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The Inner Workings of a Drug Gang; Mexico's Cocaine Highway; Dallas Woman's Case Puts Spotlight on Police; DigiJeff Jumps Out of Place for Beat Cancer; Puerto Rico Fire Threatens Public Health; Church Janitor Charged in Brutal Killing; 115 High School Girls Pregnant This Year in One School Alone; Taking Down "La Familia"
Aired October 24, 2009 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, the president declares a state of emergency for a people living near a towering inferno. A petroleum plant explodes and thousands tonight are struggling to catch their breath. We are live there.
An in depth war inside the war on drugs. The U.N. says it is in desperate need of an overhaul, and the Taliban now needs to be targeted.
115 high school girls pregnant this year in one school. What is going on?
And who is she? An 18-year-old girl found wandering the streets of Manhattan. She didn't even know her name or where she's from, but thanks to a CNN viewer, she's about to be reunited with her family.
Good evening, everyone. I'm Don Lemon, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
It is already a disaster and has all the makings of an even bigger one. Chemicals are fueling the flame started by massive explosions at a fuel storage complex near San Juan, Puerto Rico, tonight. The initial explosion, just after midnight, Friday, shook the ground with the force of a 2.8 magnitude earthquake. The smoke and flames from a series of blasts were so massive, they were picked up by satellite images from space, and it is making life incredibly difficult for those lings near and even miles away from the plant.
As iReporter Ramiro Delgado Ruiz said, it looks like a volcano. Puerto Ricans are worried about their health tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It was horrible. We live nearby. It has affected us really bad. It's very hard for us to get from one place to another.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I don't live nearby, but it's definitely affecting traffic. It's something very weird. But I see that the authorities are taking measures in helping with traffic flow. So I have hope everything will go back to normal soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: On the ground tonight for us from San Juan in Puerto Rico is CNN's Rafael Romo.
Rafael, you could see much of it from the air tonight when you flew in?
RAFAEL ROMO, SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR (via telephone): Don, we just landed here in Puerto Rico's San Juan International Airport. And as we were landing, you could see the flames from the air. It didn't look too big from the air, but you have to remember that we were about 10,000 feet when -- when we flew right by it. You could definitely see the haze and the smoke throughout San Juan, and it's definitely still very much a problem for the people here in Puerto Rico.
We just learned that President Barack Obama declared an emergency for the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. And that means that money is going to be released, and homeland security and FEMA are going to coordinate all of the essential relief efforts.
Federal aid is going to come in the form of supplement, supplementing local efforts, and also 75 percent of all the money that is being spent here is going to come from the federal government. The ATF and the FBI are already investigating. No word yet on the cause of the fire, but the investigation is proceeding already.
The coast guard is also helping in the effort to monitor the environmental effects to this area in Puerto Rico. The plant itself is not too far from the San Juan Bay, and the main fear right now is that the water is going to get contaminated. At the same time, they are using ocean water to bring it into a facility and try to contain the fire.
At this point, Don, I can tell you that tanks are still burning and the latest count that we have about the fire, the latest that we learned is that five tanks are still burning, 12 already burnt out, and there are many others that are in danger of catching fire, and that's the main focus right now in the investigation.
One of the last -- the latest things that I learned once I arrived here in Puerto Rico is that an effort was being made also to rescue pets in the area that were abandoned by people who were evacuated. And the latest I heard is that 22 dogs and cats and 32 birds were rescued.
LEMON: OK. Rafael Romo --
ROMO: And right now --
LEMON: Rafael, reporting from Puerto Rico tonight, from San Juan.
And, Rafael, we hear it's already caused $6.4 million so far. No doubt the cost of this disaster is going to go up for the people of San Juan.
Rafael, thank you very much for that. Meantime, we have some other news to report to you tonight. This is a bizarre story. A teenage girl with no apparent memory of who she is will soon be reunited with her family. New York City police say the 18-year-old was identified by a person in Maryland who saw her on CNN. She has not been publicly identified, but her story captivated the country after she showed up outside a youth shelter in Manhattan two weeks ago.
Authorities began calling her Jane Doe when she was unable to provide them with a name or any details about herself. And police say her family is from Washington State and on their way to New York to get her.
We will update you on this story as we get more information.
We have some dramatic new developments to tell you about tonight in the grisly murder of a New Jersey Catholic priest. The Morris County prosecutor has announced an arrest in the death of the Reverend Ed Heinz, whose body was found Friday in the church rectory in the town of Chatham. Charged is this man -- a long-time employee at the church who authorities say got into an argument with Heinz Thursday evening.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT BIANCHI, MORRIS COUNTY, N.J. PROSECUTOR: The individual who was just recently arrested as a result of this is Jose Feliciano. He is 64 years of age. I have a photographer here of Mr. Feliciano. Mr. Feliciano is a janitor at that church. He has been employed there for approximately 17 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, police say the priest was stabbed 32 times with a kitchen knife. His body was discovered after he failed to show up for Friday morning mass.
One of the pilots of that Northwest Airlines plane that overshot its intended airport by 150 miles is speaking out tonight. Now, as you have no doubt heard, Flight 188 was en route Wednesday from San Diego to Minneapolis. Air traffic controllers could not make contact with the plane for over an hour. One of the pilots is denying popular speculation about what was going on in the cockpit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD COLE, FIRST OFFICER, NORTHWEST FLIGHT 188: Nobody was asleep in the cockpit. And no arguments took place. But other than that, I cannot tell you anything that went on because we're having hearings this weekend, we're having hearings on Tuesday. All that information will come out then.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No arguments took place? I mean, that's the statement that's out there all over the place.
COLE: There was no arguments at all in the cockpit. That was -- that wasn't even an issue, absolutely not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: The passengers on the plane say they had no idea what was going on, and at least one of them is glad of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNE KROSHUS, NORTHWEST FLIGHT 188 PASSENGER: If any of us had known that was going on, I'm sure the entire flight would have been in a complete state of panic. But I think it's better that we didn't know. But I'm glad that they were at least trying to look out for us, because I don't think the pilots were.
We were just, you know, completely under the impression that it was just air traffic and that Minneapolis airport was not giving us clearance to land, and that basically we were just going to fly around until they allowed us to do so. And that's -- that's what we all believed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: We've also learned tonight that senior White House officials were aware of the plane was off-course and out of touch. National Guard jets were alerted as well, but none of the military planes ever took off.
President Barack Obama has declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency. A White House aide calls the move proactive and not a response to any new development. More than 1,000 Americans have died from the swine flu, including a first grader at this school in California. Classes there were canceled yesterday and every room at the school is getting disinfected. The nation's top infectious disease specialists tell CNN that elementary schools will continue to be a source of concern.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: When you get young children, kids who are vulnerable to a virus they've never seen before, again congregating in schools, it is not at all surprising to us that we're seeing this blip. The concern is how high is it going to go and how widespread it can be? It looks like this virus is very, very good at spreading from person to person. It has no trouble doing that. So we expect that this will continue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Forty-six states are reporting widespread flu transmissions and at least 20,000 Americans have been hospitalized with swine flu. The director of the CDC says for the first time of the year this, number is, quote, "extremely unusual."
Births out of control. Pregnancy knocks on epidemic's door at one school. What is going on at one Chicago High School? Chicago teens, they didn't have enough to deal with already.
And "no habla ingles", pay up. There's one city where police officers are handing out tickets to drivers who do not speak English. We're going to talk about this.
Why don't you talk to us about all of these stories -- Twitter, Facebook or iReport.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right. Now it's time to talk "What Matters." Fear, violence and death, facts of life for too many students on Chicago's south side. And against that backdrop way too many kids disregarding another fact of life -- unprotected sex is a pretty good way to get pregnant.
Robeson High School just made local headlines with a principal sharing some incredible stats. Of the schools 800 girls, 115 are pregnant or already teen moms. Just imagine a class full of students row after row. Now imagine five classrooms full. That's how many girls we're talking about here.
OK. Say that's 14 percent of Robeson's female students. Nationally, the birth rate for that age group around 4 percent, and they have 14 percent. So how do you break this cycle of kids having kids?
Michele Ozumba is the president and CEO of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. About a decade ago, Georgia had the highest rate of teen pregnancies nationwide at just over 10 percent.
So, Michelle, how do you turn this around, the national -- national average 14 percent, right? And 4 percent, 14 there. It was 10 here, one of the highest rates.
So how do you stop this?
MICHELE OZUMBA, GEORGIA CAMPAIGN FOR ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY PREVENTION: Well, it's -- young people getting pregnant is not new. It's not likely to stop seriously, but in terms of the proportion of it, it is an issue that we all need to care about.
LEMON: What I mean by that is just not, you know, having protection, using condoms and those sorts of things, there's something you believe there's something in the high school, in the neighborhood that's going on other than kids having unprotected sex. Something about -- is it their upbringing, their raising, their home environment?
OZUMBA: Well, it's a combination. There's no single issue. Teen pregnancy is not a single issue. So in this same school, Paul Robeson High School, there's a 15 percent dropout rate. And we know that pregnancy is the number one reason girls drop out. So it is a contributing factor. It's sort of intertwined issue. School success, lack of school success and what we're seeing with young girls and these kinds of outcomes.
LEMON: Yes. And as we said, nationally four percent. But that is actually, it was going down.
OZUMBA: It was going down. And we had a 30 percent decline between'95 and 2005. In the last two years, nationally, we've seen a 5 percent rate, and Georgia, also in the last few years, we've had a 5 percent increase.
LEMON: How did you -- you said Atlanta, Georgia, was at -- was it Atlanta or Georgia that was at the highest.
OZUMBA: Georgia.
LEMON: Georgia. How did you help to bring those rates down? How did that happen? Bring the rates down.
OZUMBA: Well, I think it wasn't solely G-cap. I think our role as a station wide organization is to keep this issue alive and communities, keep communities mobilized. It's an important issue that we all need to care about. There was a combination of a lot of investment from the public sector in teen clinics in Georgia. There was also abstinence education happening in the school systems, and a lot of local organizations individually doing -- doing good work. And young people were using contraceptives more effectively and abstaining.
LEMON: Is this, you know, obviously, it's out of the ordinary to have 14 percent of the students, 115 girls in one school.
OZUMBA: That's right.
LEMON: That's way out of the ordinary.
LEMON: So, then, what is the concern here if you were in that school? What advice would you offer the school? Would you tell them to talk to the parents? Would you bring all the girls in and have a talk with them? I mean, what do you do?
OZUMBA: Well, I would certainly encourage parent involvement. I think the parents of these young people obviously are -- most of them we would assume are trying their best.
LEMON: Yes.
OZUMBA: I would say there are probably families that have a lot of fragility, probably single-parent household, high unemployment, themselves low achievement, and I think also not just the parents and the girls but the boys as well.
LEMON: Yes, absolutely.
OZUMBA: The boys are a critical factor, and I think our programming oftentimes leaves them out of the mix.
LEMON: And that's a good point, because you tend to think, you know, because the girls are the ones who get pregnant that the people -- the men who are fathering these children also have a responsibility in that. And not to mention you can get a deadly disease from having unprotected sex that we're not talking about now.
OZUMBA: That's right. That's right.
LEMON: Michele Ozumba, president and CEO of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent and Pregnancy Prevention.
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.
OZUMBA: Thank you, Don.
LEMON: Glad you came out on a Saturday night.
OZUMBA: Thank you.
LEMON: A big battle in the war against the Taliban in Pakistan. The military seizes a key village, but blood is shed on all sides in this eight-day battle.
Also a trail of blood released from the United States back to its source in Colombia. It's a story you have to see to believe.
And last week we told you how to beat cancer with a tweet. Now we know the total amount we raised. We're going to share it with you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: A crumbled pile of metal on Egyptian train tracks. At least 25 lives lost. This is a scene just outside Cairo, where a crowd is watching rescue workers survey the damage after two passenger trains collided today. Police officers say dozens were hurt, and the death toll is expected to rise. Egypt has a poor safety record on its railways, with several fatal crashes each year. Usually they're blamed on poorly maintained equipment.
Four United Nations inspectors arrived in Tehran today to examine Iran's newly disclosed nuclear facility. The International Atomic Energy Agency officials are to visit the facility on Sunday to determine if it is being used for peaceful purposes and not to make weapons. They will be in Iran for three days.
Targeting Taliban targets and then wham. Check out this cockpit video from the Pakistan Air Force as it bombards the enemy in South Waziristan along the Afghan border. The army reportedly has seized the Taliban stronghold of Kakai (ph), marking a symbolic and strategic win. But the rebels put up a tough fight. In eight days of battle in the region, sources say hostile fire brought down a Pakistani military chopper today, killing three people. U.S. drones are back up Pakistani soldiers. And a drone strike today is reportedly responsible for killing 14 people.
Afghanistan's runoff presidential campaign officially has started on an ominous note. The Taliban is calling for a boycott and threatening voters. Allegations of massive vote rigging during the first round led election inspectors to call for a do-over. The runoff between incumbent President Hamid Karzai and challenger Dr. Abdullah Abdullah is set for November 7th. Election officials say this time around they're keeping it simple with fewer polling places and a promise to pause voting if think suspect fraud at a particular location.
And you can hear more from the Afghan presidential candidates themselves, Sunday. It all starts at 9:00 a.m. Eastern when John King speaks with former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah on "STATE OF THE UNION."
Then at 1:00 p.m., Afghan President Hamid Karzai will join Fareed Zakaria. Hear what both have to say about the upcoming presidential runoff and whether it can be fair. Only on CNN. That's tomorrow morning.
Lucrative and deadly, the drug trade worldwide. Is in this country a cult drug ring. Little is known about them, but they have a very big presence. And CNN goes inside a major drug operation in South America. Watch as the cocaine gets cut and marijuana is rolled.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Despite decades of waging a global war on drugs, narcotics today are bigger business than ever. The U.S. government this week disclosed one of its biggest drug busts yet, targeting a little-known Mexican drug cartel known as La Familia. The group has been described as cult-like with operations in nearly every major city in the U.S.
Narcotics trafficking is also deadlier than ever. The city of Juarez, Mexico, has now logged more than 2,000 murders this year, making it the deadliest place in the world. The mayor of Juarez tells CNN rival drug cartels are battling for control of the city, which is a primary entry point into the United States. So we begin with Rafael Romo.
CNN's senior Latin American affairs editor and the taking down of la Familia.
Here's his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROMO (voice-over): Raids like this one in suburban Atlanta mirror what happened throughout the U.S. In a massive anti-drug operation, federal agents targeted a Mexican drug cartel known as La Familia.
ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEYGENERAL: This unprecedented, coordinated United States law enforcement action is the largest ever taken against a Mexican drug cartel.
ROMO: The attorney general says that as part of this 3 1/2-year-long operation against the Mexican drug cartel, federal agents arrested 1,200 suspects and confiscated 11.7 tons of narcotics, as well as almost $33 million.
HOLDER: While this cartel may operate from Mexico, the toxic reach of its operations extends to nearly state within our own country. ROMO: The news about the operation came one day after authorities in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez acknowledged the death toll there has reached 2,000. The city that borders El Paso, Texas, is considered one of the hot spots for Mexico's war against drugs in a contested territory for several drug cartels that rival La Familia in scope and power.
As the Mexican government tightens its grip on cartels, arresting their leaders and disrupting their operations, the criminal organizations have reacted by killing more police officers and soldiers than ever and increasing their level of violence and cruelty throughout Mexico.
(on camera): This summer, the La Familia drug cartel killed 12 federal police officers and attacked several police stations.
Dismantling the drug cartel has become a top priority of President Felipe Calderon's war on drugs that has killed 5,600 people this year alone.
Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Well, Sam Quinones has covered the Mexican drug war in depth for the "Los Angeles Times". Earlier tonight I spoke with him about why Juarez has become a kill zone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM QUINONES, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Juarez is the place where the cartels are fighting it out now. They are -- there's long-held animosity between the Juarez drug cartel, Vicente Carrillo, who's the brother of the guy who founded that cartel and is now dead, and the Sinaloa cartel, and then there's also the folks from the Gulf cartel playing their roles and so on.
This is simply the forum, the playground, in a sense -- the battlefield in which these guys are fighting out long-held animosities. There's this feeling once -- long ago, there used to be this idea that if you were a drug cartel, you would sell your -- the territory that you controlled to the others. The others could get their drugs through, they just have to pay a kind of a tax.
It seems to me now that that's actually what's over. That what they're trying to do is get complete control and bar entry into the United States to others. And therefore, the other -- the rivals cannot allow that, and everyone is kind of fighting to the death. And it's extremely violent.
At the same time, of course, you're faced with a lack of police -- local police presence in Mexico.
LEMON: Well, here's...
QUINONES: Police are very poorly trained and equipped and so on. And all that plays a role in this as well.
LEMON: So, Sam, we know what's going on and it's terrible. But the concern for people here in the U.S., if you have border towns exploding like this with this many murders, obviously it poses a problem to the U.S. cities here.
QUINONES: Yes, you know, exactly. But if you look at the statistics, it just hasn't happened. Look at El Paso, one of the safest places in America today is...
LEMON: Yes.
QUINONES: ...to be is El Paso, you know? Laredo, Texas, a few years ago -- Nuevo Laredo was kicking off with hundred of murders.
LEMON: What is that, policing? Why doesn't it -- why hasn't it spread? What is that, policing in those towns?
QUINONES: I believe, my personal feeling is that -- after covering this for a while, talking with police along the border -- is that there is, cartels respect a kind of a U.S. criminal justice system.
LEMON: Yes.
QUINONES: And by that I'm talking about police, prisons, parole, et cetera -- the court system and all.
LEMON: OK. OK, Sam...
QUINONES: And they understand that there's a price to pay for that in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Sam Quinones from the "Los Angeles Times."
A day inside a drug den. CNN gets exclusive access into a part of the world that few ever see. Watch as a cocaine gets cut and the marijuana cigarettes are rolled.
Plus, confessions of a mother, admitting she and her husband made up the whole balloon boy fiasco, even instructing little Falcon and his brothers to lie.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: The Mexican drug war begins far to the south in Colombia and other South American countries. That's where much of the cocaine comes from.
CNN's Karl Penhaul takes us to Medellin, and deep inside a drug gang as it goes about its daily business. This is an exclusive inside report you will only see on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A father shakes his fist at heaven and asks, why? That's his son in the coffin. Blown away by gang on the payroll of Colombian cocaine capos. Seventeen- year-old Juan Guillermo Lorde (ph) was at the school gate, a bullet in the head, another in the neck. His aunt says he wasn't part of any gang.
MARIA DEBORAH OSPINA, AUNT OF MURDER VICTIM (through translator): He wanted to be somebody in life and help his family progress. He wanted to study at university, become a great lawyer, and win justice.
PENHAUL: A couple of cops who escort us into this hillside slum tell a different tale. They say Lorde (ph) was from a bad family and his brother's doing a prison stretch for murder. Fallen gang fighter, or innocent victim? His aunt blames his murder on turf wars that are once again gripping Medellin.
OSPINA (through translator): I guess he was killed because of the gang wars. You cannot go into certain places and cannot cross certain lines. They hit you where it hurts the most. They kill your family.
PENHAUL: Many at the wake do appear to be gang members. Some are packing guns. Mourners hoist the casket. Then carry off their dead down narrow alleys.
I head out across Medellin to try and figure out why drug violence is spiraling. High up here in the northeastern commune, there's a statue of the Virgin Mary of Carmen. Catholics believe she protects souls in purgatory. Maybe they should have put up an effigy of Cerberus, the hound that guards the gates of hell.
Life here revolves around two things, guns and drugs.
"CHIEF" (through translator): Here it's the rules of the street. The rules don't change. They will always be the rules here, or anywhere else.
PENHAUL: He's the gang leader. They call him Chief. My sources say he's made so many enemies he can't step outside his patch.
"CHIEF" (through translator): We're all human, and we all get afraid. I'm afraid my life will end suddenly before I can do anything to get out of this war.
PENHAUL: Everything comes to an end, chirped the lyrics of a Salsa classic on the radio. But for now, there's work to be done. Gang members roll marijuana, or pose with their firepower. By nightfall they'll have 1,000 joints to deal on street corners they control.
Colombian authorities say drug peddling in Medellin is worth $6 million a month. Cartel capos believe that's worth fighting for. The day before we met, Chief buried one of his own.
"CHIEF" (through translator): I couldn't bear to look in the coffin. They killed him downtown. We don't know who did it, but a girlfriend of his took him down there. So the day they brought his body back up here, we killed that crack head bitch.
PENHAUL: That conversation's cut short with news the drug boss who sponsors this gang has sent a delivery. Lookouts are posted in case police or rivals try to muscle in.
(On camera): So the gang members are telling us that the kilo of cocaine they've been waiting for all afternoon has now arrived. So we're going to follow them to a different location and see how they cut it.
(voice over): They've raided mom's kitchen for the tools they need. The job now, to break down a brick of pure cocaine. And cut it with caffeine and dentist's anesthetic. They sell a gram for as little as a dollar. Depending on how heavily they cut it.
Business mixes with pleasure; their biggest pleasure, inhaling the cloud of pulverized cocaine from the liquidizer.
(on camera): So they've been cutting cocaine now with a fruit juicer for about the last hour. And there's dust going everywhere. Everybody's as high as a kite. They've been smoking marijuana. They've been doing lines of cocaine. They've been drinking beer. So now might be a good time to leave.
Before I go, I'm curious if Chief ever thought of getting out of the drugs, the guns, and the violence.
"CHIEF" (through translator): I dream of sailing away in a sailboat, alone and far away.
PENHAUL: But before he can live that dream, he first has to survive the nightmare of a cocaine war.
Karl Penhaul, CNN, Medellin, Colombia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Well, a violent path from Colombia to the U.S. border took decades to become the lucrative conduit it is today. Earlier I asked Sam Quinones of the "Los Angeles Times" to explain the history of Mexico's cocaine highway.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM QUINONES, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": For a long time, you remember back in the '80s, when Miami was the murder capital of America. Well, that was largely due to wars between the Colombians trying to bring their dope, the South Florida route was the route into the United States for all that cocaine.
Through the '80s and into the '90s, the federal government did a very good job of kind of stopping that. Some still gets through, but mainly it's not the route that it once was. The route shifted, then, to Mexico. Before then -- before that time Mexicans really had trafficked mainly black tar heroin and marijuana. Along come the Colombians with their tons of cocaine. The Mexicans realized that they've got, you know, the route into the United States. And so this allows them to become strong.
They begin to create deals with the Colombians saying we don't want money. We'll take half of your product, this kind of thing. And it also, you know, you've got 2,000 miles of border essentially with the United States. A lot of which is culture of smuggling already going back -- back to really to prohibition and before. And so you've got kind of a culture of corruption, a culture of smuggling. The Colombians come in with cocaine.
At the same time, you know, you've also got another arrival in the drug-smuggling product. And that is methamphetamine, which is now being made in Mexico and smuggled across. And Mexicans used to be the boy, so to speak, for the Colombians. Now they are the men who handle it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
No habla ingles? Pay up. Police officers in one city handing out tickets to drivers who do not speak English.
They're taking a flying leap to help beat cancer. We'll introduce you to the guy who took the beat cancer challenge further than anyone else we know.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right. This next story is garnering a lot of feedback from viewers. It started with a traffic stop, but now it's turned into something much bigger.
A Dallas woman recently received a traffic citation for an illegal U- turn, and she was also cited for not speaking English. Her case has led to the discovery of dozens of similar cases.
Jason Whitely of WFAA has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRENDA MONDRAGON, DAUGHTER: I'm upset. I'm really upset. I was very mad.
JASON WHITELY, WFAA REPORTER (voice-over): Humiliation has turned to anger over what happened to Brenda Mondragon's mother, Ernestina. She drove her 11-year-old daughter Vanessa to school this month after the girl missed the bus, and she got pulled over on the way.
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: She was like upset. She was like worried.
WHITELY: Dallas police wrote her three tickets, no driver's license. She left it at home, darting out the door. Plus, making an illegal U-turn. And her last crime, listen to this -- she was cited for being a non-English speaking driver.
MONDRAGON: At first I thought it was a joke. I said, I can't believe it. I actually laughed. I was like oh, my God, mom, I have never seen this before. We moved from California two years ago so I was like, well, maybe it's a law here.
WHITELY: It isn't. An officer in training wrote the citation to the Dallas mother still learning the language.
SGT. WARREN MITCHELL, DALLAS POLICE SPOKESMAN: We regret this happening, and although we believe it was a sincere mistake, we're just -- there's no excuse for it.
WHITELY: DPD said the rookie policeman might have been confused. There is a federal law saying you must speak English to drive a commercial vehicle, not a private one, like Ms. Mondragon's '04 Toyota Corolla. A court dismissed her charge of not speaking English, and the 49-year-old woman, still learning the language, tells us the officer in training clearly needs more of it.
Jason whitely, Channel 8 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. Well, it turns out Dallas police have cited local drivers 39 times for not being able to speak English, and the police chief says he is surprised and he is stunned.
So joining me now to talk about this is Scott Goldstein. He has been following this story for the "Dallas Morning News."
This all happened because the woman, that woman complained, right, that we featured in the story? Or she took her story to the media, and then the media found out about other cases?
SCOTT GOLDSTEIN, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: That's right. She came to the media a couple weeks after she was stopped and cited for being a non-English speaking driver.
And at first the police officials said they thought it was perhaps an isolated rookie mistake. But they soon found out there's been at least 38 additional cases over the past three years in which people were cited for being non-English speaking drivers.
LEMON: OK. You said that there is no law on the books in Dallas, except for commercial drivers, that they have to speak English, right?
GOLDSTEIN: Right. There's no such law, but what we're being told is that at least in the case of this rookie officer, and possibly in the other cases, the in-car computers for the police officers did list a law that says non-English speaking driver, but it was referring to the federal statute, and that's regarding commercial drivers.
LEMON: So some of this they just may have misinterpreted, they thought thatch they were doing a citation that was on the up and up and they were not.
But, listen, there are 400,000 tickets issued by Dallas police every year, so that's a small amount to have 39 of those. But here's the interesting thing for me, as someone who took Spanish in college and really can't speak of that well anymore. But if you are a Spanish- speaking person and you don't speak English or you don't read English, how then do you drive with the street signs and the highway sign when they are in English? Has anyone talked about that in the media there?
GOLDSTEIN: Oh, yes, it's definitely sparked a lot of debate about that, and there's been a lot of people saying, well, maybe it should be a law. But at least in this case, it's not a law. And so police are trying to find out why officers would have -- would have cited drivers for it. And, additionally, police officials are saying they don't really train their officers to be judges on the streets and whether somebody's proficient in English or not. And so -- like in this case with the rookie officer, the woman has lived in the states for many years and she speaks broken English.
LEMON: Right.
GOLDSTEIN: But, you know, what police officials are telling us is they're not in a position to judge whether somebody is proficient in the language or not.
LEMON: And they probably have a lot better things to do than that on their jobs.
Scott Goldstein from the "Dallas Morning News." We appreciate it.
GOLDSTEIN: Thank you.
LEMON: Confessions of balloon boy's mom. Police say she spilled the beans, fussing up that the whole family was in on the hoax. So who knew what and when?
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LEMON: Police say the balloon boy story is quickly deflating, thanks to his mom's confession. Mayumi Heene reportedly told sheriff's deputies that while the world was watching that helium- filled balloon last week, she and her husband knew all along that 6- year-old Falcon was safe at home. The affidavit also says the couple told the kids to lie about it to reporters and to police. The sheriff says he would recommend charges against the couple, some of them felonies that carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison.
Jacqui, if it all pans out to be true, what a sad, sad story. I mean, you have you kids.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is. I Yes, I feel bad for the kids. I feel bad for the kids.
JERAS: I do. Absolutely.
LEMON: So, listen, the East Coast was having some problems earlier. What's going on now?
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LEMON: And, Jacqui, those people are probably watching us in the airport. Hello, we feel sorry.
JERAS: I know.
LEMON: Get to the Hudson Books or the Brookstone and get a pillow before it closes, because you might be there overnight.
JERAS: Yes. Get comfy.
LEMON: All right, Jacqui, thank you very much.
Leaping out of a perfectly good plane. All in the name of finding a cure for cancer. We've got the man, the challenge and the jump.
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LEMON: Thousands of people are parading in peak in honor of moms and sisters and wives everywhere. More than 16,000 in the streets right here in Atlanta raising some serious money for breast cancer awareness. More than $1 million. The Susan G. Komen foundation said one woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes in the United States. So people around the nation are holding similar fund- raisers through October as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
So we told you about Pound Beat Cancer last week. Well, this guy "DigiJeff," his name is Jeff Lane, he kind of lost a bet, but I think he was hoping he would lose it. He challenged his friend to become number one on the hip-hop iTunes charts. Chamillionaire is his name. Chamillionaire did it, and so he had to jump out of a plane. He decided to wear a pink shirt and put Chamillionaire's album title on it, but also the Beat Cancer logo on it because he wanted to raise awareness about cancer.
So joining us now from Denver, Colorado, is the man Jeff Lane.
Jeff, good to see you. That's the shirt, right? Right there.
JEFF LANGE, DIGITAL DIRECTOR FOR CHAMILLIONAIRE: Yeah, this is the shirt. Luckily I landed, right?
LEMON: Yes. Can you just stand up just a little bit so we can see the shirt? Just scootch up a little bit.
LANGE: Stand up?
LEMON: Oh, there we go. (INAUDIBLE). Oh, that's a beautiful shirt. I really like it.
LANGE: Oh, thanks.
LEMON: So why the Pound Beat Cancer. Why did you do that?
LANGE: So the reason why we did Pound Beat Cancer was because it was so huge online with Facebook and Twitter, and we just thought it would be a great benefit, more of a benefit than just trying to like advertise his album so we decided to use a pink shirt and, you know, put Pound Beat Cancer. And I also, you know, lost a grandma in '96 to breast cancer so I could actually relate and Chamillionaire has somebody in his family that actually, you know, has cancer, too, so we can both relate to.
LEMON: So jumping out of that plane, Jeff?
LANGE: Yes. I mean, it was crazy. Something I would probably never do again.
LEMON: Really?
LANGE: Yeah.
LEMON: Talk to me about it. So were you -- were you -- did you get to the edge and go, OK, I'm not going to do this, this is crazy?
LANGE: Yeah, pretty much. You know, right when we were getting up there to the door, when they opened the door, I was just, you know, pretty much thinking, I don't know what I got myself into. I kind of want to bail out. But, you know, they were filming it. It was for a challenge. And, you know, I just knew they had to do it, so, you know, it's pretty crazy.
LEMON: The landing looked pretty smooth. Did you kiss the ground when you got to the ground?
LANGE: Yeah, yeah. Pretty much -- the landing was fine, though. The landing was fine. It was jumping out on the first leg, you know, five seconds when you're just falling out of the plane, it's just -- you know, it's heart pacing. It was crazy.
LEMON: You know what, Jeff, it's amazing doing this, because that creating a record around this for the Guinness World Book, but also, you know, we're hearing from people that it's the new model when it comes to charitable giving because companies get free advertising because people if they want to put their logo or whatever they want to do it, and then they give money behind it, you can raise money for a lot of charities, and a lot of causes by doing a similar thing.
LANGE: Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, we didn't do this for, you know, to raise money for ourselves or anything like that. We pretty much just did this for, you know, the Beat Cancer...
LEMON: Well, Jeff Lange --
LANGE: ...to bring awareness to it.
LEMON: Well, Jeff Lange, you are a brave man.
What's your name, DigiJeff.
All right. Thank you.
LANGE: Yes, it's short for Digital Jeff.
LEMON: Yes. LANGE: Thanks a lot.
LEMON: All right. I think we got it. But thank you so much. Hey, we're very proud of you. Appreciate it.
LANGE: All right, thanks a lot.
LEMON: OK. So take a look at this picture. You saw him jumping out of a plane. But about this? It looks like a scene from Reno 911, right? So how in the world did this happen? Well, we have been taking your comments this hour on this. And also speaking English as a driver. You've had plenty to say. We're going to share it with you.
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LEMON: All right. Step aside "Die Hard". Hollywood cops are getting a run for their money from a sheriff's deputy in Washington State. And airborne crews are abandoned on top of power lines with its wheels still spinning above hungry flames. I love that. The deputy was reportedly speeding to an emergency with sirens blaring, when he came upon another car with an intersection, forcing the cruiser to swerve. And, boy, did it. We're told everyone is OK, though. But the power and gas lines are in pretty bad shape tonight.
All right. A lot of you guys have been responding to the stories we've been putting on, especially the story about speaking English and the drug story. Let's see. Let's start here.
SpeedofLife -- I can't read these names -- "A reporter who went to Colombia for the story deserves a medal of bravery."
And then TheyCallMeYanni says, "I agree this nation speaks English. We shouldn't accommodate people who just refuse to acknowledge how we do things. It's disrespectful."
Ibecrispy says, "Yes, it is aggravating to deal with. But give someone a ticket or not, speaking english is completely ridiculous and discriminatory."
And then DiverDog says, "I don't know about it being a law, but companies should have customer service reps speak it at least. It is very frustrating."
So thank you for telling us what's on your mind. You can always get us on Twitter, Facebook or iReport, or MySpace and we will get your comments on the air.
I'm Don Lemon at the CNN center in Atlanta. I'll see back here tomorrow night 6:00 and 10:00 p.m.
