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Helping Veterans Heal; Police Taunting Caught on Camera; Is Race More Than Skin Deep? Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired June 17, 2015 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:18] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here we go with your five things on this Wednesday.
At number one, police in New York again expanding that search area for two convicted escaped convicts. We have just learned the Clinton County district attorney is going to hold a news conference later today regarding that prison break.
Tropical Storm Bill downgraded to a depression overnight, but not before dumping rain on water-logged Texas for nearly 24 hours. The lone star state still under a threat of severe flooding for the next few days.
Donald Trump heading to New Hampshire, hosting his first town hall after launching his presidential campaign Tuesday with trademark bluster, attacking his Republican rivals and the president.
An update now for you on the back to back shark attacks off North Carolina's coast. Sixteen-year-old Hunter Treschl, pictured here, who lost his arm, he's speaking out, saying he didn't see it coming and he saying he's going to try to live a normal life.
Golden state's long basketball drought is over. The Warriors beating the Cavs 105-97 in game six to win the NBA title. It is that team's first championship in 40 years. My goodness.
For more on the five things to know, be sure to go to newdaycnn.com for the latest.
Alisyn.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Michaela.
Well, a young Iraq War veteran trying to help other vets heal their physical and emotional wounds using sports. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has this week's "Human Factor."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's Brian Taylor Urruela's job to motivate others as a personal trainer. But not long ago, the 29-year-old need motivation himself. In 2006, Urruela was in the army, stationed in Iraq, when his Humvee hit two roadside bombs. He survived the blast, but his right leg was severely injured. BRIAN TAYLOR URRUELA, U.S. ARMY VETERAN: My leg was completely
useless. I would never run again, never bike, never swim. We fought for two years. I had about 10 to 12 surgeries to try and fix it. They suggested elective amputation as an option.
GUPTA: After amputation surgery, Urruela had a tough time adjusting to civilian life.
URRUELA: I was planning on a 20 year career, and that was over. That's when the PTSD just hit me hard, started just trying to drink the pain away. I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live anymore.
GUPTA: He got counseling. He hit the gym and started volunteering.
URRUELA: Took kind of the focus away from myself.
GUPTA: Urruela and two other veterans were inspired to start the nonprofit Vet Sports.
URRUELA: We help veterans transition back into civilian life through team sports and community involvement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's basically a support system. I know the guy to my right and my left has my back, just like on the battlefield.
GUPTA: It's a camaraderie that heals.
URRUELA: And I'm finally in a place where I'm genuinely recovered and happy.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I mean you've got to love it. And not just because the man just jumped on a 30-foot box with one leg, but it's because of what he's show about strength inside and how they're all coming together. An amazing story.
All right, when we come back, resisting arrest in the extreme. We wanted you to watch this video and show what it means not just for the cops but for the people who are taking this video. What does this video mean about what's going on with policing in America today? We debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:37:34] CUOMO: All right, now we've shown you a lot of video of police and whether it's right or wrong what's going on, all right. We're going to show you one now that really strikes at the core of issues about what police are dealing with. This involves cops in Nashville and a group of teens during a recent arrest. Watch what happens to them and watch how the cops have to respond. And think about what you would do and what the job of policing is all about. Here's a little look at the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) stop (INAUDIBLE) making me (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guys, back up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hell, yes.
We ain't going, man. We got it all on camera.
CUOMO (voice-over): Cell phone video reveals Nashville Police Officer Kelly Cantrell and partner Nicholas Kulp trying to arrest this man, 18-year-old Tondrique Fitzgerald, wanted on an outstanding warrant for violating probation as a juvenile.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This ain't Ferguson. We ain't going.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't say you had to go far. You all just need to back up a little bit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, this is my home (INAUDIBLE) right here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's fine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) as long as you all don't put your hands on (EXPLETIVE DELETED) (INAUDIBLE).
CUOMO: The officers are confronted by the suspect's friends, who begin taunting them while recording the whole thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They ain't going to do nothing to you, bro. We right here. We don't give a (EXPLETIVE DELETED). We'll take their bullet.
CUOMO: When the group of teens challenges the officers to shoot, they both remain calm, even as Fitzgerald resists arrest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, she going to have to shoot you --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Back up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Back up. Move on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you're going to have to shoot. We ain't (EXPLETIVE DELETED) going.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got that gun, that badge. They got the right, don't they?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
CUOMO: At a time of heightened frustration surrounding police conduct and distrust of local authority, these officers are being applauded for not escalating an already tense and potentially dangerous situation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CUOMO: I'll tell you, you could even argue with the way I framed that at the end of the story, that these officers are being applauded for not escalating the situation. How about what they just had to deal with?
Let's bring in law enforcement analyst and retired NYPD Detective Harry Houck.
You make this point a lot.
HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes.
CUOMO: It's one of the reasons that you're solo today because this is something that you're often arguing constructively in a different type of situation. We tee-ed (ph) this story up earlier in the show by saying we're going to show you video, see if not the
police were using excessive force.
HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: I don't even think it's a question as to what the cops were doing.
HOUCK: No.
CUOMO: What is this a window into for you?
HOUCK: Well, I'll tell you, I'm really glad we're finally showing some good video like this here, you know, where the officers were really restrained in the way they reacted to that crowd. Now --
[08:40:06] CUOMO: Because you're saying this is highly representative of what happens on a regular basis.
HOUCK: This happens all the time, all the time, and especially in the inner city, all right? This has happened to me hundreds of times when I made arrests out this there and it's still going on now and it's more pervasive now because of the rhetoric that's out there that's -- all the anti-police rhetoric. These officers here should have actually called for a backup. That one female officer, she had to keep the crowd back and, you know, a lot of times these kids will listen to a female officer more than they will a male officer, believe it or not.
CUOMO: Why?
HOUCK: I don't know why. Maybe it's a male/female thing. But it seems that maybe they don't think a female officer is as dangerous to them, so, therefore, they won't attack. But I've seen this time and time again. This is how useful women are in law enforcement for things like this.
That other officer had to -- had to basically take that person and put him into the rear of the car by himself until she came around to help him, while she's still keeping that crowd back. They should have called for a backup, had another backup come because at any time that crowd could have attacked those officers. If that kid decided he wanted to run, we would have had an ugly situation on our hands.
CUOMO: Now, there are two different aspects to what's going on there. One is, what the kid with the cell phone is, all the trash he's talking to the officer.
HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: That's something that a professional just had to deal with.
HOUCK: You've got to deal with that.
CUOMO: He's a punk kid. He can say whatever he wants. But you, as the cop, you can't -- you can't return fire --
HOUCK: No.
CUOMO: Excuse the expression, the way a normal person would, right?
HOUCK: Right. Exactly.
CUOMO: Because a lot of times cops do that.
HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: They get susceptible to what's begin done to them.
HOUCK: But what you've also got to do, is you've got to perceive that there's a potential threat there right now also. You don't know if that kid's going to come at you or the other kid's going to come at you. You know, when it's a one-on-one, it's different.
CUOMO: But you have to assess it. Talk's not enough, right, Harry?
HOUCK: Right. No, you -- right. You have to assess what's going on. And that's why these officers should have called for a backup. The whole thing is, they have the element of surprise. The police officers don't.
CUOMO: Right.
HOUCK: They've got to wait for them to react first before they can react. And that's what makes this situation a very dangerous situation.
CUOMO: Now, the second thing is, the force they use to affect the arrest. HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: You talk about this a lot.
HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: And very often, you know, the questions are testing on the other side. This one, could you make the case that because they're on video and they're very sensitive to the scrutiny --
HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: They're not using the force that they needed to, to get this done as quickly as they should have?
HOUCK: Well, I think the fact is they could have done some -- some more force -- some more force on the street, getting him in the back --
CUOMO: Because he's fighting them. He doesn't want to go in the car.
HOUCK: No, he don't want to go in the car.
CUOMO: He's showing off for his friends.
HOUCK: And even one of his friends says, get in the car. Let it go. All right. But you see -- I mean they could have used a lot more force to get him into the rear of the car and that's what made this a very, very dangerous situation here, Chris.
CUOMO: And when people see this, the reaction is going to be, well, that's what cops are supposed to do. Why are you treating this like they're going above and beyond the duty. This is the duty.
HOUCK: This is the duty. This is what police officers deal with every day. And the whole thing is people don't realize this. You know, all they see is the bad things. This is what cops have to deal with every day, especially in the inner city when they make an arrest.
CUOMO: But I think this is the bad thing, Harry, because there's an assumption that the cop comes on the scene, if you don't do exactly what they say right away, they beat your ass. You know what I mean? That's -- that's the assumption that we come into a lot of this video with. Oh, see, he didn't want to get in the car, which is wrong --
HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: But then, look how he kicked the guy on the curb or look what they do. So what's the difference between a situation like this and a situation like that?
HOUCK: Well, you get different situations. Each situation is different in a way an officer will react. The law says a police officer can use whatever force is necessary to affect an arrest. It doesn't mean you can't kick the guy, it doesn't mean you can't punch him in the face, doesn't mean you can't hit him with a night stick, but once the handcuffs are on, it's over.
CUOMO: But it also shows -- it shows the risk, you're right --
HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: But it also shows the standard, which is, you're a pro, you have to deal with this. You're not dealing with people at their best. You're dealing with them at their worst.
HOUCK: Right.
CUOMO: And it shows both sides of it. But it's an instructive video.
Harry, thanks for being here for it.
HOUCK: Thanks for having me.
CUOMO: Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: OK, Chris.
Former NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal creating a big stir, saying she identifies as black even though she was born white. So, what is race? A debate you don't want to miss, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[08:47:34] RACHEL DOLEZAL, FORMER PRESIDENT, SPOKANE NAACP CHAPTER: Well, I definitely am not white. Nothing about being white describes who I am. So, you know, what's the word for it? You know, I mean, the closest thing I can come to is if you're black or white, I'm black. I'm more black than I'm white.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: The firestorm over former NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal who identifies herself as black, despite being born white, has prompted big questions about race itself and whether a person can identify as a race different from their own.
Let's discuss this with Charles Blow; he's our CNN political commentator and op-ed columnists for "The New York Times." And Tim Wise; he's an anti-racism writer and activist and author of "Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority."
Gentlemen, great to have you here for this conversation that has not stopped since this story of Rachel Dolezal became public. You heard her. She says, I'm more black than I am white. That's how she identifies herself. What's the problem with that, Charles, in your mind?
CHARLES BLOW, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, I don't know if it's necessarily that self-identification becomes a problem on its face, right, that people have a right to present themselves however they would like physically. There is a difference, I think, kind of in a lot of the other language she's used about appropriation and about owning the white - the black experience -
CAMEROTA: You think she's appropriating it unfairly and obviously through deception.
BLOW: Well, there's deception. I mean, forget about fairness and not fair (ph); let's just talk about lying and telling the truth. This is, at its base, an issue of a person who has just lied about -- not just this -- but a lot of things and creating an entire back story. And in fact, the entire concept of owning the black experience is not - This is not even something that's available to other people. Rachel can take that weave out and remove the makeup or stay in out of the sun, as she put it, and revert to the privilege of being white in America, right?
CAMEROTA: Sort of. Sort of. Though, she says that she has owned the black experience and she has lived it. She's not just masquerading -- It's not just her hair and her skin tone. Let me tell you what she's done. Tim, I want to bring you in. She went to Howard University, a predominantly black college, she married a black man, she has black children, she teaches African-American culture at a college, she was the president Spokane's NAACP, her friends and colleagues thought she was black. So she has lived an experience different than a typical white woman.
[08:50:01] BLOW: Right. Typical, right - But - But she also lived it with an out clause. That's all I'm saying.
(CROSSTALK)
TIM WISE, AUTHOR: "DEAR WHITE AMERICA" AND "COLORBLIND": I went to preschool at a historically black college childhood ed program. That didn't make me a black child growing up in Nashville. I worked in almost all black public housing in the city of New Orleans. I wasn't a resident there and I wasn't black and I wasn't poor. I've done civil rights work and anti-racism work for 25 years, but would never claim that I was black.
The problem with identifying with blackness is not the problem. I do that. I think those of us who try to be allies connect to blackness as a politic, as a culture. But the folks who helped co-found the NAACP, who were white, many of them, also would have said that. But when you claim to be black, you're doing more than connecting to the culture; you're claiming an experience.
And so last November she wrote an article in a magazine or newspaper up there in the Pacific Northwest talking about the Black Lives Matter movement and she said, we had hoped - "we," using the royal "we" -- We had hoped that the toil of our ancestors would have protected our children. Whose ancestors? Her ancestors were in Czechoslovakia. For her to say that raising black children makes her black is like me saying that because I've got two daughters, I know what it is to be a woman. That's absurdity.
CAMEROTA: Got it. So you think that's it's - So basically, it's the deception that makes everybody so upset. But let me ask you this, Charles: What do you think about the Caitlyn Jenner analogy? That Caitlyn Jenner identify -- Bruce Jenner identified as a woman. He became Caitlyn Jenner. For the most part, the country has accepted that even though he has a different chromosome than women, but he was on the cover of a magazine. Is there such a thing as transracial, as she is suggesting?
BLOW: First of all, I had never heard of this term, so I had to look it up. The only context that I saw where it even made a little bit of sense was in the content of interracial adoption. But the idea that this is the same as transgender -- I don't believe that that's true. One reason that I don't believe it's true is it is not available to everyone, right? So in the --
CAMEROTA: Why not? Why isn't it available to everyone?
BLOW: Right. No one - Black - It is not washing both ways. You can't pull this glove inside out. Whiteness in America has traditionally been incredibly narrowly defined and that was enforced by legislatures, it was enforced by police officers, it was enforced by judges, all the way up to the Supreme Court and we narrowly defined it to protect it from pollution, you know, and so --
CAMEROTA: So you're saying -
BLOW: So only she could -
CAMEROTA: White people can become black, black people can't become white. Is that what you're saying?
BLOW: I think starting from her lineage and moving into blackness in the way that she did is possible. The deception is possible because blackness has always been defined very broadly because anybody who wasn't 100 percent black, who wasn't 100 percent white, was moved into the category of identifying as black -
(CROSSTALK)
CAMEROTA: So Tim, you have to have dark skin to call yourself black?
WISE: Absolutely not. No, it has nothing to do with that. There have been plenty of light-skinned black folks who are indeed not only ancestrally black, but live in a black experience. For more than - I mean, keep in mind, this is a woman who has claimed to be black and been living as black since about 2007. So she's eight in black years. I would suggest to you that the average eight-year-old black child actually still knows more about what it is to be truly black than she has.
But let me just say something about the Caitlyn Jenner refence. This is very important. This is so not the same. Caitlyn Jenner is not lying when she says that she is a woman. The only lie was when she had to pretend to be a man because of this society's transphobia all of those years. And there is actual scientific evidence that there are both hormonal and brain differences in transgendered people. It's a true scientific thing. This thing called transracial is made up. CAMEROTA: Is it? I mean, because what's interesting is that some
people believe that there is not a genetic link necessarily for race and that it's geographical, that's it's more - your genes are -
WISE: Oh, I agree with that. Race is not genetic.
CAMEROTA: So in that case - I mean, in other words, if we're going in the medicine route --
WISE: Race is not genetic.
CAMEROTA: Race is not genetic. So what is race then, Tim?
WISE: It's experiential, it's cultural, it's historic. What makes a person whatever they are - I'll give you the example. You know, back when Tiger Woods first burst on the scene, remember, he said he was Cablanasian. He didn't want to identify with just one part of his family. And on the one hand, that's great. People should be able to self-identify.
But let's not forget, when Tiger Woods got in trouble for what Tiger Woods got in trouble for, I happened to go on some of those sports chat boards and nobody said, well, you know, this running around with women, that's just what Cablanasian men do. All of a sudden, he was black again. In other words, race is what the world sees you as and even though the world may have seen her for seven years as a black person, she lived the rest of that time -- when she was at Howard, she knew she was white. That's why she sued them for reverse discrimination. So she's white when she wants to be.
CAMEROTA: Hold on - We have to leave it there -
BLOW: Can I just say this?
CAMEROTA: Very quickly. Go ahead.
BLOW: Very quickly. Think of it this way. Race is not a concrete biological construct, but racism is a very absolute and real sociological construct. I think you have to look at this whole conversation in that way. And the science around this does not support, at this point, any idea of transracial as a scientific process.
[08:55:15] CAMEROTA: I mean, what I hear you both saying is people should be able to self-identify but not be deceptive about it.
BLOW: Right.
CAMEROTA: So that is just the beginning of a fascination conversation. Charles Blow, Tim Wise, thanks so much for having it.
"The Good Stuff" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: Did you hear about this? A young mother in Maine needed a kidney, so she paints a request on the back window of her van. That was just what she was able to do. So Christine Royals (ph) was then placed on a waiting list; a hundred thousand people long. I mean, you got to look into it for yourself. It's a big deal trying to get an organ. So she decides to take the search into her own hands. Local corrections officer, Josh Dall-Leighton, he sees the message on her car and he says he knew exactly what to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEY DALL-LEIGHTON, WIFE OF MAN WHO DONATED KIDNEY (voice-over): He knew from the moment he saw that message he had to do this and he's continued with that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[08:59:55] CUOMO: That's Josh's wife. The donation was almost called off. Listen to this. There was a GoFundMe page established for Josh, raised so much money, the hospital officials were afraid it violated rules against paying for organs. So the money is going to be donated. The surgery took place.
PEREIRA: Beautiful.
CUOMO: It's just a good reminder to be an organ donor and save a life like Josh did.
