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Suspect in Prominent Cardiologists' Death Commits Suicide; Girl, 12, Abducted from Reagan International Airport; QAnon Conspiracy Groups Again Shows Up at Trump Rally; Alarming Sex Abuse Arrests at Separate Child Immigrant Shelters; Apple Hits $1 Trillion Value. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired August 03, 2018 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:33:18] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news out of Houston this afternoon where a massive manhunt for a suspect in the murder of a prominent cardiologist has ended with the suspect committing suicide. Police say a tip from a Houston parks employee led them to the suspect. The employee identified him from his I.D. in the wallet that he had dropped. Two officers arrived and approached the suspect and that is when he shot himself in the head. The suspect had 30 years of law enforcement experience. The Houston police chief says his officers found an extensive intelligence file on this doctor who once treated former President George H.W. Bush, and they found a list that included the doctor's coworkers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ART ACEVEDO, CHIEF, HOUSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT: He knew everything that you could possibly find on this man. I'm not going to go any further in the details, just to say that it was very extensive. Inside that intelligence file, we found one sheet with some of Dr. Hausknecht's information. But contained within that sheet was probably, you know, a couple dozen names of potential doctors and other employees with Texas Medical Center. When we determined that those were potential employees of the medical center, we actually passed that information on to the medical center and they dealt with it to make sure that notifications were being made and as they identified those employees.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Let's talk about what's next for investigators. With me now former senior FBI profiler and special agent, Mary Ellen O'Toole.
Mary Ellen, thank you for being with me.
You know, just starting in on the suspect, listen, you know, so we know he killed himself. We know his mother died 20 years ago while she was in the hands of this doctor. And they mentioned that intelligence file that they found at his home. What more do investigators need to look at?
[14:35:07] MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER SENIOR FBI PROFILER & SPECIAL AGENT: Well, they will need to go through his files a lot more thoroughly and that's going to take time.
BALDWIN: Did we lose her? OK. Shall we take a break or continue on? Do we have her back? Should we take a break?
We will be right back.
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[14:39:55] BALDWIN: All right. Let's pick up with this next story, this possible child abduction at a Washington, D.C., airport. Police have searching for this little girl who they say was abducted shortly after arriving at Reagan National Airport in D.C. with a tour group from China. An Amber Alert has been issued for her. She is just 12.
Police say that they believe she left the airport, keywords here, "without force," with an unknown woman. When you look at this airport surveillance video, it shows the woman helping the girl put on some sort of clothing. And when they left together, the 12-year-old was wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and a black jacket.
So, Mary Ellen O'Toole, let's try it again, our former senior FBI profiler and special agent here.
On this, what do you make of this story, the fact that this girl according to law enforcement, left without force, meaning she didn't appear to be dragged out of this airport by this woman? What does that tell you?
O'TOOLE: It's very difficult. And it's the absence of force, but also the absence of any signs of stress that the little girl was under. That suggests that she might have been complicity or gone along willingly. That adds to the planning that would have gone into this case. So now the question is, at what point, if that's true, at what point was this, quote/unquote, "abduction" planned? Was it planned once the little girl got here to the United States? That would suggest maybe something different than was it planned prior to her even leaving China to come to the United States.
BALDWIN: So a key piece in this is this girl's passport. She's with this whole tour group. They have done their thing in D.C. They were going to head west. And this happened before this girl goes through, you know, the metal detectors in the security area, but after she was handed her passport from her tour guides. You say that's significant. Tell me why.
O'TOOLE: I say that's significant because had the little girl gone through the security checkpoint, someone without a ticket, the unidentified adult, she could not have gone through the security checkpoint. What the little 12-year-old would have had to do is to make a U-turn and come back through the security checkpoint and pass by the TSA officers. A lone 12-year-old girl, she would have gone noted at that point and that would have raised a lot of suspicion. So whatever happened, had to occur before she went through the checkpoint.
Secondarily, her having that passport would be important. Now, obviously, people will say, well, they will change the name on it, and that's true, but at least that gives somebody a template on which to make a modification like a name change. Now she's got I.D. and she didn't go through security and raise those suspicions.
BALDWIN: How about the fact, though, that you see her walking in on these pictures wearing one thing. She walks out, she changes into something else. The woman helps her change clothes. She's not fighting her off.
O'TOOLE: That's very significant, which would suggest that this -- that this young girl knew this woman. The question is, how well did she know her? Is this somebody that she's known for a long time or someone that she met serendipitously while she was here in the United States? If this was an event that this little girl was looking forward to, in other words, I'm going to hook up with my aunt or my -- you know, somebody else, a friend of the family, it's likely that this 12-year-old girl, being a 12-year-old girl, confided to someone or made contact with these people during the time that she was in New York or here in D.C. And investigators will be looking for all of her contacts and talking to the other children that were on that trip.
BALDWIN: At least they have all these photos. And of course, that car waiting outside. Photos outside the airport as well. Here is hoping they get her and they find her safely.
Mary Ellen O'Toole, thank you so much for your expertise on that.
Now to this, a fringe right-wing conspiracy group is growing more and more popular with supporters at Trump rallies. The group is called QAnon. It showed up at another one of Trump's rallies last night. Although, we should note the president has never spoken publicly about them or endorsed them.
CNN's Gary Tuchman takes a closer look at what's behind this group.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Waiting in line in a driving rain, very motivated Trump supporters, wanting to see the president in person in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
(CROSSTALK)
TUCHMAN: Some of those people wearing and holding the 17th letter of the alphabet.
(on camera): Are you holding a big, red white and blue Q. Why do you have that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a movement, man. It's the shift. I can feel it coming. Some call it the great awakening.
TUCHMAN: You're wearing a shirt that says QWW1WWGA. What does that mean?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It means, where we go one, we go all. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: QAnon is the people that believe in what
President Trump is trying to do to change our country.
TUCHMAN: That is a generalization. More specifically, what QAnon is, is a fringe movement in which many baseless conspiracy theories are discussed on the Internet organized, around the idea of an anonymous but well-connected person or persons nicknamed Q.
[14:45:05](voice-over): Your shirt says, "The storm is here, QAnon." What does that mean to you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been following all the posts since October 28.
TUCHMAN: On the Internet?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
TUCHMAN: The person or people who say they're Q?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
TUCHMAN: What do you think Q is, by the way?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's an entity of 10 or less people that have --
(CROSSTALK)
TUCHMAN: Involved with the government?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- high clearance, you know, security clearance.
TUCHMAN: How do you know that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I'm just telling you this is what it appears to be.
TUCHMAN: What it appears to be. So you don't have any proof of that. That's what you're guessing it is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you don't have any proof there isn't.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've all been gathering in one line and talking together as Americans and uniting and --
TUCHMAN: Do you think maybe it makes you comfortable talking with other frustrated sometimes angry people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
TUCHMAN: Maybe it's not true because there's no evidence of it. It's the stuff being talked about on the Internet, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There hasn't been any nonevidence yet.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): A major mantra, from QAnon followers, "The press is the enemy."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys are -
TUCHMAN: So you don't believe in the First Amendment?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I totally believe in the First Amendment.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys are weaponized. You guys are totally weaponized by the CIA.
(CROSSTALK)
TUCHMAN: By the CIA? I don't know anybody in the CIA except a couple people I've interviewed over the years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
TUCHMAN: Weaponized? What does it even mean? You say stuff that doesn't even mean anything.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Conspiracy theorists --
TUCHMAN: Do you think I'm weaponized by the CIA?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe not to your knowledge. And that's unfortunate.
TUCHMAN: You believe there's a deep state?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
TUCHMAN: And what do you think that deep state is doing? Do you think they're running this country?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe they were, and they're petrified now because they're losing their control.
TUCHMAN: But Donald Trump is the president. He's running the country, right now?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but he's having to fight against --
(CROSSTALK)
TUCHMAN: He said he could do it all himself. Everything would be so easy when he gets into office. And he's fighting with the deep state a year and a half into his term?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he's been fighting since before he was elected.
TUCHMAN: Who is in this deep state? Who are the people in it? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I definitely believe that, like, the Clintons, the Bushes, the Obamas.
TUCHMAN: Do you think the Clintons, Bushes, Obamas are running this country as we stand here in the rain?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they're trying.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): The anonymous Q is a hero to many here.
One man actually hoping to communicate with Q by looking straight into our camera.
(on camera): Is it possible you're believing bogus information, yes or no?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it possible I'm believing bogus information? I mean, let's see.
Let's see, Q. Let's see.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Gary Tuchman, CNN, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: OK. An alarming sex-abuse arrest at a shelter where immigrant children are being held in Mesa, Arizona. A former health care worker has been arrested and charged with molesting boys between 15 and 17 between August 2016 and July of last year. The former employee faces a total of 11 charges.
In a separate case, police arrested this 32-year-old man who works at a Phoenix shelter after he was accused of molesting a 14-year-old migrant girl.
CNN's Dianne Gallagher is on this today.
Dianne, tell me what's happening with these cases.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's talk about that first one there in Mesa, Arizona, with the eight boys. Look, this turned my stomach, Brooke, just reading this to begin with. The man who has been charged in those cases his them is Le'Veon Paceco. It happened from August 2016 until July of 2017. He was a youth care worker at a Southwest Key facility in Mesa, Arizona. According to documents with the court, he basically molested these boys, age 15 to 17. Eight of them, he touched them in their genitalia over their clothes. He performed oral sex he is accused of doing with two of the boys, and attempting to have sexual intercourse with at least one of them as well. Now, again, he has denied these. He has not been convicted of them.
Southwest Key, who is one of the largest operators, a contractor of these HHS ORR facilities, issued a statement to CNN where they essentially said, look, we followed protocol. "Any employee accused of abuse is immediately suspended and law enforcement is called. This is what we did in this case. In addition, we reported it to ORR and the appropriate state agency. We report these cases to law enforcement and state agencies when they happen." Again, that is from Southwest Key.
The case that you alluded to just a few moments ago, in Phoenix, Arizona, with the 14-year-old girl, that also happened at a Southwest Key facility -- Brooke?
BALDWIN: How widespread is this?
GALLAGHER: Well, to be very honest, we're not quite sure. We are hearing about this more and more each week it seems like. There's at least one or two more cases. Just last week, "Pro Publica," who actually first reported that from the one in Mesa, Arizona, with Le'Veon Paceco, they did an investigation where they were able to obtain call logs, reports and records from police from 70 of about the 100 of these immigrant youth facilities that are run by contractors with HHS and ORR. They found over the past five years, Brooke, police had responded to at least 125 calls reporting sexual offenses. But, again, this isn't complete. They weren't able to get everything and that's just 70 of the roughly 100 of these. So to be honest, we don't know how widespread it is, but that's a large number.
[14:50:19] BALDWIN: Details of those cases are staggering.
Dianne, thank you so much. Please stay on this for us.
We want to take you back to the breaking news in the Russia investigation today. The fact that the special counsel's team just interviewed this woman who once ran a high-priced New York call-girl ring. She's known as the Manhattan Madam. We're talking about her possible ties to longtime Trump adviser, Roger Stone. Her ties, we know they were very close.
Also ahead, Apple becoming the first American company who hit a trillion dollars in value. So we had a little fun with this today. What can you buy with a trillion dollars? Wait until you hear this, coming up.
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[14:55:25] BALDWIN: A trillion dollars, $1 trillion. That is a one with 12 zeros.
In fact, my friend, Paul LaMonica, you actually have to put your calculator sideways so all of the zeros actually fit in.
Apple this week becoming the first American publicly-traded company to reach $1 trillion in value. Three other companies are on their heels, Amazon, Google, Microsoft. All worth more than $800 billion.
So we got to thinking, what can you buy with $1 trillion.
CNN Money correspondent, Paul LaMonica, is with us to have a little fun.
Give the crunch of the numbers.
PAUL LAMONICA, CNN MONEY DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: I will resist the urge to do my Dr. Evil, $1 trillion.
(CROSSTALK)
With a trillion, you could buy 27 almost Tesla Model III cars. That's the cheaper Tesla car. They run $35,000 or so with the incentive. You can buy 27 million of them.
BALDWIN: OK.
LAMONICA: Not sure if Elon Musk would do that.
(CROSSTALK)
LAMONICA: You could also buy 3.6 million houses. That's at about $277,000 a house, the median home price across the United States. So you could have a nice little city there.
You can also buy if you really love Apple products, we know a lot of people do, you can buy one billion iPhone Xs. That's $999. You can also buy an Apple music subscription if you really like your music and iTunes. You can pay for a 5.6 billion years-worth of music, which wouldn't really --
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: We like music.
LAMONICA: I don't know that that's a good value proposition. I don't think any of us would be around that long. If Apple were its own country, it would be the 17th largest in the world based on a trillion dollars if that were GDP. So it's sandwiched in between Indonesia and Turkey, just behind Mexico.
BALDWIN: That's crazy.
LAMONICA: So, Apple, the United States of Apple, would be a formidable economic threat. I'm sure we would be slapping tariffs on them right now.
BALDWIN: Want to do it again? $1 trillion.
LAMONICA: A trillion. Michael Myers, please don't sue.
BALDWIN: Paul LaMonica, thank you.
LAMONICA: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Thank you.
Now to stunning video here of something that happens to women every day. Every day. Harassment of some form. Can be subtle, just a few words, or worse, a slap, a punch, or something sexually inappropriate. Nothing about that is OK. But rarely is that act caught on camera. So let me tell you about something that recently happened to a woman
in France. And watch with me. Upper right-hand corner of your screen. The scene broad daylight on a street in Paris. We will loop this for you. You're watching the woman in a red dress, walks past this guy, says something insulting her to her, something sexual and derogatory in nature. According to this woman, she's shocked, she says shut up, keeps walking. And apparently, he hears her, he goes and grabs an ashtray off of a nearby restaurant table, flings it back at her. She yells back at him. The guy doubles back -- watch it -- and follows her and punches her in the face.
Here is what she had to say about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So I took the punch with the most pride I could because I didn't want to show him any sign of weakness or any sign that he was actually going to put me down. Yes. I was very lucky that video was recording the incident because I think that it's an issue that women have been talking about for years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: She said in that interview to CNN that this wasn't the first time that day or even that week that something like that had been said inappropriately to her. At least you can see eyewitnesses there at that restaurant jump up and defend this woman. One guy in the white actually grabs a chair and starts rushing the man.
Nothing about this is acceptable, but it is rarely exposed in such a public way. So, man, woman, keep your hands and harmful words to yourself.
ANNOUCER: This is CNN breaking news.
[14:59:41] BALDWIN: We continue on, on this Friday afternoon. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.
Here is breaking news right now in this Russia investigation. We now know that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team has just interviewed a woman who once ran a high-priced New York call-girl ring. This is a woman who went to jail as part of the scandal surrounding former New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer, a woman known as the Manhattan Madam. Investigators appear to be interested in Kristin Davis' ties to longtime Trump advisor, Roger Stone, who she had known for --
