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Aaron Hernandez Investigated; Paula Deen Apologizes; Amanda Knox Faces Possible Retrial

Aired June 22, 2013 - 15:59   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM.

Our top stories right now. Let's begin with new developments in the case involving New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez. Police have now returned to Hernandez's house just outside of Boston. They are investigating the death of a friend whose body was found less than a mile away from the house. Police have not named Hernandez a suspect in the murder.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, I can tell you a quiet Saturday afternoon obviously interrupted by all the activity that began a few hours ago. Interrupted by the arrival of at least 20 police officers, investigators as well as a couple of police dogs. We saw a locksmith arrive at the scene as well. And a lot of activity going on, as you can imagine.

About, well, a little while ago, about two hours into the search, a lawyer representing Aaron Hernandez, the Patriots tight end, arrived on the scene as well. We don't know the nature of the search warrant or exactly what they are looking for. And, of course, we've made several attempts to speak to the lawyer about it, but those were unsuccessful, also not able to reach the district attorney's office for additional information.

But frankly it's not surprising because they haven't said much about this. But let's go to our second camera right now if we can, because right now they've been spending time on that white SUV, you might recall, we've seen several times this week. It is a car that's been driven by Aaron Hernandez when he's come to and from his house. We have not seen him today, but detectives have been taking a look inside that, removing some bags, we saw a bottle, they took them back out and put them back in. They are hovering around that as well, so it is presumed that that car is also being searched.

And if you look down the street a little bit this way or the other way, we can tell you that there are a lot of people here from the neighborhood and outside who are simply curious about what's going on in addition to I can't begin to tell you how many cameras are here as well and reporters trying to get an idea of what this investigation is all about.

As you might recall, this is the second time in a week that investigators have been on the scene at Mr. Hernandez's home and taking a look as part of their ongoing murder investigation in to the shooting death of Oden Lloyd. His body was discovered about less than a mile from here on Monday afternoon. According to members of Lloyd's family, the two men were friends. Fred?

WHITFIELD: And so, Susan, given there are so many neighbors that are milling about, there to see what is happening. Has anyone saying anything? Has anyone said anything about their interaction with Aaron Hernandez?

CANDIOTTI: I talked to a number of them who have told me that, you know, he's been a good neighbor. This is a friendly neighborhood, a lot of people know each other. A lot of families live here. And one person told me that they heard a bit of a noise at the house the night that this incident occurred, but nothing that they thought was scary, nothing that prompted them to call 911, but this has been going on for days now. People can't understand what's going on and naturally everyone would like to see it resolved one way or the other.

WHITFIELD: All right, Susan Candiotti, thanks so much, outside of Aaron Hernandez's home there again. He's not been named a suspect.

A race car driver has died at Le Mans, France, Allan Simonsen of Denmark crashed just nine minutes into the race. Organizers say he was in his fourth lap when he swerved his Aston Martin to avoid a car and hitting a wall on the driver's side. Rescuers took the 34-year-old man to a medical center where he later died. This was Simonsen's seventh appearance at the Le Mans 24 endurance race.

We're also following reports that two people were killed when a stunt plane crashed at an air show in Daytona this afternoon. Affiliate WHIO reports wing walker Jane Wicker was performing on her biplane when it crashed in a grassy area between when two runways and then exploded. Her pilot was also killed.

And a big step in the George Zimmerman case today that could change the course of this trial. The judge ruled testimony from two prosecution witnesses who analyzed screams on the 911 calls cannot be used. Those calls were from neighbors who heard a fight the night Trayvon Martin died. Listen -

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does he look hurt to you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't see him. I don't want to go out there. I don't know what's going on so - they're sending -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you think he's yelling help?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. What is your -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: The prosecution had two expert witnesses who said those screams did not come from Zimmerman. Their opinions are not allowed in the trial but the judge's ruling did say this, "this order does not prevent the parties from playing the tapes at trial or from calling witnesses familiar with the voice of the defendant or Martin to testify regarding the identity of the person making those screams."

All right. The man who admitted to leaking top secret details about NSA surveillance has now been charged with espionage. Today a senior administration official said the U.S. wants to extradite Edward Snowden from Hong Kong. Dan Lothian has more.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, some new information a senior administration official confirming that, in fact, the U.S. is requesting Hong Kong to extradite Edward Snowden back to the United States. They believe this is in accordance with an agreement that they have with Hong Kong to surrender any fugitive offenders. A senior administration official telling CNN, "if Hong Kong doesn't act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong's commitment to the rule of law."

So, clearly, the administration putting pressure on Hong Kong, but as I pointed out, Hong Kong does have this agreement with the United States, but it also does have some exceptions for political offenses, so it's unclear whether or not this is something that will come into play. In addition to that, Hong Kong is a Chinese territory. So, at any point Beijing could jump in and block extradition.

So this just shows how complicated all of this is. The U.S. obviously trying to put pressure to get Snowden back here to the United States and get him into court. Snowden does have his defenders. Wikileaks co- founder Julian Assange himself hiding out in London said, "The charging of Edward Snowden is intended to intimidate any country that might be considering standing up for his rights. That tactic must not be allowed to work. The effort to find asylum for Edward Snowden must be intensified," Fredricka?

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much. Dan Lothian at the White House.

All right, heavy flooding is hitting the city of Calgary, Canada.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: My goodness, the rooftop of a pretty significant building under that bridge. One of the worst-hit areas is the city's downtown where thousands have been evacuated. Paula Newton is in Calgary.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Fred. Just incredible devastation we're looking at here. I mean, imagine there are thousands of people that live and work in this downtown (INAUDIBLE) every day -

WHITFIELD: Snow flurries?

NEWTON: Oh my goodness. No, this is definitely just what you call dandelions fur. That's what I call it.

WHITFIELD: OK. Just checking.

NEWTON: We've had mosquitoes, Fred, we've had rain, we've had sunshine, we've had everything. And here in the downtown core is really something to behold. Fred, I want you to really take a look now at the downtown core and the fact that it's really been taking on water for more than two days now. Most of the power out here now anything running down there running on emergency power.

But look at these streets, absolutely inundated with water and that's better than it was yesterday, Fred. This entire downtown core they do not think it would be back to speed at least until midweek next week and that's on top of 100,000 people through Calgary and southern Alberta that has now been evacuated.

And Fred, here's the problem. Right now many are calling the situation stable, although there are dark clouds around us, we may get more rain. But I want to draw your attention now to the river just on the edge of downtown. This is the Bowe River. What happens is another river coming into this downtown area, the elbow river, may yet crest. That means the river you're looking at right now could change direction, Fred, and flood this downtown core again and everybody is taking a look at this to see what will happen next.

People here in these communities really not knowing what is going to happen. They want the worst of this to be over but they can't actually say that right now and also thinking about how they're going to recover. Many people, not just personal property, but many businesses affected. I want you to hear now, Fred, from one of the hundreds of thousands of people affected by this flooding.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were working in the store and then we came out to see the parking lot and everything was flooded and so we quickly got our vehicles out and tried to move them to higher ground and now we're stuck. Can't get back into work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: Fred, I have to tell you, people are exhausted here. It's almost anyone that you talk to if they're personally affected, Fred, within a few minutes they are in tears and mainly because of the uncertainty of the situation. We continue to keep an eye on it as does the city. They have flooding in their major arena here and even things like that. They're calling this the flood of the century for a good reason. Anyone you talk to, Fred, say they've never seen anything like this here before.

WHITFIELD: No, that is extraordinary. All right, Paula Newton, thank you so much. Again, for anybody just joining us, not snow flurries mixed with the terrible flooding, but as Paula explained, that's from dandelions, a whole lot of them. Thanks so much.

All right. Paula Deen is apologizing for using a racial epithet, but will that be enough for her fans and the sponsors to stand by her. We'll start with out expert panel after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Paula Deen is apologizing for using a racial epithet, but it has already cost the celebrity cook a contract with the Food Network where she was enjoying three shows. Take a listen -

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA DEEN, COOKING SHOW HOST: Your color of your skin, your religion, your sexual preference does not matter to me, but it's what in the heart, what's in the heart and my family and I try to live by that. And I am here to say I am so sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So, Deen and her brother are being sued for alleged sexual and racial harassment by a former manager at their restaurant. Joining me now James Poniewozik "Time" magazine's TV critic and Keli Goff from the online magazine, the "Root." James is joining us by phone. I wish we could see you, James, but we'll be able to hear you.

All right. So Keli, you also have a master's degree in strategic communications. So let me begin with you. Paula Deen saying that she used the "n" word but that was in the past, a different time. In her statement she says, "I work hard. I have made mistakes." What she said and how she appeared in the many statements, is that enough?

KELI GOFF, THE "ROOT": In a word, no. I mean, I think that if there a way to file malpractice for bad strategic communications advice, this would be the time to file such a lawsuit in her crisis management team.

WHITFIELD: What was missing in your view?

GOFF: Well, first of all the fact - first of all, she waited three days, that was problem number one, and no good comes from - often, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up, right? We all hear that saying and there's a sense when someone does something that a widely considered egregious or offensive and they take their time, "a," owning up to it or, "b," Fredricka, actually owning and taking full responsibility.

I hate to draw parallels here, because we know she's not accused of physically assaulting someone, maybe verbally assaulting someone but there are shades of the Chris Brown saga, right? What ultimately hurt Chris Brown's image and his record sales and it's hard for him to come back from is that you have people like me who supported his albums and then we see the photos of Rihanna, he never actually says that he beat her, that he assaulted her until about a year and a half later.

It's all I'm sorry for what has happened, I'm sorry for what occurred, I'm sorry for what transpired. She hid for three days and then when she finally the first apology comes out, it's I'm sorry for her colorful language. That leaves the question what exactly did you say that you're sorry for and why are you sorry for it and that's what I think they really dropped the ball on.

WHITFIELD: And, James, you know, how did you see this? How did you interpret what she said and what she hasn't said, we know you made some very strong statements in your article in "Time" drawing some parallels to what she said during that deposition, and what kind of references or, you know, are really made to southern culture.

I'll get to a quote, you know, from your article in a moment, but I do want on just right off the bat get an idea of how you interpreted her statement. Did she say enough? The omission of certain words, does that do more damage than good?

JAMES PONIEWOZIK, "TIME" MAGAZINE TV CRITIC (on the phone): She did - I tend to agree that she didn't say much of anything in, you know, again, I try to look at this now from a crisis PR standpoint but in actual like human standpoint of did it actually, you know, not did the apology, "work" or, "help her" but did she actually apologize. I think that, you know, just as a human accepting an apology, it sort of means saying what you actually did wrong, why you understand that it was wrong. What you learned from it. What you're going to do about it going forward. And there just wasn't much of that.

Now, I'm not inside Paula Deen's camp. I don't know what sort of advice or lack thereof she's getting. It had the feeling of something. I mean there is an ongoing lawsuit and it sort of had the feeling of something that was circumscribed by lawyers, I don't know if it was or not, but there did seem to be a very conscious effort do not specifically say the thing that you're apologizing for. And when you're talking around something like that, it just, you know, issues like this always come to, you know, the controversy part of the injuries is trust.

WHITFIELD: Are we saying the risk of you do not say those things -

PONIEWOZIK: ... doesn't help with the trust issue.

WHITFIELD: You don't say the things you are accused of saying because you don't want now a new record of you actually saying it?

GOFF: Well, can I tell you, i actually - I just have to tell you, this is - I'm having flashbacks to one of my classes in strategic communications because one of the things what they talked about is the yin and the yang because lawyers who say if you apologize, you are admitting guilt and that's opening you up to even greater liability, and yet every study shows doctors, even doctors, Fredricka, who make life-changing, poor decisions or missteps are less likely to be sued for apologizing directly, honestly, openly, and up front for what they did than trying to just hide behind lawyers and hoping it goes away and hoping for a lower settlement. That goes back to the humanity that James is talking about. We all want to be acknowledged, taken seriously, our feelings to be taken seriously, and saying "I'm sorry you were offended or I'm sorry for what happened." It doesn't get us there.

WHITFIELD: And so, James, you almost get into the psychology of what you believe the psychology is behind the words, the history, that Deen has here and what she represents today. You stating this in the article and I'm just going to pull a portion of it, "Deen made a pile of money off a certain idea of old school southern culture, in return she had an obligation to that culture, an obligation not to embody its worst, most shameful history and attitudes. Instead in one swoop, fairly or not, she single handedly affirmed people's worst suspicions of people who talk and eat like her along with glibly insulting minorities. She slurred many of the very fans who made her successful. She made it that much harder to say confederate bean soup is just a recipe." So you've gone on very strong here. You think at the root of this is some real insincerity in her statement?

PONIEWOZIK: Well, you know, I think getting to the quote that you said there, obviously the greater injury when somebody, you know, commits a racial slur is to the race that they're slurring, you know, but in a way I think there's also an insult to Paula Deen's fans here. One thing that inspired me to write that one comment I was seeing immediately after this news broke was people saying, "Well, was anybody surprised, you know, you know, look at it she's an older woman, she's from the south, she, you know, is, you know, she, you know, represents this down home culture, you know, of course, she would do this, et cetera."

And, you know, in a way she's sort of by embodying people's worst suspicions of somebody like her, it, you know, sort of bringing her fans into this, people who, you know, appreciate her food and, you know, want to, you know, enjoy that without necessarily linking themselves to, you know, the less happy aspect of old southern culture.

WHITFIELD: Well -

PONIEWOZIK: And - but by doing this, she really has sort of created an injury there as well.

WHITFIELD: Well, certainly a lot at stake for this $17 million empire over, you know, and involving this $1 million suit. We know that Food Network has already dropped her, unclear as to what may potentially happen next. James Poniewozik, Keli Goff, thanks so much. Sorry, we're out of time. I know this is a fascinating conversation. We could go on, but who knows, we might be revisiting this conversation depending on what may potentially happen next. Thanks so much to both of you. Appreciate it.

GOFF: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Once, a prisoner in Italy, Amanda Knox hears more reasons why the courts there want to retry her for murder. Those details straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: For Amanda Knox the nightmare continues. Knox spent four years in an Italian prison for the 2007 murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kircher. A jury overturned Knox's conviction in 2011 but now she faces a possible retrial and the Italian court is explaining why. On Tuesday Italy's supreme court said significant evidence was neglected and could support prosecutors' initial theories of a sex game gone wrong. CNN's Chris Cuomo spoke to Amanda Knox back in May.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANDA KNOX: I thought this would be over by now. I really did.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's not over. There are a lot of doubts. Are you ready to deal with what's out there?

KNOX: I have to be. I've had to be this entire time. I haven't ever really been ready for any of it. I mean, this is all so much bigger than me. One of the more frustrating aspects of the doubts that have arisen is the fact that they're coming from the fact that the prosecution has not given a satisfactory answer to what happened. And I'm being the one who's being held responsible for that.

CUOMO: Why you?

KNOX: Why?

CUOMO: Why not some man? It's usually a man that does these bad things. Why you? Why do you think the prosecution is targeting you?

KNOX: Well, that's a really good question. I think it comes back to their decision to target me from the very beginning. I think - I think from the very beginning they wanted to think that what happened to Meredith was an inside job. I'm still being judged based upon unrealistic and unreasonable expectations about how a young woman would react to a horrible situation. No one knows how they would react to a horrible situation until it happens to them.

I am the type of person who to this day people suggest that I'm cold or unfeeling. And first of all, it's untrue. I definitely reacted to what happened to her. And I react to this day. I'm emotional to this day about what happened. But I'm also the type of person who when there is pressure on me and expectation on me to react, to feel in front of people, I freeze.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And tune in tomorrow, I talk with Rome bureau chief of "Newsweek" and the Daily Beast. She'll join me to discuss the fate of Amanda Knox if indeed she were to return back to Italy. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: That's going to do it for me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Up next, "The Bully at Home, when does sibling aggression cross the line?" Find out. "Sanjay Gupta, MD" starts right now.