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Massive Flooding Hits Atlanta; Domestic Terror Investigation Expands; Phillip Garrido's Black Box
Aired September 22, 2009 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: OK. Don't go anywhere, do not adjust your TV. It's 3:00 Eastern time, and it's time for a national conversation. But Rick Sanchez is out today. I'm Kyra Phillips, sticking around here for one more hour right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
All right, I'm going to show you what happens when a major flood hits five million people. Parts of Atlanta and its outlying suburbs are under water today.
Just take a look at these images, entire neighborhoods submerged, water up to the roofs of many homes, and this is in it a town where a lot of folks don't even have flood insurance.
Now, here is something that we rarely see, portions of interstate highways closed because they're overrun with water. Here's a look from the ground, a different locale, but same situation, major freeways impassable now, surface streets blocked by scores of fallen trees, big ones, by the way, the kind that kill when they fall.
And I want to show you a pretty close call here. Take a look at this from a CNN iReporter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM HIGGINS, CNN IREPORTER: OK. We're streaming again live. And what we're seeing here is a tree that just came down on top of a car. You should be able to see that right here. That just happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: All right, now some pictures just in. And we have seen this more than once, a flooded home on fire, disaster on top of disaster. Throughout the region, at least seven people are dead, and unknown numbers are homeless right now.
Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue has asked President Obama to declare an emergency, making federal aid available for 17 counties.
Meteorologist Chad Myers going to take us through some more dramatic pictures, I guess you could say.
But first tell us, is the danger over yet? I think that's what a lot of people want to know. We haven't received any rain this afternoon, right?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We haven't. But I think that makes more danger. I think people will let their guard down.
PHILLIPS: Oh, they're going to get relaxed, yes.
MYERS: I think they're going to say, oh, it hasn't rained in 24 hours. The water must be going down.
Yes, sure, where it rained, the water is going down. Well, there is downriver from there. All this water has to get to the Gulf of Mexico. How is it going to get there? Somebody has to go up. And so there is going to be no water in a place this morning, and, tomorrow morning, there may be flooded roadways in places that people don't expect.
Did you ever play golf at Bobby Jones?
PHILLIPS: I had one lucky time that I got to do the track there. Felt the spirit of Bobby Jones. But I will tell you what. It didn't look like this.
MYERS: Nope. For about 24 bucks and a Fulton County I.D., you can play in one of the best courses in Atlanta. But that's got to be, what, five, four feet deep right there. There you go, Bobby Jones Golf Course all the way through Atlanta, Peachtree Creek, Nancy Creek, and Cross Creek, all the way in these areas.
But you can see the topography, and in fact on some of these golf courses, you can still see the ditches and the trenches that were cut by the Confederate forces when the Civil War was going on. Those trenches and ditches are still there in some of these places.
Moving on to I-285, if you are trying to get down south from let's say Chattanooga down to Tampa, this is where all of the trucks have to go. Trucks cannot go through downtown. It's illegal for an 18-wheeler to drive on downtown roadways.
So, you have to do this. Well, obviously, they aren't this. Going around the other way yesterday, I-285 completely under water. A little bit farther to the west of there, in Austell, and also into Powder Springs, between 11 and 14 inches of rainfall came down, and the homes were flooded here.
Switch pictures to the homes, and you will see not only houses, let's say with their basements flooded, but, Kyra, people -- you see that house over there on the right on the very -- that's up to the eves. That's up to the gutter, the first level of that home completely under water.
And, like you said, most people don't have flood insurance. It's a national program. It doesn't come with your homeowner's insurance. If water leaks into your house from a leaking faucet, that's covered by homeowners.
If water comes into your house from the outside, that is not covered on homeowner's. You must buy flood insurance. And most of these houses aren't even in a flood zone. So, when they got their loans, the people didn't say that they needed flood insurance. Take you to Marietta. This is Shaw (ph) Road. This is a dramatic shot here, one of our iReporters. Now, I believe that this road must have washed out, and it must have washed out a water main, because I don't see how that water is spraying so high back up from there without there being water forced underneath there by a water main.
But I hope Jim didn't go in there to go take a look. And from our DOT cameras downtown, the connecter was completely shut down. That is a major six-lane interstate highway. That right there is 575 on the way up to Woodstock, Ball Ground, on the way to very pretty areas near the Blue Ridge. That's what it looked like yesterday for hours.
People were parked there literally for hours waiting for that water to go down.
PHILLIPS: Back to East Lake. Is the PGA Tour Championship still going to play there?
MYERS: East Lake is fine.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: Oh, it's the Bobby Jones course.
MYERS: That was Bobby Jones downtown that we showed you.
PHILLIPS: Oh, I was confused. I thought it was East Lake.
OK.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: If that was East Lake, they're in trouble.
PHILLIPS: Ooh. All right.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: So, what's going to happen with the PGA?
MYERS: I called East Lake. They said that they had about four to five inches of rain, which was fine.
The greens are firm and fast. And I went, really, fast? And he said our drainage is so amazing out here. It's quite topographic over there, and so the water did run away and run off and they're good.
PHILLIPS: Got it. All right, thanks, Chad.
MYERS: They're going to play, 30 of the best players in America in Atlanta this weekend.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: That's a big event here in Atlanta, as we all well know. A lot of people here volunteer.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: All right, thanks, Chad.
MYERS: Sure.
PHILLIPS: This is just coming into us -- 91-year-old Senator Robert Byrd has suffered a fall in his home this morning. This is the statement that we just got from Byrd's office, that he has been admitted to the hospital, expected to remain there for a few days.
He was taken to the hospital this morning as a precautionary measure, following a fall at his home, which was likely caused by standing up a little too quickly, while having no broken bones or bruises, upon examination, doctors found an elevated white blood cell count, which can be an early sign of an infection.
Therefore, his doctors have determined that Byrd should remain in the hospital for antibiotic treatment and observation. Senator Byrd is in good spirits, they say, has expressed his disappointment that he was unable to join all his Senate colleagues this afternoon for the Senate photo.
That's so typical -- 91 years old, Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia. Here he takes a fall, and is he's bummed out because he can't attend the photo shoot for the Senate photo. We will follow up on his condition.
All right. Jose Manuel Zelaya has returned to Honduras. The former president is now holed up in the Brazilian Embassy, his presence even sparking scenes like this on the street. That story is straight ahead.
And he kidnapped and held Jaycee Dugard captive for almost two decades. He also says that a device, this little black box, allowed him to communicate with people without speaking. What's going on? The latest odd twist in the Phillip Garrido case.
And a source close to the investigation around the terrorist raids in New York and Denver tells CNN authorities are warning of possible attacks against so-called soft targets. CNN law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks is here with me. He's going to take us through that threat. That's coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Now a developing story with new details being developed this hour by CNN, potential terrorists being sought today on U.S. soil, a dozen or more, and signs of a possible bomb plot.
The search is connected to the arrest of this man, an Afghan native, now a U.S. citizen, being held in Colorado for lying to the feds about suspected bomb-making parts. The man's father is also being held, as is this man, a Muslim cleric. He is in New York, but like the others, he hails from Afghanistan. Now, I want to read you something that just came across. A source familiar with the investigation says that the top priority for investigators has been and is to locate material that could be used to make explosives. He says the search is intensive and it's continuing.
The source says that the fact that several Afghan men attempted to rent a 25-foot truck from a U-Haul facility in the Queens area of New York is of extreme concern -- repeat, extreme concern.
Joining me now, CNN law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks. He spent several years with the joint terrorism task force in Washington.
You and I started talking about this as soon as the story broke, and you along with a number of other people said this could have reached a pretty big level, a 9/11-type level, even being compared to possibly the Madrid train bombing. We thought it was kind of dying down, but now...
MIKE BROOKS, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: No.
PHILLIPS: OK.
BROOKS: We heard additional resources going in New York, and we hear just last week, we were talking about the bulletin that went out on -- it's titled "Ongoing Terrorist Interest in Homemade Explosives."
Now, there's a couple more bulletins out on dealing with potential threats to popular sports and entertainment venues, another out on international terrorists remain focused on targeting luxury hotels. There is another one out on storage facilities.
Now, put it all together, and what do you have? A lot of elements that we're talking about in this particular case. Now, there's no particular threat that they're talking about, you know, dealing with sports venues.
But keep in mind, what do we have going on right now? Baseball playoffs coming up, college football, capacity crowds, NFL season under way. I call these vigilance alerts. Now, on the storage facilities, that goes right hand-in-hand, Kyra, with talking about homemade explosive devices. And then you add them wanting to rent -- these people wanting to rent a U-Haul truck, because one of the things they talk about in these bulletins, in all of them, are the soft targets on improvised explosive devices and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.
And are these people, these three they have arrested right now for lying to federal agents, are they involved in these kinds of things? That's what they're trying to find out. They're trying to put the puzzle together. There's all these different pieces out there in FBI field divisions all over the country, and they're trying to put all the pieces together.
Especially, you know, right now we have got the G-20 coming up in Pittsburgh. You've got the U.N. General Assembly going on right now. So, things have been ratcheted up a notch -- a number of notch -- notches.
PHILLIPS: When you say ratcheted up a notch, you mean other agencies getting involved, taking this more seriously, thinking it's more widespread than originally thought?
BROOKS: Yes. Well, you know, when these go out, these go out to federal, state, local law enforcement, first-responders, the EMS and fire department, because, you know, they go on calls, go into apartments all of the time, and also the private sector, because law enforcement can't do it themselves.
And our viewers out there, with -- if you're at a football game, if you're at a concert, and you see something that's out of place, let somebody know about it. I call these things vigilance alerts, because, you know, look, a lot of times, while a case is going on like this, people think, oh, no, it's not going to happen here.
You know, look at -- look at Oklahoma City. They never thought anything like that would ever happen there. You know, and when they talk about these things, Kyra, you know, talk about -- they say, international, domestic and lone wolf terrorists have considered stadiums and arenas as targets.
Then they go on to talk about al Qaeda training manuals, specifically lists blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality and sin. So, that's how they look at sporting venues, concerts, those kind of things, as immorality and sin. And those are -- you know, they consider also them soft targets.
So, if you go to a game, college game or a professional game, this weekend, and you get a little bit of extra scrutiny, just kind of go with the flow. It's for your own good.
PHILLIPS: All right. So...
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: I know, it's hard to put -- you put your arms around all these different things.
PHILLIPS: Exactly, because I think that the -- people don't want to see something happen, and then, OK, what should we have done, and yet people don't want to live in fear worried about...
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: Right. And you shouldn't.
PHILLIPS: So, how do you put this all into perspective? I guess, since 9/11, there have been a lot of changes in communication, a lot of changes in the way we are. We work more in a preventative mode, right?
BROOKS: Right. Right.
PHILLIPS: OK. So, should we have more confidence now in the fact that something big could be prevented, or...
BROOKS: Everything we do since 9/11 has changed, everything you and I do, from going to a concert, going to a ball game...
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: Getting on an airplane.
BROOKS: Getting on an airplane. And people have kind of taken this in stride.
Before it was, oh, I have got to take off my shoes and this. But now everybody just does it. And I think what they're trying to do, as law enforcement investigates this, and puts the pieces together to make a good case and to see whether or not there is any more people, more than 12 -- and there possibly could be -- involved in this case, and how far do the tentacles reach, over to Afghanistan, possibly?
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: We need to be just cognizant of our surroundings. I call it situational awareness. When you go out somewhere, and you see something that is outside of place, don't just go, oh, know, I'm not going to do anything about that. Let something know about it.
If your gut tells you, that doesn't look right, let somebody know about it.
PHILLIPS: But is it a good thing they came across this alleged plot, or is it a bad thing?
BROOKS: Oh, no.
PHILLIPS: Does it mean that systems are down and these cells are growing, or is it a good thing that we have more eyes, I guess, on the threat?
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: It's a good thing. I think we're better off since 9/11 on the intelligence wise, agencies, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement all working together, because we used to talk about that wall.
We had an intelligence case. But unless there was criminality involved, the criminal side didn't even hear about it. The JTTFs that I was on, we didn't even hear about it. So, they're working better. The whole system is working better now.
And for us to hear about this, I look at this as a possible preventive measure, as a preventive case, because if it happened, everybody was going, well, why didn't the FBI let somebody know about it?
You know, you walk a fine line in law enforcement. You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. They went ahead and pulled the trigger. Some people say, oh, it might have been too early. But if they felt that there was any lives that were imminently in danger...
PHILLIPS: They had to do something.
BROOKS: They had to do something. And this one person, this one target they were looking at that they thought was in New York and may have gotten spooked and went back to Denver, they had to go ahead and pull the trigger and do that now. And -- but, you know, there's a lot of things they don't tell us.
PHILLIPS: Right.
BROOKS: There's a lot of things they don't tell us and we shouldn't know about.
But as they work the case, people need to be aware of their situation, of their surroundings. Do go around like don't go around like Chicken Little, the sky is falling. I don't want people to do that. I just want them to be aware of their surroundings. And one person sees something and lets somebody know about it that could save a life, then we have done our here by letting the people know about that.
PHILLIPS: Got it. Mike Brooks, thanks.
BROOKS: Thank you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right.
Well, what do you do if you go outside and see someone being attacked or eaten by a bear? I will tell you what these folks. That's ahead.
And we told you how Phillip Garrido kidnapped and held captive Jaycee Dugard for nearly 20 years. But what does a little black box have to do with this case? I'm going to tell you next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: All right, now, in California, investigators are again digging in Phillip Garrido's property. They're looking for any evidence that might link Garrido and his wife to other kidnappings.
The pair are charged with the 1991 kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard and holding her captive nearly two decades. But there is a different angle to this story I want you to see. It involves a mysterious black box.
Here's what it looks like. The convicted rapist says that the box allows him to communicate with people without speaking. He apparently believed it so much that he wanted to have the thing patented and even sought help from a private investigator.
So, what's really going on here? Is Garrido trying to set the groundwork for an insanity plea? Is this another case of voices made me do it? And are authorities taking any of this seriously?
Listen to this report from CNN's Dan Simon.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When the call came from out of the blue early last year, the man on the line identified himself as Phil Garrido. He was calling this man, a private investigator.
(on camera): What was he like in that time you spent with him?
RALPH HERNANDEZ, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: Well, way much more different than what you're seeing on the latest news broadcasts. He was like you and I are right here. We're speaking normal, dressed normally, acting normally.
SIMON: Of course, we now know that when Garrido placed that phone call, 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard had been missing for 17 years. She was now 28, and Garrido had fathered two daughters with her, and they were living in secret behind his house.
So, why would Garrido be calling a P. I. ? He needed help, he said, convincing people that he had an extraordinary invention.
HERNANDEZ: He had developed some or invented some device that would allow a person to speak without physically speaking and be heard by the listener.
(voice-over): People who know him say in recent years, Garrido had been talking more and more about God and the apocalypse. He demonstrated the device, a black box with headphones, to Tim Allen, a local businessman.
(on camera): He told you he was starting a new religion and had some revelation from God?
TIM ALLEN, GARRIDO ASSOCIATE: Yes. And then he also had a box. And when he first brought it in, he said this box, you can hear voices from the other side. You can hear people telling you how -- what's going to happen and what's going to -- what the future says.
SIMON (voice-over): This is it. Garrido's black box. Until now, only a handful of people have seen it. He became obsessed with his so-called invention.
(on camera): Basically just a black case with a handle. A couple of jacks. Very light.
(voice-over): It turns out just a few days before Garrido was arrested for his alleged crimes against Jaycee Dugard, he asked a friend to keep the box for him. His friend wants to remain anonymous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He plugged into it. He would give you a set of headphones, and he would have a set of headphones. And he would manipulate his hand basically over the top of the box, and it would have sound coming out of it, emitting sound like distortion noises like whales and all sorts of little interference noises. While he would move his lips and not speak but yet move his lips, and you would be able to hear his voice through the headphones.
SIMON (on camera): Did he ever do it on you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the time.
SIMON: And what happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Notice we're smiling at one another.
SIMON: Yes.
(voice-over): Among those he asked to try his invention, we couldn't find one who took it seriously.
ALLEN: I didn't want to tell him, you're a kook, and you don't know what you're talking about. I just didn't want to say that to him.
SIMON: But Phil Garrido believed he was on a special mission from God. In this press release, he declared, "A Bay Area man has made a major discovery." In fact, he was talking about religion more and more obsessively. At this point, it was about two years before he would be arrested.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I had any idea that this was the type of a madman that we now know he is, he would never been anywhere in my inner circle.
SIMON: They all think of Garrido as a madman now -- his twisted double life, his black box, his voices and his growing fixation with religion. All of it would soon lead to a confrontation with the police in Berkeley and then an arrest. His biggest secret finally exposed -- the hidden compound and Jaycee Dugard found after 18 long years.
Dan Simon, CNN, Contra Costa County, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: So, what do you think of Garrido's block box? You can send your opinions to Rick's blog at CNN.com/ricksanchez.
Well, the immigration debate in the United States has one face, but coming up, I will tell you about this scene that represents part of the same debate across the Atlantic.
And what do you do when you walk outside and see a bear attacking someone? Do you run? Maybe you shouldn't. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: A man is mauled by a bear while several people look on in horror. Of course we have the video. It's shaky, so you have to watch it closely. Go ahead and roll it.
This is actually a bus stop in a mountain tourist spot in northern Japan. That animal is an Asian black bear. Witnesses say it came out of nowhere, and jumped on that man, and attacked other people. It hurt nine men and women in all. And can you believe this?
It then ran inside a souvenir shop. Nobody died, but I have to tell you, this story does not end well for the bear. Stay right there -- another look at the bear attack, and we're going to talk about, well, what do you do with a -- if this happens to you? We're going to actually talk with a bona fide bear expert. That's right after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: All right, brace yourself. I'm about to show you a wild animal that basically went crazy on several people, all while a tourist's video camera rolled on the entire thing.
Let's go ahead and show it. We can't see it real clearly, but this is an Asian black bear savagely mauling a Japanese man at a bus stop in the mountains of Japan. Take a look at those people standing nearby. They had no idea what they should have done.
Well, what would you do if it happened to you? They say that the bear jumped on to that crowd of people waiting for a tour bus, and many people were injured trying to beat the animal with sticks and chase it away. They couldn't do it, though. Nobody died, but nine people were hurt before some guys with guns showed up and killed the bear. And look at that. An Asian black bear, just four feet long, hurt all those people and did all that damage.
Now, that was over the weekend in Japan. But right here in the U.S., yesterday, in Altamonte Springs, Florida, a bear wandered on to a school campus. Everybody freaked out and stayed inside until it ran away.
There must be a good reason though that we're talking about bears today, and there's nobody better to talk about bears that Ron Magill. He actually runs the Miami Metro Zoo.
And Ron, I don't know if you were able to actually see that video, but we brought up a number of questions. Let's go ahead and take a look at it now.
I guess let's start with the fact that it's a small bear; OK? Does it matter whether the bear is big or small? No matter what, it's just one of those animals that will be able to overpower a human being?
RON MAGILL, CURATOR, MIAMI METRO ZOO: Especially -- you know, my suspicion was -- I hadn't heard whether it's a male or female, but my suspicion is it's a young male, probably, and the breeding season for these bears is between May and December. This bear could just be pact with testosterone. Testosterone makes animals crazy. It makes them a little stupid, actually, and makes them very competitive. So that's when they're the most dangerous.
This bear was probably chased out of its normal territory. It may have been a bear that was getting food in one way or another at this -- I understand this was kind of a tourist location, a bus stop. You know, you always hear, never feed the animals. This bear may have become accustomed to getting fed there one way or another.
There are so many different reasons. But the bottom line is, once a bear gets into that mode, whether it's four feet or eight feet long, it's going to overpower pretty much any human.
PHILLIPS: OK. So, really, is there nothing you can do?
MAGILL: You know, people are told when you see bears in the wild, if you're walking in the wild, see a bear in the wild, the best thing to do is make as much noise as you can, make yourself as large as possible, stand up, yell, "Hey bear! Hey bear!" That usually will frighten a bear away. But in a bear in this situation, that's being testosterone-driven, maybe defending its territory, maybe looking for a mate, it's such a dangerous animal.
You know, it's hard to say there's anything they could have done other than what they did, all the people at once trying to get on that bear as quickly as possible. That's basically all you can really suggest and hope for the best. In a sense, maybe all those people coming in stopped the bear from killing the one person.
PHILLIPS: Well, that's what I was wondering. We saw there on the video, all the people not quite sure what to do. Some started hitting it with sticks, and you can see in some of their faces, they're trying to figure out what to do.
Can they help in any way? Is that smart, to jump in and try to start doing something?
MAGILL: You know, it's hard to say whether it's smart or not, but I think it's the human thing to do. There is certainly a chance of fighting off a bear.
We've heard of that in instances here in the United States. Ironically, the black bear in the United States is very similar to that bear in Asia. And we've heard of parents fighting bears off their kids.
The bottom line, you see somebody is in danger, you do what you can. And I think in most instances, if you have several people with an average black bear, if you go in there hard enough with sticks screaming, you'll be able to get that bear off. People are going to get hurt, they're going to get scratched, they may get bitten, but hopefully nobody will get killed.
PHILLIPS: In this type of situation, because you know there's a lot of animal rights activists out there, but when a bear like that attacks, and obviously could have killed any one of these individuals, is your only option to shoot it and to kill it?
MAGILL: You know, unfortunately, generally speaking, yes, it is. You know, people say, oh, you could have darted it, darted it with a dart gun. These darts take a long time for these drugs to take effect, especially with a bear that has got the adrenaline rushing through it. It's like looking at somebody on drugs. When you hit them with a stun gun, it doesn't work.
And during the time for the drug to take effect, that bear can hurt or kill somebody else. Unfortunately, you get to the point where the bear is already in with people, it's already attacking people, lethal stoppage is the only option you have.
PHILLIPS: Ron Magill, sure appreciate your time today.
MAGILL: My pleasure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They tell us, you know, the biggest guy, the guy who has the most people afraid of him, the guy with the biggest gun, this is what a man is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, like many contentious issues, the gun control debate takes on different characteristics, depending on the setting. In cities, it normally centers around crime and keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them, but if you go out into the rural areas, it's a very different story. The difference and why it matters is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Gun control means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some, it means taking guns out of the hands of criminals. For others, it means the government trying to take guns out of the hands of hunters and sportsmen.
Our Carol Costello shoots for some insight in this report for her "Mad as Hell" series.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, advocates who believe all kinds of guns, even AK-47s, ought to be legal are still fighting mad, even though President Obama hasn't made any significant move to ban guns of any kind. And gun control advocates are losing ground because of it.
So, is there any middle grounds? I talked to both sides.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO (voice-over): Dante Barksdale runs on faith.
DANTE BARKSDALE, SAFE STREETS BALTIMORE: I'm going to just take a little walk. You want to walk with me? COSTELLO: An ex-con, he's fighting to end gun violence. It's not easy.
Last week, six people were gunned down in Baltimore. There have been more than 300 shootings in the city this year.
COSTELLO (on camera): We like our guns in America. We love our guns in America, don't we?
BARKSDALE: In the urban parts of, you know, the city, you know, they tell us, you know, the biggest guy, the guy who has the most people afraid of him, the guy with the biggest gun, this is what a man is.
Safe Streets -- we're all we got.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Barksdale works with Safe Streets, which is aimed at reducing gun violence among 15-to-24-year-olds in Baltimore.
Guns are a part of life in rural America, too, but the aim here -- to keep them and use them. They put food on the table and make many feel safe.
(on camera): There are some people who say that owning a gun is a God-given right. Do you consider it to be that?
IRWIN POLANSKY, PENNSYLVANIA GUN OWNER: Yes.
COSTELLO: Why?
POLANSKY: Because I need to protect myself.
COSTELLO: From?
POLANSKY: From the bad guys, or whoever, or an animal.
BARKSDALE: What we deal with in the urban part of the communities is that people use guns to resolve their problems, and that this is not normal.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Two very different viewpoints reflecting a debate in America that seems to have become polarized.
TOM GLASS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: People that might otherwise have been in the middle about gun control, gun liberties, have been pushed to polar extremes.
COSTELLO: And in dollar terms, the debate over guns appears, well, uneven. According to the most recent available tax return, the National Rifle Association took in more than $332 million in revenue in 2007. The Brady Center/Brady Campaign, the largest gun control lobbying groups, pulled in just over $6 million in 2008.
It all depends on where you're coming from.
(on camera): Do you think that you'd feel differently about guns if you lived in a high crime area?
POLANSKY: No.
COSTELLO: Really?
POLANSKY: I wouldn't feel any different.
COSTELLO: You really wouldn't?
POLANSKY: I might even buy more guns, or I might buy an AK-47 just to -- so I'm not outgunned. But no, I wouldn't feel any different.
BARKSDALE: There are people who use guns, you know what I'm saying, to hunt, to do whatever they do. But in my neighborhood, guns are used to resolve conflict.
There ain't going to be no killings in east Baltimore.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: That's not to say everyone in rural America thinks anybody should be able to buy weapons like AK-47s or that urban America wants to ban hunting rifles. It largely does not. But the more moderate voices on this issue have been largely silenced by the fear that government will take all gun rights away -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Carol Costello, thanks so much.
Well, chaos erupts outside the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras. That's our "Conexion" segment for today.
Police fired tear gas at supporters of ousted president Manuel Zelaya. He was removed from power in June. He has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy after sneaking back into the country yesterday. This is new video we just got, shot by cameras inside the embassy compound.
Now, Zelaya isn't revealing how he made it back in, only that he did it with the help of Hondurans. So, why choose now to make his surprise return? Well, consider this -- the United Nations General Assembly going on in New York, many world leaders have condemned the coup that removed Zelaya and are demanding that he be returned to power. But the interim government isn't biting.
They're demanding Brazil hand over Zelaya so they can arrest him on charges of violating Honduras' constitution. There are also some reports the Honduran government has actually positioned sharp shooters near the Brazilian Embassy. The government has extended a curfew and closed down the local airport. The United States has also closed its embassy there and is urging parties on all sides to remain calm.
Up next, a drug raid and bowling. It's all caught on hidden camera, and you don't want to miss it.
That's next in "Las Fotos." (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Immigration is a big issue in the United States. From news coverage, you could be forgiven if you thought it was a uniquely American issue, and that's where we start "Fotos."
All right. Well, let me set the scene. Northern France, essentially a tent city that people refer to as the "jungle" is home to hundreds of immigrants, most from Afghanistan. And this morning, French police raided it, removed the occupants, and bulldozed it. This is what it looked like.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mohammed, why are they treating you like this?
MOHAMMED: I have no idea. I just match...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: One official state that a State of law must be restored in that area, but several residents held a make shift sign that said, "This is our home, please don't destroy it. If you do, where else can we go?" Drug raids are intense -- Police don't always know what they might encounter on the other side of the door. But that doesn't appear to be the case in Florida.
Officers stormed the house of a drug suspect, and within about 20 minutes, they began to play the suspect's Nintendo Wii Game System. The game of choice: Wii bowling. Folks, you just can't make this up.
(VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS : And speaking of things you just can't make up, Tom Delay on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." That's the former big dog politician, folks. And I think that's the cha-cha. Well, that wasn't. It was just before that. Delay won all 11 of his election Bids to the House of Representatives, by the way. But if he scores from his first night on the dance floor, or any indication, he probably not walking away a winner this time.
Twenty inches of rain in three days. That's pretty incredible. And it's led to scenes like this all over Georgia. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: That was actually one of our junior producers who shot this video just trying to get home from CNN, and this is nothing.
Enormous swaths of the Atlanta area are still underwater today -- and not just a little bit. We're talking about major flooding. Bridges are overrun. Entire neighborhoods cut off and it's more than just Inconvenient. At least seven people are dead blamed on the flash floods. Watch this report that we just got from CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Record shattering amounts of rain over the past few days have led to scenes like this. This community inundated with water. There's a small creek that winds around the back side of this subdivision and it quickly grew into a massive torrent of water and inundated this subdivision, 30 to 40 homes, not just flooding the basements but flooding the entire first floor and some cases going up to the top floor. As you can imagine a number of personal and in some cases harrowing stories to tell.
BETINA REED, VICTIM OF FLOOD: We started thinking about what we could recover to take to the top steps but before we could think about that, the bottom level was flooded. So we got up there and, I mean, we watched this guy with the car. I'm not sure if you can see the shot. He was driving on the street and I couldn't understand where he was going and his car cut off and he watched his car get completely submerged. Then the water pretty much to the got top level, my neighbor had a boat and started rescuing people and we were thankful for that.
MARCIANO: That's the car she was talking about. The gentleman lives right up there, he had his two kids in the car and they splashed right into a pond they didn't expect to see on their street on their way to school. The woman lives right there that was in that little piece with her garage door open still from letting that water in. She didn't know what was coming either and then later had to be rescued by boat. The waters here are receding somewhat. Certainly lower than they were a day ago, but there is still a slight chance of seeing some rain today, tomorrow, and the rest of the week, but certainly nothing like what these folks saw yesterday. Rob Marciano, CNN, Austelle, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CATO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No chases, no chases means no Chases.
SALLIE PEAKE, MAYOR SOUTH CAROLINA: Thank God, are you so sweet. You got your story, on a woman in Wellford, Hallelujah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: She's the small-town mayor that a reporter asked to defend a new "No Chase Policy". Viewers responded in massive numbers to this story. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Wolf Blitzer, long time no see, my friend.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Kyra, how are you doing?
PHILLIPS: I missed tossing to you know coming up in the 4:00 o'clock hour.
BLITZER: We used to do it all the time.
PHILLIPS: Remember all the love notes, the camaraderie, the back and Forth, that was riveting television.
BLITZER: You never call. You never write, but let me -- let me get you and all of our viewers excited. We have an excellent "SITUATION ROOM" today. Everyone get this, from Craig Ferguson, the host of "The Late Late show" to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. They are both going to be here, not together, but they're going to be in "THE SITUATION ROOM." We've got a lot to talk about with both of them so that's pretty good, isn't it?
PHILLIPS: That's not bad, but is that it?
BLITZER: We've got all the day's news, all the important stuff is coming up as well. We never neglect the news. The news comes first.
PHILLIPS: Stand by for hard news.
BLITZER: That's right.
PHILLIPS: Stand by for Wolf Blitzer.
BLITZER: Kyra, thank you.
PHILLIPS: Great to see you. Rick showed you this story yesterday. Don't you love Wolf? He's just got that dry, witty sense of humor. Alright back to the story. Yesterday, and quite frankly the response was pretty huge to this. More than, Rick's producers are a little lazy when he's not around, don't tell him I said that though but we're actually going to show it to you again. It has to be up there with some of the most bizarre reaction from elected officials that we've ever seen. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CATO: No chases, no chases, means no Chases.
PEAKE: Thank God are you so sweet. You got your story on a woman in Wellford. Hallelujah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Bizarre, yes, but the topic is actually quite serious, folks. Here's what we're talking about. High-speed police chases, countless Americans killed in them each year and thousands of dollars spent on repairs, damages, hospital bills and funerals; and yet, with all this there's still no nationwide standard policy of when to chase or not.
Some places like Oklahoma City hold officers and their supervisors more accountable for dangerous pursuits and their officers have to complete their danger driving training programs every two years. Others say police should simply stop chases if other officers or the public are in danger. It's a tricky and dangerous judgment call for the officers on the roads, and then there's this: It's called a pit maneuver where a police car hits the back end of the fleeing vehicle and spins It, which brings us back to Wellford, South Carolina, and the mayor there who says she's has had enough with chases already.
She wants no chases, period. But some including a TV reporter are saying, wait a minute. Do you really mean no chases of any kind? Now listen. Here's more of their heated exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CATO: As of this date, there are to be no more chases.
PEAKE: Quit chasin' that's what I said. That's what I meant and -- I said what I said and I meant what I said. Costing us more money on Insurance than most citizens here to see their wealth -
CATO: Are you telling your officers that if they witness a crime, they witness Someone commit a crime on Someone else and they are ten yards away that they cannot go stop that person?
PEAKE: Is that in there?
CATO: It says no chases whatsoever.
PEAKE: Well, that's what I said, no chases, and I said -- if you see A crime -
CATO: Well, that's what a chase is.
PEAKE: Well, I told them no chase on foot, and this guy knows exactly what I mean so you're trying to twist what I'm saying.
CATO: No, I'm not.
PEAKE: Yes, are you.
CATO: No chases means no chases.
PEAKE: You got your story. Thank God. You got your story on a woman in Wellford. Hallelujah. I am so proud of you, Mr. Cato.
CATO: I'm just trying to decide what you're telling your officers. I don't think it's out of the question for me to ask you about it. I don't feel like this is possibly putting your citizens At further risk.
PEAKE: It's helping my citizens.
CATO: How so if someone escapes from the police and they go hurt someone else.
PEAKE: May God bless you.
CATO: Let's be reasonable. PEAKE: May God bless you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: All right. So what do you think? You can send your responses to Rick's blog at cnn.com/ricksanchez. Already we got something on Myspace, this one from Vincent. I love that mayor! She's right, they got a story. Hallelujah!
All right. So coming up on the closing bell, right, Susan Lisovich?
SUSAN LISOVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You were talking to Wolf about how you never did, you know, were able to tease his show and you and I never do the closing bell anymore either.
PHILLIPS: I know, this is sort of like the happy family reunion. I get to talk to Wolf again, I get to talk to you, and it's bringing back all these great memories.
LISOVICH: And I have good news for you. We have a nice rally going on here; the three major averages are up about half a percent. Kind of a quiet day. It is U.N. Week as you were talking about; you and wolf were talking about.
Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state rang the opening bell yesterday, and ringing the closing bell is the prime Minister of Hungary, and please Don't ask me to pronounce his name because it's even harder than my own, Kyra Phillips. Probably the only other headline today is that the Federal Reserve begins its two-day meeting on interest rates. We should have a decision during your show per usual. Tomorrow, we're expecting the Federal Reserve to hold pat, and there's the closing bell, a nice rally. Dow is less than 200 points from 10,000 again.
PHILLIPS: All right, Susan. Great to see you.
LISOVICH: Likewise.
PHILLIPS: And it was great filling in for Rick. Had a good time -- even got a nice, a couple of nice twits from folks here. Rick, I don't want to you know, threaten the seat here, hurry back. Hope you are feeling better. Meanwhile Wolf Blitzer is in New York, and He's going to start "THE SITUTATION ROOM" right now.
BLITZER: Kyra thank you. Happening now, President Obama dives into one of the toughest diplomatic challenges in the world. Can he bring the Israelis and Palestinians together for more than a handshake and brief talks? I'll speak about that with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He'll be joining us live here in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Plus, Bill Clinton unplugged. He's all over the interview circuit right now on the diplomatic scene. This hour questions about whether he's actually upstaging his wife or the president.
And the Atlanta area is awash in water and misery. The death toll is rising from historic flooding, and more rain Is on the way. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM
Here in New York right now: President Obama is in the midst of a world diplomacy as world leaders gather at the United Nations but as talks today with Israeli and Palestinian leaders has the highest stakes. Mr. Obama involvement yet in the Middle East conflict. And so many American presidents have tried and failed to solve.
