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Russia to Deploy Missile Defense in Syria; Interview with Rep. Brad Sherman; Hundreds Protest Over Video of Police Shooting in Chicago; Worldwide Travel Alert Ahead of Thanksgiving Holiday; Paris Attacks Ringleader Planned Second Strike; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 25, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:01] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've never heard anybody bringing a newborn. And I've been here for 25 years. To me I call him Baby Jesus already. So it'd be like a child is born. That's the way I look at it, in the manger of Holy Child Jesus Church.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Baby Jesus was taken to a hospital and he's said to be very healthy.

The next hour of CNN 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 tension and anger

are spiking to dangerous levels. This morning Russia's Foreign minister says Turkey's shootdown of its warplane appears to have been, quote, "a planned provocation."

This comes amid another troubling new development. Moscow rushing to deploy missiles to within 30 miles of the Turkish border.

CNN's Matthew Chance live in Moscow with more for us. Hi, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. That's right. These S-400 surface-to-air missiles are some of the most capable missiles in the world at the moment. So they'll certainly be able to escalate the conflict to Russia's advantage in the sense that no one will be able to fly in Syrian airspace while these missiles are operational. And that's obviously sucking the Russians further into the conflict in Syria.

It's just part of the response that Russia is making as a result of the shootdown of its SU-24 aircraft by Turkish forces yesterday. One of the pilots was killed apparently by rebels as he was parachuting to the ground. The other crew member, the navigator, has survived. And he's been speaking to state media. His name is Captain Constantine Murakhtin. He's been named by the Russian Defense Ministry.

He's been speaking to state media saying that there was no way that that airplane that he was flying in crossed over Turkish territory. He says there was no visual contact, no audio contact, no radio contacts with the Turks either.

Now that contradicts what the Turkish story was, which is that they tried to contact and warn this Russian aircraft 10 times over a five- minute period to exit Turkish airspace. That's something that is now being categorically denied by the one survivor of that airplane, that navigator who is now speaking to Russian state media -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Matthew Chance reporting live from Moscow this morning, thank you.

So let's talk about the tension between Turkey and Russia and what it will mean in the war on ISIS. With me now, Congressman Brad Sherman, he's a Democrat from California. He's also a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Welcome, sir.

REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: Good to be with you, Carol.

COSTELLO: So we know that Russia has been confrontational not only with Turkey but with U.S. aircraft as well. For example, back in June, a Russian fighter jet came within 10 feet of a U.S. Air Force plane in international airspace, and that was not the only incident.

Russia seems at the moment interested in flexing its muscle all over the world. So what should the United States and its allies do? SHERMAN: Well, in this case, it's, I think, and you laid out all the

reasons why we should be distrustful of Russia. In this case I think Turkey, at best, overreacted. If you look at what the Turks have released as their radar readout, this plane crossed a little strip of Turkish territory for nine seconds. From the moment it was on its way into Turkish territory, it was on its way out. There's a little strip. It flew over in nine seconds.

And for Turkey to attack the plane under those circumstances, that's -- that raises the blood pressure of everybody in the area unnecessarily. And I think Turkey will find that this was not a good move. I think Russia may be arming the PKK and other Kurdish elements. And I don't think we can lay on this and say because Putin illegally seized Crimea, that means that the Turks should look for any legal pretext to shoot down a Russian plane.

[10:05:03] COSTELLO: But still, at this moment, Russia is doing pretty much what it wants in Syria. The United States is doing pretty much what it wants in Syria. France is operating on its own. If we continue down this road with no clear leader in the fight against ISIS, aren't we wasting an opportunity?

SHERMAN: Well, it's going to be very hard to put together American leadership when people are pushing in other directions. The United States wants to go after ISIS, but we don't want to empower Assad. Turkey wants to take out Assad. And there are secondary goals to take care of ISIS. Russia wants to protect Assad. And their secondary or at least claimed secondary goal is to take out ISIS. It's very hard to lead when people are going in different directions.

COSTELLO: So -- but, again, who should take the lead in this? Who should lay down the law about how we operate in the fight against ISIS? Doesn't some country need to do that?

SHERMAN: I -- need to. We live in a world where we don't always get what we want. And the idea that America will step forward and compel everyone or persuade everyone to adopt our objectives and to follow our rules is -- you know, that's Donald Trump on a political platform, but that's not how you can conduct things. The fact is we can work --

COSTELLO: But, sir, do you agree -- what is the United States' plan to defeat ISIS? Can you articulate it for me?

SHERMAN: Well, first of all, we've had some successes. We've taken back some territory and we've prevented ISIS --

COSTELLO: Well, I'm talking about the plan. What is the plan?

SHERMAN: We -- OK. Our plan, number one, is not to lose 4500 Americans the way we lost them in Iraq. The number two part of that plan is to force ISIS to contract territorially. The number three part of that plan is to protect the homeland from action. But to think that without huge American casualties, we can step into this complicated situation and achieve that total victory in the death of ISIS and its replacement by reasonable forces just because we have a plan, nobody has a plan that would achieve those goals. COSTELLO: Well, I think that many Americans wish someone would have a

plan.

SHERMAN: Well, I --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: And we all are on the same page with our allies, at least. Wouldn't that be great?

SHERMAN: We're on the same page with France. Turkey has a slightly different set. I mean, Turkey has moved in our direction on this. They used to deny our ability to use the NATO base at Incirlik. They used to allow, without impediment, ISIS fighters to cross their territory. So compared to what Turkey was doing on that front, they're a step better.

We are harmonizing with France and Turkey, but this is a difficult situation. And the number one thing to do is not to lose 4500 American service members, not to mention the wounded, not to mention the destroyed lives in an effort to somehow create an easy victory in what is a very complicated situation. We can push things in the right direction. We do not have control.

COSTELLO: All right. Congressman Brad Sherman, thanks so much for your insight this morning.

Now let's head to Chicago. Waves of angry protesters blocked city streets after police released 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 force, is charged with murder.

The video I'm about to show you is from last year when that shooting took place. And I want to warn you, it is very hard to watch.

These are the final moments of McDonald's life. He moves down the street toward police vehicles as officers draw their weapons. That's when Van Dyke appears to fire his gun. McDonald then falls to the ground there as more bullets hit his body. Authorities say Van Dyke fired the first shots just six seconds after getting out of his police vehicle. Van Dyke's lawyer, though, says his client acted in self- defense.

(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: CNN's Stephanie Elam live in Chicago with more for us. Good morning.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This incident happened on October 20th, 2014, over a year ago.

[10:10:04] And officials have said that it was part of an investigation into what happened between this 17-year-old and the officer. And that's why we haven't seen it. But a judge just ruled that now it needed to be made public, and so you can judge for yourself what you think as you see more of it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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: And while those protests did go on late into the night here in Chicago after this video was released, it was nothing like what we saw last year this week in Ferguson, a very different tone.

But there is one common thread that we are still seeing, Carol, and that is the discussion about how police interact with people of color. And that's what this is about. But different from Ferguson in the sense that we already know that the officer has been charged with first-degree murder and the fact that the city already settled with Laquan McDonald's family, paying them $5 million back in April.

COSTELLO: All right, Stephanie Elam reporting live for us this morning, thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a festive Thanksgiving Day tradition met with barricades, bomb-sniffing dogs and many, many extra police.

We'll talk about the Thanksgiving Day Parade next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:59] COSTELLO: As the war on ISIS intensifies, terror concerns here in the United States are growing, especially while preparations are under way for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. That's where NYPD officials say they will use specially trained dogs to detect explosives. Radiation detectors will search for dirty bombs. And for the first time there will be officers from the department's new counterterrorism unit on duty.

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 restrictions 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 we'll have there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: New York Police say that they will be some of the most intense security measures in place since the attacks on 9/11.

In the meantime, many travelers are wondering about security at airports across the country. A global travel alert is issued on one of the busiest travel days of the year with officials telling people to expect tighter security and longer lines.

CNN's Jason Carroll live at LaGuardia this morning. Good morning.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. You know, just a few moments ago, I spoke to some TSA reps who were walking right by our camera. I said, I said, where are all the long lines? He said, good, no long lines. Let's keep it that way. And that's exactly what we've been seeing here. And normally even on a regular day here at LaGuardia, you would see

security lines up here and down this hallway here to our right. But today take a look at it. Things looking pretty calm, moving along just fine despite it being one of the busiest travel days of the year, despite the fact that TSA has doubled down on security between now and Sunday. 3.5 or so million people expected to fly.

Travel alert that you talked about does not say that U.S. citizens should not fly. It just simply means when you're out here at an airport and in a public space, use extra vigilance.

In terms of the extra security that the TSA is talking about, they did not specify what type of extra security we would see here at LaGuardia or at JFK or O'Hare, wherever one might be traveling this holiday season, they simply said what you might end up seeing, one security expert told us, is you might see added security guards here at some of the gates that you see here, extra bomb-sniffing dogs.

You know, when they come through to swipe you to try to detect explosive material, that you might see more of that. And this is whether or not you're cleared to go through with expedited clearing or not. These are some of the extra security measures that one might see. But in terms of those long lines, at least here at LaGuardia, things looking pretty good -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jason Carroll reporting live from LaGuardia this morning.

From the skies to the roadways, around 42 million are expected to drive this Thanksgiving, and the good news is that drivers should pay the lowest gas pump prices in seven years. More than half of U.S. stations are selling gas for less than two bucks a gallon. And pump prices are down 75 cents compared to this time last year.

[10:20:08] Still to come in the NEWSROOM, French police say a second terror attack was just hours away before it was thwarted. That and new details about another suspected terrorist on the loose next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In Paris, haunting new revelations emerge and sent a collective chill through the city. Investigators say that when the ringleader of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, died in a police raid, he was deep into planning a second wave of terror and may have been just within hours of launching those attacks.

CNN's Jim Bittermann is in Paris with more. Hi, Jim.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. In fact, this sounds like a very close call indeed. The prosecutor, the French terrorism prosecutor, told us that in fact now they believe that Abaaoud was -- who was killed in the firefight at his apartment last Wednesday was, in fact, planning in the next days to attack a large commercial center, one of the busiest in France, as well as the business district of La Defense which is about a mile behind me here. [10:25:25] And those attacks were planned according to the prosecutor

over the telephone. They heard some phone intercepts that led them to believe this. Plus they found some disguises, some uniforms that were going to be used by the attackers as well as two suicide belts. So those attacks were imminent, and they were headed off by that big firefight up in Saint-Denis -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Bittermann reporting live from Paris, many thanks.

In the terror investigation, French and Belgian police are now hunting for this man. His name is Mohamed Abrini. Authorities say he was the driver who dropped off one of the suicide bombers at National Stadium in Paris. He was seen at a gas station near Paris two days before the attacks. In Brussels, Belgium, the city remains on the highest terror alert, even as its residents try to return to normal. Schools reopened today and much of the city's metro system had resumed operations. The entire capital was on lockdown for days following the Paris terror attacks.

Checking some top stories for you at 26 minutes past. ISIS has claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in the Tunisian capital that killed at least 15 people. The terror group releasing a photo of the man they say carried out the attack. The White House today condemned the attack which targeted a bus carrying members of the country's presidential guard.

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan today briefed reporters on last month's accidental attack against a hospital in Kunduz. General John Campbell said a U.S. gunship misidentified the hospital as a Taliban compound after the aircraft took evasive action to avoid a missile. The error was not discovered for 30 minutes. 22 people died in the assault.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

An act of self-defense. That's the claim from a Chicago police officer who's accused of shooting and killing an African-American teenager. Authorities say veteran officer Jason Van Dyke fired 16 shots at Laquan McDonald the night he died. That officer now charged with first-degree murder.

I'm not going to show you the entire video of this incident because it's very hard to watch. But as you can see, McDonald moves down the street toward police vehicles as the officers draw their weapons. That's when Van Dyke appears to fire his gun. And then after McDonald falls to the ground, he's shot an additional 15 times. An officer comes out and kicks the knife from his hands.

So let's talk about this case. CNN law enforcement analyst Jonathan Gilliam is with me and freelance journalist Brandon Smith is with me, too. His lawsuit, by the way, called on the department to release that shooting video.

Welcome, Brandon. Welcome, Jonathan. BRANDON SMITH, FREELANCE JOURNALIST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome. Brandon, you pushed to get this video released against the family's wishes. Why was it so important?

SMITH: Well, it's -- it paints a portrait of what happens 300 times every few years here in Chicago. 2010 to 2014, about 300 police shootings happen, 70 of them fatal.

COSTELLO: You wanted to attend this news conference with police officials when they finally released the video to the public. You didn't have credentials. They didn't let you in. You were upset about that. Why was it important that you were there?

SMITH: Well, I'm not sure whether it was just a fluke or they were trying to keep me out. It doesn't matter at this point. I really wanted to ask questions of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Gerry McCarthy about what they plan to do to reform this kind of culture of violence that results in this many police shootings.

COSTELLO: They said, though, at that news conference that they were trying to do that, Brandon.

SMITH: They did, but -- but they didn't really use specifics about what they're doing. And they said in some data that didn't really have -- they didn't say where they got it. So I'd like to ask them, like, Gerry McCarthy in particular, where did you get this claim that violence against citizens by police has been reduced.

COSTELLO: So this police officer in question has now been charged with first-degree murder. He's going to stay in jail probably until his trial. Is that a positive step forward in your mind?

SMITH: Certainly. I mean, the family, I assume, wants some justice, and this is part of that. The problem is that it happens a lot more.