Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Texas Police Brace for Threat of Retaliation; Bandidos Member Pushes Back on Alleged Stereotype; Senator Calls for 10,000 U.S. Troops in Iraq; Interview with Congressman John Conyers. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired May 19, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:02] Chris CUOMO, ANCHOR, CNN'S "NEW DAY": Doctors say he's going to be fine thanks in large part to Harmon using direct pressure with the turban to stop the bleeding.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, ANCHOR, CNN'S "NEW DAY": How beautiful. How beautiful.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, ANCHOR, CNN'S "NEW DAY": That's a great, great story. Love it.

CUOMO: Right? I love it for two reasons. One the obvious, and two, also to remember that your faith is a function of what you do with it, not just how you display it. You know?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: For what you wear or what you said.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: Great illustration.

Alright. Time now with NEWSROOM with Carol Costello.

Hi, Carol.

PEREIRA: Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much. Have a great day. NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, after the carnage.

SGT. PATRICK SWANTON, WACO POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have wounded inside, we have people stabbed, we have people shot and we have people beat.

COSTELLO: Officials bracing for more. A police memo warning that members of two biker gangs have been instructed to arm up and head to Waco. Can officers prevent another deadly brawl?

Also the fight against ISIS in Iraq turning into a political battle here at home.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: At the end of the day I blame President Obama for the mess in Iraq and Syria, not President Bush.

COSTELLO: We're talking to two men who actually served there. What do they think?

And a scary scene in Indianapolis. And the 500 hasn't even started. Four wrecks in a week, one driver rushed into the surgery. Why are we seeing more crashes this year?

Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

It's being called a biker war and today one Texas town is bracing for the next wave. Gang members heavily armed and hell-bent on retaliation. Part of the reason, law enforcement source telling us that police gunfire may have killed four of the nine bikers. And there's another common thread uniting these five biker gangs caught up in the turf war. 170 members are now locked up under a million-dollar bond each.

CNN's Nick Valencia is in Waco with more for you.

Good morning.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We see police are continuing their investigation, still removing evidence from the scene you see behind me, plenty of cars remain in this parking lot, some from customers who were at this business at about 12:00 p.m. when that shoot-out happened. Motorcycles also still being removed from the scene.

Meanwhile as you mentioned, that memo, that so-called green light memo against the lives of police officers, they tell me they are on heightened alert.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SWANTON: I am still at 170 individuals that we have arrested and charged.

VALENCIA (voice-over): In custody this morning, 170 suspected biker gang members. Their bond totaling $170 million after a dispute in a restaurant bathroom on Monday led to nine people dead and 18 injured, over 100 weapons found at the scene.

SWANTON: Shell casings, weapons, knives, clubs. We're talking chains with padlocks on the end of them.

VALENCIA: Cell phone video captures the aftermath. Bodies laying outside Twin Peaks Restaurant in Waco, Texas, a fierce gun battle with rival gang members turned within moments into a gun battle with officers. A memo going out to local police warning officers that members of the Bandidos and the Cossacks have reportedly been instructed to arm themselves and travel to North Texas.

SWANTON: We would encourage biker groups to stand down. There's been enough bloodshed. There's been enough death here.

VALENCIA: Aerials show members of one of the biker groups. The Cossacks, being arrested. Many of the others part of the notorious Bandido Motorcycle Club.

CHRIS OMODT, FORMER CAPTAIN, HENNEPIN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: In Texas, the Bandidos are at the top of the pile and everybody wants to be at the top level. That's all it is. It's king of the hill.

JIMMY GRAVES, BANDIDOS MEMBER: We are not like that. The '60s are long gone.

VALENCIA: With the faded Swastika tattooed on his arm, a Bandido member, high up in rank, says the police and the media have it all wrong.

GRAVES: We didn't do nothing here. We're fighting for our rights. They're saying lies on TV and telling everybody that the Bandidos are after police officers. That's never been.

VALENCIA: The U.S. Justice Department identifies the Bandidos as one of the top two largest outlawed motorcycle gangs in America, with at least 2,000 members in the U.S. and 13 other countries, and the Texas Department of Public Safety still lists the Bandidos as a tier 2 gang, the second most dangerous classification.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: According to a law enforcement source, preliminary information indicates that four of the bikers were shot and killed by police. The local law enforcement officials that we've spoken to say officially they have still yet to determine who's responsible for those nine deaths -- Carol.

COSTELLO: And of course this turf war is also having an effect on businesses in the area. What can you tell us about that, Nick?

VALENCIA: Absolutely. Here in this strip mall, it's still closed to the public. Only law enforcement officials and the media allowed inside. Interestingly enough we spoke to one hotel in the area who says that they've stopped taking reservations. They're scared after that memo came out saying that they don't want to provide a safe haven for any biker gangs who may be coming to the area to do ill will against police officers or others -- Carol.

[09:05:19] COSTELLO: Wow. Nick Valencia, reporting live from Waco, Texas, this morning.

Let's get back to that Bandidos member you just heard from Nick's piece. Jimmy Graves wanted to clear up a few other things in an interview with CNN, specifically the criminal organization label from law enforcement, he calls that label phony. He says -- they're actually a club and so members are being stereotypes because they wore a patch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's not true?

GRAVES: No, they've been reading too many comic books, watching TV, watching too many B-rated criminal movies. We have been stereotyped. We are nothing like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Graves adds that he and others are grandpas. There may be a few bad apples in the club but he says guns and gangs, that's not their thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAVES: We are not a gang. We do not do gang things. We are not affiliated with gangs. We don't like street gangs. The reason that is, it's the Ninth Appellate Court in California, had all that problem with the street gangs and they just put the motorcycle involved in that. We're not gangs. We do not -- we do not appreciate gangs. We don't appreciate being called a gang. We don't like it and we've have never been a gang.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But the U.S. Justice Department disagrees with Graves, It says the Bandidos are drug runners. They transport meth, cocaine and marijuana. The Texas Department of Public Safety rates the Bandidos as dangerous as the Aryan Brotherhood.

So let's talk about the coming so-called war. Skip Hollandsworth has become an expert on bikers. Skip is the editor for "Texas Monthly."

Welcome, Skip.

SKIP HOLLANDSWORTH, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, TEXAS MONTHLY MAGAZINE: Hi. Thanks. So happy to be here.

COSTELLO: Hi. Thanks for being here. So you heard what Mr. Graves said, he says we're just a bunch of grandpas riding bikes. Is he right?

HOLLANDSWORTH: Well, I'm going to tell you something. When I first got to be in with the Bandidos, they were a heck of a lot of fun. They were renegades, they had vests with long hair, they loved the open road, they were tough, you didn't mess with them. But they were sort of this good-natured group of guys, sort of a darker version of Shriners. And, you know, I didn't see any type of gang activity going on. I didn't see them in some organized -- you know, there was this organized crime that they were -- that was taking place. These are not the Zetas. And they're certainly not like organized

families in -- crime families in New York dividing up territory, but you don't mess with a Bandido. I mean, they have these rules about you cut one of us, you cut us all. Our colors don't bleed. We bleed red and gold. And if you mess with one we come back after you to defend our honor and integrity. And it might seem child like, but any other motorcycle club that tries to defy the Bandidos, they will take revenge on them.

COSTELLO: That's just so bizarre. It does sound childish, frankly, and stupid. In this case, though, they're also --

(CROSSTALK)

HOLLANDSWORTH: Well, it sounds like --

COSTELLO: They're allegedly targeting police. This is no joke.

HOLLANDSWORTH: Yes, I'm not sure that they are targeting police. They've never -- they're not that stupid. You know, they're not going to go off and shoot cops and they never really have, and they shoot each other, they shoot other rival gang members, and here comes this younger, less populated motorcycle club called the Cossacks that want to make their mark in Texas. They decided to show up in this meeting in Waco at this Hooter's like club called Twin Peaks, and here comes the trouble. They were not invited and the Bandidos said you're not invited and the gunshots started.

COSTELLO: So it's a bunch of old bikers trying to prove their manhood to a bunch of young bikers.

HOLLANDSWORTH: Well, the Cossacks have some older guys, too, but it's -- and the Bandidos bring in young men as well. There is a need that's very interesting, and it's sort of above my pay grade to understand, about this group of men that need to belong, and they need to feel part of some sort of community, and a lot of them come out of the wars, the Bandidos started in the Vietnam era, and guys came out of the war feeling disaffected.

They have been taught to fight. They have gone through this experience and then they come back to U.S. society and they don't know what to do with themselves, and so they bond together in this kind of motorcycle club and run up and down the highways and scare people, and then, you know, younger guys coming out of Iraq, they feel the same sort of love for the Bandidos as the guys back in the '60s in Vietnam. So there's this kind of generating population.

[09:10:09] COSTELLO: Alright. Skip Hollandsworth, thanks for your insights. It's really fascinating. From "Texas Monthly" magazine.

Thanks so much, Skip.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: At the end of the day I blame President Obama for the mess in Iraq and Syria, not President Bush.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Who is to blame? We'll ask two generals who served on the ground in Iraq, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Iraq unleashes a punishing round of new airstrikes against ISIS. The Iraqi Air Force now taking aim at the city of Fallujah to try to push out the militants there. That's just about 40 miles away from Ramadi where terrorists have declared victory and where Shiite militias are gearing up for a major counter offensive.

All of this fueling the debate over what to do next. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham now calling for 10,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: I think 10,000 troops would allow us to train the Iraqi Army at a faster pace and give them capability that they don't have. If I thought we could protect America without sending one soldier back to Iraq, I would do it, but we cannot. We don't have enough forces in Iraq to help the Iraqis, we have no strategy in Syria, and let me just tell you as bluntly as I know how. If we don't turn around the tide of battle, if we don't put ISIL on the run and disrupt their operations they're going to hit us here at home. So it will take thousands of American soldiers over there to protect millions of us here back at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:15:05] COSTELLO: Who is to blame?

Well, Senator Graham says he blames President Obama for the need for ground troops at the moment. He says it's Obama's fault Iraq that is falling apart. He also adds President Bush is not to blame.

In a herculean attempt to take the politics out of this war, I'm going to talk with two men who actually fought in Iraq. CNN military analyst, Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, he commander 28,000 troops in northern Iraq from 2007 to 2009.

I'm also joined by CNN military analyst, Colonel Peter Mansoor. He's a former aid to General David Petraeus.

Welcome to both of you.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COL. PETER MANSOOR, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Thank you for tackling this topic. I appreciate it.

So, General Hertling, I'm going to start with you.

From a purely military standpoint, who is to blame for the mess in Iraq?

HERTLING: I think there is enough blame to go around for a lot of different people, Carol. But it's -- I see it very differently than Senator Graham does. I think we've had some real challenges. It's a difficult country to become involved with.

And I think when you are taking a look at what occurred during the Iraq war from beginning to end, there were a lot of changes throughout, and towards the end of it we did not have the support of the American people, we did not have the support of either the Iraqi government or the American government for being there, and those are two of the three things that a guy named Clausewitz says you need to execute warfare.

COSTELLO: So, General, are you saying that President Bush is to blame for initially invading Iraq?

HERTLING: No, because that's revisionist history, Carol. I don't want to say anybody is to blame. It's just something that we did. History will judge all that.

I would much prefer to go forward and see how we can effect what is going on there now as opposed to continually looking backwards and attempting to pin blame on a politician. There were a lot of people that did not do things correctly, to include in some cases the military. We could have done this differently.

But I think towards the end, what you had was a very sectarian government that destroyed an army, the Iraqi army that we took a lot of time and a lot of resources to build-up, and they never came back because of a sectarian regime under Mr. Maliki. It's starting to come now.

COSTELLO: All right. So, Colonel, I pose this question to you. Rick Perry says President Obama is delusional. He was more interested in making a political statement than winning the war when he pulled combat troops from Iraq.

Is delusional the right word?

MANSOOR: No, absolutely not. President Obama was doing what he thought was best for the country. Now, I disagree with his decisions, but that doesn't make them delusional.

You know, he made two fundamental errors. The first was in supporting a highly sectarian prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, after Maliki lost the elections of 2010. And the second was not to negotiate a continuing presence of American forces in 2011 when there was an offer on the table to keep them on the ground under an executive agreement. And I think both of those decisions have contributed to the strategic conundrum we are now in.

But let me go back to the decision to go into Iraq in the first place. That was the original strategic error in the war, and unfortunately you can recover from tactical and operational mistakes, but strategic errors live on forever.

COSTELLO: So, Colonel, I will ask you something else that Marco Rubio said. He said that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, maybe invading Iraq was ultimately wrong, but he says it's a great thing that Saddam Hussein is gone, is that right?

MANSOOR: The world would be better off without a lot of dictators. The leader of North Korea and others who starve their people and treat them poorly, but it's not up to the United States to go around the world and removing them from power, necessarily.

So, it's great that Saddam Hussein is gone, but what we unleashed in the aftermath of that is little better, unfortunately.

COSTELLO: So, General, when you began your comments, you said we should look forward and find solutions. You heard Senator Graham's solutions, he wants to put 10,000 groups on the ground to train Iraqi troops. Is that the way forward?

HERTLING: Now, I see it very differently, Carol. We had several -- over 100,000 troops at one time training the Iraqi forces and partnering with them. We gave them that opportunity. We set them up for success. We helped them tamped down sectarian violence. We attempted to help the Iraqi government take charge and none of that occurred.

And I think many of us who fought there and Pete Mansoor and I were there together in 2003 and '04 in Baghdad, what we saw is they -- they, the Iraqi people, the Iraqi government, the Iraqi military and security forces, have to want it more than we do.

[09:20:09] And I think we are getting back to that point. That's a phrase that our soldiers always used to say, hey, we seem to want this, we seem to want this more than they do. And until you get a country wanting to provide their own security and their own government more than people who come into the country, you are going to have failure.

COSTELLO: All right. I want to thank you both. I sure appreciate it, Lieutenant General Mark Hertling and Colonel Peter Mansoor.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: police strategies and focuses, tries to improve relations between cops and their communities.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Police accountability and public safety, just two things in focus today on Capitol Hill as the House Judiciary Committee examines police practices nationwide in an effort to bridge the divide between officers and their communities. The hearing comes after President Obama visited Camden, New Jersey, where he praised local policing that's reduced crime.

But he also addressed responses in Ferguson and elsewhere that he says have heightened tensions. The president announcing that federal agencies will now be banned from providing local police with certain types of military equipment.

Joining me now to talk about that and more, Congressman John Conyers. He's a ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Welcome, sir.

REP. JOHN CONYERS (D-MI), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Carol Costello, top of the morning to you.

COSTELLO: Top of the morning right back at you.

So, what do you hope comes of this hearing today?

[09:25:00] CONYERS: Well, I think it's a belated discussion, a continued discussion, of the whole relationship of the African- American community to police and law enforcement. I mean, this violence against many African-American males, usually younger ones, is something we have been dealing with for a long time.

I remember I began dealing with it as a lawyer in Detroit before I even came to Congress. So, it's a subject that is deeply involved in our culture and it's something that we are beginning to address, and I think there is enough spirit and camaraderie in the Judiciary Committee for us to be holding meaningful, not emotional but significant discussions on how we minimize this.

COSTELLO: It's interesting, sir, you say you want reasoned conversation and reasoned testimony, but one of your witnesses is Sheriff David Clarke had been very passionate about how police are getting a bad wrap in all of this. In fact, he is critical of Baltimore states attorney Marilyn Mosby, saying her actions in the death of Freddie Gray are, quote, "a miscarriage of justice," and her actions are political.

What do you want to hear from him today?

CONYERS: Well, look, there are people that are more hopeless than others, and so I am -- I don't want to hear much of everything from him. As a matter of fact, we would have never been called as a witness if I had a little more to do with it. So, his position --

COSTELLO: Why wouldn't you have called him for a witness?

CONYERS: Because his position is extreme, and it's irrational. I don't want to characterize him before he comes to testify, but he doesn't add to the direction that we are trying to lead the president and the administration, and finally the Congress, who has the responsibility of enacting the laws to back up some of these noble sentiments that we will be hearing from other witnesses today.

COSTELLO: Well, we will keep an ear on it, and thank you, sir, for joining me this morning, Congressman John Conyers.

CONYERS: What a pleasure. COSTELLO: Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: was it a bullet that hit that doomed Amtrak train's windshield? What the FBI found out, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)