shouldn`t be an increase in bail. That`s it.
GRILLO: But there was a change in circumstance. With more charges.
(CROSSTALK)
CEVALLOS: You can`t add charges just to thwart a request for bail. You really can`t -- I mean, they can but they shouldn`t. There, I said it. Now,
I said my piece.
BANFIELD: Watch his face, because he has to surrender his passport (inaudible) social media, and there`s a big investigation. There were
dozens and dozens of women.
JACKSON: It`s about the prosecution, not the bail.
BANFIELD: Speaking of the prosecution, I think they`re looking for the fellow who had all that cocaine.
JACKSON: Oh, that cocaine.
BANFIELD: I`m pleased more than one fellow (inaudible) the pictures. I mean, if you want to get down on the ground, that`s your product right
there. Bales and bales and palettes and palettes of cocaine that were ceased by the Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton, where Hamilton (inaudible) these
days. 26.5 tons. Can you imagine?
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: The most interesting thing I found about this is that they needed a crane to remove all the cocaine off of -- that`s the most incredible
thing. That shows you how much of this product is on the high seas.
BANFIELD: This was -- you`re right about this. This was the largest -- one of the largest drugs offloads in history from the Coast Guard Cutter.
You`re right, $2 billion of street value on cocaine. I don`t even see it -- I see a couple of guards over there. But, there`s a lot of them.
A royal Canadian navy, congratulations to my fellow countryman, nice to know. And apparently 27 different interdictions to catch all that stuff and
get it off the streets. So, amen to that.
JACKSON: They`re doing their job. May they continue.
CEVALLOS: No. You will find that on Amazon.com.
BANFIELD: You won`t find that on Amazon. You won`t find -- a lot of unhappy people and lot of very happy people too. Okay. So then there is this story.
It was supposed to be a really happy story. Actually, I was looking forward to it being a happy story.
Michael Kenneth McAlister, 60 years old, you know, the Innocence Project confirmed (ph) he has spent 27 years -- sorry, 29 years, those last two
words are difficult as the others -- he spent 29 years in prison guys before he got pardoned for attempted rape and kidnapping, abduction.
They discovered that they have made a mistake, and they awarded him $1.2 million. Do you think that would be phenomenal?
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: When he was asked what is the first thing he wanted to do when he got out was, he talked about having a meal with his mom because I would
too, but listen to how he put it.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I assume you want back to Towatan (ph) last night?
MICHAEL KENNETH MCALISTER, SERVED 29 YEARS IN PRISON FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTION: My mother made some pork chops for me and we ate pork chops.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I don`t know how many of those pork chop dinners he`s going to have because he`s now been arrested. I can`t even -- I don`t even know what
to say. He spent 29 years behind bars. And he`s been arrested guys for possession of cocaine, resisting an officer without violence, destruction
of evidence.
GRILLO: I`m saying he served enough. I cannot believe -- I`m a prosecutor, I`m going to say this right now, he has served enough time. If you`re
coming back and you`re telling me that it was a murder, it was a rape or it was a violent crime.
JACKSON: A different story.
GRILLO: It`s a different story. I`m done with this. I think he`s served his time.
JACKSON: You know, there is a saying, Ashleigh, it says that if you`re not a criminal when you go to jail, you certainly will become one and will be
one when you get out of jail. That`s most unfortunate. Another unfortunate thing is that talking about having him return some of this $1.2 million.
BANFIELD: How does that work? What is the story there? Because I`m with Christine on this. That man served 29 years and he didn`t deserve one of
them. And we think it`s okay maybe to put him back? Is there some kind of a deal that they could negotiate where it`s like give us back some of the
cash.
CEVALLOS: Yeah. You get credit for time served, but you don`t get extra credit that you can bank for time that you are supposed to serve. So, I
mean, under principles of equity and fairness, a judge can look at this case and say, why don`t we give him probation? But, you know, each case is
a separate case to be addressed either consecutively or I guess you could run it concurrently. Get him out of there as soon as you can.
GRILLO: Or in the interest of justice, they could just not prosecute. They do have that discretion.
[20:55:00] BANFIELD: Miss Grillo, I`m glad you mentioned that, because apparently there are new arrest charges but not formal charges. Could
someone please school me on the difference?
JACKSON: First of all, you don`t get free time for crimes that you commit now that because you didn`t commit the crimes you did in the past.
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: . so we need to be clear about that. But at the same time, Ashleigh, there is something called the interest of justice, and that
interest of justice is always used, not always, but many times used in a very wise way and in a way that I think affects the interest of justice by
perhaps not putting it.
GRILLO: Some go if they are going to do the interest of justice. Justice will be done.
BANFIELD: Again, not a violent offense. These are possession of cocaine, resisting an officer without violence, and destruction of evidence. I`m
with you. I think he probably suffered a lot of damage in that prison, in that facility he was in. Hey, thank you, all three of you.
JACKSON: Thank you, Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: Thank you all for watching. It`s great to have you with me. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. See you back here at 8:00 tomorrow night for PRIMETIME
JUSTICE. But don`t go anywhere. "FORENSIC FILES" starts right now.
[21:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
