Return to Transcripts main page

LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Twelve-Year-Old Killed By Cleveland Police Holding A Pellet Gun; Legal Analysis; Shawn Parcells's Credentials Come Into Question; Good Black Friday Deals

Aired November 27, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: We now know what police in Cleveland didn't know when they answered a call about a guy in a park with a pistol last Saturday afternoon. What they didn't know is that the guy was actually a boy, just 12 years old. Even worst, they didn't know the pistol was a pellet gun, basically a toy.

So the question today is should they have known? CNN's George Howell takes a look. And I do want to warn you here, you will see a child being shot.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This video was recorded on a security camera in a Cleveland park. And it shows Tamir Rice moving in and out of view. Keep in mind, these are the last few minutes of this 12-year-old's life video his family want you to see. First, we see Rice pacing the sidewalk, brandishing what looks to be a weapon. At one point, even taking a two-handed shooting stance, all the while police say he was being watched.

ED TOMBA, CLEVELAND DEPUTY CHIEF: The gentleman sitting in the gazebo is the gentleman that called into our dispatch center.

HOWELL: Here's that initial call to 911.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sitting here in the park at West Boulevard by the West Boulevard Rec. Rapid Transit station. And there was a guy with a pistol, you know, it's probably fake but he's like pointing it at everybody.

HOWELL: In fact, the caller points out twice, the gun is probably fake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guy keeps pulling it in and out. It's probably fake, but you know what, he the scaring the--

HOWELL: Here's the clip that shows why the man called 911. The object that looks a hand gun, we now know is really a toy pellet gun. And Rice seems to point it at this person, whose identity is blurred. Police say he's also seen here reaching for his cellphone then having a conversation. Minutes later, Rice moves to the gazebo where he's now alone. He's just minutes before police arrived and now we know exactly what the dispatcher told the responding officers before they arrived. Notice how she never relays the information, that it may be a big gun.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody's tied up with priorities, there's a guy sitting on a swing pointing a gun at people.

HOWELL: A few seconds later, she described Rice but again, fails to pass along the words that 911 caller used about the gun probably being fake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the park by the youth center, there's a black male sitting on the swings. He's wearing a camouflage hat, a gray jacket with sleeves. So he keeps pulling a gun out of his pants and pointing it at people.

HOWELL: What happens next happens very quickly. Officer Frank Garmback driving and Officer Timothy Loehmann in the passenger seat.

TOMBA: The officers ordered him to show his hands and to drop the weapon and the young man pulled the weapon out, and that's when the officer fired.

HOWELL: In the dispatcher's audio, you can hear the officers (inaudible) called for help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Radio, Shots fired. Male down. Black male. Maybe 20. Black revolver. Black hand gun. Send EMS this way.

HOWELL: Even as they call for help, the officer still not understanding that they've shot a 12-year-old boy carrying a toy gun.

TOMBA: This is not an effort to exonerate, it's not an effort to show the public that anybody did anything wrong. This is an obvious tragic event where a young member of our community lost their life. We got two officers that were out there protecting the public that just had to, you know, do something that nobody wants to do.

HOWELL: George Howell, CNN Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I want to bring back my lawyers now, HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson and CNN commentator Mel Robbins. And before we go on, a warning, we're going to play one more time that surveillance video where Tamir Rice is shot.

If you don't want to see it, if you have children in the room, watch something else for just a moment. We think it's important to see just how quickly this fatal encounter takes place. The police car barely comes to stop before the passenger door flies open and Rice goes down.

So there we see it. We see it all take place in a matter of seconds, just a couple of seconds Mel Robbins. I'm going to start with Mel Robbins, I should say. The deputy chief says the officer in the passenger seat yelled three times for Tamir to show his hands, two seconds later he was dead.

Please tell me, how in a matter of two seconds are you able to give someone even the time to do what they asked him to do. Can you explain to me?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR: I can't. In fact, I was so incredibly upset when I saw this last night that I called Joey, and was in tears and could not believe what I was seeing. Because the fact is that there are just so many alternatives to the story. This is a child. The police pull up so quickly, Pam. They pull up within, what, 10 feet of this kid? This kid is walking toward the car after sitting at a picnic table for two minutes. He's a child with a gun.

It looks to me like he's pulling up his pants. There is no way that they were yelling three times. The door wasn't even open, the windows were rolled up, and the officer that was in the passenger side was shooting before he was fully out of the car.

This was an absolute -- it's not a tragedy. I think that it's a crime. I think that this is voluntary man slaughter, that this was an intentional killing that happened in the heat of passion that these officers had alternatives. I understand that there was false information but something's got to stop. And it's going to stop now because this is outrageous.

BROWN: It's just that you see this video and it's just hard to even to believe. Joe, I'm going to turn to you now, because as Mel points out they were not given the full story that was actually relate to the dispatcher that this could be a juvenile, that the gun may be fake. But assuming they thought the gun was real, assuming that they really thought this man was around 20, what should have they done? What could they have done differently?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: So much differently. And Mel Robbins, I mean, she was beside herself last night when this videotape came out. We had a legal discussion about it. And very strong opinions we have, but as the analysis on issue. First of all the information about this child potentially having a fake gun was not conveyed to the officers.

Under what circumstance if you're a dispatcher do you not give that information to an officer, number one, or number two, does the officer not asked for further information concerning what they are stepping into? That's issue number one.

Issue number two, Pam, is this. In the event you're an officer and you know you're going into a dangerous situation, why do you pull right upside of the individual who apparently has the weapon? Why do you do that? Number three, how do you say that you're giving someone, Pam, three warnings, put it down, put it down, put it down, when within two seconds this occurs? How is it probably or possible that that even occurs? Number four, what about a safe perimeter? Number five, what about the opportunity to allow the child to drop the weapon or give them a warning that he'll be shot before you open the door and kill him? And so, there are so many problems swirling upon this. It's disturbing, it's sickening, something has to stop. And finally, with respect to Mel Robbins' position here, that this is a crime, I mean, it's certainly appears to be from what we know.

And why do I say that? The Supreme Court has spoken on this issue and it's been the same for 30 years. Do you represent a threat to me of that death, number one, and number two, did I act reasonably? Under these circumstances, when they pull up and shoot someone, I'll let the audience be the judge of those two criteria. And there will be an audience it's called the grand jury. And they'll make that decision, but certainly, as it looks now, very disturbing.

BROWN: Very strong passionate opinions here. Thank you very much Mel Robbins and Joey Jackson. And back now to the fallout from the grand jury's decision not to indict a police officer in the shooting death of unarmed teenager. One of the men who helped at Michael Brown's autopsy might not be who he says he is. Why that could mean big problems for other cases. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As if there weren't enough questions, enough doubt and mistrust, surrounding the killing of Michael Brown. Now, new controversy surrounding the man who assisted on one of the autopsies on Michael Brown, and these questions could have serious consequences for other cases authorities thought were closed. Here is CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Pam, the Ferguson- Missouri case created a media star out of assistant pathologist. But a CNN investigation shows he may not be exactly what he appears to be. Out of the death and violence in Ferguson-Missouri this summer, a turn to be a media star for a man named Shawn Parcells.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHAWN PARCELLS, NATIONAL FORENSIC AUTOPSY: First of all I'm Professor Shawn Parcells.

COHEN: He dazzled with details on the private autopsy of Michael Brown.

PARCELLS: Two gunshot wounds to the head indicating that Mr. Brown was bending over as they were coming down at --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're back with Shawn Parcells who assisted in the autopsy of Michael Brown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now Shawn Parcells --

COHEN: Even here on CNN --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Parcells --

PARCELLS: Thank you. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.

COHEN: He has appeared in the media time and again as a forensic pathology expert. We know he assisted Dr. Michael Baden in the private autopsy commissioned by Michael Brown's family. Baden said that he was a good assistant. Parcells is not a doctor, we know he calls himself a forensics' medical consultant, a medical investigator and a professor. But is he what he says he is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you call yourself a professor?

PARCELLS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are you a professor?

PARCELLS: I'm an Adjunct Professor at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

COHEN: But that, as far as we could tell isn't accurate. We contacted Washburn University. They say, "Well, he has spoken to nursing students he's not now and never been an Adjunct Professor there."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Washburn University says that's not true.

PARCELLS: OK. I have a contract that state says it's true.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you show us that contract?

PARCELLS: I can.

COHEN: But he never sent us that contract showing he was an adjunct professor. He later said it was proprietary.

GRANT GILLETT, MISSOURI SHERIFF's OFFICE DEPUTY: I see him as a fraud. I mean that's the best word I would say describes Shawn Parcells to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Manipulator.

GILLETT: A very good con artist is a way I've put it.

COHEN: In Missouri, Deputy Sheriffs Grant Gillett and Dustin Jeffers say Shawn Parcells has performed an autopsy procedure in a criminal case without a doctor present.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So he introduced himself as a pathologist, as a medical doctor.

GILLETT: That is correct.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he seemed believable.

GILLET: Very well so.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean you two are both experienced law enforcement officers and even you were (inaudible)?

GILLETT: That's right.

COHEN: The deputies say without a medical doctor's signature on Robert Forrester's autopsy report, it's not valid.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been more than two years since the crime, can you move forward with the prosecution?

GILLETT: We cannot move forward at this time with that case at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why not?

GILLETT: Because the autopsy was not performed legally so we cannot use any evidence found from the autopsy in a court of law to be used, to prosecute any suspects on a case.

COHEN: That means according to the deputies, Bobby Forrester suspected of killing his grandfather was set free and he went on to beat up his grandmother. Shawn Parcells says, he never told the deputies he was a doctor.

PARCELLS: If they want to think I'm a doctor, that's their issue. People assume stuff all the time and they may never ask. It's bad that they're assuming and that they never ask.

COHEN: Parcells, who has a bachelor's degree, says he is supervised by medical doctors but sometimes they're not present when he performs an autopsy procedure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you do autopsies where there's not a pathologist or an MD anywhere in the room?

PARCELLS: At times, sometimes the pathologist is there and sometimes they're not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're not an MD.

PARCELLS: I'm not an MD.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But it's legal for you to be cutting out bodies, taking organs out, making observations.

PARCELLS: Yes.

COHEN: This, even though a letter on his own company's letterhead states unequivocally that "During each and every forensic autopsy conducted, the attending pathologist is present at all times." We always have the attending pathologist present and directing the autopsy examination.

And if you think that's shocking, the owner of this funeral home says Parcells promised to arrange for an autopsy on the remains of an unidentified body but didn't show up for more than a week. Maggots appeared. And where is that body now? Phelps County Deputy Coroner Lenox Jones would love to know. He says he's not heard from Parcells in more than a year. When we asked Parcells where is the body, we got a barrage of obscenities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lenox Jones says that he's never heard back from you.

PARCELL: He has, holy (inaudible). Excuse my language. But I got -- e-mails to prove him and I are going back and forth and the fact that he ignores me. He's a -- you want to be truthful? He is (inaudible). And I'm sorry to cuss like this on your cameras. But this particular case pisses me off.

COHEN: Parcells added that the coroner can pick up the body from his morgue in Topeka anytime. So with coroners and law enforcement so angry, why haven't they gone after him? Dr. Mary Case, Chief Medical Examiner for St. Louis County says prosecutors might be worried. She said some of them may have used his autopsy reports to get convictions, convictions they don't want overturned.

MARY CASE, SAINT LOUIS CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER: It could be a problem for the prosecuting attorney if their prosecutor has prosecuted somebody based upon Shawn's findings, of course, that's a problem.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the prosecutor?

CASE: For the prosecutor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So no one wants to go after him?

CASE: No one has, no one has to this point.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: A county in Missouri did file a complaint with the state's medical licensing board, saying they expected a pathologist to be at the procedure, but instead, Parcells did it on his own. The board closed the case without taking any action and wouldn't tell us why. Pam.

BROWN: A report by our Elizabeth Cohen. And Parcells insist that the Forrester death investigation was "Doomed" from the start because the dead man's body was embalmed prior to the autopsy. And that the Sheriffs Department never turned over records needed for the autopsy report to be completed.

The Sheriffs Office says, "Parcells never asks for such records. Meantime, looking for a hot black Friday sale? Well, we've got just the place for you, computers, jewelry and even power tools. And get this, the bidding starts at just a buck. No, it's not eBay but the property room. Details on this up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Shopping madness is about to distend. And something you may be willing camp outside in the cold for days, like these folks in Texas, to capture a few Black Friday deals. But, let me tell you about some offers that are so good they're almost criminal. Well, actually they are criminal but totally illegal, plus you don't have to camp out in the cold. I'll let CNN Paul Vercammen explain.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm at property room warehouse here in the City of Industry. There're several of these warehouses around the country. Right here, bicycles about 2,000, all these hot items were hot, almost all of it. Stone evidenced contributed by 3,000 police departments around the country. They ship to all over the country and then they soon start to ship to Canada and Mexico. Items include everything from desktops. These are scrubbed and cleaned they stay, here by the Department of Defense standards so they wipe all of this up.

CHRIS TEWFLIK, TESTING SPECIALIST: Make sure that people don't get another people's information or, you know, explicit pictures or anything crazy like that.

VERCAMMEN: And if you go down the line here, you'll see all sorts of other items up for bid. You got a snare drum. You can get yourself a bag pack floor and even a karaoke machine. And then, over here power tools, galore, and even a brand new chain saw.

Property room was started by police officer who saw an opportunity here and ceased it. And so, as we said, you got items that were taken in by all of these police departments that nobody claimed.

AJ JABER, DLR. PRODUCT DEXEL, PROPERTYROOM: Police Department like it because all they have to do is just follow the program by listing the item, take picture of the front left, right, where, et cetera, and put it online for auction. Typically, it's a 50-50 split.

VERCAMMEN: And by the way, affinity items are bad or counterfeit or fake. They just go ahead and destroy it. Now, over here a very interesting room, which says JW Center, JW stands for jewelry and watches.

So, where this all the stuff come from? All over. Look in here, evidence labels. This one from Indianapolis, a homicide it looks like, in Kansas. This is the jewelry room, that's where the small bags.

And if you look around here some astounding deals. They say this bag alone probably worth more than $100,000. This watch, a Patek Philippe estimated at 60,000. Next to it, a presidential Rolex, $35,000 to $ 40,000. And on this jewelry and 95 percent of the items in here, the opening bid on the auction is $1.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Really incredible. Paul Vercammen, thank you for bringing back to us. I had no idea that's even existed. And by the way, you can find these deals online at propertyroom.com. Thank you so much for watching. Brianna Keilar is in today for Wolf. And that starts in just a few minutes. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)