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Warrant Issued For Deputy Allegedly Involved In Inmate's Escape; Interview With Sheriff Rick Singleton, Lauderdale County, AL, Sheriff's Department; Former U.S. Special Forces Soldier Discusses Training Ukrainians; U.S. On Track To Recover All Jobs Lost To Pandemic By August. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 02, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: And the local sheriff is warning officers across the country to be careful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SINGLETON, SHERIFF, LAUDERDALE COUNTY, AL, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: There's going to be some law enforcement officers somewhere in this country, or this state, that's going to come across this guy. And I can't emphasize enough to our brothers and sisters in blue, don't take any chances with this guy. He's dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN's Ryan Young is in Lauderdale County, Alabama, where this manhunt is underway.

Ryan, what made officials move to issue this warrant today?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, the sheriff's being transparent in this investigation. In fact, I was kind of surprised by how much they were sharing with us.

They even talked about a new piece of video evidence taken less than a mile away from the jail facility behind me. They believe she drove directly to the site and they believe they got into another car.

Something we should remind folks. This is what the man looks like now. He cut his hair. They're also warning people about the fact that he's a very large individual. Someone who is 6'9".

But as you can imagine, this hit the small town and this small jail hard. We're talking to deputies. They said it felt like a funeral.

This man was brought here in February because he was going to face capital murder charges. Then you have this situation that happens. They said, on Friday, it felt like someone had punched them in the heart.

Listen to the sheriff when I pulled him to the side to talk about how they were feeling about this investigation and what led them to press the new charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SINGLETON: If she did this willingly -- and all indications that she did. I guess we're trying to hold onto that last straw of hope that maybe for some reason she was threatened a and did this under coercion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Vicky White has worked here for 17 years. I think something has been lost a lot of times. She was the second in command.

A lot of people are asking questions about how she was able to pull this off.

If the second of command in any organization asks someone to do something, especially in a situation like this, normally people follow through with it. No one here expected to be a part of this.

Let's not forget her last day was supposed to be Friday. She put in for her retirement papers. She was talking about retiring to the beach for quite some time. That didn't happen.

She also sold her home. They believe she has some cash from there.

This individual, who they're looking for, is 6'9", Casey White.

There's video evidence of them driving about a mile away from here.

We talked to the U.S. Marshall Service. They made sure the borders near the Canadian and Mexican border knew they were on the loose. They alerted the airports nearby.

They are trying to get this situation surrounded. But still, a lot of questions about how they were able to get such a head start, Ana. A lot of people want to know where these two are.

CABRERA: Ryan Young, thank you.

Let's hope to get more answers now with Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton, who is joining us.

Thank you for taking the time. I know you're busy.

You announced the warrant for the corrections officer about an hour ago. Any new updates since then?

SINGLETON: No. We don't have any new updates. We have the warrant out. We're still trying to get an identification on a vehicle with they left in.

We have leads on that that we're following up on. Hopefully, they'll pan out. And hopefully, soon we'll know what kind of vehicle they're in. CABRERA: You say you're holding out hope that Deputy White didn't act

willingly, that perhaps she was coerced. But the warrant has been issued for her arrest.

Right now, is Deputy White considered an accomplice or a hostage?

SINGLETON: Well, she's certainly an accomplice. She took him out of the jail, out of the detention center.

And it's obvious from the evidence we have gathered that this was not -- that he didn't kidnap her or force her or anything as far as in the car once they left the facility.

We have some video footage of the vehicle at an intersection close to where the car was abandoned.

There's an eight-minute time laps between the time she left the detention center and the video at the intersection. It takes a good eight minutes to make that drive.

That tells us she wasn't diverted anywhere along the route. It's a straight route.

She's absolutely assisting him. We're still -- don't know 100 percent it was willful, but it's certainly looking that way.

CABRERA: I want to ask about the surveillance footage showing Deputy White's patrol car at the intersection near where her car was later found.

Have you seen any other surveillance footage of the pair together after leaving the prison?

SINGLETON: No. That's the only footage we've found right now that we found the car. We have looked for footage, of course, throughout the shopping center.

Hopefully, hoping to identify a second vehicle that they got into when they left that area.

But we weren't able to obtain any kind of evidence that would help us in that part of the investigation.

[13:35:05]

CABRERA: Do you have reason to believe that they stole another car, or do you think they may have even more outside help?

SINGLETON: I think -- to me, it's pretty obvious they had a vehicle there for them. Whether it was someone else picking them up or not or whether they just had a vehicle staged there to transfer into, you know, that's what we were hoping we could find out on some video.

But unfortunately, we weren't able to get any video that could confirm that for us.

So we -- the information we have indicates that maybe they had a vehicle. So that's what we're following up on right now.

CABRERA: And so here we are three days already, they've been on the run. Do you think Deputy White and inmate White are still in Alabama?

SINGLETON: I would be surprised if they are. Of course, we really don't know where they are. But I'd be surprised if they're still in Alabama.

CABRERA: The inmate, Casey White, was in prison awaiting a capital murder trial. He was already serving 75 years for a slew of crimes committed in 2015, including home invasion, carjacking, a police chase.

With him at large right now, how would you characterize the public threat?

SINGLETON: He's a serious threat. He's a very dangerous person. We've advised from day one, if someone sees him, do not approach him. Call 9-1-1 or alert your local authorities.

We've also cautioned our local authorities to be very careful. He's an extremely dangerous person.

CABRERA: One of the big question marks is, how did they get out of the prison together to begin with?

Because the prison had a policy requiring at least two sworn deputies accompany inmate, White, at all times after a previous planned escape, was thwarted in 2020.

Why was Deputy White able to check him out at all? The ruse was she was taking him to a mental evaluation that actually didn't exist.

SINGLETON: Well, Director White, as assistant director of operations, coordinated the transports.

Just minutes before she left with Casey White, we had two vans depart the detention center to the courthouse. Both vans occupied by two deputies. One van had five inmates. The other van had seven.

So her story to the booking officer was that all the available officers were tied up, which they were. And her being the only officer available that is firearm certified.

And being the boss and over the transport, she informed the booking officer that she was going to carry him to the courthouse and drop him off, which is a flagrant violation of policy.

But I'm sure, because it was her boss, the booking officer didn't question it.

CABRERA: At what point did you realize something wasn't right?

SINGLETON: I'm sorry? I didn't hear the last question.

CABRERA: I'm wondering at what point did you realize something wasn't right?

SINGLETON: Well, you know, of course, we didn't find out -- we didn't really realize what had transpired until later that afternoon.

The director of corrections had texted Ms. White around 9:00 -- well, a little after, and telling her that he needed to talk to her before she left for the day. He didn't hear back from her.

About 11:00, he texted her and said, "I hope you're feeling better." And no response. (AUDIO PROBLEM)

CABRERA: Sheriff, I'm going to end it here because it's -- you're breaking up. It's really hard to hear you all of a sudden.

But thank you again for taking the time to speak with us to share the information that you have at this moment.

Obviously, we're doing this as a public service to make sure people are on the lookout for these two, and in the hopes that you can get them in custody soon.

Sheriff Rick Singleton, thank you very much.

[13:39:10]

Still ahead, he's a former U.S. Special Forces soldier who volunteered to risk his life to train Ukrainians on heavy American-made weapons. He joins us live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Welcome back. Even as Congress considers a massive $33 billion aid package for Ukraine, billions of dollars in military hardware have flowed into the country.

Weapons like the Howitzer, the Javelin, anti-tank missile, have been critical for the Ukrainians battling Russian forces. Some of that gear requires specialized training for Ukrainian soldiers.

The U.S. has set up training facilities in Germany and at least two other undisclosed locations. But inside Ukraine, the training has fallen largely to volunteers.

Mark Hayward is one of those volunteers. He's a former U.S. Special Forces soldier and former Army medical officers. He just left Ukraine. He is in Poland right now. And is with us right now.

Mark, thank you for being here.

I understand you helped train more than 100 Ukrainian soldiers. What kind of training did you provide?

[13:45:01]

MARK HAYWARD, FORMER U.S. SPECIAL FORCES SOLDIER: This is probably about 120 soldiers and Marines. We provided training on Javelin, NLAWs, the 84-millimeter recoilless rocket.

And we also did training on how to build the batteries that they needed in order to work with the command launch unit, the thermal night site for the Javelin missile.

CABRERA: How much time does it take for Ukrainian soldier to learn what you've just taught them and be able to go and apply it and to teach others?

HAYWARD: Well, the U.S. military gives 80 hours to that project, and uses some pretty sophisticated training devices.

We were training guys everything we could give them within about two days, because our training devices were very limited. Our guys never had a chance to practice generating the targets, practice the firing sequence.

All we could do was talk them through it and send them down range with the missiles because we couldn't get DOD to send us the training equipment.

CABRERA: I know you are a father. So to go to Ukraine to put yourself in harm's way, why did you decide to do that?

HAYWARD: Because most of the young men that I worked with are fathers. They are somebody's sons. They are brothers. They need the best we can offer them.

CABRERA: Were you afraid for your own safety while you were there?

HAYWARD: You know, there's times when Russians would get close to us with mortar rounds and things, but we can all die sometime. We can die in traffic. We can die in a hunting accident.

It doesn't matter whether we die, because it's going to happen. What matters is what we're doing when that happens.

CABRERA: So you were in Ukraine for seven weeks. What was most surprising to you?

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: What was most surprising --

HAYWARD: Russia has no idea -- Russia has no idea what it stuck itself into.

The Ukrainian people will never be conquered. These are the bravest and fiercest people I have ever met, kind, warm-hearted.

But they are so angry now. They will never rest until they are free again.

CABRERA: We know the U.S. and other countries have sent Ukraine billions of dollars in military equipment and other aid. You talked about the DOD not allowing certain resources to come to Ukraine. Can you describe more about what you think is missing in ensuring

Ukrainians are able to continue this fight?

HAYWARD: To continue this fight, we need to use the presence of Western volunteers and provide them with the training tools they need for the Ukrainian military to effectively employ all of these heavy weapons systems we're sending.

CABRERA: What is that?

HAYWARD: For instance, with the Javelin, there's a training aid that fits into a backpack that lets you connect it up to someone's command launcher, the thermal night site that controls the missile, and simulate the process of firing the missile.

It's not a classified item. It's not an expensive item. Again, it will fit in a backpack. We use it at international training centers. It's been in the inventory for 15 years.

For some reason, DOD didn't send them initially. And then when we asked for them, they said, well, we didn't send them because the Ukrainians didn't ask for them. So go find a Ukrainian to ask for them.

OK. We've done that. We've got general officers in the Ukrainian chain of command requesting this stuff. But we've lost critical time.

My hope is that this stuff will be delivered quickly now that we've broken the code on how to ask for it. But we need to lean forward in this. We recognize that folks need training tools.

We need to say, hey, can we send you the right training tools so the U.S. and U.K. folks in country can help you learn how to use this most effectively.

Rather than saying, we're not sending it to you unless you ask for it. And we won't even tell you it exists so you know to ask.

CABRERA: It sounds like you've been as proactive as you can be.

And so thank you for sharing those insights on what you learned and what you're teaching at the same time.

Mark Hayward, I appreciate your time and wish you safety as you make your way back to the U.S.

(CROSSTALK)

[13:49:40]

CABRERA: The jobs lost to the pandemic are almost all back, but that's not necessarily great news for the bigger economic picture. We'll explain next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CABRERA: The U.S. jobs market is headed toward a historic milestone, on track to regain all the jobs lost during the pandemic by the end of August. That's according to a new Fitch Ratings report shared with CNN.

And this means the labor market will be back to pre-pandemic levels in just barely two years. By comparison, it took almost six and a half years to recover from the great recession.

CNN business reporter, Matt Egan, joins us now.

Matt, this sounds like great news, but you say there's a downside to it. Explain.

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: That's right, Ana. It really is incredible how vast the economy has gotten back to pre-COVID levels of employment.

[13:55:04]

And I think it's for a few reasons. One is the fact this was a health crisis. A lot of jobs were lost right away. A lot came back quickly.

Plus, the Federal Reserve came in with unprecedented support. So did Congress and the Trump and Biden administrations.

We already have 13 states back to pre-COVID levels of employment, including major employers, like Arizona, Colorado, Texas. This is a red-hot jobs market.

If anything, though, it might be too hot. The concern is that wages are just going to keep going up. And that's going to trickle down to higher prices for consumers, which leads to higher wages. It can become a negative feedback loop.

And so that's why the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates. In 48 hours, it's expected to announce its first-rate increase of half a percentage point. That's the first time they've done anything like that since the year 2000.

The goal is to try to cool off the jobs market, get inflation back under control. But it's going to be hard to do this without slowing down the economy so much that it sets off a recession. This won't be easy -- Ana?

CABRERA: It's a difficult dance.

Matt Egan, thanks for that.

That does it for us today. I'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place. Until then, join me on Twitter, @AnaCabrera.

The news continues after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)