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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Situation Calming in Ferguson, Missouri; Unsuccessful Mission to Save American Hostage; British Citizens Fighting in ISIS; Ebola Outbreak Spreading to Other African Countries; Richard Branson's Letter to Stop Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

Aired August 21, 2014 - 05:30   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning. For the first time in a week, protests remaining peaceful in Ferguson, Missouri. The crowds calm. The controversy over the deadly police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, though, growing. New witnesses coming forward as a grand jury convenes. We are live in Missouri with the latest overnight.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: New information about the murder of a kidnapped American journalist, the demands terrorists made before the execution. The failed military mission to rescue James Foley just months before - or weeks, rather before he was killed. And why so many British Muslims are rushing to join ISIS. Live team coverage from Iraq and London, ahead.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Victor Blackwell in for John Berman this morning.

ROMANS: Nice to see you this morning, this Thursday morning, I'm Christine Romans. It is 31 minutes past the hour. Let's start in Ferguson, calm and order, slowly but surely returning to Ferguson, Missouri. It was another night of mostly peaceful protests in the embattled town of 21,000. A steamy rain keeping crowds down and tempers cool. Earlier in the day, Attorney General Eric Holder, met with community leaders and family of Michael Brown, the unarmed teen whose deadly encounter with the Ferguson police officer had touched off nearly two weeks of violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Hopefully we'll have a calming influence on the area. People know that a federal, thorough investigation is being done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Meanwhile, prosecutors began presenting evidence to a grand jury to determine whether the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown should be criminally charged. Stephanie Elam live from Ferguson this morning, and a comment - 24 hours ago, you and I, we were talking about hopefully, just hopefully the page had been turned on the violence of those protests. And last night you had a calm night, Stephanie. STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We definitely did, there is no

doubt about it. And from both sides it seems to be that they were pleased with how things turned out. You could see that police were calmer out on the streets last night. And you can also see that there were still people from the community who are making sure that the protesters, the marchers were following the rules. So, you could see that playing out right in front of us. The tone was definitely different than the night before. Of the people that were arrested, there were just six of them last night. Compare that to 47 the night before. There were no confrontations, the police say, they said that there was no tear gas thrown. They also said that there was no pepper spray used and no bullets fired. Take a listen, though, to hear both sides of what the people here were saying. If you take a listen to the protesters and what they thought went well and take a listen to the police and hear what they thought went well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are really the very brave, these young men are brave. They are the next freedom fighters. And it's just to me, it's refreshing to see young people get involved with this type of movement because this can spark a whole nation to look and say, hey, listen, there really is inequality in America. And it's not supposed to be like that.

CAPT. RON JOHNSON, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL: We go back every night, and we sit, and we look at our operational plan and see how we can make it better, how we can do it better. And also, part of that is when we are out in the community and we are talking to the citizens out there, we are listening to what they are telling us and their concerns. And that goes into our thinking also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: And I also did witness several police officers talking to members of the community, just having sort of polite conversations. So, it didn't look like everything was very tense last night. So, that's something that did happen. I can also say earlier in the evening, right about when the thunderstorm, right before the thunderstorm hit, there were two people who came out to show support for the police and for Darren Wilson, the officer who is the shooter behind the whole scandal here about Mike Brown. They came out to show their support. That was not met well by the people who were out here protesting. The police moved in and removed those two. And things resumed back to a calmer state. But that was the only real big brouhaha that we saw out here last night. Overall, very calm between the police and the protesters. Christine.

ROMANS: Do we know, Stephanie, anything about what the Attorney General Eric Holder talked about with the community leaders and Michael Brown's family?

ELAM: Well, I think the main thing that we've gotten back from this is that the people here want to know that their voices are being heard. And there's a lot of mistrust here for the St. Louis political system, for a government here. According to the people here in Ferguson that whether or not it is going to have their best interests at heart. And so, what they enjoyed about the attorney general coming here was that they felt like they were being heard by the top levels of government. And that was really well received from the people that I spoke to here in Ferguson and also the fact that he met with the mother of Michael Brown as well. So, people are hopeful that this is going to make for an honest investigation here while at the same time we know that the evidence is going to be presented to the grand jury, but they don't expect to be done with that until October. So, we still have a lot of time here before we start to get real answers on what happened on that day.

ROMANS: All right. Stephanie Elam, thanks for that. Stephanie in Ferguson for us this morning.

BLACKWELL: A new witness is coming forward claiming Michael Brown never rushed Officer Darren Wilson in the seconds before he was shot and killed. Officer Wilson claims Brown taunted him, then rushed towards him after a confrontation. There's patrol car. But listen to neighbor Michael Brady tell Anderson Cooper what he saw on that tragic day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360": What the officer's claim is, is that Mike Brown was running toward the officer. Did you see him running toward the officer in any way?

MICHAEL BRADY, WITNESS: No. No. Not after when he was running away. No. Not at all. Like I said, though, by the time I come outside, I'm thinking that he's now hit after I've seen the officer shooting at him while he was running away. So, I'm thinking that he's hit. Because now he's turned around. Now, like this, right, he was going down. It didn't even look like he was giving up. It just looked like, you know, oh, I'm hit. You know, I'm going to go down now. That's what it looked like.

COOPER: That was your impression?

BRADY: Yeah. Yeah.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, Brady goes on to tell Anderson he saw Officer Wilson get out of his car and immediately start firing at Michael Brown while he was trying to get away. Of course, stay with CNN all morning long. We are covering this the way no one else can. The continuing coverage of the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

ROMANS: New information this morning about the execution of kidnapped American journalist, James Foley. The demands terrorists made before his murder and new details about Britain's ties to the terror group ISIS. Live team coverage, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: The Obama administration launched a secret nighttime mission to rescue American hostages in Syria earlier this summer. But that operation failed. Among the captives, the president was hoping to save American journalist James Foley. Two dozen Delta Force commandoes raiding in oil refinery in northern Syria, but the captives had apparently been moved before U.S. Forces arrived. Foley was beheaded by ISIS extremists earlier this week. Calling (ph) to his family, the terror group demanded a multimillion dollar ransom for his release. A ransom the Obama administration refused to pay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No just god would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so that it does not spread.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Meanwhile, U.S. military commanders in the Middle East are pushing the Pentagon to step up the air war against ISIS targets. Nick Paton Walsh tracking the latest developments live from Erbil, Iraq. And Nick, "The Wall Street" journalists reporting this morning that that ransom, that ransom was 100 million euros, about $132 million.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And I think, you know, we should remind people that the U.S. government, as far as we know, has a policy of not paying ransoms when negotiating with kidnappers. And I think the logic for that by Washington is that if you start paying, then you encourage a business. And it's a business, which is well known to be exploited by ISIS. There are plenty of suggestions that some people who've been released have been released because money has, in fact, changed hands, often very large sums of money. Remember, this has been a long pattern, potentially even dozens of westerners, foreigners held by ISIS, some still held. Some subsequently released.

So, it's an extraordinarily complex situation for the U.S. government, because, of course, you have a very distressed family. But then you have the border principle. If you start giving $130 million per American, you are effectively funding ISIS's insurgency here. So, that would have been a tough call for the White House. Certainly, this rescue operation, a tough call as well. You are sending a dozen - two dozen, perhaps, elite commandos into an area where you have very little visibility, because we as we journalists find it even hard to film street scenes in ISIS-held territory. They don't like cameras being pointed unless they are doing the pointing. They carefully manage all the stuff they put out on social media of the areas, in which they hold.

So, that rescue operation unsuccessful as it was, very difficult to be sure whether we are going, actually had the targets they were looking for. And the sad fact now is - that now this information has come to light. It does make it tough down the road. The further rescue operations for those Westerners still held by ISIS. They probably wouldn't have been absolutely sure that rescue - have been used against them. It's the first time U.S. Special Forces have intervened in Syria's three years civil war when they made that operation. They want to be absolutely sure ISIS until they heard about it from the Pentagon. That may possibly make any further operations tough, too.

ROMANS: Yeah. All right. Nick Paton Walsh for us in Erbil this morning, thank you, Nick.

BLACKWELL: We know the ISIS fighter who beheaded James Foley had a distinctive British accent. And we are now learning there are twice as many British Muslims fighting for ISIS than there are in the British military. Think about that. One member of Britain's parliament is estimating that at least 1500 young Muslim's from his country have been recruited by that terror group. Erin McLaughlin has more on this story. She joins us live from London. And Erin, I imagine now, there's an effort to authenticate that accent, that voice and determine if it's been heard before in any of the intercepts of communications.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Victor. Officials on both sides of the Atlantic working furiously to try to identity Foley's murderer and really analyzing every single frame of that video, paying a special attention to that accent. Language experts saying that it sounds as though the killer comes from either London or to the southeast of England. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron saying that the government is going to redouble its efforts to combat this home grown extremism here in the United Kingdom. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We know that far too many British citizens have traveled to Iraq and traveled to Syria to take part in extremism and violence. And what we must do is redouble all our efforts to stop people going, to take away the passports of those contemplating travel, to arrest and prosecute those to take part in this extremism and violence, to take extremist material off the Internet and do everything we can to keep our people safe. And that is what this government will do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCLAUGHLIN: It's estimated that there are between 400 to 500 British recruits in Syria. Unclear how many have crossed into Iraq. And this wouldn't have been the first brazen attack by a British national for ISIS. Earlier this year, Britain's very first suicide bomber, a 41- year-old father of three detonated a truck bomb during a prison attack in Aleppo. He had been from London. His family saying that they had no idea that he turned to extremism. They thought he went to Syria on a humanitarian effort. So, it really illustrates ISIS's ability to radicalize British nationals, a huge area of concern for the government here. They are especially concerned about the possibility of what could happen if some of these hardened fighters return back home. Victor?

BLACKWELL: And how many of them possibly could already be back home. Erin McLaughlin there for us in London, thank you.

ROMANS: Oh, on the value of that British passport. That's what really frightens American and British investigators. That once you have got that passport, you can come to the United States, you can go - you can travel so freely around the world.

BLACKWELL: And undetected.

ROMANS: All right, 47 minutes past the hour. A new warning about the Ebola outbreak. The virus is spreading rapidly. Health officials are afraid there's no way to stop Ebola. The very latest on the race to find a cure. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Breaking news this morning. Dr. Kent Brantly, an American physician infected with the Ebola virus in Liberia, he will be released from Atlanta's Emory University Hospital today. That announcement coming on the heels of a dire outlook of the widening Ebola crisis from the World Health Organization. The head of WHO says there's no end in sight and the outbreak is likely to last for "many more months." The death toll, meantime, rising in West Africa. Well over 1200 fatalities now. 2200 suspected or confirmed cases.

Violent clashes now breaking out between residents of an Ebola- stricken community and police in Liberia. Thousands in Monrovia angry about barricades designed to keep them from leaving their neighborhood. New fears this morning the Ebola virus has spread to the Republic of Congo. Several people dying there from Ebola-like symptoms. As researchers report progress with an experimental vaccine, a vaccine being developed in British Columbia that has successfully protected monkeys from an Ebola-related virus.

In California a patient who may have contracted Ebola remains in isolation in a Sacramento hospital. Health officials are still awaiting the results of blood tests from the Centers for Disease Control.

BLACKWELL: The lawyer for a college friend of Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev says his client will enter a guilty plea in court today to impeding the investigation. A 20-year-old Kadyrbayev, Dias Kadyrbayev was set to stand trial next month on obstruction and conspiracy charges. He's accused of removing a backpack and computer from Tsarnaev's dormroom days after the bombing. Well, his roommate was convicted last month, and that's in case.

ROMANS: Two California teenagers now facing charges for allegedly plotting a school massacre when classes resumed in South Pasadena. They each face one count of making criminal threats. The district attorney says these boys researched weaponry and explosives and they planned to kill as many people as possible. The suspects are 16 and 17. Their names have not been released.

BLACKWELL: A 21-hour hostage standoff in Harvey, Illinois is over. SWAT team broke through the front door of a home to release two women and two girls being held. And they also arrested two suspects. The ordeal began Tuesday when a pair of gunmen barricaded themselves in a house with eight hostages, six of them children. Negotiators managed to get the four youngest children released by Tuesday night. Now, police say the suspects threatened to kill the children several times. None of the hostages was hurt. ROMANS: Thankfully, they've got that worked out well. Tony Stewart will not race in this weekend's NASCAR event in Tennessee. It's the third straight race he's skipped since his car struck and killed 20- year old driver Kevin Ward Jr. during a dirt track race earlier this month. Stewart's been in seclusion since that incident in upstate New York. The head of his racing team says he is grieving and isn't yet ready to get back in his car.

OK, we could see record highs on Wall Street today. We're going to get an "EARLY START" on your money next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Time for an "EARLY START" on your money. This Thursday could be a record day for stocks. U.S. stock futures pointing higher this morning. Stocks very close to all-time highs. The S&P 500 ending the day yesterday just a few points shy of its record. European stocks higher right now. Asian stocks ended the day mixed.

Violence in Ukraine, unrest between Russia and Ukraine. And Richard Branson and other business leaders from companies like eBay, (INAUDIBLE), Unilever are signing a letter asking for a peaceful solution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD BRANSON: The Russian economy is going to go in a steep decline. It will go back to the days of pre-Cold War unless this problem is resolved quickly. And it's just too ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: And told me he would happily sit down with Vladimir Putin to work on a compromise. He says 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, after the end of the Cold War, the world is going in the wrong direction. He said he'd never thought to see us where we are now and he's urging Russian business leaders and Vladimir Putin and global governments to fix it or it will be an economic Cold War. Interesting, right?

BLACKWELL: Good to be with you this morning.

ROMANS: You too. Nice to see you, Victor.

BLACKWELL: We'll do it again tomorrow. "NEW DAY" starts now.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, Ferguson takes one step forward, one step back. Protesters and police have one of their better nights with fewer arrests. And the attorney general makes the rounds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLDER: People know that a federal, thorough investigation is being done.

CUOMO: But new witnesses come forward.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's going down.

CUOMO: And this police officer removed from duty.

(EXPLETIVE DELETED) get back.

CUOMO: And now, this -- new video of police shooting and killing another man in St. Louis. Watch it and see if it shows what the cops say went down.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, new details on the U.S. Raid to try to save James Foley and the ransom ISIS militants demanded for his release.

OBAMA: The group like ISIL has no place in the 21ST century.

BOLDUAN: More U.S. troops are now heading to Iraq. What's next in the battle against this brutal terror group?

CUOMO: Your "NEW DAY" starts right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to new day. It is Thursday, August 21st. And we are live in Ferguson, Missouri where a spectacular lightning storm cooled down the situation allowing some calm to wash over this angry streets overnight. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Now that video really is startling, Chris. We also have some breaking news on one of the Americans who is being treated for Ebola in an Atlanta hospital. It could be some good news. You are going to want to hear this.

Let's first, of course, get back to Chris.