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Storms hit Midwest; Passengers Trapped on Airplane for Hours; Prospective Attorney General Lorretta Lynch's Nomination Continues to be Held Up in Senate; Doctor Accused of Conspiracy to Commit Murder; National Guard Documents Calling Ferguson Protestors "Enemies" and "Adversaries" Released; Hockey Player Arrested for Drugs; CNN Hero Provides Aides to Single Mothers with Cancer. Aired 10-11:00a ET
Aired April 18, 2015 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:03] CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Strong storms creating major headaches from the Midwest to the mountains. Passengers forced to wait hours on a plane with no air conditioning. Little snacks, and you know, no patience.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's gone too far. Enough. Enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOE JOHNS, CNN ANCHOR: It's 161 days and no vote in sight. The president is losing patience with the Senate and the long fight for attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch may not end any time soon.
PAUL: And do no harm -- that's the oath of a doctor. But now a New York physician accused of trying to take out a rival doctor. We're talking to the physician's attorney.
And it is 10:00 on the dot on a Saturday morning. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm Christi Paul.
JOHNS: And I'm Joe Johns in for Victor Blackwell. You're in the CNN Newsroom.
New this morning, strong storms affecting major portions of Texas and even up into the Midwest states send people at a circus running towards the exits.
PAUL: Look at this eyewitness video that shows the incredible moments inside the tent. Water is seen pouring from the top of it. A trapeze artist performance bring a screeching halt to that act, and chaos then as people are seen scrambling. We run to bring in CNN's Polo Sandoval who has the details on this one. Hi, Polo.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, guys, good morning. You know, this is not the way you want to get your weekend started off. A few folks out there going out for a Friday evening performance, and then moments later, about 30 minutes into the show, they're sent running for the exits as you saw there some of the moments before water started to pour into the tent itself. The footage actually captures some of the tense moments inside the tent. I want you to listen as people started realizing that just something wasn't right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stop crying. Stop crying. Stop crying. Don't cry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: So again, several nervous folks inside the tent and they will nowhere to go. Many of the folks trying to evacuate the tent. You can see the weather, still major rain coming down outside of the circus. Earlier this morning we had an opportunity to speak to one of the circus-goers. She described what it was like inside.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RO'VIN GARRETT, EYEWITNESS AT CIRCUS: The hail started, which was a very scary sound, honestly. And I don't want to minimize on those weather is a scary thing, I know some people that were home during all of this and they were scared as well. But it just people decided maybe they shouldn't be in the tent, and when they did they started moving.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: Now fortunately nobody was injured out there. It was really just more of a scary moment there. We're hearing from some weather experts this morning. They said wind gusts of over 61 miles an hour reported at a nearby airport. This is was in Brazoria County which is a community just south of Houston there. There were also about four isolated tornadoes as part of the system in southeast Texas. And the threat remains this morning, Christi, so very important folks as they get ready to head out for the weekend, not only in parts of Texas but mainly in the southeast continue to track the weather because the threat of severe weather does continue into today.
PAUL: It is not pretty. Polo Sandoval, appreciate it so much, thank you.
And we should point out that same storm created some really big problems on the roads, a look at the cars stuck here and passengers stranded in flash floodwaters, this, too, in Houston. Some good old folks there were even helping each other move cars to higher ground. You can always find some kind people, which is helpful.
JOHNS: Yes, lots and lots of rain around. A bad weather caused passengers to be stranded on a tarmac for hours. United Airlines flight left Kansas City, it was diverted to Colorado Springs due to lightning. In Denver, and with no air conditioning, only crackers for food, passengers of course outraged, turned to their phones, capturing it all on video. Here's our affiliate KDRO with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The operation is required to formulate plan to start getting people off the airplane. That is and they are sticking to that.
GREG MILLER, REPORTER, KDRO: That plan -- not fast enough. No fresh air, no air conditioning, and only a few crackers for food, passengers coming close to a riot at one point. Instead of rioting, they recorded.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We only have three dates and they are not in the mood to be dealing with us. They don't have to do anything with us until we've been on out here for three hours.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My sister and I -- taking her to visit an aunt. And this was probably our last vacation together. And this is the memory we have.
[10:05:05] MILLER: Desperate to get out, but couldn't.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Basically if we exited the plane any time in that six hours we would be stranded.
MILLER: Colorado Springs Airport says it was a mix-up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's been a little bit of a miscommunication between the pilots and the passengers stating that the Colorado Springs airport was not allowing them to taxi to the gate. That is not true.
MILLER: Turning what was supposed to be a dream vacation --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And to them it's just business, but to the people on the plane, it was our heart. We weren't flying out of boredom. We had something to do.
MILLER: -- into an hours-long nightmare.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: Thanks to Greg Miller from our affiliate KDRO for that report. And Republic Airways, the subsidiary of United Airlines, just released a statement to us regarding this incident. They said, quote, "There was no known lightning strike, only lightning the area at the time when the plane has apparently been exaggerated, not yet confirmed, and the flight followed FAA procedure. This was one of numerous flights diverted to COS as a result of the storms. And we'll continue to follow this story for you.
PAUL: It's not just the airline, though. It's the airport as well and some collaboration there that's going to help those people.
JOHNS: And people don't know who to be angry at a lot of times if you don't know who it is that's holding you up. PAUL: Right. So I'm wondering, Ivan Cabrera here with us now, where
are the dicey spots today?
IVAN CABRERA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Same areas. We're going to get hit again with the torrential downpours, the same low that's responsible for bringing the snow to the Colorado are the same ones -- look at the thunderstorms that blew up over Texas here.
I want to take you back as far as what the radar was looking at, Friday at 5:30, watch the thunderstorms as they move through Houston. You'll be able to see a bowing here. When you see on a radar that is indicative of very strong, damaging winds, and that was rolling through Houston at the time of the tent situation there.
And I must say you have to have contingency plans if you are having an event in the middle of weather here. This was not a surprise. We knew that we were going to have some dicey weather across Texas yesterday, so that's that. And there goes the storm as it continues to push off towards the east. That low is still spinning in place, so the same areas are going to get hit. You see all of these tornado reports and hail reports here. We're going to continue to see a line from Dallas all the way to the north.
But take a look at the rainfall that's fallen as well. This is the other part of the story, here, not only severe weather but torrential downpours, anywhere from five to ten inches of rainfall have fallen in the last of five days. So we still have flood warnings across the gulf coast.
Now, as far as the severe weather today, again, it extends because that low is not moving from Corpus Christi to Austin to Dallas and heading up into Wichita. Not expecting tornadic outbreaks here, possibly a few isolated tornadoes, but the main threat will be heavy downpours of flooding rain and also the possibility of some damaging winds with hail. So we are under the gun once again, guys.
PAUL: Good heavens. All right, thanks for the heads up, appreciate it.
JOHNS: It could be worse.
President Obama is telling the Senate enough is enough, that it's time to stop playing politics and confirm Loretta Lynch as the attorney general.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: There's no reason for it. Nobody can describe a reason for it beyond political gamesmanship in the Senate on an issue that's completely unrelated to her. This is the top law enforcement job in the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: Sunlen Serfaty is live at the White House with the story. Sunlen how are Republicans responding to the president's words? SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Joe, Republicans are pushing back
on this. They're pinning this hold-up on Democrats in the Senate. A big part of this hold-up over Lynch's nomination and confirmation is because her nomination has been tangled into a separate, unrelated issue of a bill on anti-human trafficking. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, he linked the two issues. He says that they won't go on to a vote to Lynch until they hold a vote on this human trafficking bill first.
The problem there is that bill includes some controversial language on abortion that a lot of Democrats are unhappy with. So this is, we see many Republicans now move to saying it's the Democrats here that are actually standing in the way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JAMES RISCH, (R) IDAHO: Well, I think we're doing just what the Democrats did when they were in charge, and that is, leave lined up a series of issues we're going to deal with. And right now, the issue that's right in front of us is the bill the Democrats have supported. And that is the trafficking, the illegal trafficking bill in human beings. They're supporters of it and they're filibustering that bill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY: Now, there are some signs of progress on this bill on Capitol Hill. Democratic and Republican sources tell us that they are moving towards a compromise in order to tweak the language, that abortion language that might make it more amenable to Democrats. That's all-important in the context of Loretta Lynch because if they're able to get the compromise, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said he will hold a vote on the trafficking bill early next week. That could potentially pave the way, Joe, for a vote on Loretta Lynch perhaps as early as next week. Back to you.
[10:10:08] JOHNS: Republicans in control of the Senate now flexing their muscles. Thanks so much Sunlen Serfaty.
PAUL: This one almost sounds like a movie script. A New York doctor in a little bit of trouble here, took an oath to do no harm, of course, but cops say a cardiologist not only tried to put a hit out on a colleague, he had a stash of weapons hidden in a room behind switch- activated book shelves. The doctor's lawyer is joining us next.
JOHNS: Plus, it's a big weekend for the GOP, the top contenders for the 2016 race in New Hampshire for the party's leadership summit. But who's connecting with voters? We're going to go there live coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: It's 13 minutes past the hour. And was it a prescription for murder? A wealthy New York cardiologist is accused of trying to take out his competition. Wednesday, police charged Dr. Anthony Moschetto of plotting to kill a rival cardiologist. Jennifer McLogan from our affiliate WCVS has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER MCLOGAN, REPORTER, WCVS: It was inside his lavish gold coast home where this respected Long Island cardiologist Dr. Anthony Moschetto allegedly hatched his sordid plan. When investigators raided the Sands Point estate they said they discovered a hidden room behind a switch activated book shelf containing this cache of 100 weapons, assault rifles, and all manner of knives and switch blades.
MADELINE SINGAS, ACTING NASSAU COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Luckily for his victim, Dr. Moschetto chose the wrong people to deal with in his scheme, and we stopped it dead in its tracks before anyone could get hurt or killed.
[10:15:02] MCLOGAN: Dr. Moschetto, it's alleged, paid undercover agents with illegal prescription pills, cash, and guns, and arranged for two alleged henchmen, co-defendants in this case, to set fire to his former colleague's office and then kill his doctor colleague in a bitter ongoing dispute over money, power, and control.
ANNE DONNELLY, ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: He was willing to pay $5,000 to have him beaten and put him in the hospital for a few months, and then he said he would pay $20,000 to have him killed.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL: So let's talk to Moschetto's attorney Randy Zelin. Mr. Zelin, thank you so much for being with us. I just want to run through some of the evidence here that they're talking about. Police are alleging that they found about 100 weapons hidden in a room behind a switch- activated book shelf that included hand grenades, high-capacity magazines, knives. How is he explaining this?
RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, first of all, let's remove the word "evidence" from the discussion, because merely holding a press conference is not evidence. What I know about the case so far is I've been handed pieces of paper that basically say somebody told me that somebody did something that somebody said something on a particular day. None of anything in this case has any evidentiary value. And right now, and this is the fundamental notion -- my client is presumed innocent. As you look at him, as everybody looks at him on that screen, it doesn't matter what anyone says. He is presumed to be innocent.
PAUL: So what, what is he telling you about the fact, well what can you tell us, I should say, because I know there's a privilege there that we can't and wouldn't try to get into, but he gave cash and black prescription pads to an undercover agent?
ZELIN: Once again, at this stage of the proceedings, that is a completely unsubstantiated allegation. As far as this case goes, criminal cases, whether they be high-profile cases or not, they have stages, they have lives. Right now, the most important thing that we set out to accomplish was to have my client walk out of the courtroom with me, which he's done. And that was first and foremost.
Now what we work on doing is getting him back to work. He's got patients to see. This man, while he was in a detention cell, the only thing that he cared about were his patients. And amazingly, his patients were flooding the office with calls, making sure that he was OK. So the next thing we do is we get him back to work. Then we start tearing apart this case and looking for the "e word," looking for the evidence.
PAUL: So what specifically are you going to be looking at as you tear apart this case?
ZELIN: It's impossible to say. We look under every rock, every haystack, there's nothing that we don't look for. We have a team assembled. We're going to go through every allegation. We are going to go through everything in this case. So I cannot tell you because there's no recipe, there's no script. Every case stands on its own. Every client is an individual human being. Every fact pattern is different. And that's the way we approach it, the uniqueness of every case, and everything that goes into it.
PAUL: Mr. Zelin, you said that his patients had been coming forward to defend him and that they want to go see him. Can he practice while this is pending?
ZELIN: Yes. Right now as I know, and as the world is concerned, this man is a well-respected, top, amazing cardiologist. And he wants to work, his patients want him to work and there's nothing stopping him from doing what he is amazingly talented at, which is he's got people's hearts in their hand. That's what he does and that's what he will be doing.
PAUL: All right, attorney Randy Zelin, we appreciate you being here with us, thank you.
ZELIN: Thank you.
PAUL: Joe.
JOHNS: Christi, the GOP courting voters in New Hampshire. Jeb Bush and the other top contenders for the White House in 2016 in the granite state for a leadership summit. How the candidates are faring coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:22:46] JOHNS: OK, let's take a live look right now, Nashua, New Hampshire, where Republicans are out in full force. Senator Rand Paul on stage right after his speech on the second day of the summit, some other big names that are also going to take the stage, among them, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. This comes one day after contenders tried to grab the spotlight or at least put some of the rhetoric to a field test. Let's bring in CNN's Athena Jones who is live in New Hampshire this morning. Athena, what's Senator Paul been saying so far?
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Joe. Well, he said a lot on the stage. He made the most of his time up there. He bashed President Obama on immigration, on his executive actions on immigration, quoting Montesquieu, saying that when the executive starts legislating a form of tyranny ensues.
He also gave a familiar criticism of former secretary of state and now presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her handling of the situation in Benghazi, that attack. He said her dereliction of duty should disqualify her from holding any higher office.
But he also talked about what the party needs to do to find a nominee who could win. Let's play that sound.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAND PAUL, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a decision now. We need to find someone who is going to represent us, someone who is going to be the leader of the Republican Party and make the country a better place. How are we going to get that? Some of the party say let's just dilute the message, let's become Democrat-lite and then we'll get more votes. I couldn't disagree more. I think what we need to do is be boldly for what we are for.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: So be boldly for what we are for. What did he say we are for? He talked about cutting corporate taxes. He also said that Republican Party in order to win more states than Texas and Georgia, to win purple states, places like Ohio, Colorado, New Hampshire, that the party needs to start defending the entire Bill of Rights, not just the Second Amendment right to bear arms, but the other amendments, like the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure. So he covered a lot of ground on the stage just now, Joe.
[10:25:07] JOHNS: Some libertarian themes in there, too. Athena Jones, thanks so much for that. Christi?
PAUL: This morning, a vow to take down terrorists after a brutal ISIS suicide attack leaves dozens dead. Why investigators believe the blast was targeting government workers.
Also, Ferguson protesters called enemy forces and adversaries. We'll have more on the language used, we've learned, by National Guards revealed in an exclusive CNN investigation.
JOHNS: But first, this week's "Ones to Watch" series examines the art of photography.
PAUL: Yes, we traveled to France to meet a man who has such a unique perspective about the face off your planet.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A moving image held still. One flash and a photographer has framed, lit, and constructed a silent scene.
YANN ARTHUS-BERTRAND, PHOTOGRAPHER (via translator): You say in French, photograph holds to the wall, which means that it mace a place on the wall which film will never have. There's a huge difference between video and a photo. The same image you photographed in 1/500th of a second, it will remain therefore ever.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For over 20 years the French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has been constructing a portrait of the earth with his aerial photographs. His book, "Earth from Above," sold over four million copies.
ARTHUS-BERTRAND: I needed to have a frame or format. Planet earth was the frame. It seemed extreme, but in 1992 I decided to do a project on the beauty of the earth and on the impact of man on the planet. It's a work which totally transformed me. The earth was a lot more beautiful than I imagined. I think still today I'm astounded by the beauty of the world.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: You can check out the full show at CNN.com/OnesToWatch.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:30:28] JOHNS: An is-inspired terror plot is foiled by a major counterterrorism operation in Australia. Police have arrested five suspects, one of them just 18 years old. The operation happened earlier today in Melbourne. Investigators say the suspects wanted to target police during a national ceremony. Earlier today, Australian officials discussed the arrest. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEIL GAUGHAN, AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE: I think the entire Australian community should be concerned about the young age of those particular men. And this is an issue not just for law enforcement, but for the broader community. We need to get better in relation to identifying young men and women that are involved in this type of behavior at the very early stages.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: Officials say those three suspects have already been released.
In Afghanistan at least 33 people are dead and more than 100 wounded after a rush hour attack claimed by an offshoot of is. The blast happened in Jalalabad. That's about 150 miles from the capital city of Kabul. We're told a man with a motorbike blew himself up in front of a bank. In a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, militants say the bombers was targeting government workers. Earlier today the Afghan president condemned the attack, vowing to take down terrorists who he says are using Afghan blood and soil for a proxy war.
Let's bring in now CNN military analyst Major General James Marks. General, I wanted to start with the bombing in Afghanistan. This is an offshoot of ISIS that is claiming responsibility for it. And as you know, we also have this bombing, a car bombing in Erbil, claiming the lives of four people, 18 people injured, ISIS also claiming responsibility for that as well. What's the significance of that?
MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well clearly, both, in both cases what ISIS has achieved, and let me, Joe, take a step back and say we don't know that this is really an is -- it's ISIS inspired. But we don't know its linkages into what I would call the ISIS command and control type of structure which exists in full blossom in northern and eastern Syria, northern Iraq.
But having said that, what these both of these attacks really get to is the nature of terrorism Which really defines the vulnerability of innocent citizens. When ISIS claims that it's trying to achieve the caliphate, and the caliphate is in northern Iraq and Syria, they need to hold on to territory. The caliphate could be in cyberspace for inspirational purposes, but it's got to be territory associated with it.
So when you have a terror attack like what took place in Erbil, they aren't looking to hold territory, they are looking tore exert forms of terror on to the population. And Erbil is a rather modern, open city. We've all been there before and we know that commerce kind of takes place. It would look like any place that you would see in America.
So this really strikes to the heart of the vulnerability of the Iraqi people, the advances that ISIS is making, and it keeps people's heads on a swivel. You take that relative to the advances that are taking place now in Ramadi, where ISIS wants to hold on to territory, that's a tad different. But still it's symbolic, and it took place outside the American consulate. That's what's worrisome.
JOHNS: So it's symbolic. But as far as strategy, from a strategic sense it doesn't mean that much.
MARKS: Well, Joe, it does, because this is what terror is all about. Terrorism is about keeping you on your toes and keeping you nervous, and, primarily, altering your behavior. That's what's going to take place in Erbil. Things will be different. The new normal will be different today than it was yesterday in Erbil because of this attack. That's the success of terrorism.
JOHNS: Now, this morning, Iraqi TV is reporting that Iraqi forces have entered the Baiji oil refinery to liberate it from ISIS. How important is that refinery from a strategic standpoint?
MARKS: It's huge. It's huge. Before we liberated Iraq in 2003, it was all the discussions were about obviously WMD and Iraq's oil production, refinery as well as exploitation of those incredibly rich oil resources that they have. Baiji is one of the primary refinery and distribution facilities. So this is all about, from ISIS' perspective holding territory. They want that facility. The ISF, the Iraqi Security Forces, need to get them out of there.
[10:35:03] JOHNS: General Marks, thanks so much for coming in to us on a Saturday morning. See you again soon.
MARKS: Thank you, Joe, absolutely. PAUL: All right, we want to talk a little more about this suicide car bomb attack at the U.S. consulate in Erbil. For that we want to go to Mitch Prothero. He's a bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers in Erbil. Mitch, thank you so much for being with. What can you tell us? What have you learned more at this point about this blast?
MITCH PROTHERO, BUREAU CHIEF, MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS: Well, Kurdish security officials I was talking to earlier this morning have sort of revised the timeline of what happened last night. It was around 5:40 p.m. and the bomb did go off directly outside the pedestrian entrance for the U.S. consulate in Erbil.
At the time they were saying it was three bombers in a car trying to mount an operation. Now they've revised that and have decided that it was just one bomber in a car and two of the dead that they originally thought were part of the operation were in fact were just innocent passersby. They happened to be foreign, Turkish. And we've had an announcement from the Turkish government that they did lose two citizens yesterday. So that's the latest we're hearing on what happened last night in this normally very quiet section of Erbil.
PAUL: Sure. Of course ISIS is claiming responsibility for this one. Have you heard anything more about that strategy and who exactly was behind it?
PROTHERO: Well, the ISIS group that took responsibility for it was a unit in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, which would make sense. It's an area controlled by the Kurdish security forces that has a high Sunni Muslim population of Arabs as well as Shia. There is ISIS activity on the front lines. The Islamic State and the Peshmerga face off in sort of a World War I style trench warfare area down there, and there is a lot of traffic between Kirkuk and Erbil.
What we are finding, though, is Kurdish security forces have been pretty good at preventing these attacks. There's only been two suicide bombings basically since June when Mosul fell of last year, which is far lower than anybody anticipated. One thing that the Kurds have going for them is a fairly unified population. Anybody sees something suspicious, they're going to call the police. They're going to call the internal security guys and it will be checked out. It's a very different situation than you would find in Baghdad where it's a city of 8 million people, a lot of who don't know each other or are afraid to get involved in something like suspicious activity or calling the police that they don't necessarily trust.
PAUL: OK, hey, Mitch, I want to talk to you real quickly too about these new pictures this morning of a top Saddam Hussein aide who has reportedly been killed. Wondering, how significant is his death? And how does it affect ISIS that region. Any gauge?
PROTHERO: Yes. It's not going to affect the Islamic State. He was the leader of a group called the Naqshbandi Order, which was sort of a group of former Saddam officials that were resisting the Shia government, the Shia-led government in Baghdad. They had aligned with ISIS last year, with the Islamic State in the takeover of Mosul and were very helpful. Over time what they found though was their ideologies were just so
radically different from the Islamic State's desire to build a Muslim caliphate span between Raqqa and Mosul and virtually the whole area that there had been a lot of internal tensions. Some of his men had defected to join the Islamic State, others had fled to Baghdad or even Erbil to get away from them. So he was a fairly marginal figure.
The biggest thing is this is a symbolic win sort of both for the United States who spent 10 years looking for the guy, unable to find him, and it's a big deal to the Shia government of Iraq because this is somebody who had tormented them as part of a you know, Saddam's right-hand man as part of the regime for a decade. He's a notorious figure in Iraq. But in terms of his day-to-day presence operationally in today's battlefield he's relatively insignificant.
PAUL: All right, thank you so much for the clarity. We appreciate it. Mitch Prothero, always good to have you. Thank you, sir.
PROTHERO: My pleasure.
PAUL: Sure.
Listen, also I want to tell you about a disturbing revelation out of Ferguson, Missouri. A CNN exclusive, new questions about the tactical language National Guardsmen used as they prepared to confront protesters after the Michael Brown shooting. Stay close.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:42:51] PAUL: We have a CNN exclusive for you this morning. Disturbing revelations about the language used by the National Guard as they described protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, this of course in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting.
JOHNS: Sara Sidner is following the story. Good morning, Sara.
SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Joe, some of the protesters told us they should be called "Americans" in documents, not "enemies." But it is true that some of the protesters did at times turn violent.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER: CNN has obtained new documents revealing how the National Guard planned for the situation in Ferguson, Missouri. In internal documents that used words like "enemy forces" and "adversaries" to refer to the protesters after protests erupted in sporadic violence, looting and burning in the wake of Michael Brown's death. The document outlined the Guard's mission in Ferguson and the enemy forces to watch out for, putting general protesters in the same category as known hate groups, like the clue Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panthers, saying "protestors have historically used Molotov cocktails, rocks, and other debris to throw at police. Several small arms fire incidents have occur, and some may use militant tactics taught by that rebel group."
PAUL MUHAMMAD, PROTESTOR: We are looked at as the enemy any time we're vocal, any time we're expressing ourselves, any time we're disenfranchised, and particularly in the black community.
CATHERINE JACKSON, PROTESTOR: How am I an enemy? All I am is a 62- year-old grandmother who is worried that I'm going to leave my grandchildren in a world where I can't protect them anymore. I want to see change. I want to see real change.
SIDNER: The National Guard itself worried about the perception of the words "enemy" and "adversary." In the document one colonel warned the language could be construed as potentially inflammatory. A National Guard spokesman told CNN these were only drafts taken from an army form letter and the language was changed and never appeared in the final order. The head of Missouri's National Guard telling CNN in an email the documents used in the Ferguson, Missouri, case were a generic military planning format utilized in a wide range of military mission, so the term enemy forces would be better understood as potential threats.
[10:45:02] In November when a grand jury decided not to indict the officer who killed Brown, the governor and National Guard were criticized for the Guard's lack of response as two streets in Ferguson went up in flames. Back then I asked the city's mayor about the guard's reaction to the riot.
Did the governor do the wrong thing when it comes to how quickly the National Guard was actually deployed on the streets?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know who made that call. But I do believe the National Guard should have been out there much sooner.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER: Whether these are a draft or the final document, what we did notice is that the final change came in November on the 18th when they took the word "enemy" out, and that these documents had been around likely since August which was four months prior, the first time the National Guard was deployed in Ferguson. Christi, Joe?
JOHNS: Sara Sidner thanks for that.
What happens in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas for an NHL player. What cops say they caught a star forward for the L.A. Kings with a hotel by the pool, that coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHNS: Now a National Hockey League star is in big trouble with the law this morning.
PAUL: Yes. Jared Stoll faces drug charges after his arrest in Las Vegas last night. Coy Wire joining us with the details. All right, what have you heard.
[10:50:00] COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS REPORTER: Yes, not good, because Jared Stoll has gone from the cold ice to the hot seat. He was arrested for drug possession on Friday afternoon. Police tell CNN affiliate KSNV that Stoll had cocaine and ecstasy at MGM Grand's pool complex. Stoll was released from jail on $5,000 bail just hours ago. A hearing is scheduled for later today, guys.
JOHNS: OK, so the team has put out a statement, and right now, what, they're just sort of saying well, some of this, some of that. We don't know what this is. We're going to wait and see?
WIRE: It was the team's PR twitter account, and they came out and released the quote. They said "Our organization is concerned, has begun conducting a thorough internal investigation. While we continue to actively gather facts we are withholding further comment at this time." Guys, so that's the only thing they know, clearly they're going to dig deep and see what happened here.
PAUL: OK, so tell us more about him on and off the ice, because I think a lot of people know him through his still girlfriend?
WIRE: Yes, well, in the past he is known to have been dating Erin Andrews, the host of "Dancing with the Stars" and a sports reporter. He was also engaged to Rachel Hunter, the actress and model at one time. So his name has been around. But recently Erin Andrews, they've been the power couple in L.A.
But this is big news, because this is the guy who was with the L.A. Kings since 2008. He won the Stanley Cup twice, once in 2012, once just last year. And now, though, guys, he's a free agent. Starting in July I believe his contract is up. So this is terrible news, terrible timing for him in his career moving forward.
JOHNS: Do you think he'll have trouble getting picked up?
WIRE: If this is what we think it looks to be, then yes, it absolutely would be. He is 32 years old. He has a lot of playing time left in those legs, so I think think this would be pretty detrimental for him.
PAUL: On a personal level, how is he known as a guy?
WIRE: Well, he's young, he's a very good player. I think sometimes you know he has been known to have fun, and in the off-season. They just missed the playoffs. He's in Vegas, and things happen. Maybe he was involved with the wrong people.
PAUL: Things happen in Vegas.
JOHNS: Just off-season.
WIRE: Just off-season.
PAUL: Coy Wire, thank you so much.
WIRE: You're welcome guys.
PAUL: Good to have you here.
JOHNS: Her husband landed a small aircraft right next to the steps of the United States capitol. Now the wife of the postal worker whose protest landed him a trip to jail speaks out for the very first time. Does she support this protest?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:56:24] JOHNS: In today's CNN Heroes, a recent study says that more than half of all American children will likely live with a single mom at some point.
PAUL: Can you imagine when a single parent gets cancer? Everyday tasks such as cleaning and cooking are such a struggle. That's where this week's CNN Hero Jody Farley-Berens steps in.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JODY FARLEY-BERENS, CNN HERO: I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer just about a month after my daughter's dad and I split up. All I could think about was oh, my god, my daughter. I can't do this to you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here I go, mom.
FARLEY-BERENS: The chemotherapy, there's a lot of fatigue. When you can't really do much, you're looking at the dirt on the floor. It's like one more level of stress.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Being a single parent, having cancer, you don't know where to turn.
That wasn't on the list.
Disability, it's 60 percent of your salary. But your bills are still 100 percent. It's hard.
FARLEY-BERENS: My friend Michelle was a single mother of four when she was diagnosed. She struggles with just day to day. When she passed away weigh realized other people like her need help.
Singleton Moms provide practical support for single parents battling cancer. You have these people that don't know you, and you're going to help me with, clean my house? We help them pay a couple bills, and then we provide day to day needs for their house.
Do you have a protein preference? It's about being that support. It's a lot of help.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They go out of their way to make sure that you're taken care of.
FARLEY-BERENS: Neighbors helping neighbors, family helping family, this is what we should be doing for one another.
Singleton Moms definitely helps me with this fight. I've got all the motivation in the world looking in my daughter's eyes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: If you know someone who should be a CNN hero, let us know at CNNHeroes.com.
PAUL: Boy, does she deserve that one. What a woman.
You know, the wife of the Florida mailman who landed a gyrocopter near the U.S. Capitol one day is speaking now publicly for the first time.
JOHNS: And her husband, Douglas Mark Hughes, was charged with violating aircraft registration requirements and violating national defense airspace. Here's what she told our affiliate WFLA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were you thinking when you heard?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My reaction, it's difficult to explain my reaction for this. I was shock. My hands shake. I need support my daughter and then I need explain to her what happened because I was very worried her reaction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was traumatized, too?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think I'm proud of him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: Hughes has been placed on home detention in Tampa, by the way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. This is so fricking hot, oh, my God.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: Can you imagine, that's a natural gas line explosion in Fresno, California you're looking at there. The fireball injured 11 people. At least one had to be airlifted out. And the cause of the blast is still under investigation.
JOHNS: So that's about it for us. Thank you for watching.
[11:00:00] PAUL: Yes. We are so grateful for your company, as always. Make some great memories today. But we turn it over to the very trusted Fredricka Whitfield. Take it over.
