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Massive Manhunt on for Two Escaped Killers; Obama to Meet with Iraqi Leader; Iraqi Forces Retake Refinery Town from ISIS; U.K. Royal Navy Rescues 1,200 Libyan Refugees; Cop Throws Teen to Ground at Pool Party. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 8, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A massive manhunt is under way for two convicted killers on the run.

[05:58:53] TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It's clear that they used power tools to escape.

MAJOR CHARLES GUESS, NEW YORK STATE POLICE TROOP "B" COMMANDER: All available assets are being brought to bear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Iraqi forces say that they are now in full control of the city of Baiji.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're grateful to coalition for airstrikes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Baiji is home to the largest Iraqi oil refineries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told you to stay. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) down on the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A formal investigation into the incident has been started.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are children. They've got to be able to handle things in a better manner than this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, June 8, 6 a.m. in the east and we have a serious manhunt underway right now for two dangerous inmates. They took a page right out of a movie to pull off this wild prison break in upstate New York.

Two bad guys. Convicted killers. Both were at check-in Friday night, both gone the next morning. And how they did it has investigators in a tizzy. They cut through steel walls and pipes. They left notes as they exited a maximum security prison and are now at large and considered very dangerous. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So a $100,000 reward is being

offered to find these convicted murderers, Richard Matt and David Sweat. A lot of questions this morning. Did these two have insider help, and who is hiding them now?

Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Polo Sandoval. He's live in upstate New York. What do we know, Polo?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Alisyn and Chris. Good morning.

I can tell you that the people living in the shadow of this maximum security prison are waking up to a very impressive police presence right now, armed police manning checkpoints, really, throughout the community here.

The priorities for law enforcement this morning will be two-fold. Track down these convicted killers before they find -- before they hurt anybody, and then try to find out exactly how on earth they were able to pull off such an elaborate escape this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUESS: We're leaving no stone unturned. They could be anywhere.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Two convicted murders escaping this maximum-security prison for the first time in its 170-year history. It has hundreds of law enforcement officers scouring upstate New York this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are dangerous people.

SANDOVAL: A massive manhunt is on for 35-year-old David Sweat, who was sentenced to life with no parole for a 2002 killing of a sheriff's deputy, and 49-year-old Richard Matt, who was spending 25 to life for beating a man to death and dismembering him in 1997.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK STATE: When you look at how it was done, it was extraordinary.

SANDOVAL: New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, taking a tour of their elaborate and almost unbelievable escape route, discovered around 5:30 Saturday morning.

A. CUOMO: Must have kept you awake with all that cutting, huh?

SANDOVAL: After stuffing makeshift dummies into their beds so the guards thought they were sleeping, the inmates somehow obtained power tools to cut this hole in the back of their cell. Cutting through solid steel, they exited onto a catwalk. From the catwalk, they had to shimmy down into a tunnel below. Once there, they had to break through a 24-inch brick wall, then cut through a 24-inch steel vertical pipe, which they then shimmied into, continuing for a significant distance until cutting another hole, making their way into the city sewer. Then, when they reached a manhole, they had to cut through a

steel lock and chain, finally disappearing into the neighborhood about block away from the prison.

But not before leaving this racially offensive drawing for prison officials on a Post-It, reading "Have a Nice Day."

LISA VAN SUSTEREN, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: It's clear that they had help. There's no way. Power tools don't just materialize inside prison cells. This has been being planned for a very long time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And with the Canadian border less than 25 miles from here, there's some serious concerns that both Matt and Sweat have potentially already left the country.

I can tell you that I've spoken to several law enforcement officials. They are confident that they will track these guys down, Alisyn. But the concern here is what will two desperate fugitives on the run be willing to do to try to not end up back behind the walls of this prison, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Very worrisome this morning. Polo, thanks so much.

Let's get some expert analysis on this elaborate prison break and the manhunt underway with CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director, Tom Fuentes; and Joseph Giacalone, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former NYPD detective sergeant. Great to see both of you guys.

Joe, I want to start with you. You saw that graphic illustration of what these guys had to saw through and break through to make it out of prison. They had power tools. Does that mean to you that they had help from the inside?

JOSEPH GIACALONE, PROFESSOR, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Yes. I mean, this is a really bad situation going on here. There's no way that they could get these tools and just smuggle these things in. And then they're also not using power cords, either. So they're using battery-operated ones, too, and they have to have a place to charge these things and stuff like that. So this is a big concern.

CAMEROTA: Tom, you know, one theory is that there was construction work being done at the prison. And so maybe they lifted and stole some of the power tools from the construction crew. However, to saw through things with power tools makes a lot of noise. How could the prison not have known what was going on here?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Alisyn, if they were having, you know, other construction projects going on at that prison during the middle of the day, and they were supposed to be on lockdown but instead were in the tunnel drilling and sawing, they could have it done while the other construction is going on. If they're not sawing holes in walls at 3 in the morning, people wouldn't notice another sound of another saw operating.

CAMEROTA: OK. That's a good point.

Joe, these guys used one of the oldest tricks in the book. They put dummies in their beds. And that went undetected for something like seven or eight hours. Does that tell you that something needs to change in terms of prison head count policy?

GIACALONE: Well, this is a real supervision issue, too. I mean, what are the guards doing? Where are they? What the supervisors are doing, especially over the midnight hours.

CAMEROTA: But really, help me understand this. Because when inmates are sleeping, guards let them sleep, right? You don't wake them up every two hours to take a head count. I mean, that's how it works. Right?

GIACALONE: No, but I mean, most people, you know, move around a little bit in their sleep. So maybe they need to stay at the cell for a few minutes, and observe them and watch them to make sure that they're moving or breathing or something is going on.

CAMEROTA: Tom, what do you think all this says? What are you gleaning from this story?

[06:05:05] FUENTES: Well, obviously, it says that they didn't have adequate supervision, you know, in that prison.

But I think the bigger story now is what are these guys capable of, now that they're out? You know, they're both convicted murderers looking at life to, you know, 25 or more years in the case of one of them. So they're likely that they could do a home invasion to steal a car, a hijacking. They could hold a family hostage, kill them in order to get money, weapons, cars. All of those are concerns of the police.

So I'm sure they're checking the local town to make sure, you know, that every residence is OK, that all of the people are safe and sound and accounted for.

But the amount of time and the amount of head start that they had, they could have walked to Canada, 20 miles away. Montreal, 75 miles away, so a very short distance.

One of the two had already been a fugitive, escaping previously from a jail sentence and ending up in Mexico and brought back. So that's why, right away, the suspicion that they could have already left the country by the time anybody even knew they were missing. And therefore, you have the U.S. marshals and the FBI with the international reach also attempting to find them.

CAMEROTA: Joe, these guys are the worst of the worst. One of them is a police officer killer. One of them tortured and dismembered his victim. I mean, they're just as dangerous as they get. So what are police doing around that neighborhood to make sure that people are safe? GIACALONE: Well, they're going to probably have to go door-to-

door, house-to-house. They're going to have to make sure everything is -- you know, everyone is accounted for. You know, make sure that somebody who is supposed to show up for work today that didn't. Everything has to be investigated. Every minor crime, every burglary call, every theft has to be looked at, because these guys need the money. They need the, you know, cars. They need all kinds of stuff to get out. And this is going to be providing those leads that the investigators are going to need.

CAMEROTA: Tom, you've worked on escape cases and fugitive cases. Obviously, loads of them. I mean, yes, they were close to Canada. But in general, don't guys like this go to their family or a girlfriend's house, I mean, some sort of safe haven that they're familiar with?

FUENTES: Sometimes. It just depends on how the escape went. You often have escapes where somebody jumps a guard and runs out the door, or they get taken to the hospital because they claim they're sick and then they, you know, make an escape on a sudden opportunity basis, where they haven't been able to plan, they haven't preplanned to have money, clothes, transportation arranged for.

However, in this case, this obviously took a long time to drill and saw and all the effort they made inside the prison itself. So they could easily have had a wife, a girlfriend, another friend, brother, sister, somebody already prearranged to pick them up once they got out, have clothes, have money, have transportation. So that's something the authorities have -- are going to be looking at, also, is account for every member of their family and friend they can identify, and see if they're still around, or is one of them missing along with a vehicle or two vehicles?

So there's a lot of other things that will be going on mainly outside that prison that matter right now, because they're so dangerous.

CAMEROTA: They have their hands full. Let's hope that $100,000 reward helps this morning. Joe Giacalone, Tom Fuentes, thanks so much for your expertise.

GIACALONE: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: We should also let you know that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will join us live on NEW DAY next hour. He toured the escape route. Can't wait to get his thoughts on that -- Chris.

C. CUOMO: All right, Alisyn.

Now overseas, President Obama is meeting with leaders of the G-7. Much of their focus is on Russia and Vladimir Putin, stopping the killing in Ukraine, which is still very much active. The war on ISIS an obvious focus. The president is set to meet with Iraq's prime minister on the summit sidelines. We have CNN's Jim Acosta live from Austria.

Jim, what do we know?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Chris, President Obama's most critical meeting of the day here is not with a leader who is part of the G-7. It's Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who just wrapped up a face-to-face chat this morning with the world's most powerful leaders. Abadi is here in the Alps to seek more military assistance for the battle against ISIS.

Senior administration officials saying don't expect any big announcements on that front. But the president has a diplomatic goal in mind for his meeting with Abadi. And that is to ease tensions with the prime minister after Defense Secretary Ash Carter questioned the Iraqis will to fight.

Administration officials know that deeply upset the Iraqis. But there's much more than Iraq on the agenda here. The president hopes to leave this summit with the G-7 leaders showing a united front and maintaining sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

He's already lined up support of the summit's host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who's emerged as the most powerful leader in Europe, certainly, the most powerful woman in the world. And Michaela, it doesn't hurt when you're practicing diplomacy by serving beer and pretzels to the president. That went pretty over well, as well.

Michaela, back to you.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. I can't imagine that wouldn't go over well. All right. Thanks so much, Jim.

A setback for ISIS. The U.S. Is getting credit for helping Iraqi forces retake the strategic refinery town of Baiji. ISIS forces fleeing the city toward Mosul while still under attack by air.

[06:10:06] CNN correspondent Jomana Karadsheh is live in Amman, Jordan, with the latest for us.

Good morning to you.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

According to Iraqi officials, both the military and the Shia militias, who have been the main fighting force on the ground there, on Sunday they say that they have managed to regain control of much of the city of Baiji after months of intense fighting and focused U.S. and coalition airstrikes that have been taking place there.

They say that they have regained control of the city center, a government complex, and the main mosque. They say that ISIS fighters have withdrawn towards the city of Mosul. And what remains, they describe this as pockets of resistance and areas that they are trying to clear of booby-traps.

But of course, all eyes are on that strategic oil refinery, Iraq's largest oil refinery. The Baiji oil refinery has changed hands several times over the past year. In recent weeks, we saw ISIS gain control of the majority of that complex. And now, Iraqi forces are going to try and regain that from ISIS. A very tough task ahead.

Of course a lot of concern that if ISIS were to withdraw from this strategic and very symbolic area that they have focused a lot of resources and fighters to keep control of, that they might destroy the refinery on the way out.

Back to you, Alisyn.

C. CUOMO: I'll take it. Thank you very much for the reporting.

We also want to tell you the British Royal Navy rescued more than 1,200 refugees off the Libyan coast. This is part of a multinational effort to save thousands of migrants who are fleeing the fighting in Libya that they're stranded in the Mediterranean Sea.

We have CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, live in Catania, Sicily, with more -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Chris, good morning. And this is where the boat, the HMS Bulwark, is going to dock. There are ten pregnant women, we understand, aboard that ship.

What happened on this weekend, the biggest wave of migrant flooding across the Mediterranean occurred, according to the Italian Coast Guard, close to 6,000 people have been picked up this week. And it's the Italian navy, the Spanish navy, the British navy, the Irish navy, the Swedish navy involved, as well, the Germans, as well, bringing them to multiple different ports.

We're in Sicily. They're bringing them to mainland Italy, as well. What we'll expect to see here, people will come off the boat. They'll be processed by Red Cross officials, health processing before they'll be handed over to immigration officials here.

But -- but this wave of migrants that are coming across a great concern. And the reason aid officials believe it's happening in such big numbers right now is because it's good weather, calm seas. The staggering statistics so far this year really tell you the biggest story.

Almost 100,000 migrants have come across the sea. So many from -- coming -- crossing from Libya. This is double the number last year. There are Syrians. There are Eritreans, Egyptians, Libyans, Malians, Pakistanis, people from Nigeria, as well. So this is becoming a very, very big issue for Europe right now, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Nic, thanks so much for that reporting.

Well, a United Airlines flight skidding off the runway last night in Buffalo, New York. The United Express flight from Washington, D.C., landed on a slick runway, sending the jet and its 69 passengers sliding into a grassy safety area. Passengers say the plane's pilot told them a strong gust of wind was to blame. No one was hurt. PEREIRA: Several folks are waking up behind bars after a rowdy

scene outside a hip-hop/R&B concert in New Jersey. Police in riot gear dispersing Summer Jam concert crowds with tear gas at MetLife stadium after they say some people tried to jump the gates to get into the sold-out event. Concert-goers apparently were frustrated by slow security screening. Pushing and shoving ensued. Bottles were thrown at officers. The scene in front of you is what played out.

CAMEROTA: That's a terrible scene.

PEREIRA: Just thinking of going to a concert on a Sunday night.

CAMEROTA: Right. A summer Sunday. But they say that people waited so long in line that everybody was getting frustrated.

PEREIRA: It is a frustrating thing.

CAMEROTA: It is.

C. CUOMO: Very hard situations, too. People are angry. You start seeing something happen to some. You get a little bit of mob mentality going on. They're angry. They crowd around. The cops are all there in riot gear. You know, you weren't ready for that. Such a charged environment we have right now.

PEREIRA: Riot gear for a concert? I mean...

C. CUOMO: And then they'll say, "Yes, good thing we had it." You know what I mean? "Look what we wind up dealing with."

PEREIRA: I know.

C. CUOMO: Back and forth we go.

CAMEROTA: Yes. We'll update you on that.

Meanwhile, new video that is inflaming tension over police force again. A Texas officer caught on camera dragging a girl in a swimsuit, also drawing his gun. Was all this force warranted?

[06:14:50] We debate this, you decide.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

C. CUOMO: Unfortunately, we have another situation where police are under fire. This time, a Texas cop is on administrative leave after responding to calls about teens using a community pool without permission. What happened next is disturbing. Here's the set up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get on the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A moment, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told you to stay. (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Down on the ground.

C. CUOMO (voice-over): Kids having fun or chaos? This scene in McKinney, Texas, over the weekend has some calling for this officer to be disciplined for using excessive force.

The approximately seven-minute video hosted on YouTube Saturday shows a situation out of control. The officer seen wrestling a 14- year-old girl in a swimsuit to the ground. He then pulls his firearm on two unarmed boys before turning his attention back to the girl.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On your face.

C. CUOMO: The officer has both knees on her back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The officer was overzealous. These are children. They've got to be able to handle things in a better manner than this.

C. CUOMO: In response to the video, McKinney police have said...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A formal investigation into the incident has been started. And the officer involved has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

C. CUOMO: All right. So that's the video. That's the background. Let's bring in CNN law enforcement analyst and retired NYPD detective Harry Houck; and CNN political commentator Marc Lamont Hill.

Now, one unknown. We do not know the exact information, yet, that was communicated in the 911 call. But let's assume that it was the kind of information we would expect was communicated. You know, people have seen them. There are a lot of kids. They're making noise. That's what's going on, and that's what they approach.

[06:20:015] Harry, how do you justify what that man, I think, correctly characterized as overzealous, do better when you're dealing with kids?

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, here is the news flash for our viewers. I'm probably going to agree with Marc Lamont Hill on this one. That officer was way out of control. I cannot see why that officer had to -- and you can see, when you're watching the video, he's the only officer acting like he's out of his mind. All the other officers seem very level-headed. The kids don't seem like they're really doing much as far as against the police officers here.

When you approach a crowd of kids like this on a call like that, you go in calmly. He pulls his gun, which -- and you see the other officers run over like and go, like, what the -- are you doing here, pulling your gun on these kids?

So I think this officer being suspended, maybe even losing his job for the way he's acting here, it's -- you know, I can't defend this at all.

C. CUOMO: Isn't that nice?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You have no idea how happy you just made me, dude. I was -- all morning I was ready to be mad at Harry.

C. CUOMO: It's sad to see what brings you guys together. But at least we're moving in the right direction.

HILL: I mean, this is shameful.

C. CUOMO: One of the things we have to do here is not get obsessed with the obvious and get to the real important question of how do you fix a situation like this? Right? Because, look, the kids are going to be traumatized. You have this added layer. Was it only the black kids that he was going after like this? There were lots of different types of kids there, right? I mean, these were kids running around. It wasn't a gang activity or anything. But the important question becomes, well, now what? So what do you do now? Let's say you punish this guy.

Let's say they find out -- they don't take his back without basis, and they -- is that the, you know, where do we go?

HILL: It's part of it. Because for so long, it's happening with impunity. So just doing that is a step forward.

The other thing is that we're beginning to shift national consciousness. Because -- so quite frankly, the only time people, even Harry, with all due respect, the only time people can see the point that this stuff is bad is when they have it on videotape. But if we have a series of tapes where this happens all the time, then maybe people will finally listen to the claims of citizens who don't -- aren't lucky enough to have a camera.

C. CUOMO: But do you then move the pendulum too fast and far the other way of saying, well, this is what happens every time?

HILL: No. Absolutely not.

C. CUOMO: That's the concern.

HOUCK: We can use this as a training video for police officers on what not to do in a situation like that.

You know, you come up to kids. It's -- you know, it's a pool party going on. So they're not leaving where they're supposed to. You've got nine radio cars that show up. All right. You walk over and say listen, "Will you guys do me a favor? You know, we got a call. Can you, like, move on here? You're not welcome."

C. CUOMO: Kids are going to scramble.

HOUCK: Exactly.

HILL: That's what you do.

C. CUOMO: I remember being in Albany, playing basketball. We'd find a way to turn the lights on after they went off. And the cops would come and you'd run away.

HOUCK: Right, exactly.

C. CUOMO: They almost never chased.

HILL: Right. And they didn't draw weapons. That becomes the other part of this, the implicit bias of it, right?

When you get a call that some kids are acting wild. They're 17. It's an end-of-the-school-year pool party. This happens in neighborhoods all around the country.

HOUCK: Right.

HILL: They're typically in suburban neighborhoods, because poor people don't have pool parties.

C. CUOMO: Right.

HILL: They don't have this type -- these types of resources.

When you hear it's black kids, you respond differently than when it's white kids. That's another critical problem that we have to get at. That comes through training. It comes through firing some folks. It comes through sort of reimagining what the possibilities are for what policing in the community could look like. That's a bigger project. But it starts with raising the consciousness and saying, "Hey, this really does happen. Our stories for the last 100 years have been true."

HOUCK: Yes, and you know, let's look at it this way. I mean, I'd like to take -- and you know I like to take this one case at a time here. All right? Because there isn't a large, giant conspiracy of police officers acting like this.

HILL: Yes, there is.

C. CUOMO: The conspiracy point I'm getting to.

HOUCK: That's the problem I have.

C. CUOMO: Does this prove the rule or is this the exception? That's what you wind up getting.

HILL: We've had a lot of exceptions this year.

C. CUOMO: But you've got a lot of stops, also.

HOUCK: Yes.

C. CUOMO: Let's say...

HOUCK: You have a million interactions a day with police officers, country wide.

HILL: Right.

HOUCK: And I mean, this is -- you know. You -- if you -- and you're a statistic guy. I wish somebody would find out exactly what the statistics are on something like this happening. It's probably not even, like, .1 percent.

HILL: Here's the difficulty in determining it. One, if we only go by videotape, we're severely limited. And if we only go by police accounts, police rarely confess: "Yes, I kicked that guy's butt. I was wrong."

So we tend to trust police more than we do citizens, and we tend to only disbelieve police when we have videotape. Those are severe challenges. At some point we have to say, "Maybe this is a representative case."

C. CUOMO: All right. But here's...

HOUCK: There are people that make false allegations against police officers all the time. All the time. How do you know which is which?

C. CUOMO: But the numbers do matter. But let me -- let me go down this road with you just a step.

We do know. If you multiply the numbers that are known by ten, a factor of ten, you would only get to just over 10 percent of interactions with police. I'm saying give you ten times the numbers...

HILL: You don't think that's considerable.

C. CUOMO: I consider it to be terrible. But I'm saying that, again, though, perspective. One in ten stops is something that you need to address because it goes the wrong way.

[06:25:08] The feeling is, when you see something like this, was it eight out of ten? Is it nine? Are all cops like this? Is that what we're saying? Is it one out of 100?

Then the cops feel threatened. They feel they can't do their jobs. More people get aggressive with them. You see what you saw at the concert; they're coming out in riot gear. They're taking everybody as a perp. You can be too zealous...

HOUCK: I disagree.

C. CUOMO: ... in terms of how you do it.

HILL: In the suburbs...

C. CUOMO: Right. Which is kind of where you were.

HILL: Yes, but it was black kids in the suburbs. C. CUOMO: Right, right. And other kids. And other kids.

HILL: No, I'm talking about the ones on the ground, the ones getting body slammed. You know, if one out of 100 white kids in the suburbs had this happen to them, just one out of 100, just one out of 1,000, we would call it a national crisis. One out of 100, one out of 10 is unacceptable. You wouldn't fly on an airplane, if "well, 99 percent of the time we don't crash." At some point we have to say that one life matters. And this is not one; this is one times 100, times 1,000.

C. CUOMO: Absolutely. And balancing it with we're not saying that this is epidemic. We're not saying it's every time.

HILL: But it is epidemic.

HOUCK: It is not epidemic. Come on.

HILL: We had two cases of Ebola, and we said it was an epidemic.

HOUCK: I can't help but think of two cases...

C. CUOMO: Maybe that was baseless (ph), saying two cases was an epidemic.

HILL: This is an everyday occurrence.

HOUCK: It's not an everyday occurrence, come on.

HILL: It actually is.

HOUCK: I'm sorry. I can't...

(CROSSTALK)

HOUCK: I can't -- you know, with the millions and millions of transactions with police officers every day or interactions with police officers every day, I can't say this is epidemic proportions.

HILL: Here's what we know for sure. We know that there are a series of tapes that come out. We know that there's studies in all these states about black people being disproportionately pulled over and arrested, even though the hit ratio...

HOUCK: Which means nothing, really.

HILL: No, no, no. Just a second. If we combine all this stuff, if we look at the likelihood of people getting pulled over, the fact that police officers...

HOUCK: There's a lot.

HILL: ... there's so much evidence that says this is an epidemic.

C. CUOMO: Can we also agree, hug aside, that tape is good? HOUCK: Oh, yes.

C. CUOMO: Tape is -- that's a big battle right now.

HOUCK: Right.

C. CUOMO: A lot of departments don't want to use the body cams. They don't want to put it in. They say...

HOUCK: If I -- if I was a police officer today, I would buy my own body cam. I would because the way things are today. Because I know that there were so many false allegations out there against police officers. You know, when I was on the police department, when I was in internal affairs, I investigated these. There were so many false ones. I'd say probably, you know, five out of ten are false. Because...

HILL: But every other one is true. You don't think that's a problem?

HOUCK: I don't know.

HILL: Five out of ten, that's a problem.

HOUCK: At least. That's at least.

HILL: I'd give you eight out of ten. I'm saying if 20 percent of -- again, I think because these are police officers...

HOUCK: You are always going to have problems. There's always going to be some bad cop somewhere.

C. CUOMO: Right.

HOUCK: That's going to happen. There's no way we can make it 100 percent.

HILL: But we can make it better. But we can make it better.

HOUCK: We can always make it better.

HILL: We've never tried, is what I'm saying. We have, for the last...

HOUCK: We've tried.

HILL: No, no, no. I'm saying as a society, we've never been committed to addressing this as a fundamental problem.

C. CUOMO: This is the latest one. Hug aside, you can comment on anything you want. Tweet us using the hash tag #NewDayCNN or post your comment on Facebook.com/NewDay about what you do going forward.

Mick, as you tell us all the time, now that you know what the problem is, what are you doing to do about it?

PEREIRA: That's right.

C. CUOMO: That's where we are.

PEREIRA: Look, we started the segment out with a hug. That's a good spot. On a Monday, we'll take it.

C. CUOMO: I know. This is -- we're up today. We're having a good day.

PEREIRA: We'll take it. All right. Thanks, gentlemen.

HOUCK: Just not in a Speedo (ph).

C. CUOMO: You've got to be open, Harry. You've got to be open.

PEREIRA: Baby steps. Baby steps. All right.

What's on the president's agenda today as he meets with Iraq's prime minister? Can the two make headway on the war against ISIS? Take a look at that ahead.

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