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Don Lemon Tonight

High School Scandal; Ebola Hits Home; When Police and Civilians Clash; N.J. High School Football Hazing Scandal Rocks Community

Aired October 09, 2014 - 22:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.

Tonight: Ebola hits home, some of this country's busiest airports scrambling to beef up screenings of travelers from countries hit hardest by Ebola, while hospitals gear up to treat new victims of the deadly disease.

I'm going to talk to the man who wrote the book on Ebola in America more than 25 years ago.

Also, the video everyone is still talking about, a man Tasered by police in the family car. I talked to the family last night. But when police and civilians clash, who is right, who is wrong? And what should you do if it happens to you? We have a very heated debate on the subject tonight.

Plus, shocking allegations of physical and sexual abuse on a football team. but this is not the NFL. This is high school. Now their season is canceled. Some parents they fear for their kids. Others say they want them to play. We have got that story tonight as well.

But let's begin with the very latest on Ebola in America.

Sanjay Gupta is our chief medical correspondent and he is here.

The family of Thomas Eric Duncan left with a lot of lingering question about how he died and several other patients in the United States did not die. We're learning from the hospital that his heart stopped tonight.

And the hospital said: "Early in his hospital stay, Mr. Duncan had expressed his wishes to his attending physician that the care team should not perform chest compressions, defibrillation or cardioversion to prolong life."

Considering everything that happened, all the treatment that he got, they are saying it was maximal interventions. Why would a patient make that decision?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: People make it for all sorts of different reasons. This is called a DNR or do not resuscitate order.

The basic reason typically is if one feels like if they have gotten to the point where their heart has stopped, their disease has progressed pretty far along. The heart stopping also means a period of time where the blood flow is not getting to the brain as well.

The question people sort of ask themselves is, I may have be saved. But what kind of life am I going to lead, what kind of condition will I be in? Is my brain still going to function the same way? Is my body still going to function the same way?

Part of this is just their own personal bias toward this thing.

LEMON: Can we talk about something that has been out there? The family has responded now because his nephew Josephus Weeks this week said this in a statement. I will read it.

He said: "It is suspicious to us that all the white patients survived and this one black patient passed away."

There are differences in this case, right?

GUPTA: There's no question.

And there are some differences which I think should be investigated a little further, not the least of which -- first of all, we know he was diagnosed in the United States as opposed to Africa. The first patient ever diagnosed outside of Africa is Mr. Duncan. He did go to the hospital. He had a fever.

And he identified himself as someone who just came from Liberia. He was sent away. He was given antibiotics, despite the fact he was thought to have a viral infection. Antibiotics don't work for a viral infection. He was not given any kind of potentially experimental therapy.

I want to reinforce, Don, we have talked about. We don't know if these experimental therapies work, but they have been given to many other patients. The hospital says the ZMapp was not available. There just wasn't any available. He got this other thing, brincidofovir. But that was eight days almost, seven or eight days into his course.

And then obviously this idea of blood transfusion was not something he got. They say there was no match. Dr. Brantly and Ms. Writebol were not matches for him.

LEMON: The hospital went through all that, including some of the ones you said. They said he wasn't hospitalized right away. Whose fault is that? The hospital, I don't know if they flagged it or what have you.

He didn't get an experimental drug, as you said, immediately. He got a different kind of drug. They explained that. The hospital treating him had no advance notice. The other hospitals had advance notice the patients were coming. Information in the case had been muddled, they said. The family believes his insurance status played a role. The hospital is denying that. They said they gave him the best of care.

GUPTA: Don, this is one of those things. This is a hospital that takes care of a pretty diverse population of people. Dr. Fauci came out and talked about that today. It's so challenging

to figure out people's motivations. Did he get different care because of something beyond medical reasons? I don't know. I would be hard- pressed to jump to that conclusion.

But, look, if it were my family member, I would want some of these questions answered as well.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Yes, but, anyway, they're debunking, saying completely not true. Race had nothing to do with this. The hospital goes through it specifically about what happened and the differences between him.

But I want you to stay with me, Sanjay, because I want your reaction to this piece on a New York neighborhood with such close ties to West Africa, it's called Little Liberia, and how the hospital that serves the neighborhood is preparing for Ebola.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At this small, colorful market, women from West Africa sell native products like palm tree oil and sweet potato leaves.

The women say it supposedly replenishes blood. They talk about Ebola. With roughly 10,000 immigrants, Staten Island's Little Liberia is one of the largest Liberian communities outside of Africa. Many fled during the country's brutal 14-year civil war. Now they face a different war.

ORETHA BESTMAN YATES, RESIDENT OF NEW YORK: Ebola is worse than the civil war. With the civil war, people could run to different African countries to seek refuge. With Ebola, you cannot run nowhere. You got to sit and die.

FEYERICK: Oretha Bestman Yates heads the Liberian community association here. She says people regularly go back to see family or welcome those who come visit. In the last few months, things have changed.

YATES: You tell someone from Liberia, they pull away from you.

FEYERICK: Following the death of the first Ebola patient, Yates says there is more tension among immigrants, now fearful about going to hospitals.

YATES: People are not being open about this whole thing. They're trying to keep it to themselves.

FEYERICK: That is a problem. Being able to identify symptoms quickly is crucial. At nearby Staten Island University Hospital, which serves the Liberian community, doctors, nurses, and administrators have no illusions. Ebola may come here. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First thing they come in, have you traveled? If

yes, within the last 21 days? Where have you traveled?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it a risk? Of course it's a risk. Of course it's a risk. Do I think it's any more of a risk here than anywhere else?

Well, maybe New York City, but not because there's West Africans here, but because there are so many planes flying in here.

FEYERICK: Dr. Brahim Ardolic heads up the hospital's emergency medicine department. A decontamination room accessed from the emergency bay outdoors leads straight into an isolation room.

(on camera): So, the patient never has to go anywhere into the general hospital?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.

FEYERICK: They're completely isolated.

(voice-over): Isolation rooms are designed to keep infectious diseases like Ebola contained.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do have a plan in place where we would actually be running a dirty emergency department and a clean emergency department if that were to happen.

FEYERICK: And doctors and nurses briefed every day on everything Ebola.

(on camera): Do you feel like you are getting enough information from either the CDC or from the Health Department in terms of how you are suppose to respond to Ebola?

DR. OTAR DATIASHVILI, STATEN ISLAND UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: Yes, more so from our department. They kind of channel the information to us. So we have a pretty good idea of what to do.

FEYERICK: The hospital is prepared to expect the worst, while Little Liberia hopes it will somehow be spared.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Sanjay, you saw there in Deborah's piece you can see hospitals are preparing for possible situations like what happened in Dallas. They say that there were 50 medical staff dedicated to one patient, an entire wing of the ICU with 24 beds. Put those resources into perspective.

GUPTA: That's an incredible amount of resources for one patient. The one question is, is that really necessary?

You are dealing with something that is the first patient to ever diagnose with Ebola. I think there is a flooding of the zone, if you will. People really -- a lot more resources probably dedicated. You don't need that many resources. You saw one isolation bed in Deborah's piece there that would be enough to take care of a single patient.

What is interesting, Don, is they then had to go back and find all these contacts. Right? The amount of resources that then go into all these finding contacts is pretty significant as well. Imagine, five, 10, 12, whatever number of patients in this country and all of a sudden you're talking hundreds of potential people out there, finding the contacts as well.

Right now, there is just one, though. There is just one patient. We have a public health system. Compared to Liberia and some of the images over there, it is exponentially better. There is no comparison what the care is and what people have to offer here.

LEMON: More equipped to handle it than we are. Thank you very much, Dr. Gupta. Appreciate it.

GUPTA: Yes. You got it.

LEMON: My next guest wrote a prophetic book way back on Ebola in 1987. Robin Cook's bestselling thriller "Outbreak" is a fictional version of an Ebola outbreak in America.

And Dr. Robin Cook joins us here this evening.

Robin, you're not only a bestselling author, but you're also a doctor. This current Ebola epidemic looks like it came straight out of your medical thriller, to be honest. But are we going overboard here?

DR. ROBIN COOK, AUTHOR: I don't think we are.

I think that something like Ebola, this kind of an illness, is probably the scariest thing that we can deal with. And that's certainly why I decided to write the book that I wrote, "Outbreak."

When I read of viral hemorrhagic fevers, I became very interested. And this was way before anybody else seemed to know anything about it. And Ebola was the worst of the viral hemorrhagic fevers. And I wrote that book with the idea in mind that this type of thing was going to happen at some point.

And so I am not terribly surprised. And I don't think we are making too much of it. I think we should have made a lot more about it earlier. But...

LEMON: I want to talk to you about something that you said, because we have been watching these updates every day from health officials and the CDC. You say the CDC is making every effort to appear they have everything under control, but in reality they don't. Why do you say that?

COOK: Because we don't know enough about the virus. We are really in the beginning stages of learning about it. It obviously can mutate, because otherwise there wouldn't be so many

different strains. And we are seeing something now that we have never seen before. And that is that in previous outbreaks, it has been restricted to the bush. And here it suddenly is in an urban environment.

It is being passed through multiple passages, they call it, which gives an opportunity for mutation. Can that mutation go in a good way or can it go in a bad way? It is a very strange illness when you think about it. It usually is self-limiting because it is so deadly.

When you think about a virus or something like another parasite, if you kill your host, you are not going to have a long future. That's what happens so often with this. I think that is one of the reasons the outbreaks have been relatively limited in the past.

But now you suddenly are in are urban environment. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for someone else to write another medical thriller, because this is scary stuff.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I want you to listen to the CDC director, something he said earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: This is a fluid and heterogeneous epidemic. It is changing quickly and it is going to be a long fight.

I will say that in the 30 years I have been working in public health, the only thing like this has been AIDS. And we have to work now so that this is not the world's next AIDS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: OK. You said it is the first time it's in an urban environment. Is this comparison accurate? Could Ebola become the world's next AIDS?

COOK: It is very different.

One of the reasons it is different, as I already mentioned, is that it is much more rapidly fatal. AIDS, people could carry it around and they didn't seem to be symptomatic and then could spread it. That was very different.

Now we have symptoms within a relatively short period of time, and you have a better idea. And it is also more deadly, so it is not going to be similar. But in some respects, it is similar, in that here is something that has come out of the bush. In other words, it's come out of -- it was in animals.

And now suddenly it has jumped to humans. The real issue here is how quickly it can mutate and how that is going to affect the transmission. I know the CDC has been saying that that it has the to be direct contact with fluids. But at the same time, they're willing to say it is in saliva. We all know that when you cough or sneeze, saliva is sprayed out of your mouth.

Perhaps this virus cannot live very long in the air. I don't know. But I don't think anybody knows. Can it suddenly change and become aerosol so that that is another way it can spread? To me, that's the biggest danger.

LEMON: Yes, if it can mutate. Thank you very much, Robin Cook. Appreciate you joining us here on CNN.

When we come right back, tough times at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Even former members of the president's own team are taking pot shots, but not Jay Carney. I will ask him how he thinks his old boss is doing.

Plus, Tasered by police. What would you do if this happened to you? Who is to blame for cases like these?

And a high school football team's season is canceled over charges of shocking abuse by players -- why some parents say they want the team back on the field.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: If President Obama is feeling lonely, he has good reason to. Republicans are blasting his handling of Ebola. His former defense secretary, Leon Panetta, is criticizing him on Iraq, Syria and ISIS. And even Democrats running in the midterms are keeping the president at arm's length.

Joining me now is a man who knows the president well. It's Jay Carney. He's CNN senior political commentator and former White House press secretary. Also Kevin Madden CNN political commentator and a Republican strategist.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Jay, it's a tough time to beat President Obama. How do you think he is handling it?

JAY CARNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, there is nothing like the sixth year of a presidency, a second-term presidency, going through what is almost always a bad election cycle, which we're likely to see for Democrats this fall.

At the very best, they will hold on to the Senate barely, but give up seats. At the worst, of course, they will lose the Senate and lose seats in the House. It has always been at least in modern history a problem for incumbent presidents. And President Obama is no exception.

I think that there is a tendency to in an election year and in an environment where there are a series of things often beyond a president's control that aren't going well, that it begins to snowball and you begin to see that reflected in polling numbers. But I don't think that that this is qualitatively different from what we have seen in past presidencies.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: We have a short time. I know you are used to being behind the podium. But the question was, how do you think he is handling it?

(CROSSTALK)

CARNEY: Well, look, I think that he is handling it the way you would want a president to handle it. He is being very deliberate. He is assembling a coalition to deal with ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

He's dealing -- having the United States take the lead in providing assistance and dealing with the Ebola outbreak. And he's handling the political situation as best he can, raising money for Democratic candidates and only going to those states where his visits would be helpful.

LEMON: So, Kevin, here is the problem. There's a new CBS poll. It shows that 36 percent of voters said that President Obama has a plan for dealing with ISIS, while 56 percent still say he still doesn't. He announced a four-point plan to the country a month ago. Why is that perception still out there?

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, look, I think the reason that is because that four-point plan came after the president took to the podium in the White House as we all remember in that famous press conference and he said, look, we don't have a strategy yet.

And then in the space of about two weeks before he actually really began to find his voice, began to sort of build a consensus for a strategy, in that two weeks, his reputation with the American people as being someone who has a clear understanding of the threat and had a definite plan to confront that threat, it suffered irreparable damage.

And I think it is going to be hard for the president to ever really regain that level of trust that he has a clear plan to deal with some of these enormous challenges that we are facing, namely this crisis that we are facing with ISIL.

LEMON: And that's with the American people.

But, Jay, Leon Panetta made several media appearances this week while shopping his new book. In one interview, he suggested simply that President Obama might have -- quote -- "lost his way." You can't have former members of the administration speaking out like that. It doesn't help.

CARNEY: Well, sure it doesn't help. And I'm sure the president doesn't appreciate it very much.

I think that when you have a situation like ISIS and you have a strategy that you are employing, unless and until it actually works, the American people are going to be rightly skeptical. That's inevitably going to be the case.

I think -- I would question the idea that his -- the harm done here is irreparable. I would say at this stage in the Clinton presidency, people thought he was so irreparably damaged he might not survive in office and he ended as a very popular president and continues to be popular to this day. Similarly, Ronald Reagan went through a very bad year six in office and recovered.

So I have think President Obama can do the same. But it is up to him. He will have to deal with the situation that emerges after the midterms. He will have to continue to take the fight to ISIS and continue to explain the strategy that he is pursuing, and then fill out his last two years with a lot of energy and a lot of action.

LEMON: You not only have that. You have Robert Gates, who wrote a memoir. You had Hillary Clinton's tome and of course you had Leon Panetta's book.

But, then, Kevin, even former President Jimmy Carter has jumped on the anti-President Obama bandwagon. Listen quickly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Both of his secretaries of defense, after they got out of office, have been very critical of the lack of positive action on the part of the president. He's been delayed. Sometimes, he draws red lines on the sand in the Mideast, and then when the time, he doesn't go through with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: How bad is it, Kevin, if you have Jimmy Carter criticizing you?

MADDEN: Yes.

I think one of the big problems too is that it is more easily dismissed criticism when that type of criticism may come from a partisan voice, some Republican opposition up on Capitol Hill. But that's one of the big challenges that this White House has right now, is that not only is it just one person like Leon Panetta. But it has been a chorus. It has the been the same consistent criticism, that the president has been ambivalent, that he hasn't really risen to the challenge and he hasn't been forceful enough in dealing with some of these big challenges that are on his plate when it comes to national security and foreign policy.

LEMON: Whether it's perception or reality, the midterms are coming up. And what does it do to Democrats who are really keeping the president at arm's length right now?

What does this do for the Democratic Party, Jay?

CARNEY: Well, I think the Democratic candidates have to sort of thread this needle very carefully, because it's true that when you have an unpopular president of your party, you don't want to be associated with him.

Your opponent are probably running ads linking him to you. You want to keep your distance. But the fact is, President Obama, like incumbent presidents usually are, remains very popular with his base and with the base of the Democratic Party. In some states and in some places, those candidates have to be careful about going too far in distancing themselves.

Look, it is not a good dynamic for Democrats out there. Their goal has to be in this cycle to run local and state races and not have it -- have their races be nationalized, because if they're nationalized they will be hurt by the overall perception of President Obama right now. I think what we have seen in the polls so far is, we haven't seen a national wave yet.

There's still time for that to happen. There's no question it's going to be a good year for Republicans and a bad year for Democrats. The question is how good and how bad?

LEMON: All right, gentlemen, thank you very much. I have to go. Appreciate it.

Up next, how did a routine police traffic stop turn so violent, a window smashed, a man Tasered and a little girl telling me on this program last night that she is not OK and that she is scared? Who was right? Who was wrong? We will have that debate when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: When police and civilians clash, who is right, who is wrong? We have seen it happen again and again from Ferguson to the shocking caught-on-camera moment when police in Hammond, Indiana, smashed a car window and used a Taser on a man in the passenger seat.

Now there is a warrant for the arrest of the Tasered man on an old and unrelated marijuana charge. But take a look at this video everyone is talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you say somebody is not going to hurt you? People are getting shot by the police.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That is really tough to watch.

Joining me now, my colleagues Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

You both winced. We all winced watching that. It's tough to watch, right?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. I just watched the whole 13 minutes of it. This unfolded over 13 minutes, where the kid in the back seat, as you know, was taping it. And it is remarkable. It's remarkable first how calm relatively the couple was.

LEMON: Right.

CAMEROTA: They were trying to do the right thing. But then it escalated. And that moment is hard to watch.

LEMON: Yes. That's the problem. It escalated so quickly. Before we talk more, I spoke to the family last night, the entire family. Let's listen to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISA MAHONE, STOPPED BY POLICE FOR SEAT BELT VIOLATION: He went from the left to the right. I didn't know which way to pull over. I thought "Oh, my God, he's pulling me over like I just robbed a bank."

JAMAL JONES, BOYFRIEND OF LISA MAHONE: So I wasn't going to leave my family out of the car and leave them in the car when they have their weapons drawn. I felt, to protect my family I would just stay in the vehicle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: OK. The police say that they were acting erratically, that they should have obeyed orders. They said they have every right to stop them and ask for identification from the passenger. You have watched the tape. do you think that they were threatening to the officer, either of you?

CAMEROTA: I don't. I don't. He was trying to produce the I.D. They wanted I.D. from him. He said he didn't have it, it had been taken from him, but he had a ticket with his name on it.

So, he was trying to fish around for it in the backpack. And that scared the police. But he was trying to comply.

LEMON: Yes.

But should he have gotten out of the car?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

LEMON: That's the question, yes.

CUOMO: And when he didn't get out of the car, that starts to spark the panic that police officers have. And you can debate the word "panic." Well, they're not really panicked. Police officers, no matter where you talk to them, the first thing they say that they want out of their shift is to make it home alive. And that may sound dramatic. But it's not when your job is very often entering and hopefully exiting the worst situations. LEMON: He was supposed to get out of the car. He didn't. This went

on for a long time. Everyone we have spoken to -- black, white, man, woman, liberal, conservative -- they all say, you should comply with, if an officer tells you to do something, that you should do it. Alisyn, you didn't think he was threatening. But he should have complied. He should have gotten out of the car.

CAMEROTA: Well, what he said in the car, as you know, was that the officer had pulled a gun. And he said, "I'm not going to get out of the car. I'm scared. You're scaring me right now."

And what she did, which I thought was very clever, she called 911 while they were in the car and said, "Can we get a sergeant here? Can we get a sergeant here? They want us to get out of the car, but he has a gun. We're scared."

They couldn't have raised any more red flags to say that they were scared. And I understand why they're scared after everything that we've reported on for the past few months. But of course, technically, yes, you must comply with police officers. You can't...

LEMON: But everything -- everything we have reported on the past few months...

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LEMON: ... wouldn't that make you say, "OK, I should do what this officer says so he doesn't shoot me, so that he doesn't become violent"?

CUOMO: One of the heads of the NAACP says that he is more likely to do what an officer says, because he's afraid of what happens if he doesn't.

LEMON: Exactly.

CUOMO: That it actually puts him in fear of his life. That is a sad point. And it's a sad basis for action.

But you have to remember, if you just look at this situation on the basis of the facts, you're going to wind up nowhere. And unfortunately, that's my problem with the story. Is that you need to fix the culture of policing in places like Hammond, Indiana, which by the way, is a very high-crime area, which gives police more discretion in asking things like "Get out of the car."

LEMON: Listen, that's not to say it's right. Just because you have the right to break the window and Tase the guy doesn't mean it's right to do it. My heart broke when I listened to the little girl. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You're OK?

JANIYA IVY, DAUGHTER OF LISA MAHONE: I was just doing nothing. No, I'm not OK. I'm very scared.

LEMON: You're very scared, why?

IVY: Because after they like -- like got the little pa -- and just got the window. That's when I got scared. It was so, so scary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So she's going to have that scary feeling about law enforcement for the rest of her life. So is the 14-year-old boy.

CAMEROTA: She's traumatized right now. Hopefully, she can overcome it, but I don't know that she can.

LEMON: If that happened to you, the kid -- they last for a long time.

CUOMO: But that, too, you can look at both ways.

LEMON: Can I ask you guys this, though? I mean, I've had, you know, interactions with police officers. Obviously that, you know, did not turn out -- well, they weren't so nice, so kind to me. Do you think that would have happened if your family -- your families were in the car?

CAMEROTA: Look, impossible to say. But I don't think that I would have ever been pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt. I've never been pulled over for not wearing a seat belt.

LEMON: I have.

CAMEROTA: I've been pulled over for real infractions. Have you?

CUOMO: Yes, I don't think the cops would have acted the same way. Why? Well, because I think that they have prejudices based in them, not just people, but as a function of the job. We were just talking to a criminal defense attorney who says, oh, there's no question they do. But race is probably third or fourth.

They're most biased around men, especially big men. You know, and, then -- then you know they may have a particular bias, and color is probably third or fourth.

But, look, we don't hear about these stories happening to white people. Why not? Is it because the media gives more attention to when it's people of color? I don't know.

But the kids in the back really also is a bad fact for both sides. It's a reason the father said, "I wasn't going to get out with the cops with the gun with my kids in the car." OK, maybe. Or maybe that was the reason to get out of the car.

LEMON: Get out of the car. Exactly. My family is in the car.

CUOMO: And the cops should have been sensitive to those kids.

LEMON: Yes, exactly. All right, so here's as I said, what to do if you are stopped by police. If you're in a car. Turn off the car. Turn on the internal light. Open the window partway. Place your hands on the wheel. Upon request, show driver's license, registration and proof of insurance.

CAMEROTA: But it doesn't say get out of the car. I mean, I don't know that you are obligated to get out of the car.

CUOMO: You are obligated to get out of the car if the officer tells you to get out of the car. There's been a lot of case law on this.

And in higher crime areas like Hammond, Indiana, a police has even more -- a police officer has ever more discretion to do it.

But remember, what you have the right to do and what is right to do are different things. We have a problem with the culture of policing in too many communities. And these conversations don't often make it better. This is a productive conversation. But people come on. They're angry. They want to fight. They're holding onto their hostilities. The police become defensive. And you don't get anywhere. It doesn't get better.

CAMEROTA: I mean, this situation, it was a standoff. They'd been there for 13 minutes. He wasn't getting out of the car, and the police officers weren't going away. It was a standoff.

CUOMO: It does show that the police officers weren't being that aggressive. You know, because they were there that long. If this had happened in the first minute, I think you'd have a clear-cut case of excessive force. It still is probably excessive.

CAMEROTA: I still say that they could have just written a ticket and said, "OK. You win. Go on your way."

CUOMO: But what happens when you don't listen to a cop?

CAMEROTA: I'm not saying for society we shouldn't comply. But in that particular situation there was no probable cause. There was no crime.

LEMON: What do you think about this: The officer who broke the window and Tased Jamal Jones has been sued three times for excessive force. The other officer was sued for offensive contact. What does that -- does that tell you anything? Does that sort of bolster what you say? What you said about...

CUOMO: For me, that's a very bad fact. I don't believe in coincidences. Well, we have a highly litigious society. That's true. Populations like this not as litigious as you go up the socioeconomic scale. I think you have a problem of the culture of policing in many places.

LEMON: We can go on and on. Because, I mean, we see it so much in the news. Thank you, guys.

CAMEROTA: Pleasure.

CUOMO: It's good to see you, Don.

CAMEROTA: Miss you. Great to see you.

CUOMO: Thank you for lending me Alisyn.

LEMON: Oh, we'll be right back.

CUOMO: That's excessive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: An alleged hazing scandal is shaking the community of Sayreville, New Jersey. The reports that high-school freshmen football players were routinely bullied and some claim sexually assaulted by older players in the locker room. Football season is now canceled. CNN's Miguel Marquez has the story now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Friday night lights cold in Sayreville, New Jersey, the entire football season canceled allegations beyond shocking. A criminal investigation under way, a school, its successful football program, and a town under the microscope.

THOMAS BUCK, FORMER MIDDLESEX COUNTY PROSECUTOR: You have two problems right now. You have criminal charges, or hypothetical criminal charges and you're also dealing with juveniles.

MARQUEZ: Thomas Buck was an attorney in the Middlesex County prosecutor's office.

BUCK: If the allegations that are being floated out there now are correct, I would expect not too long in the future you're going to start seeing arrests.

MARQUEZ (on camera): Of kids?

BUCK: Of whoever was involved in that locker room.

MARQUEZ: The accusations her have created an environment pitting parent against parent, with those who support the superintendent's decision to end the football season afraid to speak out.

(voice-over): The allegations from several parents and their children -- all refused to appear on camera -- upper-classmen allegedly would corner freshmen in the locker room, howling the lights out. They would sexually abuse younger classmates. These allegations, possibly more, possibly dating back more than one year.

Neither the football coach nor any official at Sayreville High School has commented on the specific allegations. It was the superintendent who took the extraordinary decision to cancel the entire season.

DR. RICHARD LABBE, SAYREVILLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS: There were incidences of harassment, intimidation that took place on a pervasive level in which the players knew, tolerated, and in general accepted.

MARQUEZ: The Sayreville Bombers, state champs three of the last four years, now the talk of the sports world and not for their achievements on the field.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hazing in a high-school football locker room in Sayreville, New Jersey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A storied New Jersey high school football program is canceling its season because of bullying.

MARQUEZ: At a packed school board meeting, football players, parents vented.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have been seeing more dedication out of my son. And I want him to play the rest of this season.

MARQUEZ: Players in shock and emotional.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not going to have that closure of finishing our senior year going out like we wanted to go out. It just -- it got taken from us, for something that we didn't even know was going on. I don't think that...

MARQUEZ: The Middlesex County prosecutor will only confirm a criminal investigation is under way.

Parents describe an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear. From the school hallways to the streets of this working-class town. Parents on both side considering or have begun hiring lawyers. What would normally be a season of touchdowns and defense, now turned into fear and the possibility of jail time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Miguel Marquez joins me now.

They're dealing with the scrutiny of this scandal in Sayreville. Would it be fair to say that you were received with relative hostility by the members of the community?

MARQUEZ: I wouldn't say hostility, but I think people are really in shock there. They're not sure what, exactly, to do. There's a lot of concern about what is to come after, as this investigation unfolds. Literally, parents worried about their kids being picked up and jailed, arrested, and tried, for something that they think was just, you know, joking around.

LEMON: So speaking of that, as this investigation continues to move on, how many potential victims you think? And when do you expect to see charges?

MARQUEZ: The numbers are very hard to come by. We understand there may be as many ten currently. But this may go back years. So there may be many more dozens to go, dozens if not hundreds of people in order to talk to for investigators. LEMON: Thank you for covering that. Appreciate it, Miguel Marquez.

If these, certainly, accusations are true what could cause teenage boys to do this to their teammates? We're going to hear from some experts next.

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LEMON: I need to warn you that, before we start this conversation, some of the language you're going to hear you may find offensive. It's not appropriate for children. So if you have children in the room and you don't want them to hear this, you need to get them out.

The New Jersey town in turmoil tonight after allegations of severe and repeated hazing on the high-school football team. Hazing that some say was sexual in nature. Police are investigating; the football season is canceled. Miguel Marquez just talked about it.

So joining me now to talk about these very shocking allegations is psychologist Susan Lipkins, the author of "Preventing Hazing" and civil rights attorney Gloria Allred.

So Doctor, let's talk about this. This is alleged. And you said there is a word for this alleged activity.

SUSAN LIPKINS, PSYCHOLOGIST/AUTHOR: Yes. It's called sodomy. Would you like me to explain what allegedly happened?

LEMON: Yes. If you can do it delicately. Yes.

LIPKINS: OK. Well, the -- it's not uncommon. The kids turned off all the lights. There was lots of howling. The larger kids, the older kids would pin down the freshmen and then raise them in the air with a finger into their anus and then withdraw the finger and put it into the mouths of the kids. That's what's allegedly reported.

And I think it's important for the audience to know that sodomy is common among athletic teams throughout the United States. This is not the first case and, unfortunately, it will not be the last.

LEMON: Doctor, what's the mentality of boys that would do this to other -- I mean, they're supposedly otherwise good kids. What happens here?

LIPKINS: Right. They often are. Even like, you know, they could be honor students, Eagle Scouts, anything.

What it is, is it's a tradition. Hazing is a process. It's a group process. It's based on a tradition, and it's used to maintain a pecking order or to discipline. So this is part of the pecking order, you know. And it's probably happened to the older kids. And they are just repeating the tradition, and sometimes they add their own mark.

LEMON: Again, and this is alleged. And we don't know how many boys this was alleged to have happened to. But Gloria, the prosecutor's office is now investigating the allegations in this case. It's hard to believe that no adults ever caught wind of this. I mean, could the coaching staff or the staff at the school be facing charges?

GLORIA ALLRED, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Well, absolutely they could be facing a civil lawsuit, should the parents of any injured victim decide that it's appropriate to bring a case. And I notice that when Governor Christie today condemned it, he didn't mention the responsibility of the school, of the coach. What about...

LEMON: Gloria, before you continue, we have the governor. Let's listen. And then we can discuss on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: If these facts as alleged are true, then this is a nightmare, for the parents of those young men, and it tells us something about the attitude that was allowed to pervade in that program. I speak on that not only as the governor, but as the father of four children who play sports and two of them have played sports in high school.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So my question to you is about the staff and, you know, how would they not know about it. He talked about the pervasive attitude if this was allowed to go on, Gloria.

ALLRED: Well, that's right. And that's what I'm talking about. And the attitude is not just the one of the young people, of the students. It's what is the attitude of the adults who were supposed to be supervising? And that is really important.

And I represent a young woman who was hazed at the University of Connecticut. There the University of Connecticut did the right thing. They did an investigation of the hazing. And then, they decided to ban the sorority and the fraternity that they found were responsible for it. That's zero tolerance for hazing. Because hazing can be harmful to students. And parents don't send their young people to schools, to high schools, or to colleges, to have them harmed, to have them injured.

And that is why this school needed to stop the football season. I'm sure they didn't want to hurt players who weren't hazing. But they needed to take responsibility and stop this practice.

LEMON: And that leads me to this. Because even with these allegations, Dr. Lipkins, some parents are angry about the suspension of the season. How difficult must it have been for, you know, the person that eventually did blow the whistle to speak out about what's going on here?

LIPKINS: Well, that person is brave and should be honored but is probably afraid to come forward. You know, we need to show people that it is important to report hazing and to stop it, because actually they're saving many, many other kids on that team and many other teams in the school and other schools from being hazed, from being sodomized, from being hurt, both physically and psychologically. LEMON: Gloria, can we continue? I want to talk about the attitude

that you talked about, the governor talked about. Because the Sayreville program, still recovering from the arrest and the resignation last week of a coach who was found with 800 milligrams of steroids and 14 syringes when he was pulled over on a traffic stop. So the school said that it had nothing to do with students. But I mean, does this tell you anything about the people who may be running that program?

ALLRED: Well, that's right. Who's watching the store is really the issue. And -- and, of course, you know the principal, the coach, everyone, they need to take responsibility. Because we talk about in loco parenti. We talk about schools, in a sense, acting as parents. When the

parents are not there, we entrust our young people to the school. And that's why many cases, in appropriate cases, they can be civilly libel.

LEMON: But the superintendent did the right thing, Gloria, by suspending the season?

ALLRED: Well, I do think that that was the right thing under the circumstances. I do think it also helps to limit the school's legal liability, although it doesn't erase it. It doesn't eliminate it for what has already occurred.

And so, I think, you know, a criminal prosecution, if the facts support it. And that case has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Possible civil cases. Possible investigations by the United States Department of Education. Complaints for violation of civil rights. There are lots of options here for parents and students who may have been injured.

LEMON: Does it make it seem like, for those who are arguing, for the season to continue, does it make it seem like they're more concerned about a sport than they are about the safety of students? And, I mean, these are children, Dr. Lipkins.

LIPKINS: Right. It's true. I think what people need to understand, including parents in that town, is that the team knew. Everybody knew. You know, this is not a quiet event. They're howling. There were kids who refused to go into the locker room. Parent had to wonder why. And the coaches should have been there wondering why.

And this is a tradition. So I think everybody has to take responsibility. Nobody reported it. Nobody stopped it. Nobody intervened. And probably it has been going on for years. That's my assumption.

And I think that, you know, therefore, we have to send a message to that team and other teams, and this is a lesson. This is a life lesson, parents, teachers, coaches administrators should be using this throughout the country as, you know, an awareness kind of wake-up call.

LEMON: Right. I have to go, Doctor... ALLRED: It is a teaching moment.

LEMON: ... Gloria. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. We'll be right back.

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LEMON: That's it for us tonight. I'm Don Lemon. Thanks for watching. "AC 360" starts right now.