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Two Police Officers Shot in Ferguson; Secret Service Agents Investigated for Crash; Kerry Reaction to Iran Letter: 'Utter Disbelief'; Interview with Sen. Chris Murphy

Aired March 12, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now we know that there are two officers who were hit, one in the arm, one in the face. They are both in serious condition. They have nonlife-threatening injuries, which is the good news of this morning, because a lot of people were going in the face, my goodness, what's going to happen?

So, it looks as though they will both survive this. We do not know the extent of the facial injuries. But a lot of people worrying about the fact that this is another bit of violence after all that has happened here, especially since the police chief just resigned.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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SIDNER (voice-over): Breaking overnight, two police officers in St. Louis County shot outside the Ferguson police department.

A night of protest in Ferguson winding down when shots rang out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Acknowledgement nine months ago would have kept that from happening.

SIDNER: Witnesses report hearing multiple shots and seeing one officer down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bullets went right past my head, it's kind of traumatic -- I'm still kind of in shock because of it.

SIDNER: The injuries are serious. One St. Louis County officer was shot in the shoulder. Another officer, a Webster Groves officer, shot in the face.

JON BELMAR, ST. LOUIS COUNTY POLICE CHIEF: These police officers were standing there and they were shot. Just because they were police officers.

SIDNER: Earlier, police drew their guns during a scuffle between protesters. Police making multiple arrests.

Some protesters cheered at the resignation of Police Chief Tom Jackson. For others, it comes too little, too late, demanding the entire Ferguson Police Department be disbanded.

JAMES KNOWLES, MAYOR OF FERGUSON: The chief's resignation is effective March 19, 2015.

SIDNER: His resignation comes on the heels of a scathing report from the Justice Department, slamming Ferguson officials for widespread racial bias and targeting African-Americans. Jackson now one of the six city officials gone after the DOJ's damning report.

Some are calling for Mayor Knowles to be next. He says he won't budge.

For now, a nationwide search for a new chief of police is under way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: So we now know some details about the officers who have been injured here. A St. Louis County officer is 41 years old, a 14-year veteran of that department; and the Webster Groves officer is 32 years old and a seven-year veteran on the force. Again, both in serious condition. A lot of folks hoping that they'll recover from this and it appears that they will.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Now let's add onto our reporting with somebody who was there. We have DeRay McKesson. He's an eyewitness to the shooting, and he flows the protests well.

You've spent a lot of time there, DeRay. What did you see? Take us through it.

DERAY MCKESSON, EYEWITNESS (via phone): Yes, I heard about four shots. I was at the base of the hill. I looked over, and I saw an officer fall. And I saw officers surround that officer and call for an ambulance. Immediately after the shots rang out, the officers fled. Like, the officers broke the line, and they immediately got behind anything they could. Whether it was the wall or a car. And especially into -- everybody drew weapons. Like it was rifles. It was hand guns. Every weapon was drawn.

I mean, the protesters were actually disbursing when the shots were fired. The people were going home. It was like the end of the night. The protestors, like, went to their car. Like when the shots came out.

CUOMO: I mean, DeRay, you obviously understand why the officers drew their weapons when there was active gunfire going on, right? It's not as if that was a provocative tactic. You say that there were four shots. Anybody else hit? Or was it just the officers?

MCKESSON: No it appears to have just been the officers. They were -- yes, just the officers. I do understand why the guns were drawn after they were shot.

CUOMO: And the idea of where these shots were coming from, that hill, Sara Sidner obviously familiar with gunshots from there in the past. I have seen gunshots come from there in the past. What was the set-up before? Were the officers advancing up that hill? Was there any altercation around that hill? Any set-up for this?

MCKESSON: No, nobody was around the hill at all. And like I said, the protesters were disbursing, the police officers were forming a line sort of protecting the entrance to the police department driveway.

And then the protesters were across from them at the street. So there was nobody close, no protester remotely close to the hill at all. And I was at the base of the hill in my car. And I was close to the hill. And I saw nobody. Like when I looked up, I didn't see anybody drive away. I didn't see anybody run away.

CUOMO: Right. DeRay, do me a favor. Turn down your television or whatever is in the background so that we hear you a little bit more clearly. Because this is important information that you're giving us.

So what we're trying to figure out here is, you know, they're investigating it actively to find out who did the shooting, obviously. You don't want to falsely blame the protesters.

But you say it was breaking up. So people were disbursing, so it's hard to know if this was just an opportunist or some bad apple who had been among the protesters. You can't really know what group this shot came from, right?

MCKESSON: What I do know is, like, the hill is not a place that protesters park, right? Like it is far from where the protesters protest. So I don't have any indication that leads me to believe that this is a protester who did it.

CUOMO: Right. And look, it doesn't really matter who did it. It was horrible. These men and now their families have to deal with this, and obviously, it doesn't help the community.

This hill, do you think that it's just a high-ground opportunity for people to shoot down? Is that why we've seen it several times? Or is there anything you've learned from being in Ferguson about the community up that hill or who may hang out up that hill?

MCKESSON: You know, think this is just an opportunity. I think the people have been looking to discredit the protesters for a long time. I don't know. We have not -- we do not protest on or near the hill, right? We are at the base of the hill. Firmly in the lot across the street.

So you know, it is important that we talk about this not being protesters, because Belmar suggested that the shooter was embedded with the protests. And that just isn't -- there's no indication that that is true.

CUOMO: Right. But you know, it's one of those tricky situations with light facts, DeRay. You say there's no indication that it's true. There's no indication that it's not true. And they're going to have...

MCKESSON: I prefer no speculation, and like, especially from a police chief who did not see any evidence or talk to any witnesses when he made that statement.

CUOMO: Right. But again, you don't want to fuel discord, right? All we know is the absolute. That officers were hit. Who did it, someone in the area, on that hill? Were they in the protest? Does that mean they're part of the protest? All of that will come later and is somewhat beside the point. Because what you want there is progress with this community.

We keep showing video of a fight that broke out. Do you know anything about that fight? Did it come after the shooting? Was it any way relevant to any disagreement within the protest? What was it?

MCKESSON: It came well before the shooting. Last night was the 215th day of protest. You know, there -- people are starting to work out some disagreements that they have.

Yesterday was one where people in the community needed to talk through some things, and it happened in a way that wasn't as productive as it could be. I'm hopeful that those people will get together on the side of the protest to work through their issues.

It had nothing to do with anything related to the rest of the night. There was at least, like, two hours. The shooting came, like, at least two hours after that.

CUOMO: So as far as you know -- as far as you know, that could have just been locals who had beef with each other who got into a fight. It wasn't some conceptual thing. Because we do see people who look more like part of the organizing principle of protesters trying to separate them and move both men away.

MCKESSON: Yes. It was definitely people who have like some internal other issues to work through.

CUOMO: So now what does this mean to the community? Do you think you'll see outrage by the protesters for this violence against police officers? It does seem as though the cops were targeted, right? If you heard four shots, but only cops got hit.

MCKESSON: You just said that this is, like, too early to speculate, right? So I don't know what happened. I do know that officers were shot.

In terms of what this means for the overall protest that we remain consistent in our nonviolent approach to protest. And that has not changed. It is not clear that the person was a protester. And we don't advocate violence towards the police. We don't advocate violence from the police toward unarmed people. We can live in a world where, like, people aren't getting killed, whether the police are killing them or people are shooting at the police.

CUOMO: Well, I think that's an important point to emphasize. Because we did hear a voice pick up when this happened, of people saying, "Hey, you know, if there had been an admission eight, nine months ago, this would have never happened." What is your position as a protester who wants change in that

community, about whether or not any violence towards police is ever warranted?

MCKESSON: So it's not warranted, right? Violence in and of itself, like, doesn't need to exist. So we think about St. Louis, there's a place where seven people have been killed by the police since August, an average of one a month. Like that is -- that's wild, right? And that's the context in which we protest. So -- so that violence shouldn't exist, either, right? There's like no reason for that to happen.

And no, we don't advocate violence towards police officers at all. We would have been home tonight, we would not have been in the street if Mike Brown had been alive, if Kajieme had been alive, if Vondera (ph) had been alive, if Antonio had been alive. We are protesting for a reason. We would not have been out there if they had not been violently killed by the police.

CUOMO: Understood. But obviously, everybody should be in agreement that violence towards police officers is nowhere near an answer to this situation.

DeRay McKesson, thank you very much for your perspective. We'll talk to you again.

MCKESSON: Yes, bye-bye.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Sara, you've been here listening to all that, and you've been in Ferguson since Michael Brown was shot. You've basically been living there and reporting for the past month. Had the protests died down and then last night erupted again? What has happened in the past week?

SIDNER: There have been protests that have gone on. They have not been every single day as large as they were for more than 100 days after August.

So from August through November, we really saw a protest on a daily basis outside of the police department. But kind of all over the place that happened in St. Louis, that happened in different places, it happened in Clayton.

So we saw the protests every single day. Those have died down. So not big crowds. This one was a lot bigger. But there was something that precipitated it. Something happened. And any time something happens, whether the protesters agree with it or don't agree with it, they go out to the department and make their voices heard.

CAMEROTA: The police chief resigning is what precipitated this last night?

SIDNER: Yes. Absolutely.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: But the thing that's so interesting is that one of the things that protesters have been asking for is change in the structure of Ferguson. So that is what's happening. Maybe not the timeline that people are asking for or necessarily the heads rolling that they were asking for. We don't know.

But one of the things that I want to know is, is the face of these protesters changing? A hundred days in, has the group changed significantly, the make-up of this group of people?

SIDNER: I wouldn't say that. I think there are some very core people who help organize. And it is very much social media-driven. I get texts, so I knew there were going to be people down there, because people were texting saying, "Everyone meet down at the police department tonight. This is going to be big. We want to make our voices heard. We want to, you know, say something about the chief going." And so they are very organized in that way.

But it's not as if there is one person that's a leader and that's the only person, and everybody follows that. It is very social media- organized. And so you see a lot of these people coming, because they're on these lists and these texts and these e-mails and Twitter.

I do want to say one thing. We cannot say overall that the entire community wanted to see the police chief gone. That's not true. And I've talked to both black and white citizens in Ferguson, who have said, "Actually, I don't have a problem with the police department."

And so we need to make that clear. Because there are some people that are, like, "We want to keep our department the way it is. We know there's a problem, but we do not want to see it dissolved."

CUOMO: And there are a lot of outside factions that have come in and are using it as an opportunity for good, bad, and otherwise.

CAMEROTA: That's true. So again, the news this morning: two police officers in serious condition after being shot there in Ferguson. Sara, thanks so much. We'll check back in with you throughout the show for all the developments.

Meanwhile, another public embarrassment to tell you about for the Secret Service. Two senior agents suspected of crashing a car into a White House barricade after a night of partying. One of those agents is a member of the president's personal protective detail.

Let's get the latest developments from CNN's national correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty. She is live at the White House. What do we know, Sunlen?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, this of course, is the agency responsible for protecting the president, and these are two high-level agencies. One holds the No. 2 position on the president's personal security detail.

Now, this incident unfolded last Wednesday evening, when allegedly these two agents were drinking at the retirement party of a colleague at a bar here in Washington, D.C. They got into their government vehicles. Then they apparently had an altercation here on White House grounds and crashed through a security barrier. Now at the time, a uniformed police officer on the scene, he wanted to

make some -- do sobriety tests and potentially even make some arrests. But that's when a supervisor stepped in. He intervened, and he let these two agents go.

Now the Secret Service tells us that now these two agents have been reassigned to nonoperational positions. And the Homeland Security Department has already launched an investigation. The chair of the House Oversight Committee says, quote, "The fact that this event involved senior-level agents is not only embarrassing, but exhibits a clear lack of judgment in a potentially dangerous situation."

Administration officials say that President Obama has been informed of the incident. He's in support, they say, of a full investigation. But all of this, of course, comes as the agency is trying to clean up its image after a long string, Michaela, as you know, of many scandals.

PEREIRA: Yes. Not the black eye that this agency needs right now. All right, Sunlen, thank you.

This morning, Iran's supreme leader lashing out at the six nations negotiating the nuclear deal with Tehran. Ayatollah Khamenei accuses the P5+1 of deception, trickery and back-stabbing. This a day after Secretary of State John Kerry reacted to the letter from 47 Republican senators threatening to reverse any deal. Secretary Kerry was anything but diplomatic, saying he was in utter disbelief.

So many developments to get to. Let's get straight to Joe Johns. Good morning once again.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

Another real indication this morning how the relationship between the administration and Republicans in Congress could get worse before it gets better.

The secretary of state appearing before a Senate committee, talking about the president's request for authorization of use of force against ISIS. But the dialogue about side issues, the regional checkerboard, the strategy, Iran, Kerry said a nuclear agreement with Iran would not be legally binding, but would have enforcement mechanisms. And when Kerry asked about that open letter to Iran signed by 47 Republicans, he issued a blistering critique of it, claiming the letter told allies anyone seeking agreement with the United States would have to negotiate with all members of Congress. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: My reaction to the letter was utter disbelief. During my 29 years here in the Senate, I never heard of, nor even heard of it being proposed anything comparable to this.

(END VIDEO CLIP) JOHNS: The Republican chairman of the committee upbraided Kerry for making what amounted to a prepared speech during what was supposed to be testimony before the committee. Senator Rand Paul said the letter was actually a message to the president, to obey the law -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Joe Johns, thank you very much.

We have other news for you breaking overnight. Joint Iraqi forces say they are winning against ISIS. The head of a key paramilitary force telling CNN Iraq now controls 75 percent of the ISIS stronghold of Tikrit. The rest still being held by about 150 terrorists hiding among the population. This is an ongoing offensive to seize control from ISIS, which captured Saddam Hussein's home town last year.

PEREIRA: Some breaking news for you out of Bangladesh. Reuters is reporting up to 100 cement factory workers are trapped in a building collapse there. They were reporting four people dead; 40 people have been pulled so far from that rubble. Let's show you where it happened, in Mongala (ph), about 200 miles southwest of the capital of Dhaka at a factory reportedly run by a subsidiary of the Bangladesh army. Details are just coming in. We're going to continue to work this and bring you more details throughout the day.

CAMEROTA: OK. A big update now on a story that got a lot of attention yesterday. A teenager in Washington state arrested after this brazen kidnapping attempt. Remember this incredible video that we showed you yesterday? It turns out this is a 15-year-old running down the street with a toddler in his arms. The child's siblings, you'll remember, along with two other teenagers, ran after the suspect, who then put the baby down. Fortunately, the child was not hurt. No word yet on the suspect's motive.

PEREIRA: A 15-year-old child? A 15-year-old?

CUOMO: The situation didn't seem right from the beginning. There's something odd in this story.

CAMEROTA: Yes. We need to know the back story, and we will bring that to you as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, a new black eye for the Secret Service this one involving agents who may have been drinking and driving. One of them a top bodyguard for the president. What needs to be done to fix that agency?

CUOMO: Another new low for ISIS. We're now hearing an Australian teenager they just recruited carried out a suicide attack. Why would any western teen line up with this?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Another embarrassing scandal unfolding at the Secret Service. Two senior agents, including a member of the president's protective detail, crashing a car into a White House barrier. They're suspected of drunk driving after a night of partying. Let's bring in Connecticut Democrat Senator Chris Murphy. He is also

a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he questioned Secretary Kerry yesterday about the war authorization bill. We will get to that in a moment.

Good morning, Senator.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: This is not the first embarrassing incident for the Secret Service. What's going on with that agency?

MURPHY: Well, what makes this so troubling is that, as you stated, this involves at least one senior officer, someone that was very close to the president, as part of a disturbing trend. We've got to get to the bottom of this and recommend some wholesale changes.

Because one of the things that makes the Secret Service so strong is their reputation, right? The people don't attempt to try to get to the president, to try to breach White House security, because of this reputation that the Secret Service has built up over years. A reputation that is winnowing away, every time that we see one of these new scandals.

So we clearly need wholesale changes. There's a review happening, both at the Department of Homeland Security and in the House Oversight Committee. Think we've got to speed up those investigations and reviews to get to the bottom of what's happening over there.

CAMEROTA: You know, the Department of Homeland Security already did recommend against making Joe Clancy the director. Because he is old- school; he's been part of the Secret Service for years. They recommended bringing in a director with new blood. But President Obama didn't do that. Why?

MURPHY: Well, I can't tell you exactly why this choice was made. But what I do know is that there is something unique about the culture and the protocol within Secret Service.

And so it may be that it is difficult to bring someone in from another law-enforcement agency to run the most exclusive and one of the most unique protective agencies in the world.

I trust that President Obama is on top of this. And these choices that he's going to have to make about leadership in the coming days, are going to be some of the most important of his presidency. It's about his protection and the protection of the next president.

CAMEROTA: You were part of a Senate hearing yesterday. In fact you asked Secretary of State Kerry, about this open letter that 47 Republican senators sent to Iranian leaders; and he gave a pretty passionate response. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KERRY: My reaction to the letter was utter disbelief. During my 29 years here in the Senate, I never heard of, nor even heard of it being proposed anything comparable to this.

If I had, I can guarantee you, no matter what the issue and no matter who was president, I would have certainly rejected it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Senator Murphy what's the feeling on Capitol Hill about the letter sent by the senators?

MURPHY: Well, he used probably the perfect word, which is disbelief. When this letter came out, I just think our jaws dropped, because we've never seen anything like it, at least in the time that I've been here. A large group of senators writing to a foreign leader, right in the middle of negotiations, with the simple, clear intent of undercutting the president.

I wouldn't have been surprised if there were, you know, five or ten senators on there. I mean, there are people, you know, like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, who seem more intent on just embarrassing the president.

But there was a wide range of Republican senators, many of them who are traditionally very reasonable on foreign policy, who understand the difference between what the executive branch and what the legislative branch is supposed to be doing surrounding delicate negotiations like the future of Iran's nuclear program, who signed onto this letter.

Now, in the end it probably is going to have the opposite effect. Because I think it's rallying a lot of people in Washington and across the country to support the president, because they now understand that Republicans don't seem to have the best interests of the country in mind. They just want to try to scuttle anything good that the president is trying to do initially.

CAMEROTA: Here's what the former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, said she said about that letter. She wrote this in "USA Today," or responded, at least. She called it "unprecedented and fairly outrageous." It says, "If somebody had written, a group of members of Congress had written a letter to Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis and prevented some agreement to be made. I'm surprised it's even legal, frankly."

Now of course, your Republican colleagues in the Senate say that they had no choice but to write this letter, because they feel that they've been cut out of the negotiations; and they didn't want some deal to be a done deal before they had their say.

MURPHY: Well, I mean, listen, the secretary was getting lectured yesterday about the Constitution from people like Rand Paul. Well, the Constitution is pretty clear. That the executive has the power to enter into agreements with other countries. And if they rise to the level of a treaty, then the Senate has the obligation to weigh in or approve those agreements. This is not going to be a treaty, and there's nothing in constitutional precedent that disallows this president from entering into an agreement with a country like Iran. And in fact, they've been up on Capitol Hill over and over again,

briefing us on these negotiations. And everyone, to a person here, says that they would rather have a diplomatic solution to divorce Iran from its nuclear weapons program, rather than have to resort to another war in the Middle East, which would be disastrous.

So I have no idea why Republicans would want to prevent these negotiations from happening so that they could at least see the final product.

Congress actually does have the ability to take away from the president the power to implement this agreement. But that shouldn't be a discussion until we actually have the agreement before us. We don't yet, and so this is way too premature.

CAMEROTA: The hearing that you were holding yesterday was actually about the war on ISIS and the authorization for war. Where is Congress with this? Is Congress going to vote soon on the AUMF?

MURPHY: Well we have to, because for many of us, this war that we're fighting against ISIS, which I argue is absolutely necessary, is also extra-constitutional right now, in that it is not been declared by the United States Congress required by the Constitution.

So we've got to have a vote or, frankly, abdicating our constitutional responsibility.

But to be quite honest, we're struggling with this, because many of us don't want to repeat the mistakes of the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war and just give an open-ended commitment to the president. We want to say, "Let's fight ISIS, but with a strategy that doesn't allow for this president or, more likely, the next president to put another 100,000 ground troops in the middle of the Middle East, which would frankly hurt us rather than help us."

So we've got to find a way to authorize this war in the coming weeks that gives the president the ability to carry out the strategy that he's using today but also limits the ability of this president and the next president to basically put tens of thousands of ground troops back in the Middle East, something that we know from history, just over the past ten years, is likely to make our country less safe rather than more safe.

CAMEROTA: All right. Senator Chris Murphy, thanks so much for debriefing us on everything that's been happening on the Hill. We appreciate you coming on "NEW DAY."

MURPHY: Great. Thanks a lot.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn. We are following breaking news. Two police officers shot during protests in Ferguson, Missouri. We have an update on their condition and who the police are looking for right now, coming up. PEREIRA: Sorry, Chris. Also, ISIS claims a teenaged recruit, this

young man here from Australia, was among a group of foreign fighters who launched suicide attacks in Iraq Wednesday. What exactly is the appeal for young people? We're going to take a look.

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