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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

ISIS Claims Responsibility for Shooting in Texas; Friction Between Mosby, Baltimore PD. Aired 5:30-6:00a ET.

Aired May 05, 2015 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Breaking news this morning. ISIS just claimed responsibility for the shooting in Texas where two men tried to ambush a contest to draw cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. We are live now with the latest details, welcome back to Early Start. I'm John Berman. About 30 minutes past the hour, Christine Romans on assignment today. We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

The breaking news this morning, ISIS claiming credit for Sunday's attack on the contest in Garland, Texas to draw cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. This claim came on the ISIS official radio channel. An ISIS announcer said that two Al Khilafa soldiers attacked the event. Al Khilafa is the term that ISIS uses to refer to its own fighter. The announcer on this ISIS radio channel described the shootout and said the two brothers died in the exchange of gunfire.

For the latest, we're going to bring in Senior International Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh. Nick, ISIS trying to tie itself to this attack directly, but as of now, no direct evidence that they advised or directed this attack in advance.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And this is a short claim of responsibility, if you can really call it that broadcast on the Al Bayan radio station which we think is based out of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul they swept into in the middle of last year. Now, it basically says that two Al Khilafa soldiers, that will be translated as soldiers of the Caliphate, that's the area of northern Syria and northern Iraq which ISIS has self-declared to be its Caliphate.

That two of their soldiers were killed and refers them as two brothers killed in an exchange of gunfire with a security guard outside that exhibition in Garland, Texas. Noting that the security guard was injured.

There's no detail, John, importantly in this announcement that investigators could latch onto to suggest perhaps prior knowledge or intimacy with the plotting itself. And this represents the key problem really with ISIS globally. They're like a brand that some people seeking this kind of demise, latch themselves onto and in this case put out a social media tweet just in the hours ahead of the actual attack and then subsequently, it is obviously up to ISIS to then claim that attack is being something they feel affiliation with to some degree.

Now, this message on Al Bayan goes on to give a sinister enough threat, but to point out the attack that they launched this time or affiliate themselves with this time did not succeed in Texas. But they go on to threaten that, "We say to the defenders of the cross, the U.S., that future attacks are going to be harsher and much worse. The Islamic State soldiers will inflict harm on you with the grace of God. The future is just around the corner."

That of course feeds into the broader ISIS narrative that they wish to take attacks against the United States to a new level. But as (you might) spoke a few minutes ago, John, the real issue behind all these is the complexity of the investigators to interdict plots like these. You know, 10 years ago, there will be a leader of al Qaeda potentially who would pass orders to a network to people to carry out attacks.

Now, we have this very different lone wolf model. These individuals who may have had brushed even with the law enforcement in the past, they have (fall off) law enforcement radar, gone silent and then subsequently in the years ahead launched a - comparatively well planned attack, but ultimately spectacularly a failure in this instance. It is extraordinarily hard for investigators to stop that sort of thing because there aren't many trace signs ahead of it, John.

BERMAN: You know, it was - it was planned at the sense that they knew where they were going, they have themselves armed, they were wearing body armor. But they certainly did not get very far in their plan. They were stopped at that road barrier by a police with a service pistol.

These men, we now believe, were based in Phoenix, Arizona, both of them American and they drove to Garland, Texas to carry out this attack. One of them, Elton Simpson had been known to police prior to this. He'd been arrested for trying to get to Somalia, apparently earlier and making false statements to police.

The statement - the claim of responsibility shall we say or you correctly put the claim of affiliation from ISIS today, it ends with the phrase "The future is just around the corner." And that is what has to be of concern to authorities here. Not because there was any evidence of specific planned attacks, but because now we have evidence of people being inspired in the United States by ISIS at a minimum to attack interests here.

[05:35:00] WALSH: Yes, I mean, arguably, you could say the Boston bombers have some sense, you might say, of inspiration from al Qaeda. It is not entirely clear exactly how they ended up in the situation they did in Boston. So, this is of course a long brewing fear that has been on the minds of counter terrorism officials for years. It is extraordinarily difficult when people can be quote trained

through an online magazine or can be inspired by tweets that they read. Can see videos on social media from a completely different part of the world to cause them to feel the need to carry out violence and ruthless acts like this. It's extraordinarily hard to prevent that because it is not a model which fits in to previous designs.

And in this case even still, even when that individual has a brush with law enforcement, like you mentioned, one of the gunmen here trying to get to Somalia, even that is not something which they can constantly monitor. Recall the attacks in Paris, where the gunmen there had been in constant - has been under surveillance by French authorities beforehand but simply you can't look at everybody all the time. And I think that's the major challenge in the years ahead. That maybe the future troubling me, that ISIS is referring to, John.

BERMAN: Indeed, you know, we saw Nidal Hasan in United States with ties to al Qaeda in the (Arabian) peninsula (is my brothers) as he point out. And now these two men in Texas with perhaps some links to ISIS. Our Nick Paton Walsh covering this for us. Again, the breaking news, ISIS on the radio channel claiming responsibility or at least connection to the attacks in Texas.

The organizer of the Texas event itself is defending it. Pamela Geller compared the cartoon contest that she was holding to the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. (inaudible) that the attack on Sunday proved how necessary the event was.

PAMELA GELLER, ORGANIZER OF MOHAMMED CARTOON CONTEST: We held an event in defense of free speech. The objective was first, to show depictions of Mohammed over the past 400 years where they didn't slaughter people for drawing them in pieces of art work. So, we know that this is being used by Islamic supremacists who seek to impose the sheerer restrictions on free speech in the west.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

GELLER: And it's working. It's working because the media won't run cartoons. If the media had run the cartoons in 2005, if all the media had, there would never have been this power given to it. Now, anyone that runs cartoons is targeted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

GELLER: But if all the media had run it, you couldn't kill everybody.

BERMAN: The keynote speaker at that event was a Dutch politician named Geert Wilders. He is a long-time ally of Geller's. This morning, Wilders is back in the Netherlands where he is from. He has a history as a critic of Islam. At the Texas event on Sunday, Wilders, he ripped into the critics of the cartoon contest.

GEERT WILDERS, DUTCH POLITICIAN: They want to prohibit cartoons, books and films which they find insulting. And our answer is don't mess with Texas. (APPLAUSE)

WILDERS: Don't mess with the free west and don't mess with our freedom of speech.

BERMAN: Let's get more on Wilders right now. I want to bring in CNN's Atika Shubert. Good morning, Atika.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Well, Geert Wilders is back in the Netherlands. Back to his parliamentary duties, of course, he's a member of parliament there. And he remains a very controversial figure.

As you point out, he is known here in Europe as being a staunch anti-Islam campaigner. His seat - his party however has won a number of seats in Dutch parliament as a result of that campaign. And in fact, his popularity has risen since not only the Paris attacks, but likely after this Texas attack, too. It will be sort of a bump in his - in his popularity. And the reason for that is because he sort of campaigns off of this issue of freedom of speech and this sort of anti-Islam campaign.

You know, it's interesting that while he campaigns for freedom of speech in Texas, he is also repeatedly called for the banning of the Koran, the Islamic holy book in the Netherlands. And it's statements like that that have actually led to several lawsuits against him in the Netherlands specifically for inciting, you know, inciting hatred. That is the accusation.

In fact, he faces a trial later this year. But so far, he's been acquitted of those sort of incitement trials, and he has done very well as a Dutch politician. We'll have to see what happens after this Texas attack, how that's going to affect him politically but it's most likely that he will continue with his controversial speeches in parliament there.

[05:40:00] BERMAN: All right. Atika Shubert, thank you so much. The politics in Europe different than the politics here, but interesting nonetheless. Baltimore's top prosecutor defending charges against police officers implicated in the death of Freddie Gray. That happening is President Obama tries to bridge the divide between young black men and police. The president went on David Letterman Overnight while you were sleeping. We'll tell you what he said next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Developing this morning, friction between Baltimore's top prosecutor and the police department there when state's attorney Marilyn Mosby announced the arrest of six police officers in connection with the death of Freddie Gray. Police officials in that city, they were stunned. They insist they were working around the clock on their own investigation and some accused prosecutor Mosby of a rush to judgment. The Fraternal Order of Police also claims that she has a conflict of interest. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Mosby was quick to brush aside the criticism. MARILYN MOSBY, STATE'S ATTORNEY FOR BALTIMORE CITY: My job is to

seek justice and to apply justice fairly and equally to everybody. No matter what their color, their creed, their religion, their ethnicity.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you think you can do that beyond a reasonable doubt in perhaps the biggest case of your life?

MOSBY: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Interview with CNN Sara Sidner. President Obama says he is fighting to help America's most impoverished urban communities. He visited the Bronx to re-launch My Brother's Keeper which is a non- profit initiative now that mentors young minority men. The president offered his thoughts on Baltimore in an interview with David Letterman.

[05:45:00] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have a situation in which too many communities don't have a relationship of trust with the police. And if you just have a handful of police who are not doing the right thing, that makes the job tougher for all the other police officers out there. It creates an environment in the community where they feel as if rather than being protected and served, they are the targets of arbitrary arrests or stops.

And - so our job has to be to rebuild trust and we put forward task force made up of police officers, but also young activists who have been protesting in Ferguson or here in New York. They came up with some terrific recommendations about collecting data and on what happens when there's a shooting involving the police. What are we doing in terms of things like body cameras. And so, there are some very practical, concrete things we can do to make the system work better.

BERMAN: The president says he is not interested in assigning blame for the mistrust between citizens and police. He just wants to see results. Part of the situation that is making things so difficult and complicated in Baltimore is the stark economic situation facing young people there. Cristina Alesci is here with details on that.

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Baltimore is the toughest place in the country for poor children to escape poverty. That's according to a new Harvard study. The average income for a 26-year-old is $26,000. Nationally, that's about 17 percent more than a young person in Baltimore and 28 percent more than young men in Baltimore.

Of course, neighborhoods with two parent homes and less race and economic segregation had the most upward mobility. This is something that needs to be addressed if we are going to see any kind of reduction in violence in this country.

BERMAN: There are a lot of layers on that city and around this country. Thanks, Cristina. New this morning, a CNN Exclusive. Inside North Korea. That's our Will Ripley speaking to a student from NYU, New York University, who is detained right now in North Korea for allegedly illegally entering that country.

Plus, our breaking news this morning. ISIS just took responsibility for the shooting in Texas where two gunmen tried to ambush, tried to storm the cartoon drawing contest. We have new details next.

[05:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking news this morning. ISIS now claiming credit or at a minimum, claiming affiliation with Sunday's attack in Garland, Texas at the contest to draw a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed. On the official ISIS radio channel, it's either based in Mosul, Iraq, the group's announcer said that two of its Al Khilafa soldiers attacked the event. The ISIS announcer said that two brother died in the exchange of gunfire, and in the statement, also implied that there is more to come.

Fifty-one minutes after the hour. A New York University student is now being detained in North Korea. And he is speaking out this morning exclusively to CNN's Will Ripley. Twenty-one year old, Won- moon Joo is a citizen of South Korea and a prominent resident of the United States who lives in New Jersey. North Korea's government news agency says that Joo crossed illegally into North Korea from China last month. Acclaim that the young man seem to concede to Will Ripley in an interview overnight in Pyongyang.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN TOKYO CORRESPONDENT: Why did you go into North Korea?

JOO WON-MOON, NYU STUDENT: Well, I thought that by my entrance illegally, I acknowledge, but I thought that some great event could happen and hopefully that event could have a good effect in the relations between the North and South.

RIPLEY: So, what kind of great event did you think could happen?

JOO: I - of course, I am not completely sure yet. But, I hope that, you know, I will be able to tell the world how an ordinary college student entered the DPRK illegally, but however with the generous treatment of the DPRK that I will be able to return home safely.

BERMAN: Joo said that this interview with Will was his first contact with the outside world since being detained. Obviously, he is under compete control of North Korean authorities. He told will he has not been informed whether he will faces charges but he is willing to accept any punishment.

A dramatic turn in court in the sentencing phase of the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. For the first time, Tsarnaev was moved to tears. CNN's Alexandra Field has the story.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, it was subtle, but it was the most emotion we've seen from the Boston Marathon bomber. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev seemed to tear up while one of his aunts was on the stand. She was so inconsolable, crying and hyperventilating but she wasn't able to testify. But the jury did hear from five other relatives all flown in from Russia, aunts and cousins who testified about the little boy who they hadn't seen since his family moved to the United States when he was 8 years old.

But they remember the young Dzhokhar as a kind and quiet gentle boy. One who liked to watch the movie The Lion King and who they remember crying when one of the characters died. The family also testified that it's customary for younger siblings to look up to older siblings, to follow in their footsteps. And they talked about the last time they saw Tamerlan Tsarnaev back in 2012 when he visited Russia.

One cousin recalled that it had become clear to her that he had become radicalized in his thinking about Islam. Attorneys also called friends of Dzhokhar's from high school and college to talk about the young man they once knew as the defense fights to save Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's life. John.

BERMAN: Well, thanks, Alexandra Field in Boston. So, Carly Fiorina, she just got into the presidential race officially, but she is already facing some tough criticism. Early start on your money next.

[05:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Time up for an early start on your money. Cristina Alesci, here with that.

ALESCI: Yes, the future's market is really undecided. A little flat. Yesterday, stocks rose for the second straight day. The S&P 500 gained six points, closing less than 1 percent away from its record. Dow and Nasdaq also closed very close to record territory thanks to a strong manufacturing report.

Here's a fun one. Visit carlyfiorina.org and her supporters might be disappointed. The site is actually backed by her critics. It take shots at her time running Hewlett-Packard, it shows 30,000 sad faces. One for each employee she fired between 1999 and 2005. It's one of the many challenges she faces in her race for the GOP Presidential Nomination.

BERMAN: Yes, welcome to the presidential race. Thanks so much, Cristina, I appreciate it. ISIS now claiming responsibility just this morning for the attempted attack on the contest to draw cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in Texas. All the new details coming up right now on New Day.

Breaking news, ISIS has now claimed responsibility for that attack in Garland, Texas.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of two gunmen has been on the FBI's radar for years.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ISIS essentially supports what they describe as lone wolf attacks.

GELLER: My event was about freedom of speech, period.

OBAMA: Too many communities don't have a relationship of trust with the police.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This cop-watch thing, I'm going to take it to the top. And we're not going to stop.

MOSBY: My job is to seek justice, fairly and equally to everybody.

BEN CARSON, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm Ben Carson, and I'm a candidate for president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I am running for president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm running.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any kind of exposure is the target.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

[00:06:00] BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world. You are watching New Day. And we do begin with Breaking News. ISIS, claiming responsibility for Sunday's attempted ambush at a prophet Mohammed cartoon competition in Garland, Texas.

Now, ISIS using its official radio channel to take credit for the attack referring to the dead gunmen as Al Khilafa brothers or warriors of the caliphate that they hope to create.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So, does that mean that ISIS ordered the attack or were the gunman lone wolf sympathizers of the Islamic state. CNN has every angle of this breaking story cover that we begin with Senior International Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh who was live in Beirut. Nick.