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Two New York City Cops Shot; Rough Weather Hampers Search for Flight 8501; SpaceX Falcon 9 Scrubbed for Today

Aired January 06, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two New York police officers shot in the line of duty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is not clear whether the officers were wearing their bulletproof vests.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These officers had come off their shift, went back out in search of these criminals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's getting dangerous out here, you know, and this is a bad neighborhood here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police are hunting for two gunmen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's crazy. I live here and I - - I know two cops getting shot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The hope is that divers are able to get underwater for a significant amount of time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 37 victims have been recovered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly possible that many of them are still strapped into their seats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A very sad day for the U.S. ski team.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These were the kids that we were probably going to be rooting for in the Olympics just a few years from now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard to be out here without them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, January 6th, 6:00 in the East. I'm Alisyn Camerota with John Berman and we have breaking news for you.

A frantic manhunt underway in New York City for the suspects who shot two plain clothed police officers last night.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: One of the officers was hit in the arm and back and is in critical condition. The other officer took a bullet to the chest. He's said to be stable. Both officers undergoing surgery overnight.

Police have just released surveillance video of one of the suspects they're looking for at a nearby restaurant near the scene. The two suspects remain at large, and a $10,000 reward is being offered by police. In the video, you can actually see the man turning around.

CAMEROTA: Very well.

BERMAN: You can see the gun in his hand. It was a .44. I want to get right to Miguel Marquez now with the very latest -- Miguel.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That video is very disturbing. It's important to point out that these were plainclothes police officers who were responding at the end of their shift, it sounds like, to a situation. They were not targeted like the previous police officers, who died in the last couple of weeks. But the NYPD is on full alert.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Breaking this morning, the NYPD on a manhunt.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's crazy. I live here and I -- I know two cops are getting shot? It's ridiculous.

MARQUEZ: Police scouring New York City for two male suspects who allegedly shot two plainclothes NYPD officers overnight. Newly- released surveillance video shows one of the suspects at a shop window, then turning and the suspect fires the gun. The officers responding to a robbery at a grocery store in the Bronx near the end of their shift.

BILL BRATTON, NYPD COMMISSIONER: As two of the officers approached the male on the street, the other suspect inside the store came out and fired upon the officers. The officers returned fire and during the exchange, two anti-crime officers were wounded.

MARQUEZ (on camera): One of the officers, a 30-year-old male, remains in critical, but stable condition after suffering gunshot wounds to his arm and lower back. The other, a 38-year-old who was shot in the chest and arm, also in stable condition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's getting dangerous out here, you know?

MARQUEZ: New York's police commissioner says the suspects fled the scene after hijacking a car later found abandoned with a black revolver nearby. The suspects described as Hispanic males between 25 and 30 years old.

BRATTON: Shortly after the shooting incident, investigators were notified of a male who had entered Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Upper Manhattan with a gunshot wound to the back. Detectives are currently investigating any possible connection to this previous incident. MARQUEZ: This comes as the police department is still reeling from

the loss of two of their own in a city still grappling with tensions between police and the community.

BILL DE BLASIO, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: These officers did something that was extraordinarily brave this evening, and they did it as part of their commitment. This instance where they went above and beyond the call. This is absolutely a case of officers going above and beyond the call to protect their fellow New Yorkers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Now there has been a question as to whether or not New York City police are on a work slowdown. Arrests, summonses, criminal summonses are down significantly for a second week in a row.

In this particular case, these officers appeared to be getting off duty and responded in any event. Police say they're going to look into whether or not there is a slowdown, and if there is, they will act -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Miguel. So much to discuss. These shootings, as Miguel say -- says comes at a very tense time in New York. The mayor here, Bill de Blasio, accused of fostering an anti-police climate in the city. He is now firing back, blasting hundreds of cops who turned their backs on him at Sunday's funerals for a fallen officer. They did it twice, officers did.

Let's bring back our CNN political commentator and political anchor at New York 1 News, Errol Louis. Nick Casale, former New York police detective and founder of Casale Associates, is here.

And Errol, I was struck overnight as I was reading one of the accounts of these two officers, shot in the line of duty in the Bronx. It noted how the mayor got to the hospital to visit these heroes, shot during their job last night. And the article made a point of saying how he was greeted by the officers at the hospital. They said, you know, they coldly allowed him into the hospital, as if that should be an issue.

What we should be concerned about here is the health and well-being of these two officers who were shot during their job. But the situation in this city has become so poisonous that how the officers greeted the mayor at the hospital is part of the story now.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's right. I mean, how the officers have greeted the mayor over the last several weeks has, in fact, been one of the few avenues available to them to express their displeasure, other than having their union head bash the mayor, which seems to happen quite regularly. So yes, the relationship is toxic. The relationship is almost irretrievable in some respects.

However, the mayor does what he has to do. He talked yesterday about how there's no need for the toxic relationship, in part because we've had an historic lowering in crime; historic lows in police even firing their weapons. I mean, the city has never been safer, and every statistic proves it.

And yet, you have this sort of political tussle over who said what. And of course, there in the background is this police contract that's still being negotiated, which is really, in some ways, powering a lot of the division here.

BERMAN: Nick, let's back up and talk about these two officers in the hospital, recovering overnight for getting shot while doing their jobs, trying to stop a robbery. What does it say about these two officers, that they did do this; they went in, despite the climate that's out there right now?

NICK CASALE, FORMER NEW YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: It tells you overall environment of what's going on here. The police are going to respond as we keep saying to every call of emergency. They're going to be there to help their fellow citizens. They're disgruntled at the mayor, and rightfully so, but they're not going to turn away from their duties and obligations.

And there is a toxic element here. And that, a lot of that goes back towards the mayor's relationship with the police, where now you're starting to see, is there a direct nexus to the assassinations? No, but there's an unraveling of respect for the police, where you could now be involved in an anti-police incident; and you don't see that as the stigma that it used to be. So there is some fall-out to this.

BERMAN: Let's -- the New York "Daily News" -- by the way Errol, has got a terrific editorial in this paper today, an op-ed in the paper today. "The New York Daily News" says end this war now, Nick. And it points to some of the statistics. You say the officers are out doing their jobs, and those two overnight, they were certainly doing their jobs.

But there are questions about whether all officers are now doing their jobs. The drop in some of these arrests and summons has been precipitous. As many as 90 percent fewer summonses than during the same period last year. Half as many arrests. I mean these statistics, they -- how do you explain this, Nick?

CASALE: Well, let me say that Errol is a distinguished columnist; and it's always good to be on with him, and I liked his piece. But I think what we're seeing here is that we're trying to take the focus onto the decline of summonses and trying to broad-brush that into a job action. It's not.

BERMAN: So this is just coincidental?

CASALE: It's not coincidental. It's intentional. And it's intentional, because the most dangerous aspect of law enforcement is not some FBI agent tracking down terrorists or some detectives going after someone for a homicide. It's the unknown that the two police officers in the radio car respond to.

Look at Pittsburgh and Houston. They doubled up their police cars from one to two. It is the incident of the car-stop for the traffic violation. It's walking up the tenement steps going to a domestic dispute. That's the danger.

Right now under the prevailing conditions, the police say, "We should have an additional car there."

BERMAN: So the numbers are going down because of how they're policing to stay safe.

Errol, the question is -- and I've asked you this before. But again, it becomes more urgent now after we see these shootings overnight and there continues to be this war between the police and city hall. How does it stop? Who has to reach out more at this point?

LOUIS: Well, I mean, look, the mayor is in charge of the police department. The mayor is voted in by the voters of the city. He is where the buck stops. He went an extraordinary two weeks without doing any press conferences.

BERMAN: And yesterday he went and called the police to turn their backs on him disrespectful. Is that helping?

LOUIS: Yes, well I think it's the right tone to set. I mean, you know, he can't act as if he's, you know, afraid of the police. He can't act as if he's been intimidated by the police. They are under his command. They have been doing what is constitutionally permissible, but very unwise from a public safety standpoint, which is to sort of openly show displeasure and actually sort of turn their backs on the mayor.

This -- I don't know what else you could call it except a job action, you know, to sort of slowdown in doing their sworn duty, this is not a good atmosphere. And the mayor let them know that it's not going to continue. It cannot continue.

BERMAN: As we look ahead like this, and this war now. Gentlemen, quickly. We'll just close on this. Do you think that the media environment in New York City, do you think the tabloids are making this worse than it is?

LOUIS: Look, ten years ago we wouldn't be, 20 years ago, certainly, this wouldn't be national news. We wouldn't be talking about it on CNN. It's -- there's an element of that, you know, but you know, that is the politics of the city.

CASALE: I think the most important thing here to look at is what Democrats are coming out and supporting him? You don't see the black African-American Officers Association, such as The Guardians, the 100 blacks in law enforcement. Where is this broad-based support? You don't see other minority groups among the police department, Hispanic Society, coming out and supporting the mayor. You don't see one Democratic-elected person standing next to him, coming to his aid in this. He's on his own. He got himself into this trouble. And he -- his stubbornness is not allowing him to get out it. I think he's got issues.

BERMAN: Again, we end on a political discussion on what I think we all agree should be a discussion about the health and well-being of these two officers who were shot doing their jobs. But gentlemen, I really do appreciate your insight here. Nick Casale, Errol Louis, thanks for being here -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, John. We need to talk about the weather. It is cold outside. Much of the country dealing with frigid temperatures this morning. So let's get right to meteorologist Chad Myers.

What are you seeing, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, Alisyn. And the fact that it's January is not lost on me. I get it. But this is still cold. It feels like 5 degrees in Albany. It feels like 1 below in Rochester. There's some snow into Philadelphia, some slick spots around D.C. and Baltimore. But the cold is still to come.

Look at this through the Midwest. It feels like 16 below in Minneapolis, 20 below in Marquette. And that air is sinking to the south and to the east. So New York, this is the warmest you're going to get for a few days. So enjoy 19, I guess. Because by the time you wake up Thursday, Friday morning, we're going to be talking about wind chills well below zero. Frigid air coming way out of the north, straight down into the U.S., warm in the southwest. I mean, you're going to see temperatures in the 70s and 80s.

When it snowed a little bit in Vegas just a couple of days ago, it's the ups and downs of the jet stream. Well, the down is here in the east this week. It will be cold all way to northern Florida. Highs in New York City get to 23, but that will never feel like that with the wind chill. It's still only going to feel like 5 on Friday. So all those coats and scarves and gloves that you got for Christmas will get well used -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: There is that silver lining. Presents that you can use. That's great, Chad. Thanks so much.

All right. Let's get over to Michaela for more news. Good morning.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with something that hits close to home here, family, friends and political heavyweights will gather in New York City this morning to say a final good-bye to former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Former first couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder are among those expected to attend.

Cuomo, who served three terms as governor, leaves an enduring legacy of speaking out for the voiceless and for the powerless.

We, of course, send our very best to our colleague and our friend, Chris Cuomo, at this very difficult time for his family.

In just a few hours' time, the 114th Congress convenes with Republicans in charge of the House and the Senate. GOP leaders are intent on undoing some of President Obama's key policies, including healthcare and immigration. And that could be a prescription for gridlock. A new CNN/ORC poll suggests that's what most people are expecting.

Forty-seven percent expect there will be no difference in how much Congress gets done, while 37 percent think the new Congress will get more done than the last Congress, although the bar wasn't exactly set too high.

A member of the grand jury that cleared Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in the Michael Brown shooting is suing to lift a gag order. The federal suit names St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch as the defendant. The complaint says the unidentified grand juror wants to speak publicly in order to contribute to the national conversation on race relations. It is, of course, a crime for grand jury members to speak out without a court's permission.

Want to show you live pictures -- kind of dark -- but it is live pictures of Cape Canaveral. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is expected to launch around 6:20, a few minutes' time this morning, sending a capsule of supplies to the International Space Station. That's not the complicated part. The amazing feat is that minutes later, the rocket will attempt to land in a soft landing on a barge...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live shot.

PEREIRA: ... in the ocean. We're looking at a live shot here of the control center, for mission control. So again, they're going to try and do a soft landing. Their idea is that they want to create and pioneer a reusable rocket. This is potentially groundbreaking. Stay with us. We'll have live pictures of liftoff when it happens.

CAMEROTA: Very cool.

PEREIRA: ... the schedule.

CAMEROTA: We'll look forward to that, Michaela.

PEREIRA: You bet.

CAMEROTA: Thank you so much.

Severe weather conditions again hampering the search for Flight 8501 and its victims. Divers unable to get in the water. Time is running out to find those (sic) plane's black boxes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Rough weather yet again casting a dark cloud on the search for AirAsia Flight 8501. Divers never even got in the water today, as the forecast complicates the hunt for the doomed plane. The clock is ticking now in the search for the pings and the black boxes.

Six more victims have been identified, and now the prevailing belief is that most of the remaining bodies could be strapped in their seats at the bottom of the Java Sea. We want to get straight to Anna Coren now, live on the ground in Indonesia.

Good morning, Anna. ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, as you can imagine,

there's a great deal of frustration being felt by members of the search-and-recovery team, with bad weather again today hampering those efforts to find bodies, to find the wreckage of the plane and, as you say, those essential black boxes which will have the answers as to why this AirAsia flight crashed into the Java Sea.

Now, divers have every intention of getting into the water, but the visibility was so bad that the mission was scrapped.

However, two extra bodies were found today, taking the total number to 39 that have been recovered. But as of tonight, 123 passengers and crew are still missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COREN (voice-over): This morning the search-and-recovery team spotting at least two more bodies in the stormy Java Sea, believed to be victims on board AirAsia 8501. Officials believing most of the remaining bodies are still strapped to their seats inside the aircraft at the bottom of the sea.

A possible discovery only the recovery divers will able to locate. All on standby today due to monsoon rain and high waves.

The ocean floor around 100 feet below these crashing waves. Two exploratory divers say they're encountering muddy waters with zero visibility, unable to see anything laying on the bottom.

Meanwhile, Indonesian officials have identified six more bodies of the airliners' 39 victims found so far. Now on day ten, officials say the rest of the 162 passengers on board will be harder to identify if found.

ANTON CASTILANI, HEAD OF INDONESIA'S DISASTER VICTIMS IDENTIFICATION UNIT: From the first days, you can find the body in very good condition. But lately, you'll find the dead bodies more decomposed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: Well John, these black boxes, they've been in the water now for ten days. They have another 20 before the batteries run out. So as you can imagine, a great deal of pressure is on to find them.

BERMAN: All right. Our Anna Coren for us in Surabaya in Indonesia. Thanks so much.

We're going to talk more about the search for 8501, but before that, I want to show you live pictures right now from Cape Canaveral in Florida. A launch is about to take place in just a few seconds. This is of a Falcon 9 rocket that is lifting off, sending a capsule to the International Space Station carrying cargo for the space station. That happens from time to time.

What is truly fascinating here is that SpaceX, the company that's doing this, is trying something for the first time. They're trying to use a reusable rocket. The rocket that is blasting the supplies off will fall into the sea, and they're going to try to land the rocket on a platform, a small floatable platform, in the ocean. They say there's only about a 50 percent chance the thing will work. But if it does, you can only imagine how many millions and millions of dollars they will be able to save in the future.

We're just a few seconds away from lift-off. Let's see where they are right now. Let's listen in.

It doesn't appear to be launching at this time. But we are keeping our eyes on this. Due to lit off at any time. We'll go back to it the second it happens. Now let's go back to Alisyn for more on the search of 8501.

CAMEROTA: OK, John. We'll keep an eye on that.

Meanwhile, let's bring in Mary Schiavo. She's a CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general at the Department of Transportation. She represents victims and families after airplane disasters. David Gallo is a CNN analyst and director of special problems at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He helped lead the search for Air France Flight 447. Nice to see both of you this morning.

David, I want to start with you. The searchers have had quite a time trying to get into the ocean to look for victims and any debris. What are they confronting? What are the conditions that's making this so tough?

DAVID GALLO, CNN ANALYST: Well, I'm sure they're extremely frustrated, as we are sitting on the sidelines, watching. You know, it must be a heavy current, so they can't hold position; and when they get in the water, they've got to -- they've got zero visibility. And that adds up to a very dangerous situation when you're working around wreckage on the bottom.

CAMEROTA: Mary, without hearing the pinging of the black boxes, since they haven't been able to, how do they know they're looking in the right place?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well they only can do that, they can only know where to look by where the wreckage has been found and then trying to trace the wreckage back, based on currents and current time tables and the flow of the wreckage and the bodies in the ocean. It's kind of basically backtracking upstream.

And then with the sighting of parts, what they thought to be big parts of the plane. They're hoping part of that might be the tail. So literally, just tracking the debris and somewhat intuition.

CAMEROTA: David, is this weather unusual that they're experiencing? Or is this part of the problem in that region and maybe even what brought down the plane?

GALLO: I don't know. It may be very indirectly related to what brought down the plane, the monsoons that you've got these huge cells, storm cells. But the visibility in the water certainly, any place that it rains in this area, that water is going to trickle down and eventually end up in the Straits of Karimata in the Java Sea.

So I'm afraid that, even if the weather above is very -- is welcoming, the weather below, the visibility may still be cloudy for weeks to come. It may be an awful long time before the visibility clears up.

CAMEROTA: Well, that's terrible to hear.

Mary, one of the theories, as you know, of what brought down this plane is that it confronted a violent storm. If that's what happened, what lesson do other airlines learn from this crash?

SCHIAVO: Well, actually many lessons, and I think Indonesian airlines in that area of the world are looking very closely already. First and foremost, is the airlines' role in briefing the pilots, what kind of weather resources, and even whether the on-board radar was properly working, et cetera. They're reviewing all of that. Because you know, in this country and many other western nations, you have the weather function, a weather function, weather forecasting, meteorologists right in the airport, and the airlines' dispatch works with the pilots to decide. And then in other places the pilot just checks the weather, sometimes publicly available weather, and makes the decision on her or his own. So those things are being reviewed.

And of course, Indonesia is looking at why the plane was allowed to take off and to go this route when they didn't have approval to fly. So there are lots of things that they're looking at and can improve right now.

CAMEROTA: OK, good to know. Mary Schiavo, David Gallo, thanks so much for coming on.

BERMAN: All right. We do want to tell you that that liftoff, that rocket launch we were watching in Florida has been delayed for a time. We'll try to find out why. We'll get you that information shortly.

Meanwhile, her mother, and father and sister are gone, killed in a plane crash that she survived. So what will become of 7-year-old Sailor Gutzler now that she's back in her hometown in Illinois?

Also, two rising stars of the U.S. ski team killed in an avalanche. We will speak with their coach about the tragedy and how the teammates are now coping.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: All right. Just in from Kennedy Space Center, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch has been scrubbed for the day. We understand it's been rescheduled for Friday at 5:09 a.m., assuming issues are worked out. No word quite yet on why exactly the mission was delayed. We'll bring you more details as we get them.

That mission is slated to send a cargo ship with 5,200 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station and then attempt to land in a soft landing, land that rocket back on Earth. We'll be watching that. A manhunt under way right now in New York for the gunmen who shot two

NYPD officers late last night. Both officers were in surgery overnight. One is listed in critical condition this morning. Those officers were responding to a robbery call in the Bronx.