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Tyree Nichol's Family Files Civil Suit Over Police Beating Death; FOX Faces $2.8B Lawsuit After Agreeing To Pay Dominion $787M+; CEO Tells Employees To "Leave Pity City"; 600-LB Satellite Set To Hit Earth Today, Location Unclear. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired April 19, 2023 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:30:57]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Here are some of the headlines we're following on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
The detention hearing for the suspect accused of leaking classified Pentagon documents has been postponed. The attorneys for Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira said they need more time to prepare.
And the Air Force unit where the 21-year-old was assigned has now been stripped of its intelligence duties while the Pentagon conducts an internal probe.
Teixeira is accused of posting classified documents in an online chat room popular among video gamers. He's facing charges under the Espionage Act.
Meantime, sometime between now and midnight, the Supreme Court is going to decide whether women can have access to the nation's most commonly used abortion pill. Mifepristone has been approved by the FDA for the past 23 years.
But a federal judge in Texas ruled the agency violated the law in the approval process. Appeals were filed by multiple parties, including the drug's manufacturer.
Last week, Justice Samuel Alito put a temporary hold on that Texas decision to give the court more time to review the case. But it does expire at 11:59 P.M tonight. Access to the medication would be immediately restricted.
Brianna?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The family of Tyree Nichols just filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Memphis, the Memphis Police Department and the individual officers accused of beating Nichols to death.
They spoke here moments ago. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- to the same circumstances. And that --
BENJAMIN CRUMP, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: This landmark lawsuit is not only to get justice for Terry Nichols in the civil courts. But it is also a message that is being sent to cities all across America, who have these police oppression units.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Five former officers, Demetrius Haley, Tadarius Dean, Emmett Martin III, Justin Smith and Desmond Mills Jr face second-degree murder charges and more. So far, they've all pleaded not guilty.
Another two officers were fired, five more suspended, and one retired before a hearing could be conducted.
You'll remember the horror of that night. Graphic body and security camera footage showing the lethal assault and sparking protests across the country.
Joining us now is Nick Valencia,
Nick, this is being touted as a landmark lawsuit.
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, Brianna. Leading up to this announcement, it was being touted by civil rights attorney, Ben Crump, as a landmark lawsuit. And now we know why.
Just a short time ago, he announced that the family of Tyree Nichols will be seeking $550 million from the city of Memphis, as well as those individual officers who were involved in his beating death, and really all those they say that were complicit in the deprivation of Tyree Nichols' constitutional rights.
Just listen a short time ago to what civil rights attorney, Ben Crump, had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRUMP: We must hold each and everybody accountable who had any hand in the torture, their savagery. their brutality, the extra judicial killing of Terry Nichols.
Each and every one of them must be held accountable if we are to create meaningful change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VALENCIA: The lawsuit alleges that the SCORPION unit was responsible for the death of Tyree Nickels, and that they lack training and hiring standards for the specialized unit were subpar.
There was also a decrease in standards, they say, across the entire department and they were hiring people that really, they claim, should not have been on the force. Crump was joined by his co-counsel, Antonio Romanucci, as well as a
retired Memphis magistrate judge. All three attorneys saying that the intentional infliction of emotional distress are grounds for this lawsuit.
[13:35:03]
And if you remember, Brianna, it was shortly after Tyree Nichols was taken - violently taken into custody that the lieutenant that was there at the scene went to Nichols mother's home to claim that Nichols was a DUI suspect, despite having no evidence to back up those claims.
In fact, the police report was riddled with inconsistencies and misleading information.
You mentioned that those five officers involved in his beating death had been charged with second degree murder. All of them have pleaded not guilty.
And this is just continuing the fallout of this violent arrest of Tyree Nichols. There's been multiple police reforms passed by the Memphis city council.
And remember, we're still waiting for 20 hours of additional video from the arrest that day -- Brianna?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Yes, you can hear, on the tape, sort of discussion of details of the arrest what appears to be working out a story between them as well.
Nick Valencia, thank you for that.
Jim?
KEILAR: Yes, that's a remarkable factor of that story, Brianna.
Also what we're following, after being forced to pay more than $780 million for spreading election lies, FOX News not off the legal hook just yet. The latest on another massive defamation lawsuit, headed their way.
And "leave Pity City." That is what this CEO told employees concerned about not receiving their bonuses.
These stories and more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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[13:40:47]
KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that were watching this hour.
If you happen to be in Australia -- I'm talking to you, Uncle Lou -- Southeast Asia or Antarctica in about nine hours put on eclipse proof eyewear and take a look up because you might catch a hybrid eclipse, the first of its kind in nearly 10 years.
This is a combination of a total and annular solar eclipse. And it occurs when the moon passes in front of the sun. And depending on your viewing angle, you could see a corona or something that looks more like a ring of fire. Pretty cool, right?
The former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Alan Weisselberg, has just been released from Rikers Island after serving time for his role in a decades-long tax fraud scheme.
He was sentenced back in January to five months as part of a plea deal. Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 felonies and testified against his former employer.
And the Supreme Court has cleared the way for a Texas death row inmate to try using DNA to prove his innocence. Rodney Reid claims an all- white jury wrongly convicted him of killing a 19-year-old white woman in Texas back in 1998.
Twenty-four years later, Reid says DNA evidence will prove that the victim's fiance was her killer.
Jim?
SCIUTTO: Rihanna,"Ring of Fire" you missed a Johnny Cash reference there. We'll get that next time.
The story we're following, FOX News going to pay an unprecedented $787.5 million to settle the defamation case from Dominion.
And while FOX News will not be required to broadcast any corrections or apologies for repeatedly perpetuating election lies, FOX is far from off the hook legally. The news channel is still facing a $2.7 billion lawsuit from another voting technology company, Smartmatic USA.
Let's speak now to CNN media analyst, Sarah Fischer, who is a senior media reporter for Axios, and is covering this case closely.
Good to have you, Sara.
SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Good to see you.
KEILAR: It struck me that you, of course, have a major financial bill here, $787.5 million. No one should laugh at that.
But what was required from FOX to say to own the lies here, one line in a statement, nothing on air. And then you today speak to a FOX spokesperson, and they tell you what? Because they seem to double down.
FISCHER: Yes, they are. And I think that's because they have a lot of the lawsuits that they're still facing.
So Smartmatic has a lawsuit against them for $2.7 billion. They have another lawsuit with the former producer. So it doesn't really make sense for FOX at this point to try to go the other way.
But what I think is notable is, what you said, is that this settlement does not require FOX to issue an on-air apology. It does not require them to issue any corrections or retractions. So this is not something that they're going to be addressing with their audience.
SCIUTTO: Just here's what they said to you. "There is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the United States and his lawyers making allegations of voter fraud."
That sounds to me like they were defending their coverage of the election lies.
FISCHER: I think that was in response to something earlier that Smartmatic has said. But I think they don't have much of a choice but to kind of continue to defend their position here.
Because they're going to be facing these other lawsuits. If they were to be pointing at what happened in Dominion and say, oh, well, we learned our lesson. We get it, like that definitely doesn't give them a strong position heading into this other litigation.
SCIUTTO: They're also going to be covering another presidential election. And we hope the standard is different going into that.
All right, Dominion, of course, not done in court. You've got Smartmatic here. You've got Newsmax, One America News involved as well because they're pushing this similar lies.
Can they afford a lawsuit of the size that -- that News Corp, that FOX News Corp just paid?
FISCHER: Can these other organizations?
SCIUTTO: Yes.
FISCHER: No, probably not. I mean, they're are a lot smaller. But I think the most important thing to remember is that Dominion still wants to prove a point.
Of course, they're saying that accountability has happened because of the dollar amount. But if it was really all about dollars and cents, do you think they would be pursuing these lawsuits against some of these much, much smaller networks? No.
I think they really want to figure out how they can hold every single person to account.
SCIUTTO: For an observer from the outside, it looks like FOX wrote a big check here, which they will make up for in profits this year, based on my understanding of the money they make.
[13:45:00]
And there's one line in the statement that acknowledged falsehoods. Nothing on the air. They're not going to say anything to their viewers.
FISCHER: But think about it, from Dominion's perspective. They -- whenever you're going to go face a jury, there's a lot of uncertainty there.
Now they could have gone in and won the actual malice standard. I think most legal experts think that Dominion had a small case as strong case there, and then they would maybe be in a position where they couldn't convince the jury to give them much at all.
Remember, Dominions of really small company.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
FISCHER: So winning that much money is a big deal.
I think what it came down to is, they thought that number was big enough to be able to prove a point of accountability and so that they can concede on some of those other things that they wanted.
SCIUTTO: Well, we'll see whether it affects truth telling on elections as Donald Trump continues to tell similar lies,
Sarah Fischer, good to have you on.
Boris?
SANCHEZ: Outrage today over a CEO who told her employees to "leave Pity City." Those were her marching orders during a conference call where she told workers to stop worrying about their annual bonuses.
CNN's Anna Stewart is covering the story for us live from London.
Anna, this CEO took home more than a million dollars in bonus money last year, and yet she's telling her employees don't worry about your bonuses.
ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Yes. So let's give the slightly tone-deaf comments a little bit of context. This was a town hall conducted on Zoom for MillerKnoll. It's an office furniture-making company. You may not have heard of it. It's pretty big. It's listed.
And there was a question from an employee to Andi Owen, the CEO, that was, how should we stay motivated if we don't receive bonuses this year?
And the answer starts off with some encouragement from Andi Owen, focus on the things you can control, treat each other well. But it ended with this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDI OWEN, MILLERKNOLL CEO: Don't ask about what are we going to do if you don't get a bonus. Get the down $26 million. Spend your time and your effort thinking about the $26 million we need and not thinking about what you're going to do if we don't get a bonus. I had an old boss who said to me one time, you can visit Pity City, but you can't live there. So, people, leave Pity City. Let's get it done.
STEWART: Ouch. And to give this further context, as you said, there's also the issue of how much the CEO earned last year, $5 million, just over one million in base pay, the rest in stock options and bonus pay.
Meanwhile, the average worker at this company earns less than $45,000.
And let's think of the context right now. With inflation, with high interest rates, people are understandably concerned about what their take-home pay will be this coming year.
SANCHEZ: Yes, she says the comments were taken out of context. But what about the broader context that the employees are living in, as you noted, in inflation?
Anna Stewart, from London, thank you so much.
Brianna, over to you.
KEILAR: We can pay each other in kindness, Boris.
Still ahead, it's a bird. No, it's a plane. No, it's a dead 600-pound NASA satellite hours away from falling back to earth. And the experts, they aren't sure about where it could land, next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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[13:52:49]
KEILAR: In T-minus eight hours, a dead 600-pound satellite will come crashing back into the earth's atmosphere and, apparently, NASA isn't sure where it will hit.
After more than 16 years of capturing invaluable photos like these of the sun, NASA's Ruben Ramadi high-energy solar spectroscopic imager -- say that three or four times fast -- or RHESSI, was decommissioned due to communication failures. That was in 2018.
And today, the space junk is succumbing finally to earth's rotational pull. So should we take cover and should we have gotten more of a heads up on this?
CNN's Tom Foreman is here.
OK, we have eight hours. What makes a better bunker, this studio or the women's bathroom over that way?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yews, I don't know. I wouldn't know about the others. We'll find out.
(LAUGHTER)
FOREMAN: Look, we've had more than 20 years to get ready for this because that's how long it's been up there.
Look, this satellite is an interesting thing. About 660 pounds. It is currently traveling somewhere around 16,000, 17,000 MPH as it heads back towards earth here.
The Department of Defense is monitoring its location. And the ETA is 9:40 p.m. Eastern time in terms of when it will come back to earth where it's going to come back.
Bigger question. One reason it's a bigger question, because despite that ETA, they have a plus- or minus-16 hours in terms of what is going to happen, so I'm not sure how much that works.
Your odds of getting hit by this satellite are one in 2,467. I spend a lot of time doing math. I don't know exactly how they calculate that. They say your odds are getting hit by lightning are more like one in 15,300.
Honestly, the real thing here is there's about a 70 percent or 71 percent chance it's going to land in the water somewhere.
And we went through this before, Skylab with MIR. And there's stuff falling to the ground all the time. Usually doesn't hurt anybody.
KEILAR: OK, but I hate these odds. I hate them.
(LAUGHTER)
KEILAR: Those are not good.
FOREMAN: Not great.
KEILAR: No I'm not loving that.
So I mean, DOD is monitoring this. But you know if comes 9:40 plus or minus, what, 16 hours, whatever it is right?
FOREMAN: Yes.
KEILAR: OK. If this is headed towards a certain area, you know, are we going to get a heads up?
FOREMAN: What are they going to do? There it is.
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KEILAR: Yes. What do you mean siren --
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[13:55:03]
KEILAR: Can I get a text message?
FOREMAN: Most of it's going to burn up. I mean, honestly, this is the thing, most of this is going to burn up as it comes back in. That's the statement that they put out.
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FOREMAN: Saying that 660 pounds, most will burn up. There may be a little bit left. The odds of it hitting anybody with anything is slim.
But remember, there's about 27,000 items, orbital debris, orbital debris. I'm not talking about meteorites. Orbital debris, about 27,000 of them that are out there that are of a measurable size.
There are millions that are out there, all traveling at the same speed. Some of this stuff is falling to the earth every day. And it doesn't hit us, by and large. So I don't think there's any reason to be worried.
I think it's just fascinating. And the work of this in measuring solar flares and these giant bursts of energy coming off the sun, this has been really great. Because it's told us a lot about how it affects our energy supplies here. Radio signals all sorts of things, and spacecraft. Really important work that this satellite did for us. Now it's just coming home.
KEILAR: All right. Well, I hope you're not back here tomorrow to talk about this.
Tom Foreman, thank you.
Jim?
SCIUTTO: We'll soon the man who shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl when Yarl just went to the wrong house, will face his charges in court. This is Yarl's recovery from his injuries, that has been described as a miracle by his family spokesperson. The latest next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
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Sara Fischer, Anna Stewart, Tom Foreman
