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CNN NEWSROOM

Boston Terror Plot; Duggar Molestation; Baltimore Crime Wave. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 4, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:27] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go. Top of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me here.

Got a lot to go through. New information here out of Boston, inspired by ISIS and impatient to act. Usaama Rahim, the knife-wielding Boston terror suspect killed by police, allegedly wanted to kill police himself. And this just into us. Right before Rahim died, he called his father to say, quoting this law enforcement official, his good-byes. A court document also indicates the day Rahim spoke of going after quote/unquote "boys in blue" was the very same day Boston police approached the 26-year-old private security officer. Boston's police commissioner spoke today about how imminent a threat the Joint Terrorism Task Force really thought he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMMISSIONER WILLIAM EVANS, BOSTON POLICE: We picked up information that he was heading out. Obviously we knew he had access to three large knives. And, you know, he talked about going out that morning, and that's why we wanted to get him before he even got on the bus, on that Washington Street, because we didn't know what he was capable of doing. He could have acted out on that bus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But before Rahim targeted police, this affidavit shows this 26-year-old plotted with his nephew and a third person to behead someone. According to sources, it was Pamela Geller, the conservative blogger known for running this anti-Islam group and for organizing that contest recently in Texas to draw the Prophet Muhammad that ended in a deadly shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA GELLER, TARGETED BY TERROR SUSPECT: Clearly I'm under 24-hour guard now. So that's dramatically changed. Anybody that speaks critically of Islam will find be - will find themselves in this position.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: I've got CNN's Deborah Feyerick, who's been all over this. And I know you've been getting all this information from your sources. So my first question to you being, why then was the plot - why did they switch gears?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's so interesting because it happened in such a short amount of time. On Sunday, he met in Rhode Island with two people, one of them his nephew, David Wright, who has been charged with obstructing justice, and another individual who's also at the heart of this investigation. But within less than 48 hours, all of the sudden Usaama Rahim, who you're looking at there in a high school photograph, he changed his mind. It's not clear why, but there was this great sense of urgency. And according to the court documents, he said, I can't wait that long, I can't wait that long, because the target was allegedly Pamela Geller, the Muslim basher, who is very well known within the Muslim community for attacks on the religion. Well, she's guarded and so therefore he was deciding that he could go for police officers, a much easier target, certainly more of them than Pamela Geller. And we are told that now Geller does have a police car stationed outside her Manhattan apartment.

BALDWIN: So we have - we're talking about, as far as suspects, we have, who is now deceased, Usaama Rahim, David Wright, the nephew, and then this third person, who no one is naming because this person hasn't been charged. What do we know about this individual?

FEYERICK: Well, what we do know is, is that this individual was on the radar, along with Usaama Rahim, and along with David Wright. Usaama Rahim was under surveillance for up to 12 months we're now learning but had recently been put under 24-hour surveillance because the level of threats were getting much more aggressive.

He had bought these three large military knives. And we're talking 15 inches long. And those had arrived last week. Then he had this sort of impromptu meeting and was on the phone with his friends texting about the fact that he was going to behead somebody. And so clearly when he was shot and killed, FBI agents and police officers from the JTTF were dispatched very quickly, not only to pick up David Wright, but also to this third individual, this third location.

BALDWIN: OK, Deborah Feyerick, thank you so much.

More on this now. Because Usaama Rahim's - what's happening now, Usaama Rahim's family plans to speak at 4:00 Eastern Time about this news conference here. So, head's up on that. No doubt they are wanting to know all of the details as far as how law enforcement began watching him, surveying him. Remember, he was under 24-hour surveillance. And it's clear from that affidavit Rahim's phone and e- mail were being monitored.

So, for more on all of this, let me turn to former FBI special agent Mike German.

And, Mike, just to Deb's point, I want to ask you, from your experience, when you hear that a plot changes so quickly in a 48-hour window, generally why is that?

MIKE GERMAN, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, oftentimes these are not the most sophisticated individuals, and they often have grandiose plans that are hard to accomplish. And so it's easy to then just say, well, that's too hard, let's try something different. I think what we have to keep in mind with the details that we know so far is that these are government allegations.

[14:05:18] BALDWIN: Right. Right.

GERMAN: There's probably far more to this story that we need to learn more about.

BALDWIN: The language that they were picking up as he was under surveillance. Phrases like "going on vacation," meaning committing violent jihad. How do you, as you're listening to these conversations, begin to connect the dots and figure out really how they're communicating?

GERMAN: So, if you're talking about a title three warrant, that's something that's manned constantly. So there are people who are actually listening to the conversations as they happen. So having understood how the subjects converse, they would be able to understand what they mean by certain types of language. I don't think there's an overall code. More that if you know the two suspects and you know what they've been talking about, you can understand how they're trying to mask what they're talking about.

BALDWIN: OK. OK. You study them long enough to be able to translate that.

GERMAN: Sure.

BALDWIN: You know, one of the questions we had had was, what was it that had happened that would have been the catalyst to send in JTTF early Tuesday morning, right, to question him? And so you just heard from the commissioner on CNN earlier today saying, well, they knew about the three knives, which you'd reported yesterday, from amazon.com. They wanted to grab him before he boarded that bus. We also hear now that he had called up his father to say the good-byes, right?

FEYERICK: And that's really very interesting because immediately after this shooting, the brother, who was an imam in Boston -

BALDWIN: Right.

FEYERICK: Who's now in California, put out on his FaceBook page that Usaama Rahim had had a conversation with his father prior to the shooting. Now, the information he was saying was that he needed a witness. Now what we're learning is, in fact, he did call his father, but was advised by a friend to then scrub and get rid of his cell phone. So bits and pieces that are coming out, and we think that we're going to hear a lot more at the 4:00 presser. It was very interesting that the brother initially sort of used this very heated kind of phrase, "I can't breathe," to describe the confrontation between Rahim and the members of the JTTF.

BALDWIN: So if you're FBI and you're surveilling this guy for, you know, 24/7, I mean looking at him for two years, I mean I imagine there's a lot of chatter you pick up over that course of time. So what, what in all of that, would be a reason to go grab him, to make this imminent?

GERMAN: Well, certainly it would be anything that one or any of the subjects said that indicated that the plan changed and they were going to do something quickly instead of the grandiose -

BALDWIN: That sent off alarm bells.

GERMAN: Well, certainly enough to have justified agents and police officers approaching the person to see what their intentions are.

BALDWIN: OK. Mike German, Deborah Feyerick, thank you both very much. I appreciate it.

We've got more from Boston coming up.

In the meantime, the Duggars breaking their silence here. Hearing now from parents, admitting their son molested four of his sisters. But despite three confessions, they refused to report it. Hear why and who they say made and committed the real crime.

Plus, crime is apparently so bad in Baltimore, the police commissioner there begging the feds for help. But as he's blaming all the prescription drugs from all the looting and the riot some weeks ago, might there be more to the crime wave than that? We'll explore that.

And an Army National Guardsman killed during a training exercise, but Arlington National Cemetery says he cannot be buried there. We will talk with his father coming up live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:12:46] BALDWIN: Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar speaking out for the very first time weeks after it was revealed that their oldest son Josh molested four of his young sisters and another young girl when he was a teenager. They described when Josh came to them, admitting he had, in his own words, inappropriately touched his sisters, how they reacted, what they had done more than a decade ago and how they feel about the story all coming to light now. But the interview that aired last night raised a lot more questions than it actually answered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM BOB DUGGAR, JOSH'S FATHER: This was not rape or anything like that. This was like touching somebody over their clothes. There were a couple of incidents where he touched them under their clothes. But it was like a few seconds. And then he came to us and was crying and told us what happened. And it was after the - that third time he came to us, is where we really felt like, you know what, we have done everything we can as parents to handle this in house. We need to get help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So much to discuss. I want to bring in CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin, who's also a former federal prosecutor specializing in child sex crimes, and also Michelle Booth Cole, executive director of Safe Shores, a D.C. children's advocacy center.

So, ladies, let's begin here with you, Sunny Hostin, because listening to this interview, the parents had said, as far as how they handled this whole thing, they said, as parents, we aren't mandatory reporters. Because I wanted to ask you about the law in Arkansas. Law allows for parents to do what's best for your child. My question would be, well, what about the other young children in the home and their interests? I mean what is the law here?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That was striking to me, that comment that they were not mandatory reporters. And that is true in the legal sense, they're not mandatory reporters, but under Arkansas law, there is a statute that requires parents to prevent the - requires parents not to permit the abuse of minors in their home. And so certainly if I was an Arkansas prosecutor when this was going on -

BALDWIN: You would have prosecuted it.

HOSTIN: I would have prosecuted them in a heartbeat for failing to protect the minors in their home.

I think the other interesting thing, Brooke, is - and I think Michelle, who I - I've worked with Safe Shores when I was a federal prosecutor and I think they're some of the best in the business - will agree that this is the classic case of what we see in child sex abuse cases. We see the cover-up. We see the minimizing. It was shocking to me that Mr. Duggar was saying things like, it was only over the clothes, it was only while they were sleeping.

[14:15:10] BALDWIN: That's, Michelle, what I wanted to ask you about.

HOSTIN: I mean, unbelievable.

BALDWIN: It's the language. It's the language. They talk about how Josh came to them. They were shocked, talked about trauma, talked about how he was so tearful, that at least he had this ray of hope, that Josh had a tender conscience. Quote, "this was not rape or anything like that." Michelle, when you hear that, how do you perceive that?

MICHELLE BOOTH COLE, EXEC. DIRECTOR, SAFE SHORES CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER: Well, I perceive it as parents wanting to take care of their children. I mean I really do - wanting to take care of their son. I also heard that they had definitely talked to some professionals because when they knew about mandated reporting, when they knew about whether it was rape and kind of the different levels of molestation, they clearly had had conversations with folks with legal expertise. That's what it sounded like to me.

You know, the minimization of child sexual abuse is not uncommon. This is - this is kind of the pattern that Sunny referred to. I mean when I was here with Sunny three years ago to the month, we were talking about Penn State and the Sandusky case. Right?

HOSTIN: That's right.

COLE: And so then last year it was Adrian Peterson and Dylan Farrow and there was another case. And in the District of Columbia, it was the really terrible case of Relisha Rudd, the little girl who went missing from the homeless shelter, right? So we have a pattern of talking about these cases when they come up but not continuing as a community to talk about how do we empower parents, how do we empower other adults, how do we create a higher standard for protecting children in our community in general.

BALDWIN: I - go ahead.

HOSTIN: And to be clear, you know, I think we should be clear that touching a child over the clothes while asleep is child sex abuse.

COLE: Child sexual abuse. That's right.

HOSTIN: Touching a child in an unwanted way while you're reading the child a story is child sex abuse. And there's a very high recidivism rate when it comes to child sex abuse. And so what is a part of this conversation or what should be a part of this conversation is the fact that this Josh Duggar, this young man now, has three children in his home. And that is a concern because he obviously hasn't received the appropriate counseling. He hasn't been held criminally responsible. And had he been held criminally responsible, even in the juvenile context, there's no question that a prosecutor would have perhaps made him be sex -

COLE: Mandatory counseling.

HOSTIN: Mandatory counseling -

COLE: Yes.

HOSTIN: On the sex offender registry so that he wouldn't be alone home with his young children.

BALDWIN: They had - they had - so for people who aren't as familiar, they had handled it in house - in home.

HOSTIN: Right.

COLE: Until a point.

BALDWIN: Until a point, right, and then they received - or they brought into Little Rock and there was a mentor. I believe that was more of a Christian-based mentor, not necessarily a licensed therapist per say. I think a family friend, a trooper, helped them out. And, ultimately, I think no charges because the statute of limitations had run out in this case.

HOSTIN: Had run out.

BALDWIN: What really also struck me though in this interview, and I was just sort of fascinated listening to this - to this husband and wife, because - and Jeff Toobin made this point earlier and I thought he was spot on, that they seemed so defensive over their son Josh.

COLE: Yes, about their son, yes.

BALDWIN: And it was less about protecting the young women.

COLE: And that is not uncommon. That reaction, and Sunny knows this as a prosecutor, when you see parents, you, for example, see a mother and a daughter, and it was the mother's boyfriend or paramour (ph).

HOSTIN: Sure.

COLE: Often, you know, people will choose the paramour over the child. I mean this is -

BALDWIN: Why?

COLE: this is one of the insidious things about this crime where often the victims are the ones who are the most exposed, who are the least protected, who are the least offended and who are often blamed.

HOSTIN: That's right.

COLE: And so that's one of the reasons that I think we can use this case as an opportunity to really teach people about the crime of child sex abuse, like Sunny's doing, like you're doing, and to have larger conversations and to not let it be just when something occurs. Because the fact is, people are about to send their kids to summer camp. People are -

HOSTIN: Yes.

COLE: You know, I mean, and have they asked those camps the questions that they should know? Do you have a code of conduct between the adults and - who run your camp and the children who are coming? Do you train your people in child sexual abuse prevention? Do you do background checks? What do you do to protect children?

So I think what we see with this case is an opportunity for our community to have bigger conversations that just shouldn't occur when these cases come to the media. Because the fact is, at Safe Shores, we've been in business for 20 years, 20 years of serving child victims of abuse, and we know a lot of these cases could be prevented. But we've also learned it's a community problem.

HOSTIN: And you see it over and over again, right, Michelle?

COLE: Absolutely. Absolutely.

HOSTIN: I mean you see this fact pattern over and over again. To be sure -

COLE: This is a variation on a theme. It's a variation on a theme.

HOSTIN: It really is. And to be sure, I mean handling it in house, the way the Duggars say that they handled it -

COLE: Yes.

HOSTIN: Is something that we hear in this area of the law over and over and over again. They - their first mistake, though, I think, is the fact that when this initially happened, when he first self- reported, they did not take him -

[14:20:03] COLE: They didn't go to the authorities.

HOSTIN: They didn't go to the authorities. They did not take him out of the home.

COLE: Yes. And they didn't take him out of the house. That's right.

HOSTIN: And he was allowed to reoffend.

COLE: Right. Yes.

HOSTIN: They didn't protect at least three of the children in their home.

COLE: That's right.

HOSTIN: And that is despicable.

COLE: Yes.

BALDWIN: Sunny Hostin. On that, Sunny, thank you. Michelle Booth Cole, Safe Shores. Thank you, ladies. I really appreciate it.

HOSTIN: You bet.

COLE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, police in Baltimore begging for help as the violence there is surging. We'll speak with someone who actually lives in Freddie Gray's old neighborhood. What she thinks could be the cause, coming up next.

And ahead, men have the little blue pill. And happening right now, an FDA hearing on whether to approve a little pink pill. A woman's version of Viagra. The benefits, the risks, we're about to hear a debate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We need help. That's a quote, a confession from the city of Baltimore, desperate as a historic crime wave is gripping the city. And Baltimore's top cop says the root of the problem is this, the looting of all those shelves full of prescription drugs, amidst all the riots following Freddie Gray's death in the back of a police van.

[14:25:17] Joining me now, a woman who knows Baltimore better than most, Kierra Boulware, a former addict who's been clean for a year and turned her life around after growing up with, you know, no real parents present at the time in Freddie Gray's neighborhood.

So, Kierra, thank you so much for joining me again.

KIERRA BOULWARE, LIVES IN FREDDIE GRAY'S NEIGHBORHOOD: Hello, Brooke. No problem.

BALDWIN: So the last time we chatted, I was in your neighborhood. It was the week of the riots. And the news today is that the police commissioner there says because of the looting, you know, there are all these prescription pills, this is the reason why the crime is so high where you are. I know you've said you haven't seen any of these prescription pills on the streets. So what's your reaction to hearing that your city's top cop is blaming the surge of violence on the drugs?

BOULWARE: I think that's completely false information. However, I don't have the access to the same information that he does. I believe that as a result of the riots, we are in a - we are in an environment where if - it is - we have to fend for ourselves now. And I don't think that that's fair. And I say that because it's the police response times to crimes is slower. The crime rate has increased. Nothing is being done about it. Like I told you, you know, before, I witnessed a man get shot at North and Pennsylvania Avenue and it took almost six minutes for an ambulance to get there or police officers to get there. A police officer was standing on the street and did not respond to this man who got shot.

So I say that to say, if a milkman delivers milk and he spills a whole case of milk due to some kids rattling the car, he can't not deliver milk the next day. The police still have to deliver. They still have to protect these communities, and which they get paid to do, and I don't feel like that's being done. And I think that's a direct result of the riots.

Now, is it totally their fault? No. I also believe that we are in a situation where we feel like someone has given us the green light to hurt each other. That is not who we are historically, and that is not who we will become if I have anything to do with it - to do with it.

BALDWIN: Hang on, Kierra. The green light. What - who gave the community the green light, and what have you seen as a response to the green light?

BOULWARE: I'm saying the police officers not responding to crime or not caring when crimes occur or feeling - not making it a priority to police our communities as they should, not saying that they were doing it before, because they weren't, but saying that now it's like they've become extra lax - relaxed in doing their jobs.

BALDWIN: And so as a result, are you saying that people you know or people you don't but are living in these community where you are feel like they are at liberty to commit crime because, in your words, police are more lax?

BOULWARE: Absolutely. Yes, ma'am.

BALDWIN: Wow! Which is a problem for someone like you, who's going to - you know, going to school and has a job and is living in this amazing, you know, rehab facility because this is not the kind of reality you want to live in. So, how do you fix it?

BOULWARE: It's not the kind of reality any of us wants to live in, period. I believe the solution is, as I stated in my previous interview, we need more of our community policing our community. So what do we do to encourage these children, these young adults who are graduating from high school recently. We have plenty of graduations recently. Who is encouraging these young adults - who are encouraging these young adults to become police officers?

BALDWIN: Can you answer that question for yourself?

BOULWARE: We need -

BALDWIN: Do you know the answer?

[14:29:29] BOULWARE: I don't. However, I know the solution that is being created. Penn North (ph), which I love and everyone knows that I love very dearly, has been not only an asset for the (INAUDIBLE) Winchester community, but Baltimore city as a whole. They have opened their doors to so many different opportunities that they probably didn't think that they would ever indulge in just so that we can be a sacred place for those in need, which is everyone in the community of Baltimore city.