New Details in Sam DuBose Shooting: What Was Inside the Car When It Was Pulled Over
DR. DREW PINSKY, HLN HOST: Tonight, breaking news in the case of an unarmed black man shot and killed by a police officer. Plus, another lion is killed an American hunter in Africa. And, Bobbi Kristina`s casket photos sold to the highest bidder. It all starts now with our breaking news. Tonight, we will know more about what was inside the car when Sam DuBose was pulled over. Take a look at that traffic stop that eventually turned deadly.</s>RAY TENSING, FORMER UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNAT POLICE DEPARTMENT WHOSHOT AND KILLED SAM DUBOSE: OK. Well, until I can figure out if you have license or not, go ahead and take your seat belt off for me.</s>SAMUEL DUBOSE, AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALE SHOT AND KILLED  BY RAY TENSING: Man why you --</s>TENSING: Go ahead and take your seatbelt off. -- Stop. Stop!</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER (voice-over): Frame by frame, you see the police officer reach for DuBose`s door. He asked DuBose, who is driving on a suspended license to remove his seatbelt. DuBose starts the car. It begins to move. The officer`s gun comes out. He shouts, "Stop. Stop!" Then the gunshot. Car speeds up, the officer is on the ground. The gun in front of the camera.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER (voice-over): This is the video slowed about 20 percent. You can hear the car engine. The officer shout twice and then that single fatal shot.</s>PINSKY: The video also show Sam DuBose handing the officer a bottle of what appears to be alcohol. This is what we have new information on watch this.</s>TENSING: What is that bottle on the floor there?</s>DUBOSE: Oh, that is a bottle of air freshener.</s>TENSING: Bottle of what?</s>DUBOSE: You can smell it. It is air freshener.</s>TENSING: OK. You have a license on you?</s>PINSKY: Tonight, we know that bottle that was labeled gin was air freshener. It was not gin at all. Tests found the liquid negative for any ethyl alcohol and consistent with compounds commonly found in fragrance products such as air fresheners and perfumes. Joining me, Anneelise Goetz, attorney and host of "Your Life And The Law" Podcast; Vanessa Barnett, HipHollywood.com; Mike Catherwood, "My Love Line" an KABC co-host. He also a host of "Chain Reaction" on GSN. Rolonda Watts, ost of "Rolonda On Demand" podcast and Lisa Bloom, trial attorney at the Bloom Firm and legal analyst at Avvo.com. Vanessa, I am not used to seeing air fresheners in a gin bottle, is that unusual?</s>VANESSA BARNETT, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: It is not unusual. It is common, especially in that area, especially with that culture. And, what it is, is it is just a condensed oil. It is like an innocence oil, and they washed out these gin bottles. They put them in there, sometimes water bottles. It is not -- you know, he said it was an air freshener and it was. He was not lying.</s>PINSKY: He was not lying. It was.</s>BARNETT: Yes. And, so, I guess if you are not familiar with that by all accounts it looks like gin. You will think it is gin, but no it is a cultural thing, I guess, in that area.</s>PINSKY: It is so peculiar. I mean I could not understand --</s>BARNETT: But, not really.</s>PINSKY: -- but he should have known that. The cop should have -- the police should have known that, right?</s>BARNETT: Yes. I mean if white people do it as recycling. He does it and all of a sudden, you know? I have seen white people turn wine bottles into flower vases. So, I am just saying. You know, that is recycling at its best.</s>PINSKY: Does it matter, Lisa, what was in the bottle? And, it really does not matter, is not it?</s>LISA BLOOM, TRIAL ATTORNEY AT THE BLOOM FIRM AND LEGAL ANALYST AT AVVO.COM: Right.</s>PINSKY: It does not justify shooting somebody.</s>BLOOM: The point is it is all completely irrelevant to the shooting. But what it is relevant to is what we see in these cases over and over again is that kind of vilifying the victims.</s>BARNETT: Yes.</s>BLOOM: Trying to find something immediately to make the victims of police shootings look bad, even if it had been alcohol. Even if he had been under the influence, even if he had been trying to drive away, the shooting would not have been justified.</s>PINSKY: Right, and you agree of course?</s>ANNEELISE GOETZ, ATTORNEY AND HOST OF "YOUR LIFE AND THE LAW" PODCAST: I do agree. And, I think that Lisa makes a good point. I think we see it in rape cases as well. You know, you go after the victims. You start demonizing the victim, and it is sad. And, I think that when you are going to look at this situation, obviously this cop is going to make the argument that my actions were justified. It was self-defense. And, if they are going to make the argument, "Oh, I thought he was under the influence, I think it is a tough one to make. Because, you see in that video, he pulls it out. He hands it to him, and the officer does not follow up and say, "Oh, have you been drinking?"</s>PINSKY: No, he did not --</s>GOETZ: There does not seem to be any kind of field sobriety. He takes look at it. He puts it on the top of the car and never thinks twice about it.</s>PINSKY: So, it was really a nonissue with this whole thing.</s>GOETZ: Yes.</s>PINSKY: Rolonda, the sister said something. The victim said something interesting. This gentleman was arrested like dozens of times, maybe 50 times or something. And, she goes, "Well, look, people want to turn that into an issue, you can see in his record he had no problem being arrested without any hassle. He would just give himself up and be arrested. He would not hassle anyone."</s>ROLONDA WATTS, HOST OF "ROLONDA ON DEMAND" PODCAST: Well, what is that they call it? Your M.O., the you operate or the way you work. And, even in a negative connotation, the proof is in the positive, in terms of, he was not running away necessarily. I mean I think that everybody has brought up an excellent point in the fact that he never once said, "Have you been drinking?" or "I smelled alcohol," all of a sudden this is like the old hand grenade thrown in. "Hey, look over there," so you are not looking over here."</s>PINSKY: But, again, it seems weird to me that we are even having that conversation.</s>MICHAEL CATHERWOOD, "LOVE LINE" AND KABC CO-HOST AND HOST OF "CHAIN REACTION" ON GSN: That is the thing.</s>WATTS: A life was lost.</s>PINSKY: -- drunk driving just because he was shooting --</s>WATTS: Yes.</s>CATHERWOOD: Also, I do not think that anybody even Mr. DuBose`s own family would argue that he has had problems with the law.</s>PINSKY: Right.</s>CATHERWOOD: His entire life.</s>PINSKY: Right.</s>CATHERWOOD: He is probably a career criminal. Nothing that is shown in his police record had anything to do with the fact that he was shot at point black range --</s>PINSKY: Yes.</s>CATHERWOOD: -- without at all reaching for a weapon or putting that cop in danger.</s>PINSKY: Well, let me bring in John Cardillo. He is a former NYPD Police Officer, host of "John Cardillo Show" on 1290 WJNO. John, there are other things found in the car, is that true?</s>JOHN CARDILLO, FORMER NYPD POLICE OFFICE AND HOS OF JOHN CARDILLO SHOW" ON 1290 WJNO: Yes. Yes. The most significant is two pounds of weed. Two pounds of marijuana in the vehicle, and thousands of dollars in cash from illegal drug sales. And, so this debunks the narrative that this was a routine traffic stop. No such thing as routine traffic stop as we saw in Memphis, where Officer Sean Bolton murdered. Going a police officer, simply an illegally parked car. And, if DuBose was really going to pick up his 9-year-old son to go to a movie, was he doing this with 2 pounds of weed and the proceeds of illegal drugs was also in the car? So, this changes the dynamic of the entire encounter and changes the motive for why DuBose would want to flee.</s>BLOOM: No. It is not.</s>CARDILLO: And he certainly does and it raises the reasonable doubt -- of course it does. Because now you have a drug dealer trying to flee the police, because he had drugs. It most certainly does count --</s>BARNTT: But, it still gives no reason as to why he was shot in the face.</s>CARDILLO: Hold on. Hold on. It does gives a reason as to what the officer might have observe in DuBose`s behavior that we even have not seen on the video. We now know --</s>BLOOM: OK, but none of that made it into the police record.</s>PINSKY: It did not?</s>BARNETT: We now know. You are talking about things we now know.</s>CARDILLO: Wait a minute.</s>BLOOM: We have to judge --</s>CARDILLO: Hold on.</s>BLOOM: If I may --</s>CARDILLO: Hold on.</s>BLOOM: We have to judge the police officer by what he knew at the time. And, not try to create evidence afterwards of what might have been on mind.</s>WATTS: And, pray it was not planted.</s>CARDILLO: Why is the prosecutor selectively releasing good details about air fresheners? -- excuse me. And, hiding details about 2 pounds of weed. This is highly relevant and as a defense attorney, you would be --</s>BLOOM: I do not think it is relevant at all, and I will tell you why. Because what does having marijuana in a car have to do with the threat to the officer, that justified him shooting to kill a man who was sitting in the driver`s seat complying with all his directives.</s>CARDILLO: A man who started his vehicle and began to pull away to possibly what we now know evade a felony drug arrest and go to jail --</s>BARNETT: You are talking about things, but we now know. We are not after that.</s>WATTS: Listen. You can always deal with what they --</s>CARDILLO: Hold on. It does not matter what we know. It only matters what the criminal thinks a police officer knows. When a police officer walks up to a car, that he thought passed the red light, but the occupants robbed a bank. And, they shoot them in the face, they think he knows they robbed a bank. So, DuBose, may not have known that the officer did not realize that there were 2 pounds of weed or did not smell it. Everyone is giving the benefit of the doubt to a guy arrested 60 times with pounds --</s>WATTS: No, we are giving the benefit of the be doubt to a man who was shot dead by a police officer again. That is what we are giving --</s>CARDILLO: Resisting a police officer in a course of what we now know was the commission of a felony.</s>BARNETT: Well, why did not he arrested him for those?</s>WATTS: But, why did not he call his backup. You do not have to shoot someone dead. Call your back up. It was not like the guy zoomed off. He rolled off.</s>PINSKY: All right.</s>CARDILLO: Call for backup? It was a split seconds? The guy started the car and took off like a guy out of hell.</s>BLOOM: But, one really --</s>BARNETT: Guy out of hell?</s>WATTS: Guy out of a hell!</s>BLOOM: It is not legally justified. It is illegal under the constitution, under the Supreme Court decisions in the United States to shoot somebody even who is fleeing a police officer, unless there is an imminent threat to the police officer --</s>CARDILLO: That is wrong. That is wrong.</s>BLOOM: No. You can shut me down all you want, but this is actually the law in the U.S. You cannot just shoot to kill because someone is fleeing from a police officer.</s>CARDILLO: That is wrong. Tennessee V. Garner says the police can, counselor.</s>BLOOM: If there are threats to the police officer or someone else, not just because they are fleeing.</s>PINSKY: Stop right here. Stop it, everybody. Stop. Josn, hold on. John, I got to turn you off. Turn him off. Turn him off, please. There we go. Thank you. Next, we are going to continue this conversation. John, thank you. We are going to get back to you, do not worry. This is a case of point for decriminalization of cannabis.</s>BARNETT: Yes.</s>PINSKY: A lot of real unnecessary jail time, unnecessarily lost of life, unnecessary police time spent doing watts, so the guy cannot get stoned. I do not get it. Later, someone took a photo of Bobbi Kristina in her casket and then sold it for the highest bidder. We have that and more after this.