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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Racial E-mail Causes Atlanta Hawks' Owner to Sell; Enterovirus Outbreak Sickens Children in Midwest; Jack the Ripper's Identity Possibly Discovered

Aired September 08, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

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ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: So stop me if you've heard this one before -- an NBA owner pressured to step down after making racially charged remarks.

This time it's changed up a little, though. The Atlanta Hawks' controlling owner Bruce Levenson is voluntarily selling his stake in the team because he sent an e-mail in 2012 that includes racially insensitive statements about the team's fan base.

CNN's Martin Savidge spoke to the Hawks' new CEO about the scandal that's engulfing the team.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, Bruce Levenson has already apologized, and he has admitted to writing that e-mail of 2012 and which now he says was totally inappropriate and was clearly offensive.

The new CEO -- and I say new. He's only held this post with the Hawks for about 60 days, that's Steve Koonin. He has to step in and take over what is nothing short of a public relations' nightmare.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: It's the e-mail that cost a team. In 2012, Atlanta Hawks' majority owner Bruce Levenson fired off these insights on why the franchise wasn't attracting more affluent, white season ticket holders.

"Looking around our arena during games, it's 70 percent black," Levenson wrote. "My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites."

He goes on. "I think Southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority."

He says it bothered him every fan picked out for a contest is black and says, " I have even bitched the kiss-cam is too black."

For the NBA, it's another embarrassment as the league is still struggling to overcome the racially laced diatribe of former Clippers' owner Donald Sterling earlier this year.

In fact, Levenson was one of Sterling's biggest critics, speaking out to CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

BRUCE LEVENSON, ATLANTA HAWKS' MAJORITY OWNER: Donald Sterling, what he said -- I'm his partner. I can't be partners with somebody who holds those views.

SAVIDGE: Sunday, Levenson issued an apology and announced that he's selling the team, dumping the p.r. nightmare into the lap of the Hawks' brand-new CEO Steve Koonin.

In an exclusive interview, Koonin told me he was dumbfounded when he read the 2012 e-mail.

It's and a business bigoted e-mail, and it is breathtakingly stupid as far as a business communication. What were your thoughts when you read it?

STEVE KOONIN, CEO, ATLANTA HAWKS: I couldn't believe it. I think you just said breathtakingly stupid. I think I had an audible gasp.

SAVIDGE: Koonin told me that the outrage came to light after Hawk's general manager, Danny Ferry, made what was considered by some fellow front-office managers as a racially insensitive remark and that Ferry has since been disciplined.

KOONIN: I have punished Mr. Ferry in excess of the findings.

SAVIDGE: Punished in what way?

KOONIN: We are going to keep what that punishment is as a team, private matter. We feel that's the best way to do it.

But I can assure you, we listened, we reacted, and we've put a punishment that is appropriate. Some will say it's -- could say it's too harsh. Some could say it's not harsh enough.

SAVIDGE: An internal investigation was launched due to Ferry's remark and Levenson's bombshell e-mail was found.

Attempts to reach Ferry have so far been unsuccessful. Koonin realized first he had to apologize to the fans and, second, face the team.

Have you spoken to any of the team?

KOONIN: There was a meeting. I addressed them.

SAVIDGE: What was that like?

KOONIN: It was like walking into a funeral. These are young men who wear our city's name and logo on their chest. They play on a team and are supposed to be supported by their ownership, and ownership failed in supporting them.

SAVIDGE: CNN tried to speak to Bruce Levenson, but he has yet to be seen publicly since the sale announcement.

When was the last time you talked to Bruce Levenson? KOONIN: Yesterday.

SAVIDGE: What did you say?

KOONIN: I think it's best if you walk away.

SAVIDGE: And what did he say?

KOONIN: You're right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Of course all of this information really came to light yesterday, a Sunday, the first Sunday of the NFL season, so not many people thinking about the NBA.

So it's going to be interesting, now that it's all come out, what the reaction is going to be. Undoubtedly, it's going to grow.

Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: All right, Martin, thank you. Good interview with Steve Koonin.

Not everybody is calling Levenson a racist. NBA great Kareem Abdul- Jabbar has written an opinion piece published on "TIME" magazine's web site. And he is defending the embattled owner.

His article reads in part, "It seems reasonable to ask those questions. If his arena was filled with mostly whites, and he wanted to attract blacks, wouldn't he be asking how they could deemphasize white culture and bias toward white contestants and cheerleaders?

"Don't you think every corporation in America that is trying to attract a more diverse customer base is discussing how to feature more blacks or Asians or Latinos in their TV ads?"

And just a sidebar note as well, the author of what I just read to you, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, is going to join Anderson Cooper tonight on "AC360" at 8:00 Eastern, so make sure you tune in for that.

And joining me now to talk about the fallout of this latest NBA scandal is CNN commentator and legal analyst Mel Robbins.

So, Mel, you have a unique take on this as well, saying that business is business, and whether he feels that way or not, the e-mails seem to be about the business of the way people think, maybe not necessarily the way he thinks.

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR: Yeah. You know, I tend to agree wholeheartedly with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's assessment, that this is not a Sterling situation of a blatant racist.

Yes, he said things that were offensive to people but what is the job of the CEO of a basketball team? It's to fill seats. And when you look at the economics of this team, if they can't sell enough season tickets and to season ticketholders, they've got a business problem on their hands.

To me, when I read this -- and, look, I'm not African-American, clearly, but I come at this from a very different point of view because of my life experience, but I'm also an entrepreneur.

This is a team, Ashleigh, that is losing $3 million a year before EBITDA is calculated. You make money on the team based on, not only on the salaries that you are paying and the facility costs, but also on how much your ticket sales generate, how much food and beverage generates and how much your merchandise generates.

And he wasn't being a jerk to the black fans, as far as I was concerned. He was being a bigot about the bigoted white e-mails. He was saying in this e-mail it's the whites that have bigoted points of view that aren't coming that are the problem.

Go ahead.

BANFIELD: Abdul-Jabbar writes also that business people should have the right to how to appeal to diverse groups in order to increase business. They should be even able to make minor insensitive gaffes if there's no obvious animosity or racist intent, which speaks to what you're saying.

Despite that, though, he does make some pretty -- what Abdul-Jabbar says are cringe-worthy assumptions. And when you're a CEO and you put stuff in e-mails, don't you have a responsibility for that?

ROBBINS: Of course you do and that's why he's stepping down, and he's doing the right thing, and they'll kind of have this pass by as a PR nightmare that lasts maybe a month, and then it will all be over.

But every single business in America, every politician in America, every university in America asks the question, how do we diversify our customer base?

If you look at politicians, the president was running Spanish language commercials six months ahead of Mitt Romney as a way to attract Spanish-speaking voters.

He's not racist for doing that. He's trying to figure out how to create an environment and a message that actually attracts a more diverse population, and I think that's what this CEO is going to have to do, and this NBA owner stepping aside is the right thing.

BANFIELD: All right, Mel, good to hear from you. Thanks for that. Appreciate it.

So this starts as a cold, but then suddenly your child is really struggling to breathe. And the next thing you know, you're at the hospital.

It is a virus infecting hundreds of children right now, and what you need to know about the signs and what can happen, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BANFIELD: It's alarming for any parent, an unusual respiratory virus that's sending hundreds of children to hospitals in Missouri and possibly through the Midwest and beyond.

It's entero. And when you hear that word you may associate that with a bad or annoying summer cold, but in some cases, this particular illness is sending children to the ICU.

So far, 10 states in the Midwest and Southeast have asked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help.

I want to bring in Dr. Anne Schuchat. She's the director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

So, Dr. Schuchat, what is happening? What is the story with enterovirus, and why is it so serious?

DR. ANNE SCHUCHAT, CDC: It's important to step back and remember that these enterovirus infections are very common. We think there are about 10 to 15 million virus infections each year in the United States, and the late summer and early fall is the time of year when we see increases.

Now enteroviruses can cause mild respiratory illness all the way to severe respiratory illness as well as some other syndromes, and what we're seeing right now are clusters of severe respiratory illness.

We've worked together with the Missouri health department and the Illinois health department in Chicago to investigate clusters of severe respiratory illnesses there.

That's an unusual type of enterovirus. And one that we don't know as much about as we'd like. It does appear to cause severe respiratory illness, but also milder infections.

BANFIELD: If there's any good news here, is that it isn't usually fatal, which is -- thank God for that. But at the same time I'm still not clear as to why it's affecting so many kids as opposed to so many people.

SCHUCHAT: You know, enteroviruses tends to affect younger people, infants, young children and school-age kids as well. And in the clusters so far we're seeing that about half of the kids are under four and half of the kids are over four. What is important to say is that about half of the children with severe illness have been people who have asthma. So we want parents to know that it's important to make sure your children with asthma are on their medicines and keeping up with their medication routine.

We don't know as much as we'd like to about this virus. We're helping states as they investigate possible clusters, but testing for this virus isn't routine. So there are many different germs that are circulating right now and we don't know how much of them are caused by this new virus. The virus appears to be similar to --

BANFIELD: Well, if anyone - SCHUCHAT: Go ahead. I'm sorry.

BANFIELD: Well, I was just going to say, I'm just shy on time, but I just want to make sure that if anyone's watching right now and wondering, if my child has a cold and should I be worried, they need to look for the runny nose, the coughing, but then the difficulty breathing, fever, wheezing, and in some cases a rash. We'll have to stay in touch with you to see what happens with this and if it - if it gets under control. Thanks for being with us, doctor. Appreciate it.

SCHUCHAT: Sure.

BANFIELD: In another story, the identity of Jack the Ripper may be one of the greatest mysteries in London. But now there is a new theory based on, believe it or not, DNA evidence. And next I'm talking live to the man who owns the critical evidence from the initial investigation and what that evidence told him about who the ripper really is.

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BANFIELD: Think you can call this one the ultimate cold case and the hunt for the killer in this case may be heating up, even though the crime happened 126 years ago. It's the mystery surrounding Jack the Ripper. Those murders have fascinated the world for generations. Jack the Ripper is the name that was given to an unidentified serial killer accused of brutally slashing up five of his victims in Victorian London. And now Jack the Ripper hobbyist and author, Russell Edwards, claims that he has cracked the case. In fact, he's cracked it using DNA evidence from a shawl that was found at one of the crime scenes to identify this monster.

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RUSSELL EDWARDS, AUTHOR, "NAMING JACK THE RIPPER": On the night of the murder of Catherine Eddowes, when she was found in Mitre Square by PC Watkins, there was a shawl left by the body. When she was taken to the mortuary, Acting Sergeant Amos Simpson, a competent (ph) (INAUDIBLE), and asked, could he take the shawl because it's a huge piece of silk and his wife was a seamstress.

Because Amos Simpson took that shawl, I've managed to conclusively proved scientifically, from the evidence left therein, the identity of Jake the Ripper. So we can give a name to Jack the Ripper. It's Aaron Kosminski. He was a 23-year-old Polish-Jewish immigrant who lived very close to the murders. Aaron Kosminski was arrested for attacking his sister with a knife. He was then identified but couldn't be arrested. He was then admitted into Colney Hatch Asylum. From there he was taken to Lunatic Asylum where he died in 1919 at the age of 54.

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BANFIELD: I'm creeped out even by the music. And there you go, Russell Edwards, the author of "Naming Jack the Ripper," joining me live from London to talk about this research into this case.

Thank you so much, Russell, for being with me today.

First of all -- and this is the question that we want to ask everyone who thinks they may have cracked a case, how can you be so sure that it's actually Aaron Kosminski who's Jack the Ripper?

EDWARDS: With cutting-edge forensic science and what happened on the shawl, there's bodily fluids from the victim, but more excitedly bodily fluids left by the Ripper himself. And I managed to trace a decedent from Catherine Eddowes, because of course we - like everybody, it's a shawl I needed -- we needed to make - to identify that that shawl was there at the scene of the crime. And what we had to do with the evidence on there, we found the decedents and we got the match. So then this really brought up a -

BANFIELD: What's so -

EDWARDS: Pardon?

BANFIELD: I was just going to say, Russell, what's so bizarre is that you bought that shawl at auction, which in itself is odd that this shawl that contained - I hate to say it, but the semen and the blood from the killer and the victim.

EDWARDS: Yes.

BANFIELD: And that it had been preserved and stashed away for so long. Why didn't the authorities ever do this? Why is it you, an enthusiast, and not say, Scotland Yard, that did this?

EDWARDS: Thank you very much for asking. Well, this shawl was actually at Scotland Yard's crime museum back in the '90s and they had it in their possession and it never crossed anybody's mind to actually do what I seem to - what I thought was blatantly obvious to do, which was if there was - you know, there was blood stains on this shawl, why didn't anybody try and do what I've done? And it is, it's quite phenomenal that the - the great, great grandnephew of the acting sergeant at the time of the murders, none of the family ever thought of this either. And it was just this - I was always driven to see if we could actually identify the man and this is the only tangible piece of evidence in history still available.

BANFIELD: So what did -- so what did Scotland Yard say about that? I'm presuming that you've been in touch with them. Are they going to confirm this and actually close this cold case once and for all?

EDWARDS: Well, the curators at the (INAUDIBLE) museum and Scotland Yard has been extremely helpful to me over the last seven years and they have been aware of exactly what I've been doing, even to the point of they tried to exhume the body of Aaron Kosminski over a year ago but we didn't get very far with that. So what we had to do is then do the next best thing, which is to find the descendent and attempt to match the DNA from a descendent to the residue left there by the Ripper, which is what we did. And (INAUDIBLE) very exciting.

BANFIELD: So I've got ask you -- when you approached the descendants of this one victim, who was the owner of the shawl, Catherine Eddowes, how did they feel about this?

EDWARDS: Ah, well that's a very lovely lady by the name of Karen Miller, and she was extremely helpful and just as excited as me if we could actually see if we could get to the murder of her great, great, great grandmother, who was Catherine Eddowes. And one of the most amazing things for me, extremely rewarding, that when I told Karen and I've actually finally solved this, she held me and she thanked me ever so much for doing this for her.

BANFIELD: Amazing, five generations later, that you might be able to actually solve this case. Well, we'll be watching to see what Scotland Yards does.

Russell Edwards, thank you. Appreciate you joining us. And it's a fascinating take on this absolute mystery. Thanks for being with us.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

BANFIELD: And we are out of time, but thanks so much for watching us. Please stay tuned. My pal, Brianna Keilar, is sitting in for Wolf, which starts right after this quick break.

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