Witness Describes Minneapolis Shooting as Videos Raise Questions (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: We are obtaining some new video right now from a witness named Betsy who is just four to five feet away from where the victims a car Crashed after that shooting in Minneapolis for security reasons Betsy has asked us not to include her last name But she is choosing to speak out now and share what she saw because it is so important and Betsy I appreciate you doing this and and I know I know you had hesitation and it's very understandable Of course that you that you do I know you were outside and you were on a walk. You hear the whistles, which sometimes can alert people that ICE is nearby that have been used over these months. And then you're four to five feet away from all of this horrible incident and tragedy that unfolded. What can you share with me about what you saw?

[00:00:49] Speaker 2: Thanks, Erin. So I was heading, I was returning home from a dog walk. I was heading west on 34th Street toward Portland Avenue and I turned right onto Portland. I was heading north on Portland on the east side of the street. So I was on the opposite side of the street from where most of the observers were standing. And what I saw when I came around the corner was a maroon SUV. I could see a driver in the car. There were a number of neighbors who were observers of the activity on the west side of Portland Avenue making sounds with whistles. and there were a number of what appeared to be federal agents in the street. One of the agents was yelling at the driver through the window of the car, and at this time her car was diagonal on Portland Avenue with the front of her car facing toward the southeast intersection. I could tell from the movements of her hands she was endeavoring to kind of adjust her car so it was facing south, and as she began to to accelerate her vehicle, what the agent standing next to the driver side window and who was yelling at her through the window, extended his arm and fired his gun multiple times. At that point, the car did begin to accelerate a little bit, but you could at this end, the car was kind of moving toward where I was standing. So I could get a clear view of the driver. I could see her head lulled back onto the headrest. I could see a lot of blood. The car like quickly began to decelerate and collided with a parked car that was just a few feet away from where I was standing.

[00:02:38] Speaker 1: I'm sorry that you had to see that. It's just horrific. Betsy, what you're describing though, because now we have all seen these videos so many times, the videos, some of the ones that we're showing obviously are from the other vantage point, but you're actually saying you were on the other side of the street, which is really crucial because we haven't heard from people who have had that perspective. So you're actually looking, as opposed to what we're looking at now, which is from the back of the car, essentially from the front. It sounds like what you're saying, and I know that you don't know and I don't know, but what you're saying in terms of when she accelerated would be consistent with the fact that after she shot, sort of the last thing that happens horribly as she's dying is that her foot may have hit the accelerator.

[00:03:21] Speaker 2: Yeah. And I want to be really clear on the position that I was looking at the car. I was on the east side of the street. So I was kind of like in front of and on the driver's side of the scene. And I could clearly see the agent standing next to the driver's side window. There were no agents standing in front of the car. Agents were standing next to the car.

[00:03:47] Speaker 1: obviously we've heard the version of events that that she plowed through him obviously that's not consistent with what you saw at all. But but even when it comes to bumping him is that is that word even fair.

[00:03:59] Speaker 2: No I not not that I didn't see anybody get bumped. The agents were moving toward the vehicle they were gesturing at the driver they were yelling at her. They were agitated but there they were not in danger of being injured or hurt by the vehicle at all.

[00:04:19] Speaker 1: And I know after this, when you saw her head lulled back and you know, you had that horrific, unfortunately vantage point, you saw the other woman covered in blood who you say was then trying to provide aid to the driver, to the victim. She's identified herself as the victim's wife. What can you share about her and your interaction with her?

[00:04:43] Speaker 2: So, immediately after the collision, I saw a woman run across the street who had been over on the west side of Portland Avenue. She ran across the street, ran to the car, ran to the driver's side door, flung the door open. She moved her body into the car, trying to provide aid to the driver. She was extremely distressed. She was yelling, somebody get help, call 911. Why is nobody helping? And at that moment, I was standing just five or six feet away, and so I pulled my phone out of my pocket and attempted to dial 911. I was not able to get through. And at that moment, I did have my phone in my hand, and it occurred to me to try to take some video. But as I looked up, federal agents were beginning to approach the scene of the collision, and they were holding firearms and forcefully commanding bystanders to move away from the scene which was very scary and intimidating given everything that had just happened and so I felt really scared and I moved away from the doorway of the building I was standing in front of and into the the yard on the side of the building and that's when I began to take a little bit of video of the scene in which you can see you know agents moving toward the the vehicle and the collision.

[00:05:58] Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we can. All right. Well, Betsy, thank you very much for choosing to choosing to speak and and the perspective that you had where you were standing is so crucial as as as it's so important to get the facts out here. So thank you for choosing to do that. And again, I know understandable hesitation. So thank you.

[00:06:14] Speaker 3: CNN's Tom Foreman is here in studio with me now. Tom, give us a closer look of the videos of the shooting so we can analyze how the the sequence of event lines up with what federal officials are claiming happened.

[00:06:25] Speaker 4: There are so many to look at. They all tell parts of the same story. I will say there are none of them that present clear evidence that this officer was ever struck. Might have been, but you can't really tell. Let's take a look at one important video here that I think we have to look at. This is one that has come out that we've been very interested in. Look at this car sitting right here. This is Renee Good's car. In this video, it spends more than four minutes that we know of, or about around four minutes in this position. We don't know when it started before that. So if you thought she was just driving by, this video would suggest otherwise. It sits here letting some cars pass, some seemingly not. You start seeing people walk around it here. Included in that part is actually the officer in question here. If you look at this portion right here, you can see that he's the man who's starting to walk around the side of the vehicle.

[00:07:15] Speaker 3: Looks like he's holding a phone to film it.

[00:07:17] Speaker 4: Yeah, he's holding a phone. A woman behind him is holding a phone to film him. But he is circling around what would be sort of the blind side of her car because you see her arm hanging out she's been waving at cars to come past in front of her vehicle here. Then we move into the timeline of this that really matters. We're going to start this at the point where the officers are out of their car approaching her car to give you an idea of how fast that part came about here. If you'll notice here they come out of the car they're approaching about one second has passed here. They go up, they start yanking at the door. Now, we're at about two seconds. The officer in question is invisible back here. We saw him earlier.

[00:07:57] Speaker 3: He's behind the car over there somewhere.

[00:07:58] Speaker 4: Circled around here. Yeah. He's coming around toward the front of the car. He still has his phone in his hand. This will happen very fast. It's hard to watch but in a in a very short period of time, you'll see her tires angle the other way as he comes over here and in sort of a flash, he puts down his phone. He pulls out his gun as her taillights change to show that she is in drive. This happens very, very rapidly but at the angle of her wheels at that moment.

[00:08:27] Speaker 3: So, we should be looking at the wheels and also the. Yeah, it's a lot but also the shooter.

[00:08:31] Speaker 4: I'll see if I can stop it at that very moment as it goes forward. As you see him start coming around the side of the vehicle, if I can start playing again here. As he comes around, there he is and you see He just pulled his gun. They're still here.

[00:08:44] Speaker 3: And her tire is turning right.

[00:08:47] Speaker 4: Lights have already changed. She's changed here. And now she starts moving forward. We're four seconds into this, four seconds in. And he starts coming forward with this. She's moving forward. Bang. Bang. First shot, two more shots there, and on they go. And this whole thing is done in nine seconds.

[00:09:04] Speaker 3: We don't know which of those shots was the fatal shot, but it does seem potentially important if the one that he shot in front of her when he thought presumably that she was headed towards him, whether that was the fatal shot or the ones where obviously he's next to her.

[00:09:22] Speaker 4: If he's shooting through the side, the driver's window. Of course, the vehicle is not approaching him anymore. It'd be parallel to him, but it's not approaching him anymore. And the bullet hole in the window is pretty low to have been something that hit her in the head. Bullets can behave strangely, But nonetheless, that's the other part we know about it. And then afterward, the other thing we see is that this is right afterward and he is walking away here.

[00:09:45] Speaker 3: This is him.

[00:09:46] Speaker 4: Yeah, remember though, this is a man who the president, the vice president and the secretary of Homeland Security has said was hit by a car.

[00:09:53] Speaker 3: Well, Trump said he was run over.

[00:09:55] Speaker 4: Right, run over by a car.

[00:09:56] Speaker 3: And had to go to the hospital. Here he is walking.

[00:09:58] Speaker 4: So here he's walking along and he starts gesturing and yelling for them to say, hey, we need to get an ambulance here for this person. he walks back that way to join the rest of them. That is the aftermath of this, and you can see him walking again there.

[00:10:12] Speaker 3: And he's checking his phone. He doesn't appear to be in any pain, at least as far as we can tell.

[00:10:15] Speaker 4: So you put all these videos together. It's a little hard to establish all the details of the story, but what you do not have here, I mean, here's another way of looking at it. If you imagine the person in the car to be a police officer, and the people approaching to be protesters, would a protester have been justified in saying that officer was threatening me with his car uh... that's that's i think what uh... a judge a jury investigator somebody have to probably have to look at some point all right tom forman fascinating stuff thank you so much