CNN This Morning hosts Phil Mattingly and Erica Hill spoke to chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller on Friday about the recent release of several migrants in New York City after they attacked police officers.
Mattingly began, reporting, “An update on the group of migrants arrested for attacking two New York police officers last week, an official telling CNN that four of the seven suspects have left the city on a bus to California and might be planning to flee to Mexico.”
“What are your sources telling you about how this is playing out?” Mattingly asked Miller.
“So, as you know, Phil, they were released without bail, so released on their own recognizance,” Miller replied, adding:
Much to the outrage of the police unions and many of the police officers since it was bailable offense. And obviously as people who got here a month ago without family, they have no roots in the community. But that was the decision. The judge didn’t hold them on bail. The DA didn’t ask for bail. So yesterday we learned that they went to a Catholic charity that helps migrants. They got four bus tickets under false names and got on a bus headed for Calexico through Saint Louis.
Now, normally, we probably wouldn’t even be talking about this because the U.S. marshals and detectives would be waiting for them in Saint Louis, but they were released on their own recognizance, which means police have nothing to arrest them on, on the assumption, which they have to operate on that. They’ll be back for their March 13th court date. The chances of that happening when four people get on a bus with false names and head for the city, that it literally, you can cross the street into the Mexican border, is probably unlikely. So that’s stirred a lot of controversy about the criminal justice reform and the assault on the police officers.