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Russia to Deploy Missile Defense in Syria; Russian Search Helicopter Hit, 1 Dead; Worldwide Travel Alert Ahead of Thanksgiving Holiday; Hundreds Protest Over Video of Police Shooting in Chicago; Ringleader Planned Second Strike; Bush: Trump Preys on People's Fears. Aired 9 -9:30a ET
Aired November 25, 2015 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:01] CUOMO: Absolutely. And he showed that he is not his limitations. He showed that you are what you want to be almost all of the time. Good for him.
PEREIRA: Well done.
CAMEROTA: So cool. Great message before Thanksgiving.
PEREIRA: Yes.
CAMEROTA: Time now for "NEWSROOM" --
CUOMO: That's what I'm talking about.
CAMEROTA: -- with Carol Costello.
PEREIRA: Happy Thanksgiving.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I know. But those pictures of that young man make me not want to eat turkey.
(LAUGHTER)
PEREIRA: No. It's protein. It's OK.
CAMEROTA: You just work out afterwards.
CUOMO: Let me see the double biceps, Carol.
COSTELLO: That's true -- OK. I'll work out and then turkey is protein. It'll build by muscle.
PEREIRA: Exactly.
CAMEROTA: Bingo.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO: Have a great day. And happy Thanksgiving early.
NEWSROOM starts now. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM. A rally cry on the streets of Chicago after police released this dash cam video. A white officer charged with first-degree murder for allegedly shooting a black teenager 16 times.
ANITA ALVAREZ, COOK COUNTY STATE'S ATTORNEY: This officer went overboard, you know. And he abused his authority.
COSTELLO: This morning the officer's lawyer speaks out.
Also tensions ratchet up after a Russian fighter jet is shot down in Turkey. What's Russia's next move?
Plus nothing says Thanksgiving like turkey, floats and dirty bomb detectors.
BILL BRATTON, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: We are prepared to protect this city. We are prepared to protect our officers and members of the department. We are prepared to protect the public.
COSTELLO: How concerned should you be this Thanksgiving?
Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
Russia says it will not wage war with Turkey but tensions and anger are spiking to dangerous levels. Just within the last couple of hours Russia's foreign minister says Turkey's shoot-down of its war plane appears to have been, quote, "a planned provocation."
This comes amid another troubling new development. Moscow rushes to deploy missiles to within 30 miles of the Turkish border.
CNN's Matthew Chance is in Moscow. Our Becky Anderson is in Istanbul, Turkey with more.
Welcome to both of you. Becky, I want to start with you. Russia is sending a missile defense system that can take out planes to Syria. ISIS has no planes. So who is Russia targeting?
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is a sign if ever there was one of the risks of a further escalation, Carol. Russia had of course already announced it was cutting all military ties with Turkey and will have fighter jets accompany its aircraft in all future sorties in Syria. And the deployment of this advanced S- 400 air defense missiles would allow the Russian military to target planes, as I understand it, flying up to a height of about 6,000 meters and within 600 kilometers or 400 miles of their base on the Syrian coast. So it certainly looks as though Moscow ramping up its defense.
Against who, though, that would be pure speculation at this point. No official response from Ankara to the words of Sergey Lavrov accusing Turkey of downing the jet in a planned provocation. But as you rightly point out, we've heard some quite conciliatory lines out of Turkey today saying they don't want to escalate the situation and being encouraged to deescalate it by the U.S. and NATO. But certainly we're still hearing an awful lot of noise out of Russia at this point -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Becky Anderson, thank you.
Matthew, there is confusion over exactly who died in this shoot-down incident. We've heard the two Russian pilots were killed along with a Russian marine who tried to rescue the pilots. Sort that out for us. Is that true?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know there's been one survivor. One of the crew members of the Sukhoi 24 aircraft that was shot out of sky by Turkish interceptors. That has now been recovered by the Russians in a joint special forces operation with the Syrian military, we're told by the Russians.
His name is Captain Murakhtin and he's being awarded the highest military honor that Russia has, the Hero of Russia medal, and he's now apparently safely back at the airbase that Russia has in Latakia, in Syria.
Obviously the pilot of the Sukhoi 24 was killed. We understand they both ejected safely from the aircraft but the pilot was killed on his way down in his parachute after rebels on the ground fired at him. And that his body's whereabouts -- his body has not been recovered as far as we're aware.
But in the search and rescue operation that followed, a couple of Russian helicopters were deployed to try and find the airmen. They also came under fire. One of the helicopters was forced to ditch. And one infantryman, a Marine, on board was also killed. And he's also being awarded a high level military honor as well. And so it was a very deadly day indeed in terms of losses for the Russians -- their first losses I should say since they began its intervention in Syria.
[09:05:03] COSTELLO: All right. Matthew Chance, Becky Anderson, thanks to both of you.
As the war on ISIS intensifies terror concerns here in the United States are growing. Those concerns now forcing New York City police to enforce some of the most intense security since the attacks on 9/11. All of this as preparations get underway for the big Thanksgiving Day Parade. That's where NYPD officials say they will use especially trained dogs to detect explosives, radiation detectors that will search for dirty bombs. And for the first time ever there will be officers from the department's new Counterterrorism Unit.
Here's New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRATTON: People should have no fear. What we would ask, though, awareness. Awareness of -- in terms of the restrictions as far as getting into the area, traffic concerns certainly. And just the very large crowds and work with us. Work with us on the crowd management and crowd control. And if there is something that they see that makes them feel uncomfortable certainly make us aware of it and we can very quickly check it out with a very large numbers of personnel that will have that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: In the meantime, with the worldwide traveler in effect,. expect heightened security at airports across the country.
CNN's Jason Carroll is at LaGuardia this morning with more. Good morning, Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Carol. You know, I've seen it really busy here at LaGuardia sometimes in the past but despite that worldwide travel alert, and the TSA doubling down on security, things seemed to be moving pretty smoothly down here. You can take a look at the security line. These two girls just passing through here, they just came in through Detroit. They told me the lines in Detroit were very long. The lines here in New York not bad at all despite it being one of the busiest travel days of the year.
Between now and Sunday, Carol, some 3.6 million are expected to fly. That travel alert does not say U.S. citizens should not fly, or avoid travel but it does say that they should use extra vigilance when coming through, public areas, or in using public transport. But again talking to some of the travelers who are out here earlier today they did tell me that that travel alert is definitely in the back of their minds.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Certainly I think everybody is a little concerned but I also feel like security has been stepped up so much that hopefully we're well-protected.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel fine. I feel like if we get scared and don't do it, then they win. So very, very comfortable.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We appreciate the security. Because I know that it's for our own good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: And Carol, just to give an example of how long some of the lines can get, I've been here at LaGuardia sometimes where the line has actually wrapped itself all the way down that long hallway there before you can get to the security checkpoint up here.
So again, folks out here are telling us that they are expecting the lines to pick up a little later on this afternoon. But for now things seem to be moving along quite smoothly -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Jason Carroll reporting live from LaGuardia this morning.
Anger, outrage and a sense of betrayal. Hundreds of protesters flooding city streets after Chicago police release violent dash cam video of a 17-year-old African-American teenager being shot by a white police officer 16 times.
Today, Jason Van Dyke, a veteran officer of the Chicago force is charged with murder. He's being held without bond.
The video we're about to show is from last year when that shooting took place. And I want to warn you it's tough to watch.
These are the final moments of McDonald's life. He moves down the street towards police vehicles as officers draw their weapons. And that's when Officer Van Dyke appears to fire his gun. McDonald falls to the ground as bullets continue to pierce his body.
Authorities say Van Dyke fired the first shots just six seconds after getting out of his police vehicle. It is important to note, while McDonald did have a knife, at no point does he appear to charge officers.
Van Dyke's lawyer tells CNN, though, his client fear for his life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN HERBERT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: He truly was in fear for his life as well as the lives of his fellow police officers. His actions were justified. The video alone, it's not enough to make the determination that -- that one officer's perspective was the same as my client's because video, no matter how clear it is, there are problems with video. And most important I think is the fact that video by its nature is two dimensional. And it distorts images. So what appears to be clear on the video sometimes is not always that clear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Stephanie Elam is in Chicago this morning with more. Good morning.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This is a video that people have been wanting to see for months. It's been over a year since this happened. But it was because of a journalist's request that the judge ruled that the video had to be released and that is why we are now seeing it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[09:10:04] ELAM (voice-over): Demonstrators converged on Chicago streets by the hundreds, outraged over this graphic police dash cam video showing Laquan McDonald being shot by a single officer 16 times in October of last year. The disturbing footage shows McDonald falling to the ground after being shot then hit multiple times while on the ground.
SUPT. GARY F. MCCARTHY, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT: The officer in this case took a young man's life. And he's going to have account for his actions.
ELAM: The 37-year-old officer, Jason Van Dyke, is charged with first- degree murder and has been taken off the Chicago police payroll. For now he's being held without bond. Van Dyke's lawyer says his client feared for his life.
HERBERT: It is truly not a murder case and we feel that we're going to very successful in defending this case.
ELAM: On the night Laquan was fatally shot, investigators say McDonald was wielding a knife with a three inch blade, which he allegedly used to slash the tire of a police car. Police say when McDonald, who had PCP in his system, ignored orders to drop the knife, Van Dyke fired 16 rounds.
ALVAREZ: Officer Van Dyke was on the scene for less than 30 second before he started shooting. In addition to the fact that all evidence indicates that he began shooting approximately six seconds after getting out of his vehicle.
ELAM: City officials have been prepping for mass demonstrations in the wake of the video's release, calling for peaceful protests.
MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, CHICAGO: This opportunity for healing begins now.
ELAM: Late Tuesday, dozens locked arms in solidarity, blocking off an intersection and Interstate 94. Officers made some arrests, but tense moments between the crowd and police never escalated out of control.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ELAM: Now those protests did spread into the early morning hours here in Chicago but nothing like what we saw last year in Ferguson. And there are some stark differences here. You have the fact that the officer has been charged and he's in custody and the fact that the city paid the family of Laquan McDonald $5 million back in April. A very different set of circumstances than what we saw with maybe the catalyst of this latest movement with the death of Mike Brown -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Stephanie Elam reporting live from Chicago. Thanks.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the ringleader of the Paris attacks might have been just hours from launching a second wave of terror. Chilling new details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:16:39] COSTELLO: In Paris, haunting new revelations emerge and send a collective chill throughout the city. Investigators say that when the ring leader of the attack, Abdelhamid Abaaoud died in a police raid, he was deep into planning a second wave of terror and they have been just within hours of launching those attacks.
CNN's Jim Bittermann is in Paris with more for you.
Hi, Jim.
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Carol. Yes, it looks like police just barely avoided a second or third tragedy here with this thwarted attack.
Basically when they attacked the apartment Abaaoud was killed in the attack. But when they sifted through the debris, they found in there a couple of suicide belts, explosive suicide belts, as well as disguises, which they believe were going to be used to attack a commercial center which you can probably see about a mile back behind me -- a big commercial district in Paris called Le Defense, as well as a shopping center. That's what they believe the targets were from the various phone intercepts that they had. So, it was a very narrowly was tragedy averted.
The other thing that is interesting they found out in tracing Abaaoud's movements is that after the Friday the 13th attacks on the theater and the various restaurants and whatnot, he apparently went past the scenes in the moments after the attacks and is believed that he was perhaps the source of the video that we have seen in the propaganda videos from ISIS, the source of video right after the attacks that he was actually filming the scenes after the attacks. Very chilling news indeed, Carol.
COSTELLO: We're also hearing that French investigators are looking into the transit workers in Paris. Can you tell us about that?
BITTERMANN: Well, one of the things that they have discovered is that one of those people involved in the attack at the theater have been driving a bus on the streets of Paris for the transit authority up until 2012 when he tried to go to Yemen. It's not clear why he was going to Yemen, but one can presume it was to get some training or perhaps to meet with al Qaeda or something like that.
As a consequence, he was taken off the city roles and not allowed to drive the bus anymore. But this has also put a bit of nervousness in everyone responsible for transportation. They're going through their files, as they have been doing at the airport, to check and see, to make sure that they have no one in the special surveillance list that the intelligence services had. They have no one in their employ who might be able to somehow disrupt transportation.
We talked to president of Air France about this the other day, and here's what he had to say about how the system works.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEXANDRE DE JUNIAC, CEO, AIR FRANCE: They have a nexus to the field which is given by a badge which is controlled by the police or gendarmerie, or the authorities. And if there is a dot on the person, this badge is withdrawn, and so, he has no access anymore to the tarmac, which is I think the most efficient measure. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BITTERMANN: And the president of Air France said as far as he knows, there is no one in the employ of Air France at the moment that has been on the terrorist watch list. However, according to the head of the airport's gendarmerie, the police of the airport, basically, they have said -- he said that they'd be -- they have taken away 10 of these access badges since the beginning of the year.
[09:20:05] So, they obviously have some suspicious employees out there they want to keep an eye on -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Jim Bittermann reporting live from Paris -- thank you.
The Paris attack, terrorism, a concern at the top of the agenda for the men and women running for president. For the first time, Melania Trump campaigned alongside her husband in South Carolina.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELANIA TRUMP, WIFE OF CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP: He will be the best president ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Mr. Trump then slammed the media, called President Obama a divider, Hillary Clinton weak, and Jeb Bush boring. And he had advice on how Americans can protect themselves against homegrown terrorists.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, if you are Muslim, I know so many, they are so great, they are such good people, but we have to be smart because it's coming from this area. I mean, there is something going on. There's some nastiness, there's some meanness there. There is something going on in mosques.
But you people, and me and everybody, you know when somebody moves to an apartment near you, or to a house near you, you're pretty smart, right? We know if there's something going -- report them. Most likely you'll be wrong and that's OK. But let the local police go in and check out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Trump's opponents have had enough of that kind of talk. They are strongly pushing back now. Jeb Bush was on "NEW DAY" this morning.
CNN's Athena Jones is covering that.
Good morning.
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Listening to Jeb Bush talk about Donald Trump over the last couple months, he's clearly sounded exasperated, maybe a bit surprised by Trump's rise and his continued successes. Well, this morning on "NEW DAY", he frankly sounded fed up with Trump's rhetoric. He's been arguing over the last couple of days, Bush has, that Trump is preying on people's fears, appealing to their anger.
Take a listen to what he had to say about Trump on "NEW DAY" this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, Donald Trump says these things to prey on people's fears, their anger, their frustration with Washington. He's quite effective at it. But he doesn't know what he's talking about and he's not a serious leader.
We're living in difficult times. We need serious leadership to be able to solve the problems we have domestically and lead America around the world so that we can create peace and security for ourselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: And Bush also says that appealing to people's anger and fears is not going to work as the campaign tactic over the long haul. He argues that he's the one with the proven leadership skills, the executive experience, the ability to beat Hillary Clinton in a general election and that voters will eventually come around for him in time for him to begin to surge in the polls and eventually win the Republican nomination.
But, Carol, we all know that so far, that message is not really resonating with Republican primary voters. The message that is resonating is Trump's tough talk. And we've seen over and over again, that that tough talk from Trump is helping him -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones, reporting live. Thank you.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM: protesters march over new video of a black teenager shot and killed by a white police officer. But the officer's attorney says his client's actions were justified.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:27:33] COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me -- 16 shots in 15 seconds. That is how many times a white Chicago police officer fired on a 17-year-old African American teenager, ultimately taking his life.
Overnight protests erupted in the city streets after police released dashcam video from the shooting. Now, it's important to point out, while crowds did block intersections, those demonstrations were largely peaceful.
Today, veteran officer Jason Van Dyke is behind bars. He's charged with murder. Earlier today, Van Dyke's attorney defended his client's actions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN HERBERT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The video alone, it's not enough to make the determination that one officer's perspective was the same as my clients, because video, no matter how clear it is, there are problems with video. Most important I think is the fact that video by its nature is two dimensional and it distorts images. So, what appears to be clear on the video sometimes is not always that clear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Joining me now to talk about all of this, CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Danny Cevallos. I'm also joined by Illinois state representative and community activist, Representative Elgie Sims.
Thanks to both of you for being here.
You'll notice I didn't show the video at the top because the video is so horrible to look at. But I feel like I have to show a little bit of it so we can talk about it.
So, I'm going to show the video up to the point that this teenager fell to the ground.
So, all of this happened because this young man was walking down the middle of the street. Supposedly, he was breaking into cars. He was armed with a three-inch blade. The officer opened fire within 30 seconds of arriving at the scene. It didn't appear in any way that this young man was charging police.
Danny, is there any defense for this police officer?
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: What I expect that we're going to see in terms of a defense is that given that the video does show the shooting, it is from a distance. And this officer is likely going to articulate some kind of fear of his safety or the brother officer's safety, maybe some furtive movement and they're going to cite a very common defense when you talk to use of force experts, which is that a person can cover a great distance in a relatively short period of time, a matter of seconds. The fact that this person has a knife, it's a weapon and that is what he's going to -- this movement led me to believe that I needed to use lethal force.
