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At This Hour

Holder Promises Thorough, Fair Probe in Ferguson; Cooler Heads Prevailing in Ferguson; Ferguson Residents Speak Out; U.S. Ebola Patients Both Released; Dr. Kent Brantly Speaks to Media

Aired August 21, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The attorney general now talking about his visit to Ferguson, Missouri, he says he hopes the tragedy of that shooting will bring opportunities to heal a fracture in that community.

New revelations about a failed mission to rescue James Foley before he was savagely beheaded by ISIS militants, what went wrong and what now for the other captured Americans?

Any minute now the American doctor who contracted Ebola in West Africa is expected to be released from a hospital in Atlanta. We've just learned, minutes ago, the other missionary, Nancy Writebol, has already been released. We're going to bring you the live news conference any moment now.

Well, here we go on this Thursday. Welcome to @THISHOUR. I'm Michaela Pereira. John Berman is off. We have those stories and so much more ahead @THISHOUR.

Cooler heads seem to be prevailing in Ferguson, Missouri. Just a short time ago Attorney General Eric Holder spoke about his visit there and about the investigation into Michael Brown's death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The people of Ferguson can have confidence in the federal agents, investigators and prosecutors who are leading this process. Our investigation will be fair, it will be thorough, and it will be independent.

The national outcry we have seen speaks to a sense of mistrust and mutual suspicion that can take hold in the relationship between law enforcement and certain communities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: It would appear that on the streets of Ferguson, things seem to be calming down. The latest protests overnight were more peaceful, a few minor disturbances, only about six arrests.

The relative calm could mean a shift in focus away from the fury and towards perhaps the facts and the forensics. A grand jury has started to hear evidence and now they must sift through the many different eyewitness accounts. It could take two months for jurors to bring chargers against Officer Darren Wilson if they decide Brown's death might have been a crime.

And another update, a defense fund established to support Officer Wilson, it has now raised more than $120,000.

In the meantime, this, a separate fatal shooting in nearby St. Louis has some people wondering if officers used excessive force on a man who was disturbed, a man with a knife.

Our Don Lemon rode along with a man who has one of the most challenging jobs in America right now. Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson has spent more than a week trying to keep the peace in Ferguson. The efforts, well, they appear to be paying off. Johnson, however, not taking any of the credit for it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, "CNN TONIGHT": Not that many people out, it seems to be under control. What did you do right since two days ago?

CAPTAIN RON JOHNSON, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL: Think that, first, the community did some things right. The clergy and the elders and the activists came out and didn't allow agitators and criminals to mask themselves within the group.

And so -- and they were actually pointing them out to us. They were helping us. They were moving away from them and not having the same activity. So really, the community did it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Captain Johnson received a hug and pat on the back from Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday. He thinks the attorney general's visit will do the community good.

I want to bring in my colleague, Don Lemon, who has been in Ferguson over a week now.

Good to have you with me, Don. I want to get a sense of how things went when you had a chance to ride along with Captain Johnson. What stuck out to you the most as you rode with him?

LEMON: The guy is a celebrity here. If every police officer, seriously, if every police officer could be some -- just, you know, have a minuscule amount of the patience and the understanding that he has when he's going out there, then I think it could be -- this could be a much better community when it comes to relationships between the officers who are supposed to protect and serve and the people who live here.

He listens to people. You know, we're on a time limit, here in the media. He listens to people. He takes his time. He lets them have their say. And they respond to him. What they say to him is, you know what? If everybody approached -- every police officer approached us in somewhat the way you approached us, we would have a very different relationship with them.

Here's -- check out this one conversation that he had with a group of people along our ride-along yesterday. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why we can't we like, Young man, come here. Let me talk to you for a second.

OK, maybe I might stop and listen to see what you've got to say, but if you jump now with me when I feel animosity and stuff like that, well, I feel I'm going to make you do your job today then.

LEMON: So it's how somebody approaches you. If the officer approaches you with respect, you would respond with respect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Approach us like we already committed a violent crime or something. They approaching us like you caught me selling dope to somebody.]

You just pulled me over. I pulled you over because your pants were sagging. Can you pull them up? OK. I can pull them up, officer. No problem.

Pull them pants up. Get off. Get -- man look, now what?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That gets to the heart of it because we've spent a lot of time here talking about unruly protesters and about this and that. This is really what this story is about.

We hit on that. We just accidentally stepped in it. That's -- as we were going out. That's what this story is about. That's what happened between Michael Brown and that police officer, that disconnect, these two opposite worlds colliding.

And so we just stumbled upon that, but that is really the key to the story right there. We need to hear more of that, more from those young men, because that's where we're going to stop it.

Those young men need to talk to us, but not only do they need to talk to us they need to sit town down and talk with police officers. They need to have a --

PEREIRA: And isn't that interesting?

LEMON: -- relationship with the people in their city. Yes.

PEREIRA: And you talked about the approach that Captain Johnson has, community policing. It takes it a step beyond that, is being heard and listening, because it can't just be a one-way street. You have to talk to one another. Captain Johnson seems to get that. Doesn't he?

LEMON: Hey, Michaela, yeah, he does. Listen, when we talked about community policing, these young men say the only relationship they have with police officers is between -- in a car between a glass. Either the cop is telling them to come over to the police car or they're rolling up to, you know, and then they're on the other side of the glass, or they're being treated as suspicious, or someone is trying to arrest them.

And that is the only relationship they have. There is no one walking around, talking to them, saying, who are you, what are you doing here? The guy said even if I'm doing something wrong, maybe I'm not, but the way you approach me is the way I'm going to respond to you.

So if you treat me as a criminal, if you approach me as a criminal, I'm going to respond to you as a criminal. I'm going to give you what you want.

If you approach me in a friendly manner and say, what are you doing here. I know you live in the community, whatever, what's up, how are you doing? What's going on?

You're going to get not much, man, I'm OK, what do you need to know. What's going on? And so that's what needs to happen. And it's a small thing really, but it's a very key.

PEREIRA: How key is that. It's like you said, you stumbled upon it. It's been something that's been elusive we've been trying to figure out

You and I and several others have been trying to figure out what's the crux of this and maybe we stumbled upon something here.

Hopefully this is a beginning of a conversation we can continue to have, Don. OK?

LEMON: Absolutely. I love it. Let's do it, Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, here we go. Thanks so much.

Another story we're keeping a firm eyes on, Emory University Hospital, the site where Ken -- Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol have been staying and getting treatment, we're expecting to hear any minute from Dr. Kent Brantly, any moment now.

He is the first known Ebola patient in the United States at that hospital in Atlanta where he's been treated over the past few weeks. They are planning to release him any second now.

They have done a series of tests, two blood tests, in particular, and those two blood tests have come back negative for the deadly virus.

What is surprising to us, though, is that the other U.S. missionary -- you'll recall we followed her voyage as well, Nancy Writebol -- she was already released. Apparently she was released on Tuesday. Want to show you some live pictures at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. A news conference is expected to start soon.

Brantly and Writebol both contracted that Ebola virus while working for religious charities in Liberia. They were treating people that had been sickened. They both, as you'll recall received that experimental drug, ZMapp, and recovered quite quickly.

You'll remember, that Brantly and Writebol were very, very ill. Who can forget this scene after Kent Brantly was flown to the United States on a specially equipped plane that kept them in isolation? He walked under his own power into the hospital there. These images, I think, very few of us will forget.

Now here is the question. The World Health Organization says there is a slight possibility that virus could linger, potentially up to three months in his blood system, even though blood tests show they have been cured.

So we certainly have a lot of questions for our Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He is on staff at Emory University Hospital. We're going to talk to him after that news conference. We're expecting to hear from some of the police -- not the police officers. I got my stories mixed up.

We have some of the doctors that have been treating Dr. Kent Brantly, who's there in the blue shirt. Why don't we listen in and hear what they have to say?

VINCE DOLLARD, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Good morning. Thank you for coming. My name is Vince Dollard with Emory University Health Sciences Communications.

I am pleased to introduces this morning Dr. Bruce Ribner, medical director of Emory's infectious disease unit at the Emory University Hospital.

Also, pleased to introduce Dr. Kent Brantly, a medical doctor who was serving with Samaritan's Purse in Liberia.

Our run of show is as follows. Dr. Ribner will make a brief statement. Then Dr. Brantly will make a brief statement. We'll take no questions.

After that, Dr. Ribner will take questions. We have moderated call-in line as well.

Dr. Ribner?

DR. BRUCE RIBNER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: Good morning and thank you for coming here today.

I'm Bruce Ribner the medical director of the infectious disease unit at Emory University Hospital.

Sorry. I lead the team of doctors, nurses, laboratory technologists, chaplains, and many others who have cared for Dr. Brantly and Mrs. Writebol, two patients who were treated at Emory University Hospital for Ebola virus disease.

Today I'm pleased to announce that Dr. Brantly is being discharged from the hospital. After a rigorous course of treatment, and thorough testing, we have determined in conjunction with the centers for disease control and state health departments, that Dr. Brantly has recovered from the Ebola virus infection and that he can return to his family, to his community, and to his life without public health concerns.

The second patient, Mrs. Writebol, was discharged this past Tuesday, August 19th. The medical staff here at Emory is confident that the discharge from the hospital of both of these patients poses no public health threat. The hospital is respecting Mrs. Writebol's wishes for privacy at that time, so we will not be making any further comments about her clinical course.

Speaking on behalf of everyone at Emory, we are tremendously pleased with Dr. Brantly and Mrs. Writebol's recovery, and we are profoundly grateful for the opportunity to have applied our training, our care, and our experience, to meeting their needs.

All of us who have worked with them have been impressed by their courage and determination. Their hope and faith have been an inspiration to all of us.

In addition, both of the patients' families provided tremendous support throughout this treatment process. Their dedication and devotion have strengthened us as well as the patients.

Limited knowledge of the Ebola virus, especially in our country, has created understandable anxiety and fear for some patients -- persons. We understand that there are a lot of questions and concerns regarding Ebola virus and the infectious that it causes. However, we cannot let our fears dictate our actions. We must all care.

As grateful as we are today, our work is far from over. We are very mindful of all of those in West Africa who are still fighting for their lives against this threat and those who are caring for them, putting their own lives in danger.

It was the right decision to bring these patients back to Emory for treatment. What we learned in caring for them, will help advance the world's understanding of how to treat Ebola virus infections and help hopefully to improve survival in parts of the world where patients with this infection are treated.

At Emory, our mission is to heal and advance knowledge. The team of professionals with me here today has trained for years to treat and contain the most dangerous infectious diseases in the world.

We are grateful for the successful outcome in this case, but we are never going to be taking success for granted.

Three other critically important partners who have helped us throughout this episode deserve recognition today, our neighbors, the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and the state epidemiologists of Georgia and North Carolina.

I will be taking your questions, as Mr. Dollard said, , but before doing so, Dr. Brantly has requested to make a brief statement. And as Mr. Dollard said, Dr. Brantly will not be taking any questions following his statement. So I ask that you respect his wishes and save your questions for me and for the other members of our health care team. Thank you.

DR. KENT BRANTLY, EBOLA SURVIVOR, SAMARITAN'S PURSE: Today is a miraculous day. I'm thrilled to be alive, to be well, and to be reunited with my family. As a medical missionary, I never imagined myself in this position. When my family and I moved to Liberia last October, to begin a two-year term working with Samaritan's Purse, Ebola was not on the radar. We moved to Liberia because God called us to serve the people of Liberia.

In March, when we got word that Ebola was in Guinea and had spread to Liberia, we began preparing for the worst. We did not receive our first Ebola patient until June. But when she arrived, we were ready. During the course of June and July, the number of Ebola patients increased steadily and our amazing crew at Owa (ph) hospital took care of each patient with great care and compassion. We also took every precaution to protect ourselves from this dreaded disease by following MSF and WHO guidelines for safety. After taking Amber and our children to the airport to return to the states on Sunday morning, July 20th, I poured myself into my work even more than before. Transferring patients to our new bigger isolation unit, training and orienting new staff, and working with our human resources officer to fill our staffing needs.

Three days later on Wednesday, July 23rd, I woke up feeling under the weather. And then my life took an unexpected turn as I was diagnosed with Ebola virus disease. As I lay in my bed in Liberia for the following nine days, getting sicker and weaker each day, I prayed that God would help me be faithful, even in my illness. And I prayed that in my life or in my death, that he would be glorified.

I did not know then, but have learned since, that there were thousands, maybe even millions of people around the world, praying for me throughout that week and even still today. And I have heard story after story of how this situation has impacted the lives of individuals around the globe. Both among my friends and family, and also among complete strangers. I cannot thank you enough for your prayers and your support.

But what I can it tell you is that I serve a faithful God who answers prayers. Through the care of the Samaritan's Purse and SIM Missionary team in Liberia, the use of an experimental drug, and the expertise and resources of the health care team at Emory University hospital, God saved my life. A direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers.

I am incredibly thankful to all of those who were involved in my care from the first day of my illness all the way up to today, the day of my release from Emory. If I tried to thank everyone, I would undoubtedly forget many. But I would be remiss if I did not say thank you to a few.

I want to thank Samaritan's Purse, who has taken care of me and my family, as though we were their own family. Thank you to the Samaritan's Purse and SIM Liberia community. You cared for me and ministered to me during the most difficult experience of my life. And you did so with the love and mercy of Jesus Christ.

Thank you to Emory University Hospital and especially to the medical staff in the isolation unit. You treated me with expertise, yet with such tenderness and compassion. For the last three weeks, you have been my friends and my family, and so many of you have ministered to me not only physically, but also spiritually, which has been an important part of my recovery. I will not forget you and all that you have done for me.

And thank you to my family, my friends, my church family, and all who lifted me up in prayer, asking for my healing and recovery.

Please, do not stop praying for the people of Liberia and West Africa, and for a quick end to this Ebola epidemic. My dear friend Nancy Writebol, upon her release from the hospital, wanted me to share her gratitude for all of the prayers on her behalf. As she walked out of her isolation room, all she could say was, "To God be the glory." Nancy and David are now spending some much needed time together.

Thank you for your support throughout this whole ordeal. My family and I will now be going away, for a period of time, to reconnect, decompress and to continue to recover physically and emotionally. After I have recovered a little more and regained some of my strength, we will look forward to sharing more of our story. But for now, we need some time together after more than a month apart. We appreciate having the opportunity to spend some time in private before talking to some of you who have expressed an interest in hearing more of our journey. Thank you for granting us that.

Again, before we slip out, I want to express my deep and sincere gratitude to Samaritan's Purse, SIM, Emory, and all of the people involved in my treatment and care. Above all, I am forever thankful to God for sparing my life and I'm glad for any attention my sickness has attracted to the plight of West Africa in the midst of this epidemic. Please, continue to pray for Liberia and the people of West Africa, and encourage those in positions of leadership and influence to do everything possible to bring this Ebola outbreak to an end. Thank you.

RIBNER: Good luck.

PEREIRA: All right. I don't know about you at home, but I think a lot of us here in the studio have been so impressed by how healthy and vibrant Dr. Kent Brantly looks. He spent three weeks at Emory University Hospital. He walked in under his own power but very, very sick. He recounted, just moments ago, the nine days after feeling like he was coming down with something he said. July 23rd, woke up in his bed, feeling under the weather, was bedridden for nine days, and got sicker and sicker and sicker. Until he was given that zmapp, that experimental serum, apparently it was the first to go to Nancy Writebol, but he suddenly took a turn, they gave it to him, he was transferred to Emory University Hospital on a specially customized plane that would keep him in isolation. He spent three weeks under the care of the doctors in the infectious disease unit there at Emory University Hospital. The CDC also working in conjunction and now look at him.

It's really remarkable. He is the first patient to be treated for Ebola virus in the United States. And he is now going to go away and spend some time with his wife. You can see there's a whole lot of smiles and hugs in that room. A terrible amount -- a wonderful amount I should say, not a terrible, a wonderful amount of gratitude and compassion he has shown not just for the other patients suffering in West Africa but a fair amount of gratitude, a great deal of gratitude, to the hospital staff there.

One of the people on the staff at Emory University Hospital is our very own Sanjay Gupta. I'm kind of marveling at this, Sanjay, as you join me here, as we watch the scene play out. It's really remarkable his recovery.

SANJAY GUPTA, M.D., NEUROSURGEON, EMORY UNIVERISTY HOSPITAL: It really is. And he gave some details as well about, you know, what happened to him. It was July 20th when, you know, he had been living in Liberia with his family. He had taken his wife Amber, you see there, what a relationship he's obviously developed with the health care team that took care of him. You know, he just took such great time to thank everybody. It was very moving.

PEREIRA: It was very moving.

GUPTA: He's holding hands with his wife Amber. I point that out only because we've talked so much about how infectious Ebola can be. You know, it can even be transmitted through sweat and through, you know, simple contact. And seeing they are holding hands --

PEREIRA: Bodily fluids.

GUPTA: Hugging all the doctors, the optics of that, so remarkable. What you're looking at has never happened before in this part of the world, Michaela, July 23rd is when he got sick. You heard the same thing. Nine days he was quite sick and then got that medication.

PEREIRA: Sanjay, they're going to ask some questions of people that are in the room there. Why don't we listen in. Then if you'll stick around with me, let's talk on the back end of this.

GUPTA: You got it.

RIBNER: I would like to answer the call-in questions. All right. Beth.

BETH GALVIN, REPORTER, FOX NEWS: Hi. Beth Galvin for Fox 5. Can you talk about how you determined it is safe to release both Dr. Brantly and Miss Writebol? What steps were involved? How do you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did we determine it was safe to release both patients?

RIBNER: OK, so the decision, without revealing privileged patient confidential information, the decision to discharge any patient with Ebola virus disease is basically done on a case-by-case basis. The CDC will actually be having a press release that they're going to be putting out, I understand, simultaneous with this, but the standard world health organization and CDC guidelines that have been used in the third world, have been absence of virus in the blood and patient symptomatically improved for at least two to three days.

GALVIN: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, there in the back in the blue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: CBS 46 News. Can you explain what life is like after Ebola?

RIBNER: What is life like after Ebola?

Well I won't get into the psychic aspects. In terms of the medical aspects, we do not anticipate -- there may be some recovery time because this is a fairly devastating disease, but we would anticipate that in general, most patients if they have not had any substantial organ damage will make a complete recovery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dr. Ribner could you explain from your perspective what you felt when there was a turning point when you realized they were getting healthy and might be released?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was the turning point?

RIBNER: No, how I felt?

How I felt was his question. Okay. So that's not releasing patient information. As I think I told many in this audience three weeks ago now, we were very hopeful that with the level of support we can deliver at our facility that we would have a substantially better outcome than our colleagues practicing with lesser developed health care systems. Having said that however, once it became clear to us that both of our patients were going to recover and recover with very little residual, there was a pretty gratifying feeling amongst all of us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you state your name.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE). How would you explain the success of the treatment that was used here and its ability to help those now in West Africa?

RIBNER: Okay. So the question is, how will our success help our colleagues treating patients in the outbreak going on in West Africa now. I would say the major thing that we will help them with is they suffer a substantially lack of infrastructure and we did learn a number of things in terms of caring for these patients, in terms of fluid and electrolyte replacement, in terms of clotting abnormalities and so on, which frankly our colleagues in Africa don't have the capability to detect. And so we are in the process of developing several guidelines which will be disseminated to the practitioners in Africa saying you know, even if you can't measure this, this is something we found and there are things you can do even if you can't measure it to try to improve the outcomes your patients.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: State your affiliation please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doctor, Scott (INAUDIBLE) NBC 5 in Dallas-Fort Worth. Are you personally surprised how quickly you were able to release these two patients and second quick question --

PEREIRA: That's Dr. Bruce Ribner, the head of the infectious disease unit at Emory University Hospital, taking some questions. You can imagine there are a lot of questions in the room there as Dr. Kent Brantly is being released from the hospital in Atlanta three weeks after entering there, very, very sick. Walking under his own power, it does merit pointing that out.

Want to bring back in our colleague Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who we should mention is on staff there at Emory. And I think it is so surprising that he is able to leave.