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No Answers Yet in Freddie Gray's Death; Emotional Testimony in Boston; U.S. Drone Strikes Killed Six Possible Al Qaeda Militants; U.S.-Iran Relations Under Strain; French Authorities Stop Imminent Attack. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired April 22, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We won't stop. Protests in Baltimore gaining momentum, emotions raw over the still unexplained death of Freddie Gray. The community there demanding to know what happened while he was in police custody.

[11:00:04] How he ended up in a coma and later died.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And then a new terror plot foiled. Authorities release a 24-year-old student in France. Wait until you hear what he had in his apartment. You'll hear what they say he was planning to target and why they already had their eye on him.

BOLDUAN: A trip to paradise turns into a wavy nightmare when a cruise ship gets caught in a massive storm off the coast of Australia, stranding thousands at sea. We're going to show you the incredible, incredible pictures.

Hello, everybody. I'm Kate Bolduan.

BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. This morning on the streets of Baltimore there is an abundance of frustration, abundance of grief, but a stark shortage of answers. How did Freddie Gray end up with a severe spinal injury while in police custody? The 25 year old died just one week later. And now after three days of protests, four investigations under way, there are no answers to that basic question.

BOLDUAN: A federal civil rights investigation has also been launched. Six officers are now suspended with pay while the police department there investigates what really happened.

Suzanne Malveaux is on the ground in Baltimore with the very latest. So Suzanne, any word yet on when folks there are going to likely start getting answers to some pretty simple questions?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We certainly hope that they'll get some answers today. The mayor's office, we've been told by an aide, that they are least organizing a potential press conference this afternoon sometime between 2:00 and 5:00.

Another thing that's happening today is the law enforcement officers bill of rights, that provision that says a supervisor cannot question those police officers who have been accused of misconduct within ten days -- well, those ten days have now expired. So there is that opening, that window now, if you will, for them to start questioning those six individuals who were suspended with pay who were directly involved in his arrest.

So those are some of the developments that we expect today. We also expect as well more protests outside of that western police district by protesters in the neighborhood. We don't expect the family to attend. We saw last night the incredible amount of emotion and frustration and outpouring when those family members did attend. The mother of Freddie Gray, the brother of Freddie Gray, both of them, the mother screaming and just emotional and crying, full of grief. That that unfolded.

And there are a lot of unanswered questions, a frustration. One of them they have is clearly getting Freddie Gray's body to the family, still at the state coroner's office. The other thing, I talked to the attorney, and they say they're still not satisfied. They have no idea why it is that he was stopped in the first place. He does have a record of drug activity in the past, but they say, look, if you believe what the police say, they describe a scenario where there were three officers on a bike who made eye contact with Freddie Gray. He took off and then they pursued, and that's how the whole thing began.

So I want you to listen to William Murphy explain why it is that this family needs answers and needs them right away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM MURPHY, JR., GRAY FAMILY ATTORNEY: In other words, everybody is a suspected drug dealer in that environment. Is that what they're saying? What difference does it make whether you're running in a hot spot or not a hot spot? Running is not enough. Running gives you nothing. And he didn't run fast enough. That's the truth, isn't it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Kate and John, we also expect another protest to happen here at city hall tomorrow. That is where the family will be in attendance again, because again they are trying to push, push as hard as they can, for more answers. They are not satisfied with the pace of this and we'll get some more details this afternoon. Kate, John?

BOLDUAN: Hopefully they will start getting some answers today as that police officers' bill of rights, that ten-day period, expires today as you mentioned, Suzanne. Thanks so much.

BERMAN: All right, happening now, new emotional testimony in the sentencing phase of the Boston Marathon bombing trial. The jurors there will determine whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will receive the death penalty or life without parole. The first to take the stand this morning, family members of slain MIT officer Sean Collier.

BOLDUAN: Sean Collier's brother and father spoke about Sean's desire to be a police officer. Andrew Collier also described his brother as a moral compass, saying that he was the one always fighting for what was right. Alexandra Field is there. Alexandra, what else are you hearing from

the victims in the courtroom, their families in the courtroom today? It's very emotional, very powerful in how you've described it so far.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Enormously emotional. Very difficult to listen to, bringing a lot of tears out in the courtroom, Kate. Prosecutors have said that death is the only just sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In order to secure that sentence from the jury, they are trying to make the jury feel, in some small way, the pain that was caused on that day on Boylston Street, on the MIT campus, and agony that so many have endured for the two years since those attacks.

[11:05:00] In order to bring jurors right into the heart of the hell that was breaking loose on that Boylston Street, they played a video in the courtroom. I have to warn you, it's incredibly graphic. It is deeply disturbing. But I do want to pause so that everyone is able to hear what this jury heard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SCREAMING & SHOUTING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Give me your pants!

(SCREAMING & CRYING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: Those are the screams, the desperate cries for help in the immediate aftermath of the bomb that exploded near the finish line. Gillian Reny was in the middle of that crowd. She was 18 at the time of the attack. She took the stand, speaking with tears in her eyes about her fight for her life and also to save her leg. She's one of a few survivors who've already been called by the prosecution during this penalty phase.

We're also again hearing from family members of the victims who died. Sean Collier's father, who talked about what it was like to go to the hospital and identify his son with a bullet hole in his head. We heard from Krystle Campbell's father, who held onto hope for hours, believing that his daughter had survived the marathon attack only to learn that it had been a case of mistaken identity.

John and Kate.

BOLDUAN: That video is very difficult to see, no matter how many years it's been since the marathon bombing. Alexandra looking at it for us. Alexandra, thanks so much. We're going to talk much more about it a little later this hour. Will he be put to death? Will he be given life in prison? That is the question in this penalty phase of the Boston bombing trial. We'll get much more into that later this hour.

Also right now, Saudi Arabia is bombarding Yemen from the skies just hours after it announced an end to weeks-long air campaign against the rebel group that has overthrown the -- Yemen's government. Saudi leaders say the bombing picked back up after the Houthi rebels attacked a government military brigade.

BERMAN: Now, it's a country filled with chaos right now and threats to U.S. interests. We learned overnight that two U.S. drone strikes killed six suspected al Qaeda militants in Yemen.

Want to bring in CNN's chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto. And, Jim, we're also just learning that there's this convoy off the coast of Yemen that the U.S. has had its eye on, an Iranian convoy. And we're getting new information about the nature of the ships in that convoy.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It had been described initially as just a cargo convoy, which is serious enough because the worry from the U.S. is that among the containers on those cargo ships would be -- might be more weapons, significant weapons for the Houthi rebels there, which is something that the U.S. does not want to get into Yemen. But we're learning today that, in that convoy, are also small Iranian warships. So that raises the tension here. You have now nine U.S. warships off the coast there watching. They're flying reconnaissance flights, for instnace, off the USS Theodore Roosevelt over that Iranian convoy, sending a very physical message "Do not put those weapons ashore." Now, doesn't mean that U.S. ships are going to board those ships, particularly when you got Iranian warships in the convoy. That would be an extraordinary step. But they are watching and that's meant to send a message to Iran: Don't put those weapons ashore.

BERMAN: All right. Jim Sciutto for us. Thanks so much.

And there is so much else going on there right now with the Saudis also engaging in a new round of bombing after they said they had halted the bombing. We'll talk much more about this coming up.

BOLDUAN: Also this for us AT THIS HOUR, a court hearing is happening right now on whether to give more freedom to the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. A recent judge ruling allowed John Hinckley, Jr., to spend some 17 days a month at his mother's home away from the mental hospital where he's been undergoing treatment really since he shot President Reagan and his press secretary back in 1981. Today, his attorneys are asking that the 59 year old be able to spend more time at the Virginia home with his mother. This comes more than 20 years after Hinckley of course was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting of the president and three others.

BERMAN: A deputy U.S. marshal caught on tape in an incident Sunday in California. The tape shows the officer snatching a phone from a woman who was recording law enforcement operations in progress. The video you're looking at right now was recorded by another onlooker. It shows the marshal slamming the phone to the ground and kicking it. Beatriz Paez spoke to CNN about the experience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BEATRIZ PAEZ, CELL PHONE OWNER: I saw that that the officers had around eight people, men and women, on the lawn and they were pointing automatic weapons to the heads of these people. The officers noted that I was filming them and they changed their behavior.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So the agency released this statement. "The U.S. Marshal Service is aware of the video footage of the incident that took place Sunday in Los Angeles County involving a Deputy U.S. Marshal. The agency is currently reviewing the incident."

[11:10:05] A revealing statement.

BOLDUAN: Some of the worst storms in a century are battering Sydney, Australia, right now. 100 people trapped in their homes that had to be rescued in New South Wales. Other homes just swept away. Just look at this video. The body of a woman was found this morning after she was swept from her car. Hundreds of people had to evacuate because of, well, it's pretty apparent -- because of the flooding. A cruise ship trapped at sea because Sydney's dock was shut down has finally reached the shore. Passengers so seasick they couldn't leave their cabins. You almost get seasick just watching the video, those poor people.

BERMAN: Not a sight I would like to see or be a part of.

Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, no one puts Dr. Oz in the corner. Wait until you see how he is firing back at a group of physicians who are calling on him to resign from Columbia University.

BOLDUAN: A diplomatic chess match in the Middle East with lives at stake. A common denominator, Iran. Lots of developments overnight further complicating the already complex relationship there. What's the next move? Well, that is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: This morning, the crisis in Yemen is boiling over. Saudi Arabia is bombing the rebel Houthi group in Yemen. The Houthis are trying to take over more portions of the country after really overthrowing the government there. The United States is deploying warships to the waters off the coast of Yemen to keep an eye on Iranian vessels that could be transporting arms to the Houthis.

Last night, President Obama outlined the message that he says he's trying to send the Iranians in an interview with MSNBC. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[11:15:02] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we've said to them is, is that if there are weapons delivered to factions within Yemen that could threaten navigation, that's a problem. And we're not sending them obscure messages. We send them very direct messages about it. (END VIDEOC LIP)

BERMAN: All right, now as this is all happening, the U.S. and its allies are sitting down with Iran today in Vienna for a fresh round of talks on the nuclear deal. And on top of all of that, U.S. drones targeted al Qaeda militants in Yemen overnight. That's a complicated mess here.

Want to bring in Bobby Ghosh, CNN global affairs analyst and managing editor of Quartz. And Bobby, it's good you're here to help us break this down into small digestible parts. And I know Kate wants to talk about Iran. But before we get to the small, I want to talk about the big here. Because the range of things going on right now is simply staggering. You have the Saudis bombing when they said they wouldn't, the Houthis attacking when they said they wouldn't. U.S. warships watching Iranian ships in the Gulf just off the coast there, the nuclear negotiations, and now these drone strikes on al Qaeda.

If you're in the White House right now, how do you juggle this mess?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, that's the question they're going to have to answer 00 and not just this week or not just today. Going forward. This is the new reality of the Middle East, a very complicated process, a place that just got a magnitude more complicated, in part because of the more aggressive role that Iran is playing.

And this is how every White House going forward is going to have to deal with this crisis. You have a situation of a country that's in chaos and everybody, including us, wants to take advantage of the chaos to suit our own security understanding and need.

So the drone strikes against al Qaeda is part of that. There's chaos in the country, we saw this opportunity to take out -- the U.S. saw this opportunity to take out some al Qaeda people, and it took the opportunity. The Iranians are trying to do the same thing. They're seeing an opportunity to mess with the Saudis, their traditional rivals. They are trying to take that opportunity.

A lot of opportunities have been going on in a place that -- and the one thing that very few people are thinking about is about the poor Yemenis. Nobody really, unfortunately, seems to care very much for the damage being done to what is already one of the poorest, most desperately poor countries in the world.

BOLDUAN: And with all of this opportunism playing out, as you mentioned, there's also -- change your focus to Vienna where the diplomatic talks over the nuclear program are happening, over Iran's nuclear program is happening.

The White House says, and said today, that they can essentially walk and chew gum at the same time. They can have nuclear talks. They an continue those talks while not rubber-stamping the other actions of Iran on this end. But how can what's going on in Yemen and the role that Iran is playing there, how can it not impact what's going on in Vienna? They say that it essentially isn't. Do you believe it? GHOSH: Well, it can't not be part of their thinking. At least the

negotiators -- never mind the official positions. The human beings who are sitting on either side of that table, it's got to be in their consciousness when they look at each other and talk.

So far, this is not the first time Iran has sort of projected power in the Middle East. Throughout the period of these talks, Iran has been doing stuff in Iraq, they've been doing -- they supported Bashar Al Assad, supposedly our enemy. So we've seen that, throughout these talks, they have managed to isolate themselves from the rest of the world and continued.

And by the way, that is how Iran wants it. In Switzerland, all they want to talk about is the nukes because they don't want all this other stuff getting into the conversation. That would get in their way. What do they want from these talks? They want the sanctions to end. If all these other conversations enter the picture, it complicates things and the end of sanctions get delayed. They don't want us talking about any of these other things.

Now, the Obama administration and the other western powers have made a conscious decision that that's OK, that they've agreed to not bring up all other Iran's misbehavior into that conversation. Once that decision was made years ago, then we kind of set ourselves on a particular course with these talks. We painted ourselves into a corner here. We're not going to be able now, at this late stage, to say, well, let's put aside the nukes for a moment and talk about what you're doing in Yemen. They can so no, we agreed that you won't do that.

BERMAN: Yes, interesting. Sort of the elephant in the room. In this case, a civil war in the room. Didn't even touch on Jason Rezaian, and the "Washington Post" bureau chief in prison right there with apparently no relief in sight. But Bobby Ghosh, thanks for being with us to help try to understand parts of it. Thanks, Bobby.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Bobby. And that's why there's a lot of -- well, there is like a lot of criticism coming, understandably, from Republicans coming at this foreign policy position by the Obama administration. But that's why they've had it coming at them.

BERMAN: Up next for us, French authorities bust a 24 year old plotting they say a terror attack.

[11:20:02] We have remarkable details on how he was caught and remarkable details about what this guy was planning and the arsenal he'd amassed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Just in a short time ago, a terror plot thwarted in France. French authorities arrested a 24-year-old Algerian man who they say was plotting to attack churches there. They found heavy weapons, ammunition, and a bulletproof vests in his car and in his home. BOLDUAN: The officials there, they have not released the suspect's

name but they say that he's a computer science student who had plans to go to Syria and had been in communication with al Qaeda and ISIS. They also say that the student was involved in the killing, they believe, of a 32-year-old woman whose body was found Sunday.

Let's bring in CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson with much more on this. So prosecutors there were trying to lay out some more details that they have, Nic. First off, how did they end up apprehending this guy in the first place?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I guess that's kind of the most shocking thing about it and it also makes you realize how lucky the French authorities were and the French people were. He was picked up because, believe it or not, had shot himself and had called an ambulance. When the police arrived there, because he'd been under investigation in 2014 and earlier this year, they realized that he was a person of interest. Then they searched his vehicle, then they found all the weapons, the Kalashnikov, the magazines of ammunition, the pistol, the cell phone, three cell phones, a computer, the flak jackets and again more weapons when they went to his house.

[11:25:00] But one of the key things that's emerging from this is he hadn't just been in communication with people inside Syria. According to the French prosecutor, a man in Syria had directed him to attack a French church. And that French church was on the satnav in the car when he was arrested. So if he hadn't shot himself, you've really got to worry and wonder what might have happened.

BERMAN: Yes, a few things here that are fascinating, Nic. First of all, the idea of just who the French are following and not following hugely significant after the attacks at Charlie Hebdo in January. People have slipped off the radar there that perhaps shouldn't have. So the fact that they had their eye on this guy and they knew to follow up very quickly here perhaps significant for them. The fact that there was direct contact from Syria, as you say, shows a level of coordination here perhaps not seen before. And the fact that there were GPS coordinates already programmed into his car, very alarming.

ROBERTSON: All of this is going to be a concern. I mean, we've heard from the French president, we've heard from the French prime minister today, who both said essentially France is under a high threat like so many other countries. We're extra vigilant. This man had been observed by the police. They'd talked to him before or they were aware of details about him. But as early as a few months ago, they judged him not to be an immediate threat and that's where you have to ask, OK, what is the lapse in intelligence here? Here's a man who we now know has four Kalashnikovs, a lot of ammunition, and a clear plan and intent. Yet just a few months ago he was essentially not deemed to be a specific threat.

The president of France of course praising the police who realized quickly not only do you have a guy here who shot himself but actually we recognize that he's somebody that we're interested in, and that's why the police say he wasn't allowed to get off and just get a ride to a hospital, get treatment for the gunshot wound.

BOLDUAN: Sure seems like he was close to doing whatever -- putting his plan into play.

BERMAN: Now they got to pull on that thread to find it back to Syria, see if there's anyone else involved, or anyone else who may be a cause for concern as well. Nic Robertson, thanks so much.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Nic.

Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, anger boiling over in Baltimore. Protesters demanding to know what happened while Freddie Gray was in police custody that ultimately led to his death. Congressman Elijah Cummings has lived there for decades. What he is now calling on police and city officials to do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)