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First 50 U.S. Troops Join ISIS Fight in Iraq; Anger Grows Over Mexico's Missing Students; Arctic Blast Will Affect 200 Million in U.S.; Michael Brown's Parents Addresses U.N. Panel; Report: Clinic Made Mistakes with Joan Rivers

Aired November 11, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: I liked that dress comment, though.

All right, thanks, guys --

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Sure. Look online. I'd look all right.

KAYE: Yes. OK. All right. Have a great day, you guys. Thank you.

NEWSROOM starts right now.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye in today for Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

On this Veterans Day we start with a reminder of the conflicts now facing American troops and the battles are being fought on many fronts.

This is the latest propaganda tape from ISIS. The terror group boasts of conquests on the battlefield and in its online campaign to recruit young jihadists and warriors.

And in western Iraq the first U.S. troops have arrived to bolster the region's fight against ISIS. About 50 military personnel are in Anbar Province to begin training Iraqi and Kurdish allies.

Just last week President Obama approved up to 1500 U.S. troops for that mission, essentially doubling the American forces now in Iraq.

CNN's Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon with the very latest for us this morning.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Randi. Let's go back to that video for a moment. That is the latest video from ISIS. Should be viewed as another propaganda video, sources are telling me. This is what ISIS is so good at, taking their cameras out on to their front lines, recording a good deal of violence and gruesome activity, some we cannot show you.

This message from ISIS is that they believe they have inevitable victory. They show this, it is intimidating. They believe this sends the message that they are winning. The coalition of course begging to differ. Those 50 American advisers now in Anbar Province west of Baghdad, they are at a place called al-Assad Airbase, that's an Iraqi airbase, where they will be stationed to try and get ready for additional advisers to come to Anbar Province.

Their job will not be combat, we are told. No combat role for them but they instead will help train Iraqi forces to go back on the offense, to go against ISIS and try and push them back. This will be very tough going. I think one indication of just how dangerous this may be for U.S. troops, a good deal of them will be involved in what the military calls force protection, protecting other troops, protecting U.S. military advisers from possible attack -- Randi.

KAYE: All right, Barbara Starr, appreciate it, thank you very much for the update from there.

Washington is also keeping a close eye on its NATO ally Ukraine, where the tensions with Russia are spiking.

In Donetsk, the fighting between Russia-backed rebels and government troops has surged to its highest level in weeks. Ukraine has -- says that Moscow has sent dozens of tanks across its border and there are fears that Russia is planning an offensive. This as the heavily damaged city already teeters on the verge of humanitarian crisis. A brutal winter is descending and many Ukrainians are huddled in homes that are missing walls or roofs.

Even pro-Russian analysts predict that the crisis in Ukraine could explode within the next 48 hours.

Protesters in Mexico are lashing out at the government's response to 43 missing college students. Demonstrators blocked Acapulco's airport and fought with police. Things are back to normal there this morning, but several flights were canceled yesterday.

Mexico's attorney general believes the 43 students were kidnapped, murdered and dumped in a river. But when he signed off on a news conference by saying enough, I'm tired, that enraged many Mexicans.

The students disappeared in southern Mexico on September 26th, and CNN's Rosa Flores joins us now with more.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Randi, good morning. You know, the parents of these missing students have made one thing very clear, that they will get more and more radical.

Let me tell you something, they are keeping at their word. We have seen burned cars, charred buildings and yesterday for a few hours the crippling of the Acapulco Airport.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (voice-over): More than 1,000 outraged protesters take to the streets of Acapulco facing off against law enforcement at the international airport. A show of defiance in response to the disappearance of 43 students in southern Mexico. All 43 lives were abruptly interrupted by what authorities call an organized criminal ring involving the mayor, his wife, the police chief, and drug traffickers.

(On camera): The students were on this highway headed towards Iguala, they belonged to an all male teachers college that's known for protesting against the government.

(Voice-over): City mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, didn't want them in town and ordered the police chief to stop the students according to authorities.

(On camera): This is where the plot thickens. The last place these 43 students were seen alive. I want to show you this wall, because you can still see bullet holes, what federal authorities say could be possible clues of an ambush by local police who would later turn over students to a cartel.

(Voice-over): Four days after the students went missing, officials say Iguala's mayor and wife went underground because investigators were eyeing them. They evaded police for more than five weeks until they were finally arrested.

(On camera): Federal authorities say that three cartel members confessed to driving up this road which leads to a public dump for Fercula, a nearby city. And they say that they were driving two trucks filled with about 40 people. Then federal authorities say that the bodies were dropped to the bottom of this pit and set on fire.

(Voice-over): Video confessions released by federal authorities revealed the remains were placed in plastic bags and taken to the San Juan river.

(On camera): According to authorities the suspects came to this river and emptied out most of those black plastic bags except for one. That one was found sealed.

(Voice-over): According to officials the remains are in advanced state of decomposition and ID'ing them will be difficult.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Now those remains will be I.D.'d out of Austria. Experts here have looked for the best labs around the world and they've determined that they will send those remains in Austria. No word yet on when results will be coming back here to Mexico -- Randi.

KAYE: Rosa Flores for us in Mexico, Rosa, thank you.

Checking top stories now. Look closely and you will see right here a car poking out of that gaping hole of what used to be a driveway. Neighbors in Holiday, Florida, say it took only about 15 minutes for that hole to grow from a divot to swallowing the car. No one was hurt but several nearby trailers have been evacuated over concern that the sinkhole could grow.

In South Korea a panel of judges has sentenced a ferry captain to 36 years in jail, the court acquitted him of murder in the deaths of more than 300 people from the April sinking. Families demanded a murder conviction because the captain jumped to safety even as passengers were trapped inside that doomed vessel.

In Hawaii now a river of lava has destroyed its first home. Residents had long since evacuated and cleared out their belongings ahead of the eruption of the nearby Kilauea volcano. It has been a disaster in slow motion. The lava had been inching closer over the past four and a half months.

Well, are you feeling the chill yet? If you haven't, chances are you will and soon. It is all because of the weather system that literally shifted the path of the jet stream and opened the door for winter conditions like this one in Michigan to come rushing down from Canada into the U.S.

Not even mid-November but hey, it feels like mid-winter for much of the country. This is South Dakota where the frigid weather moved in fast. Temperatures dropped 37 degrees in a matter of minutes in some places and they are waking up to single-digit temperature there is this morning.

Indra Petersons is joining me now to talk a little bit more about this.

So, are we looking at Wisconsin? Is Wisconsin going to get hit?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we'll give you a live shot right now.

KAYE: OK.

PETERSONS: Green Bay, you can actually see some of the flurries already coming down. Keep in mind, places like Wisconsin and Minnesota, they saw over a foot of snow already where typically that's what they see in an entire month. They saw that in just a couple of days.

Let me show you again, everyone keeps talking about what does this have to do with the typhoon? Let's take a look at the maps right here and we'll show you. Remember, we have the huge typhoon Nouri, that was a super typhoon that was off the coast of Japan. Well, those remnants made their way right there into the Bering Sea. They interacted with the jet stream. So interacted with the cold air became this monster storm and what did it do?

Kind of like whipped the jet stream like this so that ripple effect brought the jet diving way down to the south and again that's the reason we're talking about winter so early, this bitter cold is pushing in many places yesterday as that high pressure dome moved down to the south, some places like Wyoming and Colorado, they saw a 40- degree temperature drop in just two hours. Imagine that.

So today the question is, where are you on the map? If you're east of the cold front you're very happy. In fact you're actually seeing temperatures warm today but behind the cold front, that's where all the action is, that's where that cold air continues to dive down.

Just take a look at the highs and look at the temperatures, Fred. Florida, 80s today. A lot of places only seeing single digits when you talk about the Dakotas and even out through Montana.

Look at the temperature drop for one day, 40 degrees even as far south as the south. So that what we're dealing with as this cold air will continue to push east. Look at the windchills, places well below zero. Rapid City feels like 12 below right now. Here you go. Here goes the next four days you can see what is coming your way.

Just keep in mind we talked about this yesterday, Randi, temperatures are going to stay cold for a while because this is only wave one. There will be two rounds of cold air coming our way.

KAYE: Wow.

PETERSONS: Excited yet?

KAYE: Rapid City, 12 below, huh. Not where you want to be today.

PETERSONS: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

KAYE: All right, Indra, thank you. Appreciate it.

Still to come, Ferguson bracing for what a grand jury will decide in the case of a white officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teen. That decision could happen this week.

Will the Missouri town see more of this?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: The parents of slain Ferguson, Missouri, teenager Michael Brown are taking their case to the world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLEY MCSPADDEN, MICHAEL BROWN'S MOTHER: We need the world to know what's going on in Ferguson and we need justice. We need answers and we need action. And we have to bring it to the union so that they can expose it to the rest of the world what's going on in small town Ferguson.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: This was Brown's mom, Lesley McSpadden, speaking with CNN jut a short time in Geneva, Switzerland. She and Michael Brown Sr. spoke this morning before the U.N.'s Committee on Torture. They said the shooting death of their unarmed son by a white Ferguson police officer and the way police treated protesters in the days after his killing violated the U.N.'s Anti-Torture Convention.

In a 13-page statement, they said, quote, "The United States must take steps to address the torture and/or cruel inhumane and degrading treatment of Michael Brown and other unarmed black and brown persons killed by law enforcement."

While Brown's parents are all the way in Geneva, back home in Ferguson, people are preparing for the worst as a grand jury gets closer to reaching its decision. It could decide any day now whether to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer in the shooting death of an unarmed black teen. The big concern is that if Wilson is not indicted the town will explode once again like it did are Brown was gunned down in early August.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really a volatile situation based upon, you know, if he's indicted or not. People are pretty upset and feel like justice -- if he's not, that justice may have been derailed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Attorney Benjamin Crump is representing Brown's family and he is live in Tallahassee, Florida, with us this morning.

Good morning, Ben.

You just heard from this Ferguson resident. How concerned are you about more violence if Officer Wilson is not indicted?

BENJAMIN CRUMP, MICHAEL BROWN'S FAMILY ATTORNEY: Well, the parents and our legal representatives put on record, Randi, we want people to be able to exercise their American Constitution First Amendment rights, but we want them to do so in a non-violent, constructive way. But we do expect people to react as Americans, not just African- Americans, but all Americans, because this process certainly needs to be fixed.

KAYE: The prosecutor meanwhile is saying that he is unlikely to file charges on his own or convene another grand jury if this one does decide not to indict.

How do you feel about that?

CRUMP: Well, Randi, that's what I was saying, I say this process needs to be fixed. There is a problem with this process that is toward police officers with alleged to commit brutality on people of color. That's why Michael Brown's parents were over in Geneva before the U.N. testifying about how their child was executed in broad daylight and had his hands up in the universal sign of surrender and he was laid out in the baking hot son for over four hours with blood pooling from his head.

And as tragic as this sounds, this incidence of police brutality on people of color happen over and over again in America and the system continues to sweep their deaths under the rug and exonerate these police officers for killing our children.

So, there has to be an American response that we have to do better. KAYE: Getting pack to the grand jury, Attorney General Eric Holder

sent a message to the Ferguson grand jury leakers to be quiet. Do you think that's going to have any effect on the leaks coming out of there?

CRUMP: Well, I don't know, because I think people who leak information do it for ulterior motives and obviously the people who leaked this information in this process that we object to. We don't believe there ever should have been this secret proceeding of this grand jury. It should have been transparent as the American Constitution says and people would accept it more, Randi, if it was transparent, where we could trust the system that it works equally for everybody.

There's a great air of mistrust in Ferguson as many cities of America, when people of color are killed by the police, you have the secret proceedings by these prosecutors who work with the police day in and day out. You can predict the outcome and that's what people are so concerned about in Ferguson and that's why people are reacting so hard.

KAYE: Meanwhile you're in Tallahassee. Michael Brown's parents are far away in Geneva. Do you think either of you are going to get a heads up before the grand jury's decision is announced and are they bracing for the response from the grand jury?

CRUMP: We certainly expect to. That would be the decent thing to do, is to let the parents know that a decision is out before the rest of the world hears of it, but more so the parents have continuously said that they want people to respond peacefully and constructively.

And they do want people to respond. Make no mistake about it. They greatly, greatly want justice for their child, any parent would want justice for their child who was killed in such a tragic manner.

KAYE: And do you plan to travel to Ferguson by the time this grand jury announcement is announced?

CRUMP: Yes.

KAYE: You do.

CRUMP: I'll be in Ferguson this evening, yes.

KAYE: Benjamin Crump, thank you for your time this morning.

CRUMP: Thank you.

KAYE: And coming up later this hour, we will talk with former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik about the best way for police to handle the situation if Officer Wilson is not indicted.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back. An attorney for Melissa Rivers says she's is outranged over the report

finding major violations by the clinic that treated her mother. A federal agency cited numerous mistakes made prior to Joan Rivers' death including failure to identify deteriorating vital signs.

CNN's Jean Casarez has studied the report and joins me with more.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, this is the first time we've had detailed -- alleged facts, I will say, according to this report by the Department of Health and Human Services. But as you listened to what the findings are, the devil is in the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ (voice-over): A probe into the Manhattan clinic where famed comedienne, Joan Rivers, was treated before her death reveals that they made mistakes.

A 22-page report issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found a list of disturbing issues during Rivers' procedure, including a staff member snapping a photo of Rivers while she was sedated, violating the faculty's policy on use of personal cell phones in any patient area.

The CMS report quotes that staff member saying, "Maybe patient No. 1 would like to see this in the recovery area."

Rivers' name is not mentioned in the CMS report, and CMS would not confirm the person referred to only as patient No. 1 is Rivers.

However, the report matches the date, circumstances and age of the late comedienne.

Other disturbing details outlined by CMS found the clinic failed to identify Rivers' deteriorating vital signs. And failed to consistently document the dose of the sedative Propofol; failed to get Rivers' informed consent for each procedure performed; and failed to insure that she was cared for by only authorized physicians.

Yorkville Endoscopy addressed the report in a statement that says in part, "In response to the statement of deficiencies, Yorkville immediately submitted and implemented a plan of correction that addressed all issues raised."

REPORTER: how are you doing, Melissa? We're so sorry.

CASAREZ: Melissa Rivers' lawyers addressed the findings, saying, "Ms. Rivers is outraged by the misconduct and mismanagement now shown to have occurred before, during and after the procedure."

Now, her lawyers say Melissa is working toward insuring that what happened to her mother doesn't occur with any other patient.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: And Yorkville Endoscopy is admitting certain thing, certain practices they did not do. But the ultimate facts, they are not admitting at all.

Let's talk about the anesthesiologists, first of all. Propofol was used. It was determined the amounts of Propofol were not monitored correctly.

KAYE: Which can be deadly.

CASAREZ: As we know from Michael Jackson and Conrad Murray.

During the procedure, 300 milligrams of Propofol was typed in was used. Later that afternoon, the anesthesiologist came back, according to this report, and redid the report saying it wasn't 300, it was 120 but my finger pressed two times the button, she went on to say at that point her own personal physician, Joan Rivers, was here, and actually performed two procedures that was not originally planned, and there was no implied consent, meaning Joan had signed off saying let's do this procedure.

Furthermore, she talked about the fact that photos were taken, that a staff doctor, the scope doctor actually took his camera, according to the report, and took pictures of a sedated Joan Rivers and her own personal ENT doctor saying that Joan will probably want to look at this when she comes to.

KAYE: Oh my goodness. As you mentioned also the pulse down to 47 and they continued the procedure.

CASAREZ: That's right. I mean, when she started the procedure 118 over 80 was her blood pressure, pulse 62. As they kept going and it's documented. So, there was documentation that it got down to pulse being 47 and the procedure was still going on.

KAYE: Amazing, amazing. All right. Jean, thank you for bringing us that. Appreciate it.

CASAREZ: Thank you.

KAYE: Still to come, his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren murdered and buried in the Mojave Desert far away from home. Now, Patrick McStay is speaking about the shocking relationship the murder suspect has to his family. It is a CNN exclusive you'll hear right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)