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Battling ISIS; Reality Star Arrested for Terror Threats; Flooding Disaster. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired May 27, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:01] ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's about 1,400 structures in Houston who have been impacted. All those are people, people that are now in their homes with a lot of water damage.

I want to show you the power of the water and the surge specifically, because this is what made this particular storm so dangerous. Take a look right over here. This is all debris from a bayou that's about 200 feet from where I'm standing. You can see the surge coming through, pushing through those cars, and into homes.

Now, I talked to the owner of this particular house. And she tells me it was about 2:00 in the morning. The water started rising. Her family started jumping on the counters of her kitchen to stay dry. They have two dogs. They put the dogs on top of the dinner table in order to keep the dogs dry.

So, I want to show you here the water levels, because this really tells the story. You can see the difference in the shade of the brick. You can also see along here the debris, the line of the debris. And it goes all the around this house. Now, here's the deal. The owner tells me that water started seeping everywhere, everywhere.

And so they jumped on those -- on the kitchen counters. And now it's the cleanup. They're bringing everything outside. I want to show you one more thing, her car completely totaled. Take a look inside. You see debris, lots of debris. The owner tells me, you know, Rosa, I'm not going to be able to do anything with this because it's completely destroyed.

But, of course, in the immediate aftermath, before she left her house and slept with another family for the night, she tells me, I tried to roll up the windows. Of course, power windows wouldn't work, Rosa, she tells me, but, of course, people here just trying to figure things out. The good thing, Brooke, these people tell me that their friends, their family, everybody coming together to help them out in this time of need -- Brooke.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: That's a wonderful thing. It's just like this is one home of so many homes in the Houston area and beyond. Rosa Flores, thank you.

Let's go to Wimberley. Big story there.

Jennifer Gray is standing at a campground totally destroyed. And at the time the storms really rolled through, what, there were several hundred people in the cabins.

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, they're estimating 400 people here on the campground when the floods hit. The waters came up so fast.

And the good news about this, everyone got out. They knew what to do. They knew that it was happening. And they evacuated all of the people here. I mean, just look at this, the devastation there, debris all over the banks. The river is down there still raging. I don't know if you can see it pouring over that bridge, that concrete bridge.

And the water level has gone down quite a bit, but it is still running high. This is normally a very calm river where people come there, and not today, even though it has gone down considerably. It came up to about 44 feet. Look at all of these slabs, these cabins. People were staying in these cabins Friday and Saturday night until they were swept away. Now they're all the way on the other side of the street.

And they're just tangled, all on each other. Crews though have been out here cleaning up the mess. And you can look at this cabin behind me. You can see the water mark. And these are up even -- elevated even higher. And look at this, the water marks here are three, four feet inside of these cabins. And, Brooke, if all of this isn't scary enough, they couldn't see a thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOANNE CZICHOS, FLOOD VICTIM: You kept hearing the trees crack and the trees hitting against the cabins and stuff. And it was...

GRAY: That had to be haunting, because you couldn't see it. It was at night.

(CROSSTALK)

CZICHOS: It was scary. And that's what I think panicked the people more, because they didn't know. And there's your family and this water is just coming up so fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRAY: And, you know, Brooke, they have been here for almost 70 years. It was built in the '40s. They say the water has never gotten in the cabins. And so imagine it completely sweep away the entire front row of cabins and then get about four feet high in the second row. It's scary, to say the least.

But their hopes are high. They say they're going to salvage what they can. They may not be able to rebuild the cabins that were lost, but they still have part of the campground that they will be able to use. And they're all in very good spirits today, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Our hearts are with all of them. Jennifer Gray, thank you so much.

(WEATHER UPDATE) [15:06:04]

BALDWIN: I want you to join me in this next conversation, if you will, as we're just hearing all these different stories and other small towns devastated by the flash floods, is Martindale, the rural enclave, about seven miles from San Marcos, one of the harder-hit areas.

But people in Martindale also say their homes suffered a tremendous amount of damage. On the phone with me now is Paula Rodriguez, who lives in Martindale.

Paula, thank you so much for taking the time to jump on the phone with me. And I have Chad Myers with me as well, one of our CNN meteorologists, who may jump in as well.

Can you just -- I know you were asleep when all of this was happening. Tell me what happened that night when you had to leave.

PAULA RODRIGUEZ, FLOOD VICTIM: Basically, yes, I was asleep. Around 4:15, my older son came into my room and said that one of my sons who resided in San Marcos had access to the news and called him and called him repeatedly and just told him that we needed to get up and get out now because the water was rising.

All the water from the Blanco River, I guess, was pouring into the San Marcos River, which was going to rub right through Martindale. So it was fixing -- it was going to hit us. So we did. We just got up, got dressed, got our dogs, and we got in our vehicles and we left.

BALDWIN: Paula, how fast was the water coming in?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I know I checked from that time until 7:30 -- around 7:30, people started posting pictures, 7:30, 8:00, 8:30 in the morning. And our house, our yard was already completely covered. There's a vehicle in our yard that doesn't work right now. And it was already covering the tires of that vehicle. So it was high at that point.

(CROSSTALK)

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Ms. Rodriguez, it's Chad Myers. Let me just talk to you about the rain and how it came in and maybe even people that didn't get very much rain, like this area. You don't know it's coming because the rain was uphill. The rain was in the hill country, and it came right to you. That flood came in from places where you didn't even know it was raining.

Was it scary to think about, you have no way out of there?

RODRIGUEZ: It was, because, when we left, our first instinct was to drive back to San Marcos to get out that way. And we couldn't. As soon as we crossed the bridge to get into San Marcos, passing the Blanco River, it was -- I mean, San Marcos was completely flooded.

Both -- all three streets that you're able to go into, through the back, through River Road, and then straight down through 21, which turns into, I think it's, I don't know, Bug Rain (ph) or something to that effect. But, yes, they were all flooded. So, everybody was parked at a local convenience store to the left right across from Wal- Mart.

And it just kind of seemed pointless to be there when the water was going to continue to rise. So we headed back to Martindale. By that time, water from -- was just seeping from everywhere, all along the sides of the roads. It was already starting to cover Highway 21. So, we knew we couldn't go back into Martindale, so we continued just to go straight until we hit the toll road, because at my -- at that point, my thoughts were that's probably the safest place.

So, we did. We just headed on the toll road toward Seguin, until we could hit Seguin and then come back into San Marcos to a family's home on 20 -- on Highway 123.

BALDWIN: So you're OK, thank goodness. And, you know, it was your son who called your 18-year-old because you were asleep to tell you to get out of there.

But I also understand you're kind of angry. You're angry because, what, you weren't...

RODRIGUEZ: Oh, I am.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Tell me why.

RODRIGUEZ: I'm upset because, even to this day, I haven't seen any kind of city officials or anybody representing the city of Martindale walking the streets, you know, trying to check on people.

That's -- it's a local community. Most of the people that reside there have resided there from generation to generation to generation. So, it's not like they're not known.

[15:10:08]

But the only person that I have seen walking around asking if anybody needed any help and offering any kind of support or whatever is a local pastor from the Baptist church. He was handing out sack lunches yesterday and waters, because -- but we're pretty much -- everybody in that community that was hit is pretty much on their own. And family is what is helping to -- you know, to do all the repairs. We don't have any volunteers walking around or helping us the way the city -- the way they are in San Marcos.

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: Ms. Rodriguez, I think people that have not lived through a flood or have looked at hurricane aftermath realize that, yes, everything is gone. Everything is damaged. But do you know anyone that is still missing? This has a big human toll. RODRIGUEZ: I do not personally, not in Martindale. Just what I have

seen on the local media and in the newspapers, the family that was visiting and that was missing in Wimberley. But, other than that, no, I don't.

BALDWIN: Well, that's a good thing. Paula Rodriguez, thank goodness for family, huh?

RODRIGUEZ: Thank goodness.

BALDWIN: Thank you so much for calling in. Thank goodness.

And, Chad, thank you.

MYERS: You know, to understand that you have loved ones out there and you can't find them...

BALDWIN: Can't understand it.

MYERS: I can't -- I -- really, it's something your heart can't imagine.

BALDWIN: No. Thank you.

Next, just in, a reality TV star arrested, accused of making terror threats against public transit in D.C. We have more on who this guy is coming up next.

Also, disturbing draws and plans from the notebook of the Colorado theater gunman who opened fire during the "Dark Knight" movie, what it really speaks to as far as his state of mind. That's straight ahead.

Also, did the U.S. lose out on its bid for the World Cup because of bribery? Explosive new allegations today involving the world's most popular sport. You're watching CNN. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:16:24]

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Breaking news. We got some news from our nation's capital. A man who once appeared on an MTV reality show has been arrested after allegedly making what police are calling threats against Metro stations, buses, trains, all in Washington, D.C.

Let me go straight to our correspondent Sunlen Serfaty, who has much more on who exactly this man is and what he was trying to do -- Sunlen.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, police say this man, who goes by Kidd Cole, he made 11 phone calls over the last five months to 911, in which he called in specific bomb threats that were false and false hostage threats, specifically targeted, Brooke, to D.C. area Metro stations and trains and subways here in D.C., the latest threat just happening just three weeks ago in early May, in which he called in what he believed was a specific threat to a bus that was parked at a Metro station here in D.C.

Now, after the fact, the police found each one of these 11 phone calls to be completely a hoax. And they say, though, of course, at the time, they had to scramble emergency responders and, of course, disrupted transportation here in Washington.

So, according to the criminal complaint at the arrest today, police have charged him with knowingly conveying false information. And, as you said, an interesting wrinkle to the story is that he appears to have some history with scams and hoaxes. He appeared on the MTV reality show "Catfish," which of course talks about how -- calls people out, really, for misrepresenting themselves online.

And he appeared, Brooke, on that show just last month.

BALDWIN: OK, Sunlen, thank you very much.

Now I want to talk about one of the biggest stories resonating around the world today. The U.S. tackled the world's most popular sport with bribery and corruption charges, soccer. A massive investigation allegations top soccer officials and executives accepted bribes to decide which nations would host the World Cup and who would televise the games.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter responded just a little bit ago with this. "Let me be clear," he says, "such misconduct has no place in football and we ensure those who engage in it are put out of the game. 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."

So why do you care? Why does the U.S. care so much about world soccer? Well, the U.S. attorney general says alleged corruption took place right here on American soil and bribes were distributed using U.S. banks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LORETTA LYNCH, U.S. 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: Plus, the U.S. lost a bid to host the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, known for extreme temperatures up to 120 degrees.

I have justice correspondent Evan Perez, who's been all over this today.

And I want to just begin with some of the nitty-gritty details here involving someone wearing a wire and the raid and the charges and all the money at stake here. This is huge.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, Brooke, this is amazing.

Chuck Blazer is a former FIFA official. He's an American. This all begins -- he's the key to this investigation.

BALDWIN: He's the informant.

PEREZ: It begins because he didn't pay his taxes. According to the indictment that was unsealed today in Brooklyn, $11 million in unreported income is what got the IRS' attention.

BALDWIN: Wow. That would get their attention.

PEREZ: Yes, exactly.

[15:20:01]

And so the IRS begins investigating. They talk to him, and he decides to cooperate, to flip. And he decides to wear a wire. He sets up meetings in London with the help of the FBI with some of these officials who are now named in this indictment.

This -- these are the types of tactics that we commonly see the FBI and the IRS use with gangsters, with the mafia. And here we have it being used with the world body of soccer, the beautiful game, as they call it.

BALDWIN: We heard the sound a second ago from Loretta Lynch. But I want you to just piece this together for people watching thinking, OK, this is obviously a massive global game. The layers of this involve Switzerland and Qatar. So why is a Brooklyn district attorney prosecuting this thing?

PEREZ: Well, you know, she addressed part of that by saying, look, you know, some of these transactions happened on U.S. soil.

In the case director -- the director of the FBI, James Comey, here's how he described the FBI's involvement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: If you touch our shores with your corrupt enterprise, whether that's through meetings or through using our world-class financial system, you will be held accountable for that corruption.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And at the heart of this, Brooke, is the fact that FIFA has not been able to police itself. It hired a former U.S. prosecutor to do an internal investigation and then took his investigation and said, ah, nothing to see here, nothing went wrong.

BALDWIN: No kidding.

PEREZ: He himself then had to distance himself from FIFA's own description of his investigation. So, this is why the U.S. decided that it had to step in to try to help police soccer.

BALDWIN: Talking to a big sports editor here last hour here, he was saying even though certain World Cup locations are determined for however many next few decades, he was like, that could all change as well. So, this has massive ramifications for some time to come.

PEREZ: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: Justice correspondent Evan Perez, great to see you. Thank you very much.

PEREZ: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And next here on CNN, this disturbing notebook of accused killer James Holmes, in its pages, what it reveals about why he chose a movie theater for his mass shooting. He had other thoughts -- why the theater, coming up.

Also, Iraqi forces now taking back a university at the edge of Ramadi in this fierce battle with ISIS. Can these Iraqi fighters take on these militias, those militants? That's straight ahead here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:26:34]

BALDWIN: Now to Colorado, where jurors in the murder trial of Aurora theater shooter James Holmes are getting inside the head of the man who stormed into that crowded theater showing the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" and killed 12 people, injured 70 others.

Prosecutors now presenting a crucial piece of evidence here, this man's notebook. Here it is, 29 pages of elaborate planning and diagrams of infinity symbols and pages covered with the word why, each juror actually given their own copy while an Aurora investigator read aloud almost every word. Here it was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. MATTHEW FYLES, AURORA POLICE DEPARTMENT: Venue, writes an airport or movie theater. Then it says airport with an X, substantial security. Too much of a terrorist history. Terrorism isn't the message. The message is there is no message.

The movie theater, hyphen, Cinemark 16. And there's three hyphens underneath, first, isolated. Second, proximal. Third, large. Bullet, what better to case than that of an inconspicuous entertainment facility?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let me bring in criminal and trial attorney Eric Guster and defense attorney Bob Schalk.

So, gentlemen, welcome.

And I want to just begin with part of what we heard. And it's incredible again because you have cameras in the courtroom. You're watching all this play out in this case. And let me just reiterate what was read aloud as part of this notebook. And, again, you heard that he had thought about an airport, right, for this mass murder, decided on a theater, wrote: "Terrorism isn't the message. The message is there is no message."

So Bob, to you, how does the defense take all of these ramblings in this notebook and use them for the jury?

ROBERT SCHALK, ATTORNEY: Well, it's going to cut both ways, but they definitely have a lot to work with.

The caption when you open the notebook is insight the minds of a -- of a madman. He starts talking about what is the meaning of life with stick figures, and then puts death and dead stick figures. He starts self-diagnosing schizophrenia and why he believes he's schizophrenic.

So, if he has a history that predates -- and we know that he does -- predates the shooting, the defense is going to have a better chance of using the not responsible or insanity plea as opposed to just using the book and trying to create it on the spot and use it for purposes of the trial only.

BALDWIN: But then you have the fact that he scouted out, right, the measures he took, scouted out these three theaters. He wrote that he had a 99 percent chance of being caught.

How would this notion of thinking ahead, premeditation affect an insanity defense?

ERIC GUSTER, ATTORNEY: The premeditation, that's what hurts him the most.

SCHALK: Right.

GUSTER: Because with any type of insanity defense, they have to show -- we have to show as defense lawyers that he did not appreciate his actions. He did not appreciate the criminality of his actions.

For example, if someone goes into a grocery store and starts shooting and just waits there for the police without any type of remorse or without any type of knowledge of exactly what's going on, that could be more criminally insane. However, with this case, this man planned it out. He wrote out ways to carry out this crime. Bombs. He talked about biological warfare. He talked about serial murders.

And he went through each method methodically to decide what he wanted to do to wreak havoc on this community. BALDWIN: So, does that sound line an insane person to you?

GUSTER: Not -- not criminally insane. There's a difference between crazy and criminally insane.

SCHALK: Right.

GUSTER: And that's what people don't understand. In my opinion, you have to be crazy to go in a theater and shoot everyone.