Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Wisconsin Shootings; Return of Imus; Chicago Marathon Mess; Oral Roberts Accusations
Aired October 07, 2007 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The peace of small town America shattered. Now a tiny Wisconsin town in shock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That someone could do that, just go crazy, and shoot a bunch of people, it's just -- I can't even imagine it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: A police officer accused of opening fire in a murderous rampage, leaving no one untouched.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put her down! Put her down!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: A marathon turned triage. Hundreds of runners lying on the ground wheeled away in wheelchairs and taken to hospitals. We're talking about the Chicago Marathon. What in the world went wrong? His nappy-headed hoes comment yanked him off the air.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IMUS: I did a bad thing, but I'm a good person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: But Don Imus is getting another chance to prove it. What's he going to say next?
His father raised millions of dollars in God's name. Now Oral Roberts' son is accused of taking that which he was not given, a red Mercedes convertible, a trip to the Bahamas. We sort out the very non-biblical details.
Adorable babies and ugly accusations. Foreign adoption is a booming business, but is it all on the up and up? Poor and powerless birth mothers, baby trafficking rings and the Americans on the receiving end, a CNN investigation tonight.
And if you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times. Different pictures, same scream. Movie deja vu proven true. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
And good evening, everyone. I'm Tony Harris. Tonight, a small town in the American Midwest is reeling. Shock and sadness and disbelief times seven. It is a mass killing in Crandon, Wisconsin. Population 2,000.
CNN cameras and Susan Roesgen are there. We have details on the horrible way a small town, where they say nothing ever happens is put on the map.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS (voice-over): Forget the small town factor. This kind of stuff isn't supposed to happen anywhere. A Saturday house party, 3:00 a.m., teenagers and 20-somethings hanging out when a man with a gun bursts inside and starts shooting.
JOHN DENNEE, CHIEF, CRANDON, WIS. POLICE DEPT.: At approximately 2:47 a.m., City of Crandon police officer responded to gunshots at a residence in the city of Crandon. At this point there are six deceased inside that residence.
HARRIS: It gets worse. Local residents say one of the victims is or was the shooter's girlfriend. Worse still, the man with the gun, he's a policeman, a rookie, only 20 years old. And here's where, if you can believe it, the story continues a tragic plunge. The shooter runs. His fellow policemen in pursuit. There's a standoff. More gunfire.
DENNEE: The subject was located by law enforcement officers. The subject is deceased and is no longer a threat to the public.
HARRIS: The shooter, a rookie comes. Troubled young man with blood on his hands is dead.
(END VIDEOTAPE0
HARRIS: And look at this face. It is Lindsey Stahl. She's a teenager but really just a girl, 14 years old. And she is one of six people gunned down at that house in Crandon, Wisconsin. 14, 14 years old.
CNN's Susan Roesgen is in Crandon tonight. And Susan, you met and had a conversation with Lindsey's mother tonight, but we have to tell this story because we are not going to be able to play that interview at this moment because of something that happens all too often, it seems, when we have a really valuable piece of tape. It was chewed up in one of the machines as were you trying to feed it back to us, but we're going to try to get that fed from one of our affiliate stations that piggybacked your interview and get that to the folks here in the newsroom a little later in the newscast, but tell us a bit about the conversation you had with Lindsey's mom.
SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure, Tony. Let me show you first of all. That is the house, the very house here where the high schoolers were having a party, where at 3:00 in the morning, this deputy, barely out of high school himself, Deputy Tyler Peterson, apparently came in and shot and killed six people.
Now as you mentioned, we now know tonight that the youngest of those victims was 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl. Her mother was on the front yard of her house tonight, Tony, smoking a cigarette, trying to deal with it when I came up to her and talked to her about it.
She said that she is still in shock. She was hoping that maybe it really wasn't her daughter at all there. She said in fact, Tony, that she hasn't even yet seen a body, that the police have not let her see the body of her daughter.
She just believes that her daughter is dead because one of her neighbors told her that that was one of the names of the people who died there. And she later got a confirmation of her daughter's name from the police.
And you can see that the police are still out here. This is such a small town that even almost 24 hours after that shooting, they still had crime scene people out here trying to get clues, trying to find out what was going on in Deputy Tyler Peterson's mind.
But I can tell you, Tony, that Lindsey Stahl's mother Jenny Stahl is angry. And so are a lot of the other people that I talked to. They are angry at this deputy. They say they feel sorry for his mother. She lives here in town. They feel sorry for his death, but they are so angry at him because they say hey, here's a law enforcement officer who's supposed to protect people. And instead, he killed these innocent people, apparently friends of his, and maybe an ex-girlfriend at a party right there at that house.
Now Lindsey Stahl's mother lives just a couple blocks away. That's how small this town is, Tony, just 2000 people. The neighborhood of the victims is right around where the shootings happened. And CNN talked to a couple of the classmates of some of those victims.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My thoughts and prayers are with them and that everyone is thinking about them.
ROESGEN: I hope no community has to go through what Crandon is going through right now. And I really hope that the people that have passed away are in a better place now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROESGEN: Now we do know, Tony, that the circumstances of Deputy Tyler Peterson's death are still covered up in mystery here. Because as you might expect, law enforcement doesn't like to have to kill one of its own. And there were apparently dozens of law enforcement officers out here, probably some of the same ones that are out here tonight, the Forest County Sheriff's office, the Wisconsin state patrol all here, but we do believe that it was one of those law enforcement officers who ultimately shot and killed Deputy Tyler Peterson. HARRIS: What an amazing story. And I just want to remind everyone once again, Susan, while you're with us, that we have every belief that we're going to be able to get that interview that you conducted with Lindsey Stahl's mother back in here to the newsroom and share it with the audience before the end of this newscast tonight. We want to make everyone aware of that and invite everyone to stay with us for that interview.
Susan, we appreciate your work tonight. And if you get an indication that that interview is on its way back, just give us a head's up and we'll get back to you. All right?
ROESGEN: You bet, Tony.
HARRIS: Susan, appreciate it. Thank you. Stay with CNN and we will update you with the latest information on this horrible tragedy in Wisconsin this hour. The rest of the day's news is just ahead. Plus, our top video picks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Red Sox went up -- hello.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The lights have gone out on Colorado.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Hello. Where were you when the lights went out? Denver went dark. What a big night for the Rockies. The whole story on the way.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: OK, tonight's top video pics. Let's start in Serbia. 30 neo-Nazis, the pictures here, were arrested after attacking anti- fascist activists in the north of town. The thing is neo-Nazis gathered despite being told not to by police. The anti-fascist demonstrators had the permits. So once both groups started arguing, bottles and rocks went flying.
Back in the states, Denver, to be exact, another demonstration got way out of hand. Fake blood, dismembered baby dolls were poured on a Columbus Day parade route. 80-plus people were hauled off to jail, including American Indian movement activists. Take a look at this scrum. Denver's parade, which was started in 1907, has a troubled history of arrests and confrontations between Columbus supporters and detractors, some of whom called Columbus a genocide sparking slave trader.
And you're -- wait for it. You're out. Look at this. Can you imagine a stadium full of fans? The batter's at the plate and the lights go out. And they stayed out for a full 15 minutes. A technical glitch caused the blackout. The home team, the Rockies, went on and won the series.
Boy, a loud and fiery submission from our i-reporter John Rolon. He was on a highway. Take a look. He was on a highway when he saw the flames from this massive explosion at a Tacoma, Washington foundry. It could take investigators days, actually, to find out why the propane tanker truck blew up at the foundry, sparking a massive fireball. The blast cut power to thousands. Four people were injured.
Well, guess who may be stepping back on to the scene?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AL SHARPTON: If he's coming back he's having to tiptoe back. And he's going to have to watch every step of the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Is it true? Is Imus making a comeback? We have got the answers for you coming up in three minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TIME STAMP: 2212:58
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Runner down! Runner down!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: A marathon turned triage. Hundreds of runners lying on the ground, wheeled away in wheelchairs, and taken to hospitals. We're talking about the Chicago Marathon. What in the world went wrong? His nappy-headed hoes comment yanked him off the air.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IMUS: I did a bad thing, but I'm a good person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: But Don Imus is getting another chance to prove it. What's he going to say next?
His father raised millions of dollars in God's name. Now Oral Roberts' son is accused taking that which he was not given, a red Mercedes convertible, a trip to the Bahamas. We sort out the very non-biblical details.
Adorable babies and ugly accusations. Foreign adoption is a booming business, but is it all on the up and up? Poor and powerless birth mothers, baby trafficking rings and the Americans on the receiving end. A CNN investigation tonight.
And welcome back, everyone, to the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Tony Harris. A softer, gentler, Don Imus, perhaps. We haven't heard much from Mr. Imus since he was fired for insulting a college women's basketball team on the air. Now his attorney says Imus could announce his return to the airwaves as soon as tomorrow with a new and possibly nationally syndicated broadcast.
CNN's Jim Acosta has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DON IMUS: That's some rough girls from Rutgers, man.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was only last spring when Don Imus' verbal assault on the Rutgers' womens basketball team ignited a firestorm.
IMUS: That's some nappy-headed hoes there.
ACOSTA: That quickly engulfed his career. Within days after his on air slur, he had been shamed by the women of Rutgers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have all been physically, mentally and emotionally spent, so hurt by the remarks that were uttered by Mr. Imus.
ACOSTA: And slam dunked by the Reverend Al Sharpton.
AL SHARPTON, REV.: Do you think it's funny to call people nappy- headed hoes?
IMUS: No, I don't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Imus must go!
ACOSTA: Under mounting pressure, both MSNBC and CBS Radio pulled the plug on the I-man, ending a 30-year run or so it seemed. "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" are reporting Citadel Broadcasting is on the verge of a deal with Imus for a morning broadcast on WABC Radio in New York, a program that may be syndicated to over 200 stations across the country.
SHARPTON: Even if he's coming back, he's having to tiptoe back. And he's going to have to watch every step of the way.
ACOSTA: If Imus is back, that means his old nemesis Sharpton will be listening.
SHARPTON: We will monitor him. We will see if safeguards are in place to make sure he does not use racist and sexist language as his way of drawing an audience.
ACOSTA: Over at Rutgers University, some students are willing to give Imus a second chance, too.
IAN EVANS, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: I think it was a good suspension for him. And I think he's sincere about it. And so I think he should be allowed to come back now.
JOANA AHN, RUTGERS UNIV. STUDENT: It was pretty harsh of him to stay, but I think we should get over it by now.
ACOSTA: On one of his final broadcasts, Imus declared he is capable of cleaning up his act.
IMUS: I'm sorry I did that. I'm embarrassed that I did that. I did a bad thing, but I'm a good person. And that will change.
ACOSTA: Now he just has to prove it.
(on camera): Another question is whether Imus will succeed in finding a TV outlet for his radio show. At 67 years old, Don Imus, it appears, doesn't do retirement.
Jim Acosta, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: You know, the NBA season begins this week, at least the pre-season. The New York Knicks have a home game on Friday. And if the Reverend Al Sharpton can marshal enough support, a picket line will ring Madison Square Garden. That's unless he hears an apology from Knicks head coach Isiah Thomas.
In a sexual harassment suit deposition, Thomas seemed to say it isn't as bad for a black man to call a black woman the "b" word than if a white guy were to say it. Thomas lost the suit to the tune of millions of dollars. And he is losing ground with Sharpton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHARPTON: Nobody, whoever they are, has the right to say the "b" word. And there is no difference for a black man to say it, a white man to say it, an Asian to say it, a Latino to say it or anyone undecided to say it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Thomas and Sharpton have spoken by phone, but Sharpton apparently isn't satisfied.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ORAL ROBERTS: I am confident that when the real truth is known, there will be no more questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: But for now, there are plenty of them, like what he is or isn't doing with the money. Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts speaks out. You'll hear what he has to say, coming up in 90 seconds.
And take a look at this picture. 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl, there she is. We are waiting for Susan Roesgen's interview with Lindsey Stahl's mother to be fed into the newsroom. Lindsey Stahl one of the shooting victims in Crandon, Wisconsin. When that interview arrives, we will turn it around and we will bring it right to you here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Extravagant trips, numerous home improvement projects and expensive clothes at whose expense, that's the question. And former Oral Roberts University professors and students want answers. Ashley Sims with CNN affiliate KOTV has the story from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ASHLEY SIMS (voice-over): Clapping students greeted Richard Roberts as he took to the stage for morning chapel. He told them he was awakened in the middle of the night by God and told to write.
RICHARD ROBERTS, PRES., ORAL ROBERTS UNIV.: We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person, whether they have a legitimate case or not.
SIMS: Three former professors are suing ORU and several top leaders, including Richard Roberts, for wrongful termination and defamation. The lawsuit claims the university illegally participated in the race for Tulsa mayor. And the Roberts family misused university money to finance extravagances, like a $50,000 clothing bill, luxury vehicles, and a $30,000 senior trip for their daughter. Roberts told his students the lawsuit is not about wrongful termination.
ROBERTS: It is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion. Make no mistake about it. This suit is about money.
SIMS: While many students in the audience seem to be standing by their president, some folks just outside were standing against him.
CALEB TRUJILLO, FMR., ORU STUDENT: I'm out here because I believe that my friends here and the students here deserve to know the truth from their administration and from the Roberts family about where the tuition money goes and what it's spent on.
SIMS: Caleb Trujillo went to ORU for two years. And he says he believed in the cause and in Roberts. But now he says he feels cheated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I still owe that money to the school. And the Roberts family is using the money to promote political campaigns. That's a federal offense, I mean, just spending it on their own things, like that's not right.
ROBERTS: Some may think that I might ought to hang my head in shame, but I won't do that. I am confident that when the real truth is known, there will be no more questions.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: All right. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, think you can judge a person's authenticity by how they laugh? Well, then, let's put you to the test right now. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I'd love for you to ask me about that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You did...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: So what did you think? Really? What did you think?
Chew on it for a couple of minutes, why don't you. And we will revisit the topic in dog bone politics coming up in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: What do you say? Time now for some dog gone politics, political news with a bite. Senator Hillary Clinton's getting laughs, for well, for her laugh. Check it out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART": Last night we were discussing the presidential campaign. Of course, Hillary Clinton remains the solid front-runner for the Democrats. A lot of voters, though, not quite - feel she can be a bit distant, calculated, some kind of synthetic being that cries mercury.
This weekend, Hillary Clinton appeared on all five semi morning news shows, determined to showcase her humanity. And what is humanity? Human (INAUDIBLE)?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me ask you about healthcare...
HILLARY CLINTON: Yes, I'd love for to you ask me about health care.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...because you did about health care - you did come out...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's your response?
(LAUGHTER)
WOLF BLITZER: I wonder if you want to respond to the former mayor?
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: Would half of -- ha, ha, ha. I'm joyful!
(LAUGHTER)
HARRIS: OK. We know politicians use their jokes again and again. We're not naive about this kind of thing. But apparently, Senator John Mccain won't let this one die. This week when speaking to voters in South Carolina, he said if elected president, he would appoint former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to lead a review of the nation's tax code. Then he said, "If he's alive or dead, it doesn't matter. If he's dead, just prop him up and put some dark glasses on him like Weekend at Bernie's.
You know, it's a strange sort of joke, don't you think? Well, we thought we'd pull up that joke reference for you, "Weekend at Bernie's" was a silly film from the '80s about a party host who dies on his guest. Well, we managed to dig up the same Mccain joke told during the presidential debate way back in 1999. And it's pretty moldy. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If Mr. Greenspan should happen to die, God forbid, I will do what we did in "Weekend at Bernie's". I'd prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him and we'd keep him as long as we could.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: What's gives? What's up with that?
Coming up, two of the top political bloggers face off from the right and the left in just about four minutes. Are the Democrats unfairly going after the president for vetoing a children's health care bill? And is Senator Clinton's huge lead in the polls a sign of things to come? We've got it covered for you. That's at the half hour.
Next up, picturesque Chicago on a beautiful Sunday in October. Seems perfect l for a 26-mile marathon, but the Windy City is experiencing record-setting heat. And earlier this afternoon, a runner from Michigan collapsed and died. About 300 others ended up needing treatment, some at the hospital.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Runner down! Runner down!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Temperatures were in the low 70s when the race began, but quickly climbed into the 80s with sweltering humidity. Organizers quickly closed the course just before noon, but not soon enough. An autopsy is scheduled tomorrow on the 35-year-old runner who died. A sunny October Sunday in Chicago turns out to be too hot for the Windy City? Jacqui, what's going on here?
JACQUI JERAS: Yes, hard to believe it is. And it's only 88 degrees. That was a record high there today. Should be 66 in Chicago. And Chicago is not alone. Records all over the place in the East. High pressure bringing in some incredible temperatures. We'll talk more about that in your forecast coming up.
HARRIS: Jacqui. And our political bloggers getting ready to go toe to toe live in the NEWSROOM. The hot political topics you're talking about 90 seconds away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Now for the hottest political news of the week, we turn to the left and to the right for our "Blog Buzz." On the left John Aravosis with americablog. Good to see you, sir. And from the right, Jim Geraghty from National Review Online. Good to see you both this Sunday evening.
John, let me start with you. What is happening with this race between these candidates? Let's talk about the Democratic side of things. Hillary Clinton, the latest ABC/Washington Post poll, wow, what is happening here? Hillary Clinton 53 percent to Barack Obama 20 percent. Explain, please. Is this the inevitability express for Hillary Clinton on full throttle?
JOHN ARAVOSIS, AMERICABLOG.COM: Well, it's on full throttle. What the pundits always say is what's more important is what's going on in the individual primary states. What's interesting in that regard is there's a new poll out today -- or just reported by AP that Hillary appears to be in the lead or at least within the margin of error in the lead in Iowa. And that gets interesting, because if she can cinch Iowa then she may actually get her inevitability and she will be our new president -- or at least our new nominee.
HARRIS: Yes. Hey, Jim, what do you think of this?
JIM GERAGHTY, NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE: It's fascinating. You would have figured that a state like New Hampshire might not be natural Hillary Clinton territory or South Carolina. You would figure that perhaps Barack Obama would be able to reach out to that state's heavily African-American population in their Democratic primary and it's just not happening.
You kind of wonder if time is starting to run short for Edwards or Obama or anyone else who wants to seriously challenge her, because in the general election polls, as you've pointed out, she's just way ahead. Now obviously we don't have a national primary, which is the good news for these guys. But right now it looks like if she's not stopped in Iowa, she's not going to be stopped anywhere.
ARAVOSIS: Well, and they are just not doing anything to shake it up. I mean, Jim and I were talking about this earlier. With Obama and Edwards, they are just not doing anything that makes you say, hey, maybe they have given us a reason to not like Hillary. It's just -- nothing...
(CROSSTALK)
HARRIS: Well, what do you do? I mean, what do you do? Do you just sort of -- how aggressively can you go after Hillary?
ARAVOSIS: They had an opportunity a week ago. They were asked -- or two weeks ago. They were asked at the Vermont debate in Dartmouth, the Democratic candidates were asked, would you get all the combat troops out of Iraq by the end of your first term, meaning, in five years? None of the Democrats said yes. Hillary said no. The other guys could have easily said, I'll get them out in five years. How risky was that? It's weird.
HARRIS: Well, let's talk about the Republican side of this for a moment. You take a look at the same polls here, and Rudy Giuliani in the national polls is enjoying a lead here of 34 percent, Fred Thompson at 17, John McCain at 12, and Mitt Romney at 11.
And, Jim, what's happening on the Republican side here and are we starting to see the shapings of a Hillary Clinton/Rudy Giuliani -- I know we've got a long way to go here, but what do you think?
GERAGHTY: Yes. Rudy Giuliani would love to hear you making that kind of statement. It's interesting. The top three candidates on the Republican side are each pursuing a very different road to the nomination. You see Mitt Romney, who is putting enormous resources into Iowa and New Hampshire and his thinking is if wins both of those, he'll create a sense of inevitability, he'll get a great sense of momentum rolling into the other states.
Rudy Giuliani some effort in Iowa, thinks he might have a good chance at New Hampshire, but he really thinks Florida is going to be the decisive early state for him and also he's running very well nationally. When they have what people are calling the super-duper Tuesday, where like 14 or 15 states all vote at once, he thinks he'll have the resources to compete there and do fantastic.
Fred Thompson thinks he can win -- in fact, he almost certainly has to win South Carolina. He thinks he can be the regional candidate of the South. He obviously wants to do OK in Iowa and New Hampshire and these other places. But he thinks that by sweeping the South he will have -- just basically be the candidate who is the candidate of red America, the candidate who keeps the heartland of the country and he'll be able to sweep to the nomination.
HARRIS: Hey, John, very quickly, what are your thoughts on this?
ARAVOSIS: You know, what's interesting to me is I think the Republicans kind of have the same problem that Obama and Edwards have in the sense that they are still vying amongst themselves but nobody has really shown why they would be better than Hillary -- or I should say, no one has shown why they should be the front-runner against Hillary.
And I think -- I mean, on the Democratic side, I'm happy to say, you know, no matter who gets the nomination, but if it is Hillary, she's still ahead of the Republican candidates. She is still polling ahead of Giuliani. So, you know, let them pick who they want, but fortunately they are not standing out yet, which is good for our side.
HARRIS: Boy. All right. Let's leave it there. I wanted to get to the SCHIP debate and the president's veto and what happens next. But I'm out of time. John, Jim, good to see you both, thanks for your time this evening.
ARAVOSIS: It's a bad thing for Republicans. (LAUGHTER)
HARRIS: Final zinger. All right, gentlemen, thank you, appreciate it. Have a good evening.
GERAGHTY: Any time.
HARRIS: Well, if you ever thought about adopting a child, you've got to see this next story. Dozens of babies seized from an orphanage. Officials say their mothers were coerced into giving up their children. And some of the babies were about to come to American couples. CNN goes straight to Guatemala to see what is going on in just two minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Recapping for you now the hour's top story on CNN. A small Midwestern town is numb with shock and loss tonight. It has only been hours since six young people, some of them teens, were shot and killed by a man we are told was an off-duty policeman. It happened at a private home in Crandon in northern Wisconsin. Why he did it we don't know, and we won't find out from him. This off-duty policeman is dead also after an encounter with fellow policemen shortly after the killings.
Crandon is a town so small that everyone is a neighbor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My thoughts and prayers are with them and that everyone is thinking about them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope no community has to go through what Crandon is going through right now and I really hope that the people that have passed away are in a better place now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: We are hoping to learn a lot more about what happened and why when the Crandon Police Department holds a news conference at 4:00 tomorrow.
U.S. couples desperate to have children often look overseas to adopt. But this month officials in Guatemala raided an adoption agency, accusing its owners of baby trafficking. And one American the plans to bring home a new baby girl are now uncertain.
CNN's Harris Whitbeck traveled to the country to find out what is really going on.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shawn (ph) and Ellen Darcy wanted a family, so like thousands of other Americans, they traveled to Guatemala. Their adopted son Dillon (ph) thrived in suburban Boston. So they decided to go back for a girl. Guatemala's government says the country provides more babies per capita than any other country in the world, an average of 17 a day to the United States.
ELLEN DARCY, ADOPTIVE MOTHER: We contacted them probably early March, end of February, and within two weeks, Carolina was born and we were told that we could proceed with this adoption.
These were before we went to visit her.
WHITBECK: An American agency named Casa Quivira told the Darcys they could visit baby Carolina and have her home within six months. But without warning one night in August, police raided Casa Quivira and seized 46 babies, including Carolina.
They arrested the agency's lawyers and charged them with child abduction. No plea has yet been entered, but the agency's owners deny doing anything illegal. Prosecutors allege that some babies were conceived simply for adoptions, and that other mothers were coerced into giving up their children.
Now Guatemala's chief prosecutor plans to investigate allegations several other U.S. agencies trafficked in babies. And the Guatemalan government says it won't allow any more American adoptions under the current system after the first of the year.
But what will happen to the 46 babies seized from Casa Quivira?
(on camera): Many of the children from Casa Quivira were placed in foster homes like this one, run by Shyrel and Steve Osborne in Guatemala City. And even here, there are questions about the origins of these children. Shyrel believes that these two little girls are identical twins, but they will be separated today. One of them will be turned over to American adoptive parents as part of an adoption that was run by Casa Quivira.
And then there is the question about little Carolina. We wanted to see what kind of oversight there had been in the case of baby Carolina. We started by interviewing the midwife whose name appeared on the birth certificate. But the midwife told us she never even met Carolina's mother.
As for Carolina's mother, Casa Quivira gave authorities an address just across town. But after searching for more than an hour, we found the address doesn't exist. We were introduced to this woman, who asked us not to show her face. She came accompanied by another woman she called her translator.
I asked if money problems motivated her to give up her baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I would love to raise my child, but I can't afford to. I have other children and I'm too poor.
WHITBECK: Skeptical of our interview, we challenged one of Casa Quivira's owners, Sandra Gonzalez, who insisted the mother gave up her baby because she could not afford to keep her.
(on camera): Are you confident that every baby that has passed through Casa Quivira was a legitimate baby, a child that had a legitimate need to be adopted?
SANDRA GONZALEZ, CASA QUIVIRA: Yes. Some of them, they are very bad stories like rapes, they come from persecution. They are mothers that have a bunch of kids and they can't support this kid anymore. Some of them have come very ill. They got it (INAUDIBLE) at the hospital.
WHITBECK: But are these documents enough to prove that there is no baby-stealing going on, no coercion going on, no baby-trafficking going on? Is this enough?
GONZALEZ: Yes, yes, for us it is.
WHITBECK (voice-over): Casa Quivira says it is fighting to get adoptions back on track. Meanwhile, of the 46 babies seized by the government, 38 remain in foster care. This week, the U.S. government urged Americans to stop adopting from Guatemala until the country can answer those questions.
JAMES M. DERHAM, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO GUATEMALA: The amount of money that is involved in this process, in a country that's very poor, almost all the babies come from the indigenous regions here in Guatemala, in many cases, people who are very unsophisticated. And do they really understand what kind of decisions they are making?
WHITBECK: But for baby Carolina and hundreds of others, the decisions were made. And parents like the Darcys sit in the U.S., hoping an adopted baby boy or girl will soon make their families complete.
Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Antigua, Guatemala.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And we have a new development, the sad end for Tyler Peterson, there he is, the police officer who the authorities tell us opened fire in a Crandon, Wisconsin, apartment in the overnight hours this morning. Tyler Peterson, and now we will show you pictures of Tyler Peterson after his encounter with fellow officers, his professional colleagues in a wooded area in an adjacent town to Crandon, the aerial views of him as he lay dead there.
It has been hours now that the shooting occurred at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, the overnight hours. Six young people, some of them teens, shot and killed, the authorities tell us, by Tyler Peterson, an off-duty police officer. And again, it happened at a private home in Crandon. That's in northern Wisconsin.
We are expecting more details on this at a news conference tomorrow, and once again we are awaiting the interview from Susan Roesgen, the interview she conducted with the mother of this young girl, Lindsey Stahl, one of the shooting victims in Crandon, Wisconsin. When that interview arrives, we will turn it around and bring it right to you here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
But first, a quick break. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: You know, by most accounts, it's a first class mess, 146 million of your tax dollars paying for first class flights for federal employees. And not just any workers, Josh. Most of them were high- ranking. It wasn't really supposed to happen and it did, maybe because no one expected the details to show up in the fine print until now. We are "Keeping Them Honest."
Here's CNN's Kathleen Koch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOCH (voice-over): The report found a State Department employee and his family of eight spent $46,000, four times coach fare, to relocate from Washington to Eastern Europe. An Agriculture Department executive took 25 first class flights, costing $163,000. A Defense Department executive claimed a medical condition required him to fly premium class 15 times. His authorization: a note from a fellow employee.
Federal workers are required to fly coach unless the flight is over 14 hours or unless a supervisor approves special circumstances. The Government Accountability Office investigation found most federal agencies don't even track business and first class travel by their workers.
SEN. NORM COLEMAN (R), MINNESOTA: Clearly, if you don't know something is happening, it's hard to figure out whether there's a problem and even harder to correct it.
KOCH: The study commissioned by Congress found that in just one year $146 million was wasted on unauthorized premium flights. Senior officials were big violators, they make up less than 1 percent of federal workers, but 15 percent of the travel abuse.
COLEMAN: Senior officials should set an example. They shouldn't set an example of being the problem.
KOCH: To crack down, the GAO says the government should set up an office to oversee travel policies. And agencies should track, audit and report premium class travel.
TOM SCHATZ, CITIZENS AGAINST GOVT. WASTE: The agencies should have been doing this on their own. It's a simple management accountability problem. Some embarrassment, some reporting oversight by Congress will all force agencies to become more accountable.
KOCH (on camera): Another deterrent, making the federal workers, including top officials, pay the money back. But that's not expected to happen in every case.
Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: So this is just the latest in a long string of reports on how your money is being spent and wasted. Josh Levs, I mentioned him a moment ago, here he is, has been looking into it.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I know. And you know what, we want to put it in a little context because obviously none of us likes to hear about that, especially when you're stuck in the back of the plane in the middle seat like I always am. We want to put it into context. We're taking a look at some of the recent reports about bigger ways that your money is being spent and many people say wasted by the government. That's coming up right here on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: So just before the break we were talking about federal employees flying first class and guess who was paying the tab. You and me. Josh Levs "Keeping Them Honest" with even more examples of how your tax dollars are going to waste.
LEVS: Too many. There are too many examples. It's almost ridiculous. But when we were looking, when we decided to pull up some big ones just to try to give you all some perspective here, let me show you, there's one that was recent. Actually, Tony was away that week, unfortunately, but it was the week that this report came out about how much the Justice Department was spending on these big conferences. They have these big meals, right, at these events. They are spending $5 per meatball. OK. One can of soda, they are spending $4.55 per can of soda.
HARRIS: That's waste.
LEVS: That's ridiculous amounts of money. And the Government Accountability Office said that, Justice Department agreed with it. Now let's look at the even bigger ones. All right. Let's take a look at what the same office found about storm damage pay from Katrina and Rita, a billion bucks in improper payments, improper payments, like didn't go to the right place. Some people weren't supposed to get money.
HARRIS: Yes. We knew this one was going to be bad, yes.
LEVS: Absolutely, because there were so many billions flying around. But we're talking a billion, which really eclipses what we were talking about for the first class seats. Huge sums of money. And obviously I can't do this segment with you without also talking about Iraq.
Too many figures to choose from so I'm taking two major points here, Iraq reconstruction billions, according to the guy who oversees the reconstruction funds, who looks into this stuff and audits it. Some billions of dollars unaccounted for and so many of the reconstruction efforts just failed. So all of these billions flying around there, really big examples that, again, eclipse the plane (ph). But the little ones matter too.
HARRIS: And if it were run like a real business, you know, the CEO, the CFO, everybody is gone.
LEVS: Oh, they would be so fired.
HARRIS: So fired.
LEVS: Yes -- no, I mean, it is ridiculous and the thing is, like everyone sits around and says they agree about it, but it keeps happening. And we keep getting these reports every week new ones. They keep coming. We're going to keep reporting them right here for you. I'm all over it.
HARRIS: Yes. Appreciate it. Good work, Josh, appreciate it. We're going to check in with Jacqui Jeras when we come back after the break and find out what was going on in Chicago today. Temperatures 20 degrees above normal. We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Take a look at the situation in Chicago. Unbelievable, the marathon there, 26 miles. Hey, the temperature started out in the 70s, but at some point during the course of the day the heat kicked in. Temperatures in the mid to upper 80s.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HARRIS: We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're still anticipating -- in fact, I get word that we have it. Let lose those pictures from the I-Report and let me just tell you that coming back after the break we are going to update our top story. And that is the shooting rampage in Crandon, Wisconsin. We are going to hear from the mother of one of the victims, 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl. We'll hear from her mother Jenny Stahl right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: And let's quickly update our top story for you right now. Six young people, some of them teens, gunned down, killed by a man we're told was an off-duty policeman. Let's get you to Crandon in northern Wisconsin and our Susan Roesgen -- Susie.
SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tony. This is still very much an ongoing investigation. You can see now that a crime scene truck has pulled up on the scene. They are still collecting evidence here, still trying to find out what happened and what might have motivated Deputy Tyler Peterson to kill six people in that house early this morning.
Now we know that Deputy Peterson was only 20 years old himself, barely out of high school himself. In fact, he was a graduate of Crandon High School as were all the victims of this. They were either current or former students of Crandon High School.
And I spoke to the school superintendent, Tony, who told me that, you know, even some of the staff at that high school are either parents or grandparents of some of the victims.
Now we know that Tyler Peterson was shot dead by other law enforcement officers. We don't how that went down yet. They haven't told us. But he was killed a few hours after he killed the six people in that house.
Now we did speak to the mother of one of the victims tonight. This was the youngest victim, 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl. Her mother, Jenny Stahl told me that she had allowed her daughter to spend the night at that house there behind me, to spend the night with some friends. She had no idea that anything like this would happen and she is still in shock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNY STAHL, MOTHER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: I just can't believe this. You know? She was only -- she will be 15 next month. She is just starting to live. And the sad thing is who killed her. You know, he is supposed to be -- they're supposed to always to protect you, I thought, you know? And it's the one who took my daughter and how many other people's life?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROESGEN: And there were a lot of people -- there are a lot of people in this town tonight, Tony, who are grieving and will be grieving for quite a while -- Tony.
HARRIS: All right. Susan Roesgen for us. Susie, thank you. That's all of our time. I'm Tony Harris. Thanks for joining me in the CNN NEWSROOM.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.voxant.com
