We have
much more
information now on the situation
here in New York involving
Prince Harry and Meghan.
We were told
they were involved in a near catastrophic
car chase.
This is the full statement
from their spokesperson.
It reads, I'm
just going to read the whole thing.
Last night,
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and MS.
Ragland, that's Meghan's mother,
were involved in a near catastrophic
car chase
at the hands
of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi.
The relentless pursuit
lasting over 2 hours
resulted in multiple near collisions
involving other drivers on the road.
Pedestrians and two NYPD officers,
while being a public figure, comes
at the level of interest
from the public
it should never come
at the cost of anyone's safety.
Dissemination of these images,
given the ways
in which they were obtained, encourages
a highly intrusive practice
that is dangerous to all involved again.
The fact that this statement
is coming out like this,
I think the implication is that
Harry and Meghan are okay,
which is the first thing
I think that we wanted to know for sure.
But much more information.
Okay.
I'm just
hearing now we have our senior royal
correspondent Max Foster on the phone.
Let's get to him right away.
For as many details as you have, Max.
Yeah.
So you've got the main statement
there that pretty shaken.
I mean, very shaken.
And I think by spokespeople,
you get a real sense of what way
they went through last night.
It happened around midnight,
and this was a long pursuit of
several cars in blacked out
windows on the stand
in pursuit of the car,
which had Meghan and Harry,
but also Doria Ragland inside.
And they really, you know,
I mean, frankly,
for Harry
this is particularly traumatizing,
as you can imagine,
because it reminds us
of what his mother went through as well.
And this is a similar
sort of narrative in the past,
but in what they're suggesting
that photographers were chasing
and trying to get these pictures
and they're already making the point
that this is
a completely inappropriate way
of getting pictures.
And also, you know,
a big warning, really,
to anyone
that wants to use these pictures,
I think, frankly, from their side,
if they're not vehicles
with unidentified people
driving recklessly
and endangering the convoy
and everyone around them, that's
what I'm hearing, the sort of thing
I'm hearing from that people
and people around them were people
that were there.
And the chase
could have been fatal, untold.
So they're pretty
traumatized by all this.
And also thinking about a whole list
of different
violations of road rules and laws.
They say they have evidence for this
as well.
So I think we're going to hear
a lot more about this
and some repercussions from this.
But right now,
they're putting out the message
that they are,
you know,
very traumatized by this,
but they are okay, thankfully.
Yeah.
And Max,
I mean,
it says that even involves
two NYPD officers, which
obviously we can look to get a statement
from NYPD
on what they see has
as has happened here.
But just remind folks,
I mean, one of the reasons that Harry
and Meghan moved from the U.K.
moved to the United States
was because of the long,
long battle
that Harry and Meghan
have had
with the paparazzi
and what they believe is intrusion
in their lives,
obviously stemming from Harry's
long life
and and horrible history
with the paparazzi, with his mother.
And then now this.
I mean,
that there is some important context
around this.
Yeah.
Now making the point
that uniformed officers
did approach
the individuals involved here.
They saying multiple times
and they just sped off
to continue this pursuit there.
Harry's involved in multiple cases
at the moment
about invasion of privacy and
use of illegal tactics.
Pretty I'm
getting serious about him and his wife
and throughout his life, really,
and obviously with his wife
since they got married
and how they absolutely compromised
so many of their relationships.
We've been hearing a lot about that
in court.
Recently.
But, you know,
this story really goes back to
the death of Diana and the
you know, the tension and the anger
that both William
and Harry feel about the way
their mother dies.
And they very much blame the paparazzi,
not just the paparazzi for her death,
but also the picture that
created a market picture.
So this is a trauma for Harry.
And he's
you know, to put this statement out
was pretty dramatic.
Obviously, what happened
last night was something
he was deeply affected them.
And it went on for a couple of hours,
as I understand it.
And basically
what they're saying is
they accept
a heightened level of attention
when they are out in public.
But in this case,
they actually entered the venue publicly
and paparazzi got their picture.
So the frustration is
that they're giving the media
what they want and then they want more.
And they are creating
a very dangerous situation for
the family,
but also all the people
that work for them
are the people around them.
This is one of those scenarios
where is something going
to have to happen
or change in the way that the police
and security deal with and come to say
this is there.
They're in California right now
and here in New York,
this is not always
the type of thing
you see here in the United States.
Yes, we have paparazzi
that do things here.
But but to some extent,
this is a fairly unique situation
to the royals.
John,
any possibility
that anyone will face charges on this
if these paparazzi, as you
said, were up on the sidewalks,
driving on the scooters?
You know,
reckless endangerment,
is there any charge
that could be brought
against any of them?
So there's plenty of charges
that could be brought against them,
including reckless endangerment and
all kinds of traffic laws.
Some of these are credentialed press,
which means their press cards
are issued by the city of New York.
Those press cards
are issued with conditions
that, you know,
you have to
abide by the rules
in order to enjoy those privileges.
But it's a real challenge.
You know, you have scooters with cover
license plates.
You have cars running through red lights.
You have the security detail
and the NYPD deliberately.
And they are authorized to do that.
Going through red lights
and making turns
in order to conduct,
you know, evasive measures
to get away from that.
And then you have people
who are not authorized
breaking all of the same laws
to keep up, including
running down the sidewalk.
So, you know,
they'll look at the videos,
they'll look at the red light
cameras,
they'll look at other things and say,
can we find a couple
of persistent violators here
that we can identify?
But it went on for a couple of hours.
It happened at night.
Darkness is a factor
in getting those images
to be identifiable.
It was a real mess.
So I'm
going to say it's possible,
but unlikely
that you're going to see a lot of that.
And we are getting more information
here, talking about
just kind of how this went down in that
when they exited the venue
in the first place,
the paparazzi got their pictures.
They got pictures of them.
Obviously, it's post pictures
in the paparazzi.
One as many pictures as possible
because that's how they make money
and sell those.
But it is interesting to note
some of the things
that we're seeing here.
We've heard
about driving on the sidewalks,
running red lights,
reversing down a one way street,
driving while on the phone, driving
while photographer, taking photos
and blocking moving vehicles.
This is according to the spokesperson
for Harry and Meghan
When you see all of that.
That is
not only extremely dangerous,
but definitely illegal.
But they were in blackout
cars we're seeing now.
They're saying, oh, these were all black.
You probably couldn't see faces.
You couldn't
you know, identifying
them may be impossible, correct?
That's right.
And, you know, again,
with the license plates
that were covered up on motorcycles
and scooters,
black out cars, things like that.
But, you know,
I guess the question here for New York
is, all right, so
how would the NYPD do this the next time?
You know,
because this is a lesson learned.
Right. Right.
And that means
you would probably have to have
a slightly larger
security detail
because you're not just dealing
with the normal threat.
You're dealing with
something that is more mayhem
and now
you would
have to
have basically an enforcement
element added to that, which means
traffic division people,
maybe a couple of motorcycles,
maybe a few scooters,
so that you are on equal
footing with the people
who are the offenders
here of various laws
where you can stop them
And then, you know, once
you start writing summonses
and making arrests, you know,
that's a message.
This the security detail
wasn't built for that.
It was built
if there was a threat
to be able to get off the act
and get them to safety
and deal with the threat.
This was a rolling circus.
It wasn't a normal threat either.
This wasn't
someone going after
to hurt them, as do
people just going crazy around them,
multiple people just to get pictures.
Do we saw Kate Williams with us?
I'm going to assume.
Yes. All right.
Mean Kate, we just heard from
I just heard from Isa Suarez,
one of our CNN international anchors,
who points out
that you know, Harry
and Meghan have moved
to the United States.
A lot of the press in Britain, publicly,
if you read the editorials,
you know, they're down right.
You you hear negative things
being said
over there about Harry
and Meghan, however.
What this shows
is the continued insatiable appetite
for coverage
I imagine largely in the U.K.
of Harry and Meghan, even as some
try to turn their backs on them
to their heads.
Yes.
I mean, the word insatiable
when exactly the right word.
What kind of picture
were they going to get from inside a car?
I mean, just a picture of someone
sitting inside a car.
It doesn't seem like
the most salable picture
And yet there's this huge drama,
this terrifying drama
that you
were just talking
about, it getting worse.
And don't think,
you know, Dustin's in danger.
Other cars in danger,
all of it happening at night
just to get pictures of Harry and Meghan.
They are the most valuable,
I would say their most valuable
celebrity pictures opportunity
for British newspapers at the moment.
And a lot of
this is driven
about how Max is saying he's doing,
how he is suing the newspapers
and the privacy and invasions
that are even longer.
The stories about him as all of them
go into about Harry.
But they are now,
I think, driven by the fact
that there is agenda
because he's
suing some of the newspapers about this.
And Harry
and Meghan have always suffered
this negative media coverage.
Yeah,
we know that
Meghan shutting the car door
was seen as against protocol
when you look
when you research it,
many of us more women
have shut the car door.
And they are I think completely.
They are.
They are. This is the thing.
Even though
Meghan didn't come to the coronation,
even though
Charles wanted to be all about him,
a lot of the coverage is about Harry.
The world is fascinated with Harry.
And the British press
want pictures of Harry.
And this is what
paparazzi are doing to get them.
And it is so many shades of Diana.