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Bus Beating Caught on Tape; Discrimination on Airport Shuttle; A-Rod Likely Suspended Today; 14-Year-Old Shot by NYPD; Closing Statements in the Bulger Trial

Aired August 05, 2013 - 11:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, the irreverence. CNN NEWSROOM continues right now.

A brutal beating caught on video. Three 15-year-old boys gang up on a 13-year-old on a school bus. You can hear him screaming for help as the driver shouts at them to stop.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop. Stop.

JOHN MOODY, SCHOOL BUS DRIVER: Leave that boy alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: But the driver did not step in, and it's raising a ton of questions.

Pamela Brown has more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOODY: No, you have to get here, quick, quick, quick, quick. They're about to beat this boy to death. Please get somebody here quick. And they're still doing it. There's nothing I can do.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The school bus driver John Moody looks on in horror, pleading with the dispatcher to send someone to stop the vicious attack.

MOODY: I've got a fight. I need help in a hurry. I need help in a hurry. I got a fight.

BROWN: Police say three 15-year-olds attacks the 13-year-old after he told school officials that one had tried to sell him drugs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop! Stop!

BROWN: You can hear the 13-year-old's cries for help as he's mercilessly punched and stomped.

Police say the attackers broke the victim's arm and stole his money. The three boys were arrested on aggravated battery charges. According to Pinellas County school policy, the driver is not required to intervene, only to call dispatch.

Moody says he was too afraid to step in.

JOHN MOODY, BUS DRIVER: The three boys just jumped on him and started pounding on him. And I did all I can. I was looking. It was like I was in shock. I was petrified.

BROWN: Pinellas County leaves it up to the driver, but many counties actually forbid drivers from physically stopping fights.

Gulfport police say Moody won't face charges, but that the 64-year-old could have done more, they said.

CHIEF ROBERT VINCENT, GULFPORT, FLORIDA, POLICE: There was clearly an opportunity for him to intervene and/or check on the welfare of the children in this -- or the child in this case. And he didn't make any effort to do so.

BROWN: While his attorney says that was not an option, Moody says he's haunted by the attack, wondering if he could have done more.

MOODY: I wanted to help him so bad. I wanted to help him so bad. I wanted to help him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. It's nice to have you here with us.

I want to continue on that story, the legal side of that story. There is one thing that driver could do, one thing, could actually testify against those boys if those boys are actually going to end up facing those charges.

So let's bring in our legal panel. Attorney Brian Kabateck and criminal defense attorney Nicole Deborde join me now.

The big question, exactly what is our duty to respond as citizens, especially if we as citizens sometimes find ourselves caring for youngsters.

Brian, let me bring you in on this. Your first thoughts when you heard about this, what were they?

BRIAN KABATECK, FOUNDER AND MANAGING PARTNER, KABATECK BROWN KELLNER: My first thoughts about this case were it's sort of one of those situations where heads, you lose; tails, you lose. There's no winning situation for this driver under these circumstances.

If he intervened and got involved it that situation and one of the other boys got hurt, he could be subject to criminal liability. He could be drawn into a civil lawsuit.

On the other hand, what he did was call the dispatcher. He said there was a problem here. He needs help in a hurry. All of these things were going on.

He did what he was supposed to do, but yet he still gets criticized under the circumstances.

So what does the law require in a situation like this? Probably exactly what this driver did under these circumstances.

He did what he was obligated to do under the law and with his employment with the school district or the bus company, and that's about all you can expect of him in these situations.

BANFIELD: You know what, Brian? That's amazing that you brought that up because it is a little bit tricky.

Some jurisdictions with the school district actually say you can't intervene. Some jurisdictions say you can if you think it's safe.

And this is one of those jurisdictions, Nicole, are where he had to make the call if it was safe. And he is a 64-year-old man who is about to retire, decided it wasn't safe.

When you look at that video, I think a lot of people might think twice. That looked like an incredibly violent situation with three burly teenagers.

NICOLE DEBORDE, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Exactly. I think that this driver did exactly what he was supposed to do.

If he had interjected himself into that circumstance before he was able to call for help and got himself hurt to the point where he wasn't able to call for help, that young man would have been in a much worse circumstance than he was.

And I think the driver has to assess the circumstance and decide whether he can do anything that makes a difference or whether he's just going to get himself hurt and not be able to help the child.

I think he did the right thing. I'm completely on the side of the driver.

BANFIELD: Let's talk about, there's a difference between criminal and civil, obviously.

Brian, if you're talking about the criminal issues, already the authorities have said they're having a tough time actually finding something to charge him with, given the circumstances and the law in this jurisdiction. It may be different somewhere else.

But what about that 13-year-old's family? Can they do something with the -- A, the driver, B, the school district, C, the bus company, in terms of some kind you have civil litigation?

KABATECK: So the bus driver's not going to have any criminal liability for this. That's pretty clear. And he can testify against the boys involved in. As far as the parents of the boy, the boy himself, do they have a civil lawsuit against the driver? I don't think so. I don't think that he violated any civil laws in the case.

They might have a case against the school district. If this boy was already had informed on these other boys about some alleged drug activity and they didn't protect the boy, that very well may end up being a civil case there, that they knew the boy was in a situation where he could be in danger.

All of those facts would have to be developed. They'd have to come out. We'd have to see exactly what was there.

But civil liability might follow and certainly against those three boys and their parents.

BANFIELD: Well, I know this is likely a real wake-up call for a lot of school districts, and school bus companies who have to deal with the possibility that kids are getting a little tougher, sometimes actually brandishing weapons and some of these drivers are a lot older, as well, so likely not an issue that's going to go away.

Hold the thoughts for a moment if you will, Brian and Nicole. Thank you for that. Wait on this.

We're checking a couple of other big top stories. An unprecedented decision, 19 U.S. embassies across the Middle East and North Africa closed for business right through until Saturday, it's a move that was triggered by heavy Internet chatter, including senior al Qaeda operatives, but it's about possible terrorist attacks.

What's most troubling to United States officials this morning is that they don't know the potential target or targets or locations thus far.

A gay man says he and his partner were forced to sit at the back of the bus, literately sit at the back of the bus, after the driver saw them holding hands. And just to be clear, check your calendar. It's 2013.

Ron McCoy said they'd just flown into Albuquerque for PrideFest last month and this is what happened on the airport shuttle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON MCCOY, FORCED TO SIT IN BACK OF BUS: I saw him look at us, look down at our hands and he looked so angry and he just blurted out at me, OK, if you're going to do that, you're going to the back of the bus.

Well, I think it's because you didn't like the fact that I was holding my partner's hand.

And he goes, see? Now you're telling on yourself. I'm like, what?

And my partner at that point is like, that's discrimination. And then the driver just responds, well, see, you're telling on yourself again. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Well, the bus company says that the driver's behavior was, in fact, inappropriate and the two men have filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Brett Seacat being sentenced today for murder of his wife. A jury in Kingman County, Kansas convicted him, a former police officer, in June in the shooting and killing of Vashti Seacat and then setting their home on fire to cover up the crime.

If you missed it, they had two little boys who were inside the home at the time of all of this. They did manage to escape and they were not hurt.

But Seacat? It's going to be a tougher story for him. He's going to face a mandatory sentence of life in prison and he won't be eligible for parole for at least 25 years.

He is a baseball superstar, the highest-paid player in American sports, and one of the most powerful sluggers in the history of the New York Yankees. That's the good news.

But within the hour, all of that could come crashing down for one man known well as A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez. Major League Baseball is expected to suspend him for at least 214 games for his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs and his alleged links to the now-closed Biogenesis, a clinic accused of distributing PEDs, the performance- enhancing drugs.

But if it happens and if Rodriguez appeals, he could still be playing in tonight's Yankees game. Due to injuries, it would be his first game with the Yankees this season.

Rachel Nichols joins us live with the latest. Rachel, I know you probably did not miss this "New York Post" cover that came out this morning.

I think that the face says it all, but certainly the headline, "Just Go," says a whole lot more. Give me your take on this.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS: Yeah, I think that's the headline of the day. Competition of the tabloids around here, I think that is definitely the winner.

Look, this is a soap opera of epic proportions, and it is only getting stranger as we go here. His suspension is expected sometime this afternoon.

But as you mentioned, you will probably still see him on the field with the New York Yankees tonight in Chicago, of course, playing his first game of the season on this day, why not?

The reason is because if baseball suspends him under their drug policy, under their joint drug agreement, then players are allowed to play while they are appealing and A-Rod has certainly said he will appeal.

Now, the baseball commissioner's office did leak last week that they were possibly considering suspending him under the commissioner's powers, and that would mean that in, quote, "the best interests of the game," A-Rod would be kept off the field while he appeals.

You think, huh, that might make sense for baseball avoiding a circus, but, of course, not so good for due process, and they've decided it is probably better, or at least the we're expecting them to decide it is better to let him have his say, to play while he appeals, go through the letter of the law.

And that way they'll have a better shot of an arbitrator holding up their side.

BANFIELD: OK, so that's sort of like medium-/interim-term.

What about long-term? What about the idea this could be a lifetime ban? Is that a reality?

NICHOLS: No, not at this point. It was something that was dangled last week. It is not expected to happen today.

That was really a strategy on baseball's part to push Alex Rodriguez to the bargaining table, that idea of total ex-communication, and by threatening that, they wanted to bargain with him.

And you might say, wait a minute, when my parents grounded me when I was a teenager, nobody bargained with me over my suspension.

But the reason why baseball wanted Alex Rodriguez's cooperation is they wanted to avoid exactly what's about to happen.

This is going to get very ugly. They're going to suspend him. There's going to be an appeal. All the dirty little details are going to come out. Both sides are giving press conferences at different points.

Not what they wanted. They wanted to agree on something, maybe something less than a suspension, a little bit, have him agree to take it.

That never happened. Well, instead, we have a soap opera.

BANFIELD: Well, the fans have certainly been in on the bargain. I just need to show it again because, honestly, I thought it was such an incredible cover.

Who knows if he gets on the field again if they'll have a lot to say in the stands?

Rachel, you'll keep us posted?

NICHOLS: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: All right, Rachel Nichols, nice to see you as always. Thank you for that. She's always on the ball. That girl gets it first, I'll tell you.

All right, so we've got another big story in New York, gunfire in the middle of the night. All right, maybe you've heard of that before, but what about this? Police chasing, shooting the suspect, the suspect only 14-years-old and he is dead.

Did the officers have any other option? And what about that 14-year- old? There's some details you're going to want to know about. Our legal team is going to dig into this one.

Also, lookie, nothing like a good implosion. Unless the shrapnel fires into the crowd. Not kidding. Serious injuries.

You're going to find out exactly what happened, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: A 14-year-old boy gunned down in the streets of New York. His killers NYPD officers, chasing him down in the night.

If that sounds like injustice at its worst, hold on, because there's a whole lot more. And the video certainly does help to tell this story in excruciating detail. The 14-year-old who died is seen actually on surveillance in a white shirt and was himself waving a nine-millimeter handgun, targeting the boy at the bottom of the screen.

Police say he began to chase the victim, firing wildly at him. Look at the chase. He's running towards him. When the police said, drop your weapon, he did not. He chose instead to fire it again, but he missed.

So the two rookie officers who were giving chase instead fired at him, and they did not miss.

Shaaliver Douse died in the street, a 14-year-old who had himself been caught with a gun before, not to mention arrested on a charge of attempted murder before. That charge has since been dropped. But, still, the people who know him say that he -- he is the victim of injustice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at this baby. Look at this young man. Beautiful. What potential. What potential. You didn't even give this child a life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So the police are still investigating what happened. And the commissioner here, the police commissioner, Ray Kelly, said that the officers did not have a choice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMMISSIONER RAY KELLY, NEW YORK POLICE: I don't see what the officers could have done any differently. Someone shooting at someone else and running down the street with a gun. They tell him to stop, drop the gun, words to that effect. A shot is fired on that street. I mean, I think they did what we would expect officers of any experience level to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: And yet, again, I have another headline to show you. Here it is, right here. And it's a bloody gun. "Another day, another bloody scene." So I want to bring in our legal panel, you just saw them. I'm sure they have a lot to say on this one.

One of the things I think people, and I'll start with you, Brian, have been very torn over is that this is a 14-year-old and he has parents who are, no doubt, devastated about this. But this was a 14-year-old who was hell bent on killing someone and those gunshots were going all over the place and could very easily have killed someone and it could very easily have been the target's family out there saying, "Look at this innocent face and he had so much promise."

Where are the police supposed to weigh in on this one? Where is the mayor supposed to weigh in on this one, Brian?

KABATECK: Well, the police in all these situations, whenever there's a shooting, they're going to probably face some sort of a criminal investigation. Somebody's going to look at this and determine whether or not they acted appropriately. It happens in almost every police case and almost always the police are exonerated from any criminal liability. And then of course we turn to civil liability.

But in this case, you have a lot of videos. You have a lot of information. The police tend to gather around each other when this sort of thing happens and tell a particular story. So until all the evidence comes out, we don't know exactly what happened. But in this case, you know, a 14-year-old, 24-year-old, 34-year-old, someone with a gun running down the street shooting looks pretty bad.

BANFIELD: OK, Nicole. The aunt of this of 14-year-old boy, Quwana Barcene, is comparing her nephew to Trayvon Martin. "Him, Trayvon Martin; it's never going to end. A child, 14 years old. Gone. Shot by police."

Is that fair?

DEBORDE: I don't think that it is fair. I don't think that these police officers had any choice whatsoever. What the case law says when it concerns use of force by a police officer is that these situations are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving. And this was exactly that circumstance and, in fact, the suspect in this particular circumstance had a gun. It doesn't take but a split second or less for that person with a gun to turn on police officers and fire. These officers had every reason to be in fear for their lives and every reason to shoot the suspect in this case.

BANFIELD: I'll tell you this. Those are the family members, but those who knew the boy, but there were neighbors -- this is a high crime district. They have more police officers in this district because it's such a high crime district. And there were neighbors who said, "I can't walk down the street because this just happens all the time." The shootings, the gang-related activity. So we will see how this turns out and where the investigation goes.

By the way, those two officers were rookies. Just about a month or so out of cop school. How about that? Brian Kabateck, Nicole DeBorde, stick around if you will.

I got another must-see video for you. Firefighters literally scattering. Look what's going on behind them. The home that they're trying to battle the blaze in collapsing nearly onto them. Debris, fiery debris, everywhere. Find out how they got out alive and how this happened in the first place.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: A fireman's quick thinking and great training turned out to really save a lot of lives. Take a look at the video on the right- hand side of your screen. This began -- this is a house fire in Boise, Idaho, but it turned into just a raging inferno. And watch as the home crumbles virtually into nothing.

Well, back in time a little bit, one fireman actually noticed the wall of the house that was starting to bow and he warned his fellow fire crews to get out. And it was only 15 seconds later that whole thing came crumbling down in flames. Investigators are still trying to figure out how the fire started but thank god for those 15 seconds.

This may not come as a surprise, because it's really not much of a secret, but law enforcement agencies use criminals to help them crack down on crime all the time. What might be shocking though is how often the informants themselves break the law in prosecuting their efforts.

There's a report out by "USA Today" that says FBI agents authorized on average about 15 crimes a day. I said that right -- authorized 15 crimes a day. Some of those crimes including buying and selling illegal drugs as well as plotting robberies. The FBI is not shying away from this, say that this is an essential but and unsavory part of investigating criminal organizations.

So this is a related story. The FBI began tracking crimes by informants about ten years ago, and it was a move sparked by James Whitey Bulger's case with agents allowing him to operate a crime ring in exchange for information about the mob. So fast forward to today. Closing arguments under way in none other than Whitey Bulger's murder and racketeering trial. Make no mistake, they didn't authorize any murders, but over the past seven weeks, the jurors have certainly heard from convicted gangsters, ex-drug dealers and families of victims about all of the alleged exploits.

I want to bring in my colleague Deb Feyerick. She's outside the courthouse in Boston. And I dare say, Deb, you are a colleague I have not seen in person for a very long time because this trial has gone on for a very long time. And I now see the light at the end of the tunnel but how bright is it? DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is bright indeed. We can tell you the prosecutors right now pulled no punches. They described Whitey Bulger during closing arguments as, quote, "one of the most vicious, calculating criminals ever to walk the streets of Boston." And they said, make no mistake, he wasn't some Robin Hood protecting his community. He was a murderous thug who allowed drugs to freely flow into South Boston.

Now the prosecutor Fred Wasach (ph) acknowledged that the evidence was deeply disturbing, Ashleigh, because not only was it done under the nose of the FBI but it also done because of rogue FBI agents who protected Bulger during this 20-year reign of terror. The prosecutor reminded the jury that the government's not on trial, the FBI is not on trial. Whitey Bulger is the one on trial. He's the one who pulled the trigger again and again and again in some 19 murders that he conspired to.

Now, the prosecutors, Ashleigh, had to really deal with the character of some of the government's star witnesses, specifically the hitman, the enforcer, also the crime partner. He called hem reprehensible, just like Bulger, and he said, quote, "These men didn't hunt animals; they hunted people. And that made them the scariest people on the streets of Boston."

And the prosecutor told the jury, "Look, the only thing worse than making a deal with these people was not making a deal with these people." He said they needed eyewitness in order to dismantle this organization from the ground up and that's what they got. He told the jury don't focus on the inconsistencies. They're minimal. Focus on ultimately the big picture of what Whitey Bulger was doing.

Now Whitey Bulger, Ashleigh, is sitting at that defense table. He was hunched. He was taking notes. He wasn't looking at the prosecutor. He wasn't looking at the judge. He just scribbled and scribbled and scribbled while the prosecutor made their case that, in fact, the jury should find him guilty. Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: But one thing he did not do, Deb, he did not take the stand in his own defense. It will be fascinating to see what this jury is going to do. Deb Feyerick, stay on it for us and then please do come back. We miss you terribly.

FEYERICK: You bet.

BANFIELD: Deb Feyerick reporting live for us.

I have a jail escape to show you. Is it literally -- I can't stop watching. An Arkansas inmate crawling through a window. Hello. And out you go. Trust me, this really was an incarceration. I don't know how you have a window like that, but when we come back, I'm going to show you how big that window was.

And here's the catch. This guy is armed and dangerous and he's still out there. And it is not the first time he's done something like this. A lot of details coming at you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)