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Dallas Police Attacked: Rampage Gunman was at "Breaking Point"; Prison Break Manhunt; NAACP Leader's Hate Crime Complaints Suspended; U.S. Military Conducts Strike on Libya; Jeb Bush to Kick Off Run for Presidency; Dallas Gunman's Mother Speaks Out. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired June 14, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: People are being warned to stay indoors after deadly flooding destroyed enclosures at a zoo in Georgia capital of Tbilisi. These are incredible pictures showing bears, tigers, lions, wolves on the loose in the city. The hippopotamus -- this hippopotamus was spotted in a central square chewing on a tree and it was shot with a tranquilizer dart.

Some 300 animals are still missing. Two zoo employees were killed in a raging floodwaters, along with ten other people.

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HARLOW: Six o'clock Sunday evening. Welcome, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow, joining you in New York. You're in CNN NEWSROOM.

And today, we are learning much more about the man who was so furious with law enforcement in his city, that he bought guns and built pipe bombs and brought them to Dallas police headquarters and went on a rampage. Thankfully no one at police headquarters was injured.

But after a car chase, the man whose father described him at his breaking point was shot and killed by a sniper. His name is James Boulware and he blames the system for losing his job and breaking up his family. His mother telling reporters, "We lost him to mental health long before we lost him to death."

Sara Sidner is live in Dallas with the story.

Sara, you sat down face-to-face with his father today.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I did. But we are actually now hearing from his mother. One of our producers has been able to speak with her in person.

She talked about her son and said that he did have a mental health history. That he was a good man, that he gave to the church, but he also had hallucinations sometimes, that he would mention the FBI sometimes, and Sandy Hook disaster sometimes. He was also talking about her a couple of weeks ago, she said, and threatened suicide. So, these are new details from James' mother.

We talked to his father and his father said that his son was very, very angry at police because they took his son away in a custody battle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BOULWARE, SUSPECT'S FATHER: Every one of us has a breaking point, every one of us.

SIDNER (on camera): Did your son hit his breaking point?

BOULWARE: He hit his breaking point.

SIDNER (voice-over): Jim Boulware is teetering on the edge himself, filled with grief after his son James attacked police and was killed for it. He says James was the man behind the attack on the Dallas police headquarters.

Three hours before the attack, he was sitting right here with his dad.

BOULWARE: He told me he loved me and he was going back to West Texas. And I told him, have a safe trip.

SIDNER: But that is not what happened. Before the sun came up, James Boulware was dead, killed by a police sniper after threatening to blow police up for taking his child. He could have. His van was laden with explosives that police eventually detonated.

BOULWARE: He left from here. He mowed my yard yesterday, edged it. Told me he was going to be back in ten days to mow it again.

SIDNER (on camera): Did you have any idea when he left?

BOULWARE: No. No. I knew he was angry at police. He blamed them for taking his son.

I tried to tell him the police didn't do it. The police were doing their job to enforce the laws. If you want to get to that, you've got to go back to the liberal people that put these laws in place to where CPS now can grab kids out of the way from them (ph). They are just enforcing the laws.

SIDNER (voice-over): James Boulware had recently lost custody of his son to his own mother, the boy's grandmother. A family fight in 2013 preceded the custody battle.

BOULWARE: His mother, her half brother and James had a fight in her house.

SIDNER: James Boulware was arrested in Paris, Texas, for multiple assault charges on family members. The charges were eventually dropped.

BOULWARE: When he was here, he said, "Dad, I've lost my house, my tools, my son. I'm going through every dime I've got. I can't find a job because I've got domestic violence on my record." He said, "I've lost everything." And then you have hopelessness.

SIDNER (on camera): Why didn't he get some help? BOULWARE: Where? Where does a white male get help?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: And that seems to be the attitude his son took. His son accused of shooting up the police department and also possessing explosives and high powered weapons.

I do want to talk to you real quick about a conversation that our producer Faith Robertson had with his mother who was very candid about her relationship with her son, saying that yes, it was a difficult one, but she is grieving as well in all of this -- Poppy.

[18:05:10] HARLOW: Absolutely. Sara Sidner, thank you for the reporting.

We are going to bring you that interview that Sara mentioned that CNN had with his mother a little bit later this hour.

Let's bring in Tom Fuentes, former FBI assistant director, to talk about this.

When you hear all of this, Tom, you hear his father say where, where would he go for help? They knew he was at his breaking point, but it seems like far too often we had situations where someone who was dealing with a mental illness carries out an act like this.

TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: It's true, Poppy. It is far too often. And, you know, the problem is that parents really once a child reaches 21 years of age, there's not much they can do. Even if they know a son or daughter needs help, even if they know they could be dangerous -- in this case, I don't think they thought he was dangerous. But even when they know those things, there is not much help they can get. We have an extremely deficient mental health system in this country and it plays out over and over and over again.

HARLOW: What's it going to take to change? I mean, Tom, it's like we have the same conversation time and time again.

FUENTES: Well, I think that the change has to be that there has to be a method, there has to be laws passed that allow professionals to intervene in the case of an adult who is severely mentally ill and poses a threat to make sure that person is institutionalized long enough to see if there is any treatment available and make sure they get medicine and make sure they are not out posing a threat.

Now, you had the judge interviewed also yesterday who said she was afraid in the courtroom and they added the additional security when he had his court appearances. So, it was no mystery that he was dangerous. The mystery was nobody really had an effective way to do anything about it until he did something.

You hope when they do something, it's not something as severe in this. And this could have been a slaughter of police officers. Fortunately, it wasn't. But still, you know, you see this happen and it's just the parents are helpless. HARLOW: Tom Fuentes, thank you for the perspective. Appreciate it as

always.

FUENTES: You're welcome.

HARLOW: Coming up next, why would a woman allegedly help a pair of convicts, convicted murderers, break out of prison? We're going to talk more about Joyce Mitchell and the charges against her, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Schools near the New York prison where two convicted murderers escaped nine days ago will reopen tomorrow, but with a heavy police presence to ensure the safety students. This news coming as authorities revealed the details about the getaway plot including the two convicts, Richard Matt and David Sweat, actually rehearsed their escape plan possibly, by sneaking out in their cells in the middle of the night and then working through the maze of tunnels, ultimately through a manhole to freedom.

And there is more. The prison seamstress charged with giving the killers hacksaw blades and chisels to cut out of their cells wanting to risk it all for a life on the lam with them. Had she not backed out at the last second, authorities say Joyce Mitchell would have been their getaway driver. She would have driven them seven hours away.

Take a listen to what the district attorney told our Sara Ganim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW WYLIE, DISTRICT ATOTRNEY, CLINTON COUNTY, NY: The information that we have looking at the statement is that they were going to meet down by the power plant, drive -- I'm not going to say into the sunset because it was after midnight and it was dark out. But they were going to drive to an area, potentially to an area that was about seven hours away. She never indicated to us where that location was. It was just the information that she was told by Matt and Sweat, that it was about seven hours away.

SARA GANIM, CNN INVESTIGATIONS CORRESPONDENT: So, has that information helped you at all in the search since she didn't pick them up?

WYLIE: I mean, it helps in the sense that she was plan A. Plan A didn't work out. We don't know of a plan B other than walking away from the village and entering this valley here and, you know, trying to survive.

GANIM: Have you narrowed down the search area at all?

WYLIE: From what I understand speaking with, you know, the New York state police officials, that they are continuing to bring the perimeter, but it's still an active search. I can't tell you how wide the search is right now, because I haven't been out. I haven't been out there. I haven't done out there in a helicopter look at to see where it's at. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Right now, more than 800 state and local officers are scouring the area. Still, no sign of these men after nine days on the run.

As for Joyce Mitchell, she is due in court tomorrow. She faces eight years in prison if she is convicted on the charges.

Let's talk about it with our legal analysts: criminal defense attorney, Danny Cevallos, and CNN commentator Mel Robbins.

Danny, let me begin with you.

Sources telling us here at CNN that Joyce Mitchell had some sort of relationship with these two men. They didn't say what kind of a relationship, but some sort of relationship, and that she was ready to leave her husband behind, to drive them away seven hours wherever they were going. How persuasive are these guys?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Anyone familiar with the criminal justice system -- defense attorneys, judges, district attorneys -- will tell you that prisoners rarely want for companionship. Forget Tinder or Match.com. All you have to do is go to a prison parking lot on a Saturday afternoon and you will see just how popular, how silver tongue, and how persuasive people on the inside can be without the benefit of the Internet. With just a piece of loose leaf paper and a ball point pen and their brilliant art of persuasion.

I'm not surprised at all. These gentlemen have nothing but time, and they have nothing but time to plot. And they can be incredibly -- most criminals can be incredibly persuasive.

HARLOW: That's very good point.

Mel, you say the reaction to Joyce Mitchell, this prison seamstress who allegedly help them escape, the reaction to her is really cutting down gender lines.

MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, you know, that's been my personal experience. I was at a pig roast last night for my Uncle Warrey's (ph) 60th birthday party and in the crowd were prison guards formerly at Attica, police officers, cattle farmers and, you know, just a mix of folks. When we're talking about this, what I found fascinating is all of the men rolled just their eyes and said throw away the key. She's an idiot. She committed a crime. All of the women took a pause and shook their head, Poppy, and said I kind of feel sorry for her because she got duped.

[18:15:01] And I think while none of us helped a convicted murderer escape from prison, certainly many of us have fallen for the wrong person that screwed us over in the end. And one thing that I want to point out is I'm not so sure she was plan A. I think these guys are so cunning that part of their plan, very much, could have been, Poppy, the fact that they never intended to take Joyce with them. She was part of their get away and they were not expecting her to show up. I wouldn't be surprised if we find is that they are nowhere near the

site and they never ended on hopping in a car with a former corrections officer who may or may not show up.

HARLOW: Yes, exactly.

Danny, if convicted on all of these charges, she faces a maximum of years in prison. Does that seem at all light to you considering that these guys are two convicted cold-blooded murderers?

CEVALLOS: When you look at the New York statutes dealing with things like escape and promoting prison contraband, what you find is that for most part, the description of the dependant means that they must be someone who is incarcerated or in jail or somebody who is on the inside. There much fewer statutes that deal with anybody from the outside bringing in contraband. So, in that sense, they have charged her with the most serious crime that they could that was available to them, because there more serious crimes, but she would have had to be an inmate.

But in this case, there may be a thing going on here where in New York people are looking at the statutes and saying, you know, maybe we didn't consider how serious this can be when people bring in contraband. Maybe it's something we can see them amend in the coming years. But as it is, promoting prison contraband in the case when you bring something that is not only contraband but dangerous into the prison facility bumps it up to a class D felony, and although people may think that seems like a light sentence eight years, eight years is a very serious amount of time to spend.

Of course, these gentlemen end up hurting anybody, I shouldn't have called them gentlemen. If these people end up hurting anybody, then it becomes even more serious. So, I think, I wouldn't be surprised if the legislature looks at this situation a little more seriously and says, you know, maybe we need to have some more serious penalties for people who promote prison contraband.

HARLOW: All right. Danny, thank you. Mel, thank you as well.

Mel, stay with me, because coming up next, we're going to talk about this story that is getting so much attention. Spokane police have suspended their investigation involving claims that this woman Rachel Dolezal made. She's the NAACP leader who allegedly lied about her race. We're going to speak with the representative from the police department about why now they are suspending all of these cases. Why aren't they looking into them anymore? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:21:31] HARLOW: Many are expecting answers as to why this woman, head of an NAACP chapter, allegedly lied about her race.

At a NCAA chapter meeting in which she was going to speak, her name Rachel Dolezal, tomorrow, it has just been postponed. We don't know when we're going hear from her. She has been at the center of a controversy ever since her parents came forward saying that actually she's white. They showed this picture of her, as you see on one side of your screen, when she was a young woman and showing her now.

She has an adopted brother who is African-American and that brother told CNN, quote, "She told me not blow her cover."

CNN has reached out to Dolezal for her side of the story. We have not heard back from her yet. We're awaiting a statement she might make. But this all surfaced when she began making about a number of hate crimes. She claimed threatening letters and even filed a report with the Spokane Police Department about a noose that was left on her lawn.

Spokane police have since sent out a tweet saying their investigations into those complaints have been suspended.

Let's talk about this. Joining me now on the phone is Officer Teresa Fuller, she a spokeswoman for the Spokane Police Department.

Officer, thank you for being with me. I appreciate it.

OFFICER TERESA FULLER, SPOKANE POLICE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): You're welcome.

HARLOW: What are can you tell us about Rachel Dolezal and the complaints that she has made in the past to your department?

FULLER: We received several complaints. There were three of them received in '09, two of those from her proper, one of them from her roommate and three more complaints this year. And each of those were suspended due to lack of investigative leads. Pretty closely to when they were filed, within a couple of weeks, with the exception of the hate mail she reported recently.

HARLOW: That report of hate mail that, though, complaint, your investigation into that -- just so I'm very clear -- that has also been suspended?

FULLER: That is correct. It was suspended on Wednesday of last week, prior to most of this news breaking throughout the country.

HARLOW: So, it is the case you are saying that all of these claims that she has made, your department looked into them, they didn't have enough leads. They suspended them before these allegations arose in the past week that she has been allegedly lying about her race.

FULLER: That is correct. They were all suspended due to the lack of any investigative leads for our detectives to follow-up on.

HARLOW: Have there been concerns about her credibility among the officers there?

FULLER: You know, I'm not going to speculate on the detectives that investigated these cases, about how they feel about her credibility, but I will say that I mean, our detectives are thorough in their investigation and have followed all leads to their possible ending at this point. There was DNA that was included on a piece of tape in one of the letters that we received that has been tested and didn't matchup with the national database. But should that return of somebody that we had a name on, then

obviously they would follow-up on the leads. So, they really have exhausted everything in each of the cases that they can investigate.

HARLOW: What can you tell us about the complaints that she has made to your department, specifically about hate crimes. I know that her -- one of the complaints is that her son was called a racist term.

[18:25:00] FULLER: And that particular case involved an incident at one of the local grocery stores. We were unable at the time to corroborate what he told us. In fact, we have witnesses that said the report was that he was chased into this particular grocery store and we had witnesses that actually said it didn't appear that that was the case.

So, that case has been settled and is done with.

HARLOW: And what the other claims she made to your department?

FULLER: We had a report of a racial slurs scribbled on her sidewalk, in front of her house back in May of '09. That was actually recorded by her roommate, not by her.

Then, September of '09, we had burglary that didn't initially -- that wasn't initially reported to us as a hate crime, but several days later was the news of a noose that was on her porch. So, then, she felt that possibly the burglary could have been related. So, all of those were investigated and suspended about a month after they were reported to us.

We have the hate mail report and the last report we received was a residential burglary in April of this year, at her residence where two people walked into her house while her son was home and we haven't been able to identify those people or have further leads on anything to do with that. They didn't threaten her son in any way. In fact, they appeared lost when they were there to babysit a pet. So, without identifying the people and getting their side, we reached the end of that investigation at this time.

HARLOW: So, that it's very clear for our viewers, some people might say why would you stop looking into claims even if there are questions about her race and if she lied about her race, you were saying that had nothing to do with why these claims and your investigation into them has been suspended? Is that right?

FULLER: That is -- that is correct. In fact, our Washington state law about hate crimes was called malicious harassment and it clarifies that the only thing that matters is the suspect's perception of that person's protected status. It doesn't matter whether or not that first person falls within that status, but it's the suspect's perception of that status that makes it a hate crime.

HARLOW: And you will reopen these cases if any more leads come into your office. Is that the case?

FULLER: That is absolutely the case, yes. HARLOW: Officer Teresa Fuller, thank you very much for joining me on

the phone tonight. I appreciate it.

And I do want to talk more about this with CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins.

Mel, let's hit on the point that she has brought up. The only thing in the statute there in Washington state that matters is the suspect's perception of the victim in a hate crime.

ROBBINS: That's absolutely right. It is called malicious harassment. If you want to check it out, it's under Section 9A, Poppy, and it states explicitly that it's based on the perpetrator's perception, and in fact, even if these end up being true and somebody is ultimately arrested, if it turns out that she is not in fact black, you cannot use that as a defense. The only thing that matters is that you thought that she was when in fact you did these alleged acts.

And, by the way, this is really serious in the state of Washington. In the state of Washington, if you are convicted of malicious harassment, which is their hate crimes statute, it's a class C felony. You will be going to prison for years, Poppy.

HARLOW: Mel Robbins, thank you very much. Appreciate the analysis on that.

And for everyone watching, tomorrow night on "ANDERSON COOPER 360", Rachel Dolezal's family is going to open up about her. They will be on with Anderson tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Coming up next, Jeb Bush is finally ready to jump into the race for the White House. He says, telling our Dana Bash, that he's actually an introvert. What's that going to mean for his campaign? We'll talk to a Republican strategist and former White House insider about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:32:14] HARLOW: All right. We have new information on that U.S.- led counterterrorism strike in Libya last night. The Department of Defense now saying the target was a mid-level al Qaeda operative in Libya. They would not reveal the exact location.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty joins me now from Washington.

I know we don't have a ton of details on this but what are they releasing at this point?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, a few new details, Poppy. According to a Pentagon official who tells CNN's Barbara Starr they call this man a key figure within AQIM, an al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa. We do know that this was not a drone strike. According to a Pentagon official, it was a single strike that was conducted by a manned aircraft so no U.S. boots on the ground during this mission.

And now U.S. officials are not confirming this operative's name but according to a statement just released by the Libyan government, they identified this operative as al-Mokhtar Belmokhtar. Now we know that this man had claimed responsibility for an attack in 2013 on a gas plant a few years ago in Algeria.

Now Pentagon officials says that this was conducted last night around 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. That's around 2:00 a.m. this morning Libya time. And again we do not know the location of the attack -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Sunlen, thank you for the update. Appreciate it.

Turning to politics now, Republican Jeb Bush will announce his run for president tomorrow. He's going to make the announcement in Miami. He's laying out what kind of candidate he is going to be and how he's going to break away from the huge Republican pack of contenders.

A new three-minute campaign video has just been released by the Bush camp. It features an African-American woman, a Latino man, two other women but no white men other than Jeb Bush are featured. He talks about his role as governor of Florida, also they talk about the impact he had as governor on their lives. He will likely show this tomorrow at his kickoff rally. He was in Europe over the weekend and he told our Dana Bash that he recognizes the challenges he'll face.

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