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ISIS Claims Responsibility for Cartoon Attack; Texas Gunmen: ISIS Sympathizers or Operatives?; U.S. Student Detained in North Korea Speaks Out; Should State's Attorney Use Grand Jury for Baltimore Police? Aired 7-7:30a ET
Aired May 5, 2015 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Unclear what they're referring to but it could be what many counterterror officials are concerned about, and that's a rise in this lone wolf kind of attack. People who aren't necessarily intimately linked with ISIS, many have met them over the Internet or even just read their statements, taking that branding, pushing it forwards. And then after the fact, ISIS, who aren't doing too well on the ground where they have the strongholds at the moment, ISIS coming forward and trying to latch themselves onto that attack in the United States -- Alisyn.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Right. That is what investigators are trying to figure out right now, Nick. Thank you so much for that.
One of the two gunmen in Texas well-known by the FBI. Investigators continuing their search for clues to determine whether these attackers were carrying out orders from ISIS or acting alone. This is the first time ISIS is claiming an attack on U.S. soil.
CNN's Kyung Lah is live for us in Phoenix, where the suspects were living. What have you learned, Kyung Lah?
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, this morning investigators are trying to connect those dots, trying to, with renewed effort, comb through the material that they have seized out of the apartments here in Phoenix. What they are hoping to find, if at all, the connection between these men and ISIS.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAH (voice-over): The FBI filled a van with evidence from the gunmen's Phoenix apartment. Investigators scrubbing all items, hoping to piece together a timeline of this plot.
Neighbors in their apartment complex saw nothing outwardly alarming from the two roommates except one of the men, Elton Simpson, put his car up for sale.
ARIEL WHITLOCK, NEIGHBOR: I'm getting goose bumps thinking about it right now.
LAH: Ariel Whitlock exchanged texts with Simpson.
WHITLOCK: You don't think, like, maybe he's just going to go plot something, and you're giving him the money to help him go plot something.
LAH: But he changed his mind, instead driving it to Texas. Shortly before opening fire, Simpson tweeted an oath of allegiance to Amirul Mu'mineen, a pseudonym for the leader of ISIS.
But the first clues date back to a 2011 arrest. Talking to an FBI informant over years, court records show Simpson wanted to go to Somalia to fight, recorded on wiretaps saying, "If you get shot or you get killed, it's heaven straight away. Heaven, that's what we here for, so why not take that route?"
Nadir Soofi was the other gunman, a pizza shop owner and father to a young son, says his mosque president. A Pakistani source with knowledge of the family tells CNN when his parents divorced, he moved to Pakistan with his father, where he attended a prestigious private school in Islamabad.
Their plan so secret that mosque president Usama Shami spent years with both men at services and never saw either as a threat.
USAMA SHAMI, PRESIDENT, ISLAMIC COMMUNITY CENTER OF PHOENIX: When that happens, it just shocks you. You know, how good do you know these people? That's a question that people ask themselves.
LAH: A question Elton Simpson's family is also asking. In a statement released Monday night they write, "Just like everyone in our beautiful country, we are struggling to understand how this could happen."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAH (on camera): And you can hear the confusion in that statement, the parents simply not understanding. And that confusion is something that we are hearing across the board from the people who knew these men, because they just didn't see the violence coming -- Chris.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Which is a little hard to understand or at least accept, because you had these tweets about wanting to fight in Somalia and you had these other things; and yet they say they didn't see it. Well, now everybody knows.
So let's bring in Republican Congressman Steve King, who joins us this morning from Iowa. Congressman, always a pleasure to have you on the show. If true, this would be the first attack that ISIS takes credit for on American soil. The significance of that to you?
REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: Well, we knew this was coming in some fashion or another. They'd been making these kind of threats. They've said that they're going to fly their flag over our White House. They're willing to do suicide attacks about anywhere in the world. And so it was going to happen eventually in the United States.
This situation, the event that was going on in Garland, Texas, if someone would have told me that this happened somewhere in America -- I think I could have told you where it was without having been told because of the high-value targets, according to them, that were there on that stage and in that building.
And they wanted to send a statement that you shall not put any cartoons of Mohammed out. They're going -- they're bringing in Sharia law into America by intimidation factors driven by ISIS.
CUOMO: We'll talk about the event and what makes things better and worse going forward. But do you believe that ISIS was behind this? Have you received any intelligence about it? Or do you think that these two guys, whether people saw it or not, were lone-wolf types who were just trying to get themselves false glory?
KING: Well, right now what we know is that they predicted this in advance. They've been doing some planning. We don't quite know how long that planning's been going on. And how does ISIS coordinate? By sometimes just by inspiration and by sending the messages around -- around the world on the Internet.
So I don't know that you can say that ISIS said go to Garland, Texas, and attack that location and that activity. But they're certainly part of the psychological approach of this that causes people to be radicalized.
CUOMO: What do you think about the gala (ph) event? Is it about free speech and showing that in America, we embrace freedom? Or is it just using that as a cover to poke Islam in the eye?
[07:05:11] KING: Well, first, that's a little bit of a hard question to answer in that, if we start down the path of thinking if we know something's going to offend someone, so we should retreat from that, they keep redefining what's offensive until then all of their rules are applied on all of us in our free world and our western civilization.
So I think we have to push back on this. I don't think that what they did down there was offensive. I think it was a robust demonstration of freedom of speech. And we have to do that.
If a speech is not offensive, it doesn't need to be protected by our First Amendment Constitution. In fact, Geert Wilders, who was there to give the keynote speech, spoke in Washington, D.C., at actually four events that I planned for him just a week before.
CUOMO: Yes.
KING: And in each one of those events, as I recall, he spoke about how glad he is we have the First Amendment and how much he wishes they did in western Europe.
CUOMO: What are you boosting Wilders for? But he said some things that are pretty ugly about Islam. There's not breeding any type of cooperation of faiths and moving forward together. What are you supporting him for? Why are you inviting him to Congress?
KING: Well, I've been tracking him for about ten years. And I think that, you know, he's been unjustly attacked, especially in Europe. The political correctness, the restraints on our culture and civilization that come from the politically correct, cause us to retreat away from our civilization. And as he says, western civilization is superior. And we need to understand why it's superior.
I often talk about the pillars of American exceptionalism. And when I do go to Europe, I talk about how we need to -- we need to strengthen and expand western civilization. That is the clash that's going on here.
CUOMO: Right. But what it makes -- what makes America great as a culture, as you well know, is what we do by example. Not that we say we're better than everybody else. I mean, that's not American.
And this guy Wilders, he's got some bad checks on his records, and I'm sure you know this if you've been following him for that long. His own country has accused him of inciting violence. He calls Islam the ideology of a retarded culture. I mean, he's a provocative guy, and he's trying to divide people. Why would you invite that into Congress, which is the body of a country that's all about collaboration between cultures?
KING: I think we need to understand -- and that's what Geert Wilders is doing, is helping the world understand what's coming at us. He's written a book called "Marked for Death," and I picked it up. And I thought I would read an autobiography about him having to live under guard for ten years, because radical Islamists didn't like what he said and did. That's not freedom. He hasn't had freedom for a decade.
But when I read his book, I found out that he understands radical Islam. He's read through the Koran at least twice that I can pick up out of that. He's written a historical narrative that's nailed together factually that's very well-footnoted.
I think this country's not at all educated on what we have for an enemy. And Geert Wilders opens this up for us and forces us to take a deeper look at the people that are coming to kill us as they did in Garland, Texas just Sunday night.
CUOMO: But the risk is that you wind up painting the whole as just a function of the extreme. Let's look at it by analogy, Congressman. If Wilders were saying that Christianity is an ideology of the retarded and the Bible should be outlawed, you wouldn't invite him to Congress.
KING: Well, no, I wouldn't invite him to Congress. But I did invite him to Washington, D.C., to do those events, because we need to have this kind of dialogue.
CUOMO: But you wouldn't have it if he was saying something you didn't like.
KING: And he says -- he also says...
CUOMO: You know, if he were saying it about Christianity, you wouldn't do this. KING: He says -- he says that he has no problem with the Muslim
religion. It's the Islamists that he has a problem with.
And the peaceful component of Islam are the Muslim religion. They are irrelevant in this discussion, except to the extent that they help -- they're the stream within which swim the violent Islamists.
It's coming at us, and we're accelerating it in this country. I have been into the inner cities in Europe, into places like the Hague and into Brussels that have been taken over by -- by Islam and the no-go zones that are all over Europe. And we've probably got some no-go zones in America that we don't know about. I haven't been to them. I need to do that.
But if you go to Europe and see what's happening in Europe, it's a predictor of what's happening here in America. That's why he's here. He's -- hang onto your First Amendment, your right of freedom of speech.
He's been prosecuted for hate speech. And the truth does not -- is not an affirmative defense. So you can't speak the truth in Europe if it happens to offend. We don't want a country like that, and he's reminding us of that.
There are principles more important than the politically correct side of this. And those are right there in the Bill of Rights but especially the First Amendment of our Constitution.
CUOMO: Right.
KING: He's an advocate for that, wishes they had that here...
CUOMO: But it's how he's using it.
KING: I'm glad we have it here.
CUOMO: It's how he's using it. And I guess you just have to ask yourself what is it that you want to promote? I mean, do you believe that America's future, when it comes to collaboration of cultures, is to pick on one and paint one in the extreme and at its ugliest?
[07:10:12] Or do you want to try to, you know, cultivate the moderates within Islam and show them that they're welcome in this country. I mean, that's really the debate. And we'll continue having it, congressman. I appreciate you coming on NEW DAY, as always, with your perspective. We'll see you again soon.
KING: Thank you, Chris. You've got to know your enemy.
CUOMO: All right, Mick. Thank you very much.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. I'll take a look at some other headlines here for you.
A U.S. college student is being detained in North Korea, but Won-Moon Joo telling CNN exclusively he illegally entered the country deliberately. So why risk a lengthy punishment? CNN's Will Ripley, live on the ground in Pyongyang, had an exclusive interview with the young man.
Hi, Will.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, Won-Moon Joo says he wanted to accomplish something great by deciding to leave the United States where he's lived since 2001 and cross illegally into North Korea, a country where anybody from an enemy country who crosses potentially faces very serious trouble.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WON-MOON JOO, DETAINED IN NORTH KOREA: I understand my parents and my loved ones are worrying a lot about me. But I would like to say that I'm well. And there's no need to worry.
RIPLEY (voice-over): North Korean state media reports Won-Moon Joo, a 21-year-old New Jersey resident and South Korean national, entered the country illegally, crossing a river on the China/North Korea border. Joo says he made it past two barbed-wire fences, following a large river until North Korean soldiers arrested him.
JOO: I thought that, by my entrance -- illegally, I acknowledge -- but I thought that some great event could happen. And hopefully that event could have a good effect in the relations between the North and South.
RIPLEY (on camera): So what kind of great event did you think would happen?
JOO: I -- of course, I am not completely sure yet.
RIPLEY (voice-over): This is the first time Joo's been able to send any message to his family and friends since he was detained.
South Korea's government is demanding the immediate release of the college student. And that of two other detained South Koreans, who gave exclusive interviews to CNN. They're being held by the North Koreans on espionage charges, allegations South Korea calls baseless.
Joo remains under investigation, but he's hopeful his arrest will bring about some good.
JOO: I hope that, you know, I will be able to tell the world how an ordinary college student entered the DPRK illegally; but however, with the generous treatment of the DPRK, that I will be able to return home safely.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RIPLEY: Joo says he is being treated humanely. He has his own room, a private bathroom, but no telephone. So that was his first opportunity to send a message not only to his family but perhaps, most importantly, the South Korean government. Because even though he's a permanent resident of the U.S. And his family is still there, it is now up to South Korea to figure out how to get this young man home from a country where they have no diplomatic relations.
The government here in Pyongyang right now, Michaela, not giving us any answers about the criminal charges or potential punishment this young man is facing -- Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: What a peculiar case. Will Ripley, thanks so much.
Well, U.S. Navy warships escorting British commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. This request came from the British government after the Iranians detained a cargo ship last week bearing the flag of the Marshall Islands. Navy ships already accompanying American commercial ships.
CUOMO: President Obama will tap General Joseph Dunford as the next chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Dunford is currently the commandant of the Marine Corps and also served as the nation's top military man in Afghanistan. If confirmed by the Senate, he'll replace Martin Dempsey, who is retiring.
PEREIRA: Just days after losing the fight of the century to Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao's camp revealing that he needs surgery to repair a significant tear in his right shoulder. He suffered the injury while training about two and a half weeks before the fight. It appeared to hamper him that night. The surgery is expected to keep Pacquiao out of the ring for nine months to a year.
CUOMO: Did you guys watch the fight?
PEREIRA: Did not. I watched zero sports over the weekend.
CUOMO: I mean, look, Mayweather had to be heavily favored going into it, but I will tell you, Manny, having grown up in the sweet science, he did seem to shift away from his right hand, which is his strong hand.
PEREIRA: The strong -- yes.
CAMEROTA: Right.
CUOMO: Yes.
CAMEROTA: How could he have that fight two weeks after he had surgery?
CUOMO: And why didn't the commission know, and why didn't they test and why didn't they bring it out? There's a lot of questions.
PEREIRA: A lot of questions.
CUOMO: That was a real hype-palooza.
CAMEROTA: All right.
PEREIRA: I like that word.
CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, did the Baltimore prosecutor act too quickly bringing charges against six police officers in Freddie Gray's death? Our legal experts weigh in on this.
CUOMO: And another Republican jumping into the race for president. Does a big field help or hurt GOP chances for the White House? John King will give you the plus/minus coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:18:42] CAMEROTA: The clock is ticking in Baltimore. The prosecutor has less than one month to decide whether to convene a grand jury to hear charges against six officers in the Freddie Gray case. She could also try to persuade a judge to go straight to trial.
Let's talk about all of this with Joey Jackson, HLN legal analyst and defense attorney; and Paul Callan, CNN legal analyst and former New York City homicide prosecutor. Gentlemen, thanks so much for being with us.
JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: So the state's attorney can bypass a grand jury. Why is that, Joey?
JACKSON: Well, there's a procedure that's set up, Alisyn, and the procedure calls for either a preliminary hearing, whereby you go in front of a judge and you just establish, "Your Honor, we have enough probable cause to move this matter forward." The judge, having heard the evidence, of course, that they would lay out in such a preliminary hearing, would make that decision.
And usually, again, it's just a prima facie case just enough to show that these charges are warranted in accordance with the facts. That's one way.
CAMEROTA: Well, could they have done that in Ferguson, Missouri, and could they have done that...
JACKSON: Yes.
CAMEROTA: ... in New York City with Eric Garner and skipped the grand jury, not indicting in all of the chaos that ensued?
PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely. Everything that applied in Ferguson applies under Baltimore law. The prosecutor had a choice in Ferguson. Grand jury, probable cause hearing.
He got heavily criticized, you remember, for going with this, quote, "secret grand jury." Now let's see if that criticism is applied to this prosecutor, if she goes grand jury, as opposed to probable cause. Now she hasn't elected yet as to which route she's going to go publicly, so we don't know at this point.
JACKSON: I think the criticism on Ferguson was the manner in which the case was presented. As Paul Callan knows and as I know from presenting many cases in front of a grand jury, that really the procedure is your own. And what I mean by that is there's no judge there. There's no defense attorney there. And so the prosecutor is the judge, jury and the executioner.
And I think the issue in Ferguson was that the prosecutor decided to present everything and make that jury make a decision. Here I think it's going to be very specifically tailored to establish probable cause.
CALLAN: Well, we'll have to see. We don't know yet.
JACKSON: No, we don't know.
CUOMO: The prosecutor usually runs the show. And that's why they say you can indict a ham sandwich. Because he or she is presenting all the evidence. They're running the rules. So it's a very low bar for them.
They're saying in Ferguson they didn't do it that way. They just put it all out there and made it confusing for the grand jurors. That's why some argue that you should take the case. And here, now they're going to argue, well you should give it to the people.
But let's go to the charges. Do you think that this prosecutor's going to have a hard time with her top charge of depraved heart murder, as it's called there, against one of the officers?
CALLAN: I think she's going to have a very difficult time, not getting an indictment. She'll get an indictment, because a grand jury will give her an indictment if she wants that. And a judge would, as well.
But at the time of trial proving what we call depraved heart murder, it's very, very difficult. It's a strange charge. It's not like intentional murder, where you point a gun at somebody, intent to kill them, and you pull the trigger. Depraved heart is that it's kind of a reckless accident, but on the other hand, it shows such complete contempt for human life that it's the same thing as an intentional murder.
CAMEROTA: But doesn't that fit perfectly to -- if what happened inside the van did, in fact, happen, doesn't that charge fit perfectly? It's not intentional murder, but it's such reckless disregard. He wanted help. They never called for help from a medic.
CALLAN: It depends. It depends. Because remember, there were four stops. The driver got out on at least one occasion, maybe more occasions, going in to check on him, allegedly. Now, when he was checking on him, was he checking to see if he was OK? Or was he fully knowledgeable that Gray was in trouble, and he did nothing? That's a hard decision.
CUOMO: But she never mentioned rough ride.
JACKSON: No.
CUOMO: She never mentioned the suggestion of what was being done with the van was basically using the van as a weapon to injure him on the way there to teach him a lesson. And depraved heart murder is a very specific statute, Joey.
JACKSON: It is.
CUOMO: Designed for a very specific kind of criminal. It's not just a middle step between reckless behavior and intentional behavior.
JACKSON: Very fair point. And two points need to be made.
No. 1, as to the indictment it's always, always more difficult to find someone guilty than it is to indict.
CUOMO: Sure.
JACKSON: Because an indictment is an accusation.
CUOMO: Sure.
JACKSON: And we defense attorneys go in front of the jury. We rip up indictments and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, it's an accusation. They have to prove their case."
But to the indication of depraved heart murder, here's why the rough ride may not even be at issue here. If you know that someone is ailing, and you know that someone says, "I need medical attention. I can't breathe. I need help. I'm in distress." And what you do, Alisyn, Chris, Paul, is you then say, "Well, let's pick up another passenger. Let's make another stop. Let's get to a precinct that takes two minutes to get to 40 minutes later."
What does that say to you in terms of are you indifferent to human life?
CUOMO: You're going to have to show that you knew that person would probably die...
JACKSON: Not that they would die.
CUOMO: ... if you delayed.
JACKSON: Not that they would die, but they would be in serious risk of injury or death.
CAMEROTA: So you're comfortable, Joey, that she didn't overreach? You're comfortable this is provable?
JACKSON: I think prosecutors, not that it's provable but that it could be provable. In other words...
CALLAN: I think that they've got to prove the rough ride. Because if he's just saying -- if she's saying, "Well, he was in trouble, and he should have gone to the hospital," that's very different from saying he's in trouble and he's going to be rocking around in that van.
CUOMO: And I want him in trouble.
CALLAN: I could care less whether he lives or dies, that's depraved heart murder. And if it's a rough ride, and he's bouncing around inside the van, she's got a shot at depraved heart. But without the rough ride, I think it's a different crime.
(CROSSTALK)
CAMEROTA: ... the driver said that he had jailitis, meaning he's just complaining because he doesn't want to go to jail.
JACKSON: The problem is, Alisyn, is that as a police officer, as an attorney, as somebody else, we don't know the medical status. You can't make assumptions in terms of whether someone's feigning injury or not. Your obligation -- and you'll hear about rules and regulations in this case --= is to get them help.
CALLAN: And that's why one of the criticisms, I think, is this may be premature.
JACKSON: And Paul...
CALLAN: That they jumped -- they charged too quickly with these counts.
JACKSON: I don't think so.
CALLAN: And maybe this should have been a longer more studied investigation.
JACKSON: I don't think it could have been charged -- listen, the bottom line is that the jury is the final arbiter of whether or not there was overreaching here.
CUOMO: All right.
JACKSON: There was a determination there was probable cause. Let a jury see if, in fact, they're guilty.
CUOMO: Let's -- let's see what the next steps are. One thing's for sure, Alisyn: the prosecutor can always back off and go onto other charges.
CAMEROTA: Oh, there you go.
CUOMO: And they often overreach in the beginning.
CAMEROTA: All right.
CUOMO: But that's a conversation for another day. Gentlemen, thank you.
JACKSON: Can't wait to have it.
CAMEROTA: Thank you.
JACKSON: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Another day for that (ph). CUOMO: All right. So we go from the legal court to the court of public opinion. And that's where Hillary Clinton is right now. And she's taking some knocks. There's a new poll showing a dent in the armor, enough to slow down her momentum? John King knows. He's telling you on "Inside Politics."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:29:05] PEREIRA: Breaking news. ISIS is taking responsibility for the attack on a Prophet Mohammed cartoon-drawing contest in Texas. Elton Simpson, one of the gunmen, who was shot and killed trying to ambush that event, had just sent a tweet showing his allegiance to ISIS. Simpson was convicted back in 2011 for making false statements to the FBI. The second gunman, meanwhile, Nadir Soofi, had spent time in Pakistan when he was younger.
CUOMO: Now to a CNN exclusive. An NYU student detained in North Kore, and he admits that he entered the country illegally. Why? To heal tensions with the South. Won-Moon Joo is his name, and he says he wanted to be arrested. He says he's being treated well, is not in danger and ready to accept any punishment the North levies against him.
CAMEROTA: Well, there's lots of buzz and lots of Twitter snark over what the stars wore at last night's big Met Gala here in New York City. Sarah Jessica Parker's headdress inspired some memes, including this one comparing it to the flame emoji.
Rihanna was not immune. Her huge yellow robe...
PEREIRA: Check that out. Took two years to make that dress.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. How long did it take to eat it?
