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Exposed: The Faces and Fake Names of the People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos
As the Senate prepares to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, we look at the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-choice group behind the attacks on Planned Parenthood. The group was founded by David Daleiden who is seen in the undercover sting videos using a fictional name. We speak to RH Reality Check’s Sharona Coutts, who wrote the piece, "Exclusive: The Faces and Fake Names of People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to who David Daleiden is, of the Center for Medical Progress, the group responsible for attacking Planned Parenthood. This is Daleiden speaking on Fox News.
DAVID DALEIDEN: For the past two-and-a-half years, the Center for Medical Progress conducted a long-term, in-depth, comprehensive, investigative journalism study of how exactly Planned Parenthood harvests and sells the body parts from the babies that they abort. And this is something that Planned Parenthood has been doing for decades at this point. It’s something that, by their own admission in their press statements, that for the past week, that their top-level leadership supports and knows is going on. They’ve admitted that they harvest the specimens, and they’ve admitted that they receive payment for it in exchange for those specimens. Really, the only bone of contention that’s left is whether or not they receive a financial benefit from those payments and exactly how much the profit is. There needs to be an immediate moratorium on all of Planned Parenthood’s public funding.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s David Daleiden of the anti-choice group, the Center for Medical Progress. Sharona Coutts is also with us, vice president of Investigations and Research at RH Reality Check. Her new piece is headlined "The Faces and Fake Names of People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos." Who is David Daleiden, Sharona?
SHARONA COUTTS: Hi, Amy. Well, David Daleiden goes by at least one other name, and that is Robert Daoud Sarkis. That’s an alias that he used, according to multiple sources, when he was presenting himself as one of the officials at this sham company called BioMax Procurement Services. You know, the company was a sham, and, it turns out, a lot of the identities used by the people who claimed to be officials for the company were also shams.
Daleiden himself is a longtime, extreme anti-choice activist. He has ties with some of the most notorious names in that movement, including Troy Newman, who is the head of Operation Rescue. And that’s a group that has a long history of associating with known terrorists—and I use that word advisedly. I’m talking about people who have committed violence against doctors who are assisting women in accessing their constitutional right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you find out? How did you do this research into who was involved with this?
SHARONA COUTTS: Well, you know, it’s shoe-leather journalism. It was through talking to as many sources as I could to find out, you know, hey, this group is boasting that they had infiltrated a lot of events, met with and gained the trust of a lot of people in the abortion care community, so I reached out to contacts in that community and asked whether anyone knew them. I very quickly started to hear back from people who were saying, "Yes, I did see this company," "I saw them at a particular event," "They tried to visit this clinic," things like that. And information began coming through, and we started to get names. And then, as we got names, we started to get photographs and business cards. And so, through that process, we were able to come down to at least three names that we’ve published so far. We actually have another two or three that we are still looking to verify.
So, I mentioned Robert Daoud Sarkis. There’s also Susan Tennenbaum, was another alias. And another one appears to be Brianna Allen. That one’s particularly interesting because most of the activities of these two sham groups, run by the same people—so, you mentioned the Center for Medical Progress, which is a nonprofit, and then they had the sham company, BioMax—they’re all based in California. And a lot of the videos that we’ve seen so far were also filmed in California. We tried to find a Brianna Allen in California who was associated with BioMax. We also, of course, emailed every company email address that she had—the woman calling herself Brianna Allen had provided to multiple sources. We did find one Brianna Allen, and that story is, in her words, very, very weird.
Brianna M. Allen grew up in Davis, California, which is where David Daleiden grew up. She went to elementary and high school with David Daleiden. They were not associates, but she does remember him as an outspoken, conservative, anti-choice, self-identified fundamentalist Catholic. She was the president of the feminist club at high school. And when I finally spoke to her, she said, "I saw my name printed in one of your stories. I wanted to let you know I have nothing to do with this, and I don’t support what David is doing. He’s entitled to his views, but he has to find an honest way to go about expressing them. And lying and manipulating videos and people to express a point just undermines his own credibility."
AMY GOODMAN: And you saw—you saw her name on a credit card within the video?
SHARONA COUTTS: Yeah. So, we had actually come across the name Brianna Allen before that, through various sources, and also, when you watch the videos really carefully, the operatives do refer to a Brianna. What we did, though, was we slowed down the end of the second video that they released, the full version. And in it, one of the operatives, who’s wearing a camera, like here, she pulls out her wallet, like this. So, on screen you can see the wallet, and then she slips out a credit card. And it goes in the blink of an eye when you’re watching it live, but when you slow it down, just on YouTube, just by hitting pause, you can see the name on the credit card is Brianna Allen.
Here’s the problem: This woman was calling herself Susan Tennenbaum. So a woman who was purporting to be called Susan Tennenbaum, who was talking about a Brianna Allen in the third person, pulls out a credit card that says Brianna Allen, and pays for the meal on that credit card. When we contacted Brianna M. Allen, she was kind of freaked out, because we let her know about the credit card that we’d seen, and she immediately tried to access her credit reports online. Can’t get in. She used to be able to get in. And you know how you do it. You answer all the questions: Do you have a mortgage? Which one of these five streets did you ever live on? All those sorts of things. She said, "They’re the right answers. I just can’t get in." So, at this stage, she’s having to follow up by paper to try and see whether she’s had some kind of credit card fraud perpetrated on her.
I have to be very clear: We don’t know that that’s what happened. She really is an incredibly fair-minded and reasonable person. She says she has absolutely no ill will against David Daleiden. She did say, you know, if it’s a coincidence, it’s a really, really weird coincidence. And she’s just trying to get to the bottom of it to find out whether there was some kind of fraud perpetrated against her.
AMY GOODMAN: Texas Republican senator and presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said he’s calling on the Department of Justice to investigate if Planned Parenthood has violated federal law. This is Senator Cruz speaking to Fox News.
SEN. TED CRUZ: These tapings of Planned Parenthood selling body parts are grotesque. It highlights the evil of what they’re doing.
AMY GOODMAN: So these tapes, Sharona Coutts, David Daleiden is an associate of the discredited right-wing activist James O’Keefe, who targeted ACORN and was famously arrested for trying to wiretap Senator Mary Landrieu’s office when she was senator at the time, the senator from Louisiana. And this is from, I think, The Hill: "James O’Keefe was sentenced to three years of probation, 100 hours of community service [and a] $1,500 fine after he pleaded guilty ... to misdemeanor charges stemming from his involvement in [the break-in of Landrieu’s office. In January, O’Keefe and three others were arrested by federal authorities at Landrieu’s office on allegations of phone-tampering." Can you talk about these links? Is it guilt by association?
SHARONA COUTTS: You know, I don’t think you even need to go into the guilt by association, to be honest with you.
Can I just say, on that Ted Cruz clip? He’s a really smart guy, I mean, in a bookish sense, you know? He has to know that what he’s saying is just factually incorrect. As you know—you played those clips—when you watch those four videos, the Planned Parenthood officials are literally saying the opposite of wanting to profit from fetal body parts. And I really mean that. They are literally saying, time and again, "No one wants to profit from this. We are not trying to."
And I think it’s really important for people to understand, on the question of appearing to haggle over prices, what is going on there. Well, I can tell you, because I’ve studied the videos and the transcripts at length. What they’re trying to do is figure out what it will cost them to facilitate the donation of tissues. And as Dr. Willie Parker said to you earlier, this is because women are asking if they can do something good for society by donating fetal tissue to research for terrible diseases that are affecting the lives of people around the world. And it’s difficult, actually, to figure out how to reimburse yourself for a cost. You know, anyone who’s watching this could think about it this way. Say you’re at work, and you agree to take a phone call as a research call for another company. They are a startup. They’re trying to research your industry; they don’t know about it. So you agree, and you say, "Would you cover my costs?" They say, "Sure. How much?" Well, how do you charge for your time? Do you figure out your salary and then break it down by increments of six minutes, like a lawyer? Do you figure out what the rent your company is paying per square foot, and decide how much space you’re taking up? Are you thinking about risk? Are you thinking about opportunity cost? That’s what’s going on here. No one is trying to haggle to make money.
And Senator Cruz knows that full well. He is being unbelievably deceptive here. And, you know, when I say you don’t need to go into guilt by association, you have that kind of deliberate, manipulative deception by a senator, who—you know, he’s a clever guy. He has all sorts of fancy credentials from fancy colleges. He knows what he’s doing. He knows how to, you know, look at evidence and determine what those facts say and what they don’t. The other layers—I’m sorry, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Katie Lyon, who recently wrote an article for Time.com called "Why I Donated Fetal Tissue After My Later Abortion." She’s a mother and a supporter of Planned Parenthood. In the article, she explains her painful decision to have an abortion at 22 weeks when an ultrasound revealed her fetus had spina bifida and a tethered spinal cord.
She writes, quote, "It was horrible for us to have to end a much-wanted pregnancy, but we made the best of it by donating the fetal tissue for research. We contacted our genetics counselor, who coordinated the donation with a spina bifida research project funded by the National Institutes of Health. We figured that donating the tissue could perhaps spare other families the painful situation we found ourselves in. It was clear to me and my husband that the question of what caused the spina bifida needed to be studied. I feel fortunate that I had the chance to donate the tissue—I was able to turn my pain into something that could benefit someone else." That written by a woman named Katie Lyon.
Now, I wanted to go back to Dr. Willie Parker and ask you about the significance of the Senate effort, led by Rand Paul, Ted Cruz—both presidential candidates—to defund Planned Parenthood, what this would actually mean.
DR. WILLIE PARKER: Well, the effort to defund Planned Parenthood is under the notion that if you stop Planned Parenthood, you’ll stop abortion. But that’s far from the truth. Planned Parenthood has been around for a hundred years. And most of what they do, well over 90 percent, is provide well woman care, basic healthcare for men, women and families, and 90 percent of what they do has nothing to do with abortion.
When you talk about federal funding for Planned Parenthood, what you’re really talking about is the fact that Planned Parenthood, as a part of the safety net, is a Medicaid provider. They access—the majority of the revenues that Planned Parenthood would see from the federal government comes as a result of billing for Medicaid, because they’re allowed to participate in the Medicaid system. With regard to grant funding, Title X funding, which actually covers basic healthcare and contraception, is the only other federal funding. Less than 10 percent of Planned Parenthood’s work is related to abortion.
So, the notion is, by defunding Planned Parenthood, you’ll stop abortion, but what you’ll actually—what will actually happen is there will be a bigger rent in the safety net for people who have nowhere else to go. Most of the patients and women who go to Planned Parenthood, they not only choose Planned Parenthood because it’s a high-quality provider, they choose it because, in most of the places, nobody else in that community will take Medicaid. So, defunding Planned Parenthood just tears a bigger hole in the safety net.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think are the prospects for Planned Parenthood as this charge is led? It could happen, the vote, as early as Monday.
DR. WILLIE PARKER: Well, you know, I hope that reason and truth will prevail. I have to have confidence in the process, that as we make known what’s really at stake, through responsible venues like your own, Amy, that people will get it and that they will contact their legislators to say that we cannot make such a major decision based on agenda-driven, uncredible evidence.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both for being with us, Dr. Willie Parker, physician, abortion provider, board member of Physicians for Reproductive Health. He previously worked for Planned Parenthood and recently wrote an article for Cosmopolitan headlined "Why I Stand with Dr. Deborah Nucatola." Sharona Coutts is the vice president of Investigations and Research at RH Reality Check. And we’ll link to your piece, as well, "Exclusive: The Faces and Fake Names of People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos." When we come back, we go to Cincinnati. Stay with us.
Police Remove Greenpeace Activists from Portland Bridge After They Forced Shell Ship Back to Port
In Portland, Oregon, law enforcement officers have removed Greenpeace activists who spent 40 hours suspended from the St. Johns Bridge in order to block an icebreaking ship commissioned by oil giant Shell from leaving for the Arctic. Hundreds of activists have been gathering on the bridge and in kayaks since Tuesday night in efforts to stop Shell’s plans to drill in the remote Chukchi Sea. Early Thursday morning, the suspended Greenpeace activists successfully forced Shell’s ship to turn back to port in a showdown that grabbed international headlines. Joining us to discuss the action is Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Portland, Oregon, where law enforcement officers have removed Greenpeace activists who spent 40 hours suspended from a bridge in order to block an icebreaking ship commissioned by the oil giant Shell from leaving for the Arctic. Hundreds of activists have been gathering on the bridge and in kayaks since Tuesday night in efforts to stop Shell’s plans to drill in the remote Chukchi Sea. Early Thursday morning, the suspended Greenpeace activists successfully forced Shell’s ship to turn back to port in a showdown that grabbed international headlines. Greenpeace activist Kristina Flores discussed watching the ship turn around as she stood on top of St. Johns Bridge on Thursday.
KRISTINA FLORES: This morning was quite the adventure. It felt really, really great to watch the Fennica turn around and go back to port. That was just a really great, great sign that we are winning, that we are strong, and when the people come together, we can win. And we will win.
AMY GOODMAN: Joining us from Portland, Oregon, is Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA.
Annie, we spoke to you a few days ago. You were on the bridge at the time, as the Greenpeace activists descended by rope from the bridge to try to stop this Shell rig from going through. Can you tell us what’s happened since?
ANNIE LEONARD: Well, yesterday was an absolutely incredible day, a display of people power. Throughout the day, the crowds just kept growing, as you said. There were hundreds of kayakers going in shifts, filling the river so that if the boat tried to leave, there would be both lines of defense—the aerial barricade and then the people.
In the morning, Shell went—got a hearing in a court in Alaska. Shell had taken out a preliminary injunction prohibiting us from going within a certain distance of them and prohibiting us from interfering with their work. The court did find us in contempt of court and ordered us to get off the bridge and fined us hourly fines starting at $2,500 an hour, going up to $10,000 an hour. We met with the climbers on the bridge. We really felt it was their decision, first and foremost. And we all decided to stay on the bridge, that saving the Arctic was worth more than the monetary value of the fine that they were imposing. So we stayed absolutely put there.
Then, around 3:00 in the afternoon, the police came out to the bridge and began to escort the anchors off. The anchors were the people that each climber had on the bridge to ensure their safety, who stayed there 24/7. They took them away, gave them very minor citations and released them. Then they started to force the climbers down. And in an incredible display of just absolute chaos, the police and the Coast Guard came, forced the climbers down and began to take them all away. And they only opened up—didn’t take all of them; they opened up an opening large enough for the Shell ship to come through. The ship started to come, and dozens and dozens of kayakers came and threw themselves in front of the ship. People jumped out of their kayaks to try to stop them. People were on inflatable pool toys. And it was absolute chaos. The Coast Guard ran over one of the kayakers. I mean, it was absolute mayhem.
The Coast Guard managed to pull all the kayakers away, one by one, in a very dangerous situation, clearing just enough space for the Shell vessel to squeak through. It came so close to the remaining climbers that were there, squeaked through. People on the shore literally started crying. It was just heartbreaking to watch this thing go through, because we know the climate implications. It squeaked through, and then it headed out to sea to go up to the Arctic and start the drilling process.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about why that ship came into port in Portland. In fact, it was already out at sea. It was already in the Arctic but got a hole in it somehow? Sprung a leak?
ANNIE LEONARD: Right, that’s a very—that’s a very important point, too. This whole thing happened in Portland because of Shell’s incompetence. The Arctic is a very, very dangerous place to drill, and all the other oil companies have dropped out and said it is too dangerous, too expensive, it just doesn’t make sense. This ship is required to be there when the drilling happens. The permit requires it. It ran into something and got a 39-inch hole in its hull. It couldn’t be fixed in Alaska, presumably didn’t want to go back to Seattle, where there had been such protest, so it came to Portland on a very tight timeline to repair it and then get back up to the Arctic. And that’s why this blockade was so powerful, was that any delay that we could have shortened the amount of time that Shell can drill this summer, because they have such a short ice-free window. They have to get up there, drill and get out before the winter ice returns.
AMY GOODMAN: So how long did it take this ship, that had sprung a leak, which makes you nervous about other things that could go wrong in the Arctic that involve oil spills—it took it what? Something like 12 days to make its way down, in this very narrow window, to get fixed, turn around and then come back—go back?
ANNIE LEONARD: That’s right. And so, presumably, it will take another 12 days to get back up there.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, what about the people who suspended themselves from the bridge? Can you talk about exactly what they did? I mean, the action called "Rappel Shell" is pretty astounding, the bravery of doing something like this. It was sort of like—I thought of Bree Newsome, who climbed the flagpole to take the Confederate flag down, but this was going the other way: They were rappelling down.
ANNIE LEONARD: Right. So, they went up into the bridge in the middle of the night, secured themselves very safely—they really are professionals at this; I mean, Greenpeace knows what it’s doing on the technical front—and then rappelled off the side of the bridge. They had hammocks, they had climbers’—kind of like rock climbers use—bags of equipment, and they stayed there for 40 hours. And I cannot explain to you what the conditions were like. Portland is having record heat. It was over 100 degrees during the day and then very cold at night. They stayed there, and up until the end, they were emotionally and physically strong, and said they wanted to stay, because their commitment to keep that Arctic oil in the ground was stronger than their human frailties at that moment. They absolutely wanted to stay.
AMY GOODMAN: Annie, I wanted to go to this point. This is not just incidental to the story, when you talked about this record heat. From AccuWeather.com this morning, "Record-Challenging Heat Wave Bakes Seattle and Portland, Oregon": "Temperatures will crack the century mark throughout Oregon’s Willamette Valley and many of the valley locations of the interior Northwest." Can you talk about this record-breaking heat wave and why Greenpeace is doing what it’s doing?
ANNIE LEONARD: It is so baking hot in Portland. I grew up in this region. This is just unprecedented. There were times that I was actually worried about the climbers’ physical health. And I thought, how ironic that it is climate change that drove them up there, and at times I thought it might be climate change that would force them down. Absolutely so hot.
And the Arctic is connected to this, because scientists have said that we need to keep 80 percent of the known fossil fuel reserves underground if we’re going to stay below that two-degree threshold over which climate scientists say will be absolute catastrophe. If we go up to two degrees, it’s still going to be bad, but absolute catastrophe. Scientists have looked at what oil reserves around the world need to stay underground, and the Arctic is at the top of the list. It is really well documented at this point that extracting Arctic oil from the region and then putting it into market and then burning it will guarantee that we go over two degrees. So this is—this is a situation where Shell is not just threatening an ecosystem that provides important habitat or threatening a beautiful forest or river that we’re fond of. This is a situation where Shell’s Arctic oil drilling is actually threatening everything and everyone that we love. And we want to do whatever we can to stand up and stop it.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Annie Leonard, Shell can’t do this on their own. So explain how the Obama administration is involved. I saw some of the banners yesterday of some of the people hanging from the bridge, and they had Obama’s name on them.
ANNIE LEONARD: Well, that’s because Shell still does not have the absolute final permit that it needs to drill. Even though they’ve spent about $4 billion so far invested in drilling this summer and have all their equipment up there or now on the way up there, they still need one final permit. And so, the future of the planet, in so many ways, is in Obama’s hands. He still has time to deny that one final permit. And in a way, we were doing him a favor, by buying him a little extra time, holding that ship back and giving him time to stand up, be the real climate leader he keeps saying he wants to be, and deny that permit. It’s crazy that they’ve granted it at all, because even the Department of the Interior’s own scientists have said that if an oil company drills in this region where Shell wants to drill, that there is a 75 percent chance of a major oil spill. And I thought, my gosh, would you get on an airplane with a 75 percent chance of crashing? I mean, it is just crazy for this project to go forward.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the judge said he was going to fine Greenpeace. But was everyone there involved with Greenpeace? Did people spontaneously get involved with these actions?
ANNIE LEONARD: That’s a very good point. The people on the bridge were Greenpeace. The people on the ground and in the water, which really grew to hundreds and hundreds of people, were not Greenpeace. They were Mosquito Fleet, 350, Rising Tide, and then just everyday citizens that were unaffiliated. People just came down by the scores to just fill the crowd. People were driving across the bridge, dropping off food and water for the climbers. We got emails of support from all around the world. There were a couple of news channels that were live doing this. I got messages from Argentina and Turkey, where people said that all around their offices and homes they were gathered around the TV watching this. I have never, in my 30 years of work as an environmental activist, seen this level of support coming in from locally and all around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, but the ship made it out, so what is Greenpeace doing next?
ANNIE LEONARD: We are doubling down on this campaign. I feel like the climbers came down, but really what they did was pass the baton to the rest of us, that we need to now pick it up and run with this. Greenpeace everywhere has made this a global priority, and we are just doubling down to protect the Arctic and stop that drilling.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Annie Leonard, for joining us, executive director of Greenpeace USA, speaking to us from Portland, Oregon.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, the controversy around Planned Parenthood. Will Congress defund it? Stay with us.
Will Prosecutors Charge Officers Who Lied to Protect Ray Tensing After He Fatally Shot Sam DuBose?
Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has been released on a $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to the murder of Sam DuBose. Tensing, who is white, fatally shot the 43-year-old African-American man on July 19 after stopping him for not having a front license plate. Two additional officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, have been placed on administrative leave. Meanwhile, new information shows that Officer Phillip Kidd and another officer on scene during the DuBose shooting were involved in the death of an unarmed African-American man five years earlier. According to documents revealed by The Guardian, Phillip Kidd and Officer Eric Weibel were part of a seven-officer team that tased and shackled a mentally ill man who was having a psychotic episode. We speak to Iris Roley, longtime police accountability activist with the Cincinnati Black United Front. She is the cousin of Kelly Brinson, who died after being tased and restrained by University of Cincinnati police officers in 2010. Two of the police officers involved in Roley’s cousin’s death were at the scene of Sam DuBose’s shooting and later lied to investigators to try to corroborate Officer Ray Tensing’s false claim about being dragged by DuBose’s car.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: A former University of Cincinnati police officer charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black man has been released from jail on a million dollars’ bail, hours after an initial court appearance on Thursday. Twenty-five-year-old Ray Tensing pleaded not guilty in the death of 43-year-old Samuel DuBose, an unarmed African-American man. Officer Tensing appeared before Hamilton County Judge Megan Shanahan.
JUDGE MEGAN SHANAHAN: Ray Tensing, do you understand you have been charged with one count of murder and one count of voluntary manslaughter?
RAY TENSING: Yes, Your Honor.
JUDGE MEGAN SHANAHAN: This defendant has been served. The defendant is facing the possibility of life in prison. It’s the court’s duty to ensure his appearance. The bond will be $1 million any way. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a courtroom. You will conduct yourselves at all time appropriately.
AMY GOODMAN: Officer Ray Tensing shot Sam DuBose on July 19th, after pulling him over for not having a front license plate. Tensing wanted to see Dubose’s driver’s license. When DuBose said he didn’t have it, Tensing made a motion to open Dubose’s car door. Within seconds of this interaction, Officer Tensing’s right hand swung into the video frame with a pistol. He fired a single shot into DuBose’s head, which sent the car, with DuBose dead behind the wheel, rolling down the street, where it crashed to a halt. On Thursday, prosecutors released disturbing footage of the actual shooting.
RAY TENSING: Until I can figure out if you have a license or not, go ahead and take your seat belt off for me.
SAM DUBOSE: I didn’t even do do nothing.
RAY TENSING: Go ahead and take your seat belt off. Stop! Stop!
AMY GOODMAN: Officer Tensing had claimed he was forced to open fire after he was "dragged" by DuBose’s vehicle. But the local prosecutor, Joseph Deters, rejected that claim, saying there’s no evidence the officer was dragged. Deters called the killing "senseless" and "horrible."
JOSEPH DETERS: I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. This is the most asinine act I’ve ever seen a police officer make. Totally unwarranted. It was—it’s an absolute tragedy in the year 2015 that anyone would behave in this manner. It was senseless. And I met with the family just moments ago. It’s just horrible.
AMY GOODMAN: The prosecutor, Deters, also said that the whole interaction was based on a, quote, "chicken crap" stop—the police officer stopping Samuel DuBose for not having a front license plate.
Well, on Thursday, two other University of Cincinnati officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, were placed on administrative leave after being accused of lying that Tensing had been dragged. Newly released police body cam video shows officers discussing the incident with Tensing moments after it happened.
RAY TENSING: I think I’m OK. He was just dragging me.
PHILLIP KIDD: Yeah, I saw that.
RAY TENSING: I thought I was going to get run over. I was trying to stop him. No, he was dragging me, man.
PHILLIP KIDD: You good?
RAY TENSING: I’m good. I just got my hand and my arm caught inside.
PHILLIP KIDD: Yeah, I saw that.
POLICE SERGEANT: You can talk about anything you want except for what happened. For my purposes, for the investigation part of it, I need to know where it started, which is going to be right—it’s at this center on this side of the tape, is that correct?
RAY TENSING: Yes, just south of the back of the intersection of Vale and Rice.
POLICE SERGEANT: And it looks like you got dragged, if I’m looking—
RAY TENSING: Yeah.
POLICE SERGEANT: OK. And it ended up here?
RAY TENSING: I’m sorry?
POLICE SERGEANT: This is our crime scene, right here?
RAY TENSING: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Excerpts from the police body cam video released Thursday, edited by The Guardian.
Well, for more, we go to Cincinnati, where we’re joined by Iris Roley, who’s a longtime police accountability activist with the Cincinnati Black United Front. She has been working closely on the Samuel DuBose case and with his family. But her work began more than a decade ago, in 2001, when riots broke out after the wrongful death of two unarmed black men by the Cincinnati Police Department. Roley helped document more than 400 stories of police brutality and misconduct for a class action lawsuit that led to the historic Collaborative Agreement and the Memorandum of Understanding between Cincinnati and the Department of Justice.
Well, I want to welcome you to Democracy Now! And if you can start off by talking about, Iris Roley, the family’s reaction at this point, since you watched the video, when it was released, with them.
IRIS ROLEY: Well, good morning. Good morning. The family’s reaction has been far superior to my family’s reaction. We had the same incident with university police with my cousin, Kelly Brinson, in 2010, who was a mental patient and who was tased to death by the university police officers. I have watched this family deal with this with such grace and dignity. It has just been phenomenal. The children have been asking the most appropriate questions, to be children, and they have made me take a step back and think about some things. His sisters and brothers and his friends, they are all trying to honor Samuel DuBose’s legacy by being more like him. They want the community to be peaceful and calm, and to let the process play out. So they have been phenomenally giving gifts to the community even in their time of grief.
AMY GOODMAN: After the indictment of Officer Tensing Wednesday, protesters gathered to demand an end to police britality. Sam DuBose’s nine-year-old son, Samuel, addressed the crowd.
SAMUEL DUBOSE: I feel good that he’s being locked up, because he had shot him, blatantly murdered. He didn’t do nothing but shoot him. He just shot him. Like what is he doing? My daddy, he was just shot at. [inaudible] They just shot him in the head. He didn’t go. He didn’t get caught up in a car. This dude lied. He knew he was going to be on video. He knew he was going to lie. He thought he wasn’t going to get locked up. That’s why they’re charging him for murder.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Samuel DuBose, Samuel DuBose’s son. You know, Samuel DuBose, 43 years old, killed just this past July 19th—it was July 17th, a year ago, that another 43-year-old African-American man, Eric Garner, was killed in Staten Island.
Iris Roley, so now the police officer has met the bond he needed to meet for the $1 million bail. His lawyer said he is raising it hand and fist from people just wanting to give money. What about the other two officers who have now been—what is the word? They have been suspended or placed on administrative leave. Can you talk about them confirming what Tensing said, that he was being dragged, not saying that the man was dead in the car? The car started going after he shot him in the head.
IRIS ROLEY: Yeah, that is extremely difficult for me to imagine that these two officers are not being charged, because they clearly lied. And also, I may add that these same two officers were involved in my cousin’s murder, as well. So there is a lot of evidence that they should no longer be on the force, as well. I think that the university president should have fired them also, as well as the prosecutor charging them with this blatant lie. It’s clear, even though all three officers knew that Officer Tensing had a body camera on, they still chose to lie. And that is very problematic for people who are trying to reform police departments and build stronger community relations with police, in particular the University of Cincinnati’s police department.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, it is very rare for a police officer to be charged for a murder. You heard the cheer break out in the courtroom. Can you talk about the significance—and we just have 10 seconds—of the DA’s very strong response, the immediate indictment for murder, not to mention the mayor backing him up?
IRIS ROLEY: Well, one, the mayor had the same problem in 2001, when he was chair of law and public safety, and that’s when the eruption spilled into the streets of Cincinnati, Ohio—part of his language, too. African Americans in the city of Cincinnati have had a terrible relationship with the prosecutor, Joe Deters. So we are waiting for a conviction. We’re not in celebratory mode. Officer Tensing has bonded himself out. The family is very worried about that, and so is the community. So we’re waiting on a conviction.
AMY GOODMAN: Iris Roley, we hope to speak to you again next week, longtime police accountability activist with the Cincinnati Black United Front.
Are Undercover Attacks on Planned Parenthood Part of a Broader Effort to Outlaw Abortion?
The Senate is planning to vote as soon as Monday to strip Planned Parenthood of $500 million in federal funding. The vote comes as Planned Parenthood is coming under fire from anti-choice activists after the release of a series of undercover sting videos were published online. The heavily edited videos suggest the organization profits from supplying aborted fetal tissue for medical research. Planned Parenthood said it broke no laws, because abortion providers are allowed to charge costs to cover expenses associated with fetal tissue donation. We speak to Dr. Willie Parker, a physician, abortion provider and a board member of Physicians for Reproductive Health. He previously worked for Planned Parenthood.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The Senate is planning to vote as soon as Monday to strip Planned Parenthood of $500 million in federal funding. The vote comes as Planned Parenthood is coming under fire from anti-choice activists after the release of a series of undercover sting videos were published online. The heavily edited videos suggest that Planned Parenthood profits from supplying aborted fetal tissue for medical research. Planned Parenthood, though, says it broke no laws, because abortion providers are allowed to charge costs to cover expenses associated with fetal tissue donation. In one video, Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood appears to discuss the cost of fetal tissue with operatives posing as biotechnology representatives. The clip begins with a fake representative raising the issue of costs.
FAKE BIOTECH REPRESENTATIVE: What price range would you—
DR. DEBORAH NUCATOLA: You know, I—I’m going to throw a number out. I would say it’s probably anywhere from $30 to $100, depending on the facility and what’s involved.
FAKE BIOTECH REPRESENTATIVE: The $30 to $100 price range, that’s per specimen that we’re talking about, right?
DR. DEBORAH NUCATOLA: Per specimen.
FAKE BIOTECH REPRESENTATIVE: Yeah.
DR. DEBORAH NUCATOLA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: The unedited version of the video actually shows Dr. Nucatola repeatedly saying Planned Parenthood is not trying to profit off fetal tissue. In this clip, she tells the fake researchers there is no revenue stream at play. Just listen carefully.
DR. DEBORAH NUCATOLA: This is not something—
FAKE BIOTECH REPRESENTATIVE: Right.
DR. DEBORAH NUCATOLA: This is not any revenue stream that—
FAKE BIOTECH REPRESENTATIVE: Right.
DR. DEBORAH NUCATOLA: —affiliates are looking at. This is a way to offer patients a service that they want, do good for the medical community—
FAKE BIOTECH REPRESENTATIVE: Right.
DR. DEBORAH NUCATOLA: —and still maintain access.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, House Republicans launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood, claiming it’s harvesting fetal tissue for profit. However, Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, has repeatedly denied these claims.
CECILE RICHARDS: Recently, an organization that opposes safe and legal abortion used secretly recorded, heavily edited videos to make outrageous claims about programs that help women donate fetal tissue for medical research. I want to be really clear: The allegation that Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true. Our donation programs, like any other high-quality healthcare providers, follows all laws and ethical guidelines. Over our hundred-year history, we’ve continually engaged leading medical experts to shape our practices, policies and high standards, and we always will. Our top priority is the compassionate care that we provide.
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood’s website was reportedly attacked by anti-choice activists, who took the site offline for hours. The organization tweeted the site was being targeted by anti-abortion extremists.
For more, we’re joined now by two guests. In Los Angeles, we’re joined by Sharona Coutts, vice president of Investigations and Research at RH Reality Check. Her new piece is called "Exclusive: The Faces and Fake Names of People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos."
And in Birmingham, Alabama, we’re joined by Dr. Willie Parker, a physician, abortion provider and a board member of Physicians for Reproductive Health. He previously worked for Planned Parenthood and recently wrote an article for Cosmopolitan magazine called "Why I Stand with Dr. Deborah Nucatola."
Sharona Coutts and Dr. Willie Parker, we welcome you to Democracy Now! Dr. Willie Parker, can you talk about what’s at the heart of this story? Talk about the allegations that Planned Parenthood is selling fetal tissue.
DR. WILLIE PARKER: Well, Amy, it’s a pleasure to be back on your show again. And as I think about what’s happening, two things come to mind. I grew up here in Alabama, and we had a photographer, when I was a kid, who would every year take our picture. And in order to get us to pose, he would say, "Watch the birdie," to distract us from what he was really trying to do, which was take a great picture. And in that regard, similarly, what’s happening here is a high-stakes game of "watch the birdie." The picture is the sale of fetal parts and impugning Planned Parenthood, but the real theme is to outlaw abortion.
Second thing is the fact that in a court of law, you know, the credibility of the witness goes a long way. And if you don’t have a credible witness, nothing that they say counts. We know that what’s happening here is an attempt to impugn the integrity of Planned Parenthood using the allegation of the sale of fetal parts, with the ultimate goal of outlawing abortion. This is not new. This is what has always been the case. And the high stakes of this, Amy, is the impairment of very important human science research that can help millions of folk, as well as doing away with very vital abortion services—
AMY GOODMAN: You know—
DR. WILLIE PARKER: —that Planned Parenthood provides.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Parker, I remember when Nancy Reagan, who was extremely anti-choice, broke with other people, who she usually agreed with, on the issue of stem cell research, with her husband who at the time was suffering from Alzheimer’s, and afterwards—Ronald Reagan, of course, the president. She said this is too important. Now, I want to ask about what this fetal tissue research is. Explain what fetal tissue is. And how is it used for medical research? And is it used all over the country or only in certain states?
DR. WILLIE PARKER: Well, Amy, they say, when you stay in your lane, there’s no traffic. And I would be out of my league to talk in depth about fetal tissue research. But what I can tell you is that, using scientific terms, any of the products of conception that are removed—a preborn, a pregnancy that’s not given birth to—all of the parts are called "fetal parts." And so, there are some—you know, over the years, research has been furthered, to the extent that it can be, by using animal models and the like, but there are some disease processes where in order to make the real breakthroughs, you have to have access to human tissue. The one area where there is the availability of human tissue has been with regard to the tissues that are removed during an abortion process.
The only reason that that tissue would be available is that in every situation that I’ve ever been involved in, even when I worked at Planned Parenthood, there are these heavily regulated, heavily supervised agreements with research facilities, where they procure tissues from places where that tissue is generated. The other side of that is, when women have often approached me as I’ve done their abortions, when they are asking during the information process and the consent process, they will ask, "Is there any way this tissue could be donated for research?" So, the fact that there are disease processes like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, certain dementias, muscular dystrophy and other disease processes that are causing serious problems, the major breakthroughs that have been achieved have come about as a result of human tissue or fetal tissue being made available to further that research.
AMY GOODMAN: And do you know what states it’s allowed in and where it isn’t?
DR. WILLIE PARKER: Could you say that again? I’m sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know what states it’s allowed in and where it isn’t?
DR. WILLIE PARKER: I do not. I can tell you, like most things that are subject to regulations, there are federal guidelines that are overarching, but state to state, it varies. I would say, where you have states that are more liberal and progressive, like California and New York, where there is a heavier reliance on evidence to guide decision making, it may be more liberal to operate in these states as opposed to others.
Headlines:
Cincinnati: Officer Ray Tensing Pleads Not Guilty, Freed on $1 Million Bail
In news from Ohio, former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has been released on a $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to the murder of Sam DuBose. Tensing, who is white, fatally shot the 43-year-old African-American man on July 19 after stopping him for not having a front license plate. Two additional officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, have been placed on administrative leave. Meanwhile, new information shows that officer Phillip Kidd and another officer on scene during the DuBose shooting were involved in the death of an unarmed African-American man five years earlier. According to documents revealed by The Guardian, Phillip Kidd and officer Eric Weibel were part of a seven-officer team that tased and shackled a mentally ill man who was having a psychotic episode. The man died three days later. We’ll have more from Cincinnati after headlines.
Greenpeace Removed from Portland Bridge After Delaying Shell Ship
In news from Portland, Oregon, law enforcement officers have removed Greenpeace activists who spent 40 hours suspended from a bridge in order to block an icebreaking ship commissioned by oil giant Shell from leaving for the Arctic. Hundreds of activists have been gathering on the bridge and in kayaks since Tuesday night in efforts to stop Shell’s plans to drill in the remote Chukchi Sea. Early Thursday morning, the suspended Greenpeace activists successfully forced Shell’s ship to turn back to port in a showdown that grabbed international headlines. Greenpeace activist Kristina Flores discussed watching the ship turn around as she stood on top of the bridge Thursday.
Kristina Flores: "This morning was quite the adventure. It felt really, really great to watch the Fennica turn around and go back to port. That was just a really great, great sign that we are winning, that we are strong, and when the people come together, we can win. And we will win."
An Alaska judge ruled Greenpeace had to begin paying fines of $2,500 for every hour that activists remained suspended. If the protest continued into Friday, the judge ruled the fines would escalate to $5,000 an hour, then $10,000 an hour Saturday. After Portland police and federal law enforcement officers removed enough suspended protesters for the ship to pass, Shell’s ship navigated its way under the St. Johns Bridge around 6 p.m. Thursday and headed to the Columbia River en route to the Arctic. The Department of the Interior has said that there is a 75 percent chance of "one or more large spills" once Shell begins drilling.
American Psychological Association Urged to Adopt Ban on Interrogations
The world’s largest group of psychologists is reportedly poised to ban future involvement with U.S. military interrogations, ending the association’s long-running complicity in post-9/11 torture. According to James Risen of The New York Times, the board of the American Psychological Association is expected to recommend the new ethics rules at its annual meeting next week. The new rules come after top APA officials lost their jobs earlier this month following an independent investigation documenting how the association covered up its close collaboration with officials at the Pentagon and CIA. The new rules would prohibit psychologists from participating in any interrogations that also involve military or intelligence personnel.
Israeli Settlers Firebomb Palestinian Home, Killing 18-Month-Old Baby
In news from the West Bank, a Palestinian baby has died after Israeli settlers reportedly threw firebombs into the family’s home early this morning. Graffiti scrawled on walls near the homes read "Revenge" in Hebrew. The child’s parents and four-year-old brother were also severely injured. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the firebombing "an act of terrorism in every respect."
Jerusalem: Ultra-Orthodox Man Stabs Six During Gay Pride Parade
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed six people during a gay pride parade Thursday. Netanyahu denounced the attack, saying everyone in Israel had the right to live in peace.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "In Israel everyone, including the gay community, has the right to live in peace, and we will defend that right."
Taliban Names New Leader After Confirming Mullah Omar’s Death
In news from Pakistan, the Taliban has reportedly named Akhtar Mohammad Mansour to be the group’s de facto leader after confirming reports of former leader Mullah Omar’s death. The leadership shake-up has led to a delay in the peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
Afghanistan: U.S. Drone Strikes Kill 20 Suspected ISIL Militants
In eastern Afghanistan, two U.S. drone strikes have reportedly killed 20 suspected militants from the self-proclaimed Islamic State. The strikes come as the United States steps up its aerial attacks in Afghanistan, despite President Obama’s declaration of an official end to the U.S. combat mission in the country.
Judge: Gitmo Suit Denied Since U.S.-Afghanistan War "Has Not Stopped"
In related news, a federal judge has rejected a Guantánamo prisoner’s lawsuit arguing that his imprisonment is no longer legal now that President Obama has declared an end to the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan. The prisoner, Muktar Yahya Najee al-Warafi, is a Yemeni citizen who has been held in Guantánamo since his capture in Afghanistan in 2002. His legal challenge hinged on a 2004 Supreme Court opinion saying imprisonment under the Authorization for Use of Military Force is only permitted as long as "active hostilities" continue. But Thursday, a federal judge ruled al-Warafi’s continued detention legal because there is "convincing evidence that US involvement in the fighting in Afghanistan, against al-Qaida and Taliban forces alike, has not stopped."
Hawaii: TPP Negotiators Push for Deal by End of Day amid Protests
In Hawaii, negotiators from 12 countries are attempting to reach an agreement over the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership by the end of the day. The sweeping trade deal, known as the TPP, would encompass 40 percent of the world’s global trade. This week, disagreements over farm exports and intellectual property rights for new drugs have kept the more than 600 negotiators from reaching a final deal. Meanwhile, outside the talks, hundreds of demonstrators gathered on the beach in Maui Wednesday to protest the ongoing talks. Marti Townsend, the director for the Sierra Club of Hawaii, spoke out against the trade pact as protesters blew shell horns in the background.
Marti Townsend: "I guess I don’t like bullying, and I feel that corporations right now are using their power to bully people around. The corporations are not elected, and they are not decision makers. People are elected, and people are the decision makers. And people need to feel their own power and recognize that they can stand up to this kind of bullying."
India: Yakub Memon Hung for Role in Deadly 1993 Mumbai Bombings
In India, authorities has executed Yakub Memon for his role in 1993 bombings in Mumbai, which killed 257 people and wounded hundreds more. The bombings were some of the deadliest in India’s history. Memon became the fourth person to be executed in India in 15 years. Before his hanging Thursday, hundreds protested against the death penalty, many arguing that Muslims are unfairly punished in the majority Hindu nation.
Island Nation Leaders Talk Climate Change at Top-Level U.N. Meeting
Leaders of island nations gathered for a high-level United Nations Security Council meeting Thursday to discuss the accelerating impact of climate change. The meeting comes two weeks after James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, published a report saying that sea levels could rise as much as 10 feet by the end of the century. Samoa’s prime minister spoke about the threat of climate change.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi: "The SAMOA Pathway again recognized that sea level rise and other adverse impacts of climate change continue to pose significant risks to small island developing states and, for many, represent the gravest threat to their survival and viability, including through the loss of territory."
Republicans Lawmakers Push to Defund Planned Parenthood
An anti-choice group has released another highly edited video alleging that Planned Parenthood is selling fetal tissue, a claim that the organization has repeatedly denied. This is the fourth video released by the anti-choice group the Center for Medical Progress. This comes as Republican lawmakers are vowing to push ahead with efforts to defund the organization. We’ll have more on Planned Parenthood later in the broadcast.
PR Faces $58 Million Debt Deadline as Hedge Funds Push for Austerity
Puerto Rico is facing a $58 million debt repayment deadline Saturday as lawmakers are backing a federal bill to allow Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy. Earlier this week, a hedge fund-backed report called on the island to raise taxes and cut educational funding in order to repay its debt. On Thursday, protesters gathered outside the offices of BlueMountain Capital, a hedge fund that protesters say has bought Puerto Rico’s debt at a discount and has funded lobbyists to oppose proposed legislation to allow Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy. Renata Pumarol of New York Communities for Change spoke out.
Renata Pumarol: "They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars ensuring that the Puerto Ricans have no right to restructure their debt, and have no right to file for bankruptcy, and they are now pushing for austerity measures. Their latest ask was that the Puerto Rican government close schools and fire teachers. If the austerity measures are implemented, it would be devastating for Puerto Rico. Former employees of the IMF are suggesting that Puerto Rico cuts its minimum wage by a third. This is, you know, to a country that already has 41 percent poverty. And no one can survive on a $2.13 minimum wage, so it’s absolutely devastating."
Beijing to Host 2022 Olympic Games After Other Cities Dropped Out
And the International Olympic Committee has chosen Beijing as the host city for the 2022 Winter Games. Beijing beat out the only other candidate city, Almaty, Kazakhstan, in a vote Friday. The four other possible cities — Oslo, Norway; Stockholm, Sweden; Krakow, Poland; and Lviv, Ukraine — had all pulled out of the running. Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008 amid a flurry of allegations over human rights abuses tied directly to the events, including forced evictions and labor abuses of migrant construction workers.
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