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New Day

Calls Increasing for Texas Police Officer to Be Fired; The War Against ISIS. Aired 6:30-7:00a ET.

Aired June 09, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Calls are increasing for a Texas Police Officer to be fired after he was caught on video slamming a 14- year-old girl, the one in the bikini to the ground. It happened in a small town in McKinney, following a disturbance at a pool party. That officer Corporal Eric Casebolt also pulled his gun during the incident. He's been placed on administrative leave.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Community leaders in Cleveland taking the Tamir Rice case into their own hands. They planned to use an obscure Ohio law to sidestep prosecutors and go straight to a judge. The goal, murder charges against two officers involved in a 12 year old's death.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The drug net for those two convicted killers who escaped from a maximum security prison in upstate New York now stretching from Canada to Mexico. Authorities investigating whether Richard Matt, David Sweat had help from inside prison or outside. Investigators questioning a female prison employee as a possible accomplice.

PEREIRA: All right. After all that grimness, we need a dose of cute and here is it. Don't let the innocent face fool you. This tiny dancer you're about to see is full of sass.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Whoa. Come on, now.

CUOMO: Even the girls are looking at her.

[06:35:00] PEREIRA: And you can hear dad say that's my baby. This is Joanna, she's from Oklahoma, stealing the show at the dance recital, channeling her inner Aretha. She dances to the classic R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

CUOMO: She's got good feet. But the magic is up top.

PEREIRA: Oh, right in the middle.

CAMEROTA: The shimmy shake and the finger. Come on, now.

PEREIRA: The end is the best part, I think. Wait for it. Come on now. Her dad posted the video on Sunday. Clearly has already gone viral. From 20 million views already. Just the kind... .

CUOMO: There it is.

CAMEROTA: That's what I'm saying. That's the part that I love. I do like the finger. That helps. You got one of those at home, don't you?

CUOMO: I was helping you on that. I have a high bar. I got crazy kids dancing all over my house all the time. You have to do something to impress us. It's impressive.

PEREIRA: You both have a couple actors at your house.

CUOMO: Good interpretation at that dance. High marks.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Speaking of ruining things, the weather is not going to be good. How do we know? Well, because there is a severe thunderstorms and the man on the side of your screen tells us. Meteorologist Chad Myers, what do you see?

CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: If you see me on the TV, there are bad things that are going to happen. I know, I understand that. But yesterday, we told you about the severe weather. It was 140 reports of wind damage yesterday. 143, hail, 54, about the size of quarters, all over the eastern half of the country.

A lot of trees down this morning. If it's still dark in your area, make sure you watch out for limbs and trees on the ground. Rain showers in parts of the southwest from Blanca, the storm that moved across Baja, California. And now making rain in a Delhi of the sun. There'll be a few scattered storms today, mainly upstate New York and across parts of the great lakes. Other than that, we look pretty good. Although we are warming up. Here comes summer. Yes, there are summer showers across the south. But things warm up rapidly here, all the way to 91 Raleigh for Wednesday and even for you up in New York city, 90 degrees.

And that's hot in the city of all that asphalt and concrete. That's a hot sticky day there. Guys.

PEREIRA: That is hot. Yes.

CAMEROTA: We'll take it over rain. Thanks so much, Chad. While Iraqi forces are planning a major military offensive to retake Ramadi from ISIS. And CNN has rare access to their staging base. So we will bring you that exclusive inside look, next.

CUOMO: And we have a nostalgia alert the '70s, when greatness grew up. And brown and patterns were everywhere. We are getting a sneak peek at CNN's original series "The Seventies." Take a look.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The '70s, awakened us and polarized us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 1970s saw the development of terrorism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bombshell after bombshell after bombshell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watergate scandal broke wide open today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the 1970s, more, more hair, more naked people, more misbehavior.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The world is getting crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The culture of evolution exploded and kind of fascinating chaos emerged.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of what was going on, people came home and they wanted to laugh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One picture taken with Archie Bunker. One, two, three.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a period for discovery for a lot of people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My only defense was, it was the '70s.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dynamite.

[06:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right. It's time now for a CNN exclusive. There's a lot of talk about the fight against ISIS, but very little chance to see what is actually happening until now. Senior International Correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh made it to the front lines. Here is the report.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, central to Barack Obama's discussion with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi at the (D7) was the faith of Ramadi that fell for ISIS just weeks ago. Now, we got as close as we could to that ISIS held city with the Iraqi military. They took us to their stronghold military base called (Havani). And even though that is where the forces are supposed to be amassing, they are still under great pressure from ISIS.

Along edgy road leads to the Iraqi base (Havani), the closest the military has taken western television towards Ramadi since it fell to ISIS. Huge, sprawling. It's meant to be where soldiers and Militias both Sunni and Shia are amassing to retake Ramadi from ISIS. They are told they are mostly deployed outside.

And here, it is the Iraqi army, along the northern edge of their base in a vicious front line with ISIS along the river. ISIS have blocked a dam upstream to lower the tides and help them attack. Minute by minute here. The situation can change and that river bed, very much the front line. They have been using water from the lake to keep the levels high. But still, as you can hear, ISIS is very close.

They see and watch ISIS daily, but say they are overlooked by coalition air strikes. They are supposed to give us some support now from warplanes. He says, we are in control of the ground. What we need is air support.

[06:45:00] Here, caught between the ISIS towns of Ramadi and Fallujah, they face 1,000 ISIS, they think. But here, he sees only a few with long beards and a flag here. Soon, ISIS fire back. This is what happens when you poke that snake.

They lead us out. This, the Iraqi army's stronghold where they speak of readiness and glory to come yet seem busied by an enemy, far too close. An important thing we did learned from that visit is exactly what the group of fighters who are supposed to be leading the Ramadi are. As military, there are Shia fighters, too. We are also told there are some Sunni fighters. Anbar is a city.

Now, we were told that on paper, they are 2,000, but in really only 500. Washington they want a large Sunni force to take on ISIS there. Doesn't look like they are going to get it. Back to you.

PEREIRA: What an incredible look Nick gave us. Thank you for that. Another bombshell report slamming the TSA. Dozens of workers hired despite having terrorist ties. Does the airport security needs to be completely overhauled? We are going to discuss that next.

[06:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Well, the TSA is taking it on the chin, again. A new report revealing the agency failed to identify literally dozens of airport employees who somehow were able to get hired even though they have links to terrorism. Joining us to weigh in on this report and other issues plaguing the TSA, CNN Aviation Analyst and Former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo. You can hear the smile in my voice. It's just a rarity to have you with us in person. Live and in color, what a delight, Mary.

MARY SCHIAVO, AVIATION ANALYST: Thank you.

PEREIRA: All right. So given what you have done, you were up involved in litigating and investigating the 911 attacks. How troubling is this report to you?

SCHIAVO: Well, it was very troubling. Because the entire country and like you say, I was involved in litigation for 11 years to investigate and sort out what happened. And we would have thought we learned these lessons. We are repeating some of the same things again. This report points out that TSA and congress bears some of the fault. The TSA has to trust the airport to do the background checks, which is really ridiculous because they don't have the incentive to do it. And that's why we get some of these huge failings. So the TSA isn't actually doing all these background checks, the airports and airlines are.

PEREIRA: So they are making the assumption that is getting done. But the fact is, the TSA doesn't have access to the terror watch list. That does not make any sense at all to me. SCHIAVO: It makes no sense and they don't have the right to

collect social security numbers. They don't have that clearance under the privacy act. And once someone is cleared, until now, this is in the inspector general's report, they didn't have the right to do a follow up check. So if somebody got a job and then joined ISIS for example, the TSA couldn't go back and do checks.

PEREIRA: Oh my goodness.

SCHIAVO: And...

PEREIRA: You are completely headstrong.

SCHIAVO: Right. They are relying on self-reporting. We know how that works.

PEREIRA: But was this ultimately came out of money? Was this one of those budget cut restraint kind of situations?

SCHIAVO: Oh, Michaela, how right you are. Yes. The - to do a full background check, the cost between $2,000 to $3,000 per employee. It's very expensive. You know, if you are going to unleash the full power of the government to find out about backgrounds, the cost between $2,000 and $3,000 per employee is very expensive. You know, you are going to unleash the full power of the government to find out about people's background, it's expensive to do that.

So the airlines and the airports were allowed to do it because it was much, much cheaper. And the airlines resisted doing it and doing any full background checks for some of their workers.

PEREIRA: I want to show you some of the details that were left on the biographical records. It is - I mean, it's shocking 1500 names, record contains first initials instead of the person's names. 75,000 had no passport number. 87,000 had no social security number. I mean, I don't understand how this would happen and be acceptable.

SCHIAVO: Well, it happens because the TSA was forced to trust the airlines and the airport. And that's the situation we were on September 11, 2011. Not to mention by the way now the number 4,800 people were hired and they found out they couldn't prove that they were legally here at all.

PEREIRA: Well, I mean, as to that last week they found out that 95 percent of so-called "red teams test" which when an undercover agent tries to smuggle in weapons or explosives, they fail that by 95 percent. But acting - the TSA acting chief has been removed. So now that I have done my complaining, let's go to how do we fix it? I mean, is it time for a complete TSA overhaul? Do you think?

SCHIAVO: It's time for a real scrub down at the TSA. But it's time, it sounds odd but it's time to give TSA a few more power. One, they have to have the power to have these full backgrounds and to have social security information.

PEREIRA: That makes sense. SCHIAVO: And they have to have the power to site, and if

necessary, close an airport or close an airline if they don't comply with security. It is so vitally important that the system is blinking red again. There's so many threats. The FBI asked for local police to help them catching terrorists. And so if they don't comply, they are going to have to shut them down. They do that once, people fall in line.

PEREIRA: So you know, we looked at what happened with the secret service. And we know that the head of that was forced to resign. We see the acting chief of the TSA has been ousted. So when the head goes, you know, things will change. But is this a culture that also needs to change?

SCHIAVO: It is a culture that needs to change and they need to support people who get tough on these lapses. On these horrible - because they put us all at risk. And Americans go through tremendous things at security check points and then we find the airport workers don't.

PEREIRA: I was just about to say that. I mean, we have to take down to the bare minimum, and yet, they - that doesn't register to most of us.

SCHIAVO: And when the TSA gets tough with an airport or an airline, remember 400 airports get to do it themselves. And if they have to close an airport, congress has to back them. We can't have members of congress and senators then pressuring the TSA to let it go.

PEREIRA: So the airlines really are also responsible here?

[06:55:00] SCHIAVO: They are. And remember, we have, at almost all airports, entries gates to work with. They don't have to go through security. And so that has to close, too. Every person, every time through security.

PEREIRA: Do you think they are going to pay attention now?

SCHIAVO: I certainly hope so. Because we have every indication that it's very serious. The threats against airports is higher than ever.

PEREIRA: Mary Schiavo, as grim as it is, I'm glad you walked us through all this. Thank you so much for being here and really a delight to have you in person. Isn't that great?

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

PEREIRA: Give us your take, I'm sure you have some opinions about this, you can tweet us using #newdaycnn or you can go post your comment on facebook.com/newday. Chris?

CUOMO: All right. Mic, a lot of news right now. Let's get to it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's when I started filming. He is going crazy putting people in handcuffs, attacking people, slinging them to the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I complete support him drawing his weapon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guys like this, they have just nothing to lose.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Officials questioning a female prison employee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they planned it for a long time. They know what they are doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're constantly evaluating how we are going to increase and ramp up the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We don't have a complete strategy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd like to see the incomplete strategy. I'd like to see something.

ANNOUNCER: This is "New Day" with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CAMEROTA: Good morning everyone, welcome back to your "New Day." Up first, breaking overnight, hundreds of protesters taking to the streets, demanding a Texas police officer be fired after he was caught on that video tape pulling a gun on a group of teenagers, and slamming one girl to the ground following a pool party fight.

CUOMO: The officer was placed on administrative leave once the video surfaced and there are new important developments and two other police involved shootings. Let's get our covered started with CNN's Nick Valencia live in McKinney, Texas. Nick?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. Fresh calls this morning from community residents who are still outraged after Friday's incident. They want Eric Casebolt the McKinney police officer in the video from Friday's chaotic pool scene to either resign or be fired. We were there last night when hundreds took to the streets to protest what they called police brutality and excessive force.

But even still, the majority of residents in that subdivision about 45 minutes north of Dallas said that they supported the Officer's actions and that he was justified when he upholstered his weapon. I spoke to one teen who said it was not about race. Others, though, including a young man who captured the video on his cellphone believes it wouldn't have happened if these teens were not Black.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was one of the only White people in the area when it was - when that was happening. And you can see in part of the video where he tells us to sit down. And he kind of skips over me and tells all my African-American friends to go sit down. VALENCIA: Today, (inaudible) was one of the African-American

teens there at the party she believes she was targeted. She says when Casebolt upholstered his weapon it's a moment that she will never forget.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just because you say sorry, it can happen again. He hit me in the face when I tried helping the girl. And then when two more guys tried helping the girl, he pulled his firearm out. The only thing was I did not run away because I was frozen.

VALENCIA: There are two competing narratives with some in that community saying those teens got out of control. And it's because of that that police were called. Others believe that race played a factor in this and that officers lost control of the situation. Meanwhile, McKinney department, police union I would say releasing a statement saying that the officer's actions were absolutely not motivated by race. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK. Nick, so interesting to hear from the kids involved in that. Thanks for that. Well, now to developments out of Cleveland. Where community activists are taking the Tamir Rice case in their own hands. They are planning to take advantage of an obscure state law in Ohio to bypass prosecutors and go straight to a judge. They want to see murder charges against the two officers involved in the 12 year old death.

Former South Carolina Police Officer Michael Slager has been indicted for shooting an unarmed Black man in the back. After a traffic stop in April, Slager has seen on video firing eight times at Walter Scott as Scott was running away from him. The officer was fired almost immediately after that video surfaced in cases in prison if he is convicted.

CUOMO: This morning, the manhunt for two killers who escaped from a New York prison gets scarier. The search now extends from Canada to Mexico. It's seems clear that these murders had help and authorities have a major lead in that department. So let's get to CNN's Polo Sandoval live in New York with the latest.