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Church Massacre Suspect Behind Bars, Due in Court; Search for Escaped N.Y. Inmates Goes Cold. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 19, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:52] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY. We are live in Charleston, South Carolina, just blocks from the scene of the church massacre.

Dylann Roof is suspected of gunning down nine people. This afternoon, the 21-year-old is scheduled to appear in court, as investigators try to trace where roof got his gun.

And so, for more on that part of the story, we want to bring in CNN's Nick Valencia.

Nick, lots of conflicting reports about where he would have gotten his gun.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, competing narratives, did he get it on his birthday? Was he given money to get this gun? Either way, he has this guy. He used it.

Yesterday was spent trying to figure out where he was, finding him. He was spotted 250 miles north of here in Shelby, North Carolina.

Today, Shelby, will focus on who this person is, what compelled him to carry out this attack against nine innocent people and exactly where he got the gun.

CAMEROTA: There are lots of information coming in about his background. His old -- his roommates describe him as a heavy drug user, a pill popper. He was arrested for drug possession.

Does any of that play into the gun narrative?

VALENCIA: Well, certainly, it's something investigators will look at. He was arrested for trespassing in a mall. He had prescription pills that he didn't prescription for, for something that was used for people that have a dependency for heroin.

So, of course, the drug abuse, the comments, the recent comments that he made to his roommates. "New York Times" and "Associated Press" both reporting that he had made some very strange conversations recently, comments recently, racist comments, rants about segregation. So much that according to "The New York Times," the roommate took his gun away, but he had a probation violation, didn't want to get in trouble, so the gun was given back, according to this report, to Dylann Roof.

Where he got that gun? That's going to be the outstanding question. That's going to be where investigators focus on this morning.

CAMEROTA: All right. Thanks for the reporting.

VALENCIA: You bet.

CAMEROTA: Keep us posted on that. Nick Valencia, thank you.

Let's get back to Chris in New York for us.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: A beautiful sunrise, giving you a different feel than the mood in that city right now.

And someone very affected by what happened in South Carolina is President Obama. He's calling on the country to enact tougher gun control measures in the wake of what we saw in that church massacre. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've had to make statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times. We don't have all the facts, but we do know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: That's the simple part, understanding how this happened. What you do about it, not so simple.

To weigh in, CNN political commentator and the host of "The Ben Ferguson Show", Ben Ferguson, and CNN political commentator and host of "Huff Post Live", Marc Lamont Hill.

Let's start with the context of why the guns become relevant. Ben, do you see this as a hate crime?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I do see it as a hate crime. I see this also as domestic terrorism. I see this as a horrible tragedy by a sick individual that obviously had no problem sitting with people, praying with people, and then killing them. This is one of the most heinous crimes we have ever had to talk about. It's awful.

CUOMO: All right. Sick. Not necessarily mentally ill. We don't have any proof of that. You can take drugs and not be mentally ill and you can certainly be hateful and not be ill.

Marc Lamont Hill, so that's the backdrop. That's what it is. The question becomes, why did it happen? He's a white supremacist, he's a diluted, hateful individual, and he had an opportunity. The opportunity part of it was the gun.

Make the case for why the gun is relevant enough to deal with on a policy level.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, whenever you have a national tragedy, it's important to respond at the national tragedy at the policy level as well. Some people say you don't play politics now. No, now is the time to deal with policy, not in a way that compromises our ability to respect and honor the dead, but in a way that allows us to prevent it from happening again. That's what is happening right now.

President Obama saying, hey, wait a minute. This is a great time to have a conversation about guns, at the same time, he's waving the white flag saying, look, nothing is going to happen, Congress is too weak. We don't have a political will for this. This is a challenge.

I will be the first to say, I'm not sure reasonable gun control, which is what I support, would have stopped this from happening. He didn't have an AK-47, he had a .45.

[06:35:01] Even if we've given him background checks, he probably could have gotten this from his father. So, I'm not saying that this is a Sandy Hook situation which was entirely preventable with reasonable gun control.

CUOMO: We have split reporting.

HILL: Yes.

CUOMO: We have split reporting here as to whether or not he used birthday money to get the gun or his father gave it to him. Recent brushes with the law don't qualify.

HILL: Right.

CUOMO: Vetting about drug abuse is not on the books in South Carolina.

So, background check is a defined term and doesn't mean much in that particular state. Does that bother you on a policy level, Ben Ferguson?

FERGUSON: I don't. The reason why, I think the laws are appropriate. If you are a felon, a convicted felon, if you have committed a heinous crime, you do not have the right to go out and purchase that weapon.

But the reality is, here, if you do get busted for some sort of drugs you have, whether it be prescription drugs or even marijuana, should you lose your Second Amendment right to own a gun? The answer is no. You do not lose that right.

There are a lot of people, every day, make mistakes. It doesn't mean you lose your rights.

And the bigger issue is this, this is -- and I agree with Marc -- this is not where I think a gun control law, even if it were passed would have stopped this from happening. If you ban .45s, which is what we believe this gun to be, would you ban a .40 caliber or .9 millimeter, or .357, or a .38?

I mean, all of these issues are, this was a basic gun and you could get rid of this caliber, there's still another one.

And the reality is, we don't know how he got it. We don't know if his dad bought it, we don't know if he bought it with his own money at the age of 21. So, I don't think jumping into a political debate about gun control would have changed any of this.

HILL: The debate is still important. As Obama said, I have done this too many times. This is at least the 14th time he had to respond to a massacre. As he said, no other nation has this happening. We also have the loosest gun control laws.

There is some correlation between the fact that people have so much to access to guns and people dying. We have to take that seriously.

CUOMO: Right. Help us understand, Ben --

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: This is a -- let me say this.

CUOMO: Go ahead.

FERGUSON: I think this is an important point to make.

What bothered me yesterday about the comments from President Barack Obama is, if you want to challenge someone on gun control, don't talk to the Republicans, talk to the Democrats who also have not pushed this through.

The president had the opportunity to act on gun control in his first two years in office. He had the votes in the House and the Senate. The Democrats were the ones that said we don't want to go there. And Democrats, when they were in control of the Senate as well, after we had another tragedy with guns, they also chose not to act on this.

So, you can act like you want to blame the GOP --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: The problem is, the GOP -- not really, but the Twitter right trolls --

FERGUSON: The Democrats refuse to deal with it.

CUOMO: -- are saying the president hasn't done anything on this. You would agree that's not true. He has tried to do things on this. His own party didn't help him, and it didn't get done.

FERGUSON: I don't think he pushed it hard. If you look at the record of what this White House has done, they have not -- hold on. This is -- you have to look at the votes and look at the agenda.

The president could have used and spent a lot of political capital to push gun control laws right when he became president and after tragedies, they chose not to do it. Saying something in front of the podium is completely different than having a policy decision to push for it.

CUOMO: Final point.

HILL: The problem with that analysis, Ben, is that you're lumping the legislative branch with the executive branch. The president did push it through. Five months after Sandy Hook, he's saying, I can't believe we have done nothing. There is shame is on us in Washington because we haven't been able to do this.

It's Democrats and Republican in red states that didn't push it through. You can't blame the president for that.

CUOMO: But you also wind up -- let's just button this up. Unfortunately, we'll have more occasions to have this conversation.

Where you two agree is really the saddest statement, which is the state of jurisprudence on the Second Amendment does not allow meaningful gun law change, that is in the type that President Obama wants, and the political will isn't there. And when people are polled, they don't want it either.

So, Michaela, as we go back to you in Charleston, there's a lot of talk about the gun and why this happened and we the bar graph where the United States has so much more gun violence than everybody else, but it doesn't seem to be the legal, political or social will to do anything about it.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. Well, it's so interesting to have these conversations while the place is trying to heal. But it's important, that healing has to happen alongside the work being done to change why this kind of thing is happening. So, we're going to take a look, again, at this case -- the case against the alleged Charleston gunman. It would appear by all accounts to be open and shut. However, a league challenge could stand in the way of hate crime charges. We are going to explain that, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:43:43] CAMEROTA: Nine people shot and killed in a cold- blooded attack at a church in Charleston. Police instantly called it a hate crime. Prosecuting it that way could pose a challenge. South Carolina is one of five states that does not have a hate crime statute.

Joining us now is CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin.

Sunny, thanks so much for being here.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Sure.

CAMEROTA: So, South Carolina doesn't have a hate crime stature. But it is a death penalty state. So, what does it matter how he'll be prosecuted?

HOSTIN: That's right. The confusion is because they immediately started calling it a hate crime. That is because a witness clearly said this man said he wanted to shoot blacks. So, it was obviously racially motivated. In a hate crime case, you have to prove it's racially motivated.

CAMEROTA: But are they prosecuted differently? Are hate crimes prosecuted differently from mass murders?

HOSTIN: Certainly, the standards are different from first degree murder to hate crime, because in hate crime, you have to prove that it was racially motivated. But it doesn't really matter in this case, because we are talking first degree murder times nine. That is actually, in my mind, an easier case to prove than a hate crime case.

And so, this is a death penalty state. I have no doubt this will be charged as a death penalty case. I think the real issue is whether or not the federal government will get involved and possibly prosecute under a hate crime statute.

[06:45:00] CAMEROTA: My point is that, beyond a statement of a hate crime, what benefit is there to prosecuting -- for prosecutors when it's called a hate crime?

HOSTIN: I think intent is always very important for jurors. And so, you know, if you are going to argue, as a defense attorney, that this is mental illness, you want I think a prosecution that is very strong on intent. And so, his intent was to kill black people, racially motivated. That can be helpful.

But again, you have a witness. This is not a whodunit. Everyone knows he did it. And so, you know, nine counts of first degree murder I think is sufficient.

CAMEROTA: Let me read some of the descriptions that have come out about the gunman. He was withdrawn, unemployed, shiftless, high school dropout, a heavy drug user, he was arrested for heroin constitute, introverted to the point of reclusive. His roommates said he would spout crazy, racist rants.

This is the type of person who makes good on those threats.

HOSTIN: You would think. And I think that's what's so interesting. So many people are now coming forward and talking about this guy, and saying that he had all of these problems, but they thought they was joking. Well, obviously, he wasn't joking.

And, you know, the question as to whether or not police could have done more, police can't really do anything if its citizens were not reporting this kind of behavior. And so, you know, unfortunately, I don't know that anything could have been done to avoid this, at this point.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I mean, that's what's troubling. He was sending off warning signals. He was doing it online. He was doing it to his roommates. He was arrested for trespassing and saying strange things in a mall. That's where he was found with the drugs on him. And yet, of course, we don't have the manpower to constantly monitor someone like this.

HOSTIN: Well, one thing to mention is along the lines President Obama talked about, which is gun control. Had he not had a gun, would we be standing here talking about this?

CAMEROTA: We wouldn't be.

HOSTIN: I don't think we would be.

CAMEROTA: However, what could have been done. If his father, one of the theories is his father gave him a gun for his 21st birthday in April.

HOSTIN: Well, he had a felony charge. And so, felons, certainly pending a charge, are not allowed to have guns. And so, under some statutes in Charleston, if it's true his father gave him the gun, his father is open to criminal exposure up to ten years. And so, you don't give people that have this type of behavior, this type of background access to guns.

And so, if it is true his father gave him the gun, then I think we start looking at parenting 101. If you are going to give a gift to a 21-year-old, why not give a car, why not give a watch? Why would you give someone a loaded handgun?

CAMEROTA: If it's not true his father gave it to him, if it's true, he went and bought the gun, you are saying that that felony charge he had for drug possession and trespassing would have, should have popped up?

HOSTIN: It should have prevented him from getting his gun.

I think the other thing we need to mention is, Pinckney, Pastor Pinckney, who was murdered here, was trying to move through legislation, a lot of bills that, I think, would have led to gun reform and would have led to background checks on people being able to transfer, for like mental health checks. That didn't happen here. So, we do need to talk about gun reform.

CAMEROTA: And as we know, Pastor Pinckney was talking a lot about violence here and what could be done to stop it.

HOSTIN: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: Sunny, thanks so much. It's always great to get your expertise.

HOSTIN: You bet.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's go back to New York and -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. So, we do know that authorities were able to catch this suspect Charleston shooter after just a few hours. You have to contrast that with what's going on in New York with the two murderers remaining on the loose. We are going to take a look at why this case, catching that guy was so easy and this one is proving so difficult. They are very different, but the goal is the same.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:52:57] CUOMO: The deranged man responsible for the Charleston church massacre captured in North Carolina, sent back to South Carolina all within 24 hours. Good.

A much different picture than what's going on with these two killers, now into weeks, the third week trying to find them.

CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director, Tom Fuentes, joins us now.

Tom, even I know there are obvious and material differences in these situations that made capture much more easy in South Carolina. Let's break down how these two manhunts work. With South Carolina, you had video, you had a vehicle and a lot of engaged citizenry in a compressed time period.

Was that the magic formula?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANLYST: Well, that's true. I think it was, Chris. And, you know, you say an engaged public, but it was a public that knew what to look for, that knew the description of the car, the license plate number of the car. So, when you have miss dills driving down the street and sees the car in front of her face and then makes calls a couple of phone calls to verify that, it was a much better situation for someone on the street, a member of the public to actually identify the person, identify the vehicle and call it in and get the police there to stop the car.

CUOMO: So, then, really let's make the pivot to the manhunt in New York and why it's not getting done. Because it is easy to look at delay and see it as ineffectiveness. Is that a fair criticism?

FUENTES: I think it's a fair criticism. We don't know the exact circumstances of the escape. We know that they popped out of the manhole cover about midnight on Friday night a couple weeks ago. Beyond that, we don't really know.

Everything that's been said about the case has come from Joyce Mitchell. And we have no idea if she's being honest. We have no idea if the subjects were honest with her when they described what the plan would be and how they would get out.

And we certainly have a lot of questions of how they made the escape from the cell to that manhole cover.

[06:55:01] You know, if she brings a couple hacksaw blades and drill bits, that's not going to cut through concrete and steel.

So, it certainly would appear to investigators that someone else, with power tools, had to have assisted them. It would have been difficult to bring those power tools into their cells.

So, the next question is, did someone cut to them? Did someone come from outside their cell and cut the wall into the cell? We don't know, and that's still under investigation.

CUOMO: Do you think -- we don't know, that's true. Do you think they don't know? If not, isn't that a little frustrating because it should be a pretty closed community of people they have to squeeze for answers.

FUENTES: Well, we don't know how many contractors worked in there, how many other employees, correctional officers. So, it's a large community of people with access to that prison and working in it, especially the ones that are not correctional officers, they are coming in for construction projects and other issues.

If, in fact, it is true that Joyce Mitchell provided phones for them, including her own phone, we don't know what other contacts they had, what other friends they had, what other arrangements they made in the actual escape itself our of the cell, out of the jail and out of the area, after it happened.

CUOMO: Do you buy into the theory, when you don't catch them in the first 24 to 48, then it's likely you don't catch them for weeks and months?

FUENTES: No, because it depends on the circumstances. We have a lot of jailbreaks where somebody goes to the infirmary with a headache, overpowers the doctor or nurse or one o two guards and runs out the door, or, you know, jump over the fence.

We have a lot of escapes where they are not planned and the person just takes the opportunity to run out the door, finds themselves outside the wall, maybe in the middle of a town or jail wondering now what do I do? In that case, authorities can go to their friends, relatives, parents or do the manhunt in the woods. And it's a little bit easier because there was no plan for the escape. It was just a sudden impulse on the part of the inmate.

In this case, it's obvious, they had an extensive plan, probably in the works more than a year. In this case, you would think that they had an additional set up plan for what they were going to do once they came out of that jail.

CUOMO: All right. Tom Fuentes, thank you very much.

This story is all about the unknown. We have South Carolina, which is about understanding what is known.

There's a lot of other news this morning. So, let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was motivated clearly by race, but also to inflict fear on a community.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roof said he was in the church to shoot black people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This tragic act meets all the standard definitions of terrorism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are communities trying to live and survive. Why do we have to live like this?

OBAMA: Now is the time for mourning and healing.

GOV. NIKKI HALEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: We are a strong and faithful state.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you can't be black in the church, where can you be black in this country anymore?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not weep like those who have no hope. Our hope is in God.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. I'm Alisyn Camerota live here in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Maritime Center. This is the spot where police and officials have been briefing the media.

Michaela Pereira is just a few blocks away. She's at the Emanuel AME Church. That, of course, is the scene of the crime.

And Chris is back in New York covering this and other headlines.

But, Chris, you can imagine how heart broken this community is this morning. That's what you feel here, just a tremendous sense of sadness about why this killing spree would happen at a prayer meeting. So, this, Chris, as the suspect will make his first court appearance this afternoon in South Carolina.

CUOMO: All right. The murderer did not fight extradition. That's why he got back so quickly. He was more than 200 miles away in North Carolina, as you said.

The massacre of nine black church goers leads to a lot of questions, not just about this kid, but about race and the definition of terrorism. We'll get into those.

CAMEROTA: Yes, all this, Chris, as we do have details that are emerging about the suspects troubled past and indications that he may have been planning such a hate filled attack for months.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REPORTER: How are you feeling?

REPORTER: Why did you do it?

REPORTER: How did you feel?

CAMEROTA (voice-over): Behind bars this morning, alleged mass murderer, Dylann Roof, accused of killing nine people at an historic African-American Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

This cell phone video captured moments before the carnage shows roof sitting at a table with a small bible study group. The 21-year- old inside for an hour before opening fire with a .45 caliber pistol.

One of the survivors pleaded with the gunman to stop.

SYLVIA JOHNSON, FRIEND SURVIVED S.C. CHURCH MASSACRE: After the young man tried to stop him from doing what he wanted to finish off.