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Tensions Rising in Hong Kong Protests; ISIS Enters Key Border City; Liberia Claims U.S. Ebola Patient Lied to the Government; The Dangers in High School Football

Aired October 03, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

EDWARD TSOI, PROTESTER: It's quite complicated. There's lots of rumors saying that those people who went on the street and tried to end the tide (ph) of Occupy movement, they got paid for that. And they'll get paid even more if they successfully beaten up some students.

So I don't know who's the organizer behind, but seemingly the police are colluding with these anti-occupy protester because they did nothing to stop these anti-occupy protesters from beating up our students, even though the police are just standing next to them.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The protests have been so peaceful for days. Do you sense there's a turn away from peace now?

TSOI: For us, the students groups and also the occupy movement protester, we have been the same, peaceful, self-disciplined, just staying on the street and doing our civic educations. We did nothing violent. The problem right now is that another group of anti-occupy protesters who got paid to beat up our students and molest our female students and the government and the police did nothing to stop them. So from my point of view, our occupy movement protesters did nothing wrong and it is the government and the policemen who are ruling (ph) the rule of law in Hong Kong.

COSTELLO: If this violence continues and if Beijing doesn't budge, what happens then?

TSOI: The next steps I think more students will need to communicate better with our Hong Kong citizens, not only in the occupied area. We need to go out to different districts to try to convey our message to normal citizens of Hong Kong and get the supports from the majority of people, and hopefully the government will realize how serious it is, and try and start to discuss properly with the student group leaders about the political reform. And they need to start hearing what the people's opinion about it.

COSTELLO: Edward Tsoi, thank you so much for being with me. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, despite weeks of punishing air strikes by coalition forces against ISIS, militants have made another major advance in northern Syria. CNN's Phil Black is on the Syrian/Turkish border with more. PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, ISIS artillery has again been

pounding the Syrian city of Kobani behind me. And there are the first reports ISIS fighters have entered that city. I'll have details after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A major advance by ISIS militants. Right now, Kurdish troops are trying to push back ISIS fighters in a key city on the Syrian/Turkish border. Fighters on the ground tell CNN ISIS entered the Kobani -- entered Kobani earlier this morning. This means ISIS now controls the southwest corner of the city. All of this happening just hours after Turkey and Australia pledged to support coalition forces. Yesterday, Turkey's parliament OK-ed the use of force in Iraq and Syria. In the meantime, Australian officials have given the go ahead for air strikes and the use of special forces in Iraq.

So let's get the latest from CNN's Phil Black. He joins us live from the Turkish-Syrian border. We're also joined by CNN military analyst Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona.

Welcome to both of you.

Phil, I want to start with you. Tell us what it's like on the ground.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, what we're seeing today, I think, is the most intense shelling of Kobani seen to this date yet. Earlier today the shells were really falling, the artillery really pounding that eastern and southeastern corner of the city, which you can see behind me. Then, a short time after that, we started to hear small arms fire in the distance and reports from Syrians -- I should say Kurdish fighters still in the city that ISIS had actually entered the city through that southwestern corner.

So really the furthest possible point from where we are standing, they were starting to fight them on the ground in close quarters. And that, they say, is what we're expecting. They said that ISIS has gotten so close over the last 24 hours that they've been expecting them to enter the city and the Kurdish fighters, the men and women who've remained behind to defend the city, were getting ready to do so, block by block, street by street, and they believe that under those circumstances, they might have something of an advantage because they know the city so well. But the reality is, they're losing ground and they're running out of places to fall back to.

Carol.

COSTELLO: Has the entire city of Kobani been evacuated or are people still there?

BLACK: It has largely been evacuated we understand. The fighters have declared it a military zone. They've ordered all the civilians to leave. We've heard some reports of some that are simply reluctant to do so, refusing to do so. But by all accounts, by people -- from those people who are still inside, they tell us it really does feel like a ghost town. But there are still civilians there. There are also hundreds, perhaps thousands of fighters who are determined to stay there and fight to the end. And I think the concern is, for those fighters, what will happen should ISIS get into that city, get in there in big numbers or, in the meantime, what happens if they just continue to shell it with great force? These fighters are really up against it at this point and, as I say, they've really got nowhere else left to go, Carol.

COSTELLO: And Colonel Francona is sitting beside me, Phil, and he's nodding his head.

What are your thoughts?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. Yes. This is -- this is going to -- I mean the city's going to fall. I think it's inevitable. And I think that ISIS will show no mercy. They'll just knock the buildings down if they have to, to take the city. They want the territory. They're not so much concerned about the people themselves, but they want to control that border.

If you look at where they are, this gives them a real position from which to roll up the rest of the Syrian/Kurdish area. So they're going to consolidate that whole border under their control.

COSTELLO: So Turkey has now said, come on in, we'll let you into our country, maybe we'll send ground troops into the fight. So how far do you think Turkey is willing to go?

FRANCONA: Well, that remains to be seen. We know that they've committed to be part of the coalition. They said that they were going to use air and ground forces in both Syria and Iraq. But the Turks have said things before and then not really delivered. So I'll be much happier when I see Turkish aircraft flying or when I see Turkish troops actually moving.

Now, the Turkish troops are on the border. I don't think ISIS is going to make a move into Turkey. That would be, I think, a bad move for them because the Turks will respond, they will defend their border and they will probably mount an incursion into Syria to set up a buffer zone. But the Turks could be a game changer. I mean they've got huge forces, professional forces. ISIS will not be able to stand up to a Turkish onslaught. Let's see what happens with the Turks.

COSTELLO: From your standpoint, Phil, what changed Turkey's mind?

BLACK: Well, I think, as we're hearing there, Carol, it's not absolutely certain yet that Turkey is going to get involved here. The noises are certainly encouraging. This parliamentary permission to act, that is a step forward. It certainly gives the Turkish government the ability to act should it decide to do so.

But what we're seeing here on the ground is nothing to suggest that Turkey is ready to move in. It is said that it has to be part of this coalition at some stage, but it's still not declared what sort of contribution it is prepared to make. It is talking a lot about this need for a buffer zone, or I think it prefers to call it a safety zone, actually carving out a piece of Syrian territory to assist and to give space to the many refugees that continue to flood into this country. But that is not an easy thing to achieve, and Turkey doesn't want to do that alone. It wants international troops on the ground here to help. And that doesn't look likely either.

The other thing that Turkey wants is a no fly zone. So in the event that Turkish troops do enter the -- do enter Syrian territory, then Syrian regime forces, that is the forces of the president of Syria, Bashar al Assad, they cannot attack Syrian troops because for the Turkish government, the issue of ISIS and the issue of the Syrian regime are very much tied up with each other, perhaps more so I think than other countries are focusing on. Turkey wants an effort to change that regime as well and it wants the United States to be focused on that also, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Phil Black and Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, thank you both very much.

I'm back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Before Thomas Eric Duncan left Liberia for the United States, he had to tell airport officials if he had had contact with anyone infected with Ebola. Now Liberia says Duncan did not tell the truth and that's infuriated the country's president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF, LIBERIA: With the U.S. doing so much to help us fight Ebola, and again one of our compatriots didn't take too care, and so he's gone there and sort of, in a way, put some Americans in a state of fear, and put them at some risk, so I feel very saddened by that and very angry with him, to tell you the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right, let's talk about that. Dr. Loren Greene is a medical ethicist at NYU's Langone Medical Center, Joey Jackson is an HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, and Peter Goelz is a CNN aviation analyst and former managing director for the NTSB.

Welcome to all of you.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Thank you, Carol. Good morning.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: I'm glad you're all here. Peter, I want to start with you. The AP obtained photos of the form that Duncan filled out before he left the country. The form directly asks, have you taken care of an Ebola patient or come into contact with bodily fluids of Ebola patient in the last 21 days? Duncan checked no to that question and other questions. But now we know that's not true, because Duncan helped care for his pregnant landlord's daughter, who died of Ebola. So Peter, Duncan lied. What could happen to him? GOELZ: Well, I think the President of Liberia made it very clear that

you can have these kinds of rules, but if they're not enforced, they lose power very quickly. And it's up to each of the countries that are heavily infected to really enforce these rules and to show that they're willing to enforce them, and you know, she did the right thing. I think Mr. Duncan will face, you know, the prosecutors when he recovers, and hopefully he will, but the president and the government had to say what they said.

COSTELLO: Well Dr. Green, asking somebody a bunch of questions on a form, you have to really trust that person to tell the truth, and if you wanted to get out of Liberia, you know, because Ebola is a serious problem there, maybe you would lie on the form.

DR. LOREN GREENE, MEDICAL ETHICIST, NYU LANGONE MEDICAL CENTER: I think this is a serious problem, and I'm afraid that eventually people who come from a country might be entirely quarantined. We could stop all aircraft coming from a country like Liberia or Nigeria, if it spreads significantly there, or any of the Western African countries. So we really have to have some insight about how to screen and how to help people with the screening and how to encourage them to disclose. And making witch-hunts out of these individuals is not going to make people seek medical attention, which is the most important thing we want to do.

COSTELLO: So Peter is there a better way? I mean, because you have to come back through customs when you get to the United States. Do they ask you if you're from a West African country, if you've been exposed to Ebola?

GOELZ: I don't think they do, yet, and they may start testing temperatures of people getting off the planes. I know flight attendants, who I work with, are greatly concerned about this issue. They are going back through procedures, they are reaching out to the CDC to see what more they can do. But the key thing, as the doctor said is, you really have to put the resources into these countries to treat the infectious disease on the ground, and to make it seem as though people don't have to escape to live.

COSTELLO: And Joey, so Duncan's here in the United States --

JACKSON: Yes.

COSTELLO: -- and he lied to get here, so could he be prosecuted for anything in this country?

JACKSON: You know, potentially, Carol. But what a defense attorney is going to do is to say that it's a huge leap to say he lied. In any prosecution, Carol, it comes down to a person's mental state, what you knew and when you knew it. And so did he know, in fact, that the person he was assisting, out of the kindness of his heart, right, who he was carrying on his back to get treatment, did he know that she was sick or did he know, Carol, that she had Ebola? There's a major distinction between the two.

In the event he knew he had Ebola, that's a problem, that would be a lie. Then it would center on, was he intentionally and did he know that he had this disease? I know on the form it said, were you exposed to someone who had Ebola? Did you assist someone with Ebola? That's a lie. That could be perjury. But to go further and say that maybe he should be charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

COSTELLO: That's all lawyerly.

JACKSON: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Dr. Greene, if I'm his girlfriend, and I'm in a house where I can't leave or I'll be criminally charged, I'm pretty mad at that person.

JACKSON: Yes.

GREENE: Well I think families are mad at individuals who have Ebola and anger doesn't help them and it doesn't help the family, either. Anger is not the answer.

COSTELLO: But she has a kid, he could have exposed Ebola to her child.

GREENE: That is a terrible tragedy and a very scary, very scary, personally, to them. But on the other hand, the media frenzy has created a circle around this person and he has lost his right to privacy. We're all weighing in on him. We're all judging him. And we really don't know all of his motivations and we don't know what he's coming from. If this is an act of terrorism, as you possibly raised, that would be the worst thing in the world. But, I would assume that he was just trying to leave the country and coming to his girlfriend. But on the other hand, I don't know. I don't know all the details.

COSTELLO: That's fair.

JACKSON: But be mindful of the fact that he did not, at the time, he was not symptomatic. He wasn't having symptoms, and, in fact, he passed a screening, Carol, because they test you at various stages of the airport and they take your temperature to see if you are exhibiting symptoms. And he didn't until four days later. And so that would go to show his mental state wasn't intentionally attempting to harm anyone.

Was he reckless? That's another issue. If there would be a prosecution in the United States of him, I think that might be an appropriate charge. Reckless endangerment, recklessly exposing someone to the risk of the disease when you know you may have it because of your assistance of someone else.

COSTELLO: Alright, Joey Jackson, I unfortunately have to end it there. Although I don't want to, but I must. Peter Goelz, Joey Jackson, Dr. Loren Greene, thank you so much.

JACKSON: Thank you.

COSTELLO: In the next hour, Dr. Gupta will again answer your questions about Ebola. Tweet them using the hashtag, #EbolaQandA and send them to us. This is CNN. I'm back in a minute. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Friday night lights switch on tonight, as communities will gather around fields to lift up their local teenaged heroes. But high school football will not be the same in three towns. 16-year-old Tom Cutinella died after stuffing a head injury in a game Wednesday. His last words to his father as he was heading to school that day, tell mom I love her. Cutinella is the third high school football player to die in just the last week.

CNN's Andy Scholes joins me now with more on this.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Yeah, that's right, Carol.

COSTELLO: Incredibly sad.

SCHOLES: It is incredibly sad. In just the last week, we've been reminded of just how dangerous youth football can be. 16-year-old varsity lineman Tom Cutinella, you know, he was involved in a collision during the third quarter of Wednesday night's game in New York's Long Island. He got up after the hit, but he then collapsed on the field and Cutinella was rushed to the hospital but he ended up dying after emergency surgery.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL MENEZES, NEIGHBOR: He was the type of kid you would want to tell your kids to be when they grow up. I mean, he's just -- you can't say enough about the kid. He was just probably one of the greatest kids you ever seen.

DR. STEVEN COHEN, SUPERINTENDENT, SHOREHAM-WADING RIVER SCHOOL DISTRICT: The game involves contact, and it was the result of a freak football play.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Cutinella's death, as you said Carol, follows two others in the past week. In Alabama, 17-year-old Demario Harris, Jr., died on Sunday after collapsing on the field Friday following a tackle. The cause of his death is still unknown. And in North Carolina, 17-year- old Isaiah Langston died after collapsing during his team's pre-game warmups. His cause of death is also unknown.

But you know, of course, the awareness surrounding concussions is becoming more and more these days and there's some interesting facts that surround youth football, Carol. 75 percent of football players, at all levels, have a 75 percent chance of stuffing a concussion at one point during their playing career. And players who suffer a concussion are twice as likely to suffer a second one. And the dangers of head injuries, they're starting to resonate with parents, Carol. Participation at both the Pop Warner level and the high school level are down over the last five years.

So people are definitely trying to stop what's been going on lately. There have been movements, you know, to get better helmets, more padding to stop these hits. Coaches are also becoming more educated on how to teach the kids not to hit in ways that are going to cause concussions. But again, Carol, once the play starts, we all know it's hard to stop what's going to happen on the field.

COSTELLO: It's a violent game. It's just so sad, though. Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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