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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Calls For Unity; Internet Back for North Korea; Guns Smuggled on Planes; Grimm to Plead Guilty of Tax Evasion; Joe Cocker Remembered, 1944-2014; Cuba Signals It Won't Return Fugitives

Aired December 23, 2014 - 04:00   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Calls for unity this morning amid flaring tensions over the murders of two New York police officers. And now, police are asking for the public's help to learn about the killer's final hours.

And the Internet back on in North Korea after the country suffered a major outage. Was this retaliation for the Sony hack or just a coincidence?

Breaking overnight, a Delta worker accused of smuggling guns, some of them loaded, onto planes. We have incredible details about this shocking breach of security.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. John Berman has the day off.

It is Tuesday, December 23rd. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East. Nice to see you this morning.

This morning, New York is coping with the deaths of the two of the city's finest. Mayor Bill de Blasio rejecting those claims that he is anti-police as he calls for healing and unity. With New York in mourning and vigils across the city, the mayor urged activists to hold off on further protests in the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, to hold off until two murdered NYPD officers are buried.

In a news conference with Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, De Blasio said he had met with the families of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, and he tried to console them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: They are in tremendous pain and they are worried deeply. The Ramos family's case, two teenagers, reminded me of my own children, good young men, who no longer have a father because of an assassin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: De Blasio urging New Yorkers and the media to focus on supporting the officers' families. But some activists said they will not heed the mayor's call to hold protests and will hold a police reform demonstration this afternoon in Harlem.

CNN's Don Lemon has the latest for us this morning -- Don.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST, CNN TONIGHT: Christine, Mayor Bill de Blasio pushed back at critics who say he contributed to an anti-police atmosphere that got Officers Ramos and Liu killed. The mayor said that the head of the police union who said De Blasio had blood on his hands was wrong and mistaken. The mayor also called for calm and civility and said he respected the right of the 35,000 sworn officers in the NYPD to have lots of different opinions.

Now, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton supported the mayor on that point, saying, quote, "Can you point out to me one mayor that has not been battling with the police union in the last 50 years?"

The investigation continues even though Ismaaiyl Brinsley is dead because officials say families have the right to know.

And there is new surveillance video to report. It was just released. It was taken at a shopping area in Brooklyn not far from the scene, about three hours before the shooting took place. Authorities want to find out what Brinsley was doing for that time before the shooting to make sure that there were no other accomplices.

They are asking others in the public for help and also we're hearing from the widow of one of the officers killed in the attack. Officer Liu's wife of just two months spoke about her personal loss and the loss of the Ramos family.

PEI XIA CHEN, OFFICER LIU'S WIDOW: We would also like to express our condolence to Officer Ramos' family. This is a difficult time for both of our families. But we will stand together and get through this together. Thank you.

LEMON: As far as the services for the officers, funeral services for Officer Ramos will be on Saturday. The Liu family is waiting on family from China to make their arrangements -- Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. New York City police officers now dealing with new threats on top of grief. The NYPD investigating more than 15 new threats against officers posted on various social media platforms. Detectives try to determine which if any are serious, which are credible, and because of the new threats to officers, the department plans to increase security around the Times Square ball drop this New Year's Eve.

Now, the family of that gunman, the gunman who shot NYPD Officers Liu and Ramos, the family is now speaking out. The sister and aunt of Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who shot himself as police closed in, they say they are grieving for themselves and for the families of the dead officers. And they insist that despite Brinsley's anti-cop tirade, this stems from his emotional troubles. It wasn't a political motive. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JALAA'A BRINSLEY, GUNMAN'S SISTER: I feel badly for the family. We give our condolences to the families.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're grieving and we are very sorry.

BRINSLEY: This has nothing to do with police retaliation. This was a troubled -- emotionally troubled kid. He needed help. He didn't get it. If he got arrested this many times, that was a question like they help him out, but they kept releasing him into the streets. So, isn't that a problem that's a justice system should be asking? Not us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Brinsley's family says he leaves behind two children, an infant and a 5-year-old.

And in Milwaukee, more protests against police violence after the district attorney there decides not to charge a white police officer in the deaths of a mentally ill black man. The federal government is now looking into the case.

Our national correspondent George Howell is in Milwaukee with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A group of protesters has gathered in downtown Milwaukee. I want to show you the group here, at Red Arrow Park. All of this in response to a prosecuting attorney's decision not to charge a police officer for fatally shooting a mentally ill man more than a dozen times. This happened back in April, when Officer Christopher Manney confronted Dontre Hamilton in this park, a report of a man sleeping in the park.

According to the officer, the two got into a confrontation. The officer claims that Hamilton grabbed his baton and struck him. And that is when the officer claims he used deadly force to defend himself shooting Hamilton at least 14 times.

The officer was fired from his job. The police chief basically saying that the officer did identify Hamilton as mentally ill and did not follow training and that he instigated that fight. But again, the case went to a prosecuting attorney, and the decision not to charge this police officer.

However, we have learned that the federal government will be looking into this case, the Justice Department plans to investigate as well.

George Howell, CNN, Milwaukee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. George in Milwaukee, thank you for that.

Breaking overnight: a Delta Airlines baggage handler busted for allegedly running a gun smuggling operation aboard passenger jets flying between Atlanta and New York.

Federal authorities say Eugene Harvey and former Delta employee Mark Henry used carry-on luggage to transport these weapons. Now, police say one of the suspects admits bringing 18 guns, seven of them loaded, onto a flight to New York. This includes an AK-47 and AR-15 loaded. We'll find out more about one of the biggest airport security breaches in years when prosecutors hold a news conference on this, this afternoon.

Australia's prime minister issuing a terror warning this morning, saying security officials have detected an increase level of terrorist chatter following the hostage siege in Sydney. Tony Abbott also saying a terror attack is likely. So, there will be an increased police presence across the city.

His words come among a sad farewell of the two victims killed during that attack in the downtown cafe. The cafe manager Tory Johnson and attorney Katrina Dawson laid to rest in separate ceremonies. Survivors from the standoff were on hand to pay their respects. Johnson and Dawson both remembered as heroes. Johnson for trying to wrestle the gun from the shooter and Dawson for shielding a pregnant friend from the gunfire.

The time for the busiest travel days of the year start today. Mother Nature will not be cooperating, I'm sad to report. Let's get to meteorologist Ivan Cabrera for an early look at your holiday week weather.

IVAN CABRERA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Christine, for most of us, it's going to be a rain event, but the problem is, the rain is going to be very heavy, severe weather potential and also some strong winds I think are going to cause some airport delays over the next 48 hours.

So, here's the storm right now. It's just getting going across the mid-section of the country. We aren't going to have that southeastern side that's going to be looking at some nasty thunderstorms I think for today and heading into Wednesday.

As far as temperatures, not looking too bad, here's 30s and 40s to the north, and 70s and 80s in Florida. But you see the temperatures in Chicago in the 40s. So, not cold enough quite yet for snowfall. We're going to start off as a mix and then eventually as this storm pushes to the East on the back side of it, we will get in colder air and it will be snowing across parts of the Midwest, anywhere from three to five inches expected here.

Now, in the next 48 hours across the Southeastern U.S., this is where we have the bull's-eye for severe weather, damaging wind potential, certainly, large hail, and even a few tornadoes. And as we put this into motion, by the time we get into Thursday, Christmas Day itself, we are done with the storm, although a new one is getting going on across the Rockies. It will be a white Christmas certainly for parts of the western U.S. So, this is the highlighted area. This is for today for the potential of some severe thunderstorms as we head through this afternoon.

So, we'll watch that closely. And, of course, we will keep an eye through the next couple of days on the big storm heading east.

ROMANS: All right. Ivan Cabrera, thank you for that.

Time now for an early start on your money. The Santa rally in full swing. Fourth straight day of gains for the market pushing the Dow and S&P 500 to record closings. The Dow is up more than 150 points. That makes it the 35th record close of the year, the S&P 500, 50th record. The highest number of records in one year since 1995, folks.

And stocks could swing even higher today. At the moment, futures are up.

You can also thank gas prices for that extra cash this holiday season. Gas prices have fallen 88 days in a row. That has never happened. That's according to AAA, which reported this longest consecutive streak in history. Average prices dropped now to $2.39 a gallon, down a $1.29 from the summer peak. It's also good news for those holiday travelers. The group is predicting a record 98 million Americans will hit the road this season.

All right. The Internet is back on in North Korea this morning after a massive outage. Was it a cyberattack in retaliation for the Sony hack? Could the U.S. be involved? A live report is next.

And a legendary voice remembered this morning. Singer Joe Cocker being celebrated by the remaining Beatle this morning. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: All right. Big developments in North Korea. The tables may have turned. The hacker perhaps on the other side of the keyboard. Internet service in North Korea is mostly back this morning, it's a bit spotty, after it was completely down for nine and a half hours Monday. This follows U.S. government claims Pyongyang was behind the huge cyber attack on Sony Pictures, a cyber attack that ended in the studio pulling the comedy, "The Interview."

But a State Department spokeswoman refusing to say whether the U.S. was behind North Korea's Internet woes.

Let's bring in CNN's Kyung Lah. She is live for us now from Seoul with the latest.

You know, we should point out that Internet connections in North Korea, I don't know, there's only 1,000, maybe 2,000, you know, Internet service protocol addresses. You compare to, you know, the United States where there's I think billions. So, it has a small Internet infrastructure. But it is that infrastructure that it uses to launch malicious code.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. If you think of it as a giant pipe. I should refrain from saying giant, it's just a pipe. It comes out in North Korea, flows into China, and then goes out to the world. That's what took such a dive in the overnight hours here in Korea. At about 1:00 a.m. local time, 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, it was as if someone took some scissors and essentially cut that pipe. Internet service completely cut off. People who watch North Korea say

they have never seen anything the likes of this. When we tried to log on to the state news agency, this is how you get a blank white screen with an error report.

Now, hours on in, it did appear that the Internet was starting to come back, but it would drop off again. We got pink flowers. So, it's been a very unusual day. This does according to intelligence experts, Christine, does have the hallmark of a rogue hacker who just want to make a statement to North Korea.

ROMANS: Because there are a lot of possibilities. I mean, it could be that China unplugged North Korea. It could be the U.S. somehow shutdown North Korea. But they have to be careful because the pipe goes through China, and you don't want to infringe sovereignty. U.S. probably have to work with the -- there is a lot of different possibilities. It also could be that North Korea decided to unplug itself to protect itself from any kind of retaliation.

LAH: You are right. The list of who done it, a list of many people. You name all the primary people. In regards to the last one you mentioned, North Korea turned it off themselves, we have seen that with Syria, with Egypt, with Turkey, those were the regimes that turned it off because they're afraid that some virus is going to come in, or they don't want their own people to communicate.

Now, in this case, not a lot of North Koreans have the Internet. Most businesses have more IP protocols coming out than the North Korea does. So, it's really hard to say.

ROMANS: And the people who use the Internet in North Korea are the elites. They are the military. Again, they are propaganda machine as you pointed out trying to get the North Korea point of view to the rest of the world.

What do we know about a South Korean nuclear plant getting hacked?

LAH: This is the government agency that runs a nuclear power plant. And, basically, what happened is, it looks very much like the Sony hack. Someone managed to break in, grab the keys, and walk around through the secret classified documents. They posted some blueprints on a Web site the hackers use.

Now, the government is insisting that it wasn't super secret documents. But certainly, the sensitive material. The government today reconvening, trying to figure out how to beef up security. The important thing for Americans to hear is that this is the sort of future that people are predicting that intelligence experts are predicting will be coming to American shores.

ROMANS: Well, you've heard this phrase "hack-sis of evil", right? You have state, not necessarily sponsored, but sometimes state sanctioned bad actors in the cyber world who can really do an awful lot of damage. I mean, I kind of think 2014 was the year of the retail hack for American consumers. It could be 2015 is the year of the hack that's more -- cyber vandalism hack as the president called it.

LAH: That's right. That's what this may be, is that we saw the big Sony hack. That exactly as you predicting, take one step further and perhaps this is governments like North Korea, Syria, other wayward governments going after U.S. institutions.

ROMANS: All right. Kyung Lah, thank you for that. We'll talk to you again very, very soon. As the Internet comes on, sort of, in North Korea.

All right. French officials urging everyone to remain calm this morning after the second car attack on pedestrians in two days. At least 11 people were injured Monday when a 37-year-old man rammed his vehicle into a crowd of holiday shoppers in the city of Nantes. That's in western France. Police say the suspect then stabbed himself several times. It does not appear to have terrorist motives.

On Sunday, a man shouting "God is great" in Arabic rammed his vehicle into a crowd in Dijon, in eastern France, injuring 13 people.

Republican Congressman Michael Grimm of New York is expected to plead guilty to one count of tax evasion today. The charge could land him in prison. Sources say he would admit failing to report $1 million in revenue from his restaurant business prior to being elected in the year 2010. Grimm made headlines last year when he threatened to throw a reporter off a Capitol Hill balcony at the end of an interview.

"Rolling Stone" magazine has asked the Columbia University's School of Journalism to review its controversial and widely discredited article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia. This review will be reviewed by the dean of the journalism school and the dean of academic affairs. It will evaluate the editorial process that led to this story. "Rolling Stone" says the findings will be published unedited on its Web site.

Friends and fans alike are remembering legendary singer Joe Cocker this morning. L

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

ROMANS: What a distinctive voice, right?

The British rocker whose hits included that Beatles cover "With a Little Help From My Friends" passed away Monday after a battle with lung cancer. Paul McCarthy, Ringo Starr, both expressing their condolences over Cocker's death. He died at home in Colorado. He was 70 years old.

All right. Nineteen minutes past the hour. Growing fallout this morning over a U.S. fugitive living inside Cuba. Governor Chris Christie increasingly outraged over the president's new deal as Cuba finally responds.

And an intense game ends in a massive brawl. What brought these two college football teams to blows? We've got that report for you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: New developments this morning in the effort to get convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard back from Cuba where she fled after escaping prison. Now, despite President Obama's plan to normalize relations with Cuba, the island nation is now saying it has the right to grant asylum to U.S. fugitives who it thinks were persecuted. That clear signal Cuba has no intention of returning Chesimard is infuriating New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Chesimard shot and killed a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.

Christie blasting the president in what the governor called the awful deal Obama struck with Cuba.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: So, Joanne Chesimard, a cold blooded cop killer, convicted by a jury of her peers, in what is without question the fairest, the most just criminal justice in the world, certainly must more just than anything happened to Cuba under the Castro brothers, she is now according to an official of the Cuban government, persecuted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: CNN's Cuba correspondent Patrick Oppmann has the latest now on U.S. efforts to extradite Chesimard and other fugitives from American justice.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CUBA CORRESPONDENT: Christine, the United States is offering $2 million for the capture of convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard. But don't expect Cuba where Chesimard is believed to be living to try and collect on that reward at least anytime soon.

Chesimard who is also known as Assata Shakur is wanted for the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. She is just one of dozens of fugitives believed to be living in Cuba. They include Chesimard who's on the FBI's terrorist list, bank robbers, cop killers, and other radicals, some of them spent decades here. Chesimard lived quite openly in Havana for some time. But after the reward was increased to $2 million, she's all but disappeared from view.

The United States argues that she should be returned, all of these fugitives should be returned. But Cuba says there is no extradition agreement between the two countries because they say after the 1959 revolution, Fidel Castro sought the return of Batista government officials he accused of torturing and murdering Cubans, but the U.S. wouldn't return.

So, this is one of the issues that is bound to come up as Cuban and U.S. officials meet to talk about resumption of normalized ties. U.S. officials say they believe that with closer ties with Cuba, they will have a better chance of winning the return of these fugitives so they can at long last face justice -- Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Patrick Oppmann for us this morning in Cuba.

Later today, House Republicans will release a report alleging a culture of bias against conservative organizations at the Internal Revenue Service. It will reportedly claim IRS employees subverted the agency's nonpartisan mission in order to advance the political goals of President Obama. Several senior IRS officials, including the acting commissioner, have already lost their jobs over those practices.

A four-star general will decide U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's fate. General Mark Milley will decide whether to charge the 28-year- old criminally for leaving his post in 2009. Milley can order a court martial, imposed none judicial punishment, or take no action. His decision will consider a report by Bergdahl's former platoon mates who accuse him of desertion when he walked off his base and was held captive by the Taliban.

Last night's Miami Bowl ended in a brawl between the Memphis Tigers and BYU Cougars. Memphis has just taken their first victory in nine years when BYU's Christian Stewart closed out the game by throwing an interception. Chaos ensued. Players on both sides pouring into the field to join in the melee. Some throwing punches. Others using their helmets as weapons. Goodness.

All right. Calls for calm this morning after a war of words over the deaths of two New York police officers. Mayor De Blasio now calling for protests and debates to stop until these officers are laid to rest. But can he calm these flaring tensions?

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