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Church Massacre in South Carolina; Authorities Targeting Investigation Around Joyce Mitchell; NAACP President: SC Killings Motivated by Hate. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 18, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:43] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Nine people killed inside that church. The church's pastor, State Senator Clementa Pinckney, was among those killed. His cousin talked with CNN just a short time ago, calling Pinckney a family man and just a wonderful guy.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were a very close family. And he and I were very close. You know, Senator Pinckney, first and foremost, he was a God- fearing man. He was loved by everyone. Never heard anyone say a harsh word about him. He was a peacemaker. As that old saying says, I'd rather see a sermon than to hear one. Well, you saw it every day through Reverend Senator Clementa Pinckney. He was quite a character. It's just a -- just a huge, huge loss and a sad, sad thing that has taken place here.

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COSTELLO: The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church has been a major presence in Charleston since 1816. In its history, it's been burned to the ground, it's been destroyed by an earthquake, but it has preserved (ph). Welcoming Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the height of the Civil Rights movement.

So let's talk about this church, the shootings and all that surrounds it. We're joined on the phone by Reverend Jamal Bryant. He's pastor at the Empowerment Temple AME Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

Welcome.

REV. JAMAL BRYANT, PASTOR, EMPOWERMENT TEMPLE AME CHURCH (via telephone): Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Thank you for being here.

I know your father is on his way to Charleston as part of the delegation. What's he planning to do there?

BRYANT: The bishops of the AME church are converging really to help minister to that community and family. They're hosting a city wide prayer vigil at 12:00 noon today to try and really just bring some calm and peace. The pastor had two young children and we can't forget the other eight family members of their church who are still reeling from a horrific atrocity, how that was an act of terrorism against our people and the body of Christ.

COSTELLO: Reverend, this happened in a house of God. Please help us make sense of this.

BRYANT: I can't make sense of it. It -- it's really beyond the boundaries -- again, it's beyond the hate crime. It's an act of terrorism and all the more for the defenses to be down for the assailant to sit in Bible study for an hour and to be amongst them is an egregious offense and it's incomprehensible to all of our faith believers around the world. The Christians are reeling. The Muslim community that's starting Ramadan is also on edge. So all of us are going to have to come together and pray and really shore up our houses of faith in weekend.

COSTELLO: Are you going to add, I don't know, added security around churches throughout the United States? Is that something you're talking about?

BRYANT: Our church already does it. What's not being discussed is also a church in Memphis was shot last night. And still nobody is captured in that. And so we believe that God is our shield, but we also are going to have to be aware of everything that's going on around us because we're in tumultuous times. The whole nation is being rocked at this and the African-American community feels fully assaulted when we can get killed, whether we're wearing a hoodie or on a playground and now in a church. This is the reason why African-Americans have higher blood pressure and hypertension. It's a stressful moment for all of us and most of us have been up most of the night.

COSTELLO: Reverend Jamal Bryant, thanks for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

We're continuing our coverage of the deadly shooting at that historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The mayor vowing to make sure the gunman is punishment for what he calls a, quote, unfadable and unspeakable act."

He's what we know about the suspect. He's a white male, approximately 21-years-old, 5'9" inches tall, sandy blonde hair with a slender build. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt with some kind of yellow markings on it. He's also wearing jeans and a pair of boots.

[09:35:02] With me now, Brian Levin, director of the Center for Study of Hate and Extremism, and Marc Lamont Hill, host at "Huff Post Live."

Thanks to both of you for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

MARC LAMONT HILL, HOST, "HUFF POST LIVE": Good to be here.

BRIAN LEVIN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF HATE & EXTREMISM: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you. So, Brian, officials say this gunman spent about an hour with parishioners before he started shooting. Supposedly he let one woman live so she could tell people what happened. What does that say to you about that man?

LEVIN: We really don't know a lot. But what it suggests to me is two things, that this person is about power and control, but also about aggrandizing himself through publicity. In other words, he wants to control the message.

But what I think is so striking here is, when I was looking at the picture, I did not see any overt hate symbols. But again, he would -- he would conceal those if in fact he was going to spend an hour with the congregants.

COSTELLO: So, Brian, when they say "hate crime," was it against African-Americans or Christians?

LEVIN: Well, it could be both. One of the things that hate crime laws say is actual or perceived characteristics, such as race or religion, and in whole or in part. And often times we have people who are hit because of intersecting identities. A transsexual African-American person, for instance, or a female Asian. Hate mongers often times will strike with intercepting identities as part of their characteristics.

But here's the thing here. This was very well premeditated and very unusual. For instance, the last year that we have data from the FBI, we only had about five hate homicide nationally. So this is as much as some year totals in this one attack alone. And we've seen churches targeted as well.

One other quick thing. We have various types of offenders. My friends Jack Levin (ph) and Jack Mckin (ph) came up with a typology. The usual kind of person that would be most likely to do this would be what we call the mission offenders. This is someone steeped in hate. Someone who the depth of their hate goes very deep. Most hate offenders are actually thrill offenders who have very shallow prejudices and stereotypes. However, what I would also say is, never underestimate the intersection of someone who has some deep psychological disorder as well because we've seen this where symbolic targets are hit or places where there are large amounts of people, we often have people who are the mentally ill offender as well. So we might have someone who was not really successful in coming up with the kind of premedication that we would have in your usual hate crime. So while this very well is a hate -- could be a hate crime -- and we certainly think it is -- it could also be someone who is disturbed and not even be able to come up with the kind of motive that most of our hate offenders come up with.

COSTELLO: Got it.

And, Marc, this church, this particular church in Charleston, it occupies a special place in African-American history, which I don't know if it could make it more painful, but tell us about the history of this church. HILL: Well, it's an important church because it's an African Methodist

Episcopal church. It comes out of the AME long tradition. This was a place that historically was a marker of freedom. It was a place that helped lead to the abolition of black folk and to create democratic space. It broke away from a Methodist church that wasn't allowing democratic voices to be heard. So this is a long tradition of freedom fighting this church has witnessed. This church is a moral marker, a political marker, a spiritual marker of the town. And so when that church gets attacked, it sends ripples throughout not just the Charleston area but really around the country.

And this connects to a very long tradition of black churches being attacked as sites of domestic terrorism. And it's important that we use that word terrorism at the same time that police are saying it's a hate crime based on what was -- what was said and done in that church, it's important for us to use a terrorist word in the same way that we would if another group were attacked under similar circumstances.

And when we look at the bombing of the church in Alabama, when we look at churches even in the '90s in Charleston, which were set on fire, we see the church as a site of attack because it's often been the moral and political nerve center of our community. And that's something that all of us need to deal with.

COSTELLO: All right, Marc Lamont Hill.

LEVIN: Yes, he's totally, totally right.

COSTELLO: Oh. All right. Brian, Marc Lamont Hill, thanks so much for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

I've got to -- I've got to take a break. I'll be right back.

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[09:44:16] COSTELLO: Two escaped killers still on the loose and investigators are targeting their focus on the prison employee accused of helping Richard Matt and David Sweat break out. Police have subpoenaed Joyce Mitchell's cell phone records. But one source says the phone has not provided much in the way of clues. For instance, it doesn't appear either inmate used her phone before or after their escape. And in the latest odd twist, the prosecutor in the case says not only did Matt make a painting of Joyce Mitchell's children, she then gave that painting to her husband as an anniversary gift. Mitchell and Matt were supposedly in some sort of sexual relationship. Husband Lyle was allegedly the target of a murder plot once the two men escaped.

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PETER DUMAS, ATTORNEY FOR LYLE MITCHELL: And this is a woman that's been his best friend for 21 years.

[09:45:02] He's still in love with her. I can tell you that. But he's just in shock now. He doesn't want to help her right now, but he's also still feeling that emotion that, you know, he cares about her. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That's Joyce Mitchell's husband Lyle. A source says prison officials have now shut down the honor block, that section that housed the inmates and may have made it easier for them to plan that elaborate escape.

Investigators want to know if any other employees or inmates played a role. And that won't be easy. Ronald Day is a former New York inmate now working as an advocate for convicts.

Welcome, Ronald. Thank you so much for being with me.

RONALD DAY, FORMER N.Y. STATE INMATE: It's my pleasure. Thank you.

COSTELLO: So how can authorities get those inmates to cooperate? Is it possible?

DAY: Cooperation is challenging inside of a prison setting. Because the reality is that there could be some retaliation by individuals who are incarcerated in the facility because you don't want to see someone get themselves into a situation where they spoke up about something that they knew and then they are, you know, as assaulted by some other individuals who happen to find themselves in prison. And that can happen and does happen pretty regularly.

COSTELLO: But it's pretty logical to assume that these inmates knew what was going down, right, with Mr. Matt and Mr. Sweat?

DAY: I don't think it's logical to assume that. I mean, I work for the Fortune Society as an executive there, and I come, sure, as someone who's formerly incarcerated but also as someone who's pursuing a Ph.D. in criminal justice. And I wouldn't say that just because someone has this elaborate plan that they actually executed means therefore that others who are in that situation knew about it.

I mean, I think the likelihood is the exact reverse. Because when you tell people about a plan, that means that they will potentially try to curry favor from guards and so forth, and from the administration, so that they can potentially get some time off of their sentence, maybe get transferred to another facility or what have you. So I don't think it's likely that a lot of people would have known about that.

COSTELLO: Really? Because Mr. Matt was 210 pounds and he had to cut an awfully large hole in his prison cell to get out and he was using power tools.

DAY: I mean, power tools -- we think about a construction site and we hear power tools make a significant amount of noise. However, they also have power tools that don't make a lot of noise. There could be drills that are relatively quiet. And this could have been done over a significant period of time. And so that it's not guaranteed, certainly, that anyone else would have known about this plan.

And considering how long they've been out as well, it seems the exact reverse, that people would have known. Because, by now, I think the state -- I mean we've heard the governor say they have no idea where these individuals are. And for that, people inside, people on the outside, I mean, they're following every single lead. To think that, oh, therefore people must have known about it, I don't think that that's true.

COSTELLO: All right, Ronald Day, thank you so much for your insight. I appreciate it.

DAY: Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, an all-out manhunt is underway right now for the gunman who killed nine people at one of the most historic African-American churches in the country.

The president of the NAACP talks to CNN next.

[09:49:00]

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COSTELLO: And we are continuing our coverage of the shooting at the black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that's left its pastor and eight other people dead. The hunt for the gunman going on right now.

The president of the NAACP Cornell William Brooks talked with CNN's Chris Cuomo a little earlier this morning. He said it's evident the killings were motivated by hate.

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CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS, NAACP PRESIDENT: It seems very clear that this is a hateful act. It is a desecration of not only a sanctuary but our spirit as a country. I mean, it is -- make no mistake about this. This is like Columbine coming to a church. I mean, as a minister, I have taught bible study. It is a relaxed moment. It is not like on Sunday. People are not particularly alert. There's a smaller group of people in the sanctuary often in a meeting room or a chapel, and so this is a very, very tragic moment.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": We understand also from the authorities that the gunman may have entered the bible study and remained as long as an hour before this violence taking place. One of the things the authorities are doing is trying to see if there's any connections to any other threats that were placed in that community maybe involving churches like this. Do you know anything about that? Or is there any history of this in that area?

BROOKS: So we are in touch with our local NAACP branch president, the state conference leadership, our people on the ground.

[09:55:08] There is a concern that because the killing of Walter Scott and the heightened tensions, that this may be an act of revenge or reprisal. But the fact is we don't yet know the facts so we don't want to get ahead of the facts, and the focus here must be on apprehending this suspect and witnesses coming forward and being helpful to the police.

Because Emanuel AME Church is a historic church. It is a much venerated, much revered church, and it is a church, like the entire AME denomination, that was born in social justice and social protest. So that someone might target it as -- for a hate crime is tragic but not altogether surprising.

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COSTELLO: That was the president of the NAACP, Cornell William Brooks, talking to CNN.

South Carolina's state senate will be convening at the top of the hour. One of the massacre's nine victims, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, was also a state senator.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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