Return to Transcripts main page

New Day Sunday

Funeral for Slain Officer Today 11AM ET; Four Bodies Found Today in Java Sea; Senator Criticizes Move to Normalize Cuba Ties

Aired January 04, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: You're waking up to Sunday morning and we're certainly glad that you're spending some of it with us. I'm Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. Eight o'clock here on the East Coast.

PAUL: We want to begin in New York, friends, family, colleagues, all preparing right now to say good-bye to Officer Wenjian Liu in just a couple of hours.

BLACKWELL: Yes, this morning, Officer Liu is being remembered as a man who loved his heritage and loved his job.

PAUL: We want to show you the scene yesterday as mourners gathered for a ceremonial burning of paper and money. Now, this is a tradition considered a way to pay it forward to the deceased.

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in CNN's Miguel Marquez in New York.

Miguel, set the scene for us. I know we're still three hours out from the start of the ceremony, but are we starting to see the gathering of these officers we expect today, and what can we expect at the funeral?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's raining so I can tell you that throughout this neighborhood here in Brooklyn, officers are gathered at different places that happen to be open this early in the morning, getting ready for this funeral, and we expect to see in the same numbers that we saw last weekend for Officer Ramos, NYPD preparing for up to 25,000 officers to line the streets here in Brooklyn, all the way then to the final resting place for Officer Liu, 600 in the funeral home here, all of this against the backdrop of contentious times between the NYPD and the mayor.

Bill Bratton, the police commissioner, sending out a memo to officers that this is about grieving, not grievance, and then told them about turning their backs on the mayor last week, that that stole their valor, honor and attention, that rightfully belonged to the memory of Detective Rafael Ramos' life and his sacrifice.

Wenjian Liu, a seven-year veteran of the force, has just been married a couple of months ago and his wife, now widow, spoke lovingly, emotionally about him shortly after his death.

(BEIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEI XIA CHEN, WIDOW OF OFFICER WENJIAN LIU: This is a difficult time for both of our families, but we will stand together and get through this together. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Monsignor Robert Romano, who is the chaplain for the NYPD, will speak at the event today. The Mayor Bill de Blasio will speak, Police Commissioner Bratton will speak, and the FBI director is coming in from Washington, James Comey, he will be here and he will likely also speak.

It gets under way at 11:00. The long march to his final resting place and the ocean of blue here will happen around 1:00 and much of the time in the funeral home will be spent literally bringing food in for the deceased, in the Buddhist tradition, and also burning things in the funeral home, paper and cardboard mostly to signify the material things that his spirit will take into the afterlife.

Back to you guys.

BLACKWELL: All right. Miguel Marquez reporting there from New York for us -- Miguel, thank you so much.

PAUL: We want to talk with CNN political commentator Errol Louis. He's also political anchor at New York 1 News.

Errol, thank you so much for being with us.

Let me read something from the memo that we were just talking about from Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, asking the force not to turn their backs on the mayor. It reads, "I understand the emotions are high. I issue no mandates and make no threats of discipline but I remind you that when you don the uniform of this department, you are bound by the tradition, honor and decency that will go with it."

So, when you read that, do you think that officers today will respond differently to the mayor?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it remains to be seen of course but we've already seen some preliminary indications that there may be a different attitude this time, compared with the funeral for Officer Ramos. That memo really sort of cemented quite a lot of local commentary. There were some people who had been quite critical of the NYPD and the officers who turned their back on the mayor at the last funeral.

It really does violate sort of a tradition that, when you're in that blue uniform, you act ads one, and you put politics aside. And so, the individual members of course will do whatever it is they choose to. We've seen some suggestions online that there may be an attempt to sort of hold another demonstration today.

I mean, what really is going on is that once this funeral is over, what was asked for as far as a moratorium on political demonstrations will be over and we're right back to the politics of the reform of the department that so many have resisted so far.

PAUL: Yes. Well, some might say there are always going to be tensions between whoever holds the mayor's office and the police force. But knowing that tensions exist, how do both sides try to mend that divide?

LOUIS: Well, you know, they've tried to put a little bit of a good face on things by having the heads of all of the major police unions meet with the mayor privately at the police academy not long ago, a few days ago. And that I think was intended to sort of walk back some of the intensity of the politics, and hopefully today there will be another step away from the intensity of the politics.

But make no mistake about it, there is an unfulfilled contract. The police, the major police union has been operating without a contract for five years. The head of that union is up for re-election next year.

The mayor himself is engaged in quite a lot of politics. He has brought Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist, right into city hall and had him sit in meetings with the police commissioner while the cameras rolled, which set a lot of people off.

So, we're going to go back to seeing a big fight over that, as well as the underlying question of police use of force, you know, as soon as tomorrow and maybe even into today.

PAUL: So, beyond today when we talk about building better relationships with communities that police patrol, what would you like to see changed within the police force and within the community, to try to make that happen?

LOUIS: Well, you know, there are some things, I'd actually start by focusing on what doesn't need to change. We just ended the safest year since records were kept in New York City, fewest murders, fewest major crimes. There's a lot of good stuff that's going on.

At the time that Officer Liu was murdered, members of the precinct where he was on patrol, the 79th precinct, they were doing a Toys for Tots celebration, giving away toys for Christmas to 1,600 kids.

So, I think we have to sort of -- what I'd like to see is the voices of the folks nearer to the grassroots really sort of rise up. You know, police politics, city hall politics, that's one thing, but out in the community, where we actually work together to make the city safer, I'd love to hear more about that, and I think the media has its own role to play in getting more of those stories out.

PAUL: All righty. Errol Louis, we appreciate your insight as always, thank you.

LOUIS: Sure, thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right. Still ahead, the search for AirAsia Flight 8501 intensifies. Teams are finding more victims and debris. We're going to take you live to Indonesia where government officials believe they know what caused the plane to crash. You're going to hear their theory.

Also, her mother and father, her sister and cousin all died, but how did a 7-year-old manage to survive? You're going to hear her amazing story ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Ten minutes after the hour.

Now, we have the latest on another big story we're following this morning, the search for the wreckage and passengers of the crew actually and the passengers of AirAsia Flight 8501.

PAUL: We do know that searchers have just found another body off the coast of Borneo, the fourth body found today in the Java Sea and it brings the number of victims recovered now to 35.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Gary Tuchman is in Surabaya, Indonesia, where Flight 8501 took off a week ago.

So, this A320 was bound for Singapore we know, but never reached its destination.

Gary, you broke the news on air last hour that another body had been found. We know that the weather has really just made this much more difficult than it typically would have been.

Tell us about the search efforts today.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, one thing to keep in mind, Victor and Christi, Surabaya airport, one week ago today, you had 155 people walk into that airport, get ready to board a flight, many of them ready for a great New Year's celebration -- a lot of people in this country go to Singapore for medical treatment, and getting ready for holiday fun. It was one week ago today. Every day since a week ago has been horrible for these families.

Today is another bad day for families because the weather was decent. Everyone hoped, these families who only have the desire to get their loved one's bodies back, everyone was hopeful that divers would be able to go down and be able to see where the plane is. It's not that deep, the water, 100 feet deep. Divers can scuba down there.

And they do believe, the authorities here, that most of the passengers are still strapped in their seats in a plane that really hasn't broken apart that much. They got down there in decent weather and couldn't see anything. They couldn't see a little bit. Visibility was zero.

And the problem is, this is monsoon season in this country which the equator runs through, and when you have one or two nice days that's enough for the water to clear up. Everything gets mucked up. It rained about an hour and a half ago, tomorrow dry for much of the day, supposed to rain for part of the day again.

And you got to think, you can't be entirely optimistic that divers will be able to fulfill the duties they want to do. They have found five large pieces of wreckage, the largest being 60 feet long, that gives them the indication that this plane is not exploded in pieces and that leads them to know there wasn't an explosion in the air.

The belief now from a government agency is that the bad weather is a major cause of this. While the pilot was trying to avert the weather, he had engine failure because he got ice on the engines which resulted in a stall, ending the plane's life and the people's lives who were on the plane.

The feeling is they won't know until they get the black boxes, that's the likely scenario and that's the whole another problem, the pingers which indicate where the black boxes are, the batteries last for 30 days, now down to 23. We have no sound whatsoever of anything from the pingers. They can't see the boxes because there's no visibility in the water. They need to know definitively what happened to the plane.

It's a crisis center for the families where they get counseling, where they get information at this police station here in the town. The most important thing for them right now to get the bodies of their loved ones back and you still have 127 people who have not been recovered -- Victor, Christi.

BLACKWELL: Gary, 35 bodies have been recovered as we've said, 9 have been identified. What are we learning about those who have been identified thus far?

TUCHMAN: Yes, yesterday, one of the bodies identified was of a flight attendant. Now, another flight attendant has been identified, a male flight attendant, one male flight attendant and four female flight attendants. Two of the five flight attendants have been identified.

A possible scenario there is, although there was turbulence and we would imagine seatbelt use that is required for passengers it's likely flight attendants were trying to walk around the plane to make everyone feel like it was flight so it's likely flight attendants would get ejected from the plane first. The fact that two have been recovered so far might indicate that scenario.

In addition to that today, the body of the first child was recovered and identified and that's a 10-year-old girl, her name is Stevie (ph). She was traveling with three members of her family on vacation to Singapore, 10-year-old girl. We met coincidentally we met three days ago her cousin who was telling us he had six relatives aboard the plane. Yesterday, his aunt was identified, and today his little cousin, Stevie, was identified.

BLACKWELL: All right. Gary Tuchman there for us at the airport in Surabaya, Gary, thank you so much.

PAUL: And, of course, we hope for some sort of information for other families who are waiting.

We want to bring in meteorologist Karen Maginnis.

Give us the latest in terms of the search conditions there for those folks. We know the high waves you've got new video up are it's just so treacherous

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is, and today was supposed to be the improvement, and it was. The weather was substantially improved.

Unfortunately, there are just some conditions that no matter how much the wind dies down, you're still in the intertropical convergence zone. We're in monsoon season and there are windows of opportunity where the weather seems to be lighter. In fact, in the search area, it has improved.

Now just a little bit more research and as we go into Wednesday and Thursday, from what it appears, there is going to be yet another window later on in the week. We were hoping that Sunday would be improved. It is marginally.

But we are looking at a few showers across this region, some radar estimates are between one and two inches possible. So, there's still substantial activity taking place here, but we were expecting the winds to lie down just a little bit more, maybe instead of being 20, 25 miles an hour, 10 to 15.

This is fairly shallow water here, kind of a wind attitude. Where you see the yellow disappear, that means it's good. So in the search area, we've got quieter winds, so that allows those vessels both on the water and in the sky, maybe to grab maybe six or eight hours of a better opportunity.

But, Christi, I want to emphasize that this I had looked up, coming up later on in the week it looks substantially quieter. We'll see how that portends as we go through the forecast.

PAUL: All right, Karen, thank you so much.

BLACKWELL: North Korea is reeling over a new round of U.S. sanctions. But as Congress gears up 2015, some lawmakers do not think the Obama administration has gone far enough. We'll have a live report from Washington in our political gut check.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: North Korea is slamming the U.S. over new economic sanctions, key to the massive hack on Sony Pictures. An official statement from Pyongyang warns that, quote, "groundlessly stirring up bad blood against North Korea would only harden its will and resolution."

PAUL: So, let's talk with our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash, host of "STATE OF THE UNION."

Dana, good to see you. I understand you'll be talking with a key senator who has been pretty tough regarding North Korea. Yes?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It's Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey. He was, until a couple of weeks ago, the Senate Foreign Relations chair, because he's a Democrat, he will now be the ranking member, but he has been pretty tough, just as soon as we found out about the alleged North Korean hacking of Sony, he wrote a letter to the secretary of state saying that North Korea needs to be back on the U.S. list of state-sponsored terrorism.

So, we're going to ask them about that and a whole lot more, and we have a really good line-up coming up

BLACKWELL: So, what about the topic of normalizing relations with Cuba, because Menendez is a Democrat but he and the president are not in lockstep on this.

BASH: I am fascinated to see what he's going to say because you're right. He is of Cuban descent. He has been one of the most staunch opponents of any kind of normalization of relations with Cuba. And as I said, he was and is a pretty important figure when it comes to foreign relations in the Senate, and he was really kept in the dark on the president's moves to open up relations with Cuba.

So, he's probably going to be pretty tough on the president. We're going to see exactly what he says on that, because you know, the president made his announcement while Congress was in session, was in recess I should say.

Now, that they're going to come back, it is going to be in their laps. They are going to be the ones that will effectively decide whether or not there will be an embassy, whether or not there will be an ambassador, because they have to approve the funding for that. So, people like Bob Menendez, again, a member of the president's own party, will likely do his best to stand in the way of that.

BLACKWELL: All right. Dana Bash, thank you so much.

BASH: Thanks, guys.

BLACKWELL: Good to see you, Dana. Stay here for "STATE OF THE UNION" with Dana Bash, which starts at the top of the hour, 9:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

PAUL: I know this one is one we just cannot get away from, the small plane that crashes in the Kentucky wilderness. There she is, the 7-year-old girl who survived that wreck. It killed her parents, her sister, and her cousin. How did she walk away? We'll talk about it.

Also, jury selection is about to get under way in the trial of accused Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. We have details after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Thirty-six minutes past the hour.

Let's get you caught up with your "Morning Read".

BLACKWELL: All right. Let's do it.

Later this morning, friends and family will gather in New York to say good-bye to Officer Wenjian Liu. He was one of two police officers ambushed, shot and killed by a lone gunman. That was in December.

Yesterday, police lined the streets during his wake and today's ceremony is expected to include traditions from Liu's Chinese heritage including Buddhist monks. Of course, we'll have live coverage of the funeral. It starts at 11:00 and we'll cover today's events throughout the morning.

PAUL: Search teams, meanwhile, are recovering more bodies from the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 in the Java Sea. Four bodies have been found today. One was recovered off the coast of Borneo, indicating strong currents may be moving the victims and some of this wreckage here. Now, 35 bodies have been found thus far and 127 passengers and crew are still missing.

BLACKWELL: Jury selection in the trial of Boston marathon terror suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev begins tomorrow. The 21-year-old is accused of being a willful conspirator of mass destruction in a deadly attack that killed three people and injured 264 more in 2013. Defense attorney say he was controlled by his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed by police three days after the bombing.

PAUL: Investigators are expected to head back out next hour to this scene -- yesterday's fatal plane crash in western Kentucky. And take a look at 7-year-old Sailor Gutzler. She walked away from the wreck that killed her parents, her sister and her cousin. Figuring out how she survived could help make planes safer, when expert says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Sometimes, smaller children in the rear seats of the plane particularly if they're facing rearward, sometimes their back against the forward-facing seats that helps to brace the impact. That's not saying that's what happened here but it will be important for investigators to not only determine what caused the crash, but how this little girl survived because that might help others in the future make small planes more crash-worthy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right. If you weren't cold enough already, and we weren't, get ready to bundle up more. A brutal cold is pushing east threat nipping to bring what could be the coldest temperatures this winter. Minneapolis, Chicago, temperatures in the next few days could feel 20 to 30 degrees below zero.

PAUL: That's the key, below zero.

BLACKWELL: Yes, not just 20 to 30.

PAUL: Let's talk about sports. Carolina Panthers knocked the Arizona Cardinals out of the playoffs in an historic 27-16 wild card win. According to ESPN, the Panthers held Arizona to 78 yards, the fewest allowed in an NFL post-season game. I'll let this go to Victor who's sitting in his glory right now.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Christi.

In the second wildcard matchup, the Baltimore Ravens rolled over the Pittsburgh Steelers 30-17 to advance in the playoffs. NFL action continues today, Cincinnati Bengals face off with the Indianapolis colts at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Thank you, Pittsburgh. Enjoy the break.

PAUL: My goodness.

And stay here. "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King starts right now.