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Military Mistakenly Ships Live Anthrax Via FedEx; Pregnant Woman Taken to the Ground by Police; Drunk Pilot Crashes Plane with Son on Board; Actor is Also NYC Cab Driver. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired May 28, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:30:00] SEAN KAUFMAN, DIRECTOR, BEHAVIORAL BASED IMPROVEMENT SOLUTIONS: The work is extremely important, but they need adequate resources and training.

Last but not least, it's a call for leadership. You know, leadership has -- they must make sure that the work force is not only prepared and doing what it is they're doing, but they must make sure the work force does it right. Without that leadership, we're going to continue to see repeated failures. This is not a work force issue. This really is a leadership one.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Final question. What else do you think they could be shipping in addition to anthrax?

KAUFMAN: Oh, I think that any serious agent when we look at it for bio defensive purposes, anthrax is usually the one that's most commonly used because it's the hardest to kill. To understand exactly what we're detect -- or what we're looking at, military and public health laboratories really want to make sure they can detect true natural threats with an inactivated strain. Meaning, if we can kill the strain before we test it in a laboratory, we not only make our laboratory safer, but we make our scientists safer as well. So by shipping an inactivated strain, we're testing the detection systems we have in place to assure the safety of our laboratory and general public risk issues.

BALDWIN: OK. Sean Kaufman, thank you.

KAUFMAN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Next, taken down to the ground by police officers. This woman here, eight months pregnant, when she was arrested for refusing to tell the officer her name. Was the arrest justified? We're going to discuss that.

Also, police say this man was drunk at the controls of an airplane when he tried to take off with his son on board. Do not miss this.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:36:15] BALDWIN: Want to talk about another case of resisting arrest here. This time happening in California. An African-American mother dropping her daughter off at school didn't give the police officer her full name. However, she did reveal her condition. She's eight months pregnant. Yet, that didn't stop these two officers -- this is Barstow, California -- from putting her on her stomach as they arrested her for failing to give her identity. This happened after this other woman had complained -- a white woman -- had complained this pregnant woman had confronted her and threw something at her. The incident happened in January.

But the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, just released the officer's body cam video. Here's a piece of the clip. The whole thing runs in total like 11 minutes.

Just a warning, it's tough to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not giving you my name.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Actually, I do have the right to ask you for your name.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Let me make sure. What's your name?

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: How long is it going to be for you to make sure?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me make sure because I'm not about to get harassed by the police.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Well, you know what, ma'am, I have every right to ask you for your name.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Michelle, what? What is your name?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Ma'am, I'm going to give you two minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't touch me. Don't touch me.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do not touch me. Do not -- I'm pregnant. Do not touch me. Do not touch me! What the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is going on? Do not touch me! Do not touch me! Do not touch me! Do not touch me, sir. Do not touch me. Do not touch me. Do not touch me. I'm pregnant! Stop it! This is ridiculous! What are you doing? What are you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm pregnant!

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: So why are you resisting, ma'am? Why are you resisting?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm pregnant, please. Please!

(SCREAMING)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please! I'm pregnant.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: OK. Get up, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't. I'm pregnant. I'm on my stomach.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Why are you resisting?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because you guys are stupid! You all are stupid! Stop!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And that is just a piece of it.

With me now, I have Correspondent Jean Casarez; also CNN political commentator, Marc Lamont Hill; and CNN law enforcement analyst, Harry Houck.

Wow. My first question, when I watched the entire 11 minutes, from start to finish -- and, Harry, my first question to you, when the officer was asking for her name, she wasn't giving it. Then she gave her first name. Then you hear him saying you're resisting. She's stepping away. In the state of California, was that arrest justified?

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, the police officer has to believe it is. He's got to reasonably believe that this arrest is justified. I saw this whole video. They should have let this go. There was nothing here. Some white woman complaining about a black woman, had a little argument, somebody threw something. Went over, spoke to both of them, OK, let this go. But I think what the police officer did was he tried to ascertain the name in the event there's some kind of civil litigation might go on. I think the officer thought that he'd be able to go over and ask her name and information, then give it to this woman. Then I would have got the other woman's information and given it to her. This way, they can both go to court and figure this out.

BALDWIN: Why -- I'm just stuck on -- listen, why put handcuffs on this woman? Why place her on her eight-month pregnant belly?

HOUCK: See, what happened was -- who escalated this whole thing here though? The woman did. She escalated the situation. When you're in a situation like that, right or wrong, if a police officer comes up to me and tells me, whether he's right or wrong, if I'm under arrest, I am putting my hands behind my back. That's what you have to do.

[14:40:06] MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, you don't.

HOUCK: Yes, you do.

LAMONT HILL: You just said right or wrong.

(CROSSTALK)

LAMONT HILL: No, no, no. Let me finish.

HOUCK: You have to submit to a police officer on the street.

LAMONT HILL: Even if they're wrong?

HOUCK: Even if they're wrong, yes. Then what happens is -- because who makes the determination if the officer is wrong or right? A judge has to do that. If the officer believes he's right, he's going to make a decision to make an arrest. Now if he's wrong, we go to the courts. You sue the police department. The cop gets disciplined. That's the way it goes.

BALDWIN: So even though if this woman is saying, hang on a second, I dropped my kid off at school, I was just walking. Maybe there was some kind of back and forth with this initial woman we didn't play in this piece of the video. Still, still, you're saying she should have gone ahead and put her hands behind her back.

HOUCK: When the officer said she was under arrest, she needs to do that. Now what she does is put her own child's life in danger by resisting.

LAMONT HILL: Did he say "you're under arrest"?

HOUCK: Yes, I think he did.

LAMONT HILL: I didn't hear that on the tape. We're adding things that aren't there.

(CROSSTALK)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, can I talk about the law?

LAMONT HILL: Please.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Jump in.

CASAREZ: The law in the state of California is that an officer can ask for your name if he has reasonable suspicion that a crime took place. Now, that officer actually told the white woman -- this is a school parking lot where this took place. He told the white woman, I don't see any crime here at all.

LAMONT HILL: Right.

BALDWIN: You see that in the video.

CASAREZ: But he's talking about damage to vehicles when he said that. It appears there was a road-rage type of situation, but it wasn't a highway. It was private property. Then she refuses -- well, she actually gave her first name. She said Michelle.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And she brings up race. The reason we're even interjecting this. The second woman does bring it up.

CASAREZ: But she refuses to really give her name. The officer then does have a right to arrest her. Whether it's a legal arrest of not, just as he said --

BALDWIN: All right.

(CROSSTALK)

CASAREZ: -- is for a judge to determine.

BALDWIN: Marc, jump in.

LAMONT HILL: The point I've been trying to make is this becomes emblematic of the problem if we say it's her fault for having the audacity to be upset or to resist an unlawful arrest of unfair treatment, differential treatment.

HOUCK: You can't -- she doesn't know if it's an unlawful arrest.

LAMONT HILL: Just listen to what I'm saying.

HOUCK: OK.

LAMONT HILL: We're not making a legal analysis. The question was who is responsible for escalating this. You're saying, if the woman had not done "X," "Y" would not have happened.

HOUCK: Right.

LAMONT HILL: I'm saying, had the police not done "X," "Y" would not have happened. Let's choose the person that did the unlawful arrest. Let's choose the person that engaged in differential treatment. Based on what we saw, the woman didn't do anything wrong. Neither did the other woman.

HOUCK: She was seven months pregnant. She knows she's got a child in her belly.

BALDWIN: Right.

HOUCK: Why is she resisting arrest, making it hard? Because you can hear the police officer saying, don't resist arrest.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: How about --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Hold on. Hold on.

From a police perspective -- I honestly don't know the answer. Let's say it was absolutely justified, she needed to be arrested. As an officer, and she's saying over and over, I'm pregnant, why place her on her belly? I'm just asking.

HOUCK: That happened as a result of the arrest. They had to put her down to get her handcuffed.

(CROSSTALK)

LAMONT HILL: On her stomach? On her stomach?

HOUCK: How are you going to get handcuffed behind the back? You have to go on her stomach. And she's fighting. You can't specifically put her down a certain way.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: So that is police training?

HOUCK: No --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I'm just asking. I'm asking.

CASAREZ: The police officer had a body camera --

(CROSSTALK)

HOUCK: And the police officer had a body cam. He thought everything he was doing was correct.

LAMONT HILL: That's what is problematic for me. I'm not saying these officers came in and said, hey, let's go to the parking lot and harass somebody. I think they actually think they're right. That's the problem. It's a structural problem. It's not --

(CROSSTALK)

HOUCK: We don't even know if they're wrong yet.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Hang on. Let me jump in. This is what Barstow police -- they've launched an internal review. They wouldn't comment further to CNN. Here's what they told out affiliate out of L.A., quote, "The city of Barstow has received the video link regarding Charlena Cokes' (ph) arrest. It is apparent that she actively resisted arrest. This incident was in no way racially motivated as implied by the ACLU. We affirm our police department's commitment to protect and serve all our residents."

HOUCK: I agree. They were correct. You have to submit to a police officer. You must. That's the law.

BALDWIN: No matter what?

HOUCK: No matter what.

BALDWIN: Yeah.

HOUCK: You have to submit because you -- that's going to happen. That's why. Because the officer is thinking he's within the law of doing --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: What more do we know about this woman?

CASAREZ: She was dropping her daughter off at school. The white woman works at the school. The African-American woman was dropping her daughter off. And --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: She said there was some kind of issue with the parking situation, tossing something at a car.

CASAREZ: Hitting the car. She said she was pounding on the car.

HOUCK: The cop had a lot of experience.

CASAREZ: Don't they have to write a police report?

HOUCK: Right. I'm sure they did.

CASAREZ: Don't they have to put a name on the police report? Do they have a right to get somebody's name?

(CROSSTALK)

CASAREZ: They would be --

HOUCK: well, if there was no crime, you don't really have to do it. Even just as police officer, use the spirit of the law, as they like to call it here in New York. You say, listen --

LAMONT HILL: Everyone go home.

HOUCK: Just take care, guys. That's what I would have done.

[14:45:05] BALDWIN: Marc, you get the final word. We've got to go.

LAMONT HILL: This is a fundamental problem. Whether it's determined a legal arrest or not, what I'm saying is this is a culture of problematic policing. As you said, initially, this did not have to happen. The fact it does happen is troublesome to me.

And, no, I don't know what's in the officer's head. Every time we have a story like that, it's usually a black person. Could it be a wild coincidence? Maybe black people are really bad in not getting arrested? But to me, something is at stake here that we need to dig more deeply on.

BALDWIN: Marc Lamont Hill, Harry Houck, Jean Casarez, thank you, all, so much.

Next, police say this man was drunk when he tried to fly a plane with his own son inside while the air traffic controller tried desperately to stop him from taking off in the first place.

Stay with me. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:50:19] BALDWIN: A pilot accused of flying drunk and crashing his private plane must now face child abuse charges. The pilot's own son was on board the plane. We'll show you here. After it crashed yesterday at Florida's Melbourne International Airport, officials say the pilot, Christopher Hall, was intoxicated and steered his plane onto an active runway that he did not have permission to be on.

Our aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh, is all over this one for us.

Drunk flying? What?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION & GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, what? And you know what, Brooke, we just got the police report literally seconds ago. I haven't gone through the whole thing yet. But according to this police report, that young son of his, only 10 years old. According to air traffic controllers, he was slurring his speech. A flight instructor who responded immediately to the scene to make sure these two were OK said that he smelled the scent of alcohol there on the site. So this just new nuggets coming out of this police report.

The man allegedly, according to this report, intoxicated in the cockpit. We're talking about 57-year-old Christopher Hall. Police say that he asked for clearance to enter the runway. The request was denied, perhaps because air traffic control heard slurred speech. But hall started taxiing in that direction anyway. We actually have some of that audio from air traffic control. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

TOWER: 32 Mike, where you going, sir?

Sky Master 32 Mike, is everything all right, sir?

32 Mike, turn your engines off. Twin Cessna 32 Mike, turn your engines off, sir. Kill your engines.

(END AUDIO FEED) MARSH: All right. Well, we all know how this ended. That small plane went off the runway, through a ditch, before hitting a satellite dish on the airport grounds.

Brooke, we do know the plane was registered to Wireless Systems Engineering in Florida. He is listed as the president. His charges? Reckless operation of a vessel and child abuse without great harm. That last charge is a felony.

BALDWIN: I hope the 10-year-old is OK.

Rene Marsh, thank you.

Coming up, he played the Russian ambassador in the latest season of "House of Cards," but you'll not believe what he does for a day job. This is fascinating. Don't miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:57:20] BALDWIN: (AUDIO PROBLEM) -- not giving up on his other gig, not just yet.

And our U.N. correspondent, Richard Roth, went for a spin with the New York cabbie, who scored a key role on "House of Cards."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDER SOKOVIKOV, ACTOR & CAB DRIVER: The embassy sent for me. I'm being recalled.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the back seat, he's starring in "House of Cards" as Russian U.N. ambassador.

SOKOVIKOV: His mind is made up. No one will dare challenge me.

ROTH: But to survive, Actor Alexander Sokovikov must star in the front of a cab.

(on camera): What is someone on a hit TV show doing driving a cab?

SOKOVIKOV: I think this job is much better for beginning actor than waiting on tables, honestly.

You have no business being ambassador any more than I like being first lady.

ROTH: How many people recognize you getting in your car from "House of Cards"?

SOKOVIKOV: Nobody so far.

ROTH: Do you watch "House of Cards"?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do.

ROTH: This driver is the actor of "House of Cards." UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you see?

SOKOVIKOV: Did you watch season three?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I did.

SOKOVIKOV: The Russian thing, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

SOKOVIKOV: that was me.

ROTH: He's the ambassador.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've been on "House of Cards?"

SOKOVIKOV: Yeah.

(SHOUTING)

ROTH: He has been in the first scene with Robin Wright playing the first lady of the United States.

SOKOVIKOV: Your husband doesn't have this kind of authority.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you naked?

SOKOVIKOV: No, she's naked.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's naked?

You're completely dressed.

SOKOVIKOV: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

SOKOVIKOV: It was the most challenging scene, honestly.

ROTH: In what way?

SOKOVIKOV: As a gentleman, you would just walk out, right?

This is April 13, 2015.

ROTH (voice-over): This being his first major role, he takes diction lessons to expand his hiring possibilities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the tip of the tongue, nothing in the back. Not the Russian sound.

ROTH: I decided to see what happened when I introduce the Russian actor to the real Russian ambassador.

ROTH (on camera): I would like to introduce to you the Russian ambassador. He plays the Russian ambassador on the TV show "House of Cards."

UNIDENTIFIED RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR: How do the writers of the show perceive you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Solid as a rock.

UNIDENTIFIED RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR: Fantastic. Never had a better compliment. Thank you very much.

ROTH: Have you been taught to be more diplomatic on the hectic streets of New York in the cab?

SOKOVIKOV: It is easy for me to lose my temper when I see an idiot behind the wheel. It happens less and less since I did the show.

ROTH: What do you want the public to now about you?

SOKOVIKOV: I would like everyone to know I'm a solid and professional actor. Whether I'm talented or genius, let time decide.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[15:00:05] BALDWIN: And we continue on, hour two. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.