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Gunmen Killed at Dallas Event; Thousands Rally at Baltimore City Hall after Police Arrests. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 04, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

LAVANDERA: ... opening fire and wounding a security guard outside an event center where a cartoon-drawing contest of the Prophet Mohammed was being held. Law enforcement officials tell CNN the entire shooting lasted about 15 seconds.

[07:00:13] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We prepared for something like this.

LAVANDERA: The security officer, Bruce Joiner, was treated at a hospital for an ankle gunshot wound and released.

This video shows the moment gunfire erupted, an interview with the president of the organization sponsoring the event cut abruptly short as security rushed the scene.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to stop this right now. Shots fired.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fired?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shots fired.

LAVANDERA: Witnesses describe the chaotic turn of events.

TONYA RUBY, WITNESS: There were military or policemen everywhere, running.

JOHN RUBY, WITNESS: Sounded like "boom, boom," then the next thing, they're telling us, "Get inside, get inside," and all the officers were drawing their weapons.

LAVANDERA: Attendees were escorted to another room in the conference center, where the crowd sing "God bless America."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): God bless America...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): God bless America...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): God bless America...

LAVANDERA: The event, which included a $10,000 top prize for the best caricature of the Prophet Mohammed, was organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a controversial group which claims they are against Islamic Jihad, while others call them a hate group.

Any physical depictions of the prophet are considered blasphemous to many Muslims and have sparked violence around the world. Sponsors of the contest billed it as a free speech event. The event featured keynote speaker and right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is on an al Qaeda hit list for wanting to ban the Koran in the Netherlands.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: And Alisyn, law enforcement officials here in the Dallas suburb of Garland were worried about something like this taking place during this event. In fact, they were so worried about it, they had told the group that they needed to step up this law enforcement plan. And they also had a SWAT team in the back of the building waiting to be called into action -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Ed. Thanks, so much. Bring us all the developments if you would.

This shooting is not the first to target groups over free speech. This January you will remember the attack on "Charlie Hebdo." That's the most high-profile in recent months.

CNN's senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, gives us some perspective this morning.

Good morning, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Alisyn. That attack on "Charlie Hebdo" magazine, the satirical magazine in Paris, two gunmen went in; automatic weapons there. And they were targeting -- they killed 11 people, but they were targeting, in particular, a cartoonist there who was on the al Qaeda hit list because he had drawn a picture of the Prophet Mohammed.

Now, these two gunmen, brothers, were later discovered to have connections to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That's al Qaeda in Yemen. That was discovered after the event.

Copenhagen, the middle of February. Very similar in some ways to what we saw happen in Texas overnight. Here the gunman goes to a cafe where there's a freedom of speech event going on. There is a cartoonist, a Swedish cartoonist who's drawn a picture of the Prophet Mohammed. He is also on the al Qaeda hit list. He's attending that event. The gunman shows up with an automatic weapon, tries to get in the building, sprays the glass windows outside the cafe with automatic gunfire. A filmmaker there was killed.

But the reason more people weren't killed was because their Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, had with him Swedish security protection and Danish security protection. They drew their weapons and chased off the gunman. The gunman later targeting a security guard outside a synagogue in the center of Copenhagen who was guarding a bar mitzvah that was going on that evening. The guard there was killed.

This gunman in Copenhagen later discovered by -- he had made an online pledge to Baghdadi, the head of ISIS. So both Paris and Copenhagen, afterwards we discover connections with al Qaeda and ISIS -- Alisyn. CAMEROTA: OK, Nic. Thanks so much for all of that perspective.

Let's turn now to retired sergeant Cheryl Dorsey. She's a former LAPD sergeant with more than 20 years of policing experience. And Peter Beinart, CNN political commentator and contributing editor to Atlantic Media.

Great to see both of you this morning.

Cheryl, I want to start with you, because we just heard from our reporter that police -- local police were prepared for this. They said they were prepared for this. But how can they ever prepare for something that looks like it could have been a thwarted terror attack?

CHERYL DORSEY, RETIRED POLICE SERGEANT: Well, you know, you can only prepare so much. And so, obviously, they had an idea that maybe something could go wrong, and they wanted to have logistically the things in place that would help them. Right? But you can't prepare for every eventuality. Because you don't know what the suspect knows, and you aren't in their head. You can only react. Hopefully in a proactive way, right?

CAMEROTA: And so that means that they had people stationed outside. Because they figured that that would be obviously the point of entry, so they were prepared. When they heard gunfire, they killed the two gunmen. I mean, it does seem very effective what they were able to do, because I guess they knew that this was rife for violence.

DORSEY: And I would imagine that they probably had people in positions to see traffic -- pedestrian traffic, vehicular traffic coming and going. And so not knowing who may be in a particular car, you pay particular attention, in the event that the bad guys are in one of those vehicles or they come up on foot so that you're looking to see from every angle where trouble may be hiding.

CAMEROTA: That's interesting. Peter, members of the community didn't want this event to happen here, precisely for this reason. They thought that it could -- and not only incite violence, just be a target of violence, but it happened anyway.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. I mean, there's no excuse for violence whatsoever, no matter how offensive anything is. And I think that needs to be said again and again and again. It is true, however, that this is a bigoted anti-Muslim group who was doing a contest to draw the Prophet Mohammed for no good reason whatsoever.

CAMEROTA: They say it's freedom of speech.

BEINART: Right.

CAMEROTA: They say -- I mean, you say no good reason. They say that they can't be cowed by groups who say that here in America, we can't draw cartoons and we can't say our feelings, even if they are repugnant feelings about a particular religion.

BEINART: Right. But I think it's important to separate the two things. Violence is utterly inexcusable. But just in order to prove the point that violence is inexcusable, you don't have to go out of your way to offend people.

Just -- you know, to draw things that Muslims, or for that matter, Jews or African-Americans would consider bigoted.

"Charlie Hebdo" was a bit of a different situation. They were offending everybody. And their entire purpose was satire. Here you're going out of your way just to offend one group of people. And remember: it's important to recognize. This is already a group that has a history of being hostile to Muslims. They were a group that lobbied against the building of the World Trade Center mosque, that ran very, very offensive subway ads calling Muslims savages.

So again, absolutely, the violence is absolutely unacceptable. And yet, I don't think there's any good purpose for having done this event.

CAMEROTA: But of course, there is that fine line. I mean, there's always that fine line between freedom of speech and doing something that seems provocative and incendiary. And what is that line? They're testing that line there.

BEINART: The line is that they absolutely have the right to do it. There's no question. And we must utterly defend their right to do it. But we can also say it's not a good idea. Not everything that you have the right to do is a good idea.

CAMEROTA: Charles, something interesting happened. There was a tweet sent out by -- from account that appears to be -- have some sort of link to ISIS. And it was sent out, talking about the attack before the attack happened. As a police officer, what does that tell you? How do you begin to put the pieces together of who that is who knew about this?

DORSEY: Well, again I'm certain that the officers involved in this -- in their preplanning pay particular attention to social media, because a lot of times that's where we get a lot of information in terms of what may happen or what people are thinking about doing and what may be a target, is through social media. Because you know, people like to talk, and sometimes it's just a matter of bravado. And so you want to share in a real way what it is that you're thinking and what it is that you're doing.

And so now that they've had that information, you can go back and look in terms of I.P. addresses and other things like that, to further identify that individual and then look for associates. People that they tweet to. People who tweet to them. Right?

CAMEROTA: One of the things the security guards were very worried about after they shot the gunman was that somehow they had rigged an explosive. So what would they have done to prevent that, make sure that that didn't happen? I know that they were trying to sequester the people inside the event into a different room in case something was going to blow? DORSEY: Well, again, you can't stop something like that from

happening. But I'm certain that they had the personnel on there -- on scene to diffuse a bomb, right? The bomb squad. I'm sure they had bomb sniffing dogs in the area.

And so once you're alerted to something that seems problematic, then you begin to work to diffuse that situation. And so, thankfully, they anticipated. They were ready. Everyone was in place. They had a plan. And they worked it.

CAMEROTA: So Peter, what is the message here? Can, in the United States, no one ever hold a contest about drawing cartoons having -- related to Islam or the Prophet Mohammed?

BEINART: No, you can under law. You must absolutely defend people's right to under law, and you must absolutely prosecute to the full extent of the law anyone who commits violence to try to stop that. That's -- there's no question about that. I don't see how reasonable people could disagree with that.

There's a totally separate question about whether you want to go spend your time doing things that are specifically designed to offend a particular group of people, especially a group of people, Muslims in America, who have faced a lot of discrimination in the United States in recent years. I think it's important to separate those questions.

CAMEROTA: Peter Beinart, Cheryl Dorsey, thanks so much for all the information and your perspective this morning. Great to see you guys.

In our next half an hour, we will talk with Pamela Geller. She is the head of that group that organized this cartoon contest that ended, of course, in that deadly shooting. So you don't want to miss the conversation and to hear what she says about the event. We hope you'll stay with us for that.

Meanwhile, let's get out to Chris Cuomo. He, of course, is on the streets of Baltimore with all of the developments there -- Chris.

CUOMO: And we do have some significant developments here. The mayor is making moves to return this city to normal. The governor is considering removing the state of emergency to do the same.

[07:10:04] On the other side, however, there are questions about the charges against all six Baltimore officers connected to the death of Freddie Gray and about the prosecutor who is bringing them.

Community leaders are trying to bridge the gap, stepping in. And they say we have to focus on the big problems that have put this community in crisis and not just the Freddie Gray case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO (voice-over): The city's mayor listing the week-long 10 p.m. curfew, optimistic about what comes next.

STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE, MAYOR OF BALTIMORE: I think a lot of the unrest has been settled. Settled down in the sense of the protests. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't continue.

CUOMO: And so far, so good. Thousands gathering in front of city hall Sunday, a sea of people with different religious beliefs and background together at this interfaith rally organized by the church.

PASTOR JAMAL BRYANT, EMPOWERMENT TEMPLE AME CHURCH: We have Buddhists. We have but Catholics. We had Jews, all coming together, fighting for one Baltimore to come together.

CUOMO: And the 4,000 National Guard troops spread throughout Baltimore met with praise.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. Thank you for everything you did.

CUOMO: And prayer as the governor delivered the orders for them to withdraw.

GOV. LARRY HOGAN, MARYLAND: It's not going to happen instantaneously. It's going to take a couple of days to get everybody out. We had to build an entire city to save the city.

CUOMO: However, the economic impact of Monday's riots is staggering. Two hundred businesses destroyed by flames or looting. Hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue lost, but Mondawmin Mall where it all started, bounces back.

RAWLINGS-BLAKE: It is such a dramatic difference from where it was on Monday. I'm just so grateful, because it shows the resiliency of our city.

CUOMO: Sunday's rally also being deemed a celebration after the announcement of the arrest and indictment for all six officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray.

MARILYN MOSBY, STATE'S ATTORNEY: The medical examiner's determination that Mr. Gray's death was a homicide, which we received today, has led us to believe that we have probable cause to file criminal charges.

CUOMO: Signifying for many, one step toward the justice they're calling for.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: They are being called the Baltimore 6, the police officers who are now involved in this case. They come from different walks of life. The question is, are they symbols of justice or of political appeasement?

CNN's Rene Marsh had a chance to speak with someone who knows one of the officers. Right now she's outside the CVS that was burned down in last week's riots -- Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, we're talking about five men, one woman, three black, three white. Some veterans, some new to the force. In all of these cases, at the officer's homes, little to no activity, blinds drawn, no answer at the door. However, after spending some time in the neighborhood of Officer

William Porter, I was able to find a neighbor and a family friend who knows him very well.

More about Officer Porter. He's 25 years old. He was hired by the department in 2012. He is the officer who was called to check up on Freddie Gray. Freddie Gray, when he came, when Officer Porter arrived at the van, asked for medical attention, according to the state prosecutor. But Freddie Gray never got that medical attention.

Officer Porter is facing three charges, including involuntary manslaughter, as well as second-degree assault.

Now I spoke again with that family friend. Here's what she had to tell me about Officer Porter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARGARET MUSGROVE, NEIGHBOR OF OFFICER WILLIAM PORTER: Just a very polite, very sweet young man. Very innocent, really.

So when I heard that it was his name, I was kind of in shock and deeply saddened. I don't know what's happened, and you know, the world doesn't know what's happened at this point.

It absolutely doesn't match up at all. He wouldn't hurt a fly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right. And this morning, we are live at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and West North Avenue. As you know, this is the site of where a lot of the protesting, the rallies and at one pointed the looting and rioting happening right in this intersection. But this morning, we do not see that show of force. We don't see the National Guard, and we do not see that heavy police presence, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Renee, thank you very much. We'll check back with you. But right now, let's go to you, Alisyn, in New York.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris, thanks so much.

Well, we want to tell you about the latest brutality from ISIS, leaving hundreds of Yazidis dead in Iraq. An Iraqi lawmaker tells CNN 200 were killed Friday in Mosul. Some estimates put that figure closer to 300 people. The Yazidis, one of the world's smallest religions, have been a frequent target of ISIS. Attacks on Yazidis drove some 40,000 of them up into the Sinjar mountains, as you'll remember, last summer.

Women and children rescued from the grips of Boko Haram describing what they endured, even in their final moments of captivity. Some of their fellow captives were stoned to death as the army approached to save them. Others were killed when a landmine exploded as they tried to walk to freedom. Nigeria's military says it has rescued more than 700 people held by the terror group in the past week. Here's some incredible video to show you out of Hawaii. A crater wall

collapses into lava, spewing by the Kilauea volcano. The lava has overflown several times since last Tuesday and continues to rise. But scientists say the levels should go down shortly.

All right. We will have much more on our breaking news from Texas. Two gunmen killed after they opened fire at an event featuring a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest. We're talking to a prominent senator about the latest attacks on freedom of speech.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Two gunmen shot and killed by police in Texas after the pair opened fire outside a convention center that was hosting an exhibit with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Here to discuss that and so many more news stories is Senator Angus King. He's an independent from Maine who sits on the Senate Budget, Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.

Senator, great to have you here in studio with me.

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: Alisyn, a pleasure.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about this attack in Texas. This could have been much worse. The security guards there at the event were prepared. They were expecting, possibly, some sort of violence. And when the gunmen pulled up and opened fire, they killed them.

[07:20:06] Of course, it reminds us of what happened with "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris. Do you see this as a "Charlie Hebdo"-style attack here in the United States?

KING: Well, of course, let's not get too far out, because we don't know who these guys were. There's no evidence of where they came from. But assuming for a moment this was motivated by the anti- Islamist meeting, that's possible.

And what this really underlines is the danger of lone wolves. It doesn't take a big organized attack. In fact, there was a tweet right afterwards from a leader of the Muslim community of Dallas, saying, "This is just what we didn't want. We told our people to stay away." All it takes is one or two guys with -- with some AK-47s to make a lot of trouble.

CAMEROTA: But what is the message here of what happened in Texas? I mean, is there -- is this freedom of speech or was it provocation?

KING: Well, you know, the old saying about the First Amendment is you have the right to say anything, but you don't have the right to shout fire in a crowded theater, which would create harm. It's in between somewhere.

These people were doing something they knew would be offensive to Muslims. That was the whole purpose. A cartoon contest with a $10,000 prize to depict the Prophet Mohammed is clearly designed to inflame Muslim opinion. On the other hand, we're a country that believes in free speech and cartoons and satire and those kinds of things. And so you can't -- you can't use it to justify the action. But the very fact that they had the heavy security tells me they knew that they were provoking.

CAMEROTA: Yes. But I mean, I guess the message for everyone else is, you can never have a cartoon contest in the United States? I mean, they...

KING: No, and...

CAMEROTA: It's pushing the envelope of freedom of speech, because they want to see what the line is, this group does?

KING: Well, I don't think you can ever justify something like what happened. Now, you can say...

CAMEROTA: The violence.

KING: The violence. I mean, in this country and around the world, our -- one of our fundamental values is free speech. And that involves satire and ridiculing other people, even their religion, their politics, everything else. I'm in politics. I know about ridicule.

But it's never a justification for shooting people, and that's a value that we have. But you know what? It's not a value that other people in other parts of the world have. And that's really where we're operating right now.

CAMEROTA: Which know you've been following all of the events that have unfolded in Baltimore over the past week or so. Chris Cuomo has been on the ground reporting there. And he has some questions for you.

Chris, can you hear the senator?

CUOMO: I can. Senator, thank you for joining us on NEW DAY. Let's skip ahead of what's going on specifically with Freddie Gray. Because that's going to come down to the facts of the situation and the prosecutor's ability.

What do you make of the larger concerns that the reason we have what happened with Freddie Gray and all of the youth here in those impoverished areas are these entrenched difficult problems of no job base, no education, and no hope that nothing ever tends to get done about?

KING: Well, you know, that's got to be a part of it. It's a very complex situation. You know, you've got thousands of people on the street. I suspect you had thousands of different motivations. But clearly, a lack of opportunity is one of them.

I did a little homework last night. The unemployment rates in the center of our major cities are almost twice the national or state average. And that's got to be part of it. The best jobs -- the best social program of all, Chris, is a job. And if there aren't any jobs or if the jobs don't pay enough so that you can, you know, rent a department and live decently, then you're going to have some level of unrest.

That doesn't justify violence. It definitely doesn't in this case, breaking down, destroying stores owned by members of your own community.

CUOMO: Well, right. But you know the pushback on that is, not everybody who breaks a window is the same. Not everybody who breaks a window is a thug. Some are some who just can't deal with the system anymore. They feel rejected. So then they reject the laws of that system.

And it's not just one aspect. Everybody here points to that. You've got half the population living under the poverty line. You have 6 percent graduating from college. You have generations who haven't been able to find a job. Is there a solution to any of those?

KING: Well, you know, there's no single solution. A friend of mine in Maine used to say there's no silver bullet. There's silver buckshot. You've got to do all kinds of things. And you touched on some of them.

And, you know, by the way, we're about to pass a budget that cuts education, cuts job training, cuts R&D, all the things that you really need. And we're running out of money in the highway fund for infrastructure. Those are the kind of investments that you have to make in order to move people out of poverty. And it's not just -- you know, the goal is not giving people money. It's giving them some opportunity and hope.

I think part of what you saw, anyway -- part of what you saw anyway was an end of hope. People have to feel that there's some opportunity, there's some light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm afraid in many ways, we're sort of moving in the opposite direction, not making the investments that we need the make in order to keep people going.

[07:25:10] The biggest -- the biggest opportunity, the biggest job creators of the 20th Century, in my opinion, were the G.I. bill after World War II and the interstate highway system. Both involved investments, one in infrastructure, the other in people. And you know, that's the direction we have to move in. We can't be cutting those very programs and expect opportunity to somehow come out of the sky.

CAMEROTA: Senator, we had so much domestic breaking news that we haven't focused on Iran lately, but we know that's been your focus for many months now.

KING: Right.

CAMEROTA: Are you satisfied with the details that you've heard about the Iran nuclear plan? KING: Well, we don't know the details. I mean, what we know is -- is

the structure that was released two or three weeks ago. It's, frankly, more detailed and more far-reaching than I would have expected.

But I'm not taking a firm position until I see the final deal, which we won't see until late June or early July. I do think that Congress needs a process whereby it can weigh in on this. But I'm also not ready to say it's a lousy deal. I don't understand how people can say that when they don't even really now what's finally going to be in it.

If it's verifiable, if it blocks their path to the bomb, then I think it's something we're going to have to really seriously consider because the alternatives aren't very appetizing.

CAMEROTA: You just want more information. Well, we appreciate you coming on NEW DAY always and giving us information. Great to see you.

KING: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much. Let's go out to Chris.

CUOMO: All right. And what a situation we have here. The state's attorney who charged six police officers in Freddie Gray's death and her husband, who's the councilman that represents the community where Freddie Gray was arrested, now find themselves in the crucible of Baltimore's crisis. We're going to have an exclusive interview with them about their motivations and their aspirations ahead.

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