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Reported Tornado Destroys Texas Town; Four Suspects Charged in Killing Mississippi Police Officers; Charged Baltimore Police Ask for Special Prosecutor; Saudi King Snubs President Obama?; Hersh: White House Lying about Bin Laden Killing. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 11, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get inside!

[05:59:10] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A reported tornado this morning in Van, Texas. Officials say at least 26 people are injured.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can hear the howling.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I haven't seen anything like this in a long time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you do it?

CURTIS BANKS, MURDER SUSPECT: No, sir. I didn't do it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Suspects are in custody, and two police officers are dead.

RONALD TATE, FATHER OF OFFICER LIQUORI TATE: This is my baby. I just -- I'm trying to come to grips with it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Attorneys for the six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray want the case dismissed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prince singing for unity in Baltimore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When Prince does something, people pay attention.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The FBI is increasing its monitoring of suspected ISIS supporters inside the United States.

JEH JOHNSON, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: The so-called lone wolf could strike at any moment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CO-HOST: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Monday, May 11, 6 a.m. in the East. This is the aftermath. Dozens hurt this morning after a tornado

strikes the town of Van, Texas. That's just east of Dallas. Homes reduced to sticks and pieces, damaged schools, toppled power lines.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CO-HOST: Also, we are just learning of two tornado-related deaths in Nashville, Arkansas; plus loads of damage after dozens of tornadoes hit several states this weekend. Ferocious winds tearing the roof off of this high school.

We've got all angles of this story covered, and we begin with CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray in hard-hit Van, Texas. Tell us what you're seeing, Jennifer.

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Alisyn, we just rolled up a couple of hours ago. And this is basically what we're seeing. We see a lot of trees down, power lines littering the roads here in Van. We're in front of the Van Intermediate School. It suffered heavy damage, as well.

You can see trees up there, just completely snapped in half. We've also seen trees uprooted around Van, as well. We are told that several of the homes are a total loss. More than two dozen people were sent to area hospitals. Of course, a shelter has been set up, as well.

It will be a couple of hours before we can get the full scope of the damage here in Van. But we are told that the tornado sirens did sound about five minutes before the tornado was -- before the tornado struck Van.

Of course, Van wasn't the only place that suffered damage. We saw damage all across the central U.S. throughout the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY (voice-over): Breaking overnight: a scene of devastation in east Texas after severe weather and a reported tornado touching down in the town of Van.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Inside! Inside!

GRAY: The county's emergency management team is describing the scene as a, quote, mass casualty incident. Dozens of injuries have been reported. There is significant damage and a possible gas leak throughout parts of the city of 2,600.

This weekend...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A very pronounced funnel cloud and tornado in progress.

GRAY: ... over 70 tornadoes were reported from South Dakota to Texas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There goes the school. There goes the school. GRAY: This video shows the tornado hitting a high school in

Iowa. The school sheltering 100 people. All evacuated just in the nick of time as tornado sirens flared.

Another tornado ripping through a small South Dakota town, injuring multiple people and damaging over 20 buildings.

HAGEN BLACK, WITNESS: I step outside, and there is no wind. No rain. No rain, no noises, and then I can hear the howling. It sounded like an airplane.

That was the first tornado I've ever seen in my life.

GRAY: On Saturday, a tornado struck Eastland County, Texas, killing one person and injuring another critically.

Storms also dumping rain and baseball-sized hail on parts of Oklahoma, resulting in floods. People carried to safety by helicopters in Denton County, Texas. Since Friday, this area has received over ten inches of rain.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY: And the good news is the folks in east Texas, northeast Texas, will be able to dry out. These storms are pushing to the east. But Alisyn, folks in this community will be cleaning up for days and weeks to come.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CO-HOST: It sure looks like that, Jennifer. Thanks so much for that report.

So while the middle of the country deals with tornadoes, the first tropical storm of the year makes landfall along the South Carolina coast. And this is weeks before hurricane season even begins.

Let's get to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. He joins us with the forecast. Tell us what you're seeing, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Alisyn, a lot of rain in North Carolina this weekend, all along Myrtle Beach, Wilmington. We have pictures from Wilmington where the rain just would not stop.

The winds were to 35 to 45 miles per hour, blowing waves on shore, creating dangerous rip currents out there. Almost everyone completely out of the water. The red flags were up. That's the good news. No one really getting caught in this really terrific weather.

This is -- this terrible winds and the waves pushing the water on shore. Farther up north into Myrtle Beach, if you had a beach vacation planned, you had six inches of rainfall instead there over the weekend. And it is still raining in parts of Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, all the way up into the Carolina coast right now.

Obviously, the big story over the weekend was the tornado event. That happened in the middle part of the plains. But if you're living across the coast today into parts -- even into Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, you will get some rainfall, especially some cloud cover with this storm as it finally moves away.

Now, Chris, the last time we had Ana, which was before the season started, really, was 2003. That year we had 16 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. Now, what's in a name? I know, it's just that, but Ana has not been retired. So we reuse it every six years. The last time we used this early, it was a very busy season, Chris.

CUOMO: Now setting against that, Chad, we were supposed to have a more mild one, right? Because this is an El Nino year, right? That usually portends less storms?

MYERS: Of course. Of course. But you know, just like you can't just put a chicken in a bowl of water, boil it, and make chicken soup, it requires other things. There were other ingredients that go into hurricane season, as well. And just because we have the chicken, doesn't mean we have the soup. We'll see if we still have the carrots and the celery and all the other stuff to make a big season or a little one, Chris.

[06:05:21] CUOMO: Feel (ph) doesn't hurt, either. Thank you for the chicken soup. Very helpful, than analogy, Chad. Appreciate it.

MYERS: There you go.

CUOMO: We have new developments in a Mississippi cop killing. In just a few hours, four suspects are going to be held in connection with the killing of these two officers. They're going to be brought to court and arraigned by a judge.

Now two are facing capital murder charges. The officers were Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate. They were gunned down Saturday night during a traffic stop.

We have CNN's Alina Machado. She's live in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. This is where this all happened. What do we know now?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, we know that that court appearance is going to be taking place at the courthouse behind me.

Meanwhile, a vigil is planned for this afternoon to honor and remember those two officers, two men who were killed while simply doing their job.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Curtis, did you do it?

BANKS: No, sir, I didn't do it.

MACHADO (voice-over): Asserting his innocence while being hauled into the police station, 26-year-old Curtis Banks, one of the now four suspects in custody this morning, two of them facing capital murder charges in connection with the shooting death of two police officers in southern Mississippi.

MAYOR JOHNNY DUPREE, HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI: You never want this to happen to the men and women who go out every day to protect us, the men and women who go out every day to make sure we're safe.

MACHADO: Thirty-four-year-old officer Benjamin Deen and 24-year- old Liquori Tate were shot and killed after a traffic stop ended in a hail of gunfire Saturday night. Police say Curtis and his brother Marvin fled the crime scene, allegedly stealing a police cruiser and using it as a getaway car.

Authorities have divulged little else about the timeline of events and any suspected motive, only saying Officer Deen initiated the traffic stop, called for back-up, and that Officer Tate responded to the call.

Deen was a seasoned officer, who won Officer of the Year in 2012 for his department. The other, a rookie who joined the force in June of last year.

TATE: This is my baby.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know.

TATE: This is my baby. And that's all I see is my baby.

MACHADO: In an emotional interview with CNN, Tate's father, Ronald, says his son, quote, "loved everyone" and had a passion for policing.

TATE: He was a guy who was willing to put the risk out there, put his life out there to risk. And he really knew the risk, and -- but he thought -- I think my son just thought, you know, people are generally good; and that's just the way he was. He thought people are generally good people, so let's treat them all with dignity.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACHADO: Now the mayor of Hattiesburg tells CNN that Deen was married and leaves behind two children. Meanwhile, this is the first time in 30 years that an officer was killed in the line of duty in this town -- Chris.

CUOMO: Now just like that, there are two. Alina, thank you very much.

And stay with us for later this morning, because we're going to find out some more about who these men were and what was lost. We have an exclusive for you in the 8 a.m. hour. You're going to hear from the mom, the stepdad and the sister of Liquori Tate -- Mick.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Lawyers for the six Baltimore police officers charged in Freddie Gray's death want the case dismissed or reassigned to a special prosecutor. They claim that the state's attorney -- state's attorney faces multiple conflicts of interest. This as thousands turn out for a benefit concert last night as the city looks to begin to heal.

CNN national correspondent Sara Sidner is in Baltimore this morning with the very latest for us.

Hi, Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, good morning. We heard some of these allegations before from the police union. Now those allegations in a very long document, about 109 pages and the court (AUDIO GAP)...

CAMEROTA: OK. Obviously, we're having some audio problems there with Sara. We'll get back to her in a moment.

But first we want to bring in CNN law enforcement analyst Cedric Alexander. He's president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. And former LAPD sergeant, Cheryl Dorsey, author of "Black and Blue: The Creation of a Manifesto." Thanks for being on NEW DAY to both of you this morning. What a sad, sad story.

Cheryl, I want to start with you, because we in the media call what happened Saturday night a routine traffic stop. But I know that police officers don't like that phrase, because there is no such thing to them as a routine traffic stop. And, in fact, Officer Deen did have to call for backup, though we don't know why. What does that tell you about what he saw Saturday night?

CHERYL DORSEY, FORMER LAPD SERGEANT: Well, certainly, Alisyn, we don't ever consider traffic stops to be routine. And there was something about that stop that the officer recognized. His sixth sense kicked in and caused him to request an additional unit.

[06:10:08] And we're not privy to information right now that will further explain what it was about either the occupants in the vehicle, the way they were conducting themselves or just the stop in general that let him know he need additional assistance.

CAMEROTA: Cedric, this is the first murder of a police officer in Hattiesburg in 30 years. Do we know what the relationship is like generally between the police and the community there?

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, PRESIDENT, NOBLE: Well, let me say this first of all: my condolences, my heart and prayers go out to -- go for the slain officers, who were out there doing their job the other night.

You know, in situations like this, Alisyn, it's just really hard to know, we can suspect, and that's based on a minimal amount of information that we do have, that there is a pretty good relationship between that very small community there in Hattiesburg in the police department.

CAMEROTA: And what makes you that? How do you know that?

ALEXANDER: Well, one piece is, and I remember reading just a day or so ago when both those officers were down, there were two citizens, if I recollect, who saw them, went to render aid to both of those officers, and helped them to call for other units and EMS services to respond for them to help.

In addition to that, if you listen to the mayor of that community, it suggests to me the mayor, the community and police work very closely together. And certainly in times like this, we will find communities that come together. And I'm quite sure Hattiesburg, not just that police department and those families but that entire community is hurting and in pain this morning.

CAMEROTA: And in fact, it is so heartening to hear that the community did help bring these guys...

ALEXANDER: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ... who had fled into police custody.

ALEXANDER: That's right. That's right.

CAMEROTA: Cheryl, when you read the biographies of these two officers, it's just heart-breaking. I mean, Officer Deen was officer of the year in 2012. Officer Tate, his family said he'd always wanted to be a police officer.

Do you worry that, given the tension right now in the country towards police officers and then violent acts like this, that fewer people will turn out to become police officers?

DORSEY: Well, it's my hope that this won't discourage anyone who's interested in a career in law enforcement. We understand that when we take this occupation on that there are certain dangers that are inherent to becoming a police officer. And so it's manifested itself now in the loss of the lives of these two officers. And so I'm sorry for their loss, but you know, it's inherent to what we do as police officers.

CAMEROTA: Cedric, what do you want the message to be, given the climate, as we've said nationally, where there's all this debate about excessive force.

ALEXANDER: Right.

CAMEROTA: And then yet, you see these men, who by all accounts were really stellar role models, being killed. What should we be talking about today?

ALEXANDER: Well, what we should be talking about is this. Certainly, where we need to hold police accountable, we will hold them accountable. But we also have to remember very clearly, Alisyn, is that there are men and women who go out here every day, such as Officer Deen and Officer Tate, who put their lives at risk in order to keep this community safe.

That traffic stop that particular night may have saved many other lives, for all we know. And both those police officers paid the ultimate price.

So we must never forget, in light of everything that we're seeing, that there are men and women out there who are doing this job, and they're doing it to the best of their ability. And they're doing it, quite frankly, many of them -- and we've seen this more recently in the last number of months, officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty. And we can not ever forget that, in spite of all these other things that we may question that are going on as well, too.

CAMEROTA: Cheryl, I want to pivot now to Baltimore and everything that's going on there. There's all sorts of questions about whether or not the prosecutor will really be able to prove her case. Where do you think Baltimore is today?

DORSEY: Well, you know, I'm hopeful that the prosecutor will be able to prove the case. And I hope that this prosecutor stays on. Because we didn't hear the kind of outrage that we're hearing about Ms. Mosby as we did with Robert McCulloch when he came forward to prosecute or failed to prosecute Darren Wilson. So it's a lot...

CAMEROTA: So what do you think that's about? Why do you think that there's more vocal outrage against Prosecutor Mosby?

DORSEY: Well, you know, I can't speak to, really, why that is. But certainly, we're talking about six police officer who are facing some pretty serious charges versus, you know, one police officer who was accused of doing something to someone who they -- who the public thought deserved, right? Mike Brown. Because he was described as a thug.

[06:15:02] And so people give great deference to police officers, and you want to believe that when they say a thing, it's true. And so it looks like she's going full-steam ahead. And I encourage her to do so and not be bullied by those who think she should not do her job. She was elected to do this job. They knew her associations and affiliations when they voted her into office. And she should be allowed to do that.

CAMEROTA: Cheryl Dorsey, Cedric Alexander, thanks so much for weighing in on all of the different incidents that we're seeing in this country. Nice to see you.

ALEXANDER: Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right. A big international headline: Saudi Arabia's new king snubbing President Obama. King Salman was scheduled to meet one on one with Obama at a summit with fellow Arab leaders at the White House and Camp David, but that all changed and abruptly, likely in a show of frustration over Washington's overtures to Iran.

Let's get some insight from CNN's White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski.

That is what it looks like. Do we have reason to believe it was anything else? MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It does. What

we might see this morning is a phone call between the new Saudi King, Salman, and President Obama. Both sides are insisting that this is not a snub. The Saudis are saying it's merely a scheduling issue. But it did happen at the very last minute.

I mean, on Friday the White House was announcing there was going to be this big sit-down between the two leaders ahead of the Gulf state summit that's happening later in the week.

Then Friday night the Saudis announced that no, that's actually not happening, that in fact, the king isn't going to travel at all. What's weird about this is that very few actual leaders are going to show up for this summit that the president invited them to at the White House and at Camp David. And the White House is the one that keeps emphasizing the importance of these regional partners.

And you name it. Fighting ISIS, the crisis in Syria, in Yemen, security cooperation as the White House is trying to still negotiate this nuclear deal with Iran.

There's no secret that these gulf states are worried about that deal. And now this is raising questions over whether the no-shows mean that they're less happy than expected about what's happening with Iran, or you might be looking for more security, more military reassurance than the White House is willing to give them -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Alright, Michelle, thank you very much.

Former President Jimmy Carter back home in Atlanta this morning after an illness forced him to cut his trip to Guyana short. The Carter Center says the former president is under the weather but did not go into detail about the 90-year-old's health. Carter was in Guyana to monitor today's general election, which he has done 38 times since leaving the White House.

CAMEROTA: That explosive and controversial report about the death of Osama bin Laden. Veteran investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, said the White House has been lying about how bin Laden was tracked down and the raid that killed him in 2011. Hersh alleges that Pakistan was holding bin Laden prisoner, and the U.S. was tipped off by a former Pakistani intelligence officer on his whereabouts in exchange for $25 million. Hersh's source for the explosive article: an unnamed retired senior U.S. intelligence official.

CUOMO: A lot of controversy surrounding this piece. Everybody says that it was always fishy that Osama bin Laden was found so close to a military installation and such a highly trafficked area. But this piece has come under heavy scrutiny, including from some of our own, so we're going to have the good fortune of having Seymour Hersh on the show in the 8 a.m. hour. Seymour will make the case for why he trusts his reporting, and we test it.

CAMEROTA: I'll look forward to hearing that. Well, the homeland security chief warning of a few phase in the fight on terror. What did he say and what will the U.S. do? CUOMO: First lady Michelle Obama with some personal insight

against race during a commencement speech at Alabama's Tuskegee University. What she revealed that has people calling, coming up?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:42] CUOMO: Alright. There are two big headlines this morning. So let's bring in Bobby Ghosh, CNN global affairs analyst and the managing editor of "Quartz"; and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, counterterrorism analyst and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

We have that homeland security is really worried about lone wolves and their inability to control it. So we're going to discuss that. But the headline about what happened with Osama bin Laden.

Seymour Hersh is a very famous investigative reporter going back to Vietnam and the Mai Lai massacre there and what happened at Abu Ghraib. We learned in large part, first from Hersh, and there's been a lot else along the way. So the headline is that the story that you've heard about what happened in the raid and killing of Osama bin Laden is not true.

Now, Daveed, have you ever heard any of these theories or narratives or distinctions that Hersh has come out with before? Have you ever heard chatter about this?

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: There is some dispute, going back to the very beginning when the bin Laden raid occurred, as to what actually happened with the raid.

But what Seymour Hersh is putting forward is basically a very thinly-sourced account. He has a number of anonymous sources who have a striking alternative history of what occurred. I know a number of people who are very close to these events. And all of them thoroughly dispute his account. Some of it is demonstrably false, including his assertion that the bin Laden documents don't exist from the Abbottabad raids. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people who've seen those documents. So I think he has a lot of explaining to do as to why people should find his account credible, given the lack of any sources on the record to corroborate it.

CUOMO: The main theory that has advanced in his reporting, Bobby, is that this was no surprise on Pakistan. Pakistan knew Osama bin Laden was there. They put him there. They were holding him as leverage and that a senior intelligence official basically delivered all the information necessary to the U.S., and basically, they just walked in and took him. It wasn't a big fire fight. The whole narrative is bogus.

GHOSH: Well, we knew some of this could be true. And there have been others who said recently, including one of the Pakistani former intelligence chiefs, who's quoted in Hersh's story, that the Pakistani government knew he was there and that they were keeping him there for reasons that they figure were their convenience. [06:25:03] That part I don't see -- I don't have a problem with.

I think a lot of people right from the beginning have suspected, have found it absurd that bin laden could be there in Abbottabad without the Pakistani government knowing.

Everything after that, I have some problems with. The idea that the U.S. government would trust the Pakistanis with knowledge of the raid, would say to them that "We're coming, look the other way," I find that very odd. I would not have -- I don't imagine the Obama administration would trust the Pakistanis, knowing that the Pakistanis had been keeping this man there for such a long time. So why would -- why would they give them advance notice when there was the high likelihood that the Pakistanis would go and remove him, and the helicopters would turn up there and find nobody?

CUOMO: The big plus-minus on this, Daveed, is as Bobby's laying out, it's always been weird that Osama bin Laden where was -- was where he was. You know, we always thought he was hiding in a cave somewhere; people like you trying to track him down. And it turns out he's in a major city right next to their equivalent of West Point. That's always been a tantalizing unknown. But for this to be true, a lot of people had to lie and for what reason, Daveed?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Well, right. Look, it's the specifics of what Hersh is claiming occurred. Not so much the notion that the Pakistanis had to have known. As Bobby said, this is something that a lot of people, including former U.S. officials, like very high- ranking. It's been said by people at the cabinet level that the Pakistanis had to have known, meaning that someone within the Pakistani establishment had knowledge.

As to why people would lie if Hersh's account is correct, it's a very difficult thing to explain, down to, as I mentioned before, the notion that all of the documents taken in the Abbottabad raid were simply false.

I mean, when people are there, one of the most basic things you do when conducting a raid of this kind is conduct document exploitation. Why is it that the SEAL team would not conduct basic document exploitation and would only throw a few books in a garbage bag, which is what Hersh claims? And if so, why are there more than one million documents that were recovered during the course of this raid? Why do they exist, if as he claims, no such document exploitation ever occurred?

Now, he claims that they got these documents from the Pakistanis. But again, that doesn't hold up, in that if you talk to people who are familiar with the documents, a lot of them say that the Pakistanis do not come off particularly well, including in the most recent round of releases that occurred during a criminal trial, in which bin Laden was talking about reaching out to the Pakistanis. So there's a lot here that just doesn't hold up in Hersh's story.

CUOMO: Well, we're going to go through it even more with reporting from Peter Bergen, who's been all over this situation. He went to the compound in Abbottabad, and we will relay his reporting about what he saw there and how it sizes up with Hersh.

But let's get to this other headline real quick, Bobby. To have Jeh Johnson, you know, our guy who's protecting the U.S. here at home, say this lone wolf risk is real, and it is hard for us to stay in front of it. The urgency of it is new. And what is the message to people?

GHOSH: The message is that ISIS is now taking on from where al Qaeda left off, and it is acting very, very quickly. It is -- it is sort of reaching out through the Internet and to potential converts and saying to them, "You do -- you do whatever chaotic thing that you can possibly do, and we will take credit for it." It is acting in a sort of very -- almost sort of -- in a predatory fashion like this.

It is not new. This is something that goes back several years with al Qaeda and particularly al Qaeda in Yemen. But it is -- ISIS has shown that it is able to take the Internet to a new level as a propaganda tool. We saw that very recently in Texas. And we have seen that, of course, in Paris and other places.

The sense of urgency that he's trying to communicate is well-felt across the intelligence community, not just here in the U.S. I was recently in the -- a couple of weeks ago in London. It's very palpable there. People there really worry that these guys, that ISIS knows how to use social media, particularly in a way that we've not seen before.

CUOMO: No longer about an organization and command and control and actual recruiting and operatives. It's just a brand now that anybody can identify with.

GHOSH: Yes.

CUOMO: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, thank you very much for helping us understand what we need to be skeptical about with regard to the Osama bin Laden reporting. And also, Bobby, to you to help us understand why Jeh Johnson is so worried this morning.

Mick, over to you.

PEREIRA: Alright, Chris. Confessions of a first lady. Michelle Obama making some candid revelations to graduates at Alabama's Tuskegee University. We'll share what she had to say.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)