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More Misery in Syria Today; Chicago in Thick of Deadliest Year in Two Decades. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired September 07, 2016 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: More misery in Syria today. At least ten people were killed, another 40 injured as bombs fell on a rebel-held neighborhood in Aleppo. It comes on the heels of an alleged chlorine attack at a market. This gas, this poisonous gas, said to have been contained in barrels that crashed down from the sky. Doctors say more than 100 people, including three dozen children, were admitted to the hospital with symptoms of chlorine gas poisoning. You can see here barrels left behind in the rubble. Here you go. CNN's Christiane Amanpour just sat down with U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. He said Russia ultimately bears the blame.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASH CARTER, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: This morning's episode suggests that at least as of this morning, things are definitely not heading in the right direction.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is not in the wrong direction.
CARTER: In that area of Syria. Exactly right. I think Russia's got to bear the responsibility.
AMANPOUR: The president said they were trust gaps. That's why the cease-fire for Aleppo and elsewhere has not been implemented, even after 90 minutes of talks between Putin and President Obama. Are you skeptical that they will, that they can, the Russians, that they have any intention of doing this?
CARTER: Well, we'll put that to the test they have not shown that so far. Obviously if we could get them to a point where they stop doing the wrong thing and started doing the right thing in Syria, it would be very good for that -- that's a decision they're going to have to make. But meanwhile, they bear the responsibility of the consequences of things that they could avoid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Let's go straight to our senior international correspondent Arwa Damon who joins me live from Istanbul. If you want to just talk more about the attacks specifically, we look at these pictures. It is just tough to look at. Has the Syrian regime stepped these attacks up? ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here's the
reality of the situation. This red line when it comes to chemical weapons, the one that the U.S. administration had allegedly put forward that it did not stick to, because that red line was crossed back in August of 2013 with that massive chemical attack that happened in a Damascus suburb that left hundreds, if not more than 1,000 people dead.
[15:35:00] The images in the aftermath were not just of little children wheezing desperately trying to get oxygen into their lungs. It was of little children covered in white shrouds because they had been killed. The other thing that is really significant in all of this that we need to remember is that when you survive this kind of an attack, when you survive being hit by this type of substance, and the activists and medical workers say they know it's chlorine because they've been hit by chlorine in the past and they've grown to recognize the symptoms.
You do not have a proper medical facility to go to get treatment. That is because the vast majority of the above-ground medical facilities that were make-shift to begin with were deliberately targeted according to activists and aid workers attributed to the Syrians. They have generator supplies that rely on diesel which is in short supply because Aleppo is under siege once again by the regime.
If you survive this kind of an attack, if you are that lucky, you don't get to breathe a sigh of relief because the next day brings even more violence, like what we saw. 24 hours after that alleged chlorine attack, there were even more bombardments that happened in Aleppo, even more people who lost their lives.
BALDWIN: We have to talk about this, we have to shine a light on this. Arwa Damon, thank you for helping us do that. We'll be right back.
[15:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: I really wanted to talk about Chicago today. It is in the thick of its deadliest year in two decades. We are only nine months into 2016, and already 512 people have been killed in homicides there. That is according to the "Chicago Tribune" which keeps track of these deaths that have been ruled a homicide or determined to be a murder. It is also another grim reminder of the violence that is plaguing America's third-largest city. I want to show you a photo. This young man, this is the face of one of the victims here. 16-year-old Elijah Sims died just last week, one day before his 17th birthday. He had been shot in his head and his mother is numb with grief.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHARITA GALLOWAY, MOTHER OF SON KILLED IN CHICAGO: I don't want anyone to feel this feeling that I am feeling. Because it's not a good feeling. And it's hard for me. Every day. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't do nothing but think about my baby.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Joining me now, Reverend Marshall Hatch Sr., the senior pastor of the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church there in Chicago. He was just with Elijah's mom officiating his funeral. Reverend, welcome.
REVEREND MARSHALL HATCH SR., SENIOR PASTOR, NEW MOUNT PILGRIM MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH: Thank you, Brooke. We appreciate it so much.
BALDWIN: Let me just begin with -- first of all, I don't know how you do it but I have to begin asking about Sharita, the mother. How is she holding on?
HATCH: Well, it's devastating. As any parent can imagine. There are no words to express -- one of the participants in the funeral family member I think was quite articulate and moving when she said when we lose a spouse, we're either a widow or widower. When we lose parents, we are an orphan but there is simply no word that we have when a parent loses a child. It's devastating.
BALDWIN: I understand that they actually had to hold this service in -- is it your facility in there were so many people --
HATCH: Yes, our facility here. It is one of the largest on the west side. So we needed a big space and we were glad to help.
BALDWIN: How many times do you have to do this?
HATCH: More than I would care to mention. When you have the minors that are killed in the prime of life, it is particularly devastating to watch the promise of a community being just literally wiped away. Then of course I've had the unfortunate task of also when we had the double police shooting here, Betty Jones and Quintonio Legrier, back in the winter, I had to do both those services in one week. Tell you the truth, it is a tremendous burden.
BALDWIN: You know, I was reading what the police commissioner of Cook County said, it is an issue in these streets, jobs, lack of educational opportunities. I wish we could just put our finger on one thing but because you see this as much as you do, what needs to change, reverend?
HATCH: You know, Elijah Sims is a tremendous case in point. The tragedy. He was four blocks into the city from Oak Park which is a thriving community. In fact, there is a condo building boom going on in Oak Park. And then just over into the city, of course, is a community of homicides.
So we had an adjacent suburb that's booming. Then the inner city where we have these compounded tragedies. The truth is if he had been four blocks to the west he would be alive. But four blocks east into the city and his life is over tragically. I think it makes the point that resources matter. And they matter so much that even in adjacent communities we live in two different realities. We have a tale of two cities literally blocks away because one community is well resourced, and the other one is under-resourced. And I think we all know that resources matter. Made the case.
[15:45:00] The only people that say that resources don't matter are people who have the resources that allow for thriving communities.
BALDWIN: Understand. Four blocks. Please pass our condolences on to this family. I am just also sorry for you that you are tasked with something so tremendous far too often. Reverend Hatch in Chicago, thank you, sir. We'll be right back.
HATCH: Thank you. Remember us in your prayers.
BALDWIN: Yes, sir.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: When children vanish, some parents hear what happened and some never do. Others wait, sometimes for decades hoping they will get an answer, and then they do. Two parents just got their answer 27 years later.
[15:50:00] October, 1989. Three children were riding their bikes at night. One carried a flashlight, another carried a movie they just rented enjoying the crisp innocent air of autumn. But on this rural dead end road a predator was lurking.
Watching them, waiting. Just yesterday that predator stood before court with the boy's parents listening just feet away. And you know what he did? He described every last horrific detail. That night, he put on a mask, he grabbed his revolver, and jumped from his truck. The boys thought they were going to rob them.
They offered the videotape. He told two of the boys to run or he would shoot, Jacob was told to stay. Jacob asked what he did wrong before he was handcuffed, driven away, and sexually assaulted. The man said he was cold, didn't give him his clothes for half an hour. Jacob asked to go home and the man said he couldn't. Then the man saw a police car drive by and he panicked.
He turned Jacob around and shot him in the head. The man left for two hours to return to Jacob. A year later he noticed a piece of Jacob's red jacket sticking out, so he buried him again, somewhere else, the exact place that investigators recently found him. All of the details, the horrific nightmarish details, to report here. Why am I telling you all of this? They're important, they're important because two parents wanted to know. They waited 27 years to know and this was a mother's message minutes after she knew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOTHER OF JACOB WETTERLING: What I want to say today is about Jacob he's taught us all how to live, how to love, how to be fair, how to be kind. He speaks to the world that he knew. That we all believe in.
And it is a world worth fighting for and his legacy will go on. I want to say to Jacob, I'm so sorry. It's incredibly painful to know his last days, hours, minutes. We love you, Jacob, we will continue to fight. Our hearts are hurting.
I will try and pull -- I would love to talk to you all, I'm just not ready yet because for us, Jacob was alive until we found him. We need to heal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: He was alive until they found him, 27 years. His parents thought their son could have been 38. Somehow, some way, but Jacob never saw 12.
[15:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: iPhone, iPhone, oh boy, I guess I'm an addict. I know a lot of you are excited too. Apple unveiling its latest consumer product. The only thing consumers want to know will the new iPhone 7 and 7 plus still have headphone jacks? That is the thing today.
The answer is no, the rumors are true. There are wireless ear buds called AirPods, also lightning adapters. The 7 plus will have two camera lens, water and dust resistant. There's much more storage space up to 256 GB.
Our tech expert is here with me to, you know, get everyone excited, the new phone, first of all, all right, I get it is a thing now the wireless headphones and I'm super uncool, but why is this so exciting?
LURIA PETRUCCI, TECH EXPERT, GEEKLIFE: So, it is basically like Apple says, they said outright that we have courage to move this industry forward. Whether you think they should tout themselves like that or not, it is true in the past they have moved industries forward. If you think about it like this, you want a smaller, thinner device, right?
And you want it to be better and better and better each time. In order to accomplish that they needed to make space so they removed the headphone jack, and now to do that they're moving to the AirPods that are wireless.
They have microphones in them as well. And they kind of look futuristic. They look a little awkward and weird. We'll see if they get better at keeping the AirPods in your ears, which has been a known issue in the past --
BALDWIN: What about the two cameras, 20 seconds.
PETRUCCI: On the iPhone 7 plus, we get two 12 megapixel cameras, one with wide angle, one with telephoto so you can get further in on your zooming when you take pictures that way.
BALDWIN: Okay, the zoom, that is huge. Luria, thank you so much.
PETRUCCI: And, and, depth of focus.
BALDWIN: There you have it, we like our photos in focus. Luria thank you, I'm Brooke Baldwin, out of time.
