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New Day

Shooters at Event in Garland, Texas, Profiled; U.S. Student Detained in North Korea; Bridging the Divide Between Police, Minorities. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 05, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So the question for investigators, how involved was ISIS in the plotting of this attack? CNN's coverage begins with senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh. He's live in Beirut. Nick, what do we know?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, at this stage there is very little in this message read at from ISIS' official radio station broadcast we think out of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul they swept into last year. A little announcement that suggests an intimacy with the planning of this attack in Garland, Texas.

Yes, we do know the gunman Elton Simpson left a tweet before the attack in which he appear to make a suggestion of allegiance towards ISIS. Now, of course that doesn't have anything really to do with proof or evidence that they were in fact behind it, or they had prior knowledge to it.

That's one of the issues with the lone wolf attacks like this, the gunman or attackers like who have had a previous brush with law enforcement like one of these men did. They can go silent for years and then emerge again with an attempted attack like this potentially so much more savage. And it's only after the fact that in fact ISIS needs to step forward and say yes, that was one of ours.

Now, of course, investigators will look for notions of command and control between their leaders and these attackers, but there is nothing in this connection at this stage to suggest there was such a connection, but there is a threat as we always hear from ISIS at the end, for more attacks against the United States, trying to warn at the end that the future is just around the corner, perhaps heralding more such lone wolf attack. Hard, though, to find the connection between these attacks and ISIS command. That's the key question now. Chris?

CUOMO: And obviously it wouldn't be the first time that ISIS have tried to pull something off like this on U.S. soil, so off particular interest. Nick, thank you very much.

So more about the dead men and what is being discovered about any planning or contacts they had with others. CNN's Kyung Lah is Live Phoenix. That's where they were living. Kyung?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, it is a claim, a claim is one thing. What investigators are going to be seeking this morning is to find the evidence, the proof, and they are going to be combing through all the items that were seized out of the apartment these two gunmen shared in Phoenix. They are trying to connect the dots. How close were these men to ISIS if they were connected at all?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: The FBI filled a van with evidence from the gunmen's Phoenix apartment. Investigators scrubbing all items hoping to piece together a timeline of this plot. Neighbors in their apartment complex saw nothing outwardly alarming from the two roommates except one of them, Elton Simpson, put his car up for sale.

ARIEL WHITLOCK, NEIGHBOR: I'm getting goose bumps thinking about it right now.

LAH: Ariel Whitlock exchanged texts with Simpson.

WHITLOCK: You don't think maybe he is going to go and plot something and you're giving them money to help them go plot something.

LAH: But he changed his mind, instead driving it to Texas. Shortly before opening fire Simpson tweeted an oath of allegiance to Amarul (ph) Mumani (ph), a pseudonym for the leader of ISIS, but the first clues date back to a 2011 arrest. Talking to an FBI enforcement over years, court records show Simpson wanted to go to Somalia to fight, recorded on wiretaps saying "If you get shot or you get killed, it's heaven straight away. Heaven, that's why we here for, so why not take that route?"

Nadir Soofi was the other gunman, a pizza shop owner and father to a young son says his mosque president. A Pakistani source with knowledge of the family tells CNN when his parents divorced he moved to Pakistan with his father where he attended a prestigious private school in Islamabad. Their plan so secret that mosque president spent years with both men at services and never saw either as a threat.

USAMA SHAMI, PRESIDENT, ISLAMIC COMMUNITY CENTER OF PHOENIX: When that happens it just shocks you. How good did you know these people is the question that people ask at time.

LAH: A question Elton Simpson's family is also asking. In a statement released Monday night they write, "Just like everyone in our beautiful country we are struggling to understand how this could happen."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: And you can hear the confusion in that statement. It's a sentiment being echoed here in Phoenix across the acquaintances, friends, family. A lot of them did not see the violence coming. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: It's so confusing for them and everyone. Kyung, thank you for that.

We are also learning more about the hero cop who gunned down the Texas suspects and likely saved many lives. CNN's Ed Lavandera is live for us in Texas. Ed, tell us about this hero?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. It's really dramatic when you get closer to this building and you consider that these two gunmen did not even make it into the parking lot of the Civic Center because of the quick actions of two officers. The first one was wounded, but in particular it was the second officer on the perimeter who was checking the cars coming into the parking low. They see these two gunmen jump out with high powered assault rifles and begin firing.

[08:05:03] And with a 45 glock handgun that one police officer is credited by Garland police for taking out those two gunmen. And the SWAT team was also rushing to the scene as well. We understand it was firing, but it was that one officer in that car that took out both of them. Garland police said he did an incredible job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE HARN, GARLAND POLICE SPOKESMAN: He did what he was trying to do, and under the fire that he was put under, he did a very good job and probably saved lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: So this morning many people celebrating the quick actions of that officer, especially considering just how heated that moment must have been for him. But so far that officer who has been described as a veteran traffic police officer with the Garland Police Department, we don't know his name, and so far they have turned down all requests for interviews. Chris?

CUOMO: All about the job. Ed Lavandera, thank you very much.

Let's bring in Kristina Sitton. She defended Elton Simpson, one of these would be attackers, in his 2011 trail when he was convicted of lying to authorities. She is a criminal defense attorney with Sid and Nash. Counsel, thank you for joining us. You say when you heard of this incident you say you were surprised that Mr. Simpson was involved. Why?

KRISTINA SITTON, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR TEXAS SHOOTING SUSPECT ELTON SIMPSON: I was completely surprised. I never had an inkling that Mr. Simpson would ever become violent. He was always kind and respectful to me in all my dealings with him.

CUOMO: But he was being investigated by the FBI for years. They believed that he certainly had these types of sympathies and inclinations, right?

SITTON: I believe they did. They surveilled him for probably close to four years trying to see if there was information they could get.

CUOMO: And they wound up convicting him of lying, but what did they want to get him for? SITTON: They wanted to get him in connection with making false

statements in connection with terrorism. The judge that presided over the trial decided that the government didn't meet its burden to prove that it was related to terrorism.

CUOMO: Everybody deserves a right to a fair process and that's your job as a zealous representative of the legal community and of that process, but what was your feel about him? Clearly, this wasn't a mistaken identity, right? They didn't have it completely wrong about what was going on in his head and heart, right?

SITTON: Well, I don't know about what is going on now, but in my view he was completely innocent of all the charges. In fact what happened was the FBI came to talk with him and asked him if he ever spoken about going to Somalia. He had done so very briefly about a year and a half prior. When he said no that's when they arrested him for the charges. So in my view, these charges were completely bogus.

CUOMO: Let's put the charges to the side. Can you say honestly that you don't believe this man had any desire in his head or heart to become part of jihad?

SITTON: That was nothing that I ever saw and nothing that he ever exhibited to me in my dealings with him.

CUOMO: What about what they say Simpson said, we can make it to the battlefield and it's time to roll. I want to go to Somalia. I want to fight. If you die you go right to heaven. What do you think that is?

SITTON: It sounded like a bunch of talk to me. I think those statement occurred in maybe in 2008. When I was representing him was during 2010 and 2011. It just sounded like a lot of talk, especially compared with his demeanor when I was speaking with and when I met with him.

CUOMO: Counsel, do you say you ever say things like that, that you want to go to Somalia and participate in jihad? You ever say anything like that?

SITTON: I sure don't.

CUOMO: Is it really just talk based on what we just saw? Do you think people missed something about this guy that they should not have missed?

SITTON: I don't think they missed anything. The FBI did a very diligent investigation of this case. They did everything they could. Ultimately, as you said, he is entitled to due process in his trial. He exercised that right, and what happened was the result of their evidence that they had.

CUOMO: Did you stay in contact with him after that matter?

SITTON: The only time I had contact with him after the matter was when he called me to say he had been placed on the no-fly list and he was concerned about that.

CUOMO: How did he explain the confusion about what was coming out of his mouth and what he said he actually intended?

SITTON: I don't know if I can go into that with the attorney- client relationship, but I can just tell you that I base my defense on the charges and what I believe the government can prove.

CUOMO: In certain case the privileges exist beyond the death of the person involved. There is not case here now with prosecution. Do you believe that you missed anything about this man? It seems fairly obviously. I am not blaming you at all. I am trying to get insight into who this guy is.

SITTON: I hope you don't blame me. No, I don't believe I missed anything. I believe that perhaps he might have just snapped when he heard about the cartoon contest. It certainly was a completely provocative event, and I would see many people who were devout about their religion being upset about.

[08:10:17] CUOMO: Right, but there is a difference between being a devout Muslim and having a Twitter icon that's a picture of Anwar al-Awlaki, right?

SITTON: Absolutely.

CUOMO: And now with this experience we have, do you think the feds were right to keep post tabs on this man? Do you think they should have stayed even closer to him? Is that the way we should deal with these situations?

SITTON: I have never been a federal agent so I can't say whether they were right or wrong, but it appears they were at least on to something.

CUOMO: ISIS taking credit for it. Was there anything that came up during your dealings with this man that suggested that he knew about the group, was interested in the group, anything? This was way back when ISIS didn't even really exist, but was there anything ever about it?

SITTON: Absolutely not. I believe that the government alleged that the statements he made in connection with this offense were more towards al Shabaab, the Somali group.

CUOMO: Right, because he was talking about North Africa specifically, and that's where he wanted to go. Well, you helped him beat that case, but ultimately he didn't beat the situation in Garland, Texas. Thank you for your insight into the man. Appreciate you coming on NEW DAY.

SITTON: Thank you very much.

CUOMO: Michaela?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Chris, a U.S. college student is detained in North Korea, and he is speaking exclusively to CNN. Won-moon Joo says he illegally entered the country deliberately. Why? CNN's Will Ripley joins us live from Pyongyang with the story and hopefully an answer. Will, what did you find out?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Answers are hard to come by here in Pyongyang, Michaela, but I can tell you this. It's a very bizarre and puzzling case. Here you have this 21-year-old who decided to take a semester off from school, travel to North Korea so he could, as he puts it, "do something good," only now he has found himself in a very bad situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WON-MOON JOO, NYU STUDENT DETAINED IN NORTH KOREA: I understand my parents and loved ones are worrying a lot about me, but I would like to say that I am well and there is no need to worry.

RIPLEY: North Korean state media reports Won-moon Joo, a 21- year-old New Jersey resident and South Korean national, entered the country illegally, crossing a river on the China-North Korea border. Joo says he made it past two barbed wire fences following a large river until North Korean soldiers arrested him.

JOO: I thought that by my entrance illegally, I acknowledge, but I thought that some great event could happen, and hopefully that event could have a good effect in the relations between the north and south.

RIPLEY: So what kind of great event did you think could happen?

JOO: Of course, I am not completely sure yet.

RIPLEY: This is the first time Joo has been able to send any message to his family and friends since he was detained. South Korea's government is demanding the immediate release of the college student and that of two other detained South Koreans who gave exclusive interviews to CNN. They are being held by the North Koreans on espionage charges, allegations South Korea calls baseless. Joo remains under investigation, but he's hopeful his arrest will bring about some good.

JOO: I hope that, you know, I will be able to tell the world how an ordinary college student entered the DPRK illegally, but however with the generous treatment with the DPRK that I will be able to return home safely.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIPLEY: Joo has not been able to make a phone call since he was detained last month, but he does say he is being treated very humanely and even has his own room. But now, even though he lived in the U.S. since 2001 and is a permanent resident and his family is still there, but it's the South Korean government where he remains a citizen that has to figure out how to get him out of North Korea. And keep in mind, Chris, these two countries are still technically at war and have no diplomatic relations. It's a very complex situation, and this young man, whether he is aware or not, could very well end up in a North Korean prison if this doesn't turn out the way he's hoping.

CUOMO: He is young and clearly he should have thought better of this situation. We'll see what happens next. Will, thank you very much for getting that interview for us.

So John Kerry in the news is making history in Africa. He's the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Somalia. At this hour Kerry is meeting with the officials. The main reason to be in Mogadishu, reinforce Somalia's ongoing democratic transition because the country is trying to repel terror group al-Shabaab.

PEREIRA: New information about the sudden death of Survey Monkey CEO Dave Goldberg. The husband of Facebook executive Cheryl Sandberg died after falling off a treadmill and striking his head. Goldberg was vacationing with his family in Mexico at the time. It's unclear if he had an episode before falling or if he just fell on the exercise machine.

[08:15:00] CAMEROTA: Actress Sofia Vergara speaking out about her embryo battle with her ex-fiance. The actress told Howard Stern that she did not think Nick Loeb should get their embryos. She says children need to be raised in a loving home with two parents who get along. Loeb is fighting to preserve the embryos, saying he considers them his future children.

PEREIRA: This has been quite a battle.

CAMEROTA: It sure has. Fascinating and provocative. Lots of couples actually are going through a custody battle similar, they're just not high-profile.

PEREIRA: New territory, right?

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Yes, it's a brave new world.

CUOMO: Law is well behind science. The main problem is, we've decided as a culture, scientifically, when life ends and that's why you get into all those matters at the end of life, but not when it begins. but it's just not that published.

PEREIRA: No. That's a major question.

CUOMO: Whether that an embryo, or as a person, and when do you make the distinction really matters. This is the future we will see.

CAMEROTA: We're going to have Nick Loeb on NEW DAY this week, so stay tuned for that.

Meanwhile, President Obama expanding his My Brother's Keeper Program. Can efforts like this help police and minorities find common ground somehow? We will search for solutions.

CUOMO: Free speech and satire. You take it for granted here in the U.S., but going hand-in-hand is not so simple. We're going to examine whether potentially inflammatory cartoons are worth the risk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Too many young men and women feel like no matter how hard they try, they may never achieve their dreams. And that sense of unfairness, the powerlessness of people not hearing their voices, that has helped fuel some of the protests we have seen in places like Baltimore and Ferguson and right here in New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:20:18] PEREIRA: That from President Obama as he expands a program to help young minorities trapped in poverty. What else needs to be done to repair a growing rift between young men and law enforcement?

Here to weigh in, CNN political commentator and "New York Times" columnist, Charles Blow. Beside him is Philip Banks, former chief of department at the NYPD.

Gentleman, really glad to have you both here. I think if we start with the premise that this an overnight solution, it's not a Band-Aid, this is something that has to be looked at from a lot of different angle. Can we both agree on the premise to start with?

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: I want to read you something that I read in "The New York Times." The executive director, Philip, of a law enforcement policy group told "The New York Times" that "People aren't buying our brand." He's talking about law enforcement. "If it was a product, we'd take if out of the market and re-engineer it."

Do you think we're at a point of crisis in placing in America?

PHILIP BANKS, FORMER NYPD CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT: I think we've been at that point for quite some time. We're at a boiling point now. Crisis is when you have the signals. When you're at this particular point - We're way past that.

And I certainly agree and I understand the full concepts of what he spoke about. Certainly that there's a bran that's not being bought, it's certainly being rejected. And hopefully the leaders across the nation in law enforcement understand there's a lot of changes that need to be made.

PEREIRA: And that's the thing. In order to fix something, you have to first admit you have a problem, and as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous. So if we acknowledge we have a problem - Which even if we look at the poll about the feelings about police -- let's take a look at that. Look at the feelings about police. If you look at African- Americans polled, they feel mostly safe, 51 percent. As opposed to white, 81 percent, Charles. And then the discrepancy of anxiety. 42 percent of blacks feel anxious around police. So the attitudes in society are as such. Where do we go from there? CHARLES BLOW, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think part of it is

also acknowledging that we don't even know if this is necessary a growing problem or just a persistent problem.

PEREIRA: maybe - or even our awareness of it is growing -

BANKS: Good point.

BLOW: It is a persistent problem, right, so if you talk to generations of African-American men, they will make sure you understand that they have always experienced some level of agitation around police. And in fact, some of the things that they will describe to you will make what we are experiencing pale in comparison, right?

PEREIRA: Fair.

BLOW: So what we are seeing now is people who are engaging the police and saying, no more, we feel we have a sense of activism in us, we have a sense of -- our ability to fight back in some way, whether it be technologically, and by documenting this, whether it be taking to the streets by protesting it or whatever the case may be, and that, in previous generations, they may not have felt that sense of advocacy on their own part.

PEREIRA: So in a way, the protest is like the crisis point. But since - Then you have to move on and evolve from there and it's making substantive changes. You were saying one of the things you have to do is recognize the problems with in the departments, the way the departments are run. You have a concern about the metrics that are used to analyze how cops are doing.'

BANKS: Yeah, I would challenge that every police chief or police commissioner throughout the nation, if you look at how you evaluate your police officers on a monthly level or annual level, it boils down to how many arrests they make and how many summonses they write. And as long as you tell the other officers that this is what counts, then they're going to actually follow it back (INAUDIBLE).

PEREIRA: That's not serve and protect.

BANKS: That's not serve and protect. The problem you have is you've have the metrics for law enforcement has been, the success rate has been crime reduction and that has been it. So therefore, you have the leaders in law enforcement nationwide, right, you are asking them to change something that they have been very successful for.

PEREIRA: I understand that. So - and this is mixed to the point that we had a guest on earlier that said it has to change at the top. So the attitude at the top has to change about how they are doing business, if you will.

BANKS: Absolutely. 100 percent.

PEREIRA: Do you think that's likely to happen?

BANKS: I think that if you look at the roar across the nation, it has to happen. How quick it will happen and how peaceful it is going to happen is one thing, but it certainly has to happen.

BLOW: Right. And I think you have to get law enforcement, particularly the people at the top of the law enforcement, to realize you're getting to a point of diminishing returns. There was a moment where people reflexively turn to higher pressure policing because we had a drug problem, gang problem, and everybody was freaked out. When Americans freak out, we overreact in general.

PEREIRA: But it's a new era now though.

BLOW: Right, exactly. Now we are getting to the point where we are still trying to push the same metrics, right, but now we are pushing them to lower and lower levels and picking up lower and lower level criminals for doing really minor things, and by pushing it lower, we are getting into eras where there are disparities and that there are a lot of people doing this but we are only arresting or giving warrants to certain kinds of people and that's where people, I think, feel the disconnect.

[08:25:04] PEREIRA: Another piece and part of this is how society sees and feels it and I want to bring up one more poll, if you don't mind, about the disconnect between how whites feel about deadly force. I think we have that. Police are more like to use deadly force against whites or blacks? And you can see the result. 79 percent African- Americans feel that deadly force or aggressive force against them, and 1 percent, they believe that whites have that same level and encounter with the police.

So shifting society's ideas is going to take a lot. Different words. So the idea of what the president is trying to do, having police go into communities and have relationships within the communities. Do you think that is going to be effective?

BANKS: If it's done correctly and if the genesis of it is to actually work with the community and not appease the community, it can be done. It's easy to appease the community -

PEREIRA: Be there for the photo ops, etc.

BANKS: Right. And that's one thing. But if the origin is to actually fix this particular problem, I do think it can be done. And just getting back to that poll. When you have somebody that has an issue with an entity, they can find anything wrong with the entity and you have these young African-American males and I certainly understand that they have a problem with the police. Their perception and reality is that this is an industry that's against me. Almost any poll that you ask about them is going to come back negative. So we have to change how the police are viewed upon to all youth, African-Americans in particular, and then you can start seeing a change.

BLOW: But I must admit that part of the poll is experiential. It's not simply that I feel like they are oppressive, but that I have experienced something or I know someone who has experienced that I feel to be unfair.

PEREIRA: We'll have to do a poll on how they were feeling when they took the poll.

BLOW: And I think we have to look at it more broadly and look at the media role that we play in all of this because if you also - polls have tracked over years and found that whites consistently believe that crime is going up even though it's going down and they identify that criminality with African-Americans and that's a problem of perceptions that we have --

PEREIRA: Charles and Philip, it's important to have the conversations. We're glad that you were able to do that with us today. Thanks so much.

Chris.

CUOMO: Alright. Another topic being debated this morning is free speech versus satirical cartoons. Shouldn't they coexist? What about the wrath of extremists? The debate, and we're going to have it ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)