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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
Cops Shoot Knife-Wielding Man; Couple OD`s on Video; Dad of Missing Boy Charged with Murder; Mom and Daughter Beat Down; Brain-Eating Amoeba Kills Girl After Rafting. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired June 26, 2017 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[20:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police department. Anyone else inside? Say something.
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HLN HOST (voice-over): It is some of the most dangerous work cops do, clearing a house in Vegas room by nail-biting room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he`s going to be here.
BANFIELD: Behind every corner, behind every door could be a deadly surprise.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, come out. Get out here!
BANFIELD: And when they find their man...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
BANFIELD: ... all holy hell breaks loose. Find out why he was hiding and what happened next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody call 911.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, yo. Y`all got to go.
BANFIELD: At death`s door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he all right?
BANFIELD: Saving a couple from their deadly OD.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have Narcan in my trunk.
BANFIELD: She comes to quickly, he not so fast.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Help him.
BANFIELD: Will a double shot of a rescue drug be enough to save his life?
She cried rape, and two college football players` lives were destroyed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very distressing, very upsetting.
BANFIELD: Now the tables are turned as police say her false claims could land her behind bars.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s sad because there are people who are raped and taken advantage of, and they can`t speak out because they`re scared to.
BANFIELD: How often does this happen? And how serious is the crime?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, it`s just brutality.
BANFIELD: A mom and her daughter savaged by their customers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She went berserk. She just lost it, him and her both.
BANFIELD: Unhappy with their food, a couple gets violent.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who does that to a child? Who turns around and hits her like he would a grown man?
BANFIELD: A 15-year-old girl cold-cocked, her mom`s nose broken.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Surveillance footage that we got that we put it out tells it all.
BANFIELD: Now time`s running out for this couple on the run.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD: Hello, everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.
There is a reason that people like scary movies. Sometimes it`s the actors, sometimes it`s the plot, but almost always it`s the adrenaline
rush. There`s even a name for one of the techniques used, the "jump scare." It`s the thing that shocks you. It makes you literally jump in
your seat.
But if you work as a beat cop, especially at night, you deal with jump scares on a regular basis. You actually live those scenes for real.
And now because they`re wearing body cameras, they`re filming their own horror movies almost every night. Take, for instance, this patrol in Las
Vegas. The 911 call came in from a neighbor. A man was beating up his wife.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes. She`s screaming again. I`m at the door, and the security door`s locked. Hey, let her out! She doesn`t want to be
in there. Don`t keep her in there.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BANFIELD: When they got to that house, it took them 10 minutes before that woman would open the door. She was hurt. She was terrified. A little 4-
year-old was with her. And then she denied that her husband was in the house. But they knew better, and they went looking for him room by room in
the dark.
And as you watch the scenes recorded on those bodycams, remember it is not a movie. It`s not a video game. It`s real, real life and real scary. And
it`s also deadly. Just a warning, this video could be disturbing to some viewers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you open this door so I can see you? Can you open this door? I just need to see you. You`re not in trouble. I just need to
make sure you`re OK. Police department. Anyone else inside, say something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police department. If you`re here, say something!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clear back here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he`s going to be here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think there`s one more in here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It goes through to this. Clear. Police department. If you`re inside, say something!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you`re here, say something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ll hold this door. You ready? Police!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come out!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, come out.
[20:05:03]UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out here!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Drop it!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the gun!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Real life, real tasers, real knife, real guns. And as you can see on the video, those officers did try tasing the suspect after finding
him waving that knife inside the closet. But when that didn`t work, they opened fire and he was hit three times. He died at a nearby hospital.
Chris Kudialis is a reporter for "The Las Vegas Sun." He joins me from Las Vegas. This is not the first time, Chris, they`d been to that house for a
domestic. They knew who this guy was. They knew he was dangerous.
CHRIS KUDIALIS, "LAS VEGAS SUN" (via telephone): Absolutely, Ashleigh. In fact, twice before they`d been to that house, 2016 and 2015, for similar
reports of domestic violence for the suspect, 28-year-old Pedro Ramirez.
BANFIELD: What was the condition of his wife when they got to the door? What did she look like?
KUDIALIS: You know, police haven`t really revealed too much information about the condition of his wife, but they did say that -- and I believe you
mentioned this earlier this your opening segment -- just the fact that she did not tell police that her -- that Ramirez was, in fact, inside the
house, instead denied that anybody was inside the house, and police had to find out for themselves through that chilling video that you showed your
viewers.
BANFIELD: But Chris, didn`t they say she was slightly banged up, and in fact, had choke marks on her neck? They knew that something bad had
happened in there?
KUDIALIS: Yes. Details were very scarce, but you know, it didn`t sound like, based on what I saw and how we`ve approached it, reported on it, that
it was anything severe, maybe slight marks. It didn`t sound like she was severely battered. But basically, what we know and what we`ve been told is
just that there were maybe some slight marks of foul play.
BANFIELD: Well, I can tell you it was an 8-inch butcher knife from the kitchen in his hand as he came forward at the police. Who knows how long
he`d had that butcher knife in his hand. I just want to -- as you get a look at that, I want you to hear from the sheriff, the assistant sheriff,
Tim Kelly, as he described who this person, Pedro Ramirez, was to them. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM KELLY, LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE: Suspect in this incident was Pedro Ramirez, 28 years old, Hispanic male adult, 6-feet, 167 pounds. Had
Ramirez survived this incident, he would have been charged with (INAUDIBLE) strangulation, assault with a deadly weapon on an officer three times.
Ramirez`s criminal history consists of two previous battery domestic violence arrests here in Nevada, one in March of 2015 and one in August of
2016. Ramirez`s weapon during this incident was a butcher knife.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Randy Sutton`s a retired lieutenant with the Las Vegas Police Department. He`s with me now live. So Randy, I counted five times they
said, "Drop the knife (sic)," drop the knife, drop the f-ing knife for good measure. How many times do they have to say "Drop the knife" before
opening fire?
RANDY SUTTON, RETIRED LIEUTENANT, LAS VEGAS POLICE DEPARTMENT: They don`t actually have to say it at all. It all depends on the threat. Now, what -
- what -- since they believe that they had the time to do it, they did, in fact -- they -- this was textbook policing, Ashleigh. They gave the
orders, drop the knife, drop the knife.
And then the -- two of the officers had deployed their tasers, as opposed to their firearms. And first pops that you heard were those tasers being
deployed. And you saw that it had no effect on the individual at all.
And all this, of course, is taking place in seconds. The officers have to make that deadly force decision. And they made the exact correct decision
in this case because if he had gotten any further he could have severely damaged or killed one of the officers.
BANFIELD: You know, Randy, it`s always amazing to me when you guys respond to these domestic incidents. As I hear it from you, these are the worst.
You can take any murder, you can take any of them, but the domestics are the ugliest, are the scariest and are the most dangerous. And this was a
classic domestic. She said...
SUTTON: This was a classic domestic. And you can tell...
BANFIELD: Why did she say, No, he`s not here?
SUTTON: That`s not unusual. That`s not unusual at all. And that`s why these officers did such a fantastic job. They clearly had the experience
level that said, You know what? We`ve seen this before. Very often, the fear factor of the victim -- or the fact of the matter is that this has
happened over and over again. She has the victim mindset. She wants to protect that individual or she`s deathly in fear of him, as well. So she
tries to get the police to go away.
This is not an unusual set of circumstances. But the officers did exactly what they should do. They had to make sure that she was going to be OK,
and that`s why they went in and cleared the house as they did.
[20:10:04]BANFIELD: Maybe for that 10 minutes that it took her to open the door -- maybe for that 10 minutes, he was telling her, You say a word about
me here, you die. You say a word about me here and the kid gets it, too. You just have no idea how terrorized some of these women are by their
domestic abusers.
I want to bring in real quickly Caroline Polisi and Trent Copeland, both defense attorneys. So guys, you know, you look at this and you`ve got an
officer, Kyle Pryor (ph), who`s now obviously off duty as they investigate, as is standard operating procedure.
But he`s also been involved in a prior fatal shooting before. You take that, and then you add all of the metrics of this latest incident -- a bad
guy like this, injuries around this woman`s neck, 10 minutes it took to get to the door, and the fact that he came at them with a knife -- and you got
to wonder how tough is it going to be for Officer Kyle Pryor to beat the rap on this, Caroline?
CAROLINE POLISI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, in situations like this, Ashleigh, you always look for a proportionality analysis. So you look at
the perceived threat and sort of the harm that ensues. So here I agree with your prior guest. Really, this was textbook police work. They used
tasers before. They tried really everything. They needed to really stop this threat from coming forward, and they did everything right.
BANFIELD: So Trent, the fact that the police said he was going to get three assault with a deadly weapon on an officer charges had he survived --
does that play well for this officer as he now for the coming months will have to battle the red tape and the -- you know, it could be a charge. I
mean, honestly, they face them on a regular basis. But will that aspect of it help him?
TRENT COPELAND, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. And look, I think it does, Ashleigh. Obviously, the fact that this guy knew -- and this is clearly a
bad guy -- let`s not make any bones about that. This guy knew that he was going to face some criminal charges. He was probably going to go away for
a long time. He was obviously someone who was very familiar with the police in this instance. He knew that he was going to face serious felony
charges, was probably going to go to prison, going to lose his family.
I think`s very clear that this guy was a bad guy, and the police did everything textbook in their power to save him from himself.
But the reality is, look, if you`re a guy and the police tell you, Hey, look, stop, come out, drop the weapon, and you choose not to, you have
sealed your own fate. And the idea that this police officer has been unfortunate and has been involved in another officer-involved shooting -- I
don`t think that merits and that vitiates against him. I think that, frankly, is a -- look, he`s been cleared of that charge, obviously, because
he`s an officer who`s on duty at this time.
BANFIELD: He`s on duty, yes. Yes.
COPELAND: And the fact that this case now...
BANFIELD: Going to go through it all again.
COPELAND: ... is before us, I just don`t think that it`s going to impact him whatsoever. I think this is a...
BANFIELD: I`ll tell you what. It gave us an incredible bird`s-eye view of what it looks like to be in their shoes when they have to go clear a house.
You hear "clear a house," you don`t know what that means or what that feels like. But it really is like filming your own horror movie.
Guys, stand by, if you will, for a minute. Going to come back to you in a second.
The many faces of the heroin epidemic in America from the first responders, the EMTs on the front lines.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have reached anywhere 15 to 22 calls a shift.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: To the addicts who are literally passing out and even dying in the streets in some cases.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo, they`re dead, man. Somebody call 911!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, y`all got to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wake up!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Y`all got to go. Hey, yo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo, what are you all doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t come around (INAUDIBLE)
BANFIELD: Is he (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know. Hey, hey, hey!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: "Hey, hey, hey" may not be enough to wake him up. We`re taking a much closer look at an American nightmare, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:18:07]BANFIELD: It`s rare that 10 million people all watch the same TV show at the same time. It`s rare that 10 million people all watch the same
movie that way. And it is almost unheard of that 10 million people watch the same video in just five days, but that happened.
It was a video that was unexpectedly recorded near Boston last week. In a Facebook Live post, you can see two people overdosing in a car. And if you
think that you have seen videos like that before, I`m going to guarantee you right now you haven`t seen this one.
One of the people comes to, just enough to figure out what`s happening. And it sure looks a lot like she was well prepared if that moment ever
arrived. And it did in full color for all to witness.
This video is graphic, but it`s important. And it shows where we are as a nation and where we may be going.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, look, look, he`s dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got to wake them up. Yo, they dead, man. Somebody call 911!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, yo, y`all got to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wake up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Y`all got to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, yo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you all doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he all right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey. What`s going on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You still got the needle in your lap.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get the needle out your lap.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get the needle out your lap.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, Ian.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does he need an ambulance?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know. Honey! Help him up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t you touch (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t you do it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ian!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He don`t look all right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have Narcan in my trunk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make sure he`s all right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s all right. She`s got Narcan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo, bro!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, get him.
[20:20:00]UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Ian!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He don`t look good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he should have woke up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) Hey, Ian!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make sure he`s all right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ian, you got to wake up!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Damn (ph). Wake up, you! Get him right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t even know if -- somebody call an ambulance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does he got a pulse? He got a pulse?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know. I`m checking. Yo, Ian! Ian! Yo!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He just OD`d in the (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, get that stuff out your seat. The police is coming up the street.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yo! Ian!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He sounds like he`s breathing, though.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s because I`m breathing for him. I know how to do this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ian!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She already gave him some.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She gave him two shots.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know how long I was sitting here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You all was sitting here for a while. We noticed what you all was up to, then we was, like, You all got to go. Then we find out
he was, like, unconscious.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much for waking me up. Ian, honey!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he up? Wake him up, Mama.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He doesn`t usually do this (EXPLETIVE DELETED). That`s why...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He don`t?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... I`m, like...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throw some of that water on him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s starting to come out of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go. Wake up, my man. Wake up. Wake up. There you go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Couple things we need to point out from that video. First, it appears the woman in the car certainly did have a needle sitting there on
her lap as she came to. But police would not confirm if, in fact, this was an overdose.
Sounds strange, right? An officer told us they treated this as a medical emergency and that the guy was treated. And maybe even more bizarre,
nobody was charged, even though you just watched a guy almost die but for the Narcan in her trunk.
Dr. William Morrone is a board-certified addiction physician. He`s the author of "American Narcan." And he joins me from Madison Heights,
Michigan.
What a perfect book that you wrote to help me wade through what I just saw. And by the way, Dr. Morrone, I have to tell our viewers I couldn`t even
show you the worst of all of that. He came to and vomited all over the place and barely came to at that.
DR. WILLIAM MORRONE, AUTHOR, "AMERICAN NARCAN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she said several times...
MORRONE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... He doesn`t do this, you know, very much. He doesn`t do it a lot. This is like just...
MORRONE: I`ve seen the video, yes.
BANFIELD: You know, first of all, I want you to tell me scientifically the Narcan shot -- she said she gave him two, and yet for a solid four minutes,
he was still completely out of it. What does that tell you about this?
MORRONE: It tells the you that wasn`t really heroin. That was probably fentanyl or carfentanyl (ph) to knock him out that hard. But Narcan or
Naloxone, nasal Narcan works on either one of those.
We have a demo here. This is what she sprayed up his nose. It`s one shot. You get one shot. And if she did it twice, she had two of these. Watch.
See that? Now, it has to go up the nose, and then it has to be absorbed and then into the bloodstream, and then it has to go to the brain.
BANFIELD: I`ve seen it immediate, though. I`ve seen the effects within seconds.
MORRONE: It`s because it`s fast. Yes.
BANFIELD: But this guy, I mean, it was, like, four, maybe five minutes. And he was still mostly out of it.
MORRONE: And part of that might have been his heart stopped, so it wasn`t moving the blood. Carfentanyl and fentanyl have tended to stop people`s
hearts, and that`s what makes it difficult.
See, what we have is inside the brain, there is a place -- this is a brain. And underneath this area, the pons, there`s a respiratory center. All your
breathing is automatic, and it comes from this part. And the opioids go to this center and shut off all your breathing.
[20:25:08]And Narcan goes into the brain and goes to this area, and it pushes off kind of, like, different size snowballs pushing off other size
snowballs off the brain. Whether it`s heroin, morphine or fentanyl, all these drugs sit on a place, and they cause euphoria, a little bit of
analgesia. And at high doses, they just shut off the brain and you stop breathing.
BANFIELD: Well, Doctor...
MORRONE: Yes?
BANFIELD: ... I have heard that it can take six, seven, eight of these doses of Narcan to reverse the effect of fentanyl or carfentanyl, whereas I
had always seen one for heroin. Is that -- I mean, basically, that just tells you that`s exactly why fentanyl and carfentanyl are so much more
powerful and so much more deadly.
MORRONE: They are dangerous, but we`ve made adjustments. That spray that I showed you is 4 milligrams. Traditionally, the Naloxone that was used is
.4 milligrams. So sometimes, when they`re going through more, they`re going through eight to these and not eight of these.
It doesn`t matter. You need to give it. Every home in America, every parent with a wayward son or daughter, every spouse that has somebody
that`s abusing drugs, everybody needs this in their home like an Epipen.
BANFIELD: Well, she had it -- she had it in her trunk. She knew right away. She was not too high to remember, I got Narcan in the trunk. And
that`s what`s so terrifying, almost as though it was like -- somebody actually used the reference, carrying condoms around just in case you have
sex with someone who might be deadly. I mean, it is just so remarkable that she was that prepared. Hold your thought for a minute, Dr. Morrone.
Want to bring in Caroline Polisi real quickly on this, and Trent Copeland. Shocking no charges. Shocking that the police treated us the way they did
when we called. They were almost combative. And I think we might have a reason why.
Caroline, is it just because it`s getting so bad, they need to do something else than the standard operating?
POLISI: That`s exactly right. The opioid epidemic has reached such staggering proportions in this country, Ashleigh, that a lot of
jurisdictions are enacting these so-called good Samaritan laws. Essentially, if you call 911 and report an overdose, you will not be
prosecuted for the crime. It`s a public health crisis, and we`re realizing that we may not be able to deal with it in the criminal justice system.
And we`re seeing a real shift in the way these (INAUDIBLE)
BANFIELD: We`re losing -- we`re losing more people to this junk than the Iraq war by a long shot. So real quickly, Trent, when she said -- and I`m
going to quote her. He doesn`t usually do this (EXPLETIVE DELETED), and I`m worried. Why doesn`t that put her in trouble? If she has someone with
her who doesn`t usually do this (EXPLETIVE DELETED), then why isn`t she in trouble?
COPELAND: I`m not sure why she isn`t, Ashleigh, frankly. And look, let`s look at the letter of the law. I mean, the truth is, she was supposed to
make that call. She didn`t make that phone call. We saw her struggling to try to get him awake with the use of the Narcan. She didn`t make the call,
so the truth is, she really should not receive the benefit of the good Samaritan law.
Now, she`s being extended that benefit by the police because I think, as the other defense attorney indicates, look, this has become such a global
national epidemic that they`re trying to deal with these issues in a way where they`re suggesting to people, encouraging people that, Call the
police, call 911, get help because we won`t prosecute you.
But I think this is one of those circumstances where, frankly...
BANFIELD: I was shocked.
COPELAND: ... I don`t think she falls within the purview. I think she should have been prosecuted.
BANFIELD: I was surprised at it, and I was so sad to see that, that kind of video.
POLISI: Tough to watch.
BANFIELD: Again, so prepared. She knew exactly what to have in the trunk just in case.
Stand buy, guys. I mean, we are seeing so many of these kinds of stories where people are dying from heroin, from opioid overdoses. One of the
epicenters for this drug problem ends up being in West Virginia. So we`re going to take you to Cabell County.
This is an area that was once known for its railroads and coal industry. And now instead, it`s known as the center of the heroin crisis. And it`s
here where the EMTs, the first responders, are really the ones in the front row. They`re getting that front-row seat to an epidemic that is just
spreading like fire across the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I started on West 17th Street. There was two there, nothing out of the ordinary. Then we get the call right over here, which
is right two blocks down from where we are right now on Sycamore. They`re coming into the house, and they`re dying.
Derek Ray (ph), Cabell County EMS, shift supervisor. Four, five people, we had 26 in four hours, what they say. Most of them were 10 to 45 minutes.
I had to treat it like a mass casualty incident.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The true reality is, is it doesn`t care.
[20:30:00] This epidemic claims not one single aspect of a certain nationality, of a certain religion. John Musick (ph), I`m a paramedic on
"A" shift of Cabell County EMS.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible) you are cleared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe that they`ve got another overdose.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, we`re clearing. I need you to start towards 17 Washington Avenue. One, seven Washington avenue. The first street and west
second street. An overdose. He is breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How often do you hear those?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Daily. Every shift. I have received anywhere from 15 to 22 calls per shift. Most of those are heroin overdoses.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have 1900 this year. How many deaths, I don`t know, but 1900 out of a county that has 96,000 is a staggering number.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For somebody to ask, you know, what the true reality of this problem is, is it`s bad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If anything, it just makes you realize how big the problem is. This is ground zero for heroin epidemic. You know, another
overdose. But they`re somebody`s kid, right? Somebody`s mother, father. The lasting effect here is that it`s a generational thing now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: This Thursday, a PRIMETIME JUSTICE special report, heroin, America`s nightmare, premieres at 8:00 p.m. eastern time.
In Los Angeles, we have this update to a story that we`ve been tracking on "Primetime Justice." Police have arrested and charged Aramazd Andressian.
He was the father of a missing 5-year-old boy. He has been charged now with the child`s murder. The child was last seen in April on a visit to
Disneyland with his dad.
His mom reported his disappearance after Andressian and the boy didn`t show up for a scheduled custody exchange. Police were able to track Andressian.
He was in a park in Pasadena and he was unconscious and by himself next to his gas-soaked car, but the boy was nowhere to be found.
Police in Georgia are searching for a man and a woman who allegedly did this to a restaurant owner and her daughter after the pair complained their
food was cold. Jeannette Norris said she refunded the couple the money, but then the situation just spun wildly out of control.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
JEANETTE NORRIS, RESTAURANT OWNER: She went berserk. She just lost it, him and her both started cussing and beating on the window.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: As Norris was struggling to escape, her daughter tried to come to her rescue and this happened.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
NORRIS: One of my employees started shouting, he`s got her, he`s got her. That`s when I found out that he had hit her. Who does that to a child? Who
turns around and hits her like he would a grown man? He needs put up under the jail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Jeanette Norris, the mother, has a broken nose. Her 15-year-old daughter, a black eye. Police are still searching for these suspects. Eric
and Latasha Smith. So if you know where they are, it might be helpful if you call 911, please.
Every summer, water parks across the country are packed with people trying to cool down and have a little summer fun, but for one teenager, that very
kind of trip ended up deadly because there was something deadly in the water that would kill her within days. What happened? And could this be
something you face?
[20:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Water parks are made for summer fun and there`s really nothing quite like letting loose some of the roaring rapids on a warm summer day.
That is exactly what Lauren Seitz was thinking on a summer fun day at a whitewater rafting park in North Carolina. The water park idea was a day
off from a mission trip with a church group.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had 32 people go on the trip and on their fun day on June 8th, they went to the U.S. National Whitewater Center and went
whitewater rafting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: But that day of fun ended up killing her. Within days, Lauren started complaining of sinus problems. Two days after that, she was in the
hospital. She had an infection caused by a deadly amoeba found in the water. And exactly 11 days after she left that water park, Lauren Seitz was
dead.
The family said that she had been thrown overboard while rafting and that the water went up her nose. Water that contained that amoeba. The amoeba is
just one-third of the width of a human hair. It grows in fresh water around the world and in warm water that is not filtered properly. If it gets into
your nasal passage, it can travel to your brain and that can lead to death.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do think people need to be aware of it when they go into open sources of water, lakes, ponds, even some swimming pools that
aren`t well regulated. There are things in those bodies of water that could be harmful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Lauren`s family is now suing for more than a million dollars claiming that tests show water at that park was not being filtered or
monitored correctly which caused her death. Friends say Lauren was someone who loved nature and was sadly killed doing what she loved to do.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She loved everyone. She loved everything. She loved especially nature.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course she (inaudible) but that God picked her. She loved nature. And when we were little, she used to tell me when she grew up
she wanted to be mother nature.
[20:40:00] I said, okay, all right, Lauren, you keep believing that. But I just want to believe that it was her time to be mother nature and God chose
her for that job and now she`s doing what she loves to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Jonathan Zweizig is the attorney for Lauren Seitz`s parents. He joins me live from Charlotte, North Carolina. Jonathan, thanks for being
with me tonight. The lawsuit, it`s a big ticket, a million dollar lawsuit. Has the water park responded at all?
JONATHAN ZWEIZIG, ATTORNEY FOR PARENTS OF LAUREN SEITZ: First of all, good evening and thanks for having me on your program on behalf of the family.
The lawsuit, as you note, was just filed on June 19th, a date of significance for the family as it marked the one year anniversary of
Lauren`s passing. It was filed due to the fact that you had an amusement park that was more concerned about its profits than, unfortunately, its
patrons.
Lawsuit claims are not based upon the family`s assumptions or speculations, but rather the expressed findings of both the CDC in North Carolina and
Department of Health and Human Services. One of those findings being that Lauren had a greater likelihood of encountering this brain-eating amoeba at
this amusement park than she did by simply swimming in the nearby river. Due to the fact that lawsuit was just filed, the park has yet to respond
to.
BANFIELD: So let me ask you this. In North Carolina, this particular facility is very unique and it is actually not subject to the public
swimming pool laws or the rules that govern public swimming pools. So doesn`t that, in effect, give them leeway here?
ZWEIZIG: Well, it`s unfortunate that only now after Lauren`s passing has the park been regulated by the state of North Carolina, but at this point
in time, the water samples that were taken by the park, by the CDC are extremely telling. What those test results show is that the water was
filthy and contaminated. In fact, all 11 samples taken by the CDC tested positive for this brain-eating amoeba.
BANFIELD: And I will attest that there were 11 water samples collected. One of those actually had the highest concentration level of this particular
contaminant ever recorded in the natural environment. And that`s done by the North Carolina Health and Human Services Department, so the statistics
are strange.
I wanted just if I can play for our viewers, Dr. Marc Plescia, who is the Mecklenburg County health director, just regarding the low risk of this
actually happening to you, but if it does, the level of risk of dying from it. Have a look.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
MARCUS PLESCIA, MECKLENBURG COUNTY HEALTH DIRECTOR: You know, the risk of driving to the Whitewater Center from your home and being in an accident is
probably higher than the risk of being infected by this organism even now at the Whitewater Center.
It is not at all common for people to develop illness after they`ve come into contact with this organism. There have only been 35 cases of this
particular infection in the United States in the last 10 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: You know, the fatality though if you do contract this is 97 percent. Just extraordinarily high. Caroline Polisi, real quickly, there`s
a simple way to protect yourself. Anybody who is watching right now, I go to water parks, how on earth am I supposed to make sure I don`t get this?
CAROLINE POLISI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Plug your nose.
BANFIELD: Seriously.
POLISI: Easy, Ashleigh. It`s actually quite easy. This particular type of amoeba causes almost no issues if you ingest it orally. It`s when it gets
through your nose that it can potentially contaminate your brain.
BANFIELD: So simple nose plugs may have actually prevented this. And for anybody who is looking at the time they spend in water parks, it might not
be a bad idea. My thanks very to Jonathan Zweizig who is with me. We`ll continue to watch this story and see where that lawsuit goes.
A young Connecticut woman claims that she was raped by two college football players. They were suspended from the team. They lose their academic
scholarships. But was it all a lie? Does it turn out that sex was consensual? Now, the young woman is facing charges. We`ll find out where
this case is going.
[20:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: A young college student reports a rape to the police and now she could be the one going to jail. Nikki Yovino attended Sacred Heart
University in Connecticut. Police say she went to a party off campus and then told them that she`d been sexually assaulted by two men in a bathroom
at that party. Nikki told the officers they were both football players at the school.
With her statement as well as other witnesses corroborating her story, it looked like those two players were going to be charged. Then something
happened. A couple of bombshells, actually. Officers say another student came forward and gave them some information about explicit text messages
between Nikki and the two students.
Someone at the party gave them cell phone video of Nikki going into the bathroom freely, not being forced, like she had originally said. Nikki
Yovino admitted that she made it all up, said she didn`t want to lose a new guy as a potential boyfriend. So now she`s charged with falsely reporting
an incident and tampering with her fabricating physical evidence.
Prosecutors have offered Nikki a plea deal. She`d have to go to jail for two years if she accepts it. And she`s got three weeks to decide whether
she`s going to do that or whether she`s going to go to trial. And the weird thing is, she`d go back to being the victim`s story if she goes to trial.
Very strange.
Michele Dauber is a Stanford University professor. She also heads the Recall Persky Campaign, Recall Judge Aaron Persky Campaign. If you remember
that name, it`s because he was the judge in the Stanford rape case. He sentenced Brock Turner to six months in jail.
[20:50:00] Turner was released after serving just three. Professor Dauber, it`s great to have you on. I thought of you immediately with this case
because when we covered the Stanford rape case, so much more became known about this kind of reporting, and one of the stats that came out was that
between 1 and 5 percent of rape cases that are reported are actually false. Which means somewhere between 95 and like 99 percent are real. So what does
a story like Nikki Yovino`s do for the cause?
MICHELE LANDIS DAUBER, STANFORD LAW PROFESSOR: Well, I mean, it`s obviously a very bad incident. This is clearly a very troubled young lady. But it`s
very important to remember that, as you said, Ashleigh, only a tiny percentage of sexual assaults that are reported are false. In fact, it`s
between as you said around, you know, 2 to 8 percent, but 13 percent of undergraduate males here at Stanford report experiencing sexual violence.
So in fact, young college men have a greater chance of actually experiencing sexual assault themselves, that is being raped, than they do
being falsely accused of rape. We need to keep this in perspective.
BANFIELD: Professor Dauber, just go back to last week in the Bill Cosby verdict. A hung jury which basically means well, we`re not sure, it remains
he said, she said, despite the fact it didn`t come into court this way, but 50 different women have all reported that they`ve been molested by Bill
Cosby.
There`s still this notion that it`s really kind of a 50-50 thing when people who report sexual assault typically don`t make it up, and then yet
again you have Nikki`s story that comes forward.
DAUBER: Right. And we saw the same thing, in fact, after the Rolling Stone incident. I mean, these very, very rare incidents of very troubled students
making things up really do great damage to the 95 percent of truthful allegations not to mention the fact that the vast majority of sexual
assault is never reported at all. Victims -- over 60 percent of sexual assault is never reported to the authorities in any way.
And incidents like this don`t help to increase reporting when they see victims like the Cosby victims not being believed or when they see
situations like the Brock Turner victim getting a jury verdict and then seeing Judge Persky treat the case so leniently with a slap on the wrist.
BANFIELD: So let me pivot to that. Because you have been at the forefront of keeping that cause alive, of making sure that Emily Doe is not
forgotten, that her case is not forgotten, and a sentence like that for someone like Brock Turner and I need to remind our viewers, he raped Emily
Doe, he sexually assaulted her behind a dumpster at a frat party and ultimately got the six months and was out in three.
So that end, today is actually kind of a critical day for you. You have kept that. It was only three weeks ago today, by the way, Professor Dauber,
three weeks ago tomorrow actually, that I read that letter of Emily Doe`s live on the air and that went viral. That really got this story out there.
You have spearheaded the Recall Persky Campaign. Today was the critical day. Why?
DAUBER: We filed our official paperwork. It`s something called the notice of intent. Fifty Santa Clara County voters including elected officials,
nonprofit leaders, business leaders, community leaders from all over the county signed the notice of intention to recall Judge Persky. And I just
want to say that the Turner case, unfortunately, was not his only episode of leniency for men who commit sex crimes or violence against women.
There was case after case after case that had all been reported by journalists in the last year of athlete, football players, baseball players
who received extremely lenient treatment from Judge Persky following either sex crimes or domestic abuse or extreme violence, also child pornographers,
you know, tending to be elite privileged men who get away with these kinds of crimes.
We`re very pleased that the recall is under way. We`re going to be collecting signatures very soon. And we are going to put his recall on the
ballot here in Santa Clara County.
BANFIELD: Michele Dauber, Professor Dauber, thanks so much for being on tonight. I do appreciate it and I appreciate you following up with us and
continuing to tell us what is happening. We`ll watch. We`ll see what happens. Thanks.
DAUBER: Thank you, Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: A life lesson from a Florida car wash.
[20:55:00] Never underestimate the ingenuity of somebody who may just want to rip you off.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: You know, you hear this all the time. Be aware of your surroundings. It could not be more true in this situation. Take a look at
this. Woman on the right cleaning out her car. Someone backs in next to her. And he gets busy actually cleaning out his car, too. He goes to grab
the vacuum. It all looks legit. And then she started talking on her phone, gets distracted, chitchatting away.
When she`s done talking on the phone, throws it back in, there`s a classic mistake, doesn`t close the door. Moment of opportunity. He grabs the purse,
drops the wallet, looks twice, oh God he gets it, picks it up. Five seconds later, they are gone with the purse. She comes back and she`s like, wait,
what? And what? That`s what it took in Fort Lauderdale. They`re looking for the suspect. Thanks, everyone, for being with us.
[21:00:00] Caroline, Trent (ph), thank you both. We`ll see you back here tomorrow night at 8:00 for PRIMETIME JUSTICE. Stay tuned. "FORENSIC FILES"
starts right now.
END
