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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

San Bernardino Shooting Investigation Coverage; White House Briefing. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 04, 2015 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:32:58] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to the continuing coverage of the California shooting rampage. I want to show you some pictures now. We are getting from inside of the apartment of the killers, which to let you know that the police have released the crime scene, and the landlord has allowed the reporters in.

Our Victor Blackwell is inside. We are also getting the pictures that are our folks took just a short time the ago, so we will show you the first time the inside.

And victor, if you can just for our viewers who have not been with us before the break, just explain a little bit about what you are seeing inside of this apartment as we are trying to check out some of the pictures.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPODENT: Well, I'm seeing first, it's a place that you can obviously see there was a raid here. The front door is broken in half, kind of leaning on a wall, glass all over the floor, and there is a mixture of, you know, elements of a typical family here of a young child. Toys in the living room, and mixed upon the, you know, the glass here, but there are all of the four sheets from the FBI listing all of the items that were seized here on yesterday, actually on 12/3.

And you go through some of what we are seeing, ammunition, hard drives, laptops, thumb drives, rifle cleaners, roller deck (ph), a gun cleaning kit, are both an M-4 style rifle and it says. And just goes on page and page, and there are signs here that these two left in a hurry potentially or, you know, after the news of what happened here on Wednesday.

Farook's mother left in a hurry, because there is half-eaten unleavened bread just seating on the top of the washing machine. So again there are about 15 now probably more than 50 members of the press around here talking photographs, but it is obviously, you know, from the list here that this home was full of more than what is necessary for a small family. I mean, you have the list of all of the weapons here. Boxes and boxes of ammunition, different calibers of bullets are listed.

[12:35:03] We still have not gotten into the garage where we are told that the factory where these 12 pipe bombs were found, and all of the materials to make more, but the lists here paint a little clear picture.

COOPER: Yeah. I want to bring in Stephanie Elam who is now in the camera inside of the House. Stephanie, explan what you're seeing?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Anderson, there is what I was talking about before. I was the first person to walk into the room and saw how it was before everybody started to touch it. And you can see that police did go through and look at many everything. I don't want to show these I.D.s over here, just because I don't want to show you those addresses that on there, but I do believe that they belong to the mother of Farook based on the ages that are there.

But you can see that there are some prayer books, there also some pictures. When I first walked in, this group of the prayer beads was sitting right here on the edge of the bed when I walked in as well. Several prayer books that were all around the side of the bed here, some business cards, and plenty of the normal trappings that you would expect to see in the bedroom.

You know I see receipts for stores, normal store purchases, I see lotions and creams and dressers and that sort of thing. But one of the things -- there is so much media in here, but I want to show you, one of the things that you can see here is this, and this is what I was telling you about before is this right here. If you look up here, you can see where they smashed up into the ceiling to take a look to see what was up there, and it does appear based on how much debris is on the ground, that there was an effort to get up there to make sure they checked every crevice of this back bedroom and it does seems like it may have been the main bedroom that was here.

But plenty of I.D.s, I've seen passports, I've seen driver's licenses, social security card, plenty of things that are around here as we well as plenty of signs of faith, a lot of signs of faith here. You see a lot of to signs of these being people who believe in their faith and also referencing it. Their stickers and so forth all throughout the room, but a lot of paper work and also a lot of luggage up here as well too, but I just looks like it's been stash over in the corner, but definitely signs that this has been room that has been ransacked by not before the media got here, but by the police as well.

COOPER: Hey, Stephanie I just want to...

ELAM: I'm still looking...

COOPER: Stephanie, if you can hear me, I just want to clarify a couple of things, because this is kind of bizarre this whole thing. I just want to be clear the police have cleared this that they are no longer interested in this apartment, they have taken out all of the items that they are interested in, and as in any crime scene eventually the police clear it, they hand it over back to the owner, in this case, the landlord and the landlord has invited you and all of the other media in? Is that correct?

ELAM: We watched him come back with the crowbar and he worked to get it out, finally they got out of drill, and opened up the door that had been barricaded with a big piece of wood. They opened it up, and then everyone came in right after that.

So, yes, this is a situation where the police were done with the building and the owner is coming back in, and this is if first time he walked back in as far as we understand, and then we walked in after him, everyone here getting this first look at what this house looks like, and where these shooters were living before this all transpired.

COOPER: I want to bring in Harry Houck, Law Enforcement Analyst formerly with the NYPD. Harry, I just seems suspect as bizarre what we're seeing. I mean, this is common? I mean, I guess at some point the police gave up the crime scene and somebody else takes it over.

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Anderson, I have chills down my spine what I am seeing here. This apartment clearly is full of evidence. I don't see any fingerprint dust on the walls where they went in there and check for fingerprints for other people that might have been connected with these two. You've documents laying all over the place, you've shredded documents that need to be taken out of there, and put together to see what was shredded. You have passports. You've got driver's licenses. Now you have thousands of fingerprints all over inside of this crime scene.

Now, this should have been some crime scene tape up there, usually in an instance like this, if crime scene goes in does the work and comes out, you still keep that scene locked up, and what with the sign on board saying that you cannot be coming in until the police release it.

The fact is maybe they did not do that here. I am -- I will tell you that I am so shocked I cannot believe it. This is detective 101 for crying out loud and now we have -- it looks like dozens of people in there, totally destroying the crime scene which is still vital in this investigation, because we don't know how many other that they were connect with in this thing.

So there might be tons of fingerprints in there that we need to look at to see if there is any kind of connection with those fingerprints or some people that might be on the watch list or something else. I am really shocked here that the police -- that the police are watching this right. They better be on there way down there to be able to stop this from happening.

[12:40:04] Because this is -- I'm shacking over. That's how irresponsible this is for law enforcement for letting this happened.

COOPER: I want to hear. I think there some sound from the landlord who spoke to reporters before going in, let's just play what he said to see if he sheds any light on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOYLE MILLER, KILLERS' LANDLORD: Last night, my maid (ph)and I go up so, you know, this is unreal. [inaudible] I need to assess the damage. It's a lot worse than what I thought.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: had you been in the house before when they lived here? MILLER: Pardon?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Had you been in the house when they lived here?

MILLER: No, I took pictures of the house when I had refurbished it before they moved in, and I always take pictures before and after.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How long have they been living here?

MILLER: Since May, mid May.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seems, what was your reaction of the steamline (ph)?

MILLER: My reaction I know it just was not real. It is up real.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When did you first learn that...

MILLER: Well, I watched it on television. I had no idea of what -- that this is the place where they at until late at night when they showed the address of the property, and I had no indication it was.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I get your name real quickly.

MILLER: Doyle Miller.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you're the landlord?

MILLER: Yes, owner and landlord.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Doyle.

MILLER: I can't even see what's going on here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know. It's dark. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Are also joined by Law Enforcement Analyst Cedric Alexander. I mean, Cedric, I guess at some point though police do release, you know, feel they've got everything they need out of place and then give it back to the owner, correct? I mean, because I was outside the apartment yesterday, and they were clearly still going over the apartment, and going through. I assume they feel that they got everything they wanted.

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, you would assume that, but let me tell you something, you know, I agree with Harry on this. This is really hard to watch. And I've been in law enforcement for a very, very long time and I remember being investigator in back Dade County, Florida, and even being responsible now in the major police department here in Dekalb where we have a crime unit that will go in and take pictures and collect evidence.

I mean, in a situations such as this, this is a major scene, this is a major event that occurred, and quite frankly from where I sit that scene should have been held, closed. Because you never know during the course of your investigation particularly this early when you may need to go back to that crime scene and look deeper into a place or the crevice or the location that you have maybe missed or you may learn information from.

So, I would hope that law enforcement there had made a decision that they needed nothing else from this crime scene,.

COOPER: Right.

ALEXANDER: But what is still very troubling here is that it is still very early in this investigation.

COOPER: Yeah. Let me bring in Anthony May formerly with the AFT. Anthony, what do you make of this?

ANTHONY MAY, FORMER ATF EXPLOSIVES EXPERT: Well, Anderson, the big question I have right now is this, the seizure documents, are they from department of justice FBI or they San Bernardino County, because typically what happens in the federal investigation the crime scene will be gone through, and as the reporter talked about documents laid out on the bed, all those documents have been gone through. Every nook and cranny to that house has gone through to include the crawl space. They've look at everything, they listed everything on the seizure documents.

Now the very last thing on the federal side that we do is we will photograph the residence, a photograph taken prior to the search, and after the search the document any damage that occurred and then we will post the seizure documents as we leave. Once those seizure documents are posted, that crime scene is over, it's no longer ours.

COOPER: So, from your standpoint, it doesn't -- you are assuming and I mean, I think that rightfully so, because they have now been there for quite some time that they have gone over every inch, and no longer need anything out of the apartment? Otherwise they would not have told the landlord it was okay to go back.

MAY: That is correct, Anderson. They had at least -- about 24 hours in this are residence. This is a small house, and it's not that large, and of course, their concentration was probably in the garage, but as you saw in the scene earlier, there was a law enforcement officer who walked up and just king of looked and simply walked away.

[12:45:10] Had this not been a released scene, there would have been a larger police presence, there would been an FBI presence if it were the FBI scene, and that's why I'm asking if somebody can look at the seizure documents, and say what agency posted those documents. I'm suspecting it is probably the FBI, then this house has been gone through, everything of evidentiary value has been taken or documented, and it's a released scene. It is typical procedure.

COOPER: OK. We'll ask Victor Blackwell to look at those documents, and get that information. We want to take a quick break. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:09] COOPER: Welcome back for our continuing coverage of the aftermath of the California shooting rampage a bizarre scene take place over the last 30 minutes or so as the owner and landlord of the apartment owned that the killers were living in opened up the apartment, and allowed the media to come in.

We assume with police approval, and because he was given access back to the apartment. It has been turned over as a crime scene. Maybe -- obviously, the law enforcement has gone over it. There's been some question about whether they got everything they needed from it.

Our Anthony May formerly with the ATF was saying that based on one of the documents that our Victor Blackwell was looking at, which is a listing of the items taken from the apartment, if it's a federal document from theFBI, that would indicate they are done with everything there, and it has been turned over.

So, I just want to go in to bring in Anthony May and Victor Blackwell. Victor, you saw the document, was it an FBI document?

BLACKWELL: Yes. It's an FBI document. Four pages listing all of the items seized just sitting on one of two tables in this really small living room. So, yes, those were federal documents.

COOPER: OK. So, Anthony May, what is that tell you? That's tells you that they have gone through everything, and they have given the apartment back to the owner?

MAY: That is correct, Anderson. What happens is -- in the first place, they get a search warrant, and there are items that they are looking for on the search warrant, and now if they come across something in the apartment that's not on the search warrant they want to seize, they have the option of amending that warrant, that not a problem. But once they're completed, once they have gone through everything and they're satisfied that they have got everything of evidentiary value, base on the totally of the circumstances. Then they will list those on the seizure documents. It's a federal requirement.

Once those items are listed and were cleared of the seen. The very last thing we must do is to leave a copy of what was taken. The seizure rules are very strict and the FBI apparently had followed those to the letter. They posted their seizure documents and once those are posted we no longer own that scene, it's released back to the property owner, now he came in with a crowbar, he broke the seal. The seal bring the card -- the plywood and then another requirement that the federal government has is that once we release the scene we have to insure that residence is secure and everything inside because at that point in time it still belong to us. Once we post the documents, once we seal it, we've released it back to the rightful owner, in this case, the landlord. He came in and he broke that seal, and he is responsible for that property now, the federal government is not.

COOPER: So as strange. I mean, I was personally kind of thought this is one of the stranger things I have certainly seen in quite a while and kind of uncomfortable with all these people tramping through, this owner apartment. But if he gave permission for everybody to go in and it has been released by law enforcement, then he has the right to do that?

MAY: He does. And it apparently, it kind of looked like it was more just media and more like an open house. We had a lady with a dog. We had another lady with a baby. I mean, it was bizarre to see and I've quite never seen it in my career, but it was interesting.

COOPER: Yeah. Not the choice I would have made as the owner or the landlord, but that is the choice he made. Anthony May. I appreciate your being there, and victor, the garage, obviously been a prime place for law enforcement has been looking at. As far as you know, are they still in the garage or is that now been released to the landlord as well? Do we know?

BLACKWELL: Yeah, earlier this morning when I arrived on the scene, and the caution tape was out of the way, and we were standing in this position on the front lawn I wanted to know what was going on around back, so we took a walk around back and got as close as we could without going on the private property, who knew that the owner would let us into the unit today, but we couldn't see any vehicles back there which we've seen in the past few days of collection.

So, the assumption is that has been released, too, although, there's been no official announcement there that they are done with the garage, but on being this close to the front door and now being let inside, that's the conclusion one can reach. And I haven't seen any law enforcement showing up. I mean, I they can turn on any television, I guess from the media and languages I'm hearing around me. Any television in the world and see that we're here, but no one has shown up.

[12:54:48] COOPER: All right. Victor Blackwell, I appreciate your reporting, and Anthony May as well thank you for all your expertise.

We're going to take a quick break. Obviously our coverage continues, I'll back at 8:00 p.m. eastern time with AC360. Wolf Starts after quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We want to go right to the White House, the Press Secretary Josh Earnest is briefing on the San Bernardino terror attacks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: ... to learn as much as possibly can about the attackers, their background, their potential motives. This includes things like their foreign travel, their contacts with other individuals. The use of social media and it means there are some details that investigation is starting to dribble out, but sometimes in the garbled form.

I'm not going to be in a position to share new details or to confirm details that are currently reported. As I mentioned yesterday, it's the responsibility of the investigators to put out information to the public, that have been understandable, legitimate interest and understanding exactly what transpired, but they will do that consistent with their judgment about what best serves the investigation.

So, I am aware that the FBI is planning to provide you with some updates, at least before the end of the day today. So, that all being said, I will take a shot at answering your questions as best I can. Josh, would you like to start?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, Thanks Josh. I want to ask you to release new details or confirming about the investigation, but I will ask you that like to reaction to details that enforcement authority have released such as the fact that woman in this attack, Tashfeen Malik apparently had pledged allegiance to ISIS in a Facebook post. Now that information has been disseminated, is the White House believe that is to accurate to characterize this is a terrorist attack?

EARNEST: Well, Josh, there is information it has been disseminated, but I'm not going to be in position to confirmed it. So again, wouldn't the FBI has information that they have obtained, that they're prepared to released publicly and they'll that, until that time. I'm not going to be in the position to confirm these reports.

Let me just say in general though as an attempt to answer the question, without confirming that information. The FBI is leading this investigation as the President said yesterday because of the possibility that this is a terrorist attack the.

[13:00:02] And the President summoned his national security adviser, his top counterterrorism advisor, his attorney general, the director of the FBI and the deputy director...