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Prisoner Swap Fallout; ISIS Bomb Blast; War on ISIS; Ticking Clock; Race for 2016; Hush Money Scandal; Is Criminal Justice System Racially Biased?; Police Body Cam Shows Arrest of Pregnant Woman. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired May 30, 2015 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:41] POPPY HARLOW, HOST: 4:00 Eastern here in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.
Right now, crucial talks are underway to decide whether the Taliban 5 should be set free or should be moved. These are the five terrorists and former detainees of Guantanamo Bay. They were exchanged for the freedom of former American prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl. Qatar agreed to hold and monitor the Taliban 5 for one year. Well, that deal expires on Monday. We're going to tell you about what options are on the table as the U.S. negotiates this right now.
Also, fighters in Iraq are desperately trying to shove ISIS militants away from a crucial highway right near Baghdad. The problem - ISIS has planted dangerous booby traps all over that area. CNN got rare access to the front lines. We'll bring you that.
As well as President Obama sending his point man on the war in Iraq - the war on ISIS to Iraq. General John Allen meeting with Iraq's prime minister today. Are changes in the works for the strategy to try to defeat ISIS?
Finally, an American college student is being called a hero. He gave up his life to stop an ISIS suicide bomber from reaching his target.
Well, tomorrow marks one year since this moment when Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl finally climbed aboard that U.S. chopper, released from five years of Taliban captivity in Afghanistan. In exchange, the United States transferred five Guantanamo Bay inmates to Qatar for one year. Well, that deal expires on Monday. U.S. and Qatari officials are meeting today to try to decide what do they do with these men now.
Let's talk about it with former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes, CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier, and former CIA operative Bob Baer.
Bob, when you look at this, you've got the U.S. that has a say, you've got Qatar that has more of a say because they're holding these guys, and actually, Afghanistan. The Taliban in Afghanistan has somewhat of a say as to what happens. What's the safest thing for the world to happen to these guys?
ROBERT BAER, AUTHOR, "THE PERFECT KILL: 21 LAWS FOR ASSASSINS": Well, Poppy, let me put it this way. I think what's going to happen is they're going to send these guys - at the end of the day - to Pakistan who'll promise to watch them and they'll get back into the Taliban one way or another. But I don't think it's particularly catastrophic for us in the sense that five loose guys back in Afghanistan aren't going to change the fortunes in the battlefield.
HARLOW: Why not?
BAER: Well, these guys are important. They're middle-age. They're not young fighters. They've been at it for a long time. They're not politically charismatic. They are - I wouldn't call them "foot soldiers" but they're just - they're not key to that war. There are other key people that are more key like the Haqqani network. And if we could close that network down, you could do something about Afghanistan. I just - I just don't look at these guys as that dangerous.
HARLOW: We do know, Kimberly, that at least one of them has tried to make contact or made contact with terrorists after being released. I mean, OK, they're not young fighters but couldn't they be very powerful in terms of the ideologies, saying "I was held in Guantanamo Bay. Here's what it was like. Here's what happened to me", sort of helping spreading that message to encourage those that want to do harm to the United States?
KIMBERLY DOZIER, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE DAILY BEAST: I think you're absolutely right that this would be a boost of confidence for the Taliban and for its followers inside Afghanistan that they would have its former leadership held in Guantanamo Bay now celebrating freedom inside Afghanistan. But to Bob's point, they haven't been part of this campaign for a very long time and also, we're now moving to a stage where the Afghan government is trying to engage in serious talks with the Taliban leadership and make them part of the political process. So releasing prisoners including the leaders - that's always been part of the process of ultimately making peace.
HARLOW: Tom, what do you think? It's interesting that their families are also with them in Qatar so you're not talking about five people. You're actually talking about a group of about 70 all in. Do you think they end up in Pakistan?
TOM FUENTES, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: I think, yes, I agree with Kim and Bob on this that they don't think they're really terribly dangerous and one or two might end up trying to get back on the battlefield, some feeble attempt at it, but I don't know that they'll be successful at that and I think it's more of a propaganda win for them to be able to go back, join the Taliban, and say, "Look, we survived GTMO and got out and we defeated the Americans. Here we are alive and well."
[16:05:05] So I think it's more a political ability that they would have as opposed to any real war fighting capability.
HARLOW: Bob, how much say does the U.S. have in all of this?
BAER: I think this was all done with a wink and a nod - you hold them for a year, you don't make this look too bad for us. The administration treated this as a prisoner of war exchange rather than trading terrorists. And they - just like the administration often does is hope people will forget - forget it was all about. Plus, Bergdahl - the man they were traded for - has been indicted for deserting his post. So I think the administration just wants this all to go away and this is sort of a way out.
HARLOW: But if you're looking at it from a political lens, Kim, do you think that it does just all go away? I mean, you saw Republicans seize on the administration for even making this deal without alerting Congress, without getting their approval, talking about what a risk they are.
DOZIER: I think that's...
BAER: Oh, (inaudible) it doesn't help at all. I mean, you look at the Obama administration and frankly it's "do nothing" policy in the Middle East - all across the Middle East from Libya to Iraq to Syria. Yemen, in fact, hands off is not working. So for the 2016 elections, it's not going to help the Democrats. The Democrats - whatever they do right now - are in trouble and this will be part of their problem.
HARLOW: Kimberly?
DOZIER: I was just going to add that I think the political lens is exactly why you see negotiations right now. It would be much more convenient for the Obama administration if these five remain in Qatar and watched for at least one more year to get them through the end of this administration.
HARLOW: Tom Fuentes, Kimberly Dozier, Bob Baer. Guys, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Also, this story that we want to bring you. An American college student killed in an ISIS attack. He's being remembered as a hero.
22-years-old, an electrical engineering student - he died when he tried to stop a suicide bomber from blowing himself up outside of a mosque in Saudi Arabia yesterday. He had returned to Saudi Arabia to get married. Friends say he made the ultimate sacrifice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His move in Saudi Arabia was of bravery. Because of the bravery and heroism, he saved a lot of people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is like a brother or more than a brother for everybody. If you can see him right now, you're going to see a smile on his face.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Wow.
And now to the battle against ISIS in Iraq. Fighters there are trying to dodge booby traps and mines in their struggle to remove ISIS militants from a crucial highway right near Baghdad.
Our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh got rare access to the front lines.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (VOICEOVER): Shia fighters say they've just taken the town ahead of us, (inaudible), but look just to the right of the black smoke here. It's not that simple. Mines are at the road side past the tree line. The blasts could be them being cleared away by engineers or taking more lives.
PATON WALSH (ON CAMERA): We've now heard in the distance two thuds, one very substantial. We're told that is a controlled explosion of mines in the area they've just cleared and they seem quite calm here. But it could also be that one of their cars has hit one of the mines laid by ISIS.
PATRON WALSH (VOICEOVER): This is what they videoed of the fight for this town close to a vital highway north. ISIS was just pushed out to its edges. As we move closer, it gets messier. We think a mortar lands nearby and stay in the car.
PATON WALSH (ON CAMERA): Since we have literally been waiting on the road, there've been about three or four substantial explosions which may well be their fighters still coming across booby traps laid and in the area and it just shows you how incredibly hard it's going to be to retake land here for people to come back to live in.
PATON WALSH (VOICEOVER): As we move out, Shia fighters pour north up the road. This is what victory against ISIS looks like - little to savor.
PATON WALSH (ON CAMERA): An impression you get from seeing that is really how chaotic sometimes those front lines can be. Different militia groups working alongside each other potentially disagreeing on territory. They say advancing substantially along the main highway routes here and pushing ISIS back and in fact, they claimed in the area you just saw there that ISIS were in fact encircled nearby. But those explosions consistent, a sense of volatility on the highway as well, and I think you see in areas like that how long this conflict could go on for. Territory may change hands but still ISIS versed to years. Many of them, even when the Americans had a presence here - military - in Iraq, an asymmetrical warfare and sending bombs into areas that don't have a (inaudible) presence but it's very hard to stop and it's very hard to see how peace really and a sense of society getting back to normal can reign here in the years ahead in Iraq.
[16:10:15] Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: Nick, thank you.
Well, gridlock on Capitol Hill and this time it involves national security. Is the Patriot Act essential to fighting terror or does it cost too much when it comes to Americans' privacy?
Coming up, former FBI assistant director, former CIA operative give their take.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Come midnight tomorrow, the United States may find itself with fewer tools when it comes to fighting terrorism. If lawmakers can't come to an agreement, key parts of the Patriot Act will expire.
President Obama is warning of serious consequences if something is not passed but critics like the ACLU say fears over security should never trump privacy.
Let's talk about it with former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes and former CIA operative Bob Baer.
Bob, I want to begin with one of the provisions 'cause these three key things will expire if nothing is passed in the senate. And one of them is that you would lose - the U.S. government would lose the ability to track and monitor every movement of the suspected lone wolves unless they are directly connected - if they can prove their connection to ISIS or another terrorist group. However, the government admits that they've never even used that authority. So why does it matter if something like that lapses?
BAER: Well, Poppy, I worked for two years on an international assassination investigation for the United Nations and the entire investigation depended on the same sort of metadata you use to track potential terrorists.
[16:15:03] If someone gets on Twitter and it looks like a jihadist then that's as far as you go, you're not going to know for sure. But if you get to the point where they're making phone calls to make reservations to go to Turkey to buy weapons, any number of databases, the FBI can predict. Now, it may not have saved lives until this point but certainly, at some point, it will be crucial to breaking a terrorist attack. And I realize the possible abuses in all of this. You have to take care of those. But the Patriot Act should be renewed, if not, renewed and revised.
HARLOW: Do you think it should be revised, Tom Fuentes?
FUENTES: Poppy, the best example of that would be in the (inaudible) case prior to 9/11. In order to get FISA authority to do surveillance under electronic surveillance, wiretapping, under a national security edict as opposed to a criminal case, you had to prove what either agent of a foreign power or what member of what terror group this person was. And what authorities were trying to say was if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and that's what they were trying to say with (inaudible), we don't know for sure if he's a card-carrying Al Qaeda and nowadays, would it be Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, AQAP, you almost have to list where the membership of this person is. And of course, with all these internet wannabes inspired by ISIS, inspired by AQAP in Yemen, if you can't link them directly as a member of that organization, you can't use the wiretap authority on them for national security. That was a critical lapse and at the time, I remember the FBI taking a beating like "You should have been up on this guy" and they said we couldn't. We didn't have the authority and that was one of the fixes of the Patriot Act.
HARLOW: I want you guys to listen to the former chair of the House intelligence committee Mike Rogers and what he said on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" Thursday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: One of the reasons we have this program is because they missed - the intelligence and law enforcement - missed the phone call from Yemen from a safe house - known terrorist safe house - into the United States. After the event of 9/11, we found out that was one of the calls to the 9/11 hijackers. Wouldn't it have been great for that to kick off an investigation to determine who did they call and why did they call. You'll lose that part.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: So, Bob, he says you'll lose that part. But this is - this is the question of where the line is between privacy and important intelligence like that. Isn't that a debate the American public should have?
BAER: I think it's a debate we should have. We should build safeguards and that's why I talk about the revision of the Patriot Act. Once you draw those in and put and ombudsman in there and can watch this and make sure there's no political abuses of the system, we - to a certain extent - stand have to give up our privacy. And that's simply what we've got to do at this point and I understand the concerns of Americans but it does keep us safe and 9/11 could have been solved if all those databases had been combined and the FBI had been allowed to open an investigation. I think we could have arrested most of those guys before they acted.
HARLOW: But, Tom, even the - Tom, even the Republican lawmaker who wrote most of the Patriot Act, the Congressman from Wisconsin said it wasn't meant to be used in this way as Section 215 has used it to year-after-year bulk collect this data.
FUENTES: Yes. I have to be honest. I'm not sure what he's talking about, frankly. But one other provision that we're not talking about is called "roving wiretap authority" and...
HARLOW: Right. That goes for me too.
FUENTES: --we had to - when I ran the Organized Crime program years ago, we had that authority. So in other words, when gangsters started cloning phones, you have to have the authority on that individual device or the individual payphone they were using or the individual car phone they were using. Under the roving authority, you've got authority to say, "This person is a gangster and all of these calls - all of these devices, we'd like authority that no matter which device he picks up today, if he's having criminal conversations, we can maintain coverage." And we had it for drug cartel members. We had it for organized crime figures. We did not have it for terrorists. There was a gap in the legislation. That's another one that will go by the boards if this Act isn't renewed or that provision isn't renewed - the ability to do roving authority on the bad guy, not on the bad phone.
HARLOW: They'd have to go to the courts and judge to get authority for each and every - each and every device. It's an important debate and it is top of mind in Washington, certainly, right now.
We'll see what happens tomorrow night.
Guys, thank you very much. Tom Fuentes and Bob Baer.
Coming up, he was the two heartbeats away from the White House. Today, new details on Dennis Hastert's multimillion dollar secret.
[16:20:05]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley announced today he is running for president. He made the announcement at a rally in Baltimore, offering himself to Democrats as a more progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTIN O'MALLEY, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are allowing our land of opportunity to become a land of inequality. Main Street struggles while Wall Street soars. Tell me how it is. Tell me how it is that not a single Wall Street CEO was convicted of a crime related to the 2008 economic meltdown. Not a single one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Well, O'Malley actually endorsed Hillary Clinton for president back in the 2008 race and on Friday, he called her to let her know that he'd be running against her. The call was described to CNN as being short and cordial.
In response, Clinton tweeted today, "Welcome to the race, Gov. O'Malley. Looking forward to discussing strong families and communities."
Well, a stunning scandal involving a former House speaker. Dennis Hastert is now under indictment for allegedly lying to the FBI about huge sums of cash that he withdrew allegedly as hush money to cover up sexual abuse with one of his former students. This dates back to his early years as a teacher and wrestling coach and long before his political career even started. And so far, he has not said a word about it.
[16:25:01] CNN's Sunlen Serfaty joins me now from Washington.
It's very interesting that he or his lawyer has not come out and said one thing. Is he going to have to face reporters at some point soon?
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, absolutely. I'd imagine so, Poppy. As you have said, he's been quiet. His lawyers have been completely quiet. And this is as so many questions still remain over this.
Now, here's what we know. According to sources, Hastert was paying a former male student to keep quiet about allegations of sexual abuse. That was from the time that he as a teacher and a wrestling coach in Illinois, well before he came to Washington and started his career in politics.
Now, he was indicted Thursday by the Department of Justice for lying to the FBI about a $3.5 million he agreed to pay to the still undisclosed recipient. He only ended up paying $1.7 million of that before this indictment came from the Department of Justice. Hastert is known here in Washington for being squeaky clean so this did come as a surprise and a shock to so many here.
Here's a response from the White House press secretary.
{BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: But I think I can speak pretty faithfully for everybody here at the White House that even though Speaker Hastert served as the speaker of the House in the other party, there's nobody here who takes - who derives any pleasure from reading about the former Speaker's legal troubles at this point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY: A friend of Hastert who's known him since the '70s says that he spoke with him yesterday about all of these allegations and he tells CNN "he perceives himself as the one being wronged." But this friend, Poppy, did not speak about these allegations.
HARLOW: Makes you wonder if we're going to see him in court anytime soon. I mean, is he going to have to make an appearance in front of the federal judge?
SERFATY: Well, we expect him at some point to potentially as early as next week but no date has been set. So no, he was not arrested by the Department of Justice. They believe that he wasn't a flight risk, wasn't a danger to the community, Poppy.
HARLOW: Right. Sunlen Serfaty at the White House. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Coming up, we're going to talk about policing in communities - minority communities. My interview with the Milwaukee District Attorney who tells me about an experiment that he put his own department through to see if there was inherent bias and what he found out, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:30:29] HARLOW: Welcome back. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.
Over the past few months, protests in cities like Madison, Wisconsin, Baltimore, Maryland, Brooklyn, New York, and Ferguson, Missouri, have shaped a national debate about how police do their jobs in communities made up largely of minorities. It's also reignited the debate over the criminal justice system in this country.
Recently, Hillary Clinton said this on the campaign trail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's an ethic that should extend throughout our system to prosecutors and parole officers, to judges and lawmakers. We all share a responsibility to help re-stitch the fabric of our neighborhoods and communities. It's time to end the era of mass incarceration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: So, is the justice system bias in this country? Is the criminal justice system inherently bias? And how likely is it that a prosecutor will charge, try and imprison a black person for a crime where a white person might be given a second chance?
Let's take a look at Wisconsin. African-Americans make up just 6 percent of the roughly 5.7 million people who live in the state. But in Wisconsin state prison system, 37 percent of the population is African-American. And in Milwaukee County, one study from 2010 shows that more than half of black men in their 30s had already at some point served some jail time.
John Chisholm is the district attorney for Milwaukee County. He joins me now. He's long been concerned about the racial imbalances in America's prisons -- so much so that he allowed his office to participate in an experiment which is the focus of a "New Yorker" magazine story recently written by CNN's Jeffrey Toobin.
Thank you for being here, sir. I appreciate it.
JOHN CHISHOLM, MILWAUKEE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I'm glad to be here.
HARLOW: You had your staff take part in this study in which your teams' decision about whether or not to charge a suspect or not were reviewed for racial fairness. Here's an example, how many times was a white person charged for a drug offense compared to a black person with the same offense? Or how many times did black women suspected of being prostitutes face charges over suspected white women who were suspected of being prostitutes.
Why did you decide to put your staff as a part of this study?
CHISHOLM: Well, our fundamental obligation as criminal justice professionals is to serve our community and do so in a way that's fair and that addresses the concerns in the community in an effective way that really makes a difference and minimizes the harmful effects and often unintended contact with the justice system.
HARLOW: So, what did you find? I mean, what were some of the most startling things that you found?
CHISHOLM: Well, it was fascinating. Overall, we found we did a fair and balanced job when you look at all of our charging decisions across the board, but we saw troubling trends particularly in the lower offense categories and particularly in the drug offense categories where we saw a wide disparity.
HARLOW: You're saying essentially that your office was charging African-Americans more than whites for the same crimes. Did you get to the bottom of why that was happening?
CHISHOLM: Sure, it's a tremendously complex undertaking. And what it required us to do is just go step by step from the process from when a person is arrested to when we review the charging decision and when they are sentenced by the court, when they go back into the Department of Corrections, they go back into the community, why do they come back into the system. So, we examined all those issues and we found certain things that we decided immediately we could change that process and develop other alternatives besides charging in some cases or developing other alternatives that actually got to the heart of why the person was coming into the system in the first place.
HARLOW: So, I want you to respond to one of your harshest critics, Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke. He's a frequent guest on this program. He told "The New Yorker", quote, "My soft on crime opponents emerged from candy land to propose second chances, third chances and fourth chances in the process of endangering our homes, our neighborhoods and our schools."
What's your reaction to him?
CHISHOLM: It's a false narrative. It is a completely false narrative. And that is that we have an obligation to address the serious issues that occur in our community and we always address violent crime as our number one priority.
[16:35:00] The issues that we're looking at is the lower level offenders that come into our system again and again and again, so we spend each and every day addressing violent crime and taking it very seriously.
HARLOW: Some of your critics would point to the fact that homicides are up in Milwaukee. If you look at the numbers this year versus last year, they are about double last year this time versus this year. They'd say this method isn't working. It's not reducing crime.
What do you say to them?
CHISHOLM: Well, then, I ask them to look at the actual data because once we started this process we actually achieved the lowest homicide rate and lowest violent crime rate in every 20 years. There's no question that some of those numbers have been creeping up, but it is a separate issue. What the research tells us -- and we have to really commit ourselves to objectively looking at what works and what doesn't work -- and what the research has shown us is for the low risk offenders that our disproportionately detained in your jail systems and house of corrections and the prison system, you can often times create greater problems than you're solving.
If you're over-committing your resources to the lower risk offenders, that's taken away from the resources that you can dedicate to those violent offenders, whether that's domestic violence or the people that use guns to commit crimes, the sexual offenders. We only have limited resources and we should focus the full system response on the people that are dangerous and that need to be removed from the community. We have to come up with alternatives for those lower risk offenders that solve their problems in the community and with the community.
HARLOW: It is fascinating what you guys have embarked on and you continue to do in your department. Sir, thank you for coming on and sharing a little bit about it with us. Appreciate it.
If our viewers tonight know more, you should read "The Milwaukee Experiment", Jeffrey Toobin's piece on this in "The New Yorker".
John Chisholm, thank you very much.
CHISHOLM: Glad to be here.
HARLOW: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:40:32] HARLOW: Shocking new body camera footage showing what some are calling excessive force by two California police officers.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
HARLOW: What you're seeing is a woman 8 months pregnant being wrestled to the ground, forced on her stomach, and then cuffed. Police say she was resisting arrest. She says she was treated like an animal because of her race.
CNN's Kyung Lah has her story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHELLE COOKS, PREGNANT WOMAN: What are you doing?
POLICE OFFICER: Ma'am --
COOKS: I'm pregnant!
(INAUDIBLE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How did dropping off children at school suddenly escalate to this?
COOKS: Please, I'm pregnant!
LAH: Police body cam video captures the entire incident.
POLICE OFFICER: What's going on, ma'am?
LAH: The first contact the Barstow police officer has is with this blonde woman who says she called the police to school.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She gets inside of her car. (INAUDIBLE) punching my window.
LAH: No damage to the woman's car.
The Barstow police officer then clearly says this.
POLICE OFFICER: I don't see right now --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was scared.
POLICE OFFICER: I don't see a crime that has been committed. If there was damage, that would give you the opportunity to place her under citizens arrest if you wanted to. I don't see any crime.
LAH: The officer walks over to the other woman, Michelle Cooks, who had just dropped off her second grade daughter at school. She's upset after the confrontation with the other woman.
COOKS: She was honking and honking, so I asked her what she wants. She was like you cannot park -- you cannot drive out here. This is a one-lane thing.
LAH: The officer then asks for Cooks' name.
POLICE OFFICER: OK. What is your name, ma'am?
COOKS: I'm not giving you my name.
LAH: Cooks gets on the phone to call her boyfriend.
POLICE OFFICER: Ma'am, I'm going to give you two minutes.
LAH: He gives her about 20 seconds.
COOKS: Don't touch me. Don't touch me.
POLICE OFFICER: Ma'am, please.
COOKS: Do not touch me. I'm pregnant. Do not touch me.
LAH: Cooks is eight months pregnant and never stops screaming.
COOKS: What are you doing? Stop! Let my arm go!
LAH: She is arrested.
(on camera): In your opinion, how did the officers treat you?
COOKS: Like an animal. Like a monster. LAH (voice-over): This is Michelle Cooks today. Cooks says police
charged her with resisting arrest, but a judge dismissed the charges. She gave birth to her daughter, Olive, two months after the arrest. She was healthy at birth.
Her mother though remains traumatized.
COOKS: You just looked at me and said, oh, she must be this way. And I'm not that way. You made me feel that I'm a way that I'm not. And I work so hard to provide for my family. This is not an issue that I wanted.
LAH (on camera): Is this a window into the national discourse of police conduct?
CAREE HARPER, COOKS' ATTORNEY: I think so. This is how it is every day for some of us in the black community. This is how it is and the only difference is the technology that records it and the Internet that projects it.
LAH: CNN did reach out to the police department. The spokesman saying that once the department became aware of the incident they initiated an internal investigation. The city of Barstow also released a statement saying, quote, "It is apparent that Ms. Cook's actively resisted arrest. The Barstow Police Department continues to be proactive in training officers in handling officers with emotional individuals. This incident is in no way racially motivated.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: Kyung, thank you for that.
The big question, was there any basis, any ground to arrest her in the first place? Did she do anything wrong?
CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins joins me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:48:25] HARLOW: All right. Before the break, we told you about two police officers in Barstow, California, now under fire accused of excessive force. The officers were dealing with a school parking lot dispute between two women.
One of them African-American and a mother who refused to give police her name. She did tell them, though, that she was eight months pregnant. Well, that didn't stop the police from wrestling her to the ground, forcing her on to her stomach and arresting her.
Let's talk more about it with CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins.
Mel, when you watch this piece, you see one woman tell the officer she punched my car. The officer looks at the car and says, sorry, I don't see anything here. If I did, maybe there could be a citizens arrest, but I don't see anything here.
He goes up to the other woman and asks for her name. She won't give him her name and he arrests her. Is there any crime, any ground for even arresting her?
MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely not, Poppy. You know, one of the other things that the officer said when he was talking to the white woman who works at the school is he said there has been no crime here. So, when you take this in full context, you got an officer arriving at an elementary school, not a drug deal, an elementary school, it's in the morning, it's in the middle of drop off, millions of us know this experience every single morning. You got a teeny dispute between who women that got a little emotional.
There's no crime and it's with that information, Poppy, that he walks over and approaches Michelle Cook. So at that moment, he has zero grounds to question her, zero grounds to detain her.
[16:50:03] He starts talking to her. She actually does give him her name. She tells him, my name is Michelle. And then he goes further and asks for her full name and ID and that's when she asked to make a phone call.
HARLOW: And in the state of California, Mel, you don't have to give police your name, right?
ROBBINS: Correct. Now, here's the thing -- I think a lot of us grew up, I know I certainly did and we also give our kids the same advice, which is listen, if you're dealing with the police, you're not going to gain anything by being argumentative. Just cooperate and things will probably work out.
But what is so egregious in this situation is he says to her, yes, you can make a phone call. I'm going to give you two minutes and then she starts on the phone call. Now, look, she doesn't run, there's no crime that's been committed. She's not mouthing at the officer. She's upset about the verbal altercation that happened with the woman in the parking lot.
Police walk into these situations every single day. Their job is de- escalate the situation and move on. But instead, he reaches out and grabs her. What justification does he have and she's making a phone call to grab her?
She then says, let go of me, which she has every right to do. He ultimately pushes her on the ground -- a pregnant woman should be cuffed in front of her stomach, not behind her back, she shouldn't be pushed to the ground. We're all sitting here wondering, why the hell is he arresting her in the first place?
(CROSSTALK)
ROBBINS: Go ahead, I'm sorry.
HARLOW: I just want to bring up that she's considering filing a lawsuit. You're an attorney. Does she have a good case here? I mean, what could she sue this officer, the department for?
ROBBINS: Well, she could sue them for violation of her constitutional rights. She could sue them also for pain and suffering for the humiliation. I mean, thankfully, her pregnancy went forward without any complications. She had a healthy baby girl.
But, you know, one of the things that I think is very important as everybody watches this is videotape is that on one hand, this is not a racial situation in terms of overt racism. This police officer did not pull into the parking lot, see a white woman, see a black woman and say to himself, consciously, there's a black lady, I'm going to go harass her and arrest her for no reason.
However, this is absolutely an example of what we call implicit bias. This officer probably doesn't even realize, Poppy, that he engaged in it.
And here's how you know it happened -- he treats the white woman, who is completely upset just like the black woman, totally differently than he treats the black woman. He doesn't ask the white woman for her name. He doesn't ask the white woman for her ID.
But the second he approaches the black woman, he wants to know her name, her ID -- this all with the verbal acknowledgment that no crime has been committed. By doing that, he is treating them with implicit bias, and this is why training is so absolutely important.
HARLOW: Yes, yes, and you said this video would be good training for officers talking about implicit bias. We wouldn't know anything if it weren't for those body cameras.
Mel Robbins, thank you.
ROBBINS: Thanks, Poppy.
HARLOW: Coming up, he played the Russian ambassador in the latest season of "House of Cards", but you won't believe what he does for a day job. His story, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:57:13] HARLOW: Well, a "House of Cards" star is moonlighting as a taxi driver. By day, this man plays a fierce Russian ambassador to the United Nations on the hit show. A crucial part of his role is trading barbs with devious first lady Claire Underwood played by Robin Wright. But this actor is not exactly giving up his other gig.
Our correspondent Richard Roth went for a spin with the New York cabby who scored a key role on "House of Cards."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEXANDER SOKOVIKOV, ACTOR & CAB DRIVER: The embassy sent for me. I'm being recalled.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the back seat, he stars in a hit Netflix show "House of Cards" as Russian U.S. ambassador.
SOKOVIKOV: His mind is made up. No one will dare challenge me on this.
ROTH: But to survive, Actor Alexander Sokovikov must star in the front seat driving a New York taxi.
(on camera): What is someone who is on a hit TV show doing driving a cab?
SOKOVIKOV: I think this job is much better for actors, for beginning actors than waiting on tables, honestly.
The truth is, you have no business being ambassador any more than I like being first lady.
ROTH: How many people recognize you when they get in your cab from "House of Cards"?
SOKOVIKOV: Zilch.
ROTH: Nobody?
SOKOVIKOV: Nobody has recognized me so far.
ROTH: Do you watch "House of Cards"?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do.
ROTH: This driver is the actor of "House of Cards."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can I see who's driving me?
SOKOVIKOV: Did you watch season three?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did.
SOKOVIKOV: The Russian thing, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, yes.
SOKOVIKOV: Yes, that was me.
ROTH: He's the ambassador.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've been on "House of Cards?"
SOKOVIKOV: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoo!
ROTH: He has a famous scene in the bathroom with Robin Wright playing the first lady of the United States.
SOKOVIKOV: Your husband doesn't have this kind of authority.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you naked?
SOKOVIKOV: No, she's naked.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's naked?
You're completely dressed.
SOKOVIKOV: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
SOKOVIKOV: It was the most challenging scene, honestly.
ROTH: In what way?
SOKOVIKOV: As a gentleman, you would just walk out, right?
This is April 13, 2015.
ROTH (voice-over): This being his first major role, Sokovikov takes diction lessons to expand his hiring possibilities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the tip of the tongue, nothing in the back. Not the Russian sound.
ROTH: I decided to see what happened when I introduce the Russian actor to the real Russian ambassador.
(on camera): I would like to introduce to you the Russian ambassador. Alex here plays the Russian ambassador on the U.N. on the show "House of Cards."
SOKOVIKOV: I'm going to tell you how do the writers of the show perceive you. Solid as a rock.
VITALY CHURKIN, RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Fantastic. Never had a better compliment. Thank you very much.
ROTH: Have your experiences as an ambassador taught to be more diplomatic on the hectic streets of New York in your cab?
SOKOVIKOV: It's very easy for me to lose a temper when I see an idiot behind the wheel on the road. But it happens less and less since I did the show.
ROTH: So, what it is that you want the public who might watch this to know about you?
SOKOVIKOV: I'd like for everybody to know that I am a solid and professional actor, whether I'm talented or a genius, let the time decide.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
