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New Day

New Video of Capitol Attack; Three Indicted in Arbery Case; Doses Set to Expire in Philadelphia; India's COVID Explosion; Navalny Appears in Court. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired April 29, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:33:15]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Newly released police body camera and surveillance video shows the chemical sprayed assault of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and others during the January 6th riot. The videos were obtained by CNN and provide graphic new details into how a tense standoff between Trump supporters and law enforcement deteriorated within seconds and injured the officers.

Whitney Wild, part of the team that's broken so many angles on this story, joins us now with the very latest.

Whitney.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a really important moment. This is the moment that the Department of Justice feels like was critical and when the police line broke and these rioters were able to overtake police and eventually flow into the Capitol.

So here is what we know about this new video.

They were previously shown in court and the Justice Department says that, again, that they revealed this moment that Officer Brian Sicknick, who we know later died, and other officers were attacked with a chemical spray. And we do want to warn you that you may find some of these video disturbing.

In this first video, which has been slowed down by DOJ, you can see the officers are engaging rioters who are attempting to pull metal barricades away from the police line. Then Officer Sicknick and others are sprayed with a chemical irritant.

Then they go to a wide shot. Prosecutors say you can see defendant Julian Khater raising his arm to spray the faces of three officers who are just feet away. And prosecutors went through great detail with these videos in court, even showing multiple angles of this alleged incident.

But what it really shows is just how badly the officers reacted to these chemicals. This body camera video shows officers tending to another officer who had been sprayed with a pepper spray. Khater and his co-defendant, George Tanios, have been charged with 10 federal criminal counts. All of these are related to their participation in the riot and for assaulting these three police officers with the spray.

[06:35:01]

Both have pleaded not guilty. They are due again in court in coming days.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: What's Capitol Police, what are they saying about this?

WILD: Well, they're -- they're understandably upset that this video is out because they feel like this is, you know, extremely painful for any of the family members of these officers who have been targeted in this attack. And, truthfully they keep relieving what was really a very horrible day.

But they did send us this statement in which they, again, expressed their -- their disappointment. They said that, although the department acknowledges the public's desire for information, and understands the legal obligation for the Department of Justice to provide the videos, USCP leadership requested the videos not be released to safeguard officers and their families from being forced to relive that traumatic day.

And I think, you know, one -- viewers were critical of this decision for us to air it, may wonder if we're exploiting people's pain. And I just -- I want to stress that is never our intention. But people have to know how horrible that day was, how horrific it was. People really need to know what these officers went through, and we're committing to telling their stories.

KEILAR: Also because the truth of what they went through is being challenged.

WILD: Exactly. Right.

KEILAR: So that's -- that's part of the reason here.

Whitney, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

The Justice Department charging three white men with hate crimes in the death of Ahmaud Arbery. The 25-year-old black man was shot while jogging last year. And two of the men charged here had claimed that they were carrying out a citizen's arrest and were acting in self- defense.

CNN's Amara Walker is live in Atlanta with more here.

Amara, can you tell us the latest?

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Brianna.

So you have 35-year-old Travis McMichael, his father, 65-year-old Gregory McMichael, and a third defendant, William "Roddie" Bryan, who have all been indicted by a federal grand jury in the southern district of Georgia. This came down on Wednesday. And they've been charged with hate crimes and attempted kidnapping.

In fact, in that news release released by the Department of Justice, it specifically states that Ahmaud Arbery was basically targeted because of the color of his skin, stating that the defendants, quote, used force and threats of force to intimidate and interfere with Ahmaud Arbery's right to use a public street because of his race.

Now, just to refresh your memory, you may recall that video of that deadly confrontation that went viral during the middle of the pandemic of May 2020. It spread widespread outrage. In it you see 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery jogging through this suburban neighborhood wearing that white shirt there. This is in Brunswick, Georgia. He's chased down by three men, two men in a pickup truck, you see there on that video, the McMichaels. By the way, Gregory McMichael, the older one, is a former police officer. And a third person, who's recording that video, William "Roddie" Bryan.

You hear those shots ringing out there. But what they did was they chased him down in that pickup truck. The McMichaels cut him off as he's jogging. And then there's that physical confrontation between Travis McMichael, the younger McMichael, and Arbery, and then you see those gunshots ringing out. Prosecutors say it was Travis McMichael who used a shotgun to eventually kill Arbery.

And the defense has been by the McMichaels is that -- that they were conducting a citizen's arrest, as you mentioned, Brianna, and that they had suspicions that he had been involved in a -- in a series of burglaries in that neighborhood.

I do want to read to you some of the statements and reaction that we've been getting from all parties involved. Arbery's mother spoke with CNN, Wanda Cooper Jones, and she said she and her family are pleased with the federal indictments, saying that it's one step closer to justice. Also Ben Crump, the Arbery family attorney, in a statement saying that this is an important milestone in America's uphill march toward racial justice.

And we also heard from Travis McMichaels' attorneys in a statement saying that they're deeply disappointed, that the Justice Department bought the false narrative that the media and state prosecutors have promulgated.

Bryan's attorney stating that his client didn't commit a crime.

And just lastly to mention, all three have been charged at the state level. Some of those charges include felony murder. They've all pleaded not guilty and they are all behind bars without bond right now.

Brianna.

KEILAR: Such an important case.

Amara Walker, thank you for your report.

BERMAN: So, coming up, with apologies to Hamilton, one American city vowing not to throw away their shots in the race to get people vaccinated.

KEILAR: And India hits another all-time high for coronavirus cases and deaths. CNN is on the scene taking you inside the humanitarian crisis. We have a live report, next.

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KEILAR: The coronavirus vaccine rollout is hitting a wall of hesitancy. The weekly average of Americans getting shots is down more than 20 percent in two weeks.

And in Philadelphia, thousands of doses are about to expire, they're about to just go bad as city officials urges the unvaccinated to get their first dose.

Let's go live now to Philadelphia and bring in CNN's Polo Sandoval.

I mean we look at this. It would be an incredible waste, Polo.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It absolutely would, Brianna. You know, that number was from earlier this week and we do know that the city has been pushing really hard to actually get those doses administered. So it's very possible that by now many of those 4,000 doses have already been administered. So that number could potentially be significantly down.

But regardless of that, that is still certainly telling that Philadelphia still goes with those state and national trends, that vaccine hesitancy is up and demand is significantly down.

So, here, Philly has really been doing everything they can to make it nearly impossible to get a vaccine. This particular site in downtown Philadelphia here, it's a city-run FEMA-supported site. It actually stayed open for walkup appoint -- for walkup folks late yesterday and they plan to continue to do so, even offering free transit for people to get that vaccine.

A spokesperson for the city's department of health putting it pretty clearly here in a statement, writing, the city is encouraging all Philadelphians to come down to the convention center to be vaccinated. Everyone in Philadelphia is eligible. No line, no wait, no ID required, no insurance, no cost.

[06:45:03]

They're putting this out, Brianna, because this is a site that's been built to handle about 6,000 people a day in terms of vaccination. But now they're down to only a few hundred. So they want to get that number up, not only here, but really across the country. It's a big message. And this is a situation that municipalities just do not want to be in, whereas you just put it, they literally would have to throw out these vaccinations that would expire.

So, again, we do have reason to believe that that number, that 4,000 number, could be considerably lower right now. But, nonetheless, that push still does continue by the city of Philadelphia to get people vaccinated. A city of about 4.5 million people, only about half a million people fully vaccinated this morning.

Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Polo, thank you so much.

BERMAN: Coronavirus cases in the U.S., by the way, dropping pretty precipitously, but the crisis in India reaching a new level of horror. The government reporting a new global record. Nearly 380,000 new daily cases there and a single-day record of 3,600 new deaths. The actual numbers, though, believed to be even worse than that.

CNN's Sam Kiley is live in Delhi.

We want to warn you, a lot of what you're going to see here is disturbing.

Sam, why don't you walk us through what you're seeing.

SAM KILEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, John, I'm in the Sematory (ph) Cemetery in Delhi. This is one of a handful of cemeteries that are working almost round the clock.

I'll just get out of the way. Let's move the cameraman out of the way. This is wood supplies. We've passed -- we've had about six of these go past us in about the last 20 minutes as they are carrying wood to the piles (ph). You can see many of the dead here are waiting to be buried.

This location is just one in Delhi, John. They're burning about 150 people a day, often late into the night in contravention of a Hindu tradition when these rites are usually performed during the day. They've had to call in for extra supplies of wood because the death toll here is completely beyond anything they've been led to expect to be able to cope with. These are all the remains of human beings, human beings who have been unable to be properly mourned by their families and friends, who have been taken mostly, almost entirely, we're told, victims of the COVID pandemic that is rapidly coming to the stage of representing something that is almost biblical in scale here in Delhi because the figures of officially some 600 dead -- extra dead a day in Delhi.

But this is a sign of just how bad things have become, John. This is in addition to the crematorium. None of this existed before last week. It was all used as an extension so that people could get through the numbers of people who are passing away in as hygienic a way as they possibly can.

They -- there's another person coming through just now, yet another example, result of Narendra Modi's government here who, earlier in the year, amazingly, seems to indicate that they thought that India had reached a level of herd immunity. They'd been conducting political rallies all over the country, allowing massive Hindu festivals on the River Ganges, all of these super spreader events contributing to scenes like this, quite terrifying.

And this is by no means, John, the only crematorium in the city. And similar scale of problems have been seen in Maharashtra state, in -- in a lot of the other states around India where also the vaccination program has been halting. In Maharashtra state, they just announced yesterday that the vaccinations of planned for 800,000 a day had to go down to 200,000 a day because they simply weren't being supplied enough of the vaccines, John.

BERMAN: Sam, I don't know what to say. What you're showing us is heartbreaking. It's overwhelming, frankly. Everywhere your camera turns, we are seeing death at this point. It's difficult, I think, for us here in the United States to get a real grip on the scope, the scope of the devastation that you're seeing there.

Is this -- has this just completely overwhelmed daily life in India? Is it now everywhere you turn?

KILEY: Well, amazingly, there are areas of the country where the levels of infection are lower. And there's a proportion of population -- if the official statistics are to be believed -- and, frankly, I, for one, don't believe them, then India is well below the thoughts of levels of infections that we're seeing in the United Kingdom, the United States, right across Europe.

But this rather tells a different tale, doesn't it?

[06:50:00]

It is true to be said -- to said -- to be said, though, John, that the public health system is being overwhelmed. We have seen hospitals here running out of oxygen, running out of hospital beds. The incapability of the central government to provide enough oxygen has led to the United States to give $100 million worth of donations. The United Kingdom was first to send out extra oxygen and the capacity to produce oxygen. Lots of other countries are contributing.

But this, of course, is a nation that is a net exporter of the coronavirus vaccine. And the question, of course, for the Modi government is, why did you send it abroad when it was needed at home? The answer to that is, both commercial and political. He was genuinely of the view that India seemed to have somehow weathered the pandemic storm without a massive vaccination program. So that is due to get underway at the beginning of May. There are over four people who tried to register for vaccinations just yesterday, we understand. So there is a desperation. There is not quite the capacity but there is an understanding finally in India that vaccinations are the way forward.

But for those who have missed out, who have been attending these super spreader events, the (ph) contacted by others who have been infected at these super spreader events, then the result is not always dead, but it is profoundly deep sickness and illness. And it is the ill people, of course, who are so desperately being kept alive. They are going to be saved, a lot of them, by these donations from the international community. But it would be very interesting to see whether or not the political fallout for the central government here, who by any standard have failed to meet the basic needs of a country which is mired in poverty, but also has a space program.

John.

BERMAN: Sam Kiley, to you and your team, we thank you very much. I know this is hard to be in the midst of. I know this is hard for you to walk around and see all this death. We appreciate you showing us. The world needs to see what's happening there.

Thank you very much.

KEILAR: I don't -- like you said, I don't know what to say looking at that scene there. And what is so clear is that the government is not being honest about what is happening. We've heard that repeatedly from reporters, including our Sam Kiley. They don't trust the official numbers. They don't trust what the government in India is telling them. And vaccinations may be the way forward, but that is so far off to see the effects of that.

BERMAN: I don't know that I've seen anything like that before.

Again, I'm glad that Sam was there so we can all see what's happening. Something needs to be done.

KEILAR: Moments ago, Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny back in a Russian courtroom after nearly dying from a hunter strike in prison. See what happened, next.

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KEILAR: Just days after nearly dying from a hunger strike in prison, Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny appears at a court hearing overnight.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is live for us in Moscow with the details.

Fred, tell us what happened.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alexey Navalny appeared via video link. This was an appeal for a defamation hearing where he'd already been convicted before. And it really was quite remarkable to see Alexey Navalny for the first time since he survived that hunger strike. He did look extremely thin. He also had his head shaved. He was in a black prison uniform.

One of the things, however, that he did do, he had sort of a private moment -- or an emotional moment with his wife where he asked her to get up -- she was actually sitting here in the courtroom -- and take off her mask so that he could see her. He was clearly very happy about that. However, one of the things that he did do, he did seem fairly weak. He

did seem fairly thin as well. But one of the things that he did do is he then ripped into Vladimir Putin in his final speech. He also ripped into the judge as well. He essentially called Vladimir Putin the naked emperor, as he put it, accused him of stealing the riches of this country, called the judge a traitor.

Now, of course, very little surprise in all this is that the appeal was shot down by the court. The verdict was upheld.

One of the things that we've just learned in the past couple of minutes, in fact, is that there are now new charges against Alexey Navalny and some of his associates as well. So you can really feel the Russian state coming down almost like lead on Alexey Navalny, on his organization as well, guys.

KEILAR: All right, Fred, thank you so much for that report from Moscow.

BERMAN: All right, President Biden pushing to transform the government. Will it work?

KEILAR: Plus, new details on what the FBI found during their raid at Rudy Giuliani's apartment.

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