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New Details Emerge in Holmes Hearing; Fighting to Serve on the Front Lines; David Bowie's First Album in 10 Years; Lottery Winner Poisoned by Cyanide
Aired January 08, 2013 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining us. Thirty minutes past the hour now.
Happening now in THE NEWSROOM:
U.S. stocks poised for a flat open this morning as investors digest the latest round of corporate earnings. Ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, the preservation research of New Orleans which helped to restore homes after hurricane Katrina and helping those affected by superstorm Sandy.
Today in Colorado, a second day of painful hearings getting under way for James Holmes. He's the man accused of killing dozens of people inside an Aurora movie theater. In the first day of interesting testimony it appeared the killer, the alleged killer, planned the attack down to the very last detail.
Police say Holmes purchased the ticket for the showing nearly two weeks ahead of time. Investigators say he entered the theater with a semiautomatic shotgun, a semiautomatic handgun with a laser sight, and assault rifle with 100-round magazine drum.
After the killing spree, police found a startling amount of unused ammo, 200 rounds of assault rifle ammunition and 15 rounds of .40 caliber bullets.
Casey Wian is in Centennial, Colorado, for today's hearing.
Who is up to take the stand today, Casey?
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we're going to hear today, Carol, is a detective who's going to continue his testimony from yesterday about all of the wounded victims who detectives interviewed after the shooting.
You'll remember, Carol, when we spoke yesterday morning in advance of day one of this preliminary hearing, we talked about how prosecutors warned that there would be very, very graphic testimony, warning victims, family members, who were going to be in the courtroom that they would have to endure that. They wasted no time getting to that graphic testimony. We heard from a police officer who talked about taking wounded victims out of that theater and driving them to the hospital in his police cruiser, some wounded so badly he couldn't tell their race or their gender. He also talked about his patrol car and hearing the sound of blood sloshing in the back of that car after taking so many bleeding victims to the hospital.
Another police officer testified actually the first witness on the stand yesterday morning, talked about his initial encounter with Holmes. He was the officer who first found him in the back of that theater, next to a vehicle, and here's what that officer said.
"He was very relaxed. There were not normal emotional responses to anything. He seemed very detached from it all."
Now, of course, what this is expected to result in at trial, if there is a trial in this case, is that the prosecution is going to use this type of testimony to make the argument there was some sort of diminished mental capacity on the part of James Holmes.
One of the victim's fathers, Tom Teves, he's the father of Alex Teves, who was killed in the Colorado shooting, spoke with reporters after court yesterday. He believes that Holmes is putting on an act in court. Here's what he had to say.
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TOM TEVES, FATHER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: I never stopped watching him in the courtroom. As soon as he saw different things happening he smiled a couple times, and very quickly, because he caught himself, because he's really pretending to be crazy. That guy is evil but there's no way that guy's crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIAN: And as you mentioned a little while ago, Carol, there's also evidence brought by the prosecution showing some evidence of premeditation, the fact that he purchased his ticket 12 days in advance, the fact that he used his cell phone to enter the theater with that ticket on the cell phone, and they showed surveillance video of all of those people running out of the theater after the shooting -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Casey Wian reporting live from Colorado this morning.
The fight for equality, true equality in the military will only come when women are allowed to fight on the front lines. That's how many women feel. Some so strongly they filed a lawsuit for the right to fight alongside their male counterparts.
Major Mary Jennings Hegar, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, had this to say, quote, "Servicewomen in all branches of the military are already fighting for their country alongside their male counterparts. They shoot, they return fire, they drag wounded comrades to safety, they engage the enemy and they have doing these heroic deeds since the Revolutionary War." These women want the combat exclusion policy to go away.
They say it's unconstitutional and prevents commanders from assigning the right troops for the right jobs.
But a group called Center for Military Readiness is opposed to women fighting on the ground alongside men.
Elaine Donnelly is the president and founder of that group. She also served in a defense advisory committee on women in the services in 1984 and 1992.
Good morning.
ELAINE DONNELLY, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR MILITARY READINESS: Good morning. Nice to talk with you.
COSTELLO: Thank you for being here. You think allowing women to fight is a bad idea. Tell me why.
DONNELLY: Well, first of all, we're not talking about allowing. We're talking about requiring, because combat is the kind of mission that involves attacking the enemy, deliberate offensive action against enemy troops under fire. It's the kind of a position that military women in the majority don't want to have. They don't want to be treated exactly like men.
It's a good time to have a calm discussion about this, because after 11 years of war, we've seen women do remarkable things, but we've also seen the differences between direct combat, the units all male, the tip of the spear units that attack the enemy and being in danger, in harm's way. Yes, women are in harm's way, and we are very proud of them, but if we put women into direct ground combat, infantry battalions, it would be harmful to women and men and it would complicate missions greatly.
COSTELLO: I'm curious, are men required to fight?
DONNELLY: Oh, yes. Once you join the Army, if you are, you must carry out orders to go wherever you are ordered to go. So there is no such thing as a voluntary option. You couldn't say that women will have a different rule. Maybe you can do it if you feel like it, maybe not if you don't. No, it wouldn't work that way, it would have to be mandatory.
The presidential commission --
COSTELLO: I'm struggling to understand --
DONNELLY: The presidential commission on which I serve --
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COSTELLO: When you entered the military, you follow orders. There's not much voluntary about the military.
DONNELLY: That's exactly right. So, there is the complication if the exemptions of women from direct ground combat were repealed, then the issue of selective service registration would be revisited. The ACLU would go to court on behalf of man, and then we'd have young civilian women also being involved and liable to the obligation to be in the military direct ground combat same as men.
Well, the problem with that and there are so many reasons, women north physically the same as men. In the direct ground combat environment, women don't have an equal opportunity to survive or to help fellow soldiers survive. We have 30 years of studies on this and reports. It's not even in question.
That's only the physical issue.
COSTELLO: Well, let me interrupt you for just a second, because I'd like to argue that point physically ready. I don't think these women who file a lawsuit would agree with you at all especially since one of them said, "We're already fighting alongside our male counterparts." You know, they returned fire --
DONNELLY: As I say --
COSTELLO: They dragged wounded comrades to safety, they engage the enemies. She says women are already doing this. They're physically capable of doing that. There's proof of that. This woman in particular won a Purple Heart for her bravery.
DONNELLY: Again, definitions are -- definitions are important. As I said, yes, women are in harm's way, they are defending themselves, they are engaging the enemy, but they are not in the units we're talking about today, Carol, direct ground combat, infantry battalions, the tip of the spear, Special Operations Forces, Marine and Army infantry, that's what we're talking about.
So although we respect and honor women who have served and so many have already died in these last 10 years of war, it's still not making the case that women should be in the direct ground combat infantry battalions.
COSTELLO: But don't these women have this point that if women aren't --
DONNELLY: No, it is not a legal matter.
COSTELLO: Let me ask this question, let me ask this question: if women don't have equality in the military, how can they have equality when it comes to rank, when it comes to power within the military? When it comes to advancing their careers?
DONNELLY: Good question. Good question. Women are promoted at rates equal to or faster than men, and it's been that way for decades.
COSTELLO: Oh, come on.
DONNELLY: So there is no equal -- COSTELLO: Come on. How many women four-star generals do you know or how many women have been joint chief?
O'DONNELLY: Ask the Pentagon. The reason you don't have women in three and four-star ranks because they have career plans that don't usually require or would involve 30 years of service. It makes it pretty hard to have a family life.
And that's why a lot of women who might be qualified to be a three and four-star general or admiral choose not to go on that career path.
Now, you don't want to go with a trickle-up kind of thing where you force --
COSTELLO: Couldn't you say the same thing about men, because they have children, too, and responsibilities to their families?
DONNELLY: Yes, they do. But again, I'm looking at the empirical evidence. We know that women make different career choices. So they are promoted at rates equal to or faster than men.
The Pentagon has acknowledged it. This goes back decades. It's not changed.
COSTELLO: But the women entering the military are not making different career choices. They're entering the military.
DONNELLY: If you want to -- if you want to have a first female chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that is not a good enough reason. But if say General Odierno wanted to give up his seat to a female general for the sake of diversity, he could do that. He could that, he could that right now.
But why should enlisted women who are five times as numerous, excuse me, as female officers, why should they have to be treated like men, have all the burdens of direct ground combat put on their shoulders? That would not be fair to the women. It would not be fair to the men. The women don't want it.
This is all being driven by a small minority of civilians and the ACLU, which has filed this lawsuit.
COSTELLO: I don't know any --
(CROSSTALK)
DONNELLY: Again, I think the women are somewhat misguided.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Elaine Donnelly.
DONNELLY: Well, it's a big subject. But it needs to be --
COSTELLO: It is.
DONNELLY: It needs to be objectively discussed.
COSTELLO: Thank you, Elaine Donnelly, for joining this morning.
DONNELLY: Thank you.
COSTELLO: We'll be right back.
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COSTELLO: It is hard to believe David Bowie has been turning out hits for four decades, 40 years. I know you remember "Let's Dance," 30 years ago that song came out.
Let me refresh your memory because it's a good song.
(MUSIC)
COSTELLO: Well, Bowie is back. Today, he is 66 years old and celebrating his birthday by releasing a video of his brand new single called "Where Are We Now?"
Check it out.
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COSTELLO: It's the birthday boy's first album in a decade and it's set to be released in March, and I'm sure A.J. Hammer is going to buy it, because I am. Good morning, A.J. That's awesome.
A.J. HAMMER, HLN HOST, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": Right I look forward -- good morning. Yes slightly different feel than "Let's Dance" there Carol.
COSTELLO: Yes.
HAMMER: This song and video are very cool because what it does is takes a look back at David Bowie's time in Berlin in the 1970s. If you're into Bowie you know that it was a really pivotal time in his career -- about 1976, 1977. Some of the footage in the video includes some shots of an auto repair shop that Bowie actually used to live above and you see some other stark images of what the city was like at that time.
Bowie wrote the song for his new album called "The Next Day." And yes it's his first album in 10 years. And just the fact that he's releasing new material is newsworthy because quite frankly a lot of people thought that the guy was retired. He reportedly turned down some offers to play including at the opening ceremonies of the London Olympics last summer.
As far as we've been able to determine he hasn't even performed or been seen publicly on stage since '06 and he did have heart surgery while he was on tour back in '04 so it's kind of not surprising that we haven't heard news of a tour attached to the new album yet. Carol, we certainly can hope and I have to say, what a lovely birthday gift on his birthday from Bowie to us.
COSTELLO: Oh you're not kidding. I can't wait to hear the rest of the album. I was just watching a documentary about Ziggy Stardust and you know they went back stage and you know it kind of relived the day. Of course I was very, very young at the time, but what an amazing artist and thanks for sharing. I really appreciate it.
HAMMER: Yes.
COSTELLO: Thanks, A.J.
HAMMER: Yes, absolutely, Carol.
COSTELLO: A Chicago man wins a $1 million bucks in the Illinois lottery and just one day after lotto officials write him a check for his prize money he dies. Investigators now say he was poisoned.
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COSTELLO: Police in Chicago are investigating the death of a man who died after winning $1 million in the lottery. At first it appeared his death was due to natural causes, but after a closer look, it turned out he had been poisoned.
Judy Wang from our Chicago affiliate WGN has more for you.
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JUDY WANG, WGN: Urooj Khan was a regular lottery player at 7/11 at Western and Pratt. Employees are having trouble accepting what they're hearing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is sad. That's sad. It's very sad. But I guess it's true when they say the money is the root of all evil.
WANG: In June Khan purchases two instant tickets, the second one he scratched off was the winner. At the time he said he planned to pay bills, make a donation to St. Jude Children's Hospital and to grow his dry cleaning business. About a month later, a police report states the 46-year-old had dinner at his Rogers Park home, went to bed and then his family heard him screaming. Khan was taken to St. Francis hospital at Evanston where he was pronounced dead.
The medical examiner tells "The Tribune" there were no signs of trauma, no drugs in his blood. The pathologist who conducted the autopsy determined Khan died of natural causes. At the request of the relatives the ME's office did toxicology tests which found Khan died of a lethal amount of cyanide.
(on camera): Khan who came to Chicago from India in the 1980s, owned three North Side dry cleaners opening his first one on the 2200 Park of West Devon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was very nice. I mean, I would never you know think that anybody especially around him you know in the family would hurt him. A nice person, they were very helpful, very gentle you know -- a hard working person. I mean in a short time, he would come in and manage to have like three businesses. And that tells you how -- what kind of person he was for his family. (END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: That was Judy Wang reporting from our affiliate WGN in Chicago. Authorities are now considering exhuming Khan's body to see if there are any clues that will help in their investigation.
Today's "Talk Back" question, "Why are we so hooked on violence on screen?" Facebook.com/CarolCNN, Facebook.com/CarolCnn or tweet me @CarolCNN. I'll be right back.
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COSTELLO: Our "Talk Back" question of the day, "Why are we hooked on on-screen violence?"
This one is from Royce. "Because in today's society no one wants to watch, "Little House in the Prairie".
This is from Matthew. "Why are screen actors promoting violence on screen and then when some kid mimics then in real life those same actors suggests we all turn in our guns?"
This from Donna. "We are not hooked on violence on screen I avoid it myself just as I do in real life."
And from Faith, "People who don't do these things are interested in learning about the psyche of these people. Who are they? What went wrong? Is it from childhood? How can this be?"
Facebook.com/CarolCNN, if you'd like to continue the conversation or tweet me @CarolCNN.
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COSTELLO: Oh sadly there was little suspense in last night's BCS title game, except for how big Alabama's final margin would be over Notre Dame. Make that 42-14; Alabama piled a 529 total yards, half of them on the ground. Eddie Lacey ate up 148 yards and scored two touchdowns. The junior running back could be an NFL first rounder if he declares for the draft. Are you listening, Detroit Lions? The win not only marks Alabama's third BCS title in four years but the seventh straight championship for an SEC team.
David Mattingly is sitting right here, Alabama alum. You're a happy boy, aren't you?
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. Roll tide.
COSTELLO: Yes. We'll have a live report on life stadium coming up the next hour.
The results of RG3's MRI were inconclusive, so the redskins quarterback will be examined by Dr. James Andrews. Andrews is the orthopedist to sports stars who's also the Redskin's physician. RG3 reinjured a knee during the playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Watch this battle in the middle of your screen. The New York Knicks Carmelo Anthony and Boston's Kevin Garnett go at it during the fourth quarter of last night's game. The two were still jawing at each other as they headed down the court. Melo's poor shooting (inaudible) the Knicks may have gotten to him following the game. Witnesses say he went after Garnet. Now Melo may face a suspension from the league. We'll keep you posted.
That's a look at Sports this morning.
The next hour of "CNN NEWSROOM" right now.
