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UVA Students Alleges Being Raped by Frat Members; Ferguson Grand Jury Reconvenes; New York Governor Warns Buffalo of Toxic Rain; Defense Secretary Hagel Stepping Down

Aired November 24, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: He was worth it, that's an awesome story.

Thanks so much, have a great day.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: You too.

COSTELLO: NEWSROOM starts now.

Happening now in the NEWSROOM, grand deliberations. The Michael Brown grand jury meets once again. Could this group of 12 be close to reaching an agreement? Students speak out, young leaders at the University of Virginia face the cameras just days after the school suspends all fraternities as a rape scandal swirls.

And the list keeps growing against Bill Cosby as a former talent agency secretary becomes the latest woman to come forward with accusations of sexual assault.

Let's talk, live in the CNN newsroom.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin in Ferguson, Missouri, where once again the grand jury investigating the shooting death of Michael Brown will be back in session. The 12=member panel which includes three African-Americans failed to reach a decision on Friday. And while the panel has until January 7th to make an announcement, the ongoing deliberations have the community and the nation on edge.

Let's head to Ferguson now and CNN's Ana Cabrera.

Good morning.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We are just outside the St. Louis County Justice Center and all of the attention is focused here today as we expect the grand jurors to reconvene here sometime in the next few hours. Remember, there have to be at least nine of the 12 grand jurors who agree for there to be an indictment in this case.

What will their decision be, when will the announcement come? These are questions that have this community very anxious as we await answers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA (voice-over): Overnight, protests marched, blocking traffic in Ferguson. Relatively calm, but for this incident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. All right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm just trying to go home.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, bro. I know. But you're going to be here for minute, bro.

CABRERA: While shooting this video "L.A. Times" reporter Matt Pierce was rushed to the hospital after being struck in the head by a small object.

MATT PIERCE, L.A. TIMES REPORTER: I didn't see anybody throw anything. I didn't see what it was. Just felt like a conk on the head.

CABRERA: The fire still burning in the hearts of protesters awaiting a decision from the St. Louis County grand jury. The group of 12, made up of five women and seven men, nine white, and three black, is expected to meet again today, after ending the day Friday with no decision.

Outside the courthouse, law enforcement have put up barricades to brace for backlash. Inside, the grand jury weighs the following options. Indict Officer Darren Wilson on first or second-degree murder voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, or deliver a no true bill, saying there isn't enough evidence to go forward with the charges against Wilson who fatally shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown.

BOB MCCULLOCH, ST. LOUIS COUNTY PROSECUTOR: Ultimately the transparency will be there, everything that the grand jury hears, the public will ultimately hear one way or the other.

CABRERA: Prosecutor Bob McCulloch says if Wilson is charged, the evidence comes out at trial. If there is no indictment, he plans to make all the testimony, reports, diagrams, and more public. But a judge has the final say on what gets released and when. Michael Brown's parents have urged calm.

LESLEY MCSPADDEN, MOTHER OF MICHAEL BROWN: I just want you all to be careful. Don't agitate them, don't let them agitate you all. I don't want nobody getting hurt.

CABRERA: The president on ABC's "This Week" joined the call.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a country that allows everybody to express their views, but using any event as an excuse for violence is contrary to rule of law and contrary to who we are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Now it was about a week ago that the governor of Missouri declared a state of emergency. The National Guard is on standby. We have extra FBI agents who have come into town, we know businesses are boarded up. There's definitely a sense that people preparing for the worst, but we've talked to a lot of people who hope that that preparation ultimately is unnecessary -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Ana Cabrera reporting live from Ferguson, Missouri, this morning.

Student leaders at the University of Virginia are getting ready to speak out publicly about a rape scandal that has led the university president to suspend all fraternities until next year. Now those students will hold a news conference in the next hour. Of course I'll bring that to you live.

This follows a report in "Rolling Stone" magazine that details one student's account of allegedly being gang raped by seven men at a frat house over a three-hour period.

CNN's Joe Johns is in Charlottesville.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Student organizations on campus will respond later today to the university president's decision to suspend all fraternity activities until January 9th. Giving people on this campus an opportunity to figure out what to do next about sexual violence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): More protests over the weekend at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house. The scene of an alleged gang rape of a first year student by seven men described in graphic detail in an article in "Rolling Stone" magazine. No one has been criminally charged in the incident which allegedly took place about two years ago.

The frat house was recently vandalized with anonymous writings including the words "UVA Center for Rape Study." In the continuing campus uproar, UVA's president took heat for her initial response that was called tepid by some, though she did call on local police to investigate, then decisive action over the weekend including suspending activities of all UVA's fraternities for the rest of the year.

She showed outrage in a written statement. "Rape is an abhorrent crime that has no place in the world, let alone on the campuses and grounds of our nation's colleges and universities."

The school says last year 38 students went to the Dean of Students to talk about sexual assault allegations. Nine filed complaints. No UVA student has been expelled for sexual misconduct in the last decade. A friend of the accuser in the alleged gang rape telling CNN, the attention to this issue is welcomed news. ANNIE FOREST, STUDENT: Absolutely. And for as vulnerable as she's

probably feeling, I'm sure she's also feeling very liberated. And I know that all survivors here are feeling almost that same feeling of, yes, finally, this is happening. And this is big.

JOHNS: It's not just a UVA problem. 88 colleges and universities, including Harvard and Ohio State, are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for the way they handle sexual assault allegations. One disturbing question is how schools like UVA are more likely to expel students for cheating, but keep them on campus after perpetrating an alleged rape.

The chairman of the school's Inter-Fraternity Council says the campus is getting the message.

TOMMY REID, PRESIDENT, INTER-FRATERNITY COUNCIL: And I think at this time it's more important than ever for all of the good people out thereto, for all students aware of this issue and dedicated to making UVA a safe place, to step forward and decidedly say collectively and individually that we will no longer allow rape to occur at UVA.

JOHNS: On Tuesday, UVA's Board of Visitors will meet to discuss the university's policies on sexual assault.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Tomorrow, the university's Board of Visitors meets to discuss policies to deal with sexual violence as the investigation into the alleged gang rape continues -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Joe Johns reporting in Charlottesville.

On to other news this morning.

Get ready to evacuate. That's the warning from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who's telling Buffalo-area residents to brace for toxic flooding because the roughly seven feet of snow that buried the city last week is now melting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Flooding in my opinion is worse than dealing with snow. Floods are much more dangerous and destructive than people think. It sounds relatively harmless, it's water, and it comes up and it goes down. It's not water. It's a toxic brew is what happens in a flood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Local officials are doing what they can to prepare, moving power generators and water pumps into neighborhoods and even the Army and Air National Guard worked around the clock this weekend to clear snow and they also loaded sandbags.

CNN's Alexandra Field live in Buffalo this morning.

Good morning.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Carol, the flood warning is in effect for most of the day today. Here's the good news. The snow is melting a little bit less rapidly than officials had feared that it might. It is however melting so you have to keep an eye on the rivers and the creeks like this one, Cazenovia Creek, out here. We've been standing out here all morning and watching this water level inch up a bit.

This is the area of concern around south Buffalo. People here are prepared for the idea of flooding out here. They've been told to clear out their basements, they've been told to, you know, back a bag in case they have to leave. There was seven feet of snow that piled on to this city and the surrounding areas in the last week.

Just an epic snowfall as the temperatures rose, people were concerned about really a great deal of flooding. So what we've seen in the last few days is a tremendous effort to clear out those storm drains. You want to get the snow out of there so the water has somewhere to go. And there's also been a really tremendous effort to just get the snow out of here.

As of yesterday, the mayor of Buffalo said that his crews working around the clock had already carted 80,000 tons of snow out of the city. All of those efforts combining now hopefully to mitigate whatever problems could be caused by potential flooding -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Wow, 80,000 tons of snow. That's crazy. I understand you were inside the city's command center, take us there.

FIELD: Yes. They've got so much on their plate because they're clearing that snow and they were also preparing for the possibility of flooding. So what they've done is they have set up this command center with a number of different agencies working together. And they've brought in a lot of help from outside of the area.

We spoke to some firefighters who had come up from New York City. They're part of an Incident Management Team, and what they were doing the last few days is literally getting out on the streets, taking basically their iPhones and using an app which allows them to take pictures, feed them back in real time. Those pictures will be geo tagged and mapped on a map of the city that could be seen inside the command center.

So they've really built this data base that exists in real time that shows the city exactly as it looks right now, and that's really helping first responders. They can see what the roads look like, so if they need to get somewhere they know to go there and they can also force the areas where there could potentially be problems.

For instance, they've had pictures of this bridge. They've been keeping an eye on it to make sure that there is now icing. And also of course to keep an eye on those water levels because that's really what they're looking at today -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Alexandra Field, reporting live from Buffalo this morning.

Let's bring in CNN's Indra Petersons.

What strange weather. It's going to be what? Seventy degrees today in New York and then it's going to snow on Wednesday?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And even quicker than what we're talking about what's going on in Buffalo.

COSTELLO: Yes.

PETERSONS: We're talking about temperatures, we mentioned it, temperatures in the 60s today, 20 degrees above normal. So we're dealing with all this melting snow. But by tonight, temperatures are expected to drop again.

Look at the highs for tomorrow, actually switching from rain to snow because their highs tomorrow will just be into the 30s. So literally anything that melts tonight, you have the threat that it could freeze again. So you now have the icing concerns with all those vehicles out on the roads. The problems just continue to compound over there in Buffalo.

What we're dealing with in the northeast today is still that storm making its way offshore, is this cold front that again is expected to bring these cooler temperatures making their way in or to bring about five to seven inches of snow into places like Wisconsin and Michigan today.

But it's all about this huge temperature drop we're talking about because it really changes our pattern here, D.C., 72 today going down to 39 in just two days. And that's not even the big story because we know what is on everyone's mind, and of course it is Thanksgiving, the holiday travel, just like last year, once again we're watching a low, making its way up the coastline and what we're going to be looking for is the threat for snowfall.

Again it all has to do with the placement of this low, where it goes depends on how much snow you're expecting. We're talking New York City, major hub, right? Thanksgiving travel could get six inches of snow. One of the models says closer to the coastline, six inches, farther to the north, western Massachusetts could see a foot of snow.

One of the other weather models, that's the European, the GFS says it's going to stay farther offshore. Still talking about snowfall but more of that rain, snow mix. We still have some time before we figure out what's going on.