Return to Transcripts main page

NEW DAY

Suspect Facing Charges; Brain-Eating Ameba; Righting the Costa Concordia; Shots Fired at Washington Navy Yard

Aired September 16, 2013 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fired missed him, instead hitting two bystanders.

KERRI-ANN BESBETH, WITNESSED SHOOTING: I literally froze in fear and I - I just stopped.

FLORES: Besbeth (ph) snapped this photo of a woman with a walker with a bullet to the knee. The other victim took a graze wound on her backside. Investigators say Broadmax was disoriented, weaving through traffic and seemingly throwing himself in the path of oncoming traffic. And then --

RAY KELLY, NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: He put his hands in his pocket, took out his hand and simulated shooting at the officers.

FLORES: That's when all bets were off. Police responded with gunfire. This isn't the first time New York City police were forced to fire on the crowded streets of the city, mistakenly injuring bystanders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cops just shot someone.

FLORES: Last August, nine pedestrians were wounded when police fired shots outside the Empire State Building at a man that killed a former co-worker. As for Broadmax, he told police that he had a mission to kill himself, yet does not appear to have a history of mental illness.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Broadmax is facing a slew of charges, including criminal possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest. Now NYPD tells us that the man has a long rap sheet with 23 prior arrests.

Now, for those two women who got shot, they were transported to the hospital in stable condition and one of them was quickly treated and released.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I think everyone can sympathize with what Kerri-Ann was saying.

FLORES: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: You just don't believe that's unfolding in front of you.

FLORES: Right. And what do you do? How do you react?

BOLDUAN: Clearly there's not much you can do.

FLORES: Right.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much, Rosa, for bringing that to us.

FLORES: Thank you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, what a story.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Coming up on NEW DAY, live pictures of the monumental effort to salvage the Costa Concordia. How will they do it? What's the chance it works? What happens if it goes wrong? They are all good questions. They are asked and answered when we come back.

BOLDUAN: And imagine being told that your drinking water contains a brain eating ameba, but it's still safe to drink. Here's the hitch, make sure it doesn't go up your nose or it could possibly be deadly. A wild story and we'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: You're watching NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira.

CUOMO: This is pink, right?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

CUOMO: All right, good, because that's why I had to say the whole thing about her evolution, it was this song that hadn't been heard (ph).

BOLDUAN: I don't like it when you pop quizzes on me.

CUOMO: Egg all over my face.

Welcome back to NEW DAY. It's Monday, September 16th.

Coming up, you know sometimes what you're drinking goes up your nose when you laugh or something like that?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Well, it turns out that could kill you in one set of circumstances. Part of the weirdness surrounding warnings by officials in one community -

BOLDUAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Raising the questions if they're doing enough to protect their people from a brain-eating ameba.

BOLDUAN: A wild story. And this is also coming up. Amazing live images of the 114,000-ton disaster off the coast of Italy. Some 20 months after the Costa Concordia hit rocks and fell on its side, salvage crews are finally trying to right the ship. But there's a lot of risk here and there's a potential of another disaster looming if things do not go exactly as planned. We'll talk about it.

CUOMO: First, if there are five things you need to know today, we have them for you. And when I say we, really it's Mickey who has them.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's we. I understand how the we works there. I'm good with it.

CUOMO: It's the royal we. It's the NEW DAY royal we.

PEREIRA: It is the royal we.

All right, let's take a look at number one for you. We're watching this epic flooding in Colorado. Hundreds of people unaccounted for or waiting to be rescued in 15 counties. Unfortunately, nonstop storms are keeping rescue helicopters grounded. Six deaths so far being blamed on those floods.

Secretary of State John Kerry meeting in Paris today with key U.S. allies to discuss the U.S./ Syria -- U.S./Russian deal do dismantle Syria's chemical weapons. Kerry says the threat of force is real if Syria refuses to comply with the new agreement, but breaking right now, Russia's foreign minister saying Kerry misunderstood the deal and hasn't fully read the document.

The man accused of shooting a Navy SEAL and his friend to death is headed to court today. Eddie Ray Routh allegedly killed Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in U.S. history, and another man helping Routh with post combat stress.

Ingrid downgraded from a hurricane to tropical storm as it makes landfall in eastern Mexico. Ingrid and a tropical depression on the Pacific side have sandwiched the country, triggering deadly flooding and mudslides.

And at number five, are you feeling lucky? The Powerball jackpot has swelled to $400 million. The drawing is Wednesday. Of course your odds of winning, here I am Debbie Downer, one in 175 million, but I wish you good luck nonetheless my dear friends.

We're always updating the five things to know, so be sure to go to newdaycnn.com for the very latest.

CUOMO: Boy, oh, boy.

You know we've been talking about this story this morning of what we would do.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CUOMO: This community where the officials knew that the water supply had a brain-eating ameba in it and they said, you can drink the water with the brain-eating ameba in it but just don't let it go up your nose. That's - that's the warning. So, what's going on in this one Louisiana parish. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us from the CNN Center to explain.

Understandably, Elizabeth, this just doesn't seem like good advice if you're trying to avoid a brain eating ameba. What are we missing?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, right. I know. I mean if I were a resident there, I would - I could understandably people are nervous. But it all has to do with the route that the ameba takes, and that's why really, technically, it's OK to swallow it, but it's not OK to have it go up your nose.

Let's take a listen as they explain it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (voice-over): Something's in the water in St. Bernard Parish. The Centers for Disease Control and prevention confirm the presence of a dangerous brain-eating ameba lurking in the pipes. The discovery came after four-year-old Drake Smith Jr. became infected with the deadly parasite after playing on a backyard water slide with his cousin.

DRAKE SMITH, SR., FATHER: I thought he was going to pull through. But day by day it kept getting worse and worse.

COHEN: Young Drake died in August. Tests showed the brain-eating ameba was in the parish water system, in faucets and hydrants. Chlorine kills the ameba, but the chlorine levels in the water system were low. Officials say the water's safe to drink, but are warning residents to make sure the water doesn't go up their noses when bathing, for example, or running through a sprinkler.

DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, CHAIR, DEPT. OF PREVENTATIVE MED., VANDERBILT: The ameba then finds itself way back in our noses and then can work its way into our central nervous system around our brains. And once it's there, it just causes destruction.

COHEN: Local schools are shutting down water fountains.

CAROL COROLLO, PRINCIPAL: We just don't want a little one to go to the water fountain, get water in their face, possibly up their nose.

LORI LEWIS, PARENT: I'm a parent, so I am a little nervous and leery about it, but my hope is just that the parish and at the CDC they really buckle down and do what they need to do to get this under control.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: So, again, what officials are saying is that the ameba can't get to your brain if you're swallowing it, but it can get to your brain if it goes up your nose. So parents are being told, don't let your child submerge themselves in the bathtub, even supervise them when they're doing something as just sort of innocuous as playing outside with a garden hose.

Chris. Kate.

CUOMO: Elizabeth, help me out here, because I'm just not getting this.

COHEN: OK. OK.

CUOMO: I feel like these warnings always go in the direction of abundance of caution.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Is it because it's water and they just know you have to use it, so they're figuring out what the safest route is or - it just seems like it's just asking for trouble this morning.

COHEN: Well it's -- again, what it is, is that if you drink it, the ameba's not going to go up your nose. It's going to go into your GI system, but it's not - it's not going to get to your brain. What we're trying to avoid is it getting to the brain.

BOLDUAN: Right.

COHEN: So if you swallow it, it's not going to get to your brain. But, yes, you're absolutely right. I mean, I will tell you, as a mom, that I would be nervous. I mean I would be there being very vigilant, making sure that my child didn't submerge herself in the bathtub or playing with - I probably wouldn't even let her play with water. I mean if --

CUOMO: Right.

COHEN: If you're going to - it's - I mean, I get it, it's anxiety- producing.

BOLDUAN: The risk of it, of you getting, contracting the virus and the disease is tiny, but still way too scary.

COHEN: It's tiny.

BOLDUAN: All right.

COHEN: But, I mean, imagine how many tens of thousands of people have been bathing in this water.

BOLDUAN: Right.

COHEN: And as far as we know, only one of them has gotten sick.

CUOMO: Well, that's a good point.

BOLDUAN: That's a good point.

CUOMO: Good point.

BOLDUAN: All right, Elizabeth, thank you so much. COHEN: OK. Thanks.

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY, just take a look at these live pictures of an incredible feat underway as we speak. Crews are trying to salvage the doomed Costa Concordia. Will they be able to right the cruise ship without causing further damage?

CUOMO: And, it would take 50 years and 1,000 miles to fulfill a man's lifelong wish. See why it ultimately also took the kindness of strangers to ship this grandpa and rabid Red Sox fans up to Boston. This is a great story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Singer. You have a beautiful voice.

BOLDUAN: My brain shuts off in remembering lyrics.

CUOMO: So you're (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: I was - I was like da, da, da.

CUOMO: Yes, I like that. What did they used to call that, you know, when jazz got --

BOLDUAN: You can just call it Kate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

An unprecedented salvage operation is underway off the coast of Italy this morning -- take a look at these live pictures. Engineers attempting to raise the "Costa Concordia", the cruise ship that ran aground well over a year ago, killing 32 people when that happened. And even if crews are able to right the ship over the next couple of days they'll still face the daunting task of removing it.

Erin McLaughlin has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lifting a ship the size of at "Costa Concordia" from its side has never been tried before; more than 100,000 tons of water-logged wreckage now slowly being pulled upright. Engineers and welders monitored the vessel's every move. There is, after all, a very real risk the ship could break apart.

NICHOLAS SLOANE, SENIOR SALVAGE MASTER: She's a massive ship, that's why it's a massive challenge, but when you add her to the slopes of Giglio Island and the two reefs that she's balanced on it takes the whole project into different scale.

MCLAUGHLIN: It's been 20 months since the luxury cruise liner the "Costa Concordia" ran aground off the Italian Island of Giglio killing 32 of the people on board. The massive operation to remove the wreckage began with steel platforms built below the water. Cables helping to hoist the ship upright, and a series of enormous floatation devices attached to the ship's sides are designed to eventually help the cruise liner float away to a nearby port.

Underwater debris from the tragedy still floats along the Italian seabed an ominous reminder of the toxic stew still inside the vessel and the threats of an environmental disaster if the salvage operation is not successful.

Removing the crippled ship is costing nearly $800 million and the people of Giglio are praying that the deteriorating "Costa Concordia" will soon be floating again.

Erin McLaughlin, CNN, London.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: As Erin said they're toxic stew, it's a very environmentally sensitive area. So let's get to the scene of the extraordinary salvage operation. Right now underway Barbie Nadeau standing by in Giglio, Italy. Barbie, what's the latest?

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well you know they say everything is going to plan. They're cautiously optimistic that this is going to work. They had originally told us it would take about 12 hours and the process is more of a rotation. They're pulling this ship up from underneath with these giant pulleys called strand jacks with cables on them and at the same time they're pulling it from the top so it's more of a rotation than anything.

At a certain point about -- about now we were saying four or five hours into the operation, we're into the fifth hour -- gravity was supposed to, you know, take over. They seem to be you know by that calculation maybe a little bit behind schedule because it doesn't look like the point where gravity would take over. But by all means they have control for only a bit of time.

After that the ship is just too heavy and that's when those flotation boxes those spawn (ph) and cast-ons, whatever you want to call them on the outside of the ship will take over. Those will start to fill with water and the only way they can control those is to pump compressed air in so they'll be able to control each one individually if some of the ship starts to breaks apart if some of that seems vulnerable. They'll be able to sort of lift some parts and move parts and that will be to slow down the force of gravity and eventually end up on a -- on a bed of a big platform on with what the salvage masters call mattresses that sort of cushion underneath there.

It will be righted and they'll fix the broken side of the ship sometime in the spring and they'll float it away hopefully by next summer for the people of Giglio -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right a lot of risk there but obviously they need to try and do something before it breaks apart right there. Barbie, thank you very much for the reporting. We look forward to seeing what happens.

All right, how about some good stuff? Here's today's episode. It was 87-year-old Allan Munroe's second love that helped him get through the loss of his first. The first his wife Norma who recently lost her battle with cancer; the second the Boston Red Sox -- it was keeping up with Sox on TV that helped him through this obviously painful time. But it would be the kindness of strangers that ultimately got him back to the ball park.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERESA LINTON, DAUGHTER: When she passed we were trying to get him healed and better, 63 years they were together and he was lost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: That's Allan's daughter who wanted to get him back to Fenway Park for his first time in 50 years but Allan lives in Florida and he just didn't have the money to afford the trip so his granddaughter took to social media starting a crowd funding campaign. In the end raised more than $6,000 for the adventure. So the campaign was so popular it even got the attention of the ball club's owner who let Allan do this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Play ball.

ALLAN MUNROE, LIFELONG RED SOX FAN: When you use the phrase "thrill of a lifetime", that just says it all. It doesn't come any bigger than this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: How about that.

CUOMO: "The Good Stuff" doesn't end there by the way. Allan's daughter says there was extra money raised that they didn't need for the trip they donated it to the Jimmy Fund for cancer research.

BOLDUAN: That's great. That is one cool dude.

CUOMO: Right?

PEREIRA: Totally is.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

CUOMO: And what a beautiful way to kind of, you know, help your father and send a great message and for all of the people there who got him to say play ball, just let you know when you love baseball, few loves like it.

PEREIRA: Fan for life, too.

CUOMO: Right. PEREIRA: Right I love that.

BOLDUAN: All right we're going to be back right after a break. We have some breaking news to bring you, a possible shooting incident in Washington's Navy yard. We'll have the details after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: We have some breaking news to report. We don't know exactly what it means yet but here is the latest. We have a report that shots have been fired at the Washington Navy yard. Let's get to Barbara Starr for what details we know at this time -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Chris, the U.S. Navy is telling us three shots were fired at a building in which several hundred Navy personnel work along the Potomac River. Three shots fired over at 8:20 this morning just over half an hour ago. They tell us an active shooter is still inside that building and that security forces at this point are now entering the building to try and track this person down. We have no reports of injuries at this point.

What they also tell us several hundred people work inside this secure building. They are telling people to shelter in place, some people are being evacuated where they can. Of course we'll keep everyone updated as the morning goes on -- Chris?

CUOMO: All right information very light right now. Barbara I appreciate the latest. We'll keep monitoring the situation and tell you what we know when we know it.

BOLDUAN: We'll be right back after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: NEW DAY is winding up but your day is just beginning. We deliver you to CNN NEWSROOM with the one and only Carol Costello. Happy Monday.

PEREIRA: I got to meet her on Friday. I get a hug and everything.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I know. Michaela, you were here Friday and got to meet you in person. It was fabulous. Kate and Chris I think your invitation is standing. Come on down.

CUOMO: Hey we'll be there.

BOLDUAN: My invite was lost in the mail but I love your show.

CUOMO: We'll be there, we're big fans, well my mom is a big fan of yours, you're one of her favorites, Carol. It's her birthday today. So happy birthday to her -- my mom's 39 years old.

COSTELLO: And Chris Cuomo's 11.

Thanks to all of you. Have a great day. We do have to begin with this breaking news this morning. And good morning to you, I'm Carol Costello.

We do begin with breaking news. We're learning of a shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. One report says a male gunman has a large shotgun and he's on the fourth floor of this building on the Navy complex. Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins us now. Barbara, tell us more.