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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Arrest Made in Road Rage Incident; Fighting ISIS; ISIS Grows Presence, Builds Strength in Libya; Interview with U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas

Aired February 19, 2015 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: (In progress) lead -- we have been watching this police standoff in Las Vegas unfold moment by moment.

The Las Vegas Police Department just announced they have taken a suspect into custody, and he is en route to police headquarters. The Las Vegas Police Department had been in a tactical phase, working to take the suspect into custody. The man, police say, was inside a house. Authorities say he had something to do with the killing of 44- year-old Tammy Meyers, that mother of four who was killed in that road rage incident on Valentine's Day that went the worst possible way.

This standoff today took place only blocks away from where Meyers and her family lived. Just what role this man who is now in custody played, we do not know right now. Police will not say if they believe this man was the gunman.

You see the police sketch of the suspect from the Valentine's Day road rage shooting in Las Vegas right there on your screen. What we do know about the suspect is this. He is described as in his 20s to 30s, has spiky blond hair, medium build, 6 feet tall.

And when Tammy Meyers was shot and killed, he wore a white V-neck T- shirt. Now, a distraught woman claiming that the man in this house that we were looking at a second ago, if we can put that image right back, is her son, he said he has threatened to harm himself. The husband of the woman left dead in the shooting is watching all of this unfold right before his eyes at the scene. And he was understandably very emotional. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MEYERS, WIDOWER OF TAMMY MEYERS: Are you all happy? You made my wife look like an animal and my son. There's the animal a block away! Are you happy?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The widower of Tammy Meyers understandably very upset with some of the media coverage that has suggested that his wife was responsible, playing a role in her death.

I want to go right now to CNN's Sara Sidner, who is at the scene in Las Vegas.

Sara, you just spoke to a woman who saw much of the police activity going on. What did she tell you? What are you learning?

(CROSSTALK)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here's what's happening right now, Jake.

TAPPER: OK. Go.

SIDNER: Yes, I'm here. Here's what's happening now, Jake.

You're not seeing me because that is a couple of members of the family very upset with how this story has unfolded, upset with what's happening on social media, upset with what the reporters have been saying, because obviously, there has been a lot of frustration with the initial story, the family not revealing certain details and then police revealing that, indeed, Tammy Meyers and her son tracked down the suspect after they were indeed safe back in their home.

And there has been a lot of criticism and the family is very upset because they say, look, we are grieving, we just lost our mother of four and we don't understand why people are being so mean and hateful towards us when we are the victims of a homicide.

I want to show you the scene now. I apologize for doing a bit of walking here. But we're just trying to get you some news. This is where the suspect was. If you look just down the street here, you see the police tape. We are one block from where all of this happened today, where police surrounded the home the suspect was in.

TAPPER: We have lost contact with our satellite there with Sara Sidner. We will bring her back as soon as we get that up and running.

I want to go right now to Chris Voss on the phone. He's a former FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator and perhaps can shed some light on how police were apparently able to get this suspect to come out of his house in what was described as a standoff, but, thankfully, it is one that does not appear to have ended with any violence at all.

Chris, what is the initial challenge when police find a suspect and he is unwilling to come out peacefully? What is the next step?

CHRIS VOSS, FORMER FBI HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: Well, a lot of it has to do with exactly how the incident has unfolded, you know, whether it's planned, prepared for or spontaneous. There are really three types of incidents.

And this would have been somewhat spontaneous, which has a tendency to be a little shorter in duration. The suspect would have been seeing all this play out in the media and he didn't intentionally barricade himself. But once police caught up with him, the fact that he came out really quickly is not -- relatively quickly, is not terribly unusual because it caught him off guard and he was probably remorseful over what happened.

TAPPER: And what do police say in a situation like this where somebody is refusing to come out and the standoff could potentially become dangerous, potentially, the suspect has firearms, obviously is not in an emotional state where he is necessarily listening to reason?

How can police change that to get the person to put down any gun that he or she might have and to come out willingly and surrender?

VOSS: Well, that's a good point. And the real -- the critical issue in these situations is really the subject's will to live.

And what they will say from the very beginning is the common ground in this negotiation, if you will, is that both sides want the subject to live. And they will start out by saying, telling him that -- the negotiator will say, I'm here to make sure you get out of this safely and I'm your way to get out of this safely.

And it's very hard for the subject to disagree with that if he wants to live. Now, where it goes from there, the negotiator just needs to be very patient, somewhat relentless, and be very clear about the fact that they're not leaving. They're not going to go away and they are going to stay for as long as it takes. It's really a matter of...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: What's the tone that the police take on? Is it friendly, is it, hey, I'm your buddy, I want you to live, let's figure out a way to get you out of this house so that this all ends peacefully, or is it more combative than that?

VOSS: No, actually, it's a very specific tone of voice. And we actually refer to it as the late-night FM deejay.

You have to be really soothing and really calm. And what it does is, it actually injects calm in people when they hear that voice.

TAPPER: Late night FM deejay, that is actually a term of art for hostage negotiators and standoff negotiators?

VOSS: It is. It is. And, actually, like, these days, they refer to as the late-night FBI deejay, but, yes, that's what we use.

TAPPER: All right. Let's go back. Thank you so much, Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator, international negotiator.

I want to go back to Sara Sidner, who is on the scene. And apparently our satellite is back up and running.

Sara, let's start again. Walk us through the day. And, first of all, just clear something up for us. How far exactly is this potential suspect's house from the Meyers home? Is it just a street or two over?

SIDNER: It is one street over, fast enough, by the way, for Robert Meyers as we saw earlier today to walk from his house in two minutes and end up at the other house where police were having a standoff.

At the time, he was visibly shaken, he was talking about somebody killing his wife, he was seriously, seriously teared up and talking to police and very angry as well as sad. It was really hard to watch this person who just lost the love of his life and the mother of his four children find out that it turns out it was someone who was right next door, right one street over that is involved in this homicide.

Now, I want to clear something up as well. We do now know from a detective who just talked to us two minutes ago that the suspect they have been after and the suspect is -- and is considered involved with this homicide, this road rage incident, that suspect is in custody now. We do now know that.

They have taken him into custody. There was -- no one was hurt. He has been taken in. We heard from a neighbor that police were here a couple of days ago and that she saw police at the same house a couple of days ago. We also know, Jake, that the mother of the suspect, she came by us, she was visibly upset. She was very worried for her son, saying that she believed that he was going to do something to himself, that he was distraught and that she really wanted to get to him, a very raw scene out here.

But right now, we know that the Meyers family is well aware that the suspect has been taken into custody. I want to remind our viewers that there were three people in the car. Police say they believe there were three people in that car that passed by Tammy Meyers and ended up shooting and killing her. We don't know if the person they have taken into custody is indeed the shooter. They will not make that clear.

We have asked police time and again, is this the person responsible for shooting and killing Tammy Meyers? And the response was he was involved in the homicide, but we cannot give you any other information but that -- Jake.

TAPPER: So the individual might be theoretically one of the three people in the car, but not necessarily the person who had the gun who fired the fatal shots that killed Tammy Meyers.

Let's bring in CNN legal analyst Paul Callan. Sara, stay right there. We are going to go back to you in a second.

I would imagine, Paul, that your recommendation to whoever the police have taken into custody is, do not say a word, get a lawyer.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Oh, absolutely. That's the advice all attorneys I think give to their clients in this kind of situation.

This is a complex situation. Defense lawyers will be looking at, believe it or not, whether there's a self-defense claim. We don't know who the actual shooter is. So, in most states, Jake, there's a doctrine called acting in concert or, as we're seeing in the Hernandez case in Massachusetts, the joint venture doctrine, so that all people in the car could theoretically be guilty of the offense.

So lawyers and, of course, law enforcement authorities will be looking at all of those things.

TAPPER: And, of course, police will be looking to get, assuming this person is not the one who fired the shots -- and we do not know at this point -- police will be looking to get him -- it was a man, I believe, who was arrested earlier -- to give the entire story and, if they need to, perhaps offer him a deal.

CALLAN: Yes. And that's frequently done.

I wouldn't expect to see that happen immediately, though. This is a breaking story and it's a breaking story for law enforcement as well. And they may be able to put this together without having to offer him a deal, because, remember, they don't know who they're dealing with at this point.

And the thing that prosecutors always worry about is that he's the shooter and they are making a deal with him. And that can happen sometimes if you act prematurely. So, I would expect a careful investigation here before they start making deals.

TAPPER: We also have CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos standing by.

Danny, this is obviously a case that a lot of people have found fascinating, found horrifying. As somebody who analyzes a lot of different legal cases that have jumped into the media's attention, why do you think this one has gotten so much attention?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Certainly, the initial reports were that mother came home, got son with a firearm and then -- again, this is according to initial reports -- may have gone out looking for trouble.

Now, that seems completely opposite of what we are now hearing from the Meyers husband, but then again, the only narrative we have heard at this point appears to come only from Meyers sources. I suspect that if we talk to any of these suspects, they are going to tell a totally opposite story.

But, ultimately, when we talk about self-defense and the initial aggressor and whether or not someone retreated, this will all hinge upon who fired the shots and who fired them first, because I also suspect, building on Paul's talk earlier, that if the suspects ever talk, I wouldn't be surprised if each one of them, if we ever ascertain who the three people in the car were, will point the finger at each other and each individually might say, I had no idea there even was a gun, which they may find, unfortunately for those suspects, under theories of either joint venture or conspiracy, in most states, if the state has evidence of intent among the co-conspirators or the other suspects, they can and possibly will charge defendants if they think they all acted in concert.

TAPPER: All right, Danny, I want to go to Sara Sidner to button this up.

Sara, I want to show the map that we have that shows the school where Tammy Meyers was giving her daughter driving lessons, Walter Johnson Junior High School. It was on that way back to their home, that 0.3 miles where there was this incident where somebody was honking at somebody and somebody got mad at somebody and now we are in this situation where people are being arrested for the murder of the mother.

It is all just such a tragedy and for no reason, for idiotic instances of road rage. And that's what makes this so sad. In so many ways, this was about nothing. It was about a moment of emotion.

SIDNER: That's a really good way to put it, Jake. And I think the thing about this story that has everyone sort of watching it is that we have all felt those moments of anger on the road, right?

None of us are immune. And so in this instance, it just got completely out of control. We also need to remember, a lot of people are putting some of the blame on the family because they got out of that initial situation after the initial argument, after the initial near collision where the mother and daughter were together, the mother dropped the daughter off, according to police, then summoned her son, who was asleep at the time who grabbed his gun, got in the car and went back to look for the suspect. I don't know what happened in that second encounter because they did indeed somehow find the suspect.

But then they returned home. The suspect followed, according to police and that's when the gun battle happened. That's when the suspect shot and killed Tammy Meyers. One thing the family has said over and over again is that this never should have happened. For a stupid traffic incident, this never should have happened to this mother of four.

And I think we need to also have a bit of compassion. They just lost their mother, but social media has been going absolutely crazy talking about this family and saying how much they may have had a hand in inflaming the situation. And it really is, I think, a lesson for all of us, everyone who is out there on the roads, to really try to dial things down, because, if you ratchet it up, you just don't know who you're dealing with.

This is one of those cases that got completely out of control and now a mother of four has to be buried -- Jake.

TAPPER: Sara Sidner in Las Vegas, Paul Cruickshank, Danny Cevallos, thank you so much.

In our world lead today: U.S. warplanes unloading on ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq. How soon could they, could they be dropping bombs on yet another country under siege by the terrorist group of ISIS? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

In our world lead right now, ISIS showing more and more force inside Libya as President Obama says the battle against the terrorists is not a clash of civilizations but a war with psychopaths pretending to be Muslims. Today, closing a three-day summit on extremism hosted by the U.S. and attended by representatives of some 60 nations, the president firmly rebuffed the terrorists who claim that the West is waging a war against Islam. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The notion that the West is at war with Islam is an ugly lie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: An ugly lie.

But while the president's pleas for peaceful, more moderate, cooler heads to prevail, the very global fight against ISIS is ramping up. Today, Denmark committing $150 million to a new anti-terror plan that aims to stop attacks like the one in Copenhagen last weekend. Egypt already bombed ISIS inside Libya after the terrorist group posted that ghastly beach scenes where they executed 21 Egyptian Christians. And each day, ISIS puts out more propaganda, what the group calls evidence of its growing presence in Libya.

Let's go to CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto.

We have been reporting all week on ISIS making Libya a top priority. How concerned are U.S. national security and military officials right now?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Very concerned.

You know, we talked for awhile about ISIS building some sort of light new fledgling footprints outside of Iraq and Syria, but in Libya, we are now seeing much more. Eyewitnesses in Central Libya telling CNN of a 70-vehicle convoy of ISIS forces, fighters also taking positions over tall buildings, firing positions, clearly digging in and residents asking where is the Libyan government, where is the international community as ISIS is spreading further.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO (voice-over): ISIS under fire from the air. New Pentagon video shows an ISIS fighting position, staging area and building destroyed one by one.

Today, coalition defense ministers are meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss the war in the air. This is the battle against ISIS expanding to new fronts, with Egyptian war planes bombing ISIS positions in Libya, just days after ISIS brutally murdered Egyptian Christians on the Libyan coastline.

JEN PSAKI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESWOMAN: We have done thousands of air strikes. We are starting a train and equip program next month. We believe the military component is a very important component of taking fighters off the battlefield.

SCIUTTO: ISIS' answer to the coalition effort has been a series of new assaults, on Kurdish areas in northern Iraq and in the western province of Anbar. They are also making a show of force in the terror group's northern Iraqi stronghold of Mosul. Here, ISIS fighters under makeshift military training, an attempt at propaganda, perhaps, as Iraqi forces prepare for a springtime assault on the city.

Even under pressure of the U.S.-led campaign, ISIS recruiting remains strong. Here, a graduating class of newly trained fighters, some appearing barely in their teens in Iraq's Anbar province.

A steady stream of foreign fighters is fueling the group as well as recruiting within Syria, Iraq and new outposts in Libya, Yemen and beyond -- the result of a deft combination of money, ideology and often threats.

TOM SANDERSON, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: These guys know that there's a standing order to come to the defense of the caliphate of ISIS and to attack in place those who are attacking ISIS.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: I contacted a senior administration official who is at the defense ministers conference in Riyadh who tells me that among coalition members now, there is no current focus on expanding the military campaign beyond Iraq and Syria. But this is a difficult, an important question facing the White House and coalition partners as these ISIS bases abroad become not just bigger but more capable. I mean, when you see what they are doing in Libya right now, they are holding territory.

TAPPER: And that is literally hundreds of miles from Europe.

Jim Sciutto, thank you so much.

Let's bring in the Republican senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton. He sits on the Senate armed services committee and is also an army veteran. He did tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Senator Cotton, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate it.

SEN. TOM COTTON (R), ARKANSAS: Hi, Jake. Good to be on with you.

TAPPER: So, you have personally fought against these Islamic extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president said today this is not a clash of civilizations. In your experience, is that correct?

COTTON: Jake, it's not a clash of civilizations. The president seems so concerned to prove the West is not waging war on Islam, but he won't recognize the fact that radical Islamists are waging war on the West, and the United States as the leader of the West.

That's why this summit he just called over the last three days I think shows that he's not yet taking the threat seriously. To call it violent extremism and not to call it radical Islamic jihadists goes to show the president is underestimating our enemies. Just like when he called the Islamic state the jayvee team a year ago, or just last month when he talked to Vladimir Putin at the State of the Union for having been outfoxed by the president and other western leaders, now Vladimir Putin is in control of more territory in Ukraine than he was a month ago. Further, it emboldens our enemies the fact we won't call them by their

own name. It feeds into the myth that America is a paper tiger that won't confront the threat that they pose to us and defeat that threat militarily.

TAPPER: Well, Senator, I guess his argument is, if you will permit me to play devil's advocate, that if we as a country and the coalition call them Islamic extremists, then we are, (a), lending them the credibility of this religion that has billions of followers, most of whom believe in peace, and second of all, that what we are doing is we are then distancing ourselves from Muslims whom we need as allies.

Does he not have a point?

COTTON: Jake, I don't think the president has a point. The Islamic State doesn't need any credibility from Barack Obama. They get that from the successes they achieve in Iraq and Syria. They appear, to many radical Muslims all around the world, to be winning this war right now. People like a winner. That's the lesson Osama bin Laden taught in the 1990s when he said people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they root for the strong horse.

And as vicious as the Islamic State has been towards Jews and Christians, killing them, cutting off their heads, burning them alive, they are just as vicious to most Muslims in Iraq and Syria who are struggling under their yoke right now and whose -- where they are only expanding to gain more territory and control of more people.

The reason they are doing that is not because they are representative of the Muslim faith. The reason they are doing it is because they have more arms and weapons and more soldiers and no one is standing up to them. That's what this president needs to do.

TAPPER: Well, obviously we have troops in Iraq and fighter pilots dropping bombs, training Iraqis, working with other allied groups. What more do you think the coalition needs to be doing to defeat this enemy? Should there be American combat troops in Iraq and Syria? Should the U.S. be bombing Libya again?

COTTON: Jake, we certainly need to do a lot more than we are doing, because since we started this campaign in August, the Islamic State has only continued to expand. If you compare the amount of daily bombing activity since then to what George Bush did in the early days of Afghanistan or what Bill Clinton did over Kosovo, you would see the president and his west wing advisors are severely constraining the military.

As you rightly point out, we have thousands of troops back in Iraq right now. The Islamic State is only a few miles from them in some places by some reports. But if it's necessary to have an effective strategy to defeat the Islamic State that we put forward air controllers on the ground to help guide in more effective bombing campaigns or special operations forces, we have to be ready to do that. The Islamic State is certainly not taking options off the ground in Syria, Iraq or Libya or anywhere else. The United States should not either. TAPPER: So, I understand you don't think we should be taking options

off the table but are you calling for American combat forces in Iraq, even in Syria?

COTTON: Jake, I don't think it's an open question for dispute that we are not currently effectively waging this campaign in part because we don't have say forward air controllers on the ground or we are not doing enough to coordinate with the Iraqi army and the Kurdish militias. We are relying too much on Iran to fortify defenses against the Islamic State in Iraq and in western Syria.

So, if it's the best judgment of our military commanders that we need to increase our presence and need to increase the close air support we are providing for those troops on the ground, then that's what we have to be prepared to do. That's a question again for our military commanders but right now, the president is restricting them and choosing the targets out of the West Wing.

When I turn on the TV, I see big convoys of Islamic state fighters flying Islamic State flags and I want to know why we weren't attacking those. Why we aren't striking them with bombers or fighters. Why we don't have A-10s in the area to blow them off the ground.

Why are we not taking the gloves off our military so they can actually fight and defeat the Islamic State?

TAPPER: Senator Tom Cotton, thank you so much.

Some breaking news now: some information coming in from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department about that arrest made in that road rage incident that cost the life of a mother of four. We have a new image, new information coming in. We will bring that to you after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)