Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Science Fact Check On "Gravity" Blockbuster; Biker Mob Attack Suspects Charged; A 9-Year-Old Hops Solo Flight To Vegas; Disgusted With Police As Usual; Why Can't They Get Along?; Team Rallies Around Coach With ALS; East Coast Bracing For Possible Twisters

Aired October 07, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. It is the biggest movie in the country but it's America. Critics always attack the big hits, in today's episode, "Gravity."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Explorer has been hit. Do you read? Explorer, over. Explorer. Astronaut is off structure, off structure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do I do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That arm is going to carry you too far. Listen to my voice. You need to focus. I won't be able to drag you. You need to detach. Do it now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, I'm dizzy. Don't worry. There will not be spoilers here. The George Clooney/Sandra Bullock film just became the biggest opening in October ever, earning more than $50 million, but some are questioning its realism, including former astronaut Marsha Ivans who wrote an op-ed in "Time" magazine. She wrote this, she questioned many things from the space capsule to the training of Bullock's character.

She sums it up by saying, quote, "For me, it's just too hard to watch. The scene in which debris is falling through the atmosphere and breaking up into streaking balls of white, finality brought back, slamming back, to say, to mind the real life image burned there forever of the last moments of the "Columbia" shuttle."

She said "I had to look away. I wanted to ask, who is going to like this movie?" I have to say, a lot of people did like this movie. Nischelle Turner talked to a couple of experts who fact checked the film for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A thrilling, nerve-shredding phenomenon. That's critics describing "Gravity." UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do I do?

TURNER: When it comes to space movies, it's no secret Hollywood can be light on facts and heavy on fiction.

JEAN LUC MARGOT, PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY, UCLA: When I was in grad school, we went to see "The Core" and there were 20 or so geophysicists in the audience and I remember we were laughing at different times than the rest of the audience.

TURNER: As for the science behind this movie, UCLA's Dr. Jean Luc Margot says things are looking up.

MARGOT: From a scientific standpoint, I thought the moviemakers did a very good job. It was based on a shuttle servicing mission that has happened. They paid attention to the fact that sound doesn't propagate in space. They also tried hard to portray the conservation of momentum. When Sandra and George collide with each other then they will sort of bounce off each other. I would give it an A.

TURNER: Sandra Bullock and George Clooney co-star in the 90-minute 3- D epic directed by Alfonzo Cuaron.

ALFONSO CUARON, DIRECTOR, "GRAVITY": Well, the most important thing was to get right the science on screen.

SANDRA BULLOC, "DR. RYAN STONE": Because the minute you see a crack or you see something that doesn't feel right, you as an audience are going gee, not there, you lost me.

TURNER: The film's 80 million budget included scientists, new lighting technology, and a gravity free simulator.

CUARON: A lot of that for me was to see how a camera would react there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you copy?

TURNER: To portray an astronaut stranded 400 miles above earth, Bullock trained with real NASA veteran Katie Komen.

BULLOC: The thing I needed to know from her was physically what her body was doing, what it did in space.

TURNER: Margot, who saw the film in L.A., notes there are a few moments of movie magic.

MARGOT: In particular one scene where you see the space shuttle spinning wildly out of control because it's hit by a piece of debris. We did that calculation. It would have to be about 1,000 kilograms, about a ton of material.

TURNER: Space trash that big would have been tracked by NASA.

MARGOT: I mean, every piece larger than about the size of my fist is being tracked. TURNER: As for the film's suggestion the heroine almost had six months of training --

MARGOT: That would be implausible, but it makes it more enjoyable.

TURNER: Enjoyable acclaimed and for the most part, realistic.

Nischelle Turner, CNN, Hollywood.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: I got to say everyone is talking about this movie, but it's not the only movie drama out there. Tonight on "AC 360," new drama for the new film "Captain Phillips." Anderson speaks -- investigates a lawsuit accusing Captain Richard Phillips of risking crews' lives before they were hijacked by pirates from Somalia. That's at 8:00 tonight. Don't miss it.

Now New York authorities arrest and charge two more people in a biker mob attack. The attorney for one of the suspects admits his clients bashed the Alexian Lien's SUV window but nothing more. He says the biker overreacted. Investigators say Reggie Chance is the man caught on video using his helmet to splash the black Range Rover, but Chance maintains he never touched the driver.

Prosecutor said say the second man charged, Robert Sims, stomped on Lien and tried to open the SUV's doors, but news that an undercover NYPD officer was traveling with the bikers and saw the entire scene unfold is now raising eyebrows. If he was there, why didn't he do anything about it?

So joining us now to talk about this is former D.C. police detective and HLN law enforcement analyst, Mike Brooks. Mike, what do you think took the undercover officer so long to come forward here?

MIKE BROOKS, HLN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You know, John, that was my first question when I heard about this because apparently there were actually two off-duty NYPD cops there. Now, one of them did not see what was going on. He was too far back. But apparently, this undercover detective did, but he didn't tell his officials, John, until Wednesday night. So you know, now he's retained an attorney. What does that say to me?

Did he think that maybe he should have, even though he was in an undercover capacity, and off duty, did he feel he should have taken some kind of action? Because John, even if he's undercover, I don't know what kind of case he was working on, but apparently, he was off duty, so -- but he would still be able to go up and intervene as a regular citizen and say, knock that off. You shouldn't be doing this, but he didn't. Did he fail to take police action after witnessing this? That's the big question.

BERMAN: What are the different rules for different types of officers? You have uniformed officers, uniformed, off duty officers, and then you have uniformed undercover officers. The fact that he was under cover, perhaps on some kind of investigation, by the way, we don't know what the investigation was about. How might that have impacted his decision whether or not to intervene at that moment?

BROOKS: Well, that's the question. You know, was his assignment having to do anything with these bikers? Was he maybe undercover narcotics? But he apparently was undercover detective who was off- duty at the time. So even though he did witness this, John, he still could have come up, even without identifying himself as a police officer. Come up, just as a citizen, say hey, guys, knock this off. That's enough, that's enough.

So I think that's what official said are now going to look into. What kind of action, how close was he? What exactly did he see, what exactly did he hear? And if so, why did he not take any action? Just as a normal citizen.

BERMAN: As a normal citizen. You are responsible, again, just the difference between undercover and uniformed. What is the difference there?

BROOKS: Well, basically, un-uniformed is you would be just a detective or uniformed officer who was off-duty and there participating in a ride, just as John Q. Citizen, but still, as a sworn NYPD officer or police officer anywhere, you still have a responsibility to take action should you see some criminality going on in front of you.

Now, even though he's undercover, you know, was there a possibility that if he had taken some action, it would have blown his cover? Would it have drawn attention to him? Maybe hurt his case he was working on? Again, we don't know what kind of case he's working on, but still, he could have come up as whatever name he was going by, used that, and said enough is enough, stop.

BERMAN: All right, Mike Brooks, thank you for that, helping clarify the situation, a lot of questions still there.

Meanwhile, a developing situation here in New York, these are live pictures of the load of a construction crane dangling over Midtown, Manhattan. The wind is expected to pick up in the next hour. We are keeping an eye on this crane.

Plus, if you could say anything to lawmakers about the government shutdown, what would it be? Hopefully not using four-letter words. Still ahead, Americans sounding off on both parties, you will hear the frustration.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Welcome back, everyone. A nine-year-old runaway goes on a wild ride from Minneapolis to Las Vegas. This kid boarded a flight all by himself without a ticket. Authorities say he cleared at least three security checkpoints, this all happened last week at Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport. The boy managed to blend in with other passengers then find a seat on Delta Flight 1651.

It wasn't until mid-flight, mid-flight, that crew members realized that he was a stowaway. The incident has put Delta and TSA Security very much in the spotlight. Travel expert Terry Trippler with the Web site planerules.com. He puts the blame squarely on the airline. Terry, what does it mean that this child was able to board a flight undetected?

TERRY TRIPPLER, OWNER, THEPLANERULES.COM: Well, John, I think what we have here is a situation where someone just wasn't doing their job and wasn't paying attention. I don't blame the TSA because I can understand where people come up with boarding passes and IDs, and a child under 18 doesn't need an id, so if he's blending in with a family, I can understand how that TSA rep sitting there has missed it. I see that all the time.

Now, not see it and miss it, but I watch TSA people checking people in all the time at the Minneapolis airport. However, when you get down to the gate, and you've got gate agents after all Delta, this person is boarding your flight. And this is where you have to be extremely careful.

And to get this kid, having this kid just walk on the plane with no boarding pass, no seat assignment, and sit down, this is where I think the mistake really happened. Delta, of course, and naturally so, are saying, well, it was our flight attendants who discovered it. Well, it was too late at that person.

The person was already on the aircraft and they didn't discover it, I understand, until mid-flight. I don't think any changes have to be made. We don't have to get out the orange cones and the orange barrels and tear up the airport. I think we just have to have people paid a little closer attention when they're boarding an aircraft.

BERMAN: There seem to be two problems here, at the gate when they were swiping the tickets because clearly a ticket wasn't swiped, and then counting. There appears to be a counting problem. Don't they count all souls on board the flight to make sure it matches the number of tickets swiped?

TRIPPLER: Well, they generally do. You see it happening all the time. So what we have is a communication breakdown occurred at the gate. I know it was 45 years ago that I was a gate agent, but still, numbers are numbers and you need to know how many souls are onboard that plane, so counting and having it break down, I could understand it does happen, but boy, in today's world, in the post-9/11 world, it's really critical that you know exactly who is and is not on that aircraft.

And a 9-year-old boy, I mean, my grandson is 9 years old. That's so hard to imagine. This kid had luck going with him. He should have gone down there and played the tables real quick. You don't know what he would have come back with.

BERMAN: Apparently, he had been at the airport a day or two before, casing the joint, going through luggage, too, something going on there. Terry Trippler, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate your insight.

Americans versus lawmakers, the gloves come off, as people on the left and the right react to the government shutdown. You will hear a whole lot of frustration, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: So, if Republicans and Democrats are fed up with each other, it's nothing compared to how a lot of Americans feel about both parties right now. They are tired of the shutdown and tired of excuses. CNN's Ted Rowlands spoke with some frustrated folks in Gary, Indiana.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, over the past week, we have been across the Midwest, in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, here in Gary, Indiana, they are saying the same thing. People are absolutely disgusted with lawmakers in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS (voice-over): Driving through downtown Gary, Indiana, you see how much the city is struggling. Ravaged by the housing bust and high unemployment, people here have very little patience for lawmakers bickering in Washington.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's all -- struggles, money struggles. It's ridiculous. People are suffering. What could you say?

ROWLANDS (on camera): What message would you send to Washington?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That they need to work for us and listen to us and work together. Both parties have to work together and quit blaming each other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Feel what the people feel, you know? Put yourself in our shoes especially low-class, you know, middle class, put yourselves in our shoes.

ROWLANDS: What word would you use to describe what's happening in Washington?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hideous. Hideous.

ROWLANDS (voice-over): This private construction crew is clearing a lot downtown. The project is with the county, but it's funded in part with federal dollars. A long shutdown means a possible delay in getting their paychecks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrats and Republicans, I think it's a shame that they can't get their act together and work as a team and put this country back where it needs to be.

ROWLANDS (on camera): Describe what's happening in Washington in one word.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Madness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vindictive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Petty. It's very petty for them to do what they're doing. They're not worried about their constituents. They're worried about themselves.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS: John, just one of the many adjectives we have heard over the past week. We've heard pathetic, embarrassing, disgusting. I think it's safe to say the longer this goes on, the more frustrated people outside the beltway will be with politicians in Washington -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Ted Rowlands, thanks so much. Stay with CNN for our special coverage of the government shutdown. Tonight, on "PIERS MORGAN LIVE," Senator John McCain. That is tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern. Do not miss it.

And coming up, I'm going to speak live with a former FBI hostage negotiator who says the situation in Washington right now reminds him of a prison siege. See how he says a negotiator would handle this stalemate. It can't hurt.

Plus, happening now, large sections of the mid-Atlantic region under a tornado watch and we're talking the biggest cities along the east coast. We'll tell you where to look out just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: A high school coach's battle with Lou Gehrig's disease nearly sidelined him and his career, but the support of his team gave him a reason to keep going and winning. His story in today's "Impact World."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICKEY BEARD, HIGH SCHOOL LACROSSE COACH: My name is Mickey Beard. I suffer from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. It sucks but I've got it. There's nothing to do about it. But to have girls like this backing me up, they touched a lot of hearts, raised a lot of money.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've done the walk, and then for Mickey himself, at some point, it comes down to doing more than you can do when you're physically with someone and the Red Sox has a tribute to him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For Coach Mickey, we always start with the left foot forward because we're starting by putting someone else in front of us.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know he's going to be with us forever.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just hard to see someone that you care about, like, have to go through such a struggle every day of his life.

BEARD: It's very difficult to come. It's like you hurt over my shoulder. It's hard not to come because they give me something to get up and look forward to. I just hope they know how much they mean to me. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: What a team. What a team.

All right, two secrets raids targeting international suspects. One was successful, one was not. Coming up, we're talking to a former Navy SEAL about what went right, what went wrong. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: A line of storms marching across the mid-Atlantic region right now placing millions of people under a tornado watch. We're talking some of the biggest cities on the east coast. CNN's Chad Myers tracking the storm for us. Chad, what's the latest?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John, an awful lot of airports in the way of this, too, ground stops, JFK, Newark. I mean, we have seen it all, many areas now, at least two hours delay. There's a shutdown. There's Lady Liberty. It doesn't look bad New York City right now, but there's much weather to the west. We'll update you in the next half hour -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Chad Myers, thanks so much for that.