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Rain and Flood Threaten Parts of Texas; Interview with San Marcos Mayor Daniel Guerrero; Shia Militias and Iraq Forces Surround ISIS-Controlled City of Ramadi; Cleveland Moving to Next Phase of Police Reform; Baltimore's Deadliest Month In 15 Years. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 26, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:01] JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Now it is starting to recede, but the damage has been done. There are houses on top of hills that have been completely wiped off their foundations, 200 to 300 homes completely destroyed in this area and of course 12 people still missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY: This morning record-breaking and deadly floodwaters continue to wreak havoc across central Texas and Oklahoma.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The challenges are not over yet. There's going to be more rain is to come.

GRAY: Nearly 40 counties throughout Texas now under an emergency disaster declaration. A dam rupturing just east of Austin unable to hold a historic amount of rain, flooding a highway.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not over. The rain is still here.

GRAY: Family members desperately wait on dry land.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I kept calling him over and over and, I was, like, are you OK?

GRAY: As rescues by air and water. The National Guard called to rescue 13 people including three children trapped in a rental cabin in southeast Oklahoma.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water came up quicker than expected, road washed out, and we couldn't pass by it.

GRAY: In Wimberley, Texas, around a dozen people are still missing, including two families with children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When she wasn't there I knew something was very, very wrong.

GRAY: Julie Shields recalls the last phone call she received from her sister Lauren McComb.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Call mom and dad, I love you, and pray. GRAY: Along with her husband and two children inside, McComb's

vacation home was swept away by the flood waters. Her husband, found 12 miles away, says he tried desperately to save his family but the cabin split into.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is with her babies and she will be with her babies always in heaven, and we know that as a family?

GRAY: The death toll in both southern states continues to rise.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was gone with her date laughing and dancing next to her.

GRAY: And 18-year-old Melissa Ramirez was on her way back from prom just south of San Antonio, her car stalling out in high waters just a couple miles away from her home. She called 911 and her father, but it was too late.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were not able to find her until this morning when crews were out there. She has her place in heaven where they will meet her again soon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY: And as the waters continue to recede here in Wimberley, still raging, though, across the Blanco River, we are going to see better conditions over the next couple days. It is overcast now, but no torrential downpours expected here. We could see some isolated activity, but we are expecting the rivers to continue to go down. They have crested.

Otherwise, though, we are continuing to see a major flooding problem down in Houston. A lot of rain this morning combined with all of this water flowing downstream just adds insult to injury. It is going to fill the rivers south of here faster, and then with the additional rainfall, that's where we are seeing all the major flooding in Houston. Flood watches and warnings still in effect all across Texas and even portions of Louisiana.

We have seen over eight inches of rain in Houston in about 24 hours, so a lot of rain in Texas. But we are going to dry out for a couple days in the hill country as they continue to clean up and search for those missing people. Michaela?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And that dry can't some soon enough. All right, just down the road from where she is in San Marcos, Texas, we have the mayor of that city joining us right now, Mayor Daniel Guerrero. Mayor, can you hear us OK?

MAYOR DANIEL GUERRERO, SAN MARCOS, TEXAS: Yes, I can hear you fine, thank you.

PEREIRA: We understand you have been having communication issues there given all the rain. How are you managing to communicate outside the county? GUERRERO: We are certainly doing our very best. As you mentioned,

just having significant issues because of the weather and because of the flooding with cable communications and television. A lot of the communication that we have been able to do fortunately has been either through our reverse 911 when we were able to go ahead and start encouraging people to make plans to leave their homes prior to the event taking place, and then certainly social media. We have been trying to utilized websites, social media as much as possible. Also folks may not be able to get access to desktop or a laptop computer. Certainly their mobile devices and their cell phones have really been a good asset. And then certainly radio. I can't commend enough of our radio stations around the area enough just in regard to their ability to be able to help us share information.

PEREIRA: Yes, our partners in radio can really serve the community in a situation like this. I know this has got to be taking a toll on your rescue workers, your first responders. We understand five of the police cruisers there in San Marcos were swept away by floodwater. One of your fire stations was inundated. How are your first responders doing?

GUERRERO: They're doing a wonderful job from the very beginning through everything, and now they are doing an outstanding job.

[08:05:00] Those five cruisers, those police cruisers, they were not swept away. They were caught up in fast rising waters within neighborhoods. And so those vehicles have already been taken out of rotation. We do have other assets that we are trying to get into neighborhoods where they have been needed. Our police officers and firefighters have done an outstanding job. They are all fine. We had a great team that went over to our fire station, central fire station, a team of about 35 people, folks from firefighters to people from our H.R. department and in between that went in and worked really diligently to get that facility cleaned up. It's still going to be a good period of time before it's fully operational, but they're trying to get ahead of that timeline, and I comment them for all their hard work.

PEREIRA: They have a lot of hard work in front of them. I understand sadly you have one fatality there. A man was killed in the flooding. And we also understand there are 12 people missing in Hayes County that came from families who had gathered for the long weekend. Any update you can give us on the situation regarding those 12 missing people?

GUERRERO: In regard to everything you just shared, I don't have any new information to share at this time. We did find an unidentified body earlier in the event. We are still working diligently to identify this person and to be able to share updated information.

In regards to the other group, I do not have any information at this time in regard to the numbers of adults versus the numbers of children. But what we do know that we are receiving good leads that are helping us move towards getting more definitive information so that we can get in touch with families if necessary.

PEREIRA: Mayor Guerrero, I know you grew up in that area. Have you ever seen anything like this?

GUERRERO: We have seen plenty of flooding. I've lived in this community my entire life, 38 years. In fact my home, my parents' home, have been damaged by this weekend. We have seen lots of flooding in the area. Nothing to this magnitude. This is our new flood of record.

But to see the community come together over these last 48 hours to help their neighbors and to help people who live clearly on the other side and to come over looking to provide resources, looking to provide prayer and energy, it has been a tremendous response from our residents, from surrounding neighbors, and we will rebuild. We are going to do our very best to get this situation cleaned up and to move forward.

PEREIRA: Mayor Daniel Guerrero of San Marcos, Texas, we send our best thoughts and wishes to all of you there and help you weather this storm, pun intended. Hang in there, All right. Thanks for joining us on NEW DAY.

GUERRERO: Thank you very much.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we do have breaking news this morning coming out of Iraq. Government forces have the city of Ramadi surrounded on three sides. This is a must-win battle to get the city and its pride back. CNN has complete coverage staring with senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh live in Baghdad. What is the situation on the ground, Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Chris, hard to see at this stage how the announcements, wide ranging as they have been this morning from the Iraq government and the Shia militia, they might be doing the bulk of the fighting, how those have so far translated into progress on the ground that will be visible in the hours and days ahead.

But what they did announce on state television was the operation to clean out Anbar on the provinces north of it. We then heard from the Shia militia that gave details to what they would be doing, some saying being on the march, perhaps on their partners supposedly in the Iraqi government, and they were focusing on the supply route to the northeast of Anbar where Ramadi is located heading towards the key oil refining town. They want to sever that first.

But then now we are hearing from the prime minister here and ministry of defense, police cooperation or rather security forces cooperation, their moves to try and get into Anbar and push back at a later stage potentially against Ramadi but still under way. And now of course many asking whether or not these groups can read off the same script.

Key here, the Shia militia setting so much the tone of this, naming the operation, answering the call of Hussein is that relevant in Shia culture. Hussein was the son of Ali, a founder of Shi-ism. I think that will have many concerns, particularly in Washington, and that will put out some ease in enjoying this particular fight that are badly needed. It could be 3,000 in Anbar, it could be 4,000 potentially who want to join this. The question is how fast can we see progress on the ground. Back to you, Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Nick, let's talk about Washington's reaction to all this. Will the U.S. military get involved in this operation to take back Anbar province? CNN's Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr joins us live. What are they saying, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. You know, Iraq has always been a patchwork battlefield. That's the Pentagon's point of view. In some places Iraqi forces fight well. In Ramadi, as Defense Secretary Ash Carter told CNN, they did not. So they are looking at this new operation from the Pentagon point of view hoping it works but being very cautious about it at this point, no big change in U.S. military strategy.

Look for two things to continue to be the basic Pentagon line. First, U.S. air strikes are only going to be used in this operation and other operations when the U.S. has its own intelligence to show where to drop those bombs. The U.S. owns the bombs. It wants it to have the intelligence, its pilots to know that they are not hitting civilian targets, so they're going to need their own intelligence on this.

[08:15:19] And the policy is that these airstrikes will only be called in when it is in support of actual units on the ground under the control of the Iraq government.

So going back to what Nick was just saying, if you see the Sunnis on the ground, if you see the Shia militias on the ground, the U.S. will use airstrikes but only in support of those units that are directly under the control of the Iraqi government. That continues to be a big problem, a lot of Shia militias operating on their own. The U.S. wants the Sunni tribes more involved, but how to get them involved remains a big question. Chris?

CUOMO: One of them, anyway. Barbra, thank you very much.

Let's bring in our CNN military analyst and retired U.S. army major general, James "Spider" Marks. General, thank you very much. Let's kind of check the boxes of the big issues here. One, do you believe the Iraqis can turn it around and take Ramadi in short order?

MAJOR GENERAL JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: That will be determined. That's a very tough question to answer. We have seen in recent days that they have not demonstrated an ability to show up and that any capacity to fight really has rested with the Shia militia in the form of the Badr corps and Quds force and NEK, a different collection of Shia militia, that have in fact really bolstered the ISF. This becomes problematic, Chris, because you have got Shias now in Sunni Anbar.

CUOMO: Is it simplistic by accurate to say the will to fight is not what it needs to be on the Iraqi side?

MARKS: It is simplistic, but what you want to do in warfare is you want to keep it as simple as possible because even the most simple plans suddenly once in contact can unravel and become exceptionally complicated. So what we saw in Ramadi was forces that would simply leave the battlefield. That's leadership that has just simply dissipated and gone away. You have to have leadership that holds those units together so that they will stand up and fight, and that only happens when leadership decides they want to show up, that they want to be a part of the solution.

CUOMO: Now, more men and women in your part of the world are telling me don't think about what is going on right now. Think about what happens next, what happens if ISIS taken out, what replaces it. And they are taking more and more about is Iran. And that comes on the heels of a main military figure saying it's not about the Iraqi's will to fight. It's not about American's will to fight. Barack Obama hasn't done a damn thing, to quote this man's words. What do you make of that type of threat?

MARKS: Well, the bigger challenge clearly, Chris, and we understand this, you understand this in great detail, the larger challenge is we are setting up and we are seeing the stages for a very, very broad sectarian conflict that will be enter generational, and that's Shia against Sunni, fundamental kind of a boiling point. And barbarism that we have seen at different levels, this is really our new normal.

The key for us is to not allow it to expand. And so we need to be able to try to contain it in some way. And I think our administration has acknowledged if Iraq is not going to step up, let's at least do the best we can to hold on what exists. This is really the Balkanization of Iraq. This is what we need to be able to acknowledge is that Tehran is setting up a much larger issue for us in this part of the world.

And we need -- and we are not focusing right now but we need to focus on what is happening in Riyadh. What do you think the partners in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are thinking?

CUOMO: That's a strong question, and Balkanization is the right word. It's literally the breaking up of this entity into different groups. Iran further complicating it because what you want is more Sunni integration, and now the more Iran is involved they are obviously opposed to that, and that takes us to the second layer of this. Do you think, provocative, but could it be true, that in terms of keeping Iran at bay, the United States would have been better off with Saddam Hussein in control there?

MARKS: Oh, very hypothetically, and that's the question, if we knew now -- what we knew now then what we knew now would we ever have invaded Iraq and taken Saddam down? Saddam clearly held that place together. Central figure, very strong hand, very brutal throughout his -- throughout the country of Iraq, development of chemical weapons and use of chemical weapons against his own people. I mean, you look at that and you go you have got to be kidding me. This guy has to go away. So what they need -- let's not talk about Saddam. Let's talk about a central figure that is galvanizing and can bring the area together. That figure has not shown up. We have not been able to find that guy.

[08:15:02] CUOMO: We need to galvanize, we're getting vulcanized, as you point out accurately, General. And people listening at home, they will say we are talking about a war in Ramadi, but all other things are just as relevant as any current battle on the ground.

General, thank you very much.

MARKS: It's the strategy, Chris. You got it. It's the strategy. It' the long-term view. Thanks.

CUOMO: Appreciate it.

Mick?

PEREIRA: All right. In Iran, the first session is over in the espionage of American journalist Jason Rezaian. The public banned from the courtroom as "The Washington Post" correspondent fights allegations that he was spying on Tehran for the U.S.

CNN's Becky Anderson is in Abu Dhabi following along for us -- Becky.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

"The shameful acts of injustice continue without end", those are the words from the "Washington Post" executive editor in a statement released, ahead of what was his first session of Jason's trial on charges of espionage -- a relatively short session and no date has been released for the continuation.

So the facts in this case are these, that the 39-year-old Iranian- American arrested in July last year, along with his wife Yegy and a number of others who were later released on bail, but Jason has been in prison at time for solitary confinement since then. Why? Well, for months, it wasn't clear, but April of this year, he was formally accused of spying and illegally gathering classified information about Iran, and they say passing that on to Washington.

Now, the judge assigned to this case is known to be very close to the intelligence apparatus and has been accused of putting down politically motivated decisions in the past, which begs this question, is Jason a pawn in a wider power struggle going on inside Tehran, with the government of President Rouhani pitted against hard line elements who wish as he strikes or tries to strike this nuclear deal with the West? That is the question. As I say, we have no idea in this case will continue at this point -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Becky. We will be speaking with Jason's brother about all of these issues momentarily here on NEW DAY. Thanks so much.

Well, the city of Cleveland and the Justice Department set to announce reform to the city's police force. The plan could be announced as early as today, and it comes in the wake of the acquittal of a white Cleveland police officer who killed two unarmed black motorists.

CNN's Nick Valencia joins us live from Cleveland with the latest.

Good morning, Nick. NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. The city of

Cleveland and the Department of Justice agreed to these changes late last year after what DOJ investigators called a scathing pattern of excessive force ands civil rights violations. What it means is that in the years to come, there will be court supervision of the police department.

When this was initially announced back in late December by Attorney General Eric Holder, both the city's police chief and mayor agreed that there needed to be changes to the police force, exactly what those are and when it will happen, that's still unclear. But this morning, the local paper in Cleveland has announced that the U.S. attorney's office in the city has asked stakeholders in the community to come and talk about this so-called pattern of excessive force, the timing of this all very peculiar. Over the weekend, there were small scale demonstrations, people upset and angry about the acquittal of a local police officer in two voluntary manslaughter charges. Meanwhile the city is also under pressure to explain the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a young man shot and killed by police while brandishing a pellet gun -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much, Nick. We'll stay on that.

We also want to tell you about a passenger who travelled from Liberia to JFK airport in New York, obviously, and that he had died from Lassa fever. Health officials say the infected person had no symptoms or fever upon arrival nine days ago, but then went to the New Jersey hospital the next day after arriving with a sore throat and died. Last night, that's what happened.

Lassa fever is a viral disease commonly found in West Africa. There has never been a known case of person to person transmission in the U.S.

PEREIRA: So, here is a question for you. How was your Memorial Day weekend?

I bet it wasn't as amazing as that of 23-year-old Chris Norton's? He's an Iowa native paralyzed five years ago, well, he walked the stage this weekend to accept his diploma from Luther College. Doctors had given him a 3 percent chance of ever walking again after suffering a spinal cord injury, playing football as a freshman, but Sunday, he defied the odds with a roaring crowd cheering every single step.

Oh, wait, it gets better friends. See that beautiful lady beside him? Well, he also proposed to girlfriend, Emily. She accepted and the two are set to be wed.

So, how was your Memorial Day weekend?

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Just saying.

CAMEROTA: Are you stealing the good stuff today?

PEREIRA: No. That is a 3 percent chance of moving anything below his neck again.

CAMEROTA: Gosh.

CUOMO: And he says he is going to keep going, and obviously the message is, he says you can't give up on yourself.

We will take as much good stuff as we can get. Keep it that.

[08:20:00] PEREIRA: We need more. With the amount of bad, we have to really move the balance in the other way.

CAMEROTA: Stories of perseverance are so good. Let us know what you think about all that.

Well, also, the violence is on the rise in Baltimore, but arrests, strangely, are sharply down. How do police explain that paradox? We'll tell you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: It has been the deadliest month in Baltimore in 15 years. Homicides in the city reached 35 this month and the last time the city had that many homicides in a single month was 1999.

What's fueling the violence?

I want to discuss it with Harry Houck, a CNN law enforcement analyst and retired NYPD detective. Marc Lamont Hill is here as well, CNN political commentator and host on "HuffPost Live".

A hundred and eight homicides already this year. I was listening to some of the details in a city that four years ago had the lowest number of homicides since 1978 through -- which was 196. I have heard anything from locals, from -- somebody said Freddie's death was like an earthquake, these are the aftershocks. Somebody else said, well, that's what happens when the police are overtaxed or overstressed.

What do you think? What is your assessment of what is happening? I will start with you, Harry.

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, it's really kind of hard to figure that out, but the fact is I think that maybe the police officers are feeling that every time they take some kind of action, they are vilified by the press, vilified by the politicians.

And so, they're are thinking to themselves, listen, you know, why should I go out of my way out here for people that hate my guts, OK? We have police officers locked up in Baltimore, and it was before that and it was automatically that the police officers were the bad guy here, without the investigation being fully conducted.

PEREIRA: And it goes around about because the people in the black community are saying we are not the bad guys here, so why are we --

HOUCK: And sometimes the bad guys feel empowered because the cops are not going to do nothing now, all right? And it's a free for all. PEREIRA: What is your assessment?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: One, I disagree with that, and if I was a police officer I would disagree with that analysis. I'd say, hey, wait a minute, just because this Freddie Gray thing happened doesn't mean that we stop doing our job, that we stop being responsible. So, even as a police officer, I find that troublesome.

But importantly, I don't think there's any evidence, there's certainly no data to suggest that because of the arrest of Freddie Gray, or the arrest of the officers in the Freddie Gray killing, that somehow police are afraid to do their job. That's a narrative that police often spin to make us reluctant to prosecute them. Hey, if we persecute police with wrongdoing, suddenly, our streets are going to go crazy.

At the core here, this is an issue of structural inequality, when jobs aren't there, people shoot each other. When people don't have food, clothes and shelter, they shoot each other. And also, it's an issue of responsibility --

(CROSSTALK)

HOUCK: I talked to police officers and I called officers down in Baltimore and spoke this them. It's not so much what happened in Baltimore itself. I mean, we see a hike in the crime rate all over the country, especially in the major cities. All right, New York homicides up 10 percent and shootings are up 10 percent --

PEREIRA: Yes, but to go from the numbers pre-Freddie Gray --

HOUCK: Right, exactly.

PEREIRA: -- to post, that's a significant increase?

HOUCK: And I told you, I know cops thinking this way, and I have spoke to police officers about this, listen, you know, when I run into a scene to a "shots fired" call, and bad guys running down an alley, I'm going to wait for my backup, I'm not going to take that extra time just going to do it myself, all right? And that's what you see.

And police officers feel if they are not being backed, you know, am I going to go to jail for the next decision? I mean, cops worry enough of being killed in the line of duty, and now they are worried about going to jail.

HILL: For shooting unarmed people?

HOUCK: You can't shoot an unarmed people, though. Let's say that. I mean, you can do that under certain situations.

HILL: Yes, under certain situations and there are many when you cannot.

HOUCK: Of course, yes. HILL: And so, when you look at the overwhelming amount of data, police are not going to jail for killing people a whole lot, and even these nationally televised cases, Ferguson, nobody went to jail for that. Sanford, no one went to jail for that.

HOUCK: What happened in Ferguson? Police were vilified about what happened there, all right?

HILL: I'm just pushing back against this idea that police keep going to jail for doing their job. They're not going to jail. I didn't (ph) say they're killing people with impunity.

HOUCK: They're worried about that and they're not killing people with impunity.

PEREIRA: Is that concern warranted? Because we heard Reverend Jamal Bryant speaking with Chris a few moments ago, talking about the fact that there's a bit of a Wild, Wild West mentality on the streets of Baltimore and they are concerned about the attitude right now and he is concerned about the number of lives that have lost?

HILL: He should be. He should be. And Jamal Bryant was concerned with those lives lost before the police shooting.

HOUCK: Why aren't they demonstrating about all the crime going on?

HILL: Because you can't protest.

HOUCK: Why can't you? Of course you can. If black lives matter --

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: You are disagreeing with the point I wasn't making. Just hear my sentence, you know what I was saying. You can't protest your way out of say gangs killing each other. If I go out and march the Bloods and Crips, they're not going to stop killing each other. We don't march purely for death, we march to stop people from killing each other with impunity.

So, I was in the Baltimore for the last three years, I have been in Chicago for the last five years doing conflict -- violence interruption, conflict resolution, dispute resolution. That's how you stop there. And you get people jobs, food, clothing and shelter. I can't do that with police. I hold the police to higher standards than the Crips when it comes to killing black people.

PEREIRA: All right. We're going to have to leave it there, gentlemen. We can another spirited debate I'm sure again tomorrow, because this is a situation that is clearly not going anywhere anytime soon.

Harry, Marc, thank you.

HILL: Pleasure.

PEREIRA: Alisyn? CAMEROTA: OK, Michaela. Well, the espionage trial of "Washington Post" reporter, Jason Rezaian begun this morning in Iran, his brother live on NEW DAY, next.

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