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New Day

Deadly Tornadoes Tear Through Several States; Four Suspects Charged in Killing of Mississippi Officers; Calls for Special Prosecutor in Baltimore; Secretary John: New Phase of Fighting ISIS. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 11, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00] JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, Chris, I'm fearful of what daylight will bring, because it won't be until then until we'll be able to get a full scope of the damage here. About 30 percent of the town damaged.

And where I'm standing, right in front of the elementary and the junior high school, of course, school is -- class is canceled for today. Not surprising.

Look at all this. You see trees and power lines just littering the roads. Trees snapped in half. We see metal hanging from tree tops up there. And this is only a fraction of what happened over 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 tornados 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 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, Chris, the Red Cross is here. There's also a shelter set up at the First Baptist Church here in Van. Of course, the people in east Texas will be able to breathe a little easier today, knowing that the severe weather has all pushed to the east -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: They have plenty to deal with regardless. That's for sure. Jen, thank you very much.

So the remains of the first tropical storm of the year expected to dump rain along the Carolina coastline today. Ana made landfall Sunday in South Carolina.

Let's bring in CNN meteorologist Chad Myers with the forecast now. How did this size up in terms of what you were expecting?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, a 45-mile-per-hour tropical storm -- they took the word "sub" off of it, so it was a tropical storm. It is a warm core with a lot of rain. Four to six inches, about exactly what was forecast right over Myrtle Beach, now kind of traveling up over Hampton Roads and eventually even offshore.

We could see rain in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., light rain, not four to six inches like they had in some spots.

And more severe weather, as Jen was talking about, back out here to the west. There goes the storm for tomorrow, as well.

Here's what Wilmington and Myrtle Beach looked like, though, over the weekend, with rain coming down, winds. Look at that surf. You need to stay out of the water when it is like that. A rip current can take you offshore rather quickly when you have that much water pounding on shore.

And then a Myrtle Beach golf weekend. I guess the greens are soft. Six inches of rainfall in Myrtle Beach over the weekend. And anyone who spent the money to go on vacation at the beach didn't see the beach much -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That's too bad. All right, Chad. Thanks so much for that.

Well, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in mourning after the killing of two police officers this weekend. Four suspects in custody. Two face capital murder charges.

CNN's Alina Machado is live in Hattiesburg for us. What's the latest, Alina?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, good morning.

All four suspects are expected to make their court appearances right behind me at some point today. This afternoon there's also a vigil that's planned to honor and remember those fallen officers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Curtis, did you do it?

CURTIS BANKS, SUSPECTED IN POLICE OFFICERS' MURDER: 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 that 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.

[07:05:14] 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.

RONALD TATE, FATHER OF OFFICER TATE (via phone): 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: The mayor of Hattiesburg tells CNN that Officer Deen was married and leaves behind two children. Meanwhile, this is the first time in 30 years that an officer has been killed in the line of duty in this town -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Well, Alina, the more you know about these officers, the more it breaks your heart. And in our next hour, we will speak exclusively with the family members of Officer Liquori Tate. His mom, stepdad and sister will reflect on Liquori's life and what they want us to know about this brave man.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Lawyers for the six Baltimore police officers charged in Freddie Gray's case want that case dismissed or reassigned to a special prosecutor. They claim the state's attorney faces multiple conflicts of interest. CNN's Sara Sidner is live in Baltimore with more on this for us this morning -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they listed about five conflicts of interest. And all of them really have to do with relationships for the most part. The relationship that the Mosby family, including Marilyn Mosby, has with the attorney for the Gray family. The relationship that she has with her husband, of course, who is a council member for the district that they both live in and where Freddie Gray was killed, saying that that's also a conflict, because his constituents certainly wanted to see these charges go forward, and it gives him some political clout.

There were several others mentioned. We heard some of these charges from the police union early on. Now you're seeing them in a full document that has been submitted to the court.

Eventually, the court will decide whether or not Marilyn Mosby or her office can go forward as the lead prosecutor in this case. And we do not expect her to actually be the prosecutor, but one of her veteran prosecutors will likely take on this case if a judge allows that to happen. So that will be sort of the next court date that we -- that we basically see.

Also, just to mention, Chris, there was a big, big concert here last night, a rally for peace. Prince showed up. Thousands of people showed up. And actually, Marilyn Mosby was there. She came onstage for a few minutes and waved to the crowd. And he talked to the young people a couple of times, saying, "Look, the system is broken. It is up to you, the young people, to fix it this time," Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Sarah, thank you very much. We want to bring in now D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier.

Chief, it's good to have you with us. When we think about police and violence, often what grabs the headlines is when officers do something and take somebody else's life. But we have been at least hearing more and more about officers being taken down in the line of duty. Obviously, we're dealing with what happened in Mississippi. They say it's been 30 years since an officer has been killed there in Hattiesburg. But we're hearing about it a lot.

Do you believe that officers are being targeted more, or we're just paying more attention to what is the reality?

CHIEF CATHY LANIER, WASHINGTON, D.C.: Well, I think the reality is that everything is getting much more attention now. I mean, the numbers don't suggest right now that there's an increase. I mean, we are right now, so far this year, right around the same number of officers killed in the line of duty last year. So I don't think that there's anything to suggest that there's an increase.

But if you just watching the daily news, I mean, every event between police officer and people in the community now is getting a lot of news coverage. So it's going to change the perspective of what people are seeing.

CUOMO: Perception often becomes reality. I hear you on that point. You know, you police an area that has all of the problems playing at once. You have high poverty, high population, a lot of police, a lot of interactions.

And I know that the data is trending down in terms of excessive force, meaning it's getting better, but are you hearing more from your communities there that you police about their concerns about force?

LANIER: Well, I think the concerns that all of us in policing are hearing nationwide is just about the daily interactions. I mean, that's the -- that's the key. It's not about the, you know, high- profile incidents of force. It's the daily interactions that, when bad things happen that caused, you know, tempers to boil over.

So it's how you police a community every single day and how you interact with people every single day that makes the difference when bad things happen. And they're going to happen. There's going to be conflict between police and people that are -- they're placing under arrest at times.

[07:10:15] But that should be the exception and not the norm. And if there's a good relationship in the community, the community is going to understand that the police are working with the community to keep them safe.

CUOMO: I mean, we hear from police all the time. We don't spend time with people during their best moments. We're always there for the worst moments, and that is the context of, you know, everything else that unfolds. And yet, it comes down to the need for transparency, for the need for people to understand what's happening, especially when things go wrong.

A big answer that's been suggested are body cameras. Now, you're slow on body cameras. You have questions about them. Why? People see them as almost a panacea, a cure-all here.

LANIER: Actually, we're one of the first police departments of our size to roll these things out. The question right now -- I have the body cameras; we've tested them. We're rolling out department- wide over the next year. The big question really is, is that the science hasn't kept up with the technology. So the ability to appropriately redact videos so that you can share them with the public but protect people's privacy, that's the delay right now. You know, you want to use these cameras. As soon as you put it on, you have increased accountability, and you have better interactions between the police and the public.

CUOMO: Right.

LANIER: Just the fact that you have the cameras. You already have an interaction between folks. The big debate right now is, is there's really not any efficient way to redact these videos so you can share them openly with the public. Now...

CUOMO: But the only time you want them, Chief, is when something goes wrong. You know, it's not like people are asking to see everything. It's just when someone dies or is beat down in a way that raises concerns, why wouldn't -- from your side why wouldn't you want that out there? Because it will show what you believe your officer did that was right, and it will show everybody who's scrutinizing it what happened overall?

LANIER: No, actually, I want it all out there. I think the more video we can make available to the public, the better off we are. So I want the broadest distribution of video that we possibly can grant the public. So I think if there's a way to redact this video so we can protect people's privacy, all of it should be made available. That's the point.

But I don't think you should scuttle the program while we're trying to figure it out and the technology catches up. Because I tell you, we see it already. Once you put those body cameras on, the interaction between the police officer and people in the community is already improved. Because everybody acts a little differently when they're on camera.

CUOMO: Right. So -- but this sounds like, you know, it's getting spun like you have concerns about this; you're worried about it. but don't you -- ultimately, you see this as a good thing, right, body cameras, not a bad thing?

CAMEROTA: I think it's fantastic. So I think it's one of the best technologies that have been brought to policing. But we have to make sure that we don't get so over-zealous about putting this camera video out in its entirety that we violate people's privacy.

You know, we have laws in the District of Columbia that protects juveniles' identities.

CUOMO: Right.

LANIER: And protects -- and protects non-involved parties from disclosure. And if we're just putting out every video that we have, everything a police officer sees will go on YouTube, and everybody will see it.

So we just have to be thoughtful about it. We have two roles here. We have to protect people's privacy and also provide public safety and accountability. So you've got to make sure you cover both.

CUOMO: But when you see these big flashpoint situations, whether it's Ferguson or what happened in Baltimore, if the cops had body cameras on, you would know almost from jump what happened, when and why. And it would have made a fundamental difference in both those situation, don't you think?

LANIER: I do. I really do. I mean, everything that's being caught on camera at one point or another, but the body camera gives you start-to-finish interaction. That's the independent neutral party that we want. And so I think that the body cameras are a good thing. We've just got to be thoughtful about how we, you know, share this video with the public. I think there is a way to do it. It's just we need to let that technology catch up.

CUOMO: Chief, appreciate you being on NEW DAY. Good luck in your work down there.

LANIER: Thank you.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. Saudi Arabia's new king reportedly giving President Obama the cold shoulder. King Salman was scheduled to meet one-on-one with Mr. Obama and attend a summit with fellow Arab leaders at the White House and Camp David. But all that changed abruptly in a move some say is pushback for Washington's Iran policy. The Saudi king says he canceled to oversee a temporary cease-fire in Yemen.

PEREIRA: Homeland security chief Jeh Johnson saying we are, quote, "definitely in a new phase" in the fight against ISIS, admitting that the U.S. has been slow to fight the terror group's strong use of social media.

CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins us with the latest now to get ahead of it.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

Well, it is the new normal. Military bases now on a higher state of alert. More worry about lone-wolf attacks. Federal law enforcement trying to track ISIS followers in the United States online more closely, trying to figure out how to do it. And as you say, the secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, talking a lot about this. I want you to listen to part of what he's just had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[07:15:16] JEH JOHNSON, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Because of the use of the Internet, we could have little or no notice in advance of an independent actor attempting to strike. And so that's why law enforcement at the local level needs to be ever more vigilant. And we're constantly reminding them to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: One of the issues that federal law enforcement says they're facing is this ISIS use of social media, of being online, means they are recruiting new people and then asking them, essentially ordering them to attack all at the same time, doing it all online. They never have to meet. They never have to see each other. That's what the U.S. is dealing with now -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Barbara, thank you for the reporting. Appreciate it.

All right. I want your take on this situation. OK. So there is this graduation going on. There's a little bit of a problem with people getting dismissed before the valedictory was made. The principal gets up to say something, and this is what is said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You people are being so rude to not listen to this speech. It was my fault. Now we missed it in the program.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are walking off.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at who's leaving, all black.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right. Now, obviously, the concern is that this was a racist remark. And again, if people were leaving, they were dismissed accidentally.

CAMEROTA: What did she say?

CUOMO: She said, "Look at that, it's all black people."

PEREIRA: Houston, we have a problem?

CAMEROTA: Yes. She says, what part did she say it's all black people? That...

CUOMO: People who were leaving and not sitting back down. She dismissed people too early, before the valedictorian got up to speak.

CAMEROTA: Before she got up, yes.

CUOMO: So now she wants everyone to sit back down, but people are leaving.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: And she's like sit down, sit down. They're not listening. She says, "You're rude." And she's like, "And look at that, all black people."

Now, she says she apologized and says that God has forgiven her. And it wasn't a statement of racism, just frustration.

PEREIRA: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. In other news...

CUOMO: It doesn't cut the mustard?

PEREIRA: Oh, there is no mustard.

CUOMO: Doesn't cut the mustard. And that God has forgiven her. I mean, you've got to get right with yourself, I guess. But I think you have to worry about everybody else's feelings, as well.

CAMEROTA: Let us know what you think about those comments. And Michaela will read them.

Meanwhile, more on the new phase in the fight against ISIS. Is the terror group really so savvy on social media or is the U.S. just lagging behind?

CUOMO: Osama bin Laden being taken out was the biggest thing to happen since the war on terror. But is everything we think about it false? There's an explosive new article that says just that. We're going to take you through it, and we're going to have the guy who wrote it on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[07:21:34] SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: I see it the way the director said it. and I think it is kill, kill, kill. And it is putting the lone wolves in a position that's never happened before, that has never been in before. And that is, you know, "You do it. We take credit for it."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was senator Dianne Feinstein explaining how social media allows ISIS recruiters to motivate lone wolves in the United States. She and other lawmakers saying the has propelled the U.S. into a new era of terror.

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS," and he joins us now. Fareed, nice to see you this morning.

Let's start by talking about what happened this weekend, where military bases in the U.S. went to a higher security threat level. What was that about? FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Well, you know, it

was very puzzling, because they said there was no specific plot or threat that they were -- that they were motivated by. But they still had a very specific response, which was to put the bases on alert. So my guess is they probably heard something on the Internet. In other words, there's some kind of chatter that they picked up. And this is a part of this new world we're dealing with, where it's very difficult to know what's out there in the ether of this vast and ever growing Internet.

CAMEROTA: Did it seem to you that something shifted with the perception of ISIS here in the United States after the Garland, Texas, attack? The attack was foiled immediately; the security guards shot the two alleged ISIS-connected attackers.

However, it was after that that the FBI director came out and said, actually, there are thousands of people here who are followers of ISIS.

ZAKARIA: I think what happened is that they realized that what ISIS was going to do was not direct, not planned, not even motivated these kind of attacks, but ISIS simply had created an environment in which crazy there were some wackos who could sort of self-start up, almost entrepreneurs. And that those kind of guys, if you look at what websites people are looking at or videos people are looking at and what videos people are sharing, exist in the thousands.

Now, what we don't know, are these people who just revel in the gore and brutality of those videos? Are they ideologically motivated?

You know, the key here, and we talk about in this documentary we're doing tonight, is that ISIS has figured out the Internet. By which I mean, they figured out that there are a few thousand of these jihadis out there in the world. But how do you get to them? Well, you need to have these videos going viral, get seen by tens of millions of people, to find those 0.1 percent.

It's like a direct marketing campaign. You know, when we got those...

CAMEROTA: Mailings, yes.

ZAKARIA: ... mailings, the letter in the mail, you'd get the Publisher Sweepstakes or whatever. Everybody always knew. Only 1 percent of people responded to those. That's why you have to send it to lots of people.

So ISIS has figured out a way to send these videos to lots of people. Make them brutal, make them shocking, but make them very well-produced.

CAMEROTA: So you're doing this documentary tonight called "Blindsided" about ISIS. Do you feel that U.S. law enforcement has been blindsided by the scope and the reach that ISIS has shown?

ZAKARIA: I think it was blindsided in two ways. The first is this one we've been talking about, which is the way in which ISIS has mastered the Web. It has figured out how to reach these -- you know, these handful of people in various different communities but who collectively add up to thousands of people.

[07:25:10] And they've learned how to use the Web to get stuff viral, to -- you know, attract those people in France, in the United States.

The second piece we were blindsided by is just how weak Iraq was. Because ISIS's real strength, if you think about it, was that not only was it active in Syria, but it was able to then move into Iraq. And when we were -- I argue the great mistake was not that we didn't understand how strong ISIS was, but we didn't understand how weak Iraq had become. The Iraqi army collapsed, if you remember, in one day.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And the Iraqi army is now some of the people who are the military commanders in ISIS.

ZAKARIA: The old Iraqi army, Saddam Hussein. That's a fascinating point that we -- that we highlight. We think of ISIS as all about religion. And obviously, there's a lot of it that's about religion. But the backbone, the military backbone of ISIS, the general, the people commanding the military strategy, are all Saddam's generals and colonels. This was the old backbone of the Ba'athist army, which was, of course, completely nonreligious. For them it's just a way of getting back into power.

CAMEROTA: I'm always torn when we talk about ISIS on the show, which we do a lot, because there's a lot of news about ISIS. Are we giving them too much power in the media?

ZAKARIA: Look, it's a fascinating phenomenon. It is something that we have to understand, because it's part of the modern world. It's the flipside of many of the good things about the world, so more numbers of people can have a big impact that you can connect with everybody around the world. Those things can be positive, but this is the dark side of it.

So I don't think it's a mistake to focus on in it, to understand it. Now, you can exaggerate how powerful they are. And we always try to give context. These guys are not going to be able to take over the United States. They do not pose an existential threat to America. But as somebody interested in the news, I mean, it's fascinating.

CAMEROTA: It is fascinating. And it's always great to talk to you, because you give such great context. Fareed, thanks so much.

And don't forget: tonight on CNN, you can learn more about the origins of ISIS and the group's goals; and when and how the U.S. realized it needs to fight back. "Blindsided: How ISIS Shook the World" airs tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Thanks so much.

Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn, Military bases across the country right now on high alert thanks to ISIS. We're going to speak with the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee about why the threat is elevated and what it means for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)