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Family of Black Man Killed by Officer Call for Prosecution; Video Shows Officer Shooting Black Man in the Head; U.K. Supports Sweden and Finland in Potential NATO Membership; Task Force: Children Age 8 and Older Should Be Screened for Anxiety. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 14, 2022 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: This afternoon a family is grieving the loss of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya. He was killed during an encounter with police in Michigan.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We're from Congo because we were in an area that was unsafe, there was a war. And I thought I came to a safe land is having a set place. And I stopped thinking now, I am surprised and astonished to see that my son is here, that my son has been killed with bullets. I hear that my heart is broken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, the moments leading up to his death were caught on camera and released by police in Grand Rapids. I want to warn you this video is disturbing but it's important to see what happened here.

Now police say they stopped Lyoya, a black man, over improper vehicle registration but a struggle ensued after Lyoya got out of the car. You can see and hear the officer deploying that taser and then as both of the men were on the ground, Patrick Lyoya, who was unarmed, was shot in the head. With me now is Ven Johnson, co-counsel for the Lyoya family. Thank you for being with us. First, we're seeing this video. Some of it is body cam video, dash cam video, cell phone video from a passenger in the vehicle. Do you have all of the video that police and the Kent County prosecutor have?

VEN JOHNSON, CO-COUNSEL FOR LYOYA FAMILY: I'm guessing no, but obviously, I don't know what don't have. So, I'm guessing we going to have a long way to go to get to the bottom of all of it.

BLACKWELL: We've heard from you, Ben Crump, members of Lyoya's family. What is it you're asking for now after seeing this video?

JOHNSON: Very clearly this is a violation of our client's civil rights. Clearly this was excessive force. We're asking the Michigan State Police to do their investigation. We're asking them to seek a warrant for the arrest of this officer. We're asking for the Kent County prosecutor to move forward with charges and move forward with the prosecution and hopefully conviction. Obviously, we are hoping this officer should be immediately terminated, discharged, and then in due course will be filing our civil action.

BLACKWELL: As part of that process typically, the officer is interviewed, and we're saying the officer because Grand Rapids Police they've not released the officer's name. Do you know if that officer has been interviewed?

JOHNSON: I'm guessing not at this point. Typically, no. They usually give these officers about a week. They assign them a union steward or a union lawyer and they meet, they talk, they prepare and that's usually when they get interviewed.

BLACKWELL: Your co-counsel, Ben Crump, said that you cannot shoot an unarmed person just because of the color of their skin. Is that the accusation that this officer shot Patrick Lyoya because he is a black man, and what's the evidence to support that?

JOHNSON: Well, the officer is white, the man is black, and we know anybody who is paying attention to statistics across the United States, people of color are more often subject to more violence by the police and shooting even if they're unarmed like Patrick was in this case without any question.

[15:35:00]

Statistically the chances of them being injured or killed as a result of interaction with the police are through the roof. So, that's just the plain fact. There's no question that's what happened here.

BLACKWELL: OK. The video from the body camera, it stopped at some point. What's your understanding of why that happened? The chief says that maybe it was pressed in the tussle. Do you accept that explanation?

JOHNSON: I don't accept any explanation until I get to cross-examine the people involved. And so, one of the things that we'll be doing in the civil case is determining exactly how this button got pressed, did it get pressed. Is it subject to being pressed or is it something that literally only the officer would know and therefore depressed it so that it wouldn't further record. But those things we'll find out in due course.

BLACKWELL: There's some question about if there was a language barrier here. The officer asked Lyoya if he speaks English. He says yes. I know his parents today relied upon an interpreter. Do you know if he spoke English fluently, understood English fluently, or if there was potentially there was a problem there?

JOHNSON: Well, the answer I'm sure it's both. English was a second language. Could he speak English? The answer is yes. But it's a second language. So, is there likely some language barrier, absolutely. And the next question is, why are you putting your hands on me when you're pulling me over asking me about my license plate? What's going on? And I don't think anybody would understand why an officer would do that under any circumstance.

BLACKWELL: Ven Johnson, co-counsel for the family of Patrick Lyoya, thank you, sir.

JOHNSON: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: All right, back to Ukraine. If invading Ukraine was Putin's attempt to weaken NATO, it is backfiring. Now Finland and Sweden are seriously considering joining the alliance. We have more on that next.

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CAMEROTA: The U.K. announcing it will support Sweden and Finland if they decide to apply for NATO membership. The movement would further strengthen Western unity against Russia's war in Ukraine.

Ian Bremmer joins us now. He is the president of the Eurasia Group and author of a new book -- out next month -- "The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats and Our Response Will Change the World." Welcome back. Let's start here with this potential application to NATO. Finland says that it could be in weeks. If the goal of the war was to keep NATO from getting close to the Russian border, this is a failure. But is Finnish membership the same as Ukrainian membership? Are they equal here?

IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP: They're not equal but keep in mind Ukrainian membership wasn't happening. So, I mean this is probably the biggest geopolitical own goal that's been scored by anybody this century. The fact that Putin has, you know, decided to invade Ukraine and has literally undermined his own goals on every single front, politically, economically, geo strategically. This is a disaster for him. And you know, since nobody really thinks that Putin's going to capitulate, the real question is how he's going to react because this is going forward.

I mean, Finland and Sweden will apply. They will be accepted unanimously by NATO members. This is in short order as you hear weeks not months. It's enormously popular in both countries. Also, Ukraine will be much closer to the EU, much closer to NATO than they ever were before the Russians chose to invade. There'll be vastly more defense spending going on in Europe, advanced positioning of forces along the border and the Baltic states, permanent basis in Poland and Romania and Bulgaria. I mean, there's no way that this isn't worse on every front for Putin.

CAMEROTA: So then how does Putin respond?

BREMMER: Badly. Badly. I mean, he is not going to capitulate. Failure is not an option for Putin. And he's not about to be taken out of power. So, the question is, what's he going to do? We've already seen in the last three days concerted denial of service, cyber-attacks from Russia against Finland. I suspect we'll see more cyber-attacks against NATO states as a consequence.

You heard from the former President, Dmitry Medvedev, saying that the Russians are talking about positioning nuclear forces in the Baltic region as a consequence of this. I expect that there'll be a lot more muscle flexing in terms of exercises, in terms of, you know, sort of submarines and jet fighters and others going into territorial waters and skies of NATO countries, which is dangerous.

We've heard the Russians talk about maybe putting bases in countries like Venezuela and Cuba that are aligned with them in the Western hemisphere. But the point is that all of this is seen as an act of war by Putin. And so, I mean, this is not just about Ukraine increasingly. This is a confrontation between Russia and NATO. That's how Putin will see it, and it's fairly obvious when the American president is saying this man is a war criminal that he's committed acts of genocide against the Ukrainians, that he should be removed from power. Nobody believes that there's any way back where the Americans could have any form of economic or diplomatic business as usual with a Russia run by Putin.

[15:45:00]

So, this relationship is broken and irrespective of when we might get to a ceasefire or frozen conflict in Ukraine -- and we're not close to that right now -- the fact is that the ongoing confrontation between Russia and NATO is the new reality that we're all going to have to deal with.

BLACKWELL: Ian, let me ask you about some of the symbolism that the U.S. is considering that potentially this high-ranking official may be going to visit Ukraine. We heard today that France is moving their embassy back to Kyiv from Lviv. Is it time for the U.S. to move back in to the capital?

BREMMER: I think it is. I think the Czech Republic already went back to Kyiv. I think that was in the last 48 hours. The United States has talked about putting a lot of diplomats on the ground in Lviv. But it's clear when you've got -- we just had the president of Poland and the heads of the three Baltic states this week showing up in Kyiv. The German president was willing to go -- Zelenskyy didn't want him there because he's seen as too close to Russia and Putin. But you know, the fact is the United States should be reopening the embassy in the Ukrainian capital at this point. I think that's pretty clear.

BLACKWELL: All right, Ian Bremmer, always good to have you, thank you.

Well, the coronavirus pandemic has taken a major toll on children's mental health. And now an influential panel of experts say that all children over 8 they should be screened for anxiety. We'll tell what you parents should know next.

[15:50:00]

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BLACKWELL: The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force is recommending that all kids age 8 and older be screened for anxiety. According to the CDC, 5.8 million children ages 3 to 17 were diagnosed with anxiety and anxiety disorder between 2016 and 2019. That's nearly 10 percent of children in that age group. And a lot of experts say the coronavirus pandemic has only worsened children's mental health.

CAMEROTA: Martha Kubik is a nursing professor at George Mason University and a member of the task force suggesting these anxiety screenings. Marty, thanks so much for being here. So, anxiety for adolescents and teenagers was already getting bad. I mean, in 2015, 2016 it seemed like there was an uptick and then pandemic has only made it worse. Do you have a sense of how much worse the pandemic has made this for kids?

MARTHA KUBIK, MEMBER, U.S. PREVENTIVE SERVICES TASKFORCE: First, thank you all so much for drawing attention to this really important topic about youth mental health and that particular focus on anxiety. As you note, we were already concerned about growing rates of anxiety in our children and youth before the pandemic. And the pandemic of course, accelerating our concern and also our need for effective interventions.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Marty, when I was preparing for this conversation, I was going to ask you what should parents look for, what behaviors, but as I learned, is that a lot of kids who suffer with anxiety are not the ones who misbehave in school or problems at home so there may not be a specific behavior to look for?

KUBIK: You know, that's a really good point to make. Anxiety can certainly be within the range of what's normal. And sometimes it can actually even be protective. The importance of a preventive screening recommendation that we are making from the task force is that we are recommending that children 8 and older be screened for anxiety even though they have no signs and symptoms. And so, it's so important --

CAMEROTA: Oh, I'm so sorry to interrupt. What are what do those screenings look like? How do you tell if somebody -- if a kid that age is suffering from anxiety?

KUBIK: So, the screening tools that we use are questions. Items that we ask there are a variety of screening tools and we're not recommending one over the other. But essentially what we're looking at is the severity of the symptom and how long the symptom has persisted.

So typically, we're seeing fear and worry, and are these symptoms at a point where a child, a teenager is refusing to go to school, refusing to engage with their friends, not being a part of family life. And sometimes it may be just the opposite, that they are becoming irritable and their behavior isn't at all what they're used to being. And then they can also be without symptoms completely. So that's the benefit of a screening recommendation.

BLACKWELL: So, Marty, if you find a child -- as I imagine it could depend upon the severity of it -- what do you do with it then? Because I can imagine there are a lot of kids -- parents who are saying I don't want my child at 9 years old on medication for this. So, what do you do?

KUBIK: Yes, importantly, screening isn't a diagnosis. It is an opportunity to have another conversation with a child and a parent or caretaker to confirm a diagnosis of anxiety and then, to your point, make that connection with care so they can get the help they need. And we know that effective care can be psychotherapy and also medication.

[15:55:00]

And sometimes a combination of both. But that typically would be a decision that the parent and the child would be engaged in.

CAMEROTA: Marty Kubik, thank you very much for bringing all of this to light. I don't know a family that hasn't been affected by their kids' anxiety during this very anxiety-producing time. This is widespread right now.

BLACKWELL: And not just can kids. I mean of course, this recommendation is for children 8 to 18, but a lot of people, I think most of us have had to deal with the anxiety that this period has brought on.

CAMEROTA: Yes, it's good to name it and to get screened for it. Meanwhile, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts after a quick break.

END