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Family of Michigan Teen Sues Over Son's Death; Chaos in Israel; President Obama Meets With South Korean President. Aired 15-15:30p ET

Aired October 16, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:03]

PARK GEUN-HYE, SOUTH KOREA PRESIDENT (through translator): Those are just some of the topics that we talked about.

These are global issues, too. And in order to effectively respond to the needs with regard to these issues, I believe that we need a very close cooperation between Korea and the United States.

Now, these issues need our attention in terms of cutting-edge technologies and new industries that we need to develop. And only then will we be able to approach these issues and resolve them effectively.

And in that respect, I think that we need to engage in cooperation to maybe develop, jointly develop technology in these areas. For example, we could have joint projects in smart grids or clean energy projects. And in the aerospace, we have agreed to work together to quickly conclude a Korea-U.S. agreement for cooperation in space.

So, through such efforts, we have an economic alliance between Korea and the U.S. that was forged through the course of (INAUDIBLE) and we want to turn this into a high-value-added alliance that's ready for the future.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much, everybody.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And there they go, the president of the United States and the president of South Korea, both there at the White House answering a number of questions from members of the media, both South Korean and also right here in the United States.

Thank you for watching. I'm Brooke Baldwin here, top of the hour here.

I want to make sure we talk about the vast array of topics that were discussed there, specifically Iran, Russia, Syria, North Korea, and the 2016 race.

One note. When initially our own correspondent Michelle Kosinski asked the president if he was watching our debate, the most watched Democratic debate in history, he said, yes, but I was also flipping the channels because there was a ball game on. We will talk to Michelle Kosinski about that right now. I'm being told she's with us right now.

Michelle Kosinski, and then Elise Labott is also with us, our global affairs correspondent. We will get into what he said about Russia and the United States and Syria and Israel.

But first to you, Michelle. I want to begin with his comment on his response as far as whether or not he watched the CNN debate earlier in the week and thoughts about Joe Biden possibly jumping in.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, multiple times now the administration and President Obama have expressed how important the debates are, how important this robust communication is to the American people.

I found it interesting that is baseball more important than the Democratic debate? But the White House has said that he looks at the highlights afterwards, and he really wouldn't go there on some of the biggest questions. Even on the fact that Hillary Clinton, though she worked on the Trans-Pacific Partnership while she was secretary of state, coming out and opposing the administration on that, he really wouldn't weigh in.

And, of course, on whether the window is closed or closing rapidly for the vice president getting into the race, again, just wouldn't go there, said you're going to have to ask Joe Biden about that.

But not surprisingly, he took this opportunity to talk about the attributes of the candidates and whatever they believe in, even though they are going to have their own platforms inevitably. He says they all stand for building the middle class. Really, the White House wastes no opportunity to talk about those attributes of all the candidates, even though they might have some disagreements with them, as well as to contrast the Democratic candidates of course with the Republican ones, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. I want to get into some of the foreign policy questions he got, Elise, and specifically the news of the day that this mysterious drone, Russia saying it's not theirs. Sources are saying otherwise in Turkish NATO airspace. He was saying, yes, we, the United States, are arriving at some sort of agreement with Russia regarding sharing airspace over Syria.

But he also said specifically there's been no meeting of the minds in terms of strategy.

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, and you heard President Putin yesterday, Brooke, say that this is the problem with the U.S. position, that they are criticizing Russia, but the U.S. strategy is weak, they don't have one, and so they should be talking with Russia.

President Obama's view is that Russia is going to soon see the error of its ways, that President Putin will soon find himself bogged down in Syria and he does not want to get in any conversations with the Russians that could be seen as bolstering Assad. So, yes, they will talk about what we have been calling deconfliction

in the skies over Syria, but the U.S. is not going to get into any kind of political talks because the Russian position is that Assad should stay and that should be the basis for fighting ISIS and the U.S. position is not that.

[15:05:00]

So I think they want the Russians to sweat it out a bit. They feel that you have heard from the Saudis and others that they're going to be starting to arm more of the opposition, threatening about a new Afghanistan where there could be a lot of jihadis in there. And so I think that although it looks right now like President Putin has the momentum, President Obama thinks that this is going to really become a quagmire for Russia.

BALDWIN: Saying specifically that Russia will not be able to bomb their way to a peaceful situation in Syria.

Elise Labott, thank you.

Michelle Kosinski, with the first question to the president, thank you so much as well there at the White House. Appreciate both of you.

Let's continue on here and talk politics with our CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish, host of CNN's "SMERCONISH."

Good to see you, sir. The president not wanting to comment obviously on really the news of the day that we're learning from his former -- Biden's former chief of staff, to Senator Ted Kaufman with this big e- mail blast last night saying maybe, maybe this could happen in the next three days. The president says, you know what, ask Joe. Ask Joe about that. Right?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: He kind of served notice that as these issues come up over the span of the next year, there's that much time left on the clock, he's not going to be weighing in.

BALDWIN: Yes. Let's talk about some of the numbers, the third- quarter numbers were coming in, fund-raising, with regard to a lot of these different candidates yesterday.

And Trump, he is making a huge, huge profit, but he's not spending a ton. He's got his New York-based operation. Looking ahead as he is still like up by double digits in the polls, do you think he should expand some more?

SMERCONISH: Well, in business terms, right, we would call this ROI, return on investment. It's stunning the level of success that he's having. His largest expenditure, Brooke, in the last three months, $825,000 for paraphernalia, "Make America Great Again."

BALDWIN: The baseball caps, yes, yes.

SMERCONISH: Exactly. And yet he's still number one in all of the surveys all across the country. How much money does he have on hand? However much he wants to spend, because he can match the other candidates if he's willing to dip into his own bank account.

So I guess the takeaway, I have to say something nice because I have been highly critical.

(CROSSTALK)

SMERCONISH: Yes, thank you. He's running it like a business, and he's succeeding. He's doing extraordinarily well.

BALDWIN: How about on the flip side who is doing well since her -- since the debate Tuesday night in Vegas, Hillary Clinton? She was strong Tuesday night. You listen to lots of folks like you, but really you say she's cemented her victory in the days since.

SMERCONISH: Right.

She was strong. And immediately after the debate ended here on CNN, I said I thought she had a very good night. I thought Bernie Sanders had a very good night. I won't deal with the rest of them right now. But it seems to me that the level of her success has grown exponentially in the last three days.

And I don't know. Is it the media being so eager to buy into a revival theory? Because we talked a lot about the dishonesty factor of the polling data. And, therefore, we were all eager to see. It's like a Rocky thing. We love to see you up. We love to see you go back down. We want to see you up again.

Or is it that her that campaign was very effectively spinning the media thereafter? Again, I'm not taking anything away from her, but I would say that she did not have the kind of night that today on Friday afternoon you would sit there and say -- and Bernie Sanders in the social media realm exceeded her.

There are any number of surveys that you can take a look at where Bernie Sanders outpaced Hillary Clinton in terms of how people saw it who were voting online.

BALDWIN: What about the possibility -- we began with what the president said about Joe Biden and really wasn't willing to say. I mentioned the Senator Kaufman e-mail blast, the fact that our reporting is that we could learn in the next three days or so.

But, again, this is late. This is October. Obviously, the world knows who Joe Biden is. This isn't a name recognition issue, but what about money, raising money here starting in October? How big of a deal is that?

SMERCONISH: I think it's a big deal. I think it's a big deal if you're Joe Biden. Maybe Joe Biden looks at Donald Trump, who is not spending it, has it, but is not spending it and says this is such an unconventional cycle. Maybe I don't really need the conventional apparatus that everyone presumes I require. I'm Joe Biden. I'm the vice president of the United States. I probably have 100 percent name identification. I'm well-liked. And, frankly, I don't need to do the conventional things in a typical year. BALDWIN: OK.

Michael Smerconish, I wanted to ask you about the Jim Webb piece.

(CROSSTALK)

SMERCONISH: Crazy story, isn't it?

BALDWIN: It's going to have to be a to be continued. We're out of time. Michael Smerconish, thank you so much.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Make sure you watch him tomorrow morning 9:00 Eastern here on CNN.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:14:06]

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

The militant group Hamas calling for a day of rage against Israel. Flash points of violence breaking out all across the region, as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes another violent turn. You see it here, new pictures showing Israeli police firing tear gas into this crowd, trying to disperse Palestinian protesters near a mosque.

A Palestinian man dressed as a news photographer stabbed an Israeli soldier before being shot and killed by Israeli forces. And across the West Bank in Gaza, sources say five Palestinians were killed by live fire and 269 more were injured during clashes with Israeli forces.

We just heard from President Obama speaking at the White House moments ago addressing this, condemning the violence there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: This kind of random violence isn't going to result in anything other than more hardship and more insecurity.

[15:15:03]

OBAMA: And I don't think that it's -- I don't think we can wait for all the issues that exist between Israelis and Palestinians to be settled in order for us to try to tamp down the violence right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's go straight to our senior international correspondent there, Ben Wedeman, live in Jerusalem. Tell me -- we have seen these pictures. We're seeing more images of

the violence. Tell me more about the so-called day of rage, Ben.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this was the third day of rage, Brooke, that Palestinian parties called for within the last eight days.

And what we saw was really a repeat of what we have been seeing now for quite some time, clashes in places like Bethlehem and Hebron, in Gaza. Actually, four people were killed. One of the people died from wounds from the previous day of rage, and one of those Palestinians was the man who was dressed up as a journalist in Hebron and then shot by Israeli police.

But this is just becoming more and more the pattern of events, of daily events here in the -- certainly in the West Bank and Gaza, are these clashes. And listening to President Obama talking about tamping down the violence, yes, many Israelis and Palestinians you speak to here say, we expect the violence to tamp down, to calm down.

But the problem is that it will flare up again and again. And what we're seeing is that these flare-ups are becoming -- the distance between them is becoming shorter and shorter. And the concern is that this is going to become the new normal, clashes, stabbings.

And the problem is that there doesn't seem to be an active outside effort by parties such as the United States to do more than tamp down the violence, but to actually address its causes -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: The violence, tamping down the rhetoric, but he also said, of course, there's responsibility from these two parties as well. Ben Wedeman, thank you so much in Jerusalem.

Coming up, tragedy at a traffic stop -- this teenager flashed his headlights at an oncoming police officer, ends up shot and killed after this exchange with this officer, all caught on his body cam.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. JONATHAN FROST, EATON COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Down on the ground now!

DEVEN GUILFORD, TEENAGER: Oh, my gosh. Stop yelling at me.

FROST: Down on the ground right here facing me! Down on the ground now. Get on your belly right now!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We will walk you through this incredibly disturbing video and we will talk about legal ramifications as the family is now suing, despite the fact that the officer was cleared of any wrongdoing, and get a police officer perspective ahead.

Also, the human side of the brutal violence in Syria. I will speak live with a Syrian-American with family still caught in the war zone. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:23:15]

BALDWIN: The family of a Michigan teenager shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Here's the situation. They are suing over this traffic stop that was just this past February that they say was unlawful and unnecessary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FROST: Get your hands behind your back. You're under arrest.

GUILFORD: You can't do that.

FROST: Get your hands behind your back.

GUILFORD: But, officer, what are you...

(CROSSTALK)

FROST: Get your hands behind your back!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Seventeen-year-old Deven Guilford was pulled over after flashing his high beams at an oncoming patrol car driven by Sergeant Jonathan Frost.

So, from there, the situation quickly escalated. Guilford was shot seven times.

To explain to you what happened, here is CNN's Jean Casarez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEVEN GUILFORD, TEENAGER: How are you doing?

FROST: I need your driver's license, registration, proof of insurance, please. Pulled you over today because you flashed me. I didn't even have my brights on.

GUILFORD: Yes you did, sir.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Watch this police body camera video. Seventeen- year-old Deven Guilford on his way to his girlfriend's house back in February, Sergeant Jonathan Frost pulling him over for flashing his high beams.

FROST: Driver's license, registration, proof of insurance, please. I did not have them on. Driver's license, registration, proof of insurance, please.

GUILFORD: I don't know even know you're an officer.

CASAREZ: Sergeant Frost asked several times for Guilford's license. He refuses, questioning why he was stopped.

GUILFORD: Am I being detained?

FROST: Yes, you are.

GUILFORD: For what crime?

FROST: You flashed me with your high beams.

GUILFORD: You had your brights on, sir.

CASAREZ: Guilford begins recording their interaction on his cell phone.

FROST: You can get with the program and start to comply with this traffic stop or you are going to be taken to jail.

CASAREZ: The officer calls for backup as the situation escalates.

FROST: You do not have your driver's license on your person? Correct?

GUILFORD: Yes, I do.

FROST: Where is it?

GUILFORD: You do not have to see it. I cannot see -- You had your brights on, sir. I'm not lying to you. I was just doing that to be polite. I didn't want you to flash someone and have someone go off the road and crash. You know?

[15:25:08]

FROST: Do you realize that if you would have complied with this traffic stop, it would have gone a whole different way for you?

CASAREZ: The officer sees Guilford try to make a phone call and orders him out of the car.

FROST: Out of car or you are going to get Tased. Everything is being recorded, son. I have no problem with that. Get out of the car. Get down on the ground. Now. Down on the ground!

GUILFORD: Oh my gosh. Stop yelling at me.

FROST: Down on the ground! Right here. Facing me. Down on the ground. Now.

GUILFORD: What do you mean?

FROST: Get on your belly. Right now.

GUILFORD: This is what Americans --

FROST: Put your phone down and put your arms out to your side now.

CASAREZ: Sergeant Frost kicks Guilford's cell phone away.

GUILFORD: I don't have a weapon. Hey! You can't do that!

FROST: Son, get your hands behind your back. You're under arrest.

CASAREZ: Just about 90 seconds before backup arrives, Sergeant Frost Tases Guilford but he's too close for it to work properly. Roughly 14 seconds later you hear gunshots.

Sergeant Frost says Guilford attacked him, hitting him repeatedly with his fist. Take a look at this slow-mo frame by frame. You can make the scuffle out just a little more clearly.

FROST: Central Point Z72. I shot one. Priority backup. Send EMS, I'm bleeding.

CASAREZ: This body cam video captures Sergeant Frost at the scene transported to the hospital with these injuries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like a small abrasion on the back of the head.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Jean Casarez with that. The teen's family filed suit after the deputy was cleared of wrongdoing.

So, let me bring in CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson, and the CEO of Global Security Group, David Katz. David is also a firearms and homeland security expert.

This is a tough one. Good to see both of you all.

DAVID KATZ, FOUNDER AND CEO, GLOBAL SECURITY GROUP: Thanks for having us.

BALDWIN: I have now watched this video multiple times from start to finish.

Here's my first question to you, sir, on the law in Michigan. Can you flash your high beams at someone approaching?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It depends who you ask. If you look at the statute, it says you cannot flash your high beams within a car that's 500 feet away.

However, the statute was nuanced. Nuanced how? It says you can't flash it in such a way as that the glare impairs vision. So, the family is saying, it was simply flashed momentarily, not impairing the vision at all, so, therefore, the statute doesn't apply. That's the nuance the family is arguing as to why he should not have been stopped in the first instance.

BALDWIN: He had apparently, as you hear in this entire video -- the officer has said he pulled multiple people over during the course of the night. Apparently, his high beams really were that bright, whether or not his brights were on or it was new patrol car, and he had let all of those other people go. This obviously went very differently, David.

KATZ: From the initial encounter, the motorist did what every motorist should not do. You comply with a police officer. You have no right to withhold your driver's license. You have no right to resist arrest. This is a tragedy.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Even if you don't understand why you're being pulled over?

KATZ: Driver's license and registration and insurance card, give them over now.

And the cop in the initial part of the interview, he's very reasonable. This didn't happen, driver's license, registration and insurance card. And, by the way, one thing most people are omitting, did you listen to the sound of Deven's voice when he's speaking? He's intoxicated. There's no doubt.

If I'm pulling -- making that car stop, my first suspicion is maybe I'm going to say, listen, it's not a high beam. Don't do that anymore. It's not a good thing to do. But you speak to this kid and he's high.

JACKSON: Well, factually, there's some indication that he had marijuana in his system, and so that might have caused the impairment.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: And certainly a horrific tragedy. And I tell, Brooke, every client that would listen and even those who don't and people who are not clients, you comply now and grieve later.

There are many instances in which you may feel wronged on the street, but that's not the time to really make that argument. Get an attorney, have that argument made in court. But from the very beginning, there's this escalation, the escalation, and the rising. And it didn't have to happen. It did. Hence, we're here talking...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I asked about precisely that. I was on "NEW DAY" this morning talking to two of the family attorneys here about what happened and the lack of compliance. Here's what they said to me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYNTHIA HEENAN, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY: He's a 17-year-old kid. He's confused. He doesn't feel like he should be being stopped. And we agree, actually, and disagree with your earlier comment that it is illegal to flash lights at an oncoming car.

But I think the important thing, it was a civil infraction, not something that deserved a death sentence. (END VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: But, Brooke, what happens is, you have to look at, OK, we can debate forever whether the stop was legitimate. Certainly, it constitutes a violation, and so that you can make the stop.

But that's not where this case is going to turn in terms of the lawsuit. It's going to turn on when the child was shot, the 17-year- old, was the officer in imminent fear for his life?

KATZ: That's exactly...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: That's the question.

JACKSON: That's the inquiry.

KATZ: That's it.

BALDWIN: That's the thing.

JACKSON: Right.

BALDWIN: So, it goes so quickly from, "Hey, I'm pulling you over because you flashed your brights at me" to this young man not complying.

Eventually, he does. He gets down on the ground, all the while with his cell phone recording what's happening, is Tased.