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The Lead with Jake Tapper
New Details Surrounding 6-Year-Old's Death; Program Aims To Rehabilitate Combat Veterans. Aired 4:30-5p ET
Aired November 10, 2015 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:30:09] JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Heavily armed police stormed the aircraft, ordered all passengers to put their hands on their heads, and then they questioned the individual before -- before allowing him to fly. The incident is raising some serious safety concerns.
Let's get right to CNN's aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh, who is tracking the story.
Rene, what exactly were the suspicious items?
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Cell phones, wires, and other materials. That is what essentially sparked the suspicion.
TSA was forced to call in the FBI to join on the search for a man authorities believed may have brought a suspicious package on to a flight. It caused delays for hundreds of passengers. Officers were walking through the airports with guns in hand, an embarrassing situation for TSA, as there is knew scrutiny on airport security.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody up. Everybody up in the front.
MARSH (voice-over): Police rushed on board this American Airlines flight Monday in search of a man with a suspicious package. Passengers were ordered to place their hands on their head.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Half-a-dozen or so very large officers in SWAT gear entered the plane. They proceeded down the aisle looking at each passenger in the eye as if they were looking for someone.
MARSH: TSA, at Miami International Airport, initially allowed the man through a security checkpoint with a bag containing wires and cell phones. TSA later determined the bag was suspicious. Authorities spent the next several hours trying to find him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They came in and told everybody to get out. The airport was being evacuated.
MARSH: Seventy-three flights were delayed. Nine were diverted to other airports.
Darren Dowdy (ph) filmed this video seated just one row from where the man was finally detained.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the guy. And they just kind of jumped on him and said, sir, let me see your hands. You know, when they started yelling get your hands out of the bag, let me see your hands, that's when things kind of get a little hairy.
MARSH: The passenger was questioned, and released, the bag deemed safe.
CHAD WOLF, FORMER TSA ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR: The way that the procedures were written at checkpoint this, shouldn't happen. This is obviously a fault. This is -- TSA missed it in this case.
MARSH: As U.S. and British officials suggest someone may have smuggled a bomb on board the doomed Russian passenger plane, scrutiny continues over vetting of airport workers with secure access to airplanes here in the United States.
PETER NEFFENGER, TSA ADMINISTRATOR: This is a trusted population or should be a trusted population. So, I think there's work to be done there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARSH: All right, CNN is told that the information that's needed to vet airport workers here at domestic airports is essentially the same as a passenger would submit for pre-check security clearance.
But as for the TSA foul-up at Miami International Airport, the question is, how could this happen? Just minutes ago, we got a statement from TSA. And I'm going to read it to you just in part. It says: "TSA stopped the X-ray machine at a checkpoint to conduct further screening of a carry-on bag. In the process of transitioning other passengers to another screening lane, they somehow lost sight of this bag and the passenger."
TAPPER: Rene Marsh, thanks so much.
A professor asking for "muscle" to keep journalists away on a public place during protests at the University of Missouri. Not just any professor, by the way, a media professor. We're going to get reaction from one of her colleagues next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:38:00]
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
Our national lead today, students are heading to class as usual at the University of Missouri today, after demonstrators protesting for weeks what they call a climate of racism on campus had one of their big demands met with the resignations of both the university system president and the pending resignation of the school's chancellor.
Let's get to Kyung Lah at the University of Missouri live outside the football stadium.
Kyung, I haven't heard many specific details as to what the racist incidents were. Can you tell us any?
KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they bubbled over in mid-September. This fall semester, there were at least two incidents where students say they were the victims of racial slurs being thrown at them.
One of the Facebook posts where the student wrote about it went viral here on the campus. Then, there was a swastika painted in a dorm, in a dorm bathroom. These students began protesting across campus. They went to the president, confronting the university system president on at least two different occasions. The response they got from him, they say, was unsatisfactory.
That spawned the hunger strike and the boycott by the football team, Jake. Is there a sign that this is behind them? There is at least one sign. The football team, just a couple of minutes ago, started to practice again in the stadium behind me just a couple of minutes ago, the very first time, Jake, in about a week.
TAPPER: Fans of the Tigers will be happy to hear that. But I have to say, Kyung, that there seems to be another side to these protesters, this new video circulating of a confrontation between student journalists and these demonstrators on the campus quad who wanted to kick the student journalists off this public space. Let me run some of the video.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) got to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a job to do. I'm documenting this for a national news organization.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You cannot be (INAUDIBLE) like this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I can. This is the First Amendment that protects your right to stand here, protects mine.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're not going to yell at her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, just calm down.
[16:40:03]
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She doesn't want...
(CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am, the First Amendment -- ma'am, ma'am, don't yell at me.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am, the First Amendment protects your right to be here and mine.
I'm media. Can I talk to you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. You need to get out. You need to get out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don't.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You need to get out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I actually don't.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: "I need some muscle over here." That's from a member of the faculty.
Kyung, what are you learning about this incident?
LAH: Well, it's becoming, as teachers here on the campus might say, a teachable moment, not just for the students, but also for that professor.
Let's start with the students. The students are saying that they need to respect not just their own privacy, but, also, remember, that there are First Amendment rights. There were some fliers that were handed out to journalists among the students here in the quad reminding everybody that they have to respect the First Amendment.
As far as the teacher, that teacher who you are seeing there, she is assistant professor Melissa Click. She teaches mass media here on the campus and she's very clearly there trying to restrict the First Amendment rights of a journalist in a public space.
A little context here, the University of Missouri is considered one of the best, if not the best journalism school in the United States. So we went to her office to see if we could find professor Click, to if see might be able to ask us -- what was behind the behavior.
She wasn't there. She did not return our phone calls or our repeated e-mails. We are though starting to hear from her employers. We did talk to the dean. He did release a statement saying that she has a courtesy appointment at the journalism school and that courtesy appointment is now being reviewed by the faculty.
As far as her full-time employer, the communications school, they said that they can't comment specifically about personnel matters, but that -- quote -- "Intimidation is never an acceptable form of communication" -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Kyung Lah at the University of Missouri, thank you so much.
Let's talk about with Tom Warhover. He's a journalism professor at the esteemed University of Missouri School of Journalism. He's also an executive editor at "The Missourian," the newspaper in Columbia, Missouri.
Professor, thanks so much for joining us.
I have to say that I found this video shocking, not just this mob of students trying to intimidate the student journalist, but they had faculty help.
TOM WARHOVER, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI: Yes.
And one thing I need to make clear right away is that that professor is in a different school. So it's not the School of Journalism she's in. She has a courtesy appointment, which is kind of like saying, yes, you can do come over and do committee work, but she doesn't teach our students.
And I don't think you would see any journalism professor out there advocating that kind of action and displaying that kind of disregard for student journalists.
TAPPER: What was your personal reaction, if you don't mind my asking?
WARHOVER: I was pretty mad about it.
TAPPER: Yes, I would think so.
Now, as we mentioned, the dean of the journalism school says that faculty members are reviewing this professor who called for the muscle, Melissa Click, and her courtesy appointment, as you just mentioned.
Do you think she should be stripped of her courtesy opportunities?
WARHOVER: I think that's probably a reasonable response.
Keep in mind, that doesn't do anything in terms of, she's still a faculty member, a full faculty member in the communications department. We have a mass communications department and we have a School of Journalism. Some schools, it's all combined. But, here, they're totally separate.
So, again, I can't speak to what that department may or may not be saying or doing about her.
TAPPER: Let's turn to the broader issue, because, obviously, the students that were seen in this video are just a small percentage of the students that have been protesting for weeks about larger issues of racism. Protesters say that the resignations of the president and the chancellor are just the beginning. Now, I have reviewed their list of demands. One of them, for instance, is increasing the percentage of African-American staff and faculty to 10 percent in a couple of years, for example. Do you think anything else is bound to happen from this list of demands?
WARHOVER: I think a lot of things are bound to happen.
Whether they tick off the list of demands or not, a lot of things have already happened. And one of the things I would get across is that this video that went viral with our student photojournalists is the smallest part of a huge day in the life of this institution, which has been here since 1839. I can't say enough what a momentous kind of shift is occurring here.
TAPPER: Yes, absolutely.
Professor Warhover, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.
Coming up, new clues, but still many questions as to why two officers opened fire on a car, killing a 6-year-old boy, what authorities are now saying led to the initial confrontation next.
Plus, they're battling the physical and mental scars of war, but somehow smiling -- how surfing helped these veterans, that story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Making headlines in our National Lead today, new details surrounding the tragic shooting death of 6- year-old Jeremy Mardis at the hands of Louisiana police while riding in a car with his father.
A source now telling CNN that the marshals who are now facing murder charges began pursuing Chris Few after witnessing what they thought was a domestic dispute with his girlfriend outside a local bar.
Few fled, the two officers followed him and fired 18 shots into the vehicle, wounding Few and killing his first grade son, who is autistic.
Let's get right to CNN's Nick Valencia live in Marksville, Louisiana. Nick, the local district attorney has now recused himself from the case, citing his relationship with one of the officer's families, is that right?
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It all comes down to a conflict of interest. The assistant district attorney here is actually the father of one of the suspects. The suspect, each behind bars, being held on $1 million bond.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VALENCIA (voice-over): Louisiana authorities now say a domestic abuse incident led to a police chase that left a 6-year-old boy dead.
[16:50:06]A source close to the chase says, city marshals began pursuing father, Chris Few, after they witnessed an argument between Few and his girlfriend outside of a bar last Tuesday.
That pursuit ended in a barrage of gunfire. Few's son, Jeremy Martis (ph), shot five times in the head and chest. Few was critically injured and is still in the hospital. It's unclear if he knows about his son's death.
A $1 million bond has been set for each of the two officers involved, Norris Greenhouse Jr. and Derrick Stafford. They've been moved to a jail in the next perish for safety reasons. Both officers have had run-ins with the law in the past.
Records show Stafford was indicted on two counts of aggravated rape and both have been involved in civil cases related to excessive use of force.
Investigators say Chris Few wasn't carrying a gun and there were no outstanding warrants against him, but that Officer Greenhouse and Few may have had a history before the shooting.
COL. MICHAEL EDMONSON, LOUISIANA STATE POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: We believe they've had some type of relationship where they met each other, knew each other, certain as this progresses we'll find out more information. But I think in a town like this, everyone knows each other.
VALENCIA: Officers were wearing body cameras with footage that Louisiana police superintendent calls disturbing. That footage hasn't been released. Amid questions about why the shooting happened and the way the crime scene was handled the mayor of Marksville admits, there are some issues with government accountability.
(on camera): Is this city corrupt?
MAYOR JOHN LEMOINE, MARKSVILLE, LOUISIANA: Depends the way you look at. I think, to an extent, it is, and there are some things that need to be taken care of, and there are some things that need to be looked at very seriously.
VALENCIA (voice-over): The district attorney has recused himself in the case because Officer Greenhouse's father works for the DA's office. The state-attorney general vows the shooting will get a
detailed and thorough investigation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VALENCIA: Exactly one week since the shooting, answers may be in short supply. A gag order has been issued by a judge here for all of those involved in the case -- Jake.
TAPPER: Nick Valencia, thanks so much.
In our Buried Lead today, it's not really about the waves. These men and women are battling injuries and memories of war by surfing, that's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. Our Buried Lead now, that's what we call stories that we think are not getting enough attention.
Two hundred forty years young, today is a big birthday for the U.S. Marines. It comes just before Veterans Day this year which is tomorrow.
A group in California is honoring our veterans in an interesting way, teaching our wounded military heroes how to surf. It's part of an effort to heal their bodies and their minds and CNN's Stephanie Elam filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These bodies, powering into the Pacific Ocean, have stories to tell. They belong to American and British soldiers, some retired, some still active duty. All men and women injured while serving their country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have our rash guards, help for heroes on there, operation surf.
ELAM: This is "Operation Surf." A camp designed to aid these wounded heroes' mental rehabilitation by focusing on the physical.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've always wanted to try surfing.
ELAM: Jake Vanhovel joined the Army in 2005. He was injured in Afghanistan.
JAKE VANHOVEL, VETERAN: My truck hit an IED, broke my ankle, my heel, my back, my arm, and some other things.
ELAM: Five years later, Jake elected to have his leg amputated below the knee. A choice he says greatly improved his life.
VANHOVEL: Haven't ridden a wave all wait in, that needs to help.
ELAM: And allowed for this adventure. Cameron Crosby was on patrol in Korea when stabbed by a fellow soldier. He was paralyzed and had a collapsed lung. More than a year since his injury, he's better but still has challenges.
CAMERON CROSBY, VETERAN: My right side still cannot feel temperature and pain, and my left side has mobility issues. It's a privilege to be out here.
ELAM: But not all of these soldiers' wounds are visible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan.
ELAM: Stacey Ashton was a medic in the British Army for nearly 14 years.
(on camera): Do you mind tell me why you were medically discharged?
STACY ASHTON, VETERAN: For PTSD, suffered ten years on and off and then suffered from depression and anxiety.
ELAM: So what do you hope to gain in your week here at "Operation Surf?"
ASHTON: Just some inner peace, I think, to stop being so sad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The 99 percent of the time, they're standing up by the end of the day.
ELAM (voice-over): Sure enough it's not long before Stacy is up on her board.
ASHTON: I didn't think I'd be able to do it.
ELAM: For for 42 years, Van Corava (ph) has been catching waves. He began Operation Surf in 2009.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It wasn't like this grand idea. It was just the opportunity of just being able to be of service to our wounded servicemen and women in transition.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think you're able to do that today?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two in the past 10 minutes.
ELAM: The closing ceremony is bitter-sweet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to give this award to Stacy.
ELAM: A time to celebrate goals that were met and surpassed, friendships forged and lessons learned in the water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Surfing is amazing. It's great rehab. A lot of my anxiety's gone down. I feel confident.
ELAM: Stephanie Elam, CNN, on California's Central Coast.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER: All right, thanks to Stephanie Elam for that report, and more importantly to the men and women who fight for us, thank you.
Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter @jaketapper or tweet the show @theleadcnn. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. Turning you over now to one Mr. Wolf Blitzer who is in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Thanks for watching.
