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Ships Scour Northern Arc for Flight 370; Inmate Dies After Botched Execution; Southern California Brush Fire Threatens Homes; Extreme Floods Slam Gulf Coast; Some Charities Will Return Sterling Donations

Aired April 30, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Bottom of the hour, you're watching CNN here.

And now to the unofficial hunt to find Flight 370, it has just expanded in a major way, because the Bangladesh navy is now sending in two search ships after this Australian marine exploration company spotted this.

See this on the right side of your screen now, all these different images? This is what they believe could be the wreckage of a commercial airliner, specifically a Boeing 777, appearing on their scans right after flight 370 vanished. Flight 370 is a 777.

Here is one possible problem here. It is thousands of miles away from the current search area down there in the southern arc. You see that big red circle? That's where they're saying it could be.

Remember, we know all of this, and they are searching in the southern Indian ocean based upon all the Inmarsat data of the plane's final movements. So what could this mean? Should they even go there?

Joining me now CNN aviation analyst Jeff Wise, Michael Kay, who's also a retired British Royal Air Force lieutenant colonel and pilot. Gentlemen, nice to see both of you.

Jeff, let's begin with you, because I tell you. I was watching "NEW DAY" this morning, and I saw our aviation expert Miles O'Brien come on.

And I tell you, he said -- he came on and said my blood is boiling over the notion of this company, about this possibility must be making families feel, questioning where they found this so-called evidence.

What do you make of this company and should it be explored, Jeff?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I was communicating with Miles this morning, and kind of -- we were each getting each other's dudgeon up. And the more you look into it, if more ridiculous is it.

This company claims that it's been finding things since 2003, but they didn't even register their Web site until 2011. They claim that they found this famous World War II ship in 2005, but it hasn't even been discovered.

The technology is really kind of laughable. Whenever somebody makes an outrageous claim that they've got this technology, but they won't tell you what it is, it should raise --

BALDWIN: That's what you mean by laughable?

WISE: Bad.

BALDWIN: Bad.

WISE: Really bad.

BALDWIN: Bad. OK.

WISE: Not even plausible is what I'm trying to say.

So, I mean, basically -- and the thing is when you take this case in isolation and you say here's this interesting story. Why don't you take a look at this interesting story?

The problem is that in the wake of the Australians failing to find the plane where you said it was, now you've opened the door to everyone who's got a theory just come flooding forward and saying, look at this, look at this, I've got this thing, I'm a thousand --we are seeing all sorts of stories about people who see something in a satellite image or what have you.

And it reminds me of when we first starting seeing -- remember -- the satellite photos of the debris in the water?

BALDWIN: Of course.

WISE: And we got so excited. Oh, there's a big floating thing. It could be it.

And then we realized there's thousands of things floating in the ocean and you can't chase after all of them.

BALDWIN: False positives. Right, right, right.

WISE: False positive.

BALDWIN: So I hear you loud and clear, Jeff Wise.

Michael, do you agree, or do you think if there is the teeniest- tiniest possibility, send something there to check it out?

MICHAEL KAY, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Look, Brooke, I don't think people have jumped the gun on this. I don't think anyone has come forward and said this is the silver bullet that we have all been looking for. Let's get Ocean Shield, let's get Echo, let's get the U.K. fleet of submarines up there to go and check it out. Let's launch all the maritime surveillance assets. I don't think anyone has actually said that.

I think in an investigation that has been going on for 54 days with no unequivocal leads, with analysis that's bespoke it's unique, it's pioneering, it's never done before, and what I mean by that is Inmarsat with the pings, I don't think it's unreasonable to have a conversation.

I'm not advocating for one second let's deploy lots of assets into the northern arc, into the Bay of Bengal.

What I'm saying is that you have got an investigation team that is full of very credible organizations, the NTSB, the AAIB, the Air Accident Investigation Branch in the U.K., the NTSB-equivalent, the ATSB, the Australian equivalent.

Let's have some conversations, because these people have been doing air-accident investigations and these organizes have been conducting these investigations for many, many years.

So at least let's just have the conversation to see what this proprietary software is and what it can do. It's a mineral- exploration company. It's been doing this in the ground since 2000, and it looks for oil, it looks for water, it looks for nickel, it looks for minerals.

So that's what it is. Let's have a conversation and let's rule it out if we need to.

BALDWIN: OK, so conversation, maybe not throw a ton of resources at it, I hear you.

Let me just play some sound, because -- let's see. This is Sarah Bajc, so this is the partner of one of those passengers -- we have heard from her quite a bit here -- on board this plane. This is what she told CNN about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH BAJC, PARTNER OF FLIGHT 370 PASSENGER: They felt fairly confident as of four weeks ago that they had seen something. They released that data. It was ignored.

After two weeks they released another set of recordings, and that was ignored, too, so they went to the media.

So I do believe it's worth sending a boat out with proper sonar capability. The water is only a thousand-meters deep and they've got GPS coordinates of where to go.

So we would like to see the government follow up on this. It seems valid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, Jeff, even though you talk about the evidence perhaps being laughable, you know you hear -- when you hear Sarah Bajc come on and say, let's check it out --

WISE: That's exactly why Miles was so infuriated, and I can share some of his emotion, because you make these sort of science-y words --

BALDWIN: False hope.

WISE: -- and it sounds like you've got technology that you don't really have, but you're making science-y noises. And you make -- you kind of create this storm system of enthusiasm and plausibility.

And people get all excited about maybe we find it. Maybe there's hope. And I think when you start playing with the emotions of the passenger's families, that's when it becomes just from an innocent prank or whatever it is that they're doing to something that's really kind of harmful and bad.

KAY: Brooke, can I just jump in? There is one thing I would say, as well, and something that I've been advocating since we've been looking in the southern arc with the Inmarsat data.

Let's look at what other evidence there is out there to corroborate it. This is 118 miles off the coast. That is well within primary radar and air-defense radar boundaries and limits.

Have India got anything on their radar from that time? Has Bangladesh? Has Thailand?

Let's look and try and corroborate at least that area with other evidence so we're not putting all our eggs in one basket.

BALDWIN: Michael Kay and Jeff Wise, thank you both very much.

WISE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up, a botched execution in Oklahoma, raising serious ethical questions here, this convicted murderer and rapist died 43 minutes after his lethal injection with this drug cocktail, appearing to writhe in pain, eventually died of a heart attack.

We will talk to someone who was there and witnessed this. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A botched execution prompts Oklahoma's governor to announce this three-prong independent review of the way her state carries out the death penalty and may issue additional protocol.

Last night the state of Oklahoma tried to execute this man, 38-year- old Clayton Lockett, for the 1999 murder of a young woman who had just graduated high school.

He was convicted of shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Nieman twice. He tried to carjack her truck, but when she refused to hand over the keys, he tied her up with duct tape and shot her.

She was forced to watch Lockett and an accomplice dig a grave in which she was eventually buried alive in.

He was given a three-drug cocktail, but the whole thing went awry, went wrong. Prison officials had to halt it. Turns out Lockett's vein exploded, and he died 49 minutes later of a heart attack after the first injection.

Oklahoma planned to put a second inmate to death last night, but the execution has been stayed until officials figure out exactly what went wrong.

The governor announced an independent review in the case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOVERNOR MARY FALLIN, OKLAHOMA: That review will focus on three different things.

First of all, Clayton Lockett's cause of death, Commissioner Thompson informed me that the state medical examiner's office to make the determination.

Second, the review will determine whether or not the department of corrections followed the correct protocol for executions.

And third, Commissioner Thompson will develop recommendations to improve execution protocols from the department of corrections.

I expect the review process to be deliberate, to be thorough, and it will be the first step in evaluating our state's execution protocols.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So let me bring in Matt Trotter. He is with Public Radio Tulsa, and any time you have an execution, you have possibly family members, you have lawyers and you have members of the media to bear witness.

And so Matt was there last night, and so Matt joins us on the phone.

And, Matt, just, if you can, take me inside that room. Tell me what you saw and heard.

MATT TROTTER, REPORTER, PUBLIC RADIO TULSA (via telephone): It was really just sort of a weird event. He came in more or less on time and sat there for almost 20 minutes while they were still getting things ready.

They had the screens to the execution chamber down, so we couldn't see anything. Once the director came in and gave the order to proceed with the execution, the screens came up.

Lockett refused to give any sort of final statement, and that's when the first dose of drugs was pushed into his IV.

It took 16 minutes from then to when the screens went down and the execution wasn't successful at that point. We were all confused as to what was happening.

BALDWIN: How could you tell -- I'm sorry for jumping in. How could you tell something was going wrong? What were you seeing and hearing?

TROTTER (via telephone): Well, about 8 minutes after they started, the doctor in the chamber checks Lockett to see if he was unconscious yet and he wasn't.

A couple minutes later he did declare him unconscious, and soon after that he started writhing around on the table, lifting his head and shoulders completely off of the pillow and mumbling.

You could tell, even if he wasn't conscious, something wasn't going right.

BALDWIN: And so I understand that at a point after, you know, X more minutes passed, there were blinds and those blinds were shut? Is that correct? So you couldn't see what was going on behind the blinds.

TROTTER (via telephone): Right, exactly. About six minutes after he started moving initially is when the prison official announced they were going to lower the screen, and they did that and cut the microphone inside the chambers, so we couldn't hear anything.

The last thing we saw was the doctor on Lockett's right side lifting up the sheet checking his right arm.

BALDWIN: We now know it took 43 minutes since that initial IV, that initial drug, one of the three which clearly the whole thing didn't kick in. His vein burst and he died of a heart attack.

I'm not sure if you had a chance -- a lot of people were saying this obviously went so wrong. If you were a family member of that victim, you may have zero sympathy for what this man went through last night before he died.

I'm curious if you even could see the looks on anyone's faces whether there were lawyers for this man, family members of Stephanie Nieman, who he killed.

TROTTER (via telephone): We couldn't see -- I mean, any family members that may have been there. They were in a separate screened off portion of the viewing area.

The state officials in the front row didn't really change their expressions at all, and I couldn't see Lockett's attorney from where I was at.

But there was definitely a palpable "oh, no, something's wrong" moment among the media witnesses that were in the room.

BALDWIN: Matt Trotter, Public Radio Tulsa, thank you so much for sharing what you saw, and now because of this and even other examples, Ohio most recently, the death penalty in this country, back in the spotlight, and this is just the beginning of another national conversation that we need to have about this. Coming up, we're going to continue following the breaking story out of California. Look at this.

This brush fire, it is burning just about 30 miles outside of Los Angeles, forcing people to evacuate schools and homes.

Coming up next, we will take you there, give you an update.

Also ahead, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, banned for life from the Clippers, from the NBA.

How might this affect Sterling's charities? Do they keep the money donated to them by Sterling? Do they give it back? How does that work?

Stay with me. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, let's come up on pictures here. On the left-hand side of your screen, live pictures, this is the Los Angeles area. This is near Rancho Cucamonga. It's called the Etiwanda Fire, about 30 miles outside L.A., fire burning here.

We're also going to talk about flooding on the east, but let's begin in California. Jennifer Gray has been watching this, and talking to our correspondent Paul Vercammen, he was saying because of this not just homes, schools being evacuated right now.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, and the smoke is incredible right now. You have 80-mile-per-hour winds, and they're not able to fight this from the air. The helicopters can't get up there.

And so you're just talking about a huge problem right now, the wind blowing smoke all around. It's really close to Metro L.A. And so it is just one example of the weather extremes that we're dealing with right now.

You have such a drought in California, and you have too much water over on the East Coast. And so it's just a real big problem. Hopefully those winds will die down soon and they can start to fight that, but right now it's just basically --

BALDWIN: The wind is whipping.

GRAY: Yeah, it's raging out of control so --

BALDWIN: They can't get above it.

GRAY: Let's switch gears and let's talk about that water, the rain in the Panhandle of Florida, because that has been such a huge problem over the past 24 hours.

More people die in flash flooding than anything else, tornadoes, hurricanes, lightning, anything. The water can rise so quickly, and that's what happened over the past 24 hours. I'm going to show you the rain. What we call "training" with these storms, and when you think about a train on the railroad tracks, one car after another, that's how these storms operated yesterday, one storm right after another, basically in the same spot.

And so we just had this huge surge of Gulf moisture coming on in yesterday. Rain is still falling in the Panhandle. However, it is starting to push out. We're starting to see these showers move to the east, slowly but surely.

Look at this white area right around Pensacola, more than 10 inches of rain. So what happened? We had this low set up across the country. It was basically stuck.

We had this blocking pattern. This low was cut off from the main jet, and it basically sucked a ton of moisture in from the Gulf of Mexico.

And nothing pushing behind it. Nothing was making it go forward, and so basically you just had all of this moisture pulling in, and it created just a huge area of rain around the Panhandle. That's where we got more than 17, 18, almost 19 inches of water in the Panhandle.

BALDWIN: Rescue and recovery efforts in the next 24, 48 hours, it sounds like in the Panhandle area of Florida.

Jennifer Gray, thank you.

And to the people in Panhandle, people in California, we're thinking about you here.

Coming up next, Los Angeles Clippers' owner Donald Sterling banned for life not just from the Clippers but from the NBA.

And now some charities are facing a pretty tough dilemma here. Do they keep the money that Donald Sterling gave them, donated to them, or should they give it back?

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: L.A. Clippers' owner Donald Sterling banned for life from the NBA when racist comments he made were recorded.

After hearing those comments, why would Sterling donate money to several minority organizations, especially the NAACP?

Now they're giving his money back, and charities are, as well.

Poppy Harlow has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Billionaire Donald Sterling opened his wallet for charity and let people know it. UCLA tells CNN this ad in Sunday's "L.A. Times" touting his gift for kidney research was actually placed by Sterling himself, not the university.

UCLA is returning Sterling $425,000 donation and rejecting the rest of his $3 million pledge.

KERRY DOLAN, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR AT FORBES MEDIA: He likes to portray himself as a charitable man. I would say on a spectrum he's about one of the least charitable billionaires out there.

HARLOW: Sterling amassed a fortune of nearly $2 billion according to "Forbes," largely from real estate with apartments across California

The NBA's $2.5 million fine, the maximum allowed, is a drop in the bucket for this billionaire.

He bought the L.A. Clippers for a reported $12 million in 1981. Some estimates put the team's value now at between half a billion and a billion dollars.

There's no saying exactly how much Sterling has given to charity but tax records show the Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation donated $1.4 million since its founding in 2007. That's less than his NBA fine.

Thousands have gone to minority organizations, including the United Negro College Fund, Para Los Ninos and the NAACP.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much money did Donald Sterling give to the NAACP?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was not a significant amount of money.

HARLOW: Sterling even received a humanitarian of the year award from the Black Business Association and a lifetime achievement award from the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP in 2009.

ALICE HUFFMAN, PRESIDENT, CALIFORNIA NAACP: We have to be careful about the money we take and we have to make sure that the color of the money does not taint us and that we can still carry out our mission and we cannot sellout just to get the money.

HARLOW: Sterling's foundation donated $30,000 to the Simon Wiesenthal Center's museum of tolerance but its leader Rabbi Marvin Hier is appalled and says it won't accept money from Sterling ever again.

RABBI MARVIN HIER, SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER: We used that $30,000 to combat the kind of racism, hatred and anti-Semitism that symbolizes what Sterling said in that tape.

HARLOW: CNN's calls to Sterling's representatives have not been returned and some organizations that have benefited from Sterling's fortune want nothing to do with him now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a long history of turning bad money into good. What shouldn't be happening is somebody shouldn't be getting more praise than they really deserve.

HARLOW: Poppy Harlow, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Poppy, thank you.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks for being with me.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.