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U.S. Soldier Who Killed 16 Afghan Villagers in 2012 Asking for Mercy; 17 British Airlines Workers Planning Lawsuits; Officer Michael Slager Indicted in Death of Walter Scott. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 8, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00] STEVE ROGERS, RETIRED DETECTIVE LIEUTENANT, NUTLEY POLICE: But we have to get facts. We have to find out what was said. These officers are outnumbered. There are fights going on. Youngsters are not leaving the scene. It's tough being a cop today. And look, if he's wrong, if the investigation finds out he used excessive force, then he should be punished. However, we have to wait for the facts.

JOSHUA DUBOIS, FORMER HEAD, W.H. OFFICE OF FAITH-BASED & NEIGHBORHOOD PARTNERSHIPS: But Brooke, it's not just about this individual officer. This is happening time and time again. I believe there's a systemic issue, unfortunately, with the bad guys crowding out the good guys because they are not processing their own anger issues, their own racial anxiety. There's no way that a pool party should be respond to like this when they aren't weapons involved. These kids are in bikinis.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Let me stay with you, Joshua, because I was texting with a friend who has a teacher friend, predominantly African- American school here in Brooklyn and these young people are asking very big questions. And he's going to show him this video this week. And to your point about -- listen, you took to twitter and you said, imagine if this was your daughter or even your wife. How should parents - because you say parents, show your kids this video. How should that -- what should that discussion look like?

DUBOIS: Well, in addition to having a child on the way myself, I also have much younger siblings. They are teenagers. And I was on the phone with them yesterday just watching the video and processing it with them.

First and foremost, I think you have to say that there is nothing wrong with you. You did not -- this woman did not deserve what happened to her. Perhaps there could have been a different dialogue with the officer, but when you have knees shoved up into your back and when you have someone yelling and screaming and cursing at you, that's not a proportionate response.

OK, so first, there is nothing with you. But two, then you have to talk about how you can get out of situations safe and whole. And so you walk kids through how to try to diffuse the situation when the officer may be too hot headed, how to bring down the temperature. The wonderful thing is the kids standing around the officer, he was more manic than they were. They are actually relatively calm as they are filming. This officer is clearly just sort of losing his mind and it should be OK to say that even about some police officers in this country.

There are great officers, but clearly this guy was in the wrong. And we shouldn't hesitate to say that.

BALDWIN: He's on administrative leave. They are investigating. This is still so fresh. So much needs to come out.

Steve Rogers and Joshua Dubois, thank you both so much for your time. I truly appreciate it.

ROGERS: Thanks for having us.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, former staff sergeant Robert Bales is serving life in prison for shooting and killing the 16 Afghan civilians a couple years back. In these newly revealed letters, he says he did not look at the Afghan people as human. Lost compassion for them and now he's looking for mercy.

Next, we'll talk to psychologist and combat stress coach about why Bales blames his crimes on his four deployments. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:08] BALDWIN: A new development here from the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. soldier who admitted to murdering 16 Afghan villagers in 2012 and is serving life in prison for those crimes is now asking for mercy. Robert Bales is serving time in a U.S. prison. We are now learning the former army staff sergeant wrote an eight page letter to army brass (ph) to come Washington newspaper gain access of the letter for the freedom of information act.

And in that letter, he says he lost all compassion for Iraqi and Afghan civilians. And he blames his lack of compassion on his four combat deployments. This is part of what he wrote. Let me read this for you.

My mind was consumed by war. I planted war and hate for the better part of ten years and harvested violence. After being in prison two years, I understand that what I thought was normal was the part theft thing from being normal.

Bales is asking the army to reduce his sentence.

Psychologist and combat stress coach Terry Lyles joins me from Miami.

Terry, great to have you back. You know, my first question would be, reading through a lot of these snippets from these letters, you know, he really just says he was consumed by war and this hate. How typical is that?

TERRY LYLES, PSYCHOLOGIST, COMBAT STRESS COACH: Well, it's very typical in those kinds of scenarios, especially after four deployments in ten years and back and forth. And I think the conversation, Brooke, that we have to have, is when this is going on in prolonged periods of trauma exposure, brings out all kinds of interesting things in different types of personality and responses in people's lives.

And when you're talking about war and trauma at that level over and over and over again, fiction and reality becomes very blurred. It doesn't justify what he did. I think he even stated that in his statement. You know, 16 people lost, six others injured, it's tragic. But I think, again, the conversation is we need better training to help these individuals get recovery, when they do come back, that they come back whole individuals, more rational than when they left.

BALDWIN: So I think it's important what he to point out, I mean, he came to hate the civilians. I mean, it was his job to clear these roots as they would be out and about outside of the wire. And so you'd have these bombs that were buried and then he sort of then began to believe that it's the civilians, it's the Afghan natives to really complicit in these buried bombs. He wrote that he became callous to them even being human.

LYLES: Yes. And again, you know, we saw this all the way back even in Vietnam. You know, I was young at the time and I remember studying stories like this and researching what I've done over these years. And again, that line of who is my enemy and in a war zone, anybody could be an enemy. But again, that's where vigilance takes place, you know, and it gets blurred. And we need good accountability. Other comrades and soldiers that can talk that through with them and really be accountable to each other that those types of events don't take place, because, listen, we're not the terrorists, you know. We're supposed to act humanely, rationally and in a way that, you know, depicts what we're about in this country.

But things go wrong with overexposure to trauma without the proper treatment and care, whether it's here or there. And I think that's where the military and all of us have to step up and raise that game to help these individuals in dire situations.

[14:40:16] BALDWIN: But then reading this piece in the "News Tribune," you know, the one who is wrote the letters, you know, they talk about the juxtapose position between these horrible crimes with what they call routine rhythms of domesticity. You know, he writes about wanting to be home with the kids and going fishing with his son and going on a hike with his black Labrador retriever. I mean, can you explain those two sort of seemingly like this dichotomy of thought.

LYLES: Absolutely. I mean, how many of us daydream during the day and I wish we were somewhere else, hopefully not now, Brooke. But you know, in a moment, you know, we get stressed, we get tired and fatigued and before long, we day dream, we want to be someplace else to numb the pain or to numb that existence.

We already know he was using alcohol heavily, sleeping pills. He was using some type of steroid, you know, process. He was searching for calmness in the midst of chaos internally. So it is uncommon to try to drift away and go to a happy place to get out of the chaos and the trauma you are in. And I think it speaks deeply to the pain that he was in a lot like a lot of other warriors out there that I fear are not being treated carefully as well. And, if not, these things, not that they will occur that often, but it shows how difficult of a job these warriors have to protect us every single day when their lives are at stake.

BALDWIN: Terry Lyles, thank you so much.

LYLES: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, there is some breaking news in the death of a South Carolina man, Walter Scott. This grand jury today revealing the decision of the fate of the police officer who shot the unarmed man in his back.

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[14:46:15] BALDWIN: Frequent flyers, listen up. We talked a lot about safety on airplanes, but what about the very air that we breathe, both passengers and crew and pilots as well? The BBC is reporting 17 former and current workers are planning lawsuits against several unnamed British airlines. They say quote-unquote "contaminated air inside the cabins has made them seriously ill." They alleged the toxic fumes are coming from the engine and into the cabin's air supply.

CNN's aviation analyst and pilot Les Abend joins me now.

Les, you know, listen. We all sort of wonder what is in that stuff. When we're sitting in that airplane cabin, I know that one of the pilots in the BBC report said he experienced fumes so strong that the crew couldn't even administer a mayday call because they were too, you know, disoriented. Have you ever experienced anything like that?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I have. Only on the ground. It is not to that extent and to that degree, Brooke.

But let me give you a quick, fun lesson on the jet engine so our viewers understand how it all works.

BALDWIN: OK.

ABEND: Compare your house to a jet engine, OK? You get a main water line, main supply line that comes into the house and goes to the kitchen, it goes to your toilets, goes to various parts of the house, same as a jet engine. Jet engine gets all of that air. Most of the air is used to thrust the airplane. Other parts of that is used for air conditioning, cooling and heating and one of the main purposes is for pressurization. If the air is compressed so we breathe the same density as we would here sitting in CNN studios, for instance, up at high altitude.

What happens is they draw that bleed air, is what we call it, from the jet engine into various parts of the airplane. And that comes from directly from the intake. It's filtered air. However, just like in your house, if it's damaged or permeated somehow with some other source, you're going to get that bad water, so --.

BALDWIN: So, hang on. Let me stop you. That bleed air, is that part of what we're breathing in the cabin from the engines?

ABEND: No, it's not. Don't think of it as exhaust air. This is air that comes into the main intake of the engine and then goes into various pipes, like you do in your house, OK? It's not something that is coming out the back end of the engine. It's being compressed by the jet engine itself. It comes into the cabin and then circulates.

Now, in a traditional jet engine and traditional airplane, it just goes right back out and you constantly get fresh air. The development of high-technology has put high efficient jet engines on the market and the way it's done is through re-circulated air.

So that doesn't mean, once again, that it's coming from the back end of the airplane where the exhaust it, it just means that the air that you might have just breathed a few minutes ago is coming back in only 50 percent of it for the most part. The cockpit, however, is supposed to get totally fresh air on all airplanes designed this way.

BALDWIN: OK. Good.

ABEND: So where this might have happened, very often, if we're sitting in line behind other jets, you'll get the exhaust of that jet engine and it will come directly into the intakes and it can't be completely filtered out.

Now, if you have an emergency situation where some of that perhaps engine oil, the normal engine oil likes in and there might be a crack and this is not --

[14:50:01] BALDWIN: OK. I got it. I will take your word for it, Les Abend, on air mechanics 101, a little lesson for us this afternoon.

Les, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Hopefully this is an anomaly for all of us.

Coming up next, we have more breaking news here. This is out in South Carolina. The death of Walter Scott, a grand jury today revealing its decision on the fate of the police officer who shot the unarmed man in his back. We'll discuss that.

Also, happening now, this female prison worker being questioned in this massive manhunt for two killers who broke out of prison. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:56:10] BALDWIN: A former South Carolina police officer caught in this video shooting an unarmed man in the back has been indicted by the grand jury. Michael Slager was indicted in the death of Walter Scott. He shot him during a traffic stop back in April. Scott was shown running away from the officer at the time the shots were encountered widen the national spotlight. It was already scrutinizing police conduct.

In response to today's indictment, Slager's attorney issued a statement quote "until we have an opportunity to fully evaluate the state's case and to compare it with our own investigation, we will not be commenting on any aspect of the case.

Joining me now, CNN political commentator Van Jones and also Miller Shealy, a professor at the Charleston school of law. Welcome both of you.

Van Jones, to you first. I mean, clearly here, yes, it's an indictment but an indictment doesn't mean accountability. It could be one step closer to that.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, obviously it's a good sign that when you have someone who is being, you know, shot in the back running away by a police officer, that person can be indicted.

But as we know, it is a long way from an indictment to an actual successful prosecution, sentencing and the person serving time. Let's not forget, for a year now you've been seeing shocking video after shocking video. Not a single police officer you seen in any of this covered on the past year has been convicted of anything yet, not one.

And so, that's part of the problem that you have, I think, right now. This crisis of credibility and confidence, when you have this much misconduct being documented, including the girl at the swimming pool and everything else and nobody is going to prison. Something is wrong with the system.

BALDWIN: Right. I'm thinking of the officers in Baltimore, the six of them, they have been indicted. But, you're right, no convictions there.

Professor, you know, I think it is just worth revisiting grand jury. We talked a lot about grand jury when Michael Brown was shot and killed. And I recall, you know, the Officer Darren Wilson did testify at the grand jury which I believe was a rarity. I mean, would this officer have testified here?

MILLER SHEALY, PROFESSOR, CHARLESTON SCHOOL OF LAW: I doubt it. I don't know. The grand jury proceedings were still - are still just sealed. It will just return this week. So we don't know whether he testified or not. I would doubt it. It's not the practice here in the state to do that, although in the federal system, in some states, if a defendant wants to testify, they are typically allowed to testify but they don't have a right to. I wouldn't be surprised if Slager testified. My guess is he did not.

BALDWIN: OK. And then my follow up to you, professor Miller, would be, you know, that there's video, I recall, of Walter Scott and someone else sitting in the passenger seat in that Mercedes, right, initially. And then there's a separate video of him being shot. There's a period in between that is lacking visually. So how do you see that, you know, in reference to a tussle? He said/she said, I mean, how will that play out in court?

SHEALY: Well, that's going to be a focus of a lot that goes on in court, I think, in terms of exactly what happened. I think, you know, the video is going to speak for itself about what happened in the car. It's going to speak for itself largely about the shooting as the victim ran away.

But this tussle and what happened and how long it took, I would expect that the defense and the prosecution will spend a lot of time developing exactly what happened almost second by second in that tussle.

BALDWIN: Van, you referenced all of these videos that we've been --

SHEALY: It's a pivotal part --

BALDWIN: Understand. No, it is a pivotal part and I am wondering, God, you know, Van, to you, had there not been video in this case, where do you think it would stand today?

JONES: Well, there would be no charge at all.

SHEALY: It's hard to tell.

BALDWIN: To you, van.

JONES: Part of the challenge we have is --

SHEALY: We don't know that.

JONES: We're starting to see something develop in the country where it seems like increasingly, if you're young, if you're African- American, if you are a young person of color, you are almost guilty until proven innocent. There is this kind of suspicion about you. But if you are a police officer, somebody, somewhere decides to give you a gun and a badge, you are innocent until you have an incontrovertible peace of video evidence. Otherwise, you are not going to get in trouble.

And if you think about what that means, you don't have to then think all police officers are bad. Any human system that has not have adequate checks and balance --

END