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New Viral Dance Craze; Outrage Grows Over Beating Video; Rogue Ex-Cop Dorner Believed Dead; Uncertain That SWAT Team Had Reached Dorner Site; Funeral This Hour For Dorner Victim; Gross Conditions For Another Day on Carnival Cruise; Obama Pays Tribute To Gun Victims; Carnival Triumph Heads Home; Obama Speaks in Asheville, North Carolina, Senator Rubio's Water Break Sparks Conversation;

Aired February 13, 2013 - 13:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: The world hit by a new dance craze. Watch this. It is called the Harlem shake. Dance starts out one person as you can see dancing while everybody else just kind of stands around. And then the beat drops, everybody in the room goes crazy, begins to join in. People of all ages. You can see here uploading videos of themselves doing it. Even the men's swim team at the University of Georgia. They went even further. This is under water. No masks, just kind of doing it. (INAUDIBLE), he released the song last year. It has now skyrocketed on the Internet.

This is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. Outrage now growing over a horrifying beating. It was videotaped. It was put online. This video, it went viral. You're watching it here. It shows a young teenager in Newark, New Jersey forced to strip naked repeatedly whipped with a belt. The victim reportedly targeted because his father owed the attackers 20 bucks. At least one person has now been arrested and charged. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, he is talking about this right now. Let's actually listen in.

(BEGIN LIFE FEED)

CORY BOOKER, MAYOR, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY (live): In four days by February 12th, all of the people who are responsible for this heinous, vicious, cruel crime were apprehended. I want to express gratitude, again, to the work of the Newark Police Department. Our police director will come forward in a moment and give more details on the investigation. I want to, again, thank the hundreds if not thousands of individuals who reached out to me, who reached out to the city, who called 911 and let us know what was going on and what went on in mid- August.

I want to say two points before I ask the director to come up that I think are important. First and foremost, this is not who we are. We are Newark, New Jersey. We do not tolerate this level of cruelty, of callous disregard for the dignity of humanity. We do not tolerate this viciousness. We do not tolerate this kind of evil in our community. This is not who we are. We are a community of love. We are a community of compassion. I have seen degrees of heroism, acts of kindness over my last seven years as mayor that have stirred my heart and fueled my passion and belief in who we really are.

And so, to see something like this happen, it is a blow to the conscience of our community. It is a blow to the strength and to all who we say we are. And so, for everyone in this community who resoundly condemns this violence, I thank them.

But I also want to take a moment and tell the truth. It is my belief, and we have strong reason to believe that there were others who saw this crime happen who witnessed this type of vicious brutality and said nothing. This crime in August was not reported. No one called 911. In the face of evil, those who remain quiet are participants in that evil. It is said, the only thing necessary for evil to be triumphant is for good people to do nothing. We are better than this. This was able to transpire. This evil was able to fester. Months went by and nothing happened because people chose to be silent. And I understand, there's a reason to be silent. I understand, there is fear of your own safety and security. I understand that these characters were well known in the community. I understand what their reputations were. But that -- it is still not an excuse to remain silent.

Newark is on a journey of recovery. It is on a journey of resurgence. We are transforming ourselves because of the strength of this community. We may not have stamped out all the evil here, but the reality is, we're turning the corner because good people are doing things, saying things, acting. And so, I just conclude before bringing up director Demaio to say, this did not have to be months until a young man received justice, months until those who were responsible were apprehended. This did not have to be.

Director, please come forward and give more details on the investigation. Did our mic go out? No, it's back.

SAMUEL DEMAIO, DIRECTOR, NEWARK POLICE DEPARTMENT: Thank you, mayor. I first just want to recognize some of the members up with us from the New York Police Department in spirit of the investigation. Members from our special investigation unit -

(END LIVE FEED)

MALVEAUX: Clearly, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey visibly angry, disturbed by this, Cory Booker. Essentially, it was six months ago that this young man in that videotape, that YouTube tape that was put out there had been beaten. And this video has just come to light this week, so he's clearly very upset. And he's upset, he says, look, four people have been arrested for this beating, but there were people who were standing around who were watching this who didn't call 911, who didn't do anything about it. And he says, they, too, are partly responsible for what has happened to this young man. And he says, we are better than this.

We're going to have an update on this story, but, clearly, this is something that a lot of folks are talking about. How could this happen in this community? And the fact that nothing got done in six months or so until it became a viral video when it was released and more than 40,000 people watched that video and then they went after the guys who did this, allegedly did this, four of them now in custody.

We're also following this story. This is the ex-cop, the deadly vendetta that ends in the violent showdown. This is video, this is from CBS News and it was captured. What happened, the gun battle at the cabin in the woods that concluded -- So, Police say that Christopher Dorner, you see him there, barricaded himself inside the cabin, which we saw burn to the ground. A sheriff's deputy was killed, another wounded in that shootout. And Los Angeles police say even if Dorner is dead, the case is not over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY NEIMAN, LIETENANT, LOS ANGELOS POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have homicide investigations, you know, the fact that the incident transpired yesterday and, you know, we won't speculate, at this point, whether that is Christopher Dorner or not. But even if it was to be Christopher Dorner, again, we have a case to close. Just because arrest warrants were issued and charges were filed in Riverside, there's still a case pending in Irvine of the double homicide. And so, there's much work to be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: I want to bring in our Miguel Marquez. He's in Big Bear Lake, California, where all of this played out. Miguel, I've got a lot of questions here for you here. First of all, do we know -- I mean, everybody suspects that Dorner is dead. What do they have to do to ultimately confirm it?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONCDENT: Well, they're going to have to do it by forensics, either DNA or forensics, something along those lines. It would be easiest, obviously, and probably quickest and they could get a quick tell from dental records. It's not clear how much of the body was left, there may be tattoos that they can identify very quickly.

The other thing that we should keep in mind is that I understood that his cell phone popped on yesterday, so they may have a very clear sense that it was him in that, but obviously they wanted to get either a voice recognition or something, so there are several ways they could go at this. But my guess is because of the high-profile nature of this and because of everything they found in that cabin so far, they will be fairly quick to turn this around -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right, Miguel, a lot of questions are surfacing about this scanner traffic conversations, whether or not the police are actually heard saying burn it down before they fire at the cabin, whether or not they know if Dorner is alive and inside. I want you to listen to this portion.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- 61 Lincoln. Seven burners deployed and we have a fire.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, seven burners deployed and we have a fire. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guys, be ready on the number four side, we have a fire in the front, he might come out the back.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Miguel, what are we learning from this video --from this audiotape?

MARQUEZ: Yes, we've cleaned that up so well. It's so much easier to hear this right now. But it -- you know, it is difficult to know what they mean by burners. There's two things. One, I don't know that a proper SWAT team was on location there. The two deputies that were shot early on, I don't think were part of a proper SWAT Team that responded to that location. They had it surrounded. I know that they did -- San Bernardino did have a SWAT team on call. Marshall Service -- U.S. marshals were also up here. I believe they had a full-on SWAT team up here. But it's not clear that they got to that location in time before all of that occurred.

From federal law enforcement officials, I did understand that they were going in with gas. It is not clear what they mean by burners. And that will be a question we have for the San Bernardino sheriff's office. They have been unable to comment on that today so far, whether they mean that those are gas canisters, whether they're calling the --

MALVEAUX: Right, right.

MARQUEZ: -- fire department up because they're concerned. It's not very clear what they are talking about there.

MALVEAUX: OK.

MARQUEZ: It would not be likely that any law enforcement would choose to burn down a house in order to get somebody out. But it doesn't -- it's very unclear what they mean at the moment -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right. A lot of -- a lot of questions still to be answered there. Miguel, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Christopher Dorner's violent rampage really had the city of Los Angeles, the tirade (ph) area really on edge. The vendetta left four people dead. Earlier today on CNN, the Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa talked about all the fear around this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, MAYOR, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA : Yes, I got to talk to many of the people who were targeted. I called them, and I can tell you, almost to the person, they weren't worried about themselves. Remember, he targeted innocent people, their families, children. This was a terrorizing experience for these officers and these people because they weren't the only targets, their families were targets.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MALVEAUX: Family, fellow police officers, they are now gathering at this hour for the funeral of one of Christopher Dorner's victims, Officer Michael Crain. He had been with the police department in Riverside, California for 11 years. He was a former Marine who served two tours of duty in Kuwait. Officer Crain is survived by a wife and two children.

Tonight at 8:00 Eastern, Anderson Cooper, he's devoting his entire hour to this manhunt, the shootout, what happened hour by hour, moment by moment, and, of course, not to forget the victims of all of this. Nine days of terror, the hunt for Christopher Dorner, "ANDERSON COOPER 360" tonight, that is 8:00 Eastern on CNN.

Here's what we're also working on for this hour. Gross, disgusting, that's how it's being called, a ship stranded at sea. A situation not going to end until tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They deserve a vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: And the president paying tribute to victims of gun violence. We're going to meet the Congressman who brought them to the State of the Union address.

And a new study now finds folic acid may reduce the risk of autism.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM MCKERREGHAN: She called me about 1:00 Monday. And she was hysterical. Mommy, it's so scary. I'm so scared, I want to come home. I love you. Please, come get me. You know. And -- sorry? I was like, where's your dad? She said, well, he's inside. If I take the phone inside, I'll lose connection. I said, well, okay, I'll be there for you, I'll meet you wherever the boat's going to end up. I don't know what's going on, but I'll be there mommy's going to be there. And she got the phone to her dad and he called me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: That was Kim Mckerreghan. Obviously emotional about -- this is the distress her 10-year-old daughter is aboard that crippled cruise ship, Carnival's Triumph being towed at this hour. Expected to dock in Mobile, Alabama, early tomorrow afternoon. More than 400 miles from where it was supposed to end up. This is a hot, stuffy ship, it's been oozing sewage, leaning ominously in the wind since a fire knocked out power four days ago. Triumph's troubles already causing problems for Carnival's other ships, as well. Thousands of passengers on upcoming cruised, they're being told their trips have now been called off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GERRY CAHILL, PRESIDENT AND CEO CARNIVAL CRUISE LINE: We've canceled the next two cruises. So as soon as we can make a little bit further evaluation of subsequent - how long the repairs might take, all right, we will notify guests there's going to be any additional cancellations. It's too soon for us because we have not been able to get our technicians onboard the ship to evaluate things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So if nothing else bad happens, the ship could dock tomorrow, should dock in Mobile by 3:00 p.m. Eastern, 2:00 p.m. Local time. David Mattingly is in mobile. And David, first of all, so this isn't anywhere near the ship was supposed to land. So how are they managing to get folks, once they get off the ship, to get to their homes, where they need to be, and what are they providing them?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carnival has arranged for several flights that are going to be departing from regional airports around Mobile that will take passengers to Houston, Texas, from there they will disperse, go back to their homes wherever they came from to catch that cruise originally. But before that, they've also arranged for hotel rooms. This is going to be a very happy homecoming right here in Mobile when they get off of that boat. When they get on to dry land, that means they're going to be a short bus ride away from a hotel room where they're going to get a hot shower, the first one they've had in five days, a hot meal, a soft, dry bed, and, of course, they won't have the smell of sewage around them that they've been living with for those days, as well. So this is going to be a time for them to get themselves back together to rest up a little bit before they take those flights back to Texas.

MALVEAUX: And, David, for the last couple of days, we've had a chance to, you know, talk to folks onboard as well as their relatives who have been hearing for them sporadically. Very unsanitary, the conditions there. I imagine, will there be doctors, nurses who are waiting on deck as well to check people out, see if they are healthy if they're okay?

MATTINGLY: Well, actually, the city of Mobile is being very proactive about that. They're going to have medical personnel here for the people that as soon as they get of the boat, they're going to be able to perform some quick evaluations for anybody who might need it, be able to check them out. That's just something that the city of Mobile is going to be providing. They offered that even before we heard from the officials at Carnival. So that's going to be available to them. We don't know if anybody actually is going to need any sort of medical attention when they get here, but that will be available right here before they even get to their hotel rooms.

MALVEAUX: Thank you, David, appreciate it. I'm sure they're looking forward to that hot shower. Thanks.

President Pbama delivered the State of the Union address last night, now he's taking his message on the road. We're going to take a look at what he needs to do to move forward.

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MALVEAUX: Pope Benedict XVI is getting out in the public again for the first time since announcing his resignation. Right now, he's celebrating Ash Wednesday mass at St. Peter's Basilica marking the beginning of lent. Huge crowds have turned out to see him as always. The audience was also packed at the pope's weekly public appearance earlier today. Pope Benedict talked about his decision to step down at the end of the month calling it the right thing to do for the church.

And we are watching Wall Street and your money, as well, your stocks are trading, well it's mixed today. Right now the Dow at 13, 977, about one percent away from the record high that was set in October of 2007. S&P 500 also on a solid run. It is up about four percent from its record high.

Minimum wage, it is also going up. That is a promise from the president during last night's State of the Union address. Spelling out a plan to raise minimum wage from today's $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour, that in 2015. That would mean full-time minimum wage earner would make about $18,000 a year. Raising the minimum wage, one of the president's campaign pledges back in 2008. Not able to make it happen in the first term.

President Obama on the road today. This is his arrival. A little while ago, Asheville, North Carolina. This is an engine and transmission plant. This is where he's underlining, of course, his State of the Union message about jobs, opportunities for the country's middle class in particular.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because the true engine of America's economic growth has always been our middle class. Now, there are a lot of countries that have folks at the top who are doing real well, and a bunch of folks at the bottom. But part of what set America apart was ordinary folks if they worked hard, they could do well. Our middle class when it's growing, when it's thriving, when there are ladders of opportunity for people to do a little bit better each year and then make sure their kids are doing even better than them, that's the American dream.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: I want to bring in Dan Lothian at the White House. So, Dan, the president often after the day of State of the Union, takes his message on the road. How does he hope this is going to pressure Republicans to sit at the table and get some of the things done he wants to push forward?

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the strategy here, obviously, is for this message to resonate across the country and to empower voters out there to then put the pressure on lawmakers to push the president's agenda forward over the next four years. We've seen the president do this throughout the first four years whenever he had something that he was pushing, whether it's health care or any other issue, he goes out to the public, gets them to write letters, to send e-mails to their lawmakers or bend their ear when they're in the district to push the president's agenda forward.

This is what the president's doing, focusing on things like investments in manufacturing, in education, talking about raising the minimum wage as you pointed out a short time ago. And the president highlighted Asheville, North Carolina, because this is a region that the president says in the past has been hit very hard with the loss of manufacturing jobs but has seen somewhat of a revival at this particular plant that the president's was at. They were able to hire about 160 new workers, expected to hire another 40 by the end of the year. And so the goal the president says is to make this country, again, a magnet for jobs which he believes will help lift the middle class.

But the big question is how will he pay for all of this? The president said it's already paid for, Republicans are skeptical. And in particular, what you were talking about raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour, Speaker Boehner saying this will only lead to a decrease in jobs that will make it much harder for employers to hire new workers.

MALVEAUX: Yes, still very much unresolved how all of that's going to be paid for. Dan, thanks again, we know the president's going to be here in Atlanta tomorrow with any moves to travel to Chicago on Friday.

Well of course Republican Senator Marco Rubio gave the GOP response to the State of the Union address last night. We saw that. He asked some Republican voters to rate his remarks. That's what we asked. And Rubio scored highest when he talked about big government. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R ) FLORIDA: And the idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers, that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried. More government isn't going to help you get ahead, it's going to hold you back. More government isn't going to create more opportunities, it's going to limit them. And more government isn't going to inspire new ideas, new businesses, and new private sector jobs. It's going to create uncertainty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: All right. You might have noticed Senator Rubio needed a drink of water, taking a break -- everybody's talking about it. The way he reached over for the water bottle caused all kinds of things, buzz on the internet, watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: Nothing has frustrated me more than false choices like the one the president laid out tonight. The choice isn't just between big government or big business, what we need is an accountable, efficient, and effective government that allows small and new businesses to create more middle class jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Jokes saying (ph) look, I needed water, what am I going to do? So there you go.

It all came to a head last night. Another story we were following, police surrounding a cabin where Christopher Dorner was holed up. A shootout ensued, a fire, and then the discovery of a body. We're going to take a closer look at how this unfolded.

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MALVEAUX: Newark, New Jersey's mayor is furious. Furious over a brutal beating that was videotaped and put online. Now, this video which went viral shows a Newark teen forced to strip naked and repeatedly whipped with a belt. Police say the victim was targeted because his father owed the attackers 20 bucks.