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Banning Forever Chemicals; Daniel Penny Found Not Guilty; Police Questioning Man in Connection With CEO Killing. Aired 11:30a- 12:00p ET

Aired December 09, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pam, we're just getting this into our NEWSROOM from sources telling John Miller myself that there is a man being questioned right now in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

[11:30:04]

That person is in police custody right now, undergoing that questioning by law enforcement officials. And what we have learned is pretty alarming. Basically, sources are telling us that, working off of a tip, police stop someone who was traveling by bus and they were able to recover a suppressor, a number of fake I.D.s, according to one official, and also that same person is believed to also have fit the same description as all of those pictures that have been dispersed, of course, out into everywhere for people to help identify with this person.

So this is a lot of information coming in right now. This is just breaking, again, police questioning someone, a person in custody right now, believed to be possibly a suspect in this case responsible for that deadly shooting last Wednesday.

And we're learning a little bit more details about that. Now, remember, again, as John Miller has been talking about all morning long, police already have a lot of evidence in their hands in addition to all this video and all these pictures.

They have a partial fingerprint and they also have some DNA evidence that they were able to get off of some of the things that were left behind when that suspect made a getaway last Wednesday.

They weren't able to make any connection to what that evidence -- to a name. But, in this case, if they have someone in custody, it's very possible now they can take this name, possibly, if they get to that point in the investigation, use that evidence and then backtrack to the evidence that they found here at the crime scene.

Now, this is all happening, again, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, this as the investigation continues here in New York City, as they continue to collect evidence, pictures, looking for a gun, a lot of evidence that they're going through right now here in New York City as well.

So, again, we will continue to update you as much as we can as soon as we get more information about what is exactly happening in Pennsylvania. But big news, Pam, we are learning from sources that a person is in custody, a possible suspect, being questioned right now in connection with this deadly shooting from last Wednesday.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: This is a big news. And I know you're still trying to learn more information about this.

But our understanding is, this came from a tip. Do we know anything else about that tip and who the tipster was? I know that police have been pleading with the public for help, especially after putting out those pictures last week of the possible suspect?

What else do we know?

GINGRAS: Yes, not sure of the nature of that tip. Was it someone identifying the person in those pictures? Was it someone possibly riding the bus with this person that is now being questioned by authorities? That's unclear.

We also don't know sort of what agency. Again, so many are working with not only NYPD, but we have the Port Authority police. We have the FBI. We have all these local law enforcement officials. So it's not clear exactly where the tip actually went into.

But we are still working our sources to learn a little bit more about that. But the fact that this person, again, was traveling by bus, as we know, authorities believed he left New York City on a bus and that they recovered these items from this person who is being questioned right now, like a suppressor, fake I.D.s

We know that a fake I.D. was likely used when this person checked into that hostel on the Upper West Side ahead of the shooting that took place on Wednesday. So a lot of things are sort of pointing in the right direction for authorities. But, again, this person needs to be questioned.

And that is what is happening right now, Pamela. But we will work to find out more about those tips, for sure. As you can imagine, police are hunting down lots of them all over this country.

BROWN: They certainly are. I know you're staying on top of it. Thank you.

We have some more breaking news to get to. Daniel Penny, the former Marine charged in the choke hold death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway last year, was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide by a Manhattan jury on Monday.

This comes after a judge dismissed a second, more serious second- degree manslaughter charged last week after the jury could not come to a verdict on the count. They were hung.

Gloria Pazmino, tell us the latest.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are getting a live reaction, right, from inside that courtroom.

My colleague Lauren del Valle has been sitting there as the verdict was read, not guilty. Visible smiles from Daniel Penny, who has just been acquitted on that second charge, the criminally negligent homicide.

At the same time, the father of Jordan Neely, the victim in this case escorted out of the room after he had an outburst with an expletive inside that courtroom as the verdict was being read, court officers stepping in to escort Mr. Zachary Carter out of the room.

Andre Zachary is his name, I should say.

We are also hearing audible reaction directly in the park behind me. Protesters have been here all morning. And they are now starting to chant loudly in response to this verdict. Today, for the first time in the past six weeks since we have been here, Daniel Penny also had some supporters in this crowd. But now we are hearing the chanting.

[11:35:00]

In fact, it was something that his defense attorney tried to declare -- asked for a mistrial on this morning because of the presence of loud supporters, which he believed could be heard by the jury inside the courtroom as they were deliberating.

They are chanting, "No justice, no peace," which can be heard from inside that courtroom, according to my colleague Lauren del Valle.

So, for now, six weeks after the fact, Daniel Penny acquitted on the second charge, criminally negligent homicide, days after this jury initially told this judge that they were hung on the top charge, the manslaughter in the second-degree charge, the most serious of the two.

The DA moved to dismiss that charge after the jury said they couldn't come to an agreement. And after the judge agreed to dismiss the charge, he instructed the jury to go back into the deliberation room this morning and continue to deliberate.

And now, just about an hour-and-a-half after they started deliberating for the day, we are hearing back that verdict, Daniel Penny not guilty of the criminally negligent homicide charge nearly a year after he placed Jordan Neely, a homeless street artist, in a fatal choke hold in a New York City subway.

BROWN: Yes, I mean, I have to say it's worth just reemphasizing the fact that this was a hung jury on the most serious charge, the second- degree manslaughter, and that was dismissed last week.

And the jury, the jury of 12, coming out today and acquitting him of the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. Have we heard from Daniel Penny's team?

PAZMINO: Well, one thing I can tell you is that you mentioned the jury. This is a jury made up of Manhattanites. I sat here watching a jury

selection before the trial was getting started. And I watched just how carefully every juror was being questioned and picked out. These are people who live here in Manhattan. They ride the subway nearly every day.

Many of them talked about the fact that they had witnessed outbursts on the subway. Some said that they at times felt threatened by those outbursts, but others said that they weren't. They were also asked about their experiences with mental illness and homelessness.

And what I think all of that encapsulates and really just paints a picture about the state of New York City and many of the issues that the city is grappling with, mentally ill people, homelessness, public safety, and the perception of public safety, especially in the city subways.

This was something that was really happening a lot at the time of the incident and people continued to be concerned about. So we are seeing that play out here by this jury.

BROWN: All right, Gloria, thank you so much.

I want to go to Joey Jackson now for some legal analysis.

Joey, are you surprised by this? What's your reaction?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Pamela, I'm not surprised by it.

Certainly, we saw just last week that they were hung up on the reckless charge. That was the manslaughter charge. That carried the 15 years. And I think that there were concerns as to why they were hung up. I think, when you look at this, what does it tell us?

First of all, we have to look at what negligent, criminally negligent homicide means. It means that the jury would conclude that he was negligent, that is, that he failed to perceive the risk that his activities could cause the death of Jordan Neely.

However, I think that there are two issues that you look at that are critical. Number one, was it self-defense? Certainly, that's what the defense argued, that he, that is, Jordan Neely, represented an immediate threat. And as a result of representing that immediate threat of death or serious physical injury, that restraining him in the way that he did was reasonable and appropriate.

And so that was the one issue. I think the second issue was the dealing with causation. What does causation mean? It means that the prosecution had to establish that he caused, that is, the defendant in this case, Mr. Perry (sic), the death of Jordan Neely.

And there was really dispute on the medical evidence. On the one hand, you had the prosecutors' medical examiner saying, in fact, that was the choke hold that caused it. On the other hand, you had the defense saying a number of things, number one, that there wasn't sufficient pressure applied such that it could be the choke hold, number two, that schizophrenia diagnosis, that the issue with the synthetic marijuana, et cetera, caused it.

So I think there were plenty of issues for the jury to conclude that just beyond the reasonable doubt either, A, it was self-defense, and, B, that there wasn't -- he wasn't the cause. So those were two good reasons as to why they could acquit. And that's exactly what they did.

BROWN: All right, Joey Jackson, thanks so much.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:44:12]

BROWN: We have some new reporting from CNN this morning.

Two chemicals commonly used in dry cleaning and are known to cause cancer have been banned by the EPA. The chemicals, commonly known as TCE and Perc, have been found in water sources and properties around the world. And they have been linked to conditions like Parkinson's, reproductive issues, as well as kidney and liver cancer.

Some activists are urging President Biden to use his final days in office to ban more forever chemicals. It's an issue Biden took up just two months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These are chemicals that are found in many everyday products, but are unsafe and shown to contribute to cancer and other health conditions.

We set the first ever drinking water standard to protect 100 million Americans from PFAS.

[11:45:00]

(CHEERING)

BIDEN: What's the government for if it cannot protect the public health?

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: But some activists say the Biden administration needs to do more before he leaves office.

And we're joined by two of those activists, two representatives for the Environmental Working Group, vice president of government affairs Melanie Benesh and actor and activist Mark Ruffalo.

Thanks to both of you for coming on today. Mark, I want to start with you.

MARK RUFFALO, ACTOR AND ACTIVIST: Sure.

BROWN: Tell us about what you're calling for today and why it is such an important issue to you.

RUFFALO: Well, first of all, the Biden administration has done more on this issue than any other administration in the history of the United States, considering that these companies have known since the '80s that they were causing these diseases in the public.

And so we thank them on that. The EPA has been -- done their due diligence. What's happening now is that these companies, mostly 3M and Chemours, which was formerly DuPont, are now dumping these wastes into our rivers and lakes, places where Americans spend a lot of time, our children spend time, where we get our drinking water from.

And these discharges have no regulation on them at all. The good news is, is that the EPA now has some sort of limitations that they want to put and regulations that they want to put on these discharges. The bad news is, is that they're caught up by officials in Biden's EPA and actually the White House right now.

And what we're asking is that the Biden administration takes this to its proper end, which is to limit these discharges. Now, the problem with these discharges is, they are ending up in our drinking water. And the country and the people, the taxpayers, are spending billions of dollars to clean these chemicals out of our drinking water.

And what we're saying is, is, how long does it have to continue? These companies have known since the '60s that -- 3M and Chemours and DuPont have known since the '60s that these were dangerous chemicals. And now there's absolutely no regulation them being discharged.

And how long do these people downstream, how long do the people downwind of these companies have to endure this? I mean, there's cancer clusters. We were -- spoke to the White House with families that had children who had brain cancer from these chemicals. They're seriously dangerous.

And we want the Biden administration to finish the job.

BROWN: Melanie, I want to go to you because you have devoted a lot of your professional work to this issue.

What are the companies that Mark just mentioned, what are they saying about this? And tell us more about the chemicals in the drinking water and why every American watching this should really care about this issue.

MELANIE BENESH, ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP: Yes.

Well, Mark is exactly right. The Biden administration earlier this year set the strongest-in the-world drinking water standards for these chemicals. And so water utilities are going to have to get these chemicals out of the water that we drink, out of our tap.

But that puts responsibility on your water utilities, not on the polluters. And so this proposed rule is really about polluter accountability.

It's about making sure that 3M and Chemours and Daikin and other manufacturers of these forever chemicals, which are linked to things like cancer, reproductive harms, like lower birth weights and lower sperm counts, immune effects, like making vaccines less effective, these chemicals that have really caused billions of dollars worth of disease and early death burden, that they are attacked at the source, and so that it is the polluters who right now don't have any federal limits requiring them to turn off the tap and limit how much they are discharging into our rivers, lakes, and streams, and ultimately sources of drinking water.

This rule would finally say, enough is enough. These are limits on how much these manufacturers of these chemicals, these polluters, can actually discharge into waterways. And the effects of that is going to reverberate beyond just those manufacturers.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Let me just jump in, because we're running out of time. But I do want to just follow up with you.

What are the companies that you're claiming are doing this, what are they saying? And what -- just tell us more about the studies backing up the claims you're making about these chemicals causing cancer and other serious health issues in the American public.

BENESH: Yes, these are some of the best-studied chemicals in the world. There are thousands of studies documenting ties to liver and kidney cancer, reproductive harms like lower sperm counts, lower birth weights.

[11:50:07]

There are studies showing a reduced efficacy of vaccines in children. And the companies have known this, as Mark said, since the 1960s, but they didn't share that information with the EPA. They didn't share that information with state regulators. And so that is why now, in 2024, decades after the companies have known, the Biden administration is finally stepping in to put some limits on how much they can release into our water.

BROWN: All right, really important information from both of you.

Melanie Benesh, Mark Ruffalo, we will continue to cover this important topic. Thank you so much.

And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And finally this hour: After a two-year run of friendship bracelets and record-breaking ticket sales, Taylor Swift closed out her Eras Tour in Vancouver on Sunday night.

[11:55:02]

And during the show's run, she performed for over 10 million people and released three albums, "The Tortured Poets Department," and, two, Taylor's -- and two rerecordings of her iconic albums.

Swift told the crowd during the final show that the lasting legacy of the tour will be the space of joy and togetherness and love that was created.

Well, thank you for joining me. I'm Pamela Brown.

Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short break.