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Coast Guard Launches Highest Level Of Investigation Into Titan Submersible Disaster; Three San Antonio Officers Charged With Murder; Uncertainty Remains Over Russia After Insurrection. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 26, 2023 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:34:11]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: The Coast Guard says its highest investigative body will examine the Titan submersible disaster in the North Atlantic. The vessel imploded on its way to the Titanic wreckage killing all five people on board. The Marine Board of Investigation will try to determine the cause and focus on conducting interviews and collecting debris.

More now from CNN's Gloria Pazmino.

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GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Now, the Marine Board of Investigation is the highest level of investigation that the U.S. Coast Guard can conduct regarding any kind of maritime incident. And what it will allow is for the Coast Guard to leverage all of its resources, including working with international partners.

Now, this is a multi-step process and right now they are in the first phase, which is to gather evidence. They have had the Odysseus 6000 out at the bottom of the ocean looking for pieces of the vessel. Looking to recover more pieces of evidence. Once that's completed they will hold a public hearing, collect more testimony and more evidence, and then they will continue this investigation.

[05:35:18]

I want you to listen from public officials talking about what's next in the process.

CAPT. JASON NEUBAUER, U.S. COAST GUARD: During the course of the NBI, the board will first and primarily work to determine the cause of this marine casualty and the five associated deaths. The NBI, however, is also responsible for accountability aspects of the incident and it can make recommendations to the proper authorities to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary.

PAZMINO (on camera): Now, any kind of subsequent enforcement will have to be done after a separate investigation.

And just another important note here is that the Marine Board of Investigation is working with the U.S., the U.K., and France. And that, of course, reflects the nationalities of the five people who were on board the vessel. So you can see the sort of multinational effort to try and bring some closure to these families. In fact, the rear admiral of the Coast Guard mentioned he had visited St. John's, where we are right now, to meet with some of the family members that arrived back to port yesterday.

Now, after this investigation is concluded they will submit a report. And the idea here is to understand what happened but also to make sure that safety protocols for deep-sea submersible expeditions are improved so that nothing like this happens again.

Reporting in Newfoundland, Gloria Pazmino, CNN

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FOSTER: Outrage in Georgia after neo-Nazi extremists were seen waving swastika flags and displaying antisemitic propaganda outside a synagogue during worship services.

Georgia officials are condemning the demonstration. Governor Brian Kemp said, "There's absolutely no place for this hate and antisemitism in our state." And Sen. Raphael Warnock has tweeted "We must all raise our voices loudly against this vile hate."

Three San Antonio police officers are facing murder charges after a woman experiencing a mental health crisis got shot in her apartment. The police chief says they didn't use deadly force.

CNN's Mike Valerio has more.

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MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, we need to start with the victim who is at the center of this case, Melissa Perez, 46 years old. She is a mother and she was having a mental health crisis very early on Friday morning just after midnight.

She was cutting, according to law enforcement authorities, the wires of her apartment's fire alarm system. So firefighters show up at that very early morning hour and they ask her "Hey, what's going on? What are you doing cutting the wires to the fire alarm system?" And she tells the firefighters she was cutting those wires because she thought that the FBI was listening to her. So it's very apparent that she needed help.

Officers show up to that scene, though, and they determine among themselves that they need to charge her with criminal mischief, a felony count, for cutting those wires. She is scared though. She goes into her apartment and she grabs a hammer. She moves closer to her apartment window twice and in both of those instances officers open fire -- two volleys of gunshots that lead to her death.

Now, we're going to show you about 20 seconds of the body camera footage. There's an unsettling exchange of words between the victim and an officer, and then those two volleys of gunfire. Here it is. MELISSA PEREZ, SHOT AND KILLED BY POLICE OFFICERS: Stop it! Stop it!

POLICE OFFICER: You're going to get shot.

PEREZ: Shoot me.

POLICE OFFICER: Hey, watch out.

(Gunshots)

PEREZ: Hey, hey -- no!

(Gunshots)

POLICE OFFICER: Back up! Back up!

(Gunshots)

VALERIO: Now, a detective investigating this case writes in the affidavit used to charge the three officers with murder, quote, "The defendants" -- meaning the officers -- "were not in clear danger of death or serious bodily injury at the time the defendants used deadly force." The detective goes to say, "Your affiant" -- meaning the detective -- "does not believe a reasonable officer, in light of the same facts and circumstances at the time, would have felt compelled to use deadly force."

All three of these officers have their first court appearance in a preliminary hearing that is set for July 25.

Mike Valerio, CNN, Los Angeles.

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FOSTER: Still ahead this hour, what's next for the Wagner paramilitary group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin? Our coverage continues after this break.

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[05:43:58]

FOSTER: All pretty quiet in Moscow this morning. The mayor saying all security restrictions have been lifted there after that short-lived mutiny by the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin. We haven't heard from him since he agreed to end the rebellion this weekend but as CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports, there remains a sense of uncertainty for Wagner.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So there's still a lot that's unclear about what's going to be in store in the future for the Wagner private military company.

One of the things, of course, that we've heard from the Kremlin is that they say that the fighters for Wagner, because of their military achievements on the battlefield, will be able to apply to join the Russian military. That's something that's been in the cards for a while. There was a decree by the Russian defense minister a couple of weeks ago where he said that all of the private military companies needed to have contracts with the Russian army if they wanted to operate in the future.

Now, Yevgeny Prigozhin, of the Wagner private military company, had always said that they were not going to do that. And that was, of course, also one of the things that escalated the feud between Prigozhin and the Russian military leadership.

[05:45:06]

But all this is about a lot more than that. The private military company Wagner is one thing, but Yevgeny Prigozhin owns a lot more than that. He has media holdings like, for instance, the Internet Research Agency, which the U.S. says meddled heavily in the 2016 presidential election. Prigozhin was indicted for that. What happens to his media empire?

Then, of course, there is all his dealings in the Middle East. Oil fields in Syria, in Africa. Exploiting things like gold and diamonds. Also, training local forces there.

So there are definitely still a lot of questions about whether or not Yevgeny Prigozhin, when he goes to exile in Belarus, will retain any sort of control over that or if other solutions will be found by the Russian leadership.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.

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FOSTER: We're still waiting for so many questions to be answered -- waiting to see the aftereffects of the short-lived insurrection in Russia and what it means to the power dynamics as well within the country.

Joining us from London is CNN's Clare Sebastian.

Prigozhin -- the one thing he wanted, which was very clear, was to get rid of the defense minister, wasn't it, and a couple of other military officials? And today we see images of the defense minister on the front lines.

What can we read into that?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is Sergei Shoigu in a video produced by the Russian Ministry of Defense visiting what they say is a command post with the Western group of forces in the zone of the circle of special military operation. They don't say when it was shot. They don't say exactly where -- which location probably for obvious reasons there. But he does not often go to visit the zone of the circle of special military operations. So it would seem that this is an effort to restore calm and to perhaps increase morale among the Russian troops as this counteroffensive by Ukraine continues. But also, I think as a counterpoint to that criticism by Prigozhin and others that Shoigu is incompetent and is out of touch.

And I think as well because we see Prigozhin so often close to the front lines and in scenes of battle this does sort of set up Prigozhin -- Shoigu, himself, as being in the position as sort of a hard, tough guy in charge of the special military operation. It does not, though, given that we don't know the location or the time, in particular, of this to speculation as to his whereabouts or his job security in the wake of events over the weekend, Max.

FOSTER: So this is how Putin is effectively communicating, isn't it, without appearing on TV again? He's putting these pictures out and saying I'm behind the defense minister.

What else are you looking out for in terms of messaging from the Kremlin?

SEBASTIAN: Well, so the latest head-spinning development, Max, is that we heard on Saturday evening from Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, that the charges of organizing an armed rebellion against Yevgeny Prigozhin would be dropped. That was apparently part of the deal that included his exile to Belarus. Now we hear, this morning, state media quoting a source close to the prosecutor general's office saying that those charges have, in fact, not been dropped. The investigation continues against Prigozhin.

So we hope to find out more from Dmitry Peskov if he holds a regularly scheduled briefing with journalists this morning. But it's unclear why that would happen -- whether the Kremlin and the prosecutor general's office are working in concert or perhaps separately. And if perhaps it was seen that there was too sweet a deal perhaps given to Prigozhin so this is some kind of climb-down from that.

Either way, it is worth noting as we look forward in these very mixed messages that we're getting and the many questions that still remain on this, Max.

FOSTER: And just staying with Russia, the jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny -- he was due to appear in court today, wasn't he, but we haven't heard anything.

SEBASTIAN: Yes. We don't know and we didn't expect to hear because this court is closed to press, and that is significant in itself, Max. This is a case concerning extremism charges against Alexey Navalny.

These were charges that were brought against him in 2021 when he was already in prison serving what he is currently serving, which is 11 1/2 years for various crimes, including contempt of court, breaching parole -- things like that. These extremism charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years, which would go on top of the 11 1/2 years that he's currently serving. But this is, as I say, closed to press. A previous hearing in this trial was suddenly interrupted. The feed was interrupted there, the court said, because of fears of some kind of provocation.

So we don't know yet. We'll wait for more news from his team -- his lawyers and perhaps from the court itself. But very much worth watching the events around Navalny because as we know, when President Putin is in any way weakened, backed into a corner, or trying to regain control of the narrative it does inevitably lead to an increase in repression, particularly of critics at home. Navalny is, of course, the poster child of that.

FOSTER: OK. I'll leave you to watch out for that, Clare. Thank you for joining us.

We'll be right back.

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[05:54:10]

FOSTER: Now, before I go, here at CNN we are saying goodbye to television legend and CNN pioneer David Bohrman. David died early on Sunday morning following complications after hip surgery. He was 69.

Bohrman had a long and storied career in television starting in local news in Los Angeles before moving up to the networks. Later, the became a top executive at CNN and served as our Washington bureau chief for many years. David was known for his innovative approach to TV producing, which garnered him many industry awards.

In 2004, it was his idea to anchor CNN's election coverage straight from the floor of the party conventions, giving viewers a more realistic sense of what was actually going on. And in 2008, he implemented what is commonly known today as the magic wall where John King can be found every election night digging deep into all that voter data.

[05:55:04]

David launched dozens of network television programs, including "THE SITUATION ROOM WITH WOLF BLITZER," now in its 18th year.

David leaves behind his wife Catherine, two children, and two grandchildren. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family.

Coming up, our crews are live in Moscow and Kyiv with what's next after the Wagner mercenary group's short-lived rebellion. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts after this short break.

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