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ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT
Obama to Reassess Relationship with Israel; African-American Man Found Hanging From Tree in Mississippi; Black Student in Bloody Arrest Speaks Out. Aired 7-8:00p ET
Aired March 19, 2015 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:09] ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Next, breaking news. President Obama tells Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that America is, quote, "reassessing its relationship with Israel." Netanyahu's foreign policy adviser Dore Gold is OUTFRONT.
And more breaking news, a black man's body found hanging from a tree. The Department of Justice and the FBI are investigating tonight.
And a pregnant woman answering a Craigslist ad, viciously stabbed, her child cut from her womb. We have the 911 call tonight. Let's go OUTFRONT.
Good evening. I'm Erin Burnett and we begin OUTFRONT tonight with breaking news. A very tense phone call between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. President Obama saying he's going to, quote, "reassess the American relationship with Israel." This is a huge development in what has been one of America's closest allegiances in the world. This is the first time that the two men have spoken since Netanyahu won the Israeli election on Tuesday night.
Jim Acosta begins our coverage OUTFRONT from the White House tonight. And Jim, ordinarily, this kind of phone call comes very quickly and it's a simple congratulations. This one wasn't quick and it certainly was not a friendly, congratulatory call.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: #awkward, Erin. The White House says the President congratulated Prime Minister Netanyahu on his election victory in a phone call today, but there was more to this conversation than just small talk. This was a call with consequences.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA (voice-over): Speaking for the first time since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election win, the President made it clear that relations between these longtime allies may be about to change. The White House officials said the President told the Prime Minister that we will need to reassess our options, following the prime minister's new positions and comments regarding the two-state solution. Administration officials say they're furious over Netanyahu's remarks in the final moments of his re-election campaign, pointing to the prime minister's rejection of a Palestinian state in this interview, as a key reversal that would damage prospects for Middle East peace. Asked whether if Palestinian state would not be formed if he remains prime minister, Netanyahu said, indeed.
(on camera): Was the President personally disappointed in Prime Minister Netanyahu's comments?
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I would certainly acknowledge that the President is aware of the comments and noticed them. I don't think I would characterize his reaction, but I think that the -- there are obvious policy implications.
ACOSTA (voice-over): In a post-election interview, Netanyahu completely flip-flopped, saying he now wants a peaceful two-state solution with Palestinians. But the White House is also outraged over Netanyahu's comment that Arab voters were heading to the polls in droves, a remark aides to the President blasted as racially tinged and undemocratic.
EARNEST: That cynical Election Day tactic was a pretty transparent effort to marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens.
ACOSTA: Netanyahu insists Arab-Israelis will always have the right to vote, but they're not buying that at the White House, where officials are threatening to allow votes at the United Nations in favor of a Palestinian state, a measure the U.S. has blocked before. Republicans who invited Netanyahu to speak before Congress against the U.S. nuclear talks with Iran are saying, get over it.
(on camera): What about the administration's sort of lukewarm reaction --
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: Lukewarm? Ha-ha-ha!
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The Obama administration and Benjamin Netanyahu need to wake up and understand the realities of what they can and cannot achieve and try to restore some adult supervision.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: A White House official says the President also discussed Netanyahu's comments about Arab Israelis. The President's posture at this point is that it matters much more what the prime minister said right before the election than how he's cleaning it up now -- Erin.
BURNETT: Interesting point. All right. Thank you very much, Jim Acosta.
OUTFRONT tonight, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold. He's now senior foreign policy adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Thank you very much for being with us. I really appreciate it. And I want to get straight to it. President Obama today finally called Prime Minister Netanyahu to congratulate him on his victory, a day and a half after that victory. Look, we all know at this point, the relationship between the two men is not great. America gives about $3 billion in military aid a year to Israel, more than any other country in the world. Is Prime Minister Netanyahu going to do something specific to fix the relationship?
DORE GOLD, SENIOR FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER TO NETANYAHU: Well, I think we over-personalize these relationships many times, and that's understandable. Having been in the front lines of diplomacy, I can tell you that Prime Minister Netanyahu is reflecting the interests of the state of Israel, as President Obama reflects the interests of the United States. And I think what this election was about, the election was essentially a mandate for the positions that Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken on Iran, on a united Jerusalem, and on having Israel with defensible borders, not the 1967 lines. And these are the positions that the prime minister will try, I'm sure in the future, to explain to President Obama, and they will have to work together. And I believe they will work together, because the U.S. and Israel need each other.
[19:05:31] BURNETT: So, when you talk about a mandate for the certain positions for the prime minister, obviously, from the United States' perspective, one thing the United States' government has believed in is a two-state solution, where the Palestinians would have a country and Israel would, of course. On Monday, the Prime Minister said there would never be a Palestinian state under his watch, when he was asked by the Israeli news site, NRG. Today, though, he said something different. He said, and I'll quote him directly, ambassador, he said, "I don't want a one-state solution, I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution."
So, my question to you, as his foreign policy adviser is, did he make that comment Monday, saying there would be no two-state solution under his watch, just to win the election, or was he actually saying what he really believes?
GOLD: Well, I know I saw NBC News was playing this off, that somehow his position changed in the last 24 hours. What the prime minister is saying is that he still maintains his policy of two states for two people, as he has said before. But he's saying that there won't be a Palestinian state today. And that's used in the actual Hebrew language of his statement. And the reason he's saying that is because today the Middle East is far more dangerous. We have the moves of ISIS all across Syria and Iraq. We have the movements of now Iranian surrogates, like revolution revolutionary guard forces, even getting close to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. And so Israel will need very strong, robust security defenses in any arrangement. I think that was pray may recall on his mind when he made his statement.
BURNETT: But when you say it wasn't a change in policy, obviously, in Washington, that's not how it was seen. Two top Obama administration spokesman today, at the State Department and the White House, specifically said that the prime minister has changed his policy on a two-state solution, and here they are.
JEN PSAKI, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPOKESPERSON: We believe he changed his position.
EARNEST: It is clear that he indicated a lack of commitment to this policy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: That was Josh Earnest, of course, the President's spokesman, talking about the policy, again, of a Palestinian State. Look, the U.S. government clearly doesn't believe the Prime Minister plans to work towards a two-state solution right now.
GOLD: Well, you know, people like Secretary of State John Kerry worked day in and day out with Prime Minister Netanyahu and saw how committed he was to working out a solution with the Palestinians that left Israel with a secure border and not a full withdrawal. And Secretary Kerry actually put forward a paper called a framework agreement, which Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to. It was Mahmoud Abbas in March of 2014, who refused the Kerry plan, when it was presented to him by President Obama in the oval office. So the fact is, Israel has gone along with this, the Palestinians said no. But I'm not sure the spokesman that you showed on television are fully aware of all those details.
BURNETT: Look, it was a State Department spokesman and of course the President's spokesperson himself. You know, and what they were saying, Ambassador, reflects what the executive director of the U.S. campaign to end the Israeli occupation, obviously you know what his point of view is, wrote in an op-ed in "The New York Times" today. He wrote, "I as a Palestinian breathed a sigh of relief when it became clear that Netanyahu's Likud party had won. There won't be real change on the ground or at the polls without further pressure on Israel and now that pressure will increase. For this, we have Mr. Netanyahu to thank."
Isn't there something to be said for that, that now, all of a sudden, instead of the talks being about Iran, it's about a two-state solution and there is going to be a lot of pressure on him, on you, to move on it?
GOLD: You know, why didn't this Palestinian spokesman, indeed, many of the pundits who are talking about Israel, say anything when Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, made a pact with Hamas, an organization that calls for our destruction? So we're supposed to bend over backwards for the Palestinian leadership when the Palestinians ahead of time have already locked arms with an organization that calls for eliminating Israel. So we are for making peace. We are for a change in the situation. But we have -- it has to be a safe peace, it has to be a secure peace, and the Palestinians have to go the extra mile and accept the proposals that Israel already accepted.
BURNETT: All right. Well, thank you very much, Ambassador Gold. We appreciate your time tonight, sir.
GOLD: Sure.
[19:10:00] BURNETT: And OUTFRONT next, breaking news. A black man found hanging from a tree in the woods behind his home. The FBI and the Department of Justice are investigating tonight. We have a full report, just ahead.
Plus, a black college student, his head slammed into the ground during an arrest. Was this excessive force? He speaks out to CNN.
And ISIS claiming credit for the attack that gunned down 20 tourists at a museum. Are attacks on tourists the newest tactic for ISIS?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:14:13] BURNETT: Breaking news now, the Justice Department and FBI are investigating the case of a black man found hanging from a tree in Mississippi. A law enforcement official tells CNN that man is believed to be 54-year-old Otis Byrd. You see his picture there. Police found him earlier today, about a half a mile from his home. Byrd had been missing since March 2nd. A friend on that date dropped him off at a nearby casino. The sheriff of Claiborne County has just spoken about this moments before and here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF CLAIBORNE LUCAS, CLAIBORNE COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI: We got down there and we seen a man that had some bedsheets tied around his neck.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Was there a bag found over the head?
LUCAS: It was a -- on his head.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Justice Correspondent Evan Perez is OUTFRONT. Even, you just heard the sheriff there of Claiborne County talking about how he was found with bedsheets in his head. About a quarter half a mile from his home. What are your sources telling you at this time?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, the authorities down there are not yet identifying the name of the victim there who was found in those deep woods behind his last residence, but we're told it's Otis Byrd, 54 years old, who was found, who was out reported missing by his family earlier this month. And so that is something now that tests are being done to confirm that it is, indeed, him. The body, we are told, was somewhat decomposed, so it's not something that could have been done easily on sight. This is obviously raising a lot of questions down there. This is southern Mississippi, near the Louisiana border. An area with a history of violence going back some decades, so it is something that is raising questions and the FBI, civil rights division, sorry, civil rights investigators are on the scene, as well as the civil rights division from the Justice Department, and the U.S. attorneys down there in Southern Mississippi are all investigating this for -- to make sure that -- to determine what exactly happened. Now, they haven't ruled out whether it is a suicide or whether it is a murder, so that is, again, part of the investigation.
BURNETT: Right, and they're trying to determine whether it was suicide or murder. And of course, when you hear about a murder in this way of a black man, you're talking about Mississippi, people think about whether this could be something horrific like a lynching. PEREZ: Exactly.
BURNETT: What more do you know at this time about Otis Byrd, who he was?
PEREZ: Well, we know that he had a criminal record. He was sentenced in 1980, for the murder of a woman in that area, and he served until 2006. He was released, he was still on probation. That is, again, part of the investigation here, because, you know, it could be somebody who had a beef with him to settle, because of perhaps that criminal past. And that is, again, part of the investigation here.
BURNETT: Even so, of course, the manner in which even if it was retaliation, the manner in which he was found, shocking. Thank you very much, Evan Perez.
And OUTFRONT now, Derrick Johnson, the president of the Mississippi State NAACP. Derrick, thank you for being with me tonight. You just heard the details of Otis Byrd's death, we're now reporting we believe that his name is Otis Byrd. He was found a quarter mile from his home in the woods hanging with bedsheets around his neck, as you just heard the sheriff say. Does this sound to you like a hate crime?
DERRICK JOHNSON, PRESIDENT, MISSISSIPPI STATE NAACP: Well, anytime you find an African-American hung from a tree in the woods, it has the specter of a hate crime. We are proceeding cautiously with our judgment. We are hoping that federal and local investigators do a thorough investigation and if it is, in fact, found to be a crime, we would like for them to pursue this in a matter in which if the perpetrators committed this crime because of racial hate, that they be charged as such. Sheriff Lucas, the local sheriff of Claiborne County, as the president of the NAACP, I'm sure he'll do a thorough investigation and we'll be very concerned with the outcome. We have been pleased in the recent past of the local FBI agents who work really hard to bring the perpetrators of the James Craig Anderson murder to trial and the judge sentenced those individuals with a racial hate crime. So in the state of Mississippi, in Claiborne County, we want to make sure it was not a racial hate crime.
BURNETT: Yes.
JOHNSON: At this point, we are confident in the individuals who are doing the investigation. But we are standing by, waiting to hear the outcome of the investigation.
BURNETT: Well, of course, as you say, when anyone hears the circumstance, you hear about a black man hanging from a tree, the images, given the historical past, you know, the potential here is pretty horrifying. What we understand, and you just heard Evan Perez reporting this, according to police records, Byrd was convicted in 1980, for the murder. That murder happened to be the murder of a white woman. Could this be retaliation?
JOHNSON: Well, it could be. You can name it retaliation, you can name it anything. But if the purpose of the murder was based on someone killing Mr. Byrd because of his race, that's a racial hate crime. And we want to make sure that if, in fact, that was the case, individuals are fully prosecuted. The NAACP, we was established as an organization to advocate for anti-lynching. We cannot stand by in 2015 and watch a lynching, if, in fact, that's what happened, and be silent.
[19:19:34] BURNETT: All right, Derrick Johnson, thank you very much.
And I want to bring in now, Tom Fuentes, the former FBI assistant director. Tom, you know, Derrick just using the word there, which I had mentioned, the word "lynching." That's the word that comes to mind when you think, when you first hear about an African-American man hanging from a tree by bedsheets. We do not know in this case if this was a racial hate crime, if this was a lynching, if this was suicide, we don't know. But given the basic facts that we have right now, what goes through your mind?
TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Well, what goes through my mind is that the almost a century of more of lynchings that have gone on, that were considered by the FBI to be domestic terrorism. So if he was hung for those reasons, white supremacist group or somebody wanting to retaliate because of his involvement in killing a white woman or some other reason that's racially motivated like that and designed to send a message to other blacks, that would be considered an act of domestic terrorism. And that's why the FBI is so heavily involved already, right from the beginning, because you don't want to let time elapse and miss a chance to obtain the evidence that they're going to need to find out what happened in this case.
BURNETT: So, Tom, when you talk about the FBI is involved, the Department of Justice is also involved, would they be involved if they had no reason at this point to believe that this was possibly a hate crime? I mean, would they both be involved if it seemed clear this was suicide?
FUENTES: Well, you just gave the reason. Black man hanging from a tree and not knowing if it's suicide or homicide or what the circumstances are. So that conjures up an image that could be, you know, the hallmarks of a domestic terrorism act. And they'd rather investigate and determine that it wasn't and maybe it's just, you know, a murder or maybe it is suicide that's not racially motivated, than not to investigate and be called in later, you know, when it's very late in the game. So that's why they would go immediately on the possibility.
BURNETT: And, of course, you know, when people first hear this, then they hear the involvement of a white woman, you know, you think back to Emmitt Till, right? You know, he was lynched for flirting with a white woman. In this case, Mr. Byrd had been convicted and served 25 years in jail for murdering a white woman. Is it possible that was involved, that's relevant here?
FUENTES: Could be. It is possible. And again, you know, the FBI has taken on the Ku Klux Klan for 100 years and all the other white supremacist, Neo-Nazi type groups that have sprung up in the last few decade, from Aryan Brotherhood, and you know, there's a variety of those groups and they're still out there alive and well and strong, and that's why they're investigating this, to try to eliminate the possibility that we have domestic terrorism rising again in this country and trying to determine exactly what happened.
BURNETT: All right. Tom Fuentes, thank you very much, as we said. The former assistant director of the FBI.
And next, this caught on tape. A black college student, his face bloody during an arrest. He called it racism. You're going to see the entire tape and judge for yourself.
And gunmen attack a museum. Twenty tourists, at least, are dead today. What's the threat to American tourists planning to go overseas for vacation this summer? Our report, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:26:43] BURNETT: Breaking news. The black University of Virginia college student whose bloody arrest was captured on tape is now sharing his side of the story to CNN. Twenty-year-old Martese Johnson was tackled by police who were trying to arrest him for public intoxication and obstruction of justice. This has now led to protests on campus and outrage. Some questioning whether it was excessive force and had to do with the color of his skin. In a phone interview with our own Don Lemon, Mr. Johnson said he was not intoxicated and had never presented a fake I.D. at a bar, calling into question his arrest by Virginia alcohol control agents.
Nick Valencia is live in Charlottesville, Virginia.
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Erin. Those who I spoke to who know Martese Johnson say that they're not only shocked what happened, but shocked that they're shocked it happened to him. A student with seemingly endless ties to the university. And while police say that he was uncooperative during the arrest, his lawyer says that Johnson was the victim of excessive force.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hey, his head is bleeding!
MARTESE JOHNSON, ARRESTED BY ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES CONTROL SPECIAL AGENTS: I go to UVA! I go to UVA, (bleep)! I go to UVA, (bleep)!
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hands behind your head.
JOHNSON: You're racist! You're racist! How does this happen?!
VALENCIA (voice-over): St. Patrick's Day just after midnight. Twenty year old University of Virginia student Martese Johnson is pinned to the ground by Alcoholic Beverage Control special agents. After he was denied entry into a bar. The deserving cell phone video captures the moments after Johnson is taken into custody for public intoxication and obstruction of justice. Police say he was acting agitated and belligerent. You hear them on tape asked him to stop fighting.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Stop fighting!
VALENCIA: On Thursday, Johnson's attorney says his client is an upstanding man, who's been traumatized by the incident.
DANIEL WATKINS, ATTORNEY FOR MARTESE JOHNSON: At no time throughout the encounter did Martese present as has been reported by someone in the media a fake I.D. Nevertheless, Virginia ABC officers who were present on the scene questioned my client about being in possession of false identification.
JASMINE BURTON, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA STUDENT: He's on the executive board of the black student alliance. He's on the honor committee. He was an orientation leader.
VALENCIA: In the two years she's known him, classmate Jasmine Burton says Johnson has been nothing short of extraordinary, both on and off-campus.
BURTON: He is very involved in like issues relating to this and it's just mind boggling that this happened to him.
VALENCIA: Wednesday night, hundreds of Johnson supporters held a rally. He was there too, after being released from jail.
JOHNSON: Regardless of your personal opinions and the way you feel about subjects, so please respect everyone here. We're all part of one community. And we deserve to respect each other, especially in times like this.
VALENCIA: University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan, has asked the governor's office to launch an independent investigation.
TERESA SULLIVAN, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: It felt it in my stomach. I just seeing the blood run down that young man's face, you know, I wanted to know what happened.
JOHNSON: How does this happen?! (Bleep)! How does this happen?! You racist. How does this happen?!
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We're just like, yo -- asking for your I.D.
JOHNSON: How does this happen? You (bleep) racist!
VALENCIA (on camera): What's at the core of this?
BURTON: I mean, it's hard to say that it's a race issue, I think race definitely played a factor in it, but to me the biggest thing is excessive force.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VALENCIA: The Virginia State police tell CNN that they've launched a criminal investigation and will look into the conduct of the officers involved in the arrest -- Erin. [19:30:05] BURNETT: All right. Nick, thank you very much.
Nick, reporting live from Charlottesville tonight. And joining me now, former NYPD Detective Tom Verni, and CNN political commentator Van Jones.
Tom, you're with me. Let me start with you. So Johnson's version of the story. He says he wasn't intoxicated. He says he didn't try to present a fake I.D. We should note, he's a few months shy of his 21st birthday. Given that, we don't know exactly what happened, okay? But no matter what happened, does it justify throwing a kid to the ground and having his face be utterly covered in blood? Can anything in this situation justify that sort of force?
TOM VERNI, RETIRED NYPD DETECTIVE: Well, it all depends on what happened before the video that we saw. It doesn't show what took place before that, right?
So, we pick up the video where the kid is already on the ground and he's being -- or attempting to be handcuffed. I don't think he was completely handcuffed at the time. And we've talked about this in other incidents, whether it be the Eric Garner situation or other police-involved incidents across the country, that the police are authorized to use whatever force is necessary when they're attempting to arrest someone.
So, if someone does not comply, when the officer says, you're around arrest, that person doesn't comply and put their hands behind their back, the officers now are legally able to use whatever force is necessary to make that happen. If it's not going to happen by their vocal commands, they're going to have to use some level of physical force. If the person now fights with them, then they're going to have to amp that up a little bit, and take it to another level.
BURNETT: He's saying he wasn't drunk. That does contradict the police report, OK? So, that's a direct contradiction. However, if he wasn't tested for alcohol, we're never going to know. And that seems pretty relevant in this case. Does that put more of the burden on police here?
VERNI: Oh, yes, the police will have to articulate why they arrested him. So, Virginia has a whole set of police officers that do nothing but alcohol enforcement. They have a whole task force for this. It's a state-wide task force. They're going to have to articulate how they arrived at this young person being intoxicated.
So, he's under 21. The story was that he was trying to get into a bar. There were also some stories that his friends were corroborating with the police, saying that he was drunk. So --
BURNETT: His friends did say he was drunk.
VERNI: Ultimately, the officers are going to have to articulate that he was drunk based on whatever it is that they felt that he was.
BURNETT: So, Van, in the video, and I think Tom's fair to point out, right, we don't see what happened before. You see him on the ground. But when you see him on the ground, you know, you see his face bloodied and you hear him using expletives, calling the officers racists.
From what you see, Van, how much do you think this was about race?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, it's impossible to know how much it's about race, because as the officer just said, we don't know what happened before and we don't know -- we don't have enough facts.
Here's why he may feel it's about race.
BURNETT: Yes.
JONES: You know, college culture these days is very, you know, disrespectful, from my point of view. You see these guys, you know, college guys, they're talking, the girls gone wild, et cetera. He may have seen other kids who may be talked back to a cop and didn't get thrown to the ground. He may have seen other young people go to a bar and not get challenged and thrown out.
So, we don't know what's going on. And I think it's very important that we don't rush to any conclusions about race.
What I would say is this, though. Police officers have a choice when they see someone breaking the law or who may be breaking the law to either escalate or de-escalate. I have seen a lot of rowdy white college guys, the cops say, hey, listen, guys, you know, calm it down. They treat them more like little brothers.
I've also seen an African-American guy being outspoken and suddenly there's seven cop cars everywhere. So, there is this sense that maybe when you have a different standard for kids when they're out there doing stuff, and that might be why he thought, hey, I'm being treated differently, than I've seen other kids being treated, and that's why I'm calling it racist. But we don't know yet.
BURNETT: What do you think about that point? Because according to Van's logic here, it's possible the kid was a total jerk and he was drunk and he was being belligerent, but he was still treated differently because he was black.
VERNI: I don't -- you know --
JONES: It's a possibility.
VERNI: It's a possibility. I mean, you know, I don't think that's the case here. There's nothing to lead us to believe that at this level, at this point, that there is anything race-related here. I think what happened here, as we just talked about a second ago, was based on this kid's actions and his reluctancy to want to be arrested or comply with the police. And they took whatever force --
JONES: Let me say one thing about it.
VERNI: -- and they took him to the ground.
JONES: Let me say one quick thing about that and let the officer have a response. Just one quick thing.
You know, one of the things that I thought was interesting is that this young man is sort of -- he's an honor student, he's a very well-respected young man, he's almost a poster child for what you would want from a young man. And I think for me, just personally, it was very heartbreaking to see him saying, listen, I go to school, I go to UVA, you almost saw, it wasn't just the injury, physically, there was an emotional injury happening where he's saying, hey, I'm a good guy and I'm being treated very badly.
You're a police officer. I just, I think my heart was breaking just to see this guy, who honestly thought that maybe because I'm a good kid, I'm going to be given a break here, and he certainly wasn't.
[19:35:01] VERNI: Yes, well, again, you could have the best kid in school or you could have the worst kid in school -- you know, it all comes down to when they're interacting with the police officers, if they're complying with what the police officers are saying, then, you know, none of that is even necessary. But if they're not complying with them, and/or resisting arrest and/or being physical with the cops, then, at that point, all bets are going to be off, and the officers will be allowed to use whatever force is necessary to get that person to comply.
JONES: Let me just one small correction, legally.
BURNETT: Final point, Van.
JONES: They can't use whatever force is necessary. They have to use the minimum force necessary. And that's where, I think, we get into some of these disagreements, the minimum force necessary. I'm not sure slamming somebody's face down -- I didn't see any injuries on the police officers. I just think that sometimes you've got rowdy kids out there and the cops treat some kids different.
VERNI: Right. They can use the minimum force that's necessary, but they can meet or exceed whatever force is being used against them.
So, if you go on the FBI's Web site, there's a use of force continuum chart that I usually recommend people to look at. And it kind of gives people an idea as to the method behind the madness as to how officers use the levels of force and when they're justified to do that.
By the same token, if this was a race-relate race-related issue and the officers acted in that way because he was black, I would be the first one to come out and say that that's absolutely awful as well, and they should be disciplined accordingly. But I don't think -- there's nothing to lead us to believe that that's the situation here that I know of.
BURNETT: All right. Well, thanks very much to both of you. And, of course, as we learn more information, we'll share it with you. The young man now saying he wasn't intoxicated. Of course, the police report and his own friends said that he was.
OUTFRONT next, nearly two dozen tourists murdered on vacation. ISIS claiming credit. Will Americans on summer vacation be targets?
And a pregnant woman's unborn child cut from her womb. She was lured by a Craigslist ad for baby clothes, connecting with another young mother. She went to her home. Our special report, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:40:54] BURNETT: Breaking news: we're learning the terrorists responsible for the savage attack that left 23 people dead at a museum were strapped with what authorities are calling, quote/unquote, "terrible explosives." At least 20 of those killed in the Tunisian rampage were tourists, passengers from two cruise ships who had planned on spending the afternoon at Tunis' renowned museum.
Also tonight, ISIS is now claiming responsibility for the massacre. And Miguel Marquez is OUTFRONT with this familiar tactic used by terrorists.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The targeting of Tunisia's most prominent museum, a sharp reminder for tourists, without warning, they could find themselves on the front lines of violent extremist war against Westerners.
November 26th, 2008, Mumbai, India, 10 fighters from the Pakistani Islamic group launched a series of grenade and automatic weapon attacks against high-profile locations over a four-day period, 164 people were killed.
October 12th, 2002, Bali, Indonesia, where tens of thousands of American tourists travel every year. Al Qaeda affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah detonated three bombs. The first bomb near the U.S. consulate caused no injuries. The second bomb, just after 11:00 p.m., a suicide bomber inside Patti's Pub. As the injured and frighten ran into the streets, a third larger car bomb exploded, 202 people, including seven Americans, were killed.
November 17th, 1997. Luxor, Egypt, an Islamic group associated with al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya fired automatic weapons into a tour bus, stabbed and killed some 68 mostly Swiss and Japanese tourists at one of Egypt's top tourist destinations.
ISIS, al Qaeda, and al Shabaab have all expressed their desire to hit Western targets. A recent bid of ISIS propaganda promises just that, "Soon in your city will be the battle." The groups have already specified targets it would like to hit. In Rome, 500 police have been added to protect landmark tourist destinations, like the Vatican and Colosseum.
Recently, though, no Islamic group is known to have targeted a heavily guarded tourist destination. But still, it has threatened places like the White House, London's Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and even Minnesota's Mall of America.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: And OUTFRONT next: a woman answering a Craigslist ad, brutally stabbed, her child pulled from her womb. Questions tonight about the attacker's motive and the safety of a site so many Americans use, Craigslist.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:47:31] BURNETT: A very disturbing story developing in Colorado tonight: an expectant mother answering a Craigslist ad for baby clothes.
So, she went to another woman's home to get the clothes, she arrived. That woman then attacked her, beat her, and cut her child from inside of her. The suspect was a former nurse's aid, Dynel Lane. She appeared in court today. She's being held on a $2 million bond and there are questions tonight about whether she may have actually faked her own pregnancy and then tried to make this baby her own baby.
Martin Savidge is OUTFRONT tonight with this story and how it is part of an alarming trend of crimes committed through something that so many Americans use, Craigslist.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This 911 call is horrific, and remarkable.
CALLER: She cut me.
911 OPERATOR: Who cut you?
CALLER: I don't know.
SAVIDGE: In this home, a 26-year-old woman lies beaten, stabbed, and bleeding. Despite shock and unimaginable suffering, she finds the strength to make the call that will save her life and lead to her attacker.
911 OPERATOR: Where'd she cut you at?
CALLER: In my -- I'm pregnant. She cut me in the stomach.
SAVIDGE: Police arrive in minutes and only then learn the horror she's been through.
According to authorities the woman, who they're not identifying, was seven months pregnant and responding to an online ad.
JEFF SATUR, LONGMONT POLICE OFFICER: She was shopping on craigslist and she came to this house to pick up some baby clothes. SAVIDGE: Once there, police say 34-year-old Dynel Lane brutally
assaulted the mother to-be and then cut the unborn child from her abdomen. The victim was taken to the local hospital. The same hospital where the suspect arrived with the fetus, claiming she had miscarried.
It didn't take long for doctors and authorities to put two and two together. But the premature infant was already dead.
The tragedy is just the latest in a string of recent Craigslist- connected crimes. The company reports close to 80 million ads on its Web site every month and most of the transactions go smoothly.
But earlier this year, a suburban Atlanta couple went to buy their dream car, a 1966 Mustang they had found on Craigslist. But there was no car. Instead, a South Georgia man has been charged with the couple's murders.
In February, a college student from Atlanta thought he had found the iPhone he wanted on Craigslist. When he replied to the ad, he was robbed, shot, and killed.
Crimes like these and other close calls motivated the Woodstock Police Department outside Atlanta to offer their parking lot, even their lobby, as a neutral and safe site for buyers and sellers to meet.
[19:50:04] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A vigilant community is a safe community.
SAVIDGE: Craigslist itself cautions customers about the potential pitfalls of online selling, offering a link to safety tips on each posting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: That's terrifying when you think about it. It's a transaction with someone you don't know. In this case, the horrific slaying of this baby, an attack of the mother. What are police saying was the motivation?
SAVIDGE: Publicly, they're not saying anything about what may have motivated this kind of an attack. But privately, it's clear you get the idea they know what it was.
And it should be pointed out that in 2002, Dynel Lane lost a child, 19-month-old little boy as a result of a tragic accident. He drowned in an ornamental pond that was on their property. To make the stretch of a connection of something that happened tragically 13 years ago to allegedly would happen yesterday would require, I guess, more an expertise than I have, but it is definitely on the minds of many people.
BURNETT: All right. Martin Savidge, thank you very much for that report.
And I want to bring in now criminologist Casey Jordan.
So, you heard what Martin is talking, saying, you know, obviously, this is what some speculate may have been behind this. When you see the details, hear the details, these horrific details, what do you think?
CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST: Well, when you talk about a fetal abduction case, there are usually two profiles of women who do this and one of them is going to be a woman who is infertile or had a serious of miscarriages and lost a child. To the extent that losing a toddler may have left with her that feeling, is she has a fantasy of actually delivering a child.
But the second typology is a woman who wants to cement a relationship with a man. And we know that this is a second marriage or subsequent marriage --
BURNETT: For Dynel, yes.
JORDAN: For Dynel. A recent husband of I think about a year, and it could be that in her mind, can't keep this husband unless she has a child and she already has two teenage daughters. So, whether she's infertile or not, we don't know.
BURNETT: Right. We don't know. We do know she has children.
Now, we also know, when you're talking about her situation from the police report, she had a sonogram, or she showed a sonogram to her family in December, right? It obviously wasn't her sonogram, she showed one. She told her kids she was pregnant. So, this was something she had been building up for quite some time, to the people around her.
What does that tell you? I mean, she had -- this was not just a sudden thing, I want to have a baby. This was months in the planning.
JORDAN: It is. And there's something called the hysterical pregnancy, a woman believes she's pregnant and gets symptoms of being pregnant but she's not pregnant. And very often, it's caused by lying to herself. She wants to have the baby so badly, her body actually gains weight, she skips her period and people think she's pregnant.
The problem is, once she tells the lie and if she self- brainwashes herself and believes it, a level of denial, the train has left the station. And at a certain point, there has to be a baby. This took her to a prenatal appointment. So, the jig was about to be up.
BURNETT: Her husband was coming home.
JORDAN: He came home to get her.
BURNETT: Right after this incident happened, right. And then she produced this baby and said, I miscarried.
JORDAN: And said, I miscarried, and here's the baby. So, it was almost like a desperate act. She had to produce the
baby. It was unthinkable that she should come clean and tell the truth she was never pregnant. I wouldn't be surprised that the sonogram she showed her family was left over from the son that she had lost.
BURNETT: And what would, of course, makes the tie that Martin was referring to, back to the 19-month-old that tied.
The shocking thing about this, this is a bizarre and unusual crime, but it is not an unheard of crime.
JORDAN: Not at all. We had 15 documented cases in the last 28 years and two-thirds of those have been in the last decade. I wouldn't call it an epidemic, but we are learning more from these cases. They're more common than we think and they're definitely cause for further research because it's a very alarming trend.
BURNETT: Incredibly horrific. All right. Casey Jordan, thank you very much.
JORDAN: Always great to be here.
BURNETT: And OUTFRONT next, Jeanne Moos. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:57:40] BURNETT: So, a guy in a motorcycle takes police on a chase fit for the movies. This one's filled with slapsticks, too.
Here's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MOOS: A biker doing over 100 miles per hour on the freeway running red lights, almost hitting an SUV, just another L.A. high- speed chase. But what he put his feet on the seat, that was more than some could stand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at this guy. Look at this. He is totally showing off.
MOOS: Some thought the biker took a selfie. But close up, it looked like a rude gesture to pursuing police. Media choppers buzzed above. It was breaking news without brake lights. This viewer couldn't contain himself.
UNIDENTIFIED VIEWER: Whoo-wee!
MOOS: In one point, the biker ended up at a dead end and casually took off his helmet and inserted ear buds. When police tried to block him off, they almost took their door off.
The last time we covered an L.A. motorcycle chase involved a pack of bikers doing wheelies, solitary rider kept repeating the standing up stuff. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go again.
MOOS: Wrote one commenter on Mediaite, "Where's a pothole when you need one?"
After over an hour, making his last stand, the biker turns into a gas station and gave up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aah. Weak.
MOOS: Police had guns drawn as he lay spread eagle. Twenty- three-year-old Phillip Resendez was arrested for felony evading and driving the wrong way.
REPORTER: What do you mean you didn't endanger anybody, you're standing on your bike going 100 miles per hour?
MOOS: And get this, the biker actually criticized one of the cops, saying, did he seriously have to try and kick me off my bike?
PHILLIP RESENDEZ, LED COPS ON STUNT-FILLED CHASE: I just want to say I love my family and my two baby girls and I'm sorry I disappointed them.
MOOS: It was a chase that had hearts pumping, while this lady wanted at a pump was gas.
Jeanne Moos, CNN --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at this guy. Look at this guy.
MOOS: -- New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: You've got to give the guy credit for doing it at high speed, number one. Number two, even when he surrendered, it wasn't on some giant crash, it was gracefully done, but still, he has two little girls. Yes.
Anyway, thanks so much for joining us. Be sure to set your DVR to record OUTFRONT so you can watch us anytime. We'll see you again right here tomorrow night.
"AC360" begins right now.
