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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Tel Aviv Shooting; New Year's Rampage; Baltimore Unsealed Documents; Dubai Hotel Still Smoldering. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 01, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:08] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Jim Sciutto, in today for Ashleigh Banfield. A very happy New Year to you, and welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

It is 7:00 p.m. in Tel Aviv. Night has long since fallen. But police are still on the hunt for the person who opened fire on a pub at midafternoon today. Two people were killed in that attack. Reports vary on the number of wounded. It is at least three. Surveillance video caught a glimpse of the shooter as the attack was underway. We are not sure how this video was obtained. Watch closely, it's disturbing.

(VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: You can see there on the right-hand corner you'll see the gunman highlighted as he opens fire on that street. Alarming to watch.

My CNN colleague, Ian Lee, he is in Jerusalem right now.

Ian, are there any updates in the investigation because there's been this continuing question as to whether this was a criminal act or an act of terrorism?

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jim, that is -- that is one of the two big questions right now, who this person is, where is he right now, but also, was this a criminal act or was this an act of terrorism. Depending on which it is, that will lead the investigation into different directions. And we saw that video. This man very callously goes into a supermarket and then he puts his bag down on some shopping carts after looking at some produce. That's when he pulls out the gun and shoots these people, killing two and injuring eight. Four of these people are in serious condition.

Now, Israeli police are telling us that they had no intelligence leading up to this incident, that something like this was going to be taking place. Now, right now, they are searching all of Tel Aviv looking for this suspect. But they're telling residents there that -- to go about their daily lives. It is Shabbat right now. People are going to the synagogue to pray. They're saying, be alert, but the police still combing, going door-to-door, house-to-house and looking for this -- this gunmen. SCIUTTO: We've been showing, as you've been talking just there Ian, in

addition to the shooting video, this second piece of video of the gunman -- what appears to be the gunman in a grocery store just before the shooting started. The manhunt's still underway. I'm curious, is Tel Aviv a city that has a lot of cameras out there, security cameras out there -- New York, for instance, is covered with them -- that will help police to track where the gunmen went after the shooting?

LEE: Yes, Israel is a country that is covered in this security cameras, not just in Tel Aviv, but here in Jerusalem. And when you do have incidents like this, you do get a lot of this footage that comes out. So far we do have these two video clips. But police are going to be looking at video that hasn't been released to the public, looking into the direction of where this suspect, where this gunman went.

And other things that will be helping them as well is, he left his bag. There's a clip for the gun that was left behind. That's being reported. So these are little clues that will help police. But we're expecting to see more CCTV footage as it comes to light of this suspect. We do also have a very fairly clear shot of his face as well from the security footage. All things are going to help the police in this investigation, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And we spoke to Israeli police before, they said one concern is they, of course, need to catch him because of the possibility of a secondary attack.

Ian Lee in Jerusalem.

We're just getting word from southeastern France now that soldiers have opened fire on a car that was driving into them. Police tell CNN the driver was shot twice but is expected to survive. A passerby also hit by gunfire and is now hospitalized. The four soldiers said to be slightly hurt. Police say that the soldiers were guarding the city's Grand Mosque at the time of this presumed attack. We're going to get you more information as it comes into CNN.

And we are learning much more about the terror threat that prompted authorities in Munich, Germany, to close two major train stations on New Year's Eve. Police say they received very specific information naming not only the stations but a time frame, midnight, and a number and nationalities of possibility attackers, including some names of them, five to seven Iraqi and Syrian nationals. But so far no leads have been checked out and no one has been detained as they search desperately for these potential attackers. The stations did reopen around 4:00 a.m. local time. Reports indicate that the information came from a U.S. and French intelligence, but authorities will not confirm that. They do say they have no further evidence of imminent attacks today or tomorrow in any specific places.

Also overseas, a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, says a 12-year-old boy was killed in a suicide bombing at a restaurant. Eleven people are said to be hurt in an afternoon attack on a French establishment that is popular with ex-pats there. The Taliban are claiming responsibility, saying the restaurant is owned by so-called invaders. [12:05:18] And here in the U.S., an upstate New York man allegedly

plotted to blow up a restaurant and kill New Year's partygoers just to impress the terrorist group ISIS. Instead, 25-year-old Emanuel Lutchman rang in the New Year in a Rochester jail cell. He could be looking forward to spending 20 years in prison.

CNN's Boris Sanchez joins me now with that.

So what exactly do we know about what Lutchman was allegedly planning to do, and how did -- how did authorities catch him in the end?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, essentially he was planning to use a pressure cooker bomb implanted at a bar and restaurant. Fortunately with the help of an undercover informant, authorities were able to catch him before he executed the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ (voice-over): A home grown terror plot to attack people celebrating the New Year, thwarted by the feds. Twenty-five-year-old Emanuel Lutchman now facing charges of attempting to provide materiel support to ISIS. His alleged plan, police say he was looking to attack a bar and restaurant while revelers partied overnight in Rochester, New York.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was nervous owning some establishments downtown. You know, it's a little scary. But then I -- I sat back and thought, you know, we have very good security staff. There's great police presence on the East Avenue. And, you know, they are really just trying to put the fear into us and we're not going to let that happen.

SANCHEZ: Talking to an FBI informant, Lutchman allegedly discussed using a pressure cooker bomb and kidnapping people. According to a criminal complaint, he told the informant, quote, "I will take a life. I don't have a problem with that." The feds say that on Tuesday, Lutchman went to an area Walmart with the informant to stock up for the attack, buying black ski masks, zip ties, knives, a machete, duct tape, ammonia and latex gloves. And the complaint says he planned to release a video after the attack.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: There's also a new normal when it comes to terrorism.

SANCHEZ: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo talking about the suspect's alleged path to radicalization.

CUOMO: He served time in Attica, became a Muslim, went out, became radicalized on the Internet and became the proponent of one of these terrorist groups, the ISIL groups, and pledged allegiance to the ISIL group, and had a specific plan to assassinate people.

SANCHEZ: But Lutchman's neighbors say that's not the man they knew.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's just a street kid. He's not a hard core terrorist, you know. He's just jumped on a bandwagon being a little stupid. SANCHEZ: If convicted, Lutchman could face up to 20 years in prison

and a quarter million dollar fine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Now, as you said, Jim, it appears that Lutchman was trying to impress someone abroad who was claiming to be part of ISIS. He told them he wanted to go to Syria to prove himself to his brothers in ISIS, his words. Instead they told him he would be much more valuable here in the United States trying to kill as many Americans as possible. Jim.

SCIUTTO: And that's been consistent guidance from ISIS, trying to encourage lone wolves, as they're called, around the world to act.

Thank you, Boris Sanchez, in New York.

I want to talk more about all this with CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam, and with retired Army Brigadier General and former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for Middle East Affairs Mark Kimmitt.

If I could begin with you, Jonathan, you look at a case like this, you know, this is the M.O. or it's really one of the M.O.s. Paris, a coordinated attack. A lot of training, moving back and forth to Iraq and Syria for the attackers. But you've had other attacks, San Bernardino among them, where in effect either the attacker kind of volunteers himself or the attacker is encouraged by ISIS to, hey, do something where you are. Those are the attacks, aren't they, that are most difficult to identify in advance and prevent?

JONATHAN GILLIAM, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: They are and those are the ones that we've been fearing for the longest of, you know, developing to where they start to realize, you know, al Qaeda, in the past, wanted to do big attacks that caused massive world change in ideology. But what these, you know, ISIS and different groups now have discovered is that you don't need those big attacks to cause a lot of fear because they've learned how to master the Internet and media basically. So when they can go out and do something as simple as a machete attack, they're going to cause fear by going out and using the Internet and media force (ph) multipliers to get their fear out and it's very hard --

SCIUTTO: No question.

GILLIAM: Very hard to find that before the fact.

SCIUTTO: General Kimmitt, there's something of a debate -- I mean you certainly hear it from the president at times -- to say that, in effect the threat from terrorism is to some degree exaggerated, right? That at the end of the day it's not an existential threat, that these things are -- they're scary, they're dangerous, they're deadly. But in the scheme of things, they're relatively small. I mean you know that line of argument. Do you think the authorities are getting the right balance in terms of how they respond to these kinds of things? [12:10:20] BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY (RET.) Well, in some

ways I do, but in most ways I don't. Look, there's no doubt that al Qaeda, for years and years, has been trying to get their hands on the nuclear material, to either create a dirty bomb or something even worse. I don't think we can't downplay the threat by either al Qaeda or ISIS, whether they are by the direct affiliates that are working inside the country or around the region or, as was mentioned earlier, those inspired in our country by the al Qaeda or the ISIS ideology.

SCIUTTO: Understood, General Kimmitt, and that's always, of course, a tough balance to strike.

Jonathan Gilliam, as well, thanks for taking the time today.

GILLIAM: You got it.

SCIUTTO: Straight ahead, critical documents in the Freddie Gray case have been unsealed. They show that Gray may have had a previous back injury and authorities knew about it. How could that affect the upcoming trials in Baltimore? That's next.

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SCIUTTO: Newly unsealed court documents today are throwing new light on the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. The Baltimore man died in police custody last April, leading to charges for six police officers accused of causing spinal injuries that killed him. Now, the defense team says there may be more in Freddie Gray's medical history that has not been heard yet. CNN's Miguel Marquez is here, also legal analysts Danny Cevallos and Joey Jackson.

[12:15:02] Miguel, if I could begin with you. Explain to our viewers what these unsealed documents say about his condition before that fateful arrest.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These are documents filed by the defense lawyers for Caesar Goodson. He is the van driver whose trial is meant to start on the 11th of this month. In these documents the defense asks for two things. They want all of Gray's medical records. They want also all of his incarceration records.

The defense claims that a piece of evidence was not handed over to them by the prosecutors, which was that a police detective was told by Gray on March 31st, a couple of weeks before Gray was arrested and then critically injured, that he had a bad back. This was in conjunction with Gray providing police information, which is also a new tidbit that we're hearing. In another document the defense says that Mr. Gray had injured himself or there was a tip that Gray had injured himself while incarcerated, so lawyers want all that.

The prosecution saying you shouldn't have any of it. None of it is relevant to this case because whether he had a bad back or a sore back or an injured back or anything else, it wasn't his back that was the problem, it was a broken neck from the back -- when he was in the back of that police van and none of this should be relevant. We expect the judge will rule on this, this week. Jim.

SCIUTTO: All right, Miguel, thanks for giving us the details.

So, Danny and Joey, I want to talk to two guys who know the law here. I mean I guess there are two issues. One, is it relevant that a guy had some back pain, and we all have some back pain, I imagine before having a serious and what turned out to be deadly spinal injury. That's one. The other thing is, how significant is it in the case that this was not revealed to the defense before.

Danny, why don't you weigh in first then I'll get -- then I'll give you a chance, Joey.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's very significant. As a general rule, the prosecution has to disclose exculpatory evidence. And the disputes that often arise is that on one side the prosecution says, well, this information wasn't really exculpatory, and the defense customarily says, well, we should have been the judge of that. We should have been the ones that have -- that decided whether or not it was in fact exculpatory evidence and it should have been turned over.

This is a very, very common dispute. And this is evidence that each side will look at in drastically different ways. The prosecution will say, as we've already sort of said here in this segment, that many people have back pain. This particular back pain was not relevant to the injuries he suffered on that day. But the defense will take a very different look at it and they will use medical science, that kind of evidence, to demonstrate to a jury that in fact these injuries were significant and they may have been a factor in the injuries that he suffered on that day.

But in the case of what we call Brady violations, each side always takes a very opposite view. The prosecution says it wasn't exculpatory. The defense customarily says we should have had it.

SCIUTTO: Of course. So, Joey, you know, we already had a mistrial in this case, in the first policeman to be charged, police officer rather to be charged in his -- Freddie Gray's death. You look at something like this, the defense charging, hey, that this was hidden somehow. Does that begin to get you worried that you cannot go down that path I mean I imagine we'll be talking about dismissing the case or having to retry it. Is there enough trouble there, do you think, to spell trouble down the road?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Not yet, Jim, and here's why. What happens is, a judge evaluates information that the defense may have or may not have inasmuch as does it prejudice your defense. And if the case hasn't started yet, and the defense would have an opportunity to review and evaluate information, they could hardly claim to be prejudiced. But look at the information we're talking about. Goodson, whose trial is starting, as Miguel Marquez has mentioned, on January 11th, is charged with depraved murder.

That's significant. And significant because he was the van driver. The claim, was it a rough ride? Did he do something that was so devoid of, you know, any type of attention? Did he just, you know, with spite just drive around so that Freddie Gray would be dead? Well, the defense lawyers are making the argument that, we want information here that he, a, may have had a pre-existing back injury and therefore, you know, it would have been more likely that potentially this was self- inflicted. Why? Because the other argument, Jim, is that he was bouncing around and there apparently is a witness that establishes, according to the defense, that he was knocking himself around in the back of the van and he self -- he did it himself.

And then, of course, the defense wants information about a previous occasion where they claim, there's a claim, that Freddie Gray, while in police custody on another occasion, was attempting to harm himself. So as long as the defense has this information prior to trial and are prepared to litigate the information during the trial, it doesn't represent prejudice to them, and the matter may move forward.

SCIUTTO: Gotcha. OK, understood. Thank you, Joey. Thank you, Danny. Thank you, Miguel, and happy New Year to all of you.

JACKSON: And to you, Jim. Take care.

MARQUEZ: Happy New Year.

[12:20:00] SCIUTTO: Coming up next, a hotel in Dubai is still smoldering a day after a massive fire. We'll show you pictures from inside that building.

Plus, I'm talking to a woman who lives just across the street from the hotel who can talk about the smoke, the smell that is in that city right now as the fire still smolders.

Plus, it's the most devastating flood a Missouri town has ever seen. That's what the major of Arnold, Missouri, says as his town is struggling to get its head above water. He joins me live right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: It is almost exactly 24 hours since a luxury high-rise hotel in Dubai erupted in flames. And what's left of the building is still smoking and smoldering right now. A source telling CNN that a set of curtains in a 20th floor residence caught fire, could have been the cause as New Year Eve's celebrations were kicking off in the city. Amazingly, nobody died, though 16 people needed medical attention.

We are also getting a look inside the burned out hotel. We'll show you those pictures right now. Those are firefighters leaving there.

On the phone with me right now is the former commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, Thomas Von Essen, also Diana Loesch, who lives directly across the street from the hotel in Dubai.

Diane, if I could begin with you. What do you see right now coming from the building, because the word from the Dubai government has been, this is contained, the fire is under control, everything is finished, in effect. DIANE LOESCH, LIVES NEXT TO DUBAI HOTEL (via telephone): Exactly.

Well, when I look out from my particular vantage point is -- as I say, it's a building and still a lot of smoldering, a lot of smoke. I'm facing north, and, of course, the Burj Khalifa, to the -- to the left of the building.

[12:25:16] But earlier today there was a fire that broke out about a third of the way up towards the base and there's a lot of crackling and kind of creosote smelling, this type of thing. So there was a little bit of an anticipation like more debris was going to come down, perhaps the building was -- something else was going to happen. But, fortunately, nothing did. So -- but right now there's just a lot of smoldering and I -- the firefighters, they're doing a great job containing anything that else may happen.

SCIUTTO: All right, well -- well keep you distance for your own safety.

Commissioner Von Essen, if I could ask you, we spoke in the last hour to a fire expert from John Jay College in New York who raised concerns about an external building material that's used in 70 percent of Dubai buildings that has a plastic content that, in his view, and granted this is from afar, it's early, could have contributed to the rapid spread of this fire on the exterior. Does that sound like a reasonable explanation to you?

THOMAS VON ESSEN, FORMER FDNY COMMISSIONER: Well, it sounds like a reasonable cause for that much fire on an outside of a building. What doesn't sound reasonable is how one curtain in one residence could create that much fire to ignite the side of a building. That's aluminum-clad, you know, resins, and you would think it's probably a good product for insulation and for, you know, creating some design to the building that we don't have the artists (ph) like we used to. We don't want to, you know, do that kind of plaster and concrete work, so they go for a less expensive way to do it and it gives a nice effect.

But if that is that flammable that it could be ignited with that amount of fire going up 30 or 40 stories, which makes it impossible for firefighters to put it out on the outside of the building, and then when it's burning for a long time, gets into the building, melting the windows and then -- or you know, making the windows crack and then the fire gets inside and now you've got to have a sprinkler system that could be overworked for, you know, all of those particular fires throughout 500 rooms. If that's the case, that's a real problem. And if it's in that many buildings in Dubai, and then I would think that's a real concern. But I don't know that that's the case.

SCIUTTO: Right. And to be clear to our viewers, we don't know either. I've spoken to Dubai officials. They say that they are still determining the cause of this. From early on they have said that the cause originated from the exterior -- well, possibly with a curtain, but that it started somehow on the exterior of the building.

Diana, if you're still there with us --

LOESCH: Yes. SCIUTTO: As you were watching this fire last night, can you tell us how quickly it spread.

LOESCH: It spread very quickly. I mean actually my son was the one who alerted us to it. It -- within I would say five minutes it spread up the side of the building from (INAUDIBLE) to maybe the 15th floor. I mean it went -- it went up very quickly. It was incredible actually how fast that it was engulfed in flames. It was -- it was concerning but --

SCIUTTO: About five -- five minutes. Five minutes for a building that side. It's --

LOESCH: It felt like five minutes. Yes, exactly. But it was very -- it was very quick. I mean it was very rapid. So --

SCIUTTO: Commissioner von Essen, one thing that surprised a lot of us here, and I imagine some of our viewers at home, was that Dubai went ahead last night with this massive New Year's Eve fireworks show minutes after this fire was -- well, actually, as the fire was still engulfing the building. Would you have done the same thing? Would you -- would you have let people -- and people remained fairly close to that burning building as they're watching -- and we're talking about thousands of people -- as they're watching this big fireworks show.

VON ESSEN: It's hard to tell how close they were, whether or not they were in an area where there's still debris was, you know, on top of them. It looks to me like they were fortunate that they had all of these people from civil defense and military, whoever they had in preparations for a spectacular fireworks display, looks to me they were fortunate they were in place and they were able, I guess, to control the amount of people that were going to and from it, because anyone who was near the fire actually was -- would be running towards safety. If they were running towards the firework display or in the other direction, it's hard to tell from all the video that I've seen.

[12:29:50] But it -- I mean there may -- now we can look back at it and say they -- they were lucky. They made the decision and -- and it worked out. I don't know what we would have done. Certainly there -- it's a big city. It's a very proud city. It's a -- it's a symbol for the progress of the whole area, so millions of people are watching, hundreds of thousands of people might be, you know, coming there to see the display.

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