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CNN NEWSROOM

Two Inmates Captured, One Still at Large; Ferguson Documents Reveal Some Grand Jury Witnesses Lied; NYPD Protesters Attack Two Officers; California Braces for More Storms; Senate Averts Government Shutdown; Response to Torture Report; Fallout from Sony Hackers; Former Detainee Talks About Torture; Drone Danger A "Serious Concern" For FAA; Children Talk About Race In America

Aired December 14, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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


ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Two inmates now captured after breaking out of prison but one more accused killer is still on the run. Wait until you hear how they pulled off their great escape.

Then --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was tied with my hands behind my back to my legs. I was punched and kicked.

CABRERA (voice-over): He spent time behind bars in Guantanamo Bay. The former Gitmo detainee talks about the torture he saw there.

Plus executives at Sony about to get a lump of coal this Christmas after hackers issue another warning to the movie company. This is all in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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CABRERA: Good afternoon. Thanks for being here. I'm Ana Cabrera in for Fredricka Whitfield today.

In Alabama a manhunt is underway. Two escaped inmates now behind bars but a third suspected killer is still on the run after more than 24 hours. The U.S. Marshals joining the search. The daring jailbreak started with a apparent ruse.

One prisoner seemed to become violently ill; the other two called for medical help. And when a guard opened their cell, the men attacked him, took his keys, fled, setting off a nationwide manhunt.

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SHERIFF TOM ABATE, CHOCTAW COUNTY, ALABAMA: Just outside the gate the dogs hit on the trail and followed the trail to Regions Bank right here in Butler. The trail was lost behind the bank somewhere so we feel they either had a vehicle or someone picked them up.

CABRERA (voice-over): Now police captured inmate Justin Gordon (ph) later on Saturday and they just arrested Jamail Colber (ph) a few hours ago.

Joining me CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes.

Tom, police say there was only one guard on duty at the jail at the time of this jailbreak and that he opened the cell after seeing one of the inmates, quote, "vomiting profusely."

So do you think proper procedure was followed here?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Ana, it's hard to tell. You have a very small county, 14,000 residents; a small town nearby with only 2,000 residents. So probably not a lot of resources in that county to man the jail 24 hours a day.

And who knows what kind of training and help that they have ever been given to guard prisoners, especially prisoners this dangerous?

Two of the three wanted for capital murder and one wanted for armed robbery. So these were not shoplifters or garden variety people that you're going to lock up in a county like that. These are pretty dangerous people.

CABRERA: Right. So how does a guard in that situation balance the inmate's safety as in the case of somebody actually being sick with this risk of escape?

FUENTES: I think here you have to assume that he would have enough sense to call for a backup to get a deputy off the road to come to the jail to get him assistance and not open that cell door all by himself and go in there, no matter what the situation.

So I think that's, you know, it's going to be questioned as to why he did that and managed to live to tell about it, actually, because with three of them overpowering him, the accounts say that they put some kind of a rag over his face and sprayed Lysol and somehow knocked him out long enough to take his cell phone and keys.

But you would think with people this dangerous that they would have just killed him and escaped that way.

CABRERA: What a wild story.

Is this very common?

FUENTES: No, I don't think it's real common to have prisoners that dangerous being attended to by only one guard. I think that's not something you're going to see every day.

But the actual apprehensions, once the U.S. Marshal service was called in and FBI assistance, other law enforcement agencies, you know, apparently two of the three did like you normally expect escapees to do, go back and go to Mama and try to get money or another family member or relative or someone that they've been friends with in the past.

And they appear to have followed the normal expectation of doing that to try to get help and get apprehended fairly quickly.

CABRERA: Yes. Makes you think that they didn't plan it out for very long or very completely at least.

Tom Fuentes, we appreciate your expertise. Thanks.

FUENTES: You're welcome, Ana.

CABRERA: Some witnesses to the police shooting death of Michael Brown, they really weren't witnesses after all. They lied about even being there or they made up their grand jury testimony.

Now you have to wade through a whole lot of material to read these revelations but they are all there and plenty more in a pile of documents that have been made public by prosecutors in St. Louis County.

Here at CNN we have been digging through all of them, putting them online. We have a whole team, including Josh Levs, who's been overseeing this project -- and a few things stand out.

Josh is joining us now.

First, a lot of people who testified at this grand jury and now we know some of them turned out to be bad witnesses. They just weren't credible.

What are you learning in this big document dump?

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, I'll tell you, as we start to page through these documents and it's thousands of pages, you actually start to kind of feel for the grand jurors.

First, we see them asking interesting questions. But you also start to discover that they spent hours listening to some testimony that was completely useless in trying to figure out what may or may not have happened that day, because some people admitted lying partway through their testimony before the grand jury even, while others were just completely not credible. And I have a few examples for you. Let's take a look at these.

One, the system -- because this was on both sides. The first one is someone who was from the pro Michael Brown contingent and he had been giving this story, all these details, which then fell apart.

So a grand juror asks, "Are you telling us that the only thing that's true about all of your statements before this is that you saw that police officer shoot him at point-blank range?"

The answer is yes, so the witness said.

Now let's look at someone who's in the pro-Officer Wilson side. This is Witness 40, she came along and she gave this very pro-Wilson account but then they started to show all these holes in what she had to say. Prosecutor asks, "Is it possible that you think that you dreamed about

this after it happened and it feels real to you, that you were up there?"

And she says, I never dreamed about it. But if you looked at her account, all sorts of things just don't carry about it.

Now I want to show you one more because it's just -- it goes to show you how often this happened with several witnesses. There was this one woman who insisted that she saw everything. But then she shows where she was standing and it's basically physically impossible to have seen the car.

So the prosecutor says, "Can I ask you, Ma'am, how it is if you're at this Dumpster, you can possibly see what is going on at the police car? We all know people can't see around corners, right?"

And she nods her head.

So the grand jurors had to hear all of this testimony that was not at all helpful in trying to figure out what may have happened.

CABRERA: And made some of us wonder, did it muddle the testimony? Did it muddle the proceedings? I did talk Prosecutor Robert McCulloch personally and he talked about throwing all of these witnesses before the grand jury so as to give them a chance to make their own informed decisions about the credibility of witnesses.

I'm curious if when you take away those who were ultimately deemed not to be credible, who had lied or didn't have an account that really stood the test here, did the ones that were credible all have the same version of the shooting?

LEVS: No. And that's something else that's really important for people to learn about this, as we piece through this testimony. So you have got the fact that there were a lot of people who were called witnesses even though some of them in some cases didn't actually witness the incident.

Most of them were probably doing their best to say what it is they remember. But, no, they do not have one joint narrative as to what happened, even like little details and large details from the very beginning, whether we're talking about what happened at the car, what happened when Michael Brown was moving away, what happened with the gunshots, you see all sorts of different details. And all of this adds to the big picture that the grand jury was given, kind of a big jumble of possibilities. And it is difficult to see how any grand jury coming out of this could have had any specific theory as to what happened.

CABRERA: So that being said when you look at it from a non-biased perspective, searching for the truth here, does what we see in the evidence reinforce the outcome, and that is no indictment of Officer Wilson?

LEVS: It does. And so the legal analysts, as you know, they are split on this idea. Some say it would have been more traditional for a prosecutor to just come forward with only a handful of witness and present a streamlined idea and the suggestion in that case is that the prosecution somehow didn't want to.

Then there are others who say there was going to be all this scrutiny. There was going to be a federal investigation. This prosecution felt it had to put everything out there.

So when you have these different theories as to why it happened but absolutely when you take a look at what this grand jury saw and heard and all of this different testimony conflict and a bunch of people lying in there as well, what you have a very difficult time imagining how there could possibly be a conviction if there was an indictment. And you start to understand how fair minded people would say, based on all of this stuff we've heard, I don't know how we can indict.

CABRERA: Wow, what an interesting outcome. Josh Levs, thank you for taking the time to look through all of this for us and making it easier for us to understand.

LEVS: You got it. Thank you.

CABRERA: It is a lot and we appreciate it.

And you, too, can get more details on this story. Go to CNN.com and read Josh's great reporting there.

Demonstrators filled the streets of big cities across the country this week and of course following the Ferguson grand jury decision and other situations that have really called attention to the issue of police brutality and racial profiling by law enforcement.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a moment of silence for everybody that we lost.

CABRERA (voice-over): Most of these protests were peaceful. But there were a few notable exceptions and I want to bring CNN's Alexandra Field who was out with those protesters in New York.

We now know, Alexandra, two police officers were hospitalized as a result of some of the protesters' actions. An arrest has been made. Fill us in.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so much of the day was still peaceful but when you're talking about these kinds of crowds, you have different groups that splinter off and that's exactly what happened.

We had a splinter group that was marching across the Brooklyn Bridge. One man was arrested overnight. He's accused of attacking, assaulting two police officers. The officers say that this man was trying to throw a trash can into the road.

They also say that this man was kicking and punching and forcing the officers to the ground also grabbing at their police radios and their jackets.

So one arrest has been made; police also believe that this man left a bag behind on the bridge, which they say was packed with three hammers and a black mask. So this really stunning contrast to what we saw for so much of the day. This big crowd had gathered in Washington Square Park.

They had been planning this march for more than a week and they did this huge procession across Manhattan, tens of thousands of people. That demonstration, really peaceful. But again, when you get a crowd that is this big, Ana, you do you have these smaller groups that break off and sometimes have their own agendas.

CABRERA: We look at some of those aerial pictures there, Alexandra. Again, this was such a huge protest. And the majority peaceful as you mentioned.

They ended their march at the NYPD headquarters. And they had some demands for that police department.

Any response to their demands?

FIELD: I think that this is something that will really take a lot of time. Because when you talk to these marchers, they say that they are part of a movement, that this is not just about demands on the list and certainly when you talk to people, they have a number of different ideas for how the relationship between police and communities could be changed or reformed or improved.

But at the same time, you've got this balance act because people want to express themselves. And government officials are trying to respond and police want to not overstep and allow people the right to protest. It's a fine line that Governor Deval Patrick talked about actually this morning on "STATE OF THE UNION." Here's what he had to say about some of the demonstrations going on in Boston.

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GOV. DEVAL PATRICK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: But we went to great lengths to try to connect with the organizers, to the extent they were organized, to get a sense of what they needed, so that we could accommodate the protests and respect that right.

And they weren't interested in engagement, because part of the point was to be disruptive.

And I think it does beg some questions, what is it we're trying to accomplish beyond disruption?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: And, Ana, there were about two dozen arrests made during the demonstrations in Boston yesterday. And we're told that most of those were for disorderly conduct.

CABRERA: Along with 45 arrested in Oakland. There were some outliers to these protests.

Alexandra Field, thanks so much for your reporting.

And I want to take a look at this video. Some powerful storms caused a huge rock slide in Camerio (ph), California, and unfortunately, a third storm system is on the way. The National Weather Service predicting it will arrive in the Los Angeles area tomorrow afternoon.

So the city is now expecting up to two inches of rain. It might not sound like a whole lot, especially when you think about this huge drought. They really do need a lot of rain there but they don't need it all at once. Californians are bracing for more mudslides and more flooding and possible power outages as well. Incredible pictures; fortunately we're hearing no injuries in all of that.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he would do it again in a minute.

Here what else he has to say about the Senate torture report -- next.

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CABRERA: A $1.1 trillion spending bill is headed to President Obama for his approval. It passed a bipartisan vote in the Senate last night, 56-40 and this money will fund government business now until next September.

CNN's Erin McPike joins me from Washington following this story.

Erin, I know there was plenty of fighting over this bipartisan bill.

How did it all get resolved?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, basically by appeasing Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas as well as Mike Lee, who's a Republican senator from Utah. They wanted to have a vote in order to strip funding from President Obama's executive action on immigration.

They didn't get that but what was agreed to was that they could have a vote essentially establishing that they think that President Obama's action there was unconstitutional.

Well, that vote failed, even 20 Republicans voted against it and then they went forward voting on final passage of this $1.1 trillion spending bill, which of course, had some bipartisan opposition as well as support.

But we should point out that while it funds the government through September 30th, it only funds the Department of Homeland Security, which carries out that executive action on immigration, through February. So it sets up some fireworks on Capitol Hill as far as immigration is concerned early in the year -- Ana.

CABRERA: Interesting. One of the other stories, of course, from Washington we have been following this week was the release of the CIA torture report, as some people are calling it. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been very adamant that this report is not right, he says, and defends the tactics. And he spoke out again today.

MCPIKE: Ana, he was on NBC's "Meet the Press" and he staunchly defended the Bush administration's program on enhanced interrogation. Listen here to what he said.

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DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The report is seriously flawed. They didn't talk to anybody who knew anything about the program. They didn't talk to nobody who was in the program.

The best guide for what, in fact, happened is the one that's the report that was produced by the three CIA directors and deputy directors of the CIA, when this program was undertaken. And in fact, it lays out in very clear terms what we did and how we did it. And with respect to trying to define that as torture, I come back to the proposition, torture was what the Al Qaeda terrorists did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11. There is no comparison between that and what we did with respect to enhanced interrogation.

So that's not true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCPIKE: Now there has also been some pushback to what Cheney said already, including from Malcolm Nance, who was on CNN earlier today. He has trained and taught enhanced interrogation techniques. And here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALCOLM NANCE, COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERT: When the Bush administration took that information and took these enemy techniques and turned it on its head and decided to apply it as an American policy, we violated the honor and the spirit of all of those soldiers who died in captivity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCPIKE: And Ana, we should also point out that there are some Democratic senators who are defending the report -- Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee as well as Ron Wyden; he is a Democrat from Oregon. They have been saying, read the report. They like what's in the report. At least they are defending the report and the work that they have done in light of what Dick Cheney said today.

CABRERA: All right, Erin McPike in Washington reporting, thanks.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is going to release a quarter million e-mails from own terms -- his two terms in office. And he said in an interview with a Miami TV station that he is going to also write a book on his governing philosophy. So this has a lot of people thinking. He might be planning to run for president in 2016.

Bush said he is releasing his emails to promote transparency and he says he will make up his mind about running in, quote, "short order."

Up next, a Christmas gift you want no part of. Hackers issuing another warning for Sony Pictures.

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CABRERA: A new threat from the Sony hackers. And this comes in an email released this morning. The e-mail was titled, "Merry Christmas," and the hackers say, quote, "We are preparing for you a Christmas gift. The gift will be larger quantities of data and it will be more interesting. The gift will surely give you much more pleasure and put Sony Pictures into the worst state."

Now a promise of more to come after recently released emails proved devastating to the company. In one hacked e-mail a Sony exec called Angelina Jolie "a spoiled brat."

Let's bring in our legal guests now. Carrie Hackett is a criminal defense attorney; also with us, Esther Panitch, a criminal and civil trial attorney.

Carrie, I want to start with you. Let's talk about the legal implications of this hack. Talking about some of the company's secrets, movie scripts that are all supposed to be secret revealed. What types of legal trouble are we talking about, copyright issues maybe?

CARRIE HACKETT, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I certainly think it's theft. I think that there has been some speculation that it could be defamation or there could be a libel claim. But some of the things that were leaked were putting these executives in a light that is not exactly favorable to them.

But along those lines I don't think it's defamation. I don't think it's libel because all of these things that are said are the truth. So I think that the only issue is the theft of the actual material.

CABRERA: What about you, Esther? When you talk about Angelina Jolie being called a spoiled brat and minimally talented, even goes on to talk about how big of an ego that she has.

Do the actors or actresses have any legal recourse possibly for their own reputation?

ESTHER PANITCH, CRIMINAL TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, if we define what defamation is, it's -- libel is the untrue publication of something that is designed or does harm someone's reputation.

In this case, being called a spoiled brat really doesn't harm your reputation on top of which these are public figures. These are actors and actresses who put themselves out there. They are subject to a much stricter legal standard. The actions have to be malicious, they have to be knowingly untrue. A

spoiled brat is really an opinion of someone. It's not stated as fact. And if Angelina Jolie cannot handle being called a spoiled brat then she really needs a thicker skin.

(CROSSTALK)

PANITCH: So no, do I think that there is an actual legal claim that can be brought against Sony by the actors or actresses for defamation? No, probably not.

CABRERA: Sony is saying we're the victims here. We were the ones who were hacked. But yet there was a lot of sensitive information that got out beyond the gossipy stuff about name-calling, we're talking about Social Security numbers, health records, things like that that got out. I mean, is Sony at risk here from their employees?

PANITCH: If Sony was using what is expected to be or thought to be the most secure systems available, then no. I mean, if people can get hacked, anybody can get hacked. You just have to be as careful as you can be.

If they were not using the most sophisticated software to protect their emails, then maybe, but they would have to show some real neglect in order to have some legal liability.

HACKETT: I agree. And I also think it's a question of whether their employees and these other figures have a reasonable expectation of privacy with this information. And I think with most of the information that's been leaked, there's no reasonable expectation of privacy.

CABRERA: What do you do to protect yourself?

PANITCH: Well, I guess we can stop using e-mail and start handwriting everything. Be careful what you write in an e-mail and don't think that if you put the words confidential at the bottom of an email, which lawyers do all the time, that it really means the content is confidential. So you have to be careful.

For -- I would be more worried for lawyers who are communicating with clients getting hacked than I am about somebody calling an actress a spoiled brat.

CABRERA: And real quick, Carrie, I imagine -- we don't know who did this yet, but the hackers got out of some serious criminal complications or implications here.

HACKETT: Certainly. And I think the question is where are they and how do we get to them and how do we prosecute them because if this is truly an international perhaps even crime, the question is jurisdiction and prosecution and who prosecutors them and where. How do we do that?

CABRERA: Yes, we'll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess.

Thank you so much. Carrie, Esther, good to have both of you here with us.

Coming up, he spent time behind bars in Guantanamo Bay.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was tied with my hands behind my back to my legs. I was punched and kicked.

CABRERA (voice-over): That former Gitmo detainee talked about the torture he experienced and what he saw there -- next.

And in this week's "One to Watch," we head to the streets of Chicago to explore the world of street art. It's a subculture once associated with vandalism. But one artist's iconic images have really prompted people to think differently. Take a look.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Shepherd Ferry, the American street artist behind the Obama Hope poster, an image he plastered over the streets of America during the U.S. president's first election campaign.

SHEPHERD FERRY, STREET ARTIST: It is a great example, I think, of how grassroots imagery and activism can make a difference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shepard used simple images to make a statement and to build a brand. He's worth an estimated $15 million thanks to his clothing company which features his most iconic images and his prints which sell at auction for upwards of $80,000 and still he takes to the streets to paint.

FAIREY: I used to be far too street to be considered mainstream. Now some people consider me too mainstream for the street. But there is validity to both and there are different things about the street and the gallery. But, you know, they're both useful platforms. Democratizing art is what I've been about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today, Shepard is in Chicago scaling the heights of a brick wall with a bold message.

FAIREY: What I think it takes to breakthrough as a street artist is a tenacity, a willingness to go out there and put work up and, you know, have it clean, have it covered by other artists and not be too precious about it.

To accept that street art is finding good places and making imagery that has a unique look that sets your work apart from other people's work is really important. But tenacity is crucial.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANA CABRERA, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: Tenacity and talent, wow, very impressive. You can watch the entire "Ones To Watch" show at CNN.com/onestowatch. Stay with us.

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CABRERA: Welcome back. Senator John McCain said today that he is ready to help President Obama close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, but he wants the president to offer a clear plan on how to do it.

Obama vowed to close the facility early in his presidency. Congress banned Gitmo transfer back in 2010. McCain himself was a prison of war during the Vietnam war.

Earlier on "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS," Fareed spoke with a former Guantanamo Bay detainee. He asked him about the CIA torture report and about his own experiences while in detention.

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MOAZZAM BEGG, FORMER GUANTANAMO DETAINEE: Some of the torture I witnessed actually led to death. I know that this prisoner actually died as a result of the beatings he received.

Now some of the techniques that have been mentioned mercifully, I wasn't subjected to. There are others that are not mentioned that I was subjected to.

For example, I was tied with my hands behind my back to my legs. I was punched and kicked. I had the agents showing me pictures of my children with a sound of a woman screaming next door that I was led to believe it was my wife and then forced to sign confessions as a result of this.

So it's unsurprising completely since my return from Guantanamo, I've been documenting numerous cases in the U.K. and around the world of people who were beaten and abused and tortured in various ways through this rendition program.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Do you believe the release of the report will incite a greater degree of anti-Americanism among radicalized youth in the Middle East, for example?

BEGG: I don't think so. No. In fact, I think what it will do is that it would suggest that at least America is attempting to be open. At least it's trying to make some confessions in public.

I know that there is no sense that there is going to be any prosecutions, but at least America has come clean and it's setting a record, a standard for other countries to follow. We know there are at least 54 countries involved.

What did Britain do? What did Pakistan do? What did Syria do? What did Egypt do? All of these countries, they also now have a template to follow.

Let's remember the people were already being dressed in orange suits and executed in Iraq in 2005 and in 2014, and this was well before any of these details came about. The fact is that the occupation of Iraq, of Afghanistan, the torture program was well known all around the world. Everybody was talking about it. So I don't think there will be any particular reaction to this specifically of this release.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: You can only hope that's the truth. There is a new danger in the sky. Why drones could be a problem the next time you fly and what the government is doing about it.

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CABRERA: A close call in the skies. A drone recently came within just 20 feet of hitting an air bus 320 full of passengers in London. It may be the closest a drone has ever come to a passenger get.

Right now the FAA is working on rules to integrate commercial drones into the air space safely. But private drones are still a problem.

And let's bring in Mary Schiavo to talk about this. She is our CNN aviation analyst and a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation.

Mary, good to see you. Do you think the danger is greater because there are not clear regulations or because people are not following the rules?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I think the first thing is exactly right. You've made a great point. The problem is the FAA was behind on getting these regulations in place. It actually took Congress ordering them to get something done.

They ordered back in September of 2012 to get out there and do the regulations because people had been flying model aircraft and then moved on to drones for many years as late, you know, maybe over a decade ago.

So they are here to say and they are very important, but the FAA just has not done its job yet. It is now playing catch up and will regulate.

CABRERA: What is the deal with that? Why is it taking so long?

SCHIAVO: Well, I think the FAA was caught off guard. They really didn't, you know, focus on it. I think Amazon though by announcing they would deliver parcel someday with drones really made America stop and take notice.

But they are very prevalent elsewhere around the world and right now, they are legal up to 400 feet. You can't fly them in Class B air space, which is controlled air space and you can't have them anywhere in your airport either because that's all controlled air space.

So the drones that are flown near commercial planes are breaking the current laws. But what the FAA has to decide is where can you launch them? Do they have to be the near the airport? Not near the airport?

Where can you have the drone departure area? What categories of air space, in other words, what altitudes will you allow them to fly? So there is an awful lot of work to be done to integrate them safely, but I think everyone's consent is that they are here and they are here to stay.

CABRERA: I think a lot of critics are saying it is taking too long to approve private or commercial use. I mean, for example, the FAA has already received 167 applications for drone use. Companies like Amazon who wants to deliver packages using drones. To companies like BP who want to use drones for surveying purposes and

yet we know other countries are indeed moving forward with a much wider scale use of drones and just this past week, we had four companies approved. Do you think that America is now at risk of falling behind in this area?

SCHIAVO: Yes, we are. We're already behind in the area. I mean, we have relegated it or the FAA had considered it sort of a hobbyist activity and they really hadn't focused on how many there are.

And what the wide variety of it is, you can buy a drone anywhere from $50 to, you know, several million dollars and there are so many applications now and not just that, you know, the Amazon delivering packages.

And eventually someday, this is way off in the future but eventually they will deliver people as well. But obviously that's not on the current drawing board right now.

But you know, when Amazon announced that they were actually going to start hiring drone pilots and that's tough because there is no domestic pilot licensing and they were looking, of course, for military drone pilots.

The Air Force has a great many of them and a large training program. I think that really made everybody focus on the fact that this is a technology that we're going have and we better have it with a legal regulation structure that makes sense.

CABRERA: Absolutely. Mary Schiavo, thanks for joining us.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

CABRERA: The issue of race in America has been on the forefront lately as you know. CNN's Chris Cuomo talked to the next generation and asked how they view police color and justice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: If someone says you look black and they just say that, that should be OK, but they are making fun of them for their color, then that's where the problem started happening when they say about the color.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABRERA: Don't miss more of their inspiring answers next.

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CABRERA: With the conversations about race and law enforcement swirling we decided to sit down with a group of children to get their perspective. What do they think about how they treat each other and the way forward? Here is Chris Cuomo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Here's why I'm here. We have problems, we have problems going on. Today, are you aware of that? There's trouble? We have to figure it out. Will you help me figure out some trouble?

All right, good, so who knows about what's been happening around the country right now with the grand juries and the police and unarmed black men. You've all heard about this? William have you been hearing about it a lot?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Six months.

CUOMO: You've been hearing about it for six months. What do we know, Gabrielle, what's happened?

GABRIEL ADMOOLAH, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: People are fighting. They say that the police aren't working hard enough to do stuff. Help me more, Adriana.

ADRIANNA DUGUILLARD, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: On the news there was a black guy and a policeman choked him.

CUOMO: And people are angry. Why are they angry, William?

WILLIAM CADET, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: They're angry because not only was he selling illegal cigarettes, but they choked him out and when he went to court, the jury said, it was OK and they let him go.

CUOMO: And is that wrong? Why?

CADET: Because in case it happens again, then then they can't just let him go again. They have to make sure that this stops before it happens again.

CUOMO: When you see police, are you afraid?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: No.

CUOMO: Anybody? Sometimes when you see police you're a little afraid? Why?

CADET: I see a lot of bad things happening, not very good things.

CUOMO: So the police, when you see them usually something bad is going on?

CADET: Yes.

CUOMO: And what do you think the police are doing there? Are they there to hurt people or are they there to help people? What are they doing there?

CADET: They're there to help people.

CUOMO: Your parents ever talk to you about how to be around police?

DUGUILLARD: Yes.

CUOMO: Nolan, anybody ever tell you how to act around police?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yes.

CUOMO: What do they say?

NOLAN RAYMOND, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: Well, they say to just like be nice and be calm and not do anything wrong.

CUOMO: Nicolette, anybody ever tell you anything like that?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: No.

CUOMO: Nicolette, look at Nolan, describe him in three words.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: She has a sweater, he has a tie and he has a mic.

CUOMO: OK, Gabriel, take a look at Nicolette, describe her in three words.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: She has a little gown, a black vest and brown hair.

CUOMO: OK, you did not refer to Nolan as being brown or black of skin. Why not?

NICOLETTE KOLA, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: Because it's, it's like a bad thing to say.

CUOMO: What wouldn't you say if you were going to say if you were going to help people find me? Wouldn't you say what color I was?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: I would say he was a white male tall, brown hair, blue eyes.

CUOMO: Jacked.

KIARA ZARRA, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: Jacked.

CUOMO: Now is it bad if you describe me that way?

CADET: If someone says you look black and they just say that, that should be OK. But if they're making fun of them for their color, that's when the problems start to happen when they say about the color.

CUOMO: So I don't judge you by how you look and you don't judge me by how I look. You're supposed to judge me by. What are you supposed to judge me by, William?

CADET: How you act.

CUOMO: How I act. If I'm a police officer and I see you, am I supposed to, what if I say, I've arrested a lot of guys who look just like you. Is that the right thing for me to do?

CADET: No, you have to at least give them a chance.

CUOMO: Give them a chance. Now you're kids, right? You seem smarter than kids that I remember being your age. But if this is so simple for you, how come the adults aren't getting it right? Kiara?

ZARRA: Because the adult, some adults don't understand how to be kind to one another. Because they're going to think they're adults and since they're older, they don't have to listen to the kids. But it ends up somehow that the kids might be right.

CUOMO: The kids might be right. Do you remember in school when they had to teach you, Gabriel, your skin somebody kind of brown and Nicolette's is kind of white, but you should be same to each other. Do you remember anybody actually saying that to you? So if nobody had to teach you that, what happens when you get older?

Gabriel?

ADMOOLAH: They usually forget because they're getting older and stuff like that happens to them and they start to forget stuff.

CADET: If I went over to Nolan, I wouldn't just go over there and say, since he's black I don't like him. The color matters nothing to me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Pretty cool kids. Our thanks to Chris Cuomo for that great conversation and to that group of children, how smart are they? The theory in Ferguson unfortunately reduced parts of that city to charred rubble. But the city is cleaning up and rebuilding. You can go to CNN.com/impact if you want to help.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: This is quite a story. A Dutch man wanted a memorable proposal and boy did he get what he was asking for. The man rented this crane. The crane tipped and crashed to the roof of a neighbor's house and when they tried to straighten it out again, it crashed again.

Thirty two homes had to be evacuated, but there was some good news, one, no one was hurt and two, the girlfriend said yes.

Christmas wishes from Prince George. Britain's royal toddler is celebrating the season in his new Christmas portrait and if you look closely there you can see royal guards knitted on his sweater vest.

This is George's last Christmas, of course, as an only child. His parents, Will and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting a baby in April.

That's all for me. I'm Ana Cabrera. Thanks again for being here today. The next hour of NEWSROOM begins now.