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New Day

Two Police Officers Shot at Ferguson Protest; ISIS: The State of Terror; Banks Pass Stress Tests

Aired March 12, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

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MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news overnight, two police officers are in serious condition after they were shot during heated protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

CNN's Sara Sidner who has been in Ferguson for months reporting on the unrest joins with us with all the breaking details. At this police, do police have any leads about who was responsible for this?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not yet, the investigation continuing. There were several departments that were involved in trying to deal with the protests. And now we know that an officer from St. Louis and from Webster's Groves was shot. One shot in the shoulder, one shot in the face. They are expected to survive, but in serious condition as you mentioned.

You're listening to the video there, that's a live streamer who was out taking pictures of a lot of folks, streaming all of this live. That's been happening for many months and you can hear the sound of the distress, you can hear the protesters being afraid and running.

You see the officers running and trying to take cover to figure out what's going on. Clearly, two officers hit. Both of them have been taken to the hospital. We do understand now that we're going to be getting more information in the next coming hours, the St. Louis County Police Department is going to having a press conference.

In the next couple of hours or so, we should be getting more information, but there's a manhunt under way. We don't know if it's one person or more, but they are searching for the suspect and they have not said whether it is any part of the protest or just somebody with a beef with the police, but they do believe police were targeted.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: You can hear somebody yelling on that video is acknowledgement months ago would have kept this from happening. Even though the police chief resigned and that's something protesters were calling for and they wanted, it's still a tinder box there, they feel it was too long in coming.

SIDNER: Right, but there's absolutely no excuse to even say something like that. Let's be honest, there's no reason why anyone should be shot, hurt, killed or otherwise, whether it's the police are out there trying to deal with the protests, the protesters are out there trying to talk about the issues that they feel need to be fixed. But there's no excuse for violence to erupt this way and so some of those comments, you know I talk about this before, some of the people, a small few of the people in the protests use very -- words that are very inciting, they tend to spark a lot of angst among the police officers and sometimes they sort of get everybody else going. We have to be really careful with that because that's just unfair.

CAMEROTA: There are agitators and they don't represent the majority of the protesters.

SIDNER: That's true.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, certainly the energy of this situation has been going on in this community before the events of August 9th including Michael Brown. But it was that case that brought this all into very sharp focus.

Let's go now to Benjamin Crump, he is the attorney for Michael Brown's family. What is the family saying counselor about violence directed towards police?

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR MICHAEL BROWN'S FAMILY: Well, Chris, everybody is waking up to this terrible news. And Michael Brown's mother and father are continuously saying they condemn any acts of violence, and whoever committed this heinous act of violence is no supporter of Michael Brown. There's nothing to help heal the community. It does nothing to help them get the justice that they seek.

CUOMO: It takes -- let's take it a step further because we're hearing a lot of equivalency from people involved in the protest and the situation, that you know, if blacks who are unarmed got, weren't getting killed all the time, you wouldn't have this violence towards the police, why is there an equation between those two things?

There's no question there's a problem. But there's less question as to whether or not violence towards police is any part of a solution, is there?

CRUMP: Violence is never the solution. That's why Michael Brown's mother and father have done PSA's in the past trying to tell the community to please control your emotions. We want justice and we want the rule of law. We don't want to see anybody else have to get hurt or their families have to deal with any sense of loss.

And so they condemn this outright as the majority of the peaceful protester protesters. There may be a few people who are misguided or confused. But in large part, the majority of the protesters, the majority of Americans want justice and they want peaceful resolutions to issues that are very, very crucial. Nobody wants to lose their family members.

CUOMO: There's no question that there are bigger trends at play with communities and policing around the country. I think everybody is on board with that. How to fix it is an open question, but this did start for the major media at least in Ferguson with Michael Brown. When the DOJ came in, when Eric Holder went there, people said, OK, this we'll listen to because we don't believe the local cops, rightly or wrongly. The report comes out. It doesn't just say we can't prosecute them because the bar's too high for us on a federal level.

They say multiple credible witnesses corroborate virtually every material aspect of Wilson's account and are consistent with the physical evidence. Why isn't that enough for people to say what happened with Michael Brown is terrible, but Darren Wilson -- it was not hands up don't shoot. It was not just him preying on a black kid.

CRUMP: Well Chris, because people are intelligent. They look at that report and they say that the shooter of unarmed teenager in broad daylight has never been cross-examined by anyone. You know, nobody has challenged his inconsistent statements.

So people still are frustrated when you have the Department of Justice continue to sanitize the killers, just like the local government, of unarmed people of color, we're saying that at some point we want the law to be equal and fair for us as well.

And so I think with that report about the killing, but also with the report about all the terrible findings of pattern of discrimination, a pattern of excessive force against African-Americans, people are saying we want to make sure we prevent this and fix this problem.

CUOMO: We'll report the numbers, we report the cases. It can't be a coincidence every time. There's no question about that. But saying that this is sanitizes, is that fair? You have the DOJ, they go in there. You know how exhaustive their research was. You know they did their own autopsy. Eric Holder says you should believe what Darren Wilson said. And you say that's sanitizing.

CRUMP: Well, I didn't hear him say that and what I heard him say is the bar too high.

CUOMO: You can read it in the report.

CRUMP: Go back and look at report and look at how they questioned the supporters of Michael Brown versus the supporters of Darren Wilson. And remember, the police and the prosecutors, they all work a lot together. And you have to say -- when do we get to challenge this credible story, of Darren Wilson on three different occasions.

They're not consistent, but they're calling this is a credible story. And all Michael Brown's family is say something when is anybody going to ask him the tough questions.

CUOMO: But first of all, that assumes they didn't ask him any tough questions and I get the desire for a trial. You've explain it before.

CRUMP: And you got the reports, Chris, you got the reports. You can look at them for yourself to see if he's been asking the tough question. You're intelligent. We're all intelligent.

CUOMO: Absolutely, and a lot of this is simple in terms of the fact analysis, but a very complex situation. My question goes to this, Counselor, I understand your desire for a trial and seeing that as the exercise, the best form of fairness under law.

But don't you have to be careful about undermining government as well and saying local cops. Can't trust them. FBI, can't trust them. DOJ, that came in here, can't trust them because they didn't say what we want?

CRUMP: No, not at all. This is America and we can agree to disagree. But we can also agree to have our voice heard and when you keep killing our children and killing people in our community who are unarmed, it's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to speak up for our community. We're supposed to speak up for our children. If we don't, who is?

CUOMO: Absolutely understood and that's been going on and we are covering it as best as we can. Counsel, thank you very much for joining us and thank you for giving us the perspective of the family and yours as well -- Mich.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris, an Australian teenager recruited by ISIS reportedly just carried out a suicide attack. What is the appeal of ISIS to western teens?

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CAMEROTA: Now to ISIS, and the revelation that they're encouraging young people to kill. This morning officials trying to confirm reports that an Australian teenager carried out a suicide attack in Iraq. This comes after a new ISIS video show as child executing a man shooting him in the head.

How did ISIS become so depraved and inhuman? We want to bring in Jessica Stern, co-author of a new book out "ISIS, The State Of Terror" stern is also a former National Security Council Member. Thanks for being on NEW DAY.

You've been studying al Qaeda, in Iraq since 2003 or '04. They were the genesis of ISIS, that's what ISIS started out as. I want to read some portions from your book because it's pretty fascinating and some of it is controversial.

One of the things that you write is when America turned its full attention to al Qaeda in the wake of September 2011. The result was like a fist, smashing down on a ball of clay. What does that mean?

JESSICA STERN, CO-AUTHOR, "ISIS: The State Of Terro": What happened was al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan. And we, essentially disbursed them. We wanted to remove their home from them and they disbursed into Pakistan. Al Qaeda in iraq formed in 2004 and that was the predecessor group of ISIS.

CAMEROTA: One of the controversial tenets of your book. Let me read it you say as President Bush had claimed, Iraq became a central front in the war on terrorism, but it was a front that the United States had created. Are you saying basically that with the Iraq war, the U.S. upset the Apple car and that is wouldn't exist were it not for the Iraq war?

STERN: Well, there are a number of factors that came into play in the formation of ISIS. One of them absolutely was our decision to go to war in Iraq. There had been no al Qaeda group in Iraq prior to our invasion?

CUOMO: But were there just terrorists or barbaric groups by another name?

STERN: There really was no group like al Qaeda in Iraq or ISIS until we invade invaded. We, al Qaeda moved into Iraq and the predecessor group of is, al Qaeda in Iraq, also beheaded people.

CAMEROTA: So they were in Afghanistan. We upset the apple car. We went into Afghanistan, they disbursed. Then there was a power vacuum when Saddam Hussein was taken out and they took root in Iraq. But these people already existed. What I'm trying to get at is, is terrorism wasn't created in 2003.

STERN: That's correct. But there was no al Qaeda in Iraq and al Qaeda in Iraq, became the most lethal branch and most brutal branch of al Qaeda. And that itself turned into the terrorist group where we're worried about today, ISIS.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about how ruthless they are, how do you explain it? You've studied these people. How is it possible that they behead person after person. They light the Jordanian pilot on fire. All of the things we're seeing them do?

STERN: They have an apocalyptic narrative. They really believe that they are participating in the lead-up to the end times and pretty shocking. In fact, I would say it's the thing that surprised me the most into digging into how they think.

STERN: Just how inhumane and barbarous they are.

CAMEROTA: We've been reporting that the news today is their appeal to young people there is the reports that this Australian teenager became a suicide bomber and children, they have put out a propaganda video that they got a child to murder someone. What do you know about their tactics for brain-washing or recruiting young people?

STERN: This is a big part of what they're aiming to do they're trying to create a new kind of human being. Someone who can live in a very pure, their version, their fantasy of a pure Islamic state, and they are starting with very young children. They're also severely abusing children, raping children, both girls and boys.

CAMEROTA: How do you explain the appeal to some western teenagers?

STERN: It is very hard to explain. Clearly, they are children who want to reinvent themselves for whatever reason. They're trying to take on the status quo with this faddish idea. It appeals not only to Muslim children but also to converts.

CAMEROTA: As we've seen here. Well, Jessica Stern, the book is "ISIS, The State Of Terror." It's a fascinating read. Thanks so much for coming on NEW DAY.

STERN: Thank you so much.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: Important to understand, Alisyn. We do have breaking news this morning, two officers shot in Ferguson, Missouri, the shooter still on the loose. The very latest from the ground in Ferguson, coming up.

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PEREIRA: CNN Money now, time, chief business correspondent, Christine Romans, in our money center, looking at the health of our banks.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I am, Michaela. Banks got the stamp of approval on the Federal Reserve's stress tests, 29 of the top 31 lenders got the thumbs up to funnel money back to shareholders. They're doing well enough to give money back to shareholders. Citigroup passed. Bank of America got an equivalent of incomplete and has to resubmit its plans for approval.

A Wall Street bonus has moved higher even as profits for the financial industry fell. The overall bonus pool last year is $28.5 billion. That makes typical bonus, average bonus about $173,000. That's a nice bonus. In comparison, the typical household income in the country is $52,000. Again, profits fell but bonuses still rose.

Poultry stocks hammered right now. Government officials confirmed cases of bird flu in turkeys in Missouri and Arkansas. That's the home state of Tyson's headquarters. None of Tyson's flock was affected we're told. The stock still dropped 5 percent on the news -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Christine, thanks so much.

So we are still following breaking news for you this morning. Two officers shot during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, overnight. The shooter is still on the loose at this hour. What witnesses say happened and we'll tell you how those officers are doing.

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