Transcription
Our teams have been reviewing video of Saturday's deadly shooting. CBS News Homeland Security correspondent Nicole Skena has a breakdown of the events as seen from various angles of witness footage, and we want to warn you, the images are disturbing.
About 2 minutes before the shooting, Alex Prey is seen arguing with officers. One officer pushes him back and an individual is detained as PR's argument with officers continues. Prey, holding a cell phone, was allegedly there as an observer to document what was happening.
About a minute later, Prey is seen standing in the street filming, directing a car past him. An officer then approaches another apparent observer and pushes her. She moves to Prey and holds him by the waist and the officer approaches and pushes Prey. A second woman walks over. The officer pushes her to the ground, then sprays Prey with a chemical irritant. Prey raises his hands to block the spray. Prey and the first woman then move to assist the woman who was knocked down and the officer continues to spray.
Several more officers arrive and drag Prey onto the ground. An officer in gray reaches into the struggle and comes out holding a gun that appears to match a photo of a gun released by the Department of Homeland Security. In this video obtained by CBS News, you can clearly see the gun being removed from Freddy's waist by the officer. The first shot is fired about 1 second later. Slowed to a quarter speed, you can see and hear how quickly the shot follows the gun's removal.
In another angle, you can see an agent watch as the gun is removed from PR's waistband before the agent pulls his own gun and fires at the kneeling prey. The officers move away from Preydy as at least one of them continues to fire. Prey does not appear to be moving. Around 10 shots are fired in total by law enforcement. After approximately 45 seconds, at least one officer eventually moves in and kneels next to Prey. Nicole Skanga, CBS News.
For more analysis, Anna Shakar joins me now. She's CBS News's senior coordinating producer for the crime and public safety unit. What are you hearing from your sources inside law enforcement, Anna, about the training standard protocol, whether that appears to have been followed here?
>> Well, this is a central question. There's a lot of chatter in the law enforcement expert community, recently retired officials, current officials who are watching this play out and saying, "Oh my god, this is a mess." There should be training in place to deescalate a situation. Large police departments, small police departments around the country, they train their officers, they do roleplay, there's classroom work to deescalate a situation. And what our sources are telling us is they're not seeing this. And at the same time they're saying it seemed like a a chaotic situation with a lot of miscommunication. So you could understand that these agents might be afraid. Was did a gun go off? Did they fear for their lives? There wasn't that communication and coordination that comes with working together in an environment for a long period of time. Remember these are agents that are not used to working in this environment and carrying out these types of missions. And so they don't have the same level of experience within that city, within that community as local police. So it is a difference and you're seeing that difference play out and unfortunately it's resulting in tragedy.
>> In the video you can see an officer remove a firearm from what appears to be Freddy's waistband that matches the description of the firearm that the president later posted on Truth Social. The officer leaves the scuffle with it. It's unclear if the other officers knew what was happening and where the gun went. What are disarming protocols and chain of custody procedures? And explain what chain of custody means.
>> Absolutely. This is a great question. If someone uh an individual, a citizen or a suspect has a weapon on their person, law enforcement should remove that weapon and that should immediately go into a sealable bag. This remember DNA is going to be collected, fingerprints are going to be collected all because this is a part of this wider broader justice system in our country that we all live in and we we're playing by the same rules or we should be. And so it might be that a prosecutor will look at this evidence and move forward with charges and maybe not. Maybe they'll look at that evidence and decide not to. They will look at the interviews with the agents or officers if it was a local uh department. But the chain of custody, everything has to be meticulously done. It's immediately a crime scene and needs to be preserved as such. And police over centuries in this country, we've developed protocols for how to handle a crime scene. How do we handle evidence like a firearm? And it appears from our sources, our colleagues in DC, Pat Milton, she's reporting that the gun was put on a car seat, not placed in a plastic bag. And so this can disrupt this justice system that I've just been talking about because it taints a process that we have developed and that people are supposed to follow those rules.
I have one more and I have to be quick with you, but in a sworn affidavit in support of an ACLU lawsuit, a physician who lives nearby asked to render aid to Prey after he was shot, quote, especially since none of the agents were helping him. The physician who's not named says that they saw Prey laying on his side and said, quote, I was confused as to why the victim was on his side because that is not standard practice when a victim has been shot. Checking for a pulse and administering CPR is standard practice. Instead of doing either of those things, the ICE agent appeared to be counting his bullet wounds. Now, obviously, we we see some agents at the end of the video rush over to him, cut pretty short. We don't exactly know the sequence of events and exactly what was done here, but does that sound like again protocol was followed when it comes to rendering aid?
>> If that account is what that physician saw, no, you would not put someone a victim on their side. There could be spinal cord issues. you leave them on their back and immediately start CPR. However, we weren't there and we didn't see that on the video, but it just goes to this training and I think this brings up a really important point. What my sources have told me is a lot of these agents, they have been put in an impossible position, in a terrible position because they are not supposed to be where they are being placed. They do not have the training. This is an impossible situation for them and that is why these bad things are happening. Okay. In a sector. Thank you.