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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Train Gunman Charged; Market Rebounds; Louisiana Killings Linked; Prep School Rape Trial. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 25, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:00] RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their way to the next one. The very same manhole Richard Matt and David Sweat emerged from, kicking off a three-week manhunt.

Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Just amazing.

Thank you so much for joining us "AT THIS HOUR." LEGAL VIEW with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We have breaking news coming to us from Paris where just minutes ago authorities laid out the details, the drama and the criminal charges that are arising from last week's attempted massacre on a high speed passenger train. The prosecutor there said there is, quote, "clear evidence" of terrorist intent on the part of the man on your screen, Ayoub El Khazzani, who, as you may know, was stopped and subdued and hog tied by fellow passengers before he could do any murders. In the prosecutors' words, murders of, quote, "a whole train full of people."

Joining us now is Michael Weiss, CNN contributor and co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

And I think a lot of people, Michael, who are watching right now said, the prosecutor may be saying it officially, but we all were thinking it beforehand. Why do you suppose now they're being so official in their language?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, they'll have wanted to sort of see this man's movements. There was rumors or speculation that he had gone to Syria at some point. And he fits the classic - particularly the French terrorism profile, North African descent, you know, boarding a train with an AK-47 and multiple rounds of ammunition and a box cutter, I mean, you would be hard pressed to assume that this was some sort of, you know, petty thug who was just looking to, you know, do a spree killing. That there has to be some kind of ideological motivation here. And indeed it's worth remembering, Belgium, in January of this year,

busted up a - as many as 20 sleeper cells of pro-ISIS terrorists who were running around Belgium. I think it was about 180 figures in total. These guys, the Belgian intelligence services, had accused of plotting terrorism attacks in France, in the Netherlands, in Germany.

BANFIELD: So, Michael -

WEISS: Yes.

BANFIELD: Let me only jump in because I want to give you some of the details that are just coming to us. And all of this has just sort of been coming to us via video from a press conference that was lives in Paris.

WEISS: Sure.

BANFIELD: The prosecutor, Francois Molins, said that he was - he was looking at jihadi sites even while he was on the train. In fact, let me hold for a moment, as we put up this graphic with some background on Ayoub El Khazzani, I want to go live to our Martin Savidge, who's been collecting some of the details from the press conference and from the prosecutor.

I don't know if you can hear me, Martin, but if you can, tell me what it is that they actually have in terms of evidence of him making direct contact with jihadi sites right during and before this incident.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, according to the prosecutor, at least the press conference that was given, what they were tracking is the cell phone and they say belonged to Khazzani. And that on that cell phone they could see that he was going to these websites.

Now, what he said was that they went to YouTube and that at YouTube he apparently was looking at videos that had a jihadist radicalist nature to them. And, in fact, it was music and inspirational versus. So that is what he is listening to, allegedly, while inside the bathroom of the train car between coaches 12 and 13 before he comes out shirtless, armed to the teeth, and begins his attempted assault.

BANFIELD: So then, Martin, there's also this notion - and I'm just going to quote from what we're getting - that apparently Khazzani was looking at, quote - or looking at whilst he was on the train, "YouTube jihadi songs and someone inspiring people to jihadi acts," like you said, on his phone via the Internet. But they've also traced a - a Facebook page to him as well. Do we know anything about that or what they're able to get from the Facebook page?

Oh, we just -

SAVIDGE: Well, they've looked at it -

BANFIELD: Have we got Martin back?

SAVIDGE: And they won't say much about it. It appears that it's the -

BANFIELD: Go ahead, Martin -

SAVIDGE: Can you hear me now?

BANFIELD: Sorry. We - yes, no we just had a little bugaboo in the signal. I can hear you. I can't see you. But go ahead, it's important what you're saying.

SAVIDGE: Exactly. So what they said was that there is a Facebook account that they believe belongs to the suspect. It has since been taken down as of August 21st, that's the date of the attack. But they won't reveal exactly what is on there. But it implies that there is something that they see posted in there or perhaps looking at his history or photographs that suggests to them that there is some kind of connection to a terrorist organization, hence the charge.

[12:04:57] BANFIELD: I want to just quickly bring in Michael Weiss on this. I'm going to play the devil's advocate for a moment because if I'm getting on board some kind of mass transportation in an area where there have been recent terrorist attacks, I'm looking at "Charlie Hebdo" is not that far from the memories of a lot of people. I might actually look at something like that just to see if there's traffic. I - and, again, total devil's advocate. So with language that we're hearing, clear evidence of terrorist intent, I'm wondering, Michael, with your background, do you think they have more than they're sharing?

WEISS: Oh, absolutely. I mean look, you know, you can say that the average passenger, because he's following the news, might be inclined to want to look up jihadi videos or sermons on YouTube. I think that's a bit of a stretch. I mean it sounds to me like he was looking for some kind of spiritual or ideological prompting prior to doing what he assumed was going to be a martyrdom operation. I mean he was looking to kill as many people as possible. I don't think he thought he was going to get away from that train alive had he been successful.

So this has all of the - you know, all of the hallmarks of a classic jihadist operation. And look, you know, the French are taking this as serious as they ought to do. I mean they've detained him, they've interrogated him. The fact that his Facebook page has been taken down, I mean they're trying to track if this was a so-called lone wolf attack or if he indeed had any kind of affiliation or association with known jihadist cells or actors, either in Europe or abroad in the Middle East. So I think - I think what you - you and I and every viewer watching this suspects is indeed the case here.

BANFIELD: Yes. Well, I guess to a lot of people that breaking news doesn't seem like a big headline, but it is when the prosecutors use that language and are going to file charges accordingly, it makes a world of difference.

Thank you so much, Michael Weiss.

WEISS: Sure. BANFIELD: And, also, Martin, I'm sorry that it was so difficult, but we did get you up and back and I can see you and I appreciate the work that you've done. Thanks, both of you. Appreciate it.

I want to move on now to that other really big, unsettling story. If you've been afraid to look at the stock market, fear not. Well, maybe I shouldn't say that so soon because we're still in Tuesday. Monday may be over and markets outside China are in the rebound. The Dow soaring more than 380 points at the opening bell, now standing, look, up 347. Don't forget, we were down a thousand yesterday and then it closed down closer to 600. So these numbers are, well, you can pretty much say, we're not completely back.

CNN's Alison Kosik joins me live now from the New York Stock Exchange.

I'm actually a little surprised that I'm hearing so much news about, we're rebounding, we're rebounding. I don't see this as completely rebounding, but I guess taken in context of what happened yesterday and the enormous volatility, put in the perspective for me.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right. Yes, I mean, when you talk about the thousand point drop at the open yesterday, the 348 point gain today seems like it's a great thing. But, yes, when you look at in the broader sense, the Dow, over the past several days, has lost upwards of a thousand, 1,500 points total. So, yes, the Dow has a long way to go.

The mood here very different, though, from yesterday. The hustle bustle we're seeing today different from the frays nerved yesterday. One trader telling me, when he saw that point drop at the open of over a thousand points, he said he almost passed out. Yes, it's calmer today. It is still volatile. Even though we're in the green, it's still kind of choppy trading, meaning it's kind of zigzagging here and there. Because what you're seeing, Ashleigh, is this continuation of a resetting of prices to match the global environment. Investors are trying to figure out what prices stocks should be at that seem to be justified based on how the world economy is at the moment.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So, Alison, just quickly, if anybody was up and watching the open, we got to the numbers where we are right now. and I'm just going to say it again, we're about 345 right now. We got to this number really fast and, you know, here we've been sort of sitting and jockeying right around the 300 and the half position. What are people saying about the rest of the day? Is this sort of where we're stuck or could we plummet again? I mean what is - obviously anything can happen, but what's the prevailing wisdom where you are?

KOSIK: Well, I mean, the good news is that it looks like that these gains at this point are sticking and the sentiment is they probably will stick through to the close. What happens after that? Well, that's anyone's guess. I mean the good thing is, is that this is sort of - what's considered a natural bounce back after seeing - let's take the Dow, for example, and the S&P, just getting crushed over the past several days. So this is a natural bounce back. Also, there's been some renewed confidence coming back to the market

because of some policy moves that the Chinese government made. But some say we did hit a correction. Others say we didn't necessarily hit a correction and others say we could still correct again later this week. It's a very volatile time. Things look great now. We're seeing greener pastures, literally, at the moment with green arrows. But, once again, this is a very volatile time for the market and anything could happen, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Yes, yes, China loosening up the credit.

KOSIK: Right.

BANFIELD: Everybody's wondering if that's going to, you know, continue to happen here in the United States with the Fed coming into the fall.

KOSIK: Exactly.

BANFIELD: All right, so keep an eye on things if you would for us, Alison. Thank you.

[12:10:05] KOSIK: You got it.

BANFIELD: Alison Kosik live at the New York Stock Exchange for us, 358 and counting.

Coming up next, police say this man, the man who gunned down a Louisiana state trooper, may have been on the run from yet another killing. We're connecting the dots when we come back.

And also ahead, cheating spouses exposed. Now we're hearing of possible suicides that could be connected to that massive data breach from the Ashley Madison website. Does this mean an even bigger world of hurt for the people who let that breach happen?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Now to a developing story in Louisiana. Investigators working to connect the dots between two terrible killings. One of the victims was a Louisiana state trooper. And this is his picture. His name is Steven Vincent. He's the first Louisiana trooper to be killed in a hostile encounter since, get this, 1977.

In the meantime, investigators have just identified the other victim in this mystery. His name is Blake Brewer. And they believe the guy who is accused in the killing of the trooper, his name is Kevin Daigle, this accused man, may have actually had a fight with this second victim and that this second victim may, in fact, have been his roommate. It's all very convoluted, but CNN's Rosa Flores sorts it out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An emotional state police colonel describes the chilling words of the alleged killer of Trooper Steven Vincent, captured on his squad car's dash cam. [12:15:03] COL. MICHAEL EDMONSON, LOUISIANA STATE POLICE: You hear him

breathing in there and telling him, "oh, you're lucky. You're lucky. You're going to die soon."

FLORES: Authorities believe 54-year-old Kevin Daigle killed his roommate before encountering the Louisiana state trooper.

SHERIFF TONY MANCUSO, CALCASIEU PARISH, LOUISIANA: I'm sure you're going ask the question that Mr. Daigle is involved in this and yes we're going to presume that.

FLORES: According to investigators, the pickup Daigle was driving was stuck in a ditch Sunday. Trooper Vincent realized the vehicle matched the description of a reported reckless driver and started asking him about it. The suspect pulled out a shotgun, shooter Trooper Vincent in the head, according to authorities.

EDMONSON: I watched that shotgun blast in that tape. I saw my trooper go backwards and then go back towards his unit, where he was going to try to get some help out there.

FLORES: Good Samaritans, like this man, beat authorities to the scene.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a hero right here.

FLORES: Wrestling with Daigle, investigators say, and subduing him with the wounded officer's handcuffs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me and Sam handcuffed him and then we tended to the officer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was an older guy. It took three men to hold him down.

FLORES: On average, a law enforcement officer is killed in the line of duty every two and a half days in this country.

JONATHAN GILLIAM, LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: The potential of death is just there in everything that you do because you don't know what is on the other side of that door or what's going to be behind the wheel of that car as you approach it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Daigle faces first degree murder charges and authorities tell us that those charges could grow as they continue to investigate the killing of his roommate. Now, as for the state trooper, he leaves behind a wife and a nine-year-old son.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Our Rosa Flores for us. Thank you for that.

Joining me now live from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is Colonel Mike Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police. Colonel, first of all, our thoughts go out to you and your fellow

officers on the loss of one of your own, especially in such a sad way, where he was trying to help whomever was in that vehicle when he approached that vehicle.

COL. MIKE EDMONSON, SUPERINTENDENT, LOUISIANA STATE POLICE: Thank you very much.

BANFIELD: I just need to ask you about this - this new news about this other victim, Blake Brewer. The - it is such an unusual series of circumstances. Is this Kevin Daigle, this accused person, facing any kind of murder charges now in the second incident that you've discovered, this Blake Brewer, the body of Blake Brewer being discovered, the roommate?

EDMONSON: Well, certainly that's where the - that's where the investigation is leading them to was during - during the interview process, look, we're charging him with first degree murder of a police officer, so there's protocols and process that you have to go through. And during the course of that investigation and that interview, he told us that he had an altercation with is roommate prior to getting into his truck and that truck belonged to that roommate. So that's what led us back to the house.

So when he told us that, of course, the Calcasieu Parish Police Sheriff's Department had already checked the house that night. No one came to the door. This gave us the ability, and the sheriff's office going in. They forcefully entered the house. They saw the body on the floor. Saw that individual in decease. They backed out and they got a warrant so that we could keep everything and keep that process. We don't want to give any reason for Kevin Daigle to be able to get out of jail.

BANFIELD: Yes.

EDMONSON: So we've been following a process involved in that. So it's certainly presumed that both of those things are associated to him and it gives a little bit of answer, which we certainly weren't looking for, but it gives us a little bit of an answer as to maybe why his action precipitated him pulling that shotgun on Louisiana State Trooper Steven Vincent.

BANFIELD: But is it accurate to say it did not go as far as the accused, Kevin Daigle, giving a confession about either of these two killings, did it?

EDMONSON: Well, that will all be in the police report, but we've got to be very, very careful what we say. He has legal representation now and we certainly don't want to give them any ability to go further than this investigation. We're going to finish ours. We're going to certainly tie him to both of those and working with the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office, we'll work with John DeRosier, the district attorney there in Lake Charles. We want to piece these together to make sure that we close all ends of this case and make sure that he - he never ever gets out. BANFIELD: And just so our viewers are clear on what happened, we've

got this picture that just went off the screen of this line of police cars with a truck that's sort of off into the ditch and on an angle. I - you know, take me through what happened at that site and how Trooper Vincent was actually trying to do something to help the driver.

EDMONSON: Yes. What - what - He was. I mean he was doing exactly what he was trained to do. We were in the vicinity. A call had come in that there was an erratic possible drunk driver in a truck in that area. It just so happens that Super - State Trooper Steven Vincent was on L.A. 14 near Bell City, Louisiana, in Calcasieu Parish. And he saw the truck in the ditch.

[12:20:06] He pulled over. No one is coming out of it. So he approached the vehicle. And he's talk. He's having a conversation. He going exactly as we train them to do that. And you hear him saying, look, we're going to call a wrecker. We're going to get you out after a ditch. We're going to get your car. We're going to bring you somewhere. So just come out so I can talk to you. And that went on for just a short period and then you see the trooper at the door of the truck, the gentleman coming out of the truck and here - here comes a shotgun, a sawed-off shotgun. Let me tell you something, that - that shotgun's not meant to scare some birds or something like that. That's meant to hurt someone. That's meant to kill somebody. And it was a - it was painted green so you - so you could not see it real well. But you clearly see it coming out of the truck. You see the shotgun blast and you see my trooper going - going backwards.

So, look, I've been a state trooper 35 years. That was a horrific thing to be able to view on a Sunday afternoon and then to go be with his family, his wife Catherine, his son Ethan, is - they just want - he wanted his dad to wake up. We're at his bedside, troopers surrounding him, saying prayers and just wanting his dad to wake up. And we're going to put this together. We're going to do what we're supposed to do as police officers. We're going to move forward, but it's going to take some time.

The public expects that to us. I'm just asking this country to wrap their arms around your police officers, your state troopers, your sheriff's deputies, your first responders.

BANFIELD: Yes.

EDMONSON: They need your - they need your confidence. They need your support. We're going to get through this. It's a horrible, horrible situation. It's not something that Steven Vincent deserved. He did not deserve to die like that. And we're going to make sure, as police officers, we do everything to protect ourselves and to move forward. It's important we do that, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Oh, I'm so sorry. Colonel, I'm just so sorry that you had to witness that. But if it is any consolation, that video that you horrifically witnessed will also be witnessed by a jury in court, if it ever gets to court. And I thank you for taking the time to share with us the story and best of luck to you and your colleagues. EDMONSON: Well, thank you for - and thank you for letting me celebrate

the life of State Trooper Steven Vincent. That's important that we do that.

BANFIELD: Colonel Michael Edmonson, thanks for being with us.

EDMONSON: Thanks.

BANFIELD: Coming up, in other news, as the prosecution wraps up its case in the high profile prep school rape trial, the defense is making a big preparation to put its key witness on the stand. And that witness is the young man himself, the one prosecutors say raped a 15- year-old girl.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:58] BANFIELD: Some pretty tense moments today inside a courtroom in New Hampshire. That's where the trial of a prep school graduate, who's accused of raping a female freshman last year, is happening. And apparently all of this allegedly so that he could score some points in a competition against the other senior boys. That is Owen Labrie and he has been in that courtroom now for six days of trial. Today, the detective who interviewed him has been on the stand being grilled about the conversations that the detective had with Owen and the conflicting stories that Owen told that detective.

Jean Casarez joins me now.

Of course, we're in the prosecution's case, so it always looks real bad when you're doing this. But just before we got to this detective, there was a parade of friends of Owen's up on the stand, all saying that indeed Owen told them he had sex with this girl, took the virginity of this girl. Owen is saying he didn't even have sex with her. This is not looking good for him.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And now, for the first time today, we actually are hearing what he has said. It's hearsay, right, because it's the detective that actually interviewed him for a long, long time. But when this began, Owen said, you know, let's go to the coffee shop. Let's meet you at the coffee shop. And she didn't really think, the detective, that it was the right place to meet, but she agreed. So he shows up. He's there with his mother. His mother. He's 18-years-old. His mother had a notepad. His mother kept interrupting saying, he didn't do any of this. So the detective then decided she had to ask a question that was absolutely shocking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DETECTIVE JULIE CURTIN, CONCORD, N.H., POLICE DEPARTMENT: Kind of got right to the pointed and asked him if his mom knew that he was trying to be number one in sexual scoring at St. Paul's School.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And how did he respond?

CURTIN: He glanced nervously at his mom, away from his mom, back at his mom and he said that his mama didn't know that and it was very clear to me that a further conversation with him was not going to be conducive with his mom being there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And so it was right at that point that Owen decided, you know what, maybe we shouldn't meet in this coffee shop, Ashleigh. Maybe we need to go to the police department. But here's the most telling thing for that what we heard just from the detective. Owen didn't say, no, I wasn't - it wasn't number one on my list."

BANFIELD: He didn't deny it.

CASAREZ: He didn't deny that scoring was an important thing for him.

BANFIELD: Yes. From what I gather from the testimony of this - this officer, he told the officer or answered question and effectively suggested there was never any list of girls that were, you know, alleged conquests.

CASAREZ: Until the detective brought up the name of his good friend.

BANFIELD: Uh-oh.

CASAREZ: And that's when he said, you know what, it's right, we did have a list. We did make up a list of names and these were names that either they wanted to score with, Ashleigh, or become friends with, whatever side -

BANFIELD: Yes. So he lied and then corrected his story. He's lied once to the detective -

CASAREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: And now it's come out in open court.

CASAREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: A jury has heard that he lied to a police officer and then corrected himself later.

CASAREZ: And she confronted him.

BANFIELD: That's not good.

CASAREZ: This is what the alleged victim is saying, that you assaulted her. Why would she be lying? And she said, the detective, that there were four different responses that he really didn't know why she would lie.

BANFIELD: Yes, that's what people think. I don't know. I don't think she'd lie. I would have been 100 percent sure that she'd have my back but not, yes, she's a liar.

CASAREZ: Right.

BANFIELD: Jean, keep an eye on it for us. Every day yields some very intriguing developments on this one. CASAREZ: Yes.

BANFIELD: Appreciate it. Thank you, Jean Casarez for us live.

CASAREZ: You're welcome.

BANFIELD: Coming up next, angry spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends aren't the only fallout from the Ashley Madison website hacking. Here come the lawsuits. And sadly, tragically, possibly here come the suicides.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)