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Texas Flooding; DC Mass Transit Threat; Dog Saves Deputy; Soccer Scandal. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 27, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: For our international viewers "Amanpour" is next. For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much. Great to be with you on this Wednesday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This is CNN.

Another round of storms on the way as Texas recovers from deadly and historic flooding. We begin in Houston. There's still this massive search and rescue underway for potential victims and survivors.

The full scope of the tragedy here is really just beginning to emerge. Authorities are discovering more bodies as the water is receding. The death toll now stands at six. Two are still missing. Officials say the search effort is treacherous. Cars are littered throughout the city here. More heavy rain fell today and could continue through the weekend.

Fears also turn just north of Houston to the town of Midlothian. That is where a dam near dozens of homes was on the verge of collapsing. It's being rebuilt and during last night's storm, part of a dirt wall came precariously close to actually breaching. Here it is.

Let's take you now to Rosa Flores, who is standing inside one of I'm sure you've seen many, many homes here, Rosa. Talk me through exactly how badly damaged it is.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brooke, this is a new homeowner's nightmare. Imagine buying a home about a year ago and then water starts rushing in. Big appliances, like a refrigerator, are floating in your house. And now it's balancing, literally, on one leg. Other big appliances also floating in your house. Oh, and let me add this, you have two small children also. All of this culminating, happening very fast. That's the case and the situation of Dana Marafi and she's joining me now here.

So, first of all, thank you so much for talking to us because -

DANA MARAFI, HOME DAMAGED IN HOUSTON FLOODING: Thank you.

FLORES: Because I know it's an emotional - very emotional time for you. So we just described the situation. You have two children. The water starts rising. What do you do?

MARAFI: Well, thank you so much, Rosa, for coming here. We appreciate you and the CNN coming here to document this.

We - it was definitely an overwhelming experience and it started, you know, around 10:00 p.m. to midnight. I was actually taking some phone calls because I was a physician on call and when the water kind of started flooding our neighborhood and cars, my husband - my husband got me into the second floor with my children.

FLORES: So you were blessed because you had a second floor that you could climb to.

MARAFI: We were -

FLORES: Other people didn't have that.

MARAFI: We were very lucky, I can tell you, because within minutes the water level raised to two feet. And it was kind of over four steps of the stairs.

FLORES: So what did you do with your children?

MARAFI: We kept them on the second story, or the second floor, until the morning. You know, when they woke up in the morning, they were hungry. The water was flooding the first floor.

FLORES: So describe what this looked like. Now we can see that the water has receded, but this furniture is all over the place.

MARAFI: Exactly. And we kept hearing things fall all night long and we were just kind of praying for our lives.

FLORES: Were you a bit scared because of your children?

MARAFI: Definitely. You know, that's the most scary thing when you have kids. You know, you want to make sure that you protect them and keep them safe and that definitely was the most overwhelming thing.

FLORES: And what are you doing now? I know some people are staying with friends, others in hotels, trying to find shelter.

MARAFI: Exactly. Absolutely. So we're right now staying in a hotel. We're looking into kind of getting a temporary apartment until we can fix this. I mean you can smell it. It look - it smells horrible. And you can see the amount of damage. This is not a place that we can stay here until we kind of, you know, get ourself back on our feet.

FLORES: Thank you so much, Dana, for talking to us.

MARAFI: Thank you.

FLORES: And, Brooke, again, take a look around. These are - this is a young couple. They just bought this house and they're telling me this is their first flooding experience. It's overwhelming. Where do you start? That's the big question right now for them.

BALDWIN: It always amazes me - please thank her for us - you know, in disasters like these, how people just open up their homes and are so, you know, welcoming to TV crews such as yourself. So thank them for us. And, Rosa Flores, I appreciate you sort of telling the story and putting a face on all this devastation that is throughout really parts of Texas.

You have north of Houston, in the central part of the state, Hays County specifically. The death toll there is now three but 11 are still missing. And the search and rescue mission continues in towns near Austin, like Wimberley and San Marcos. Relief supplies, they are beginning to be delivered to some of those hoping to resume some, you know, sense of normalcy. Jennifer Gray, our meteorologist, is at a campground in Wimberley that was just absolutely destroyed.

And so tell me that story and tell me how many people were in the camp when the waters rushed in.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: This is really a remarkable story, Brooke. You know we've heard so many stories out of this. So many of the stories have been just awful. This is actually a bit of good news. Four hundred and fifty people were here during the time of the flood. They all evacuated and they are all safe. That is the best news we have heard.

[14:05:07] Look behind me, you can see the debris just littering the banks. These slabs right here were once cabins. People were staying in these cabins Friday night and Saturday night before they were evacuated. And you can see the river, how much it has gone down. It is still raging. Just on the other side of that tree, that's a bridge, a concrete bridge, and the water is now just rushing right over it.

And we talked to the owners here at Seven A Resort and they say that the water is never that strong. It's always a real calm river. And so just to give you perspective, it is still going over that bridge.

So we'll pull out just a little bit and I'll give you some perspective of where we are. You can see all the debris that's laying around. They've been busy cleaning that up. But look back here. We have a row of cabins in the back. People were staying in these as well. And look where the water mark is. There were four to five feet of water inside these cabins as well and they are completely destroyed. But, again, everyone safe and sound.

They've been busy cleaning today, Brooke. They've been pulling out all the furniture and all of the mattresses. You can see them stacked right here. That building right there was kind of a clubhouse where people just gathered, a meeting grounds, and the watermark is right to the roof.

And so the destruction here is awful. The family has owned this place since the '40s. It's been father owned ever since. The father built it right after the war. And this is home for the entire family. They live just up the hill and run this. This is their livelihood, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Jennifer, just talking to you also as a meteorologist, I mean, is the worst over? What's the forecast looking ahead?

GRAY: Well, we are planning on more rain for Thursday, Friday, on into the weekend. We've had off and on showers today. They haven't been all that bad. In our area, we're only planning on an inch, maybe less. But as we know, we can always get caught in one of those isolated downpours and you can get isolated amounts of even more rain. And that's the worst-case scenario would be an area like this that's already been devastated, the river's already running high, for them to get several more inches of rain. That's the last thing you want. The soil's already so saturated. The rivers will come up once again.

But not just the Wimberley area, but pretty much all of central and east Texas and even portions of Oklahoma filled to the brim. So really anywhere in Texas you get additional rainfall, it's going to be bad because all of the rivers are like this. They're all at flood stage or above. So any additional water is going to result in flash flooding. That's why you've got to heed those warnings and get to higher ground and definitely don't drive into those waters, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Jennifer Gray, thank you so much in Wimberley.

You know, we keep hearing these stories. These are people's homes, their livelihoods, their memories. Let me just share something else with you.

Three days have passed and there is still no sign of three members of the McComb family who were all swept away by flash floods. Laura McComb, her husband and her two children were inside their Wimberley vacation home when the storms uprooted this house, washed it away. The cabin actually broke apart as it was floating downstream. Laura McComb's sister described to CNN the moment Laura called to explain they were helplessly drifting away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "AC360": Julie, I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for you and your family. If you can, walk me through what happened. I understand you were on the phone with your sister Laura when the house was floating down the river. What did she say?

JULIE SHIELDS, LAURA MCCOMB'S SISTER: She called me and she said, OK, we're in Wimberley. We're in a house, and we've got water coming in. And I said, OK. I go, well, where exactly is she - then she starts to look outside and sees how high the water is getting. So I told her to call 911. And she was really surprised - she didn't really fathom that 911 was what she was supposed to call. And so she called them and they told her that help was on the way. And then a little after 1:00 in the morning she called me and said, I just want you to know the ceiling has caved in, and the boat - the house is floating down the water and tell mom and dad that I love them, I love you, and pray.

COOPER: I'm trying to imagine what was going through your mind while she's telling you all these things. It must have just been terrifying.

SHIELDS: It was surreal, but the strangest thing about it is she was so incredibly calm, which you don't -- you're not calm in these types of situations. And I had been calm with her that evening, and I would say that it's - it was a sign of her faith in God. And God and her faith were just so incredibly important to her. COOPER: She has deep faith?

SHIELDS: She has deep faith. And I think she was at that moment where she knew that she needed to be there for her family. She knew what was coming. And she was ready to accept that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:10:05] BALDWIN: She knew what was coming and she was ready to accept it. I can tell you the father here, Jonathan McComb, was eventually found alive with a collapsed lung and broken sternum.

We'll take you back to more stories out of Texas. But meantime, a stunning story of survival. This deputy ambushed and his canine, his dog, saved him. The suspects, they are still on the run as fears grow of a quote/unquote shoot-on-site attack on police there.

Plus, did the U.S. lose out on the World Cup because of bribery? Explosive new allegations today involving the world's most popular sport. We're all over that.

And ISIS retaliates as Iraqi security forces move in to retake this key city near Baghdad, the terrorists launching a new wave of attacks.

You're watching CNN. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:05] BALDWIN: Want to come back with some breaking news here from our nation's capital. A man, who once appeared on an MTV reality show, has now been arrested after allegedly making what police are calling terrorist threats against metro stations there, buses, trains, in Washington, D.C. So let's go to Sunlen Serfaty, who is up on this.

And tell me more about who this guy is and what was he trying to do?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Brooke, he was arrested this morning. His name is Jerez Nehemiah Stone-Coleman, otherwise known as Kidd Cole, and he was arrested this morning on charges for terroristic threats. Now, the police here in D.C. say that 11 threats over the course of the last five months from December to May this month were called in from him for various difficult reasons. One was alleging that he had planned to ambush the president's motorcade. Others that they were - there was a tip that someone was planning to take hostages. So over the course of 11 phone calls in the last five months, threats potentially from him.

Now, they connected this case to him, Brooke, because of that show "Catfish" that he had appeared on this reality show and they say that MPD, Metro Transit Police, made the connection using digital phone records, cellular phone records, as well as surveillance from inside the Metro. Now, according to the Metro Transit Police, all of those 11 threats that were made were wholly false, but, of course, they had to pursue all of those threats that came in over the last five months.

Brooke. BALDWIN: OK. Sunlen, thank you so much for that update on the situation in D.C.

Let's move on to this manhunt that's happening right now after a deputy was ambushed and slashed with a knife after stumbling across a suspicious scene, this was on a dark and deserted road in the Mississippi woods. He escaped with his life, but only after he was able to trigger some kind of button around his neck, releasing his canine officer from the back of his patrol car. So let's go live now to Jackson, Mississippi, to Therese Apel, breaking news reporter at the "Clarion Ledger."

And, Therese, first of all, welcome. Thanks for coming on.

THERESE APEL, BREAKING NEWS REPORTER, "CLARION LEDGER": Thanks, Brooke. Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: Let's set up the story because it's pretty incredible. Tell - set the scene for me. How did the ambush happen? How many people were involved? And then the canine.

APEL: Well, Deputy Frazier (ph) was, as you said, on a dark road in the Mississippi woods and he saw a car that had stopped on the side of the roads and all the lights were off. So he just stopped to do a welfare check on the driver. There was one man inside the car. And as he approached the car, two other men ran out of the woods. And as he started to back pedal, he fell, and all three of them jumped on top of him.

During this time, he was able to trigger the pop mechanism for the back of the car that had the canine officer in it. And the canine, whose name is Lucas, was able to get out and got a good chunk of at least one of the suspects before they got away. The miracle of that, the sheriff told me, is that they have four canine officer units and only two of them have that pop mechanism. So had he been in one of the other ones, he potentially might not have been able to get away with his life.

BALDWIN: Thank goodness for the mechanism. Thank goodness for Lucas. So these guys run off. He, you know, ends up, it sounds like, being OK. But the bigger picture here, when you heard about this whole story, you were actually, as the, you know, breaking crime reporter in this part of the country, you were tracking a rash of gang violence. And specifically this gang ordered to shoot on site any police officers these people encounter. Is that what happened in this case?

APEL: Well, at this point, they're not - they're not openly saying that they know for sure that that's what it is. But since the two Hattiesburg officers were killed on May 9th, there have been multiple law enforcement bulletins warning other law enforcement that gangs have out orders to shoot or basically attack on site with law enforcement. And a few days before this happened, there was an officer shot in Jackson in what started off as, it appeared to be an altercation at a gas station, but the shots appeared to have come from across the street in an empty lot. So in all these cases, in the bulletins they had talked about how

these things would be set up as potentially traffic stops or disturbance in progress or things like that. So law enforcement officers in Mississippi right now who are going to routine calls are having to be even more vigilant than ever because there actually is intelligence on the street among gang investigators that these - some of these gangs are looking to attack and kill police officers.

BALDWIN: It's incredibly frightening. That is incredibly frightening. But, you know, that's goodness, our best to Deputy Frazier here, and thank you, Therese Apel, for joining me from the "Clarion Ledger" with that.

Coming up next, a pretty stunning scandal at the highest level of the world's most popular sport. Why the U.S. Justice Department, why Loretta Lynch and others are attempting to do what the rest of the world apparently has not been able to do, crackdown on corruption and bribery in the world of soccer. That's next.

[14:20:07] Plus, new CNN video takes you to the front lines in the fight against ISIS as the Iraqi military prepares to launch a campaign to retake control of the city of Ramadi.

Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The United States tackled the world's most popular sport with bribery and corruption charges. I'm talking about soccer. A massive investigation alleges top soccer officials and executives accepted bribes to decide which nation would host the World Cup and who would televise the games. Moments ago we did just heard from FIFA President Sepp Blatter who responded to all of this saying, quote, "let me be clear, such misconduct has no place in football and we will ensure that those who engage in it are put out of the game. Following the events of today, the independent ethics committee took swift action to provisionally ban those individuals named by the authorities from any football related activities at the national and international level."

[14:25:07] You may be wondering, why does the United States care so much about world soccer officials? Well, crowds here tend to favor football and basketball. Well, the U.S. attorney general says alleged crimes actually took place right here on American soil.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LORETTA LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The defendants and their co- conspirators planned aspects of this long-running scheme during meetings held here in the United States. They used the banking and the wire facilities of the U.S. to distribute their bribe payments, and they planned to profit from their scheme in large part through promotional efforts directed at the growing U.S. market for soccer. All of these defendants abused the U.S. financial system and violated U.S. law.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Listen, there are a lot of layers to this story. One of them being this American informant who provided crucial information on the alleged corruption. Ex-FIFA official Charles Blazer recorded meetings, wore a wire actually, with former colleagues that hinted at, shall we say, shady deals.

Also, the U.S. launched an expensive bid to host the 2022 World Cup and lost to the tiny desert peninsula of Qatar, known for extreme temperatures of up to 120 degrees.

I have "Nation" magazine sports editor David Zirin joining me now.

David, welcome.

DAVID ZIRIN, SPORTS EDITOR, "THE NATION" MAGAZINE: Hello.

BALDWIN: You said this, that bribery and FIFA go together like peanut butter and jelly. I'm going to ask you to expand on that as you tell me why - why people actually aren't really surprised by this, and perhaps part of this is maybe we shouldn't be surprised that the U.S. lost out on that 2022 World Cup offer.

ZIRIN: Yes. Yes, the idea that anyone would be surprised that issues of bribery, racketeering, and graft are in FIFA. It's sort of like being surprised about falling into a pool and coming up and being wet. I mean it's what FIFA is. It has defined FIFA. Sepp Blatter, just a couple of weeks ago, called himself the quote/unquote Godfather of women's soccer. Now aside from the fact that that's not true and it's kind of grouse, the Godfather metaphor is actually very, very apt.

But you know what is surprising, and this is why so many of us woke up this morning and our jaws hit the floor when we heard this news, is that this time it looks like the charges actually have some teeth. This is the first time the U.S. Justice Department has ever gone after FIFA. The fact that two vice presidents are among those arrested is a big deal because there's only one person above the vice presidents, and that's Sepp Blatter himself. And if Sepp Blatter goes down, I'm telling you, this is the end of FIFA as we know it.

BALDWIN: Wow.

ZIRIN: And that means the end of a multibillion dollar stateless organization that presidents and prime ministers and autocrats drop to their knees in front of. So this is a huge deal, earth-shaking, number one headline news across the world right now.

BALDWIN: Yes, huge, huge, huge global story. But, David, help connect the dots for me for an American audience because this is, obviously, as I mentioned, has a lot of layers, dealing with Qatar, dealing with Switzerland. So tell me why. Why specifically do you have a Brooklyn D.A. prosecuting this story?

ZIRIN: Well, it's a great question. I mean, first and foremost, it's because the headquarters of CONCACAF, which is the soccer federation that encompasses Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean effectively, is headquartered in Florida. So first of all what we're talking about, this is a U.S. case. A big tournament is coming to the United States next year. Attorney General Lynch says over 100 million in bribes changed hands as part of facilitating that tournament coming to U.S. soil.

BALDWIN: One hundred million?

ZIRIN: Yes, 150 million as well just in commercial right bribes in the previous years. And all of this is facilitated through the United States. So that's what makes it a U.S. issue. And the fact that they were able to carry out a coordinated law enforcement sting in Zurich, Switzerland, with Swiss officials has to do with the Justice Department using parts of its mandate that actually come over - come under anti-terrorism law to conduct arrests on foreign soil.

BALDWIN: Got it.

ZIRIN: So this - that's why everybody's surprised this morning is that this isn't your typical, oh, there's corruption in FIFA story. This is an international sting that took place and taking down some of the top people in FIFA with it.

BALDWIN: But then you have this American who we alluded to, this informant, who wore this wire, this ex-FIFA administrator here who's responsible for making, you know, soccer this booming business that we see it now here in the states. Reports, you know, he palled around with anyone from Vladimir Putin to Hillary Clinton. Tell me - tell me more about him.

ZIRIN: Oh, Chuck Blazer.

BALDWIN: Yes.

ZIRIN: Yes, this is somebody who longly was seen as kind of a peripheral figure in the global sense, but very key in the United States in terms of doing what I think has happened in the 21st century, which is move soccer in the United States from being a tertiary sport to being something that's, I think, just below the National Football League. I mean ratings for Major League Soccer compare with Major League Baseball games in many markets. It's the number one youth sport among children and the ratings for the World Cup in Brazil last year were through the roof.

[14:30:06] And this is someone who's helped facilitate that change in culture. It's all - another thing that it opened him up to though was access to millions upon millions of dollars from corporations, from brands, from sports marketing executives who are trying to get their brands associated with soccer as it reaches a younger and younger and more diverse market.