U.S. Police Officer Charges With Murder
ANDERSON: This is Connect the World with me Becky Anderson. The top stories for you this hour here on CNN. Saudi-led airstrikes have hit a Houthi rebel stronghold in northwest Yemen. The raid caused significant damage to a gas storage plant and a communications facility. Well, this came as state media in Iran said two Iranian warships are heading to the Gulf of Aden, reportedly on an anti-piracy mission. ISIS has released more than 200 Yazidi captives in Iraq's Kirkuk Province, that's according to an official with the Kurdish regional government. It's not clear what motivated the release of the religious minority members who were captured, you may remember, by ISIS late last year. Well, in Kenya the first coffin carrying a victim of last week's massacre in Garissa has now left the morgue in Nairobi. 147 people were killed when al Shabaab militants stormed the university campus not far from the Somali border. All but five of the victims were students. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Greek Prime MInister Alexis Tsipras have met in Moscow a day before Greece is expected to pay back a half a billion dollars on its IMF loan. Mr. Putin says Greece hasn't asked his country for any financial help. Well, another troubling police shooting is igniting outrage in the United States. Protesters are calling for justice after a white policeman shot and killed an apparently unarmed black man in South Carolina. The shooting was captured on video and now that police officer is charged with Murder. Ed Lavandera has this report. And I want to warn you, the video you're about to see is disturbing.</s>ED LAVANEDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When the video starts, Walter Scott is turning and running away from the officer. Eights shots and four seconds later, the 50 year old man falls to the ground at least 25 feet away, pronounced dead at the scene a little later. As Scott's body lays on the ground, Officer Slager is heard yelling put your hands behind your back. Immediately after the deadly shooting this past Saturday in the South Carolina town of North Charleston, Officer Michael Slager said there was a scuffle over his TASER and that he felt threatened. Another officer says in a police report, Officer Slager advised that he deployed his TASER and request for backup units and then seconds later the officer says Slager says over the radio shots fired and the subject is down. He took my TASER. At the beginning of the video, you can see two dark objects fall to the ground around Officer Slager. It's not clear if this is part of his TASER, but Officer Slager goes back to that spot and picks the object up and then a little later you see Officer Slager drop what could be his TASER on the ground next to Walter Scott's body. Then moments later, the officer picks up what he earlier dropped to the ground. Michael Slager has been charged with murder by the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division. He's a five year veteran of the police department. His lawyer telling local news media after the shooting that Officer Slager believed he followed all the proper prosedures of the North Charleston Police Department. That lawyer no longer represents the officer. But North Charleston's mayor says Officer Slager made a bad decision.</s>MAYOR KEITH SUMMEY, NORTH CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: When you are wrong, you're wrong. And if you mak a bad decision, don't care if you are behind the shield or just a citizen on the street, you have to live by that deicision. And so we as a city want the family to know that our hearts and our thoughts are with them.</s>LAVANDERA: North Charleston police also say that after the shooting police officers provided CPR and first aid to Walter Scott, but several minutes pass on this video and no officers are seen providing first aid even as ambulance sirens are heard in the distance. Even Officer Slager's boss, the department's police chief, says murder charges are appropriate in this shooting.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The investigation revealed what it revealed. And we are obligated to do what the law dictates if the investigation so revealed that. And it appears that through this videotape that's where it fell.</s>LAVANDERA: Tuesday night, Walter Scott's family reacted to the news that the officer had been charged with murder.</s>ANTHONY SCOTT, VICTIM'S BROTHER: We can't get my brother back. And my family is in deep mourning for that. But through the process, justice has been served. And I don't -- I don't think that all police officers are bad cops, but there are some bad ones out there. And I don't want to see anyone get shot down the way that my brother got shot down. We've all seen the video. If there wasn't a video would it have been -- would we know the truth? Or would we have just gone with what was reported earlier? But we do know the truth now.</s>ANDERSON: Well, there's much more on this story. Just ahead, you'll hear from a U.S. police chief who also heads the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. That is on the International Desk with Robyn Curnow. And that is starting in less than 30 minutes from now. Let's turn to Iraq's gains over Sunni extremists. A week ago, Iraqi forces recaptured the city of Tikrit from ISIS fighters. My colleague Arwa Damon has discovered that many former residents are too terrified, though, to return home.</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: 16-year-old Hibba (ph) and her 17-year-old sister Noor (ph) were somehow spared the violence that's torn Iraq apart since the U.S.-led invasion. "We're not used to this," Noor (ph) says. They are from Tikrit. Hibba (ph) constantly tries to call her girlfriends, but their phones are all off. Their father can't stop his eyes from welling up. But they do not dare return, even if and when the government declares it safe. "I swear, I just don't trust the situation," Rashid (ph) tells us. He's not alone. This partially constructed building is just one of many in Baghdad's predominately Sunni neighborhood of Al-Domiya (ph), turned into makeshift refugee housing for Sunni families that fled ISIS, most from towns not far from Tikrit. She's saying they miss their home, they miss their land, their farm. A lot of the families who are here that we've been speaking to are from areas that have already been liberated, but they're still too afraid to return. They're afraid of returning without government permission. They want to see an official coming out on television assuring them that it's safe. And they're also afraid of what ISIS may have left behind. It's not just ISIS they fear, these Sunni families are hesitant to go home. The Shia force fighting alongside Iraqi government troops terrifies them as well. It's not a risk they're willing to take. For eight months Alma (ph) and her family were forced to live under ISIS rule. "It was the day after the fall of Mosul," Alma says. "Anyone who spoke against them was killed." "It was forbidden to leave," she continues. "There was no power, no water, no gas." They were caught in the crossfire of bullets and bombs. "These kids, they would all hide under the staircase," Alma says of her nieces and nephews. "One time, we only ate eggs for a week." "There were bullets that came into the house and I screamed for my father," four-year-old Riham (ph), the cheekiest of the bunch, declares. Finally, a few months ago ISIS allowed everyone to leave. This is their street now. "We spent our lives there. We grew up there. And to go back and find nothing," Alma says, "it's just too much." Unable to return and unsure who to blame.</s>ANDERSON: And senior international corresponent Arwa Damon joining us now from Baghdad. And your report so rightly points out that complexities on the ground, it's not just ISIS these families fear, but Shia militia fighting alongside the Iraqi army who have now liberated this town. Can you just describe the consequences of this sort of life for the families that you've met?</s>DAMON: It's absolutely devastating, Becky. There's no real way to put it into words, especially given what this country has been through since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, not to even go back to how so many Iraqis suffered under the regime of Saddam Hussein. And that is why people are so hesitant at this stage to even begin risking their lives and going back home, even if their various areas have been cleared. This is something that the Iraqi government is very aware of, realizes needs to handle immediately, that it needs to reassure the Sunni population that they can return home, that there will not be reprisal attacks. We also spoke to some of the Shia volunteer force commanders. And they acknowledge that there are individuals amongst them, individual acts of perhaps revenge, retaliation, with the looting and burning of homes that took place in Tikrit. But as one senior commander told us they need to take great strides and be very aware that they do have to win over the Sunni population and make sure that they trust them and that they are their allies. Key in all of this in any sort of success for Iraq's future, Becky, is going to be rebuilding that sense of national unity and national trust.</s>ANDERSON: Meantime, Arwa, there was some good news today for one community, the Yazidi community, who had been captured -- some of whom have been captured by ISIS last year. They've been released by the militant jihadist. Great news for those who have been freed. What would you read into the ISIS strategy at this point?</s>DAMON: It's difficult to say. We don't know what sort of negotiations may or may not have taken place and what exactly motivated this particular release of another 217 Yazidis who had been captured by ISIS back in August. They're part of a much larger group of thousands that were taken - - kidnapped by ISIS in August when ISIS swept through the Sinjar mountains. The images that we're seeing of these Yazidis who were just released are absolutely heartbreaking. Many of them weak, seen being comforted by the security forces, given water. One woman seen wailing, crying for those she had to leave behind. The vast majority of these 217 who were released are elderly children, some women amongst them, but at least 60 children, Becky, were amongst them according to Kurdish officials. And this follows another release that took place in January of 250 Yazidis as well, most of them in that case were elderly. But there are still thousands that remain under ISIS control, effectively held captive by this terror organization as infidels and that has gone so far as to enslave thousands of Yazidi women.</s>ANDERSON: All right, Arwa Damon reporting for you from Iraq. Live from Riyadh, this is Connect the World with me Becky Anderson. We're here all week. We'll move from regional upheaval to a Saudi designer working to break barriers through fashion. That is in about 15 minutes. First up, though, tonight, a sober scene as the first coffin leaves a Nairobi morgue nearly a week after the attack on Garissa University College. I'm going to get you the very latest developments from Nairobi after this short break. Don't go away.