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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Airman Shot on Tape; When Cops Open Fire; DNA Testing: The Reality; Enron Trial Update; Postal Massacre; Co-Workers Who Kill; Going Postal; Bush's Purpose; The Envelope, Please
Aired February 01, 2006 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): confusion in this dark and grainy home video.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get up...Ok? Get up.
ELIO CARRION, SHOT BY DEPUTY: I'm gonna get up.
LAWRENCE: Airman Elio Carrion survived six months of duty in Iraq and then got shot by a sheriff's deputy near his hometown. Agents are analyzing the tape to find out why.
DEPUTY: Shut the *** up! You don't *** get up!
LAWRENCE: Investigators are trying to find out if there was a third person talking, adding to the confusion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You told him get up!
LAWRENCE: Carrion is a security officer in the Air Force, a husband, home visiting family in California. Sunday night he was a passenger in this car, which police say was speeding. The deputy had to chase it for a few minutes before it crashed. The driver was arrested, then released a couple days later.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to see my friend right now.
LAWRENCE: Seconds before the shooting, Carrion tries to tell the deputy, I'm on your side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I served more time than you in the police military OK?
LAWRENCE: The deputy tells Carrion to get up. But is that what he really meant?
DR. BRUCE BERG, POLICE TRAINING EXPERT: When we played it again, it sounded like he could have said, don't get up.
LAWRENCE: Dr. Bruce Berg is a police training expert. He says the adrenaline's pumping after the chase. There's two suspects and all kinds of background noise and the deputy may have mangled the instruction to get down and shut up. BERG: One could interpret that if you've just told someone, stay down, stay down, shut up, stay down, and they move to get up while you're watching the other suspect, you see out of the side of your eye someone getting up, you're going to turn and reflectively -- you're going to fire.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE (on camera): You hear the shots, clearly, but there is so much on that tape that is impossible to understand. Other times, it's complete silence. Authorities say it would be unfair to make any judgment now, before they get all the facts. But they did place that deputy on leave until the local and federal agents finish their investigation.
Chris Lawrence, CNN, Los Angeles.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It is an extraordinary tape, although with all these tapes, it is very difficult to tell exactly what went on. Eugene O'Donnell is here to help us. He's a professor of police studies at John Jay College. He's here to help us break down this tape, but first let's take a look at a significant portion of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARRION: I served more time than you in the police in the military, OK.
DEPUTY: Get up.
CARRION: I'm going to get up.
(shots fired)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Looking at the tape, can you tell if this man was shot unjustly.
EUGENE O'DONNELL, PROFESSOR, JOHN JAY COLLEGE: It's impossible to tell. Context in these things is everything. I mean, there's some hints about where the officer was and the circumstances, but I think it's a mistake for anybody to judge based on this tape. The quality is not so good. The context before and after and some of the sound could be better. So it's a very difficult call to make.
COOPER: In a court of law, of course, these tapes are often used by both sides to prove their case. Let's just try to kind of break it down with a telestrator, though and look at some very specific moments on the tape and see what we can learn from it.
COOPER: This is early on in the tape, way before the shooting. The officer does appear to kick the man on the ground. What do you make of that? O'DONNELL: Oh, it's hard to know what's in his mind, but the one clear thing that we do know is that he wants him to stay on the ground. This is what the officer wants. There's a major difference between him being in a seated position and getting up. And also secondarily, the officer, once he's moved him for whatever reason, he's looking for his hands. The hands are going to be the key thing.
COOPER: And this is the distance that they establish and they really maintain that distance throughout. Is this officer too close?
O'DONNELL: Well, one of the concerns is that the officer does not appear to have cover. And that's a basic police rule, that you'd like to have something sturdy between you and the person because you're exposed and it makes you more vulnerable, obviously, and may escalate the situation because you don't have this...
COOPER: Now, he's down on the ground. Does he appear a threat?
O'DONNELL: Well, remember, it's not just what you're seeing. It's also plus what you're hearing, plus what the officer sees.
COOPER: And then this hear, just so we know, that is the gun pointed in that direction. All right, let's continue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARRION: in the military, OK.
DEPUTY: Get up.
CARRION: I'm going to get up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, his hand is up. He's moving his hand. Would that be a threat?
O'DONNELL: Well, we know how this ends because we're watching it. Keep in mind, the officer does not know how it ends. The officer has a firearm. Whether or not this guy has a weapon -- the officer's concerned that if this man were to get up and charge him, it's not a great deal of distance. That's uppermost in the minds of an officer. One concern that...
COOPER: Now, we believe the deputy at this point has said, get up. And it looks like he's about to get up. Let's watch slowly what happens.
He's going to be getting up in this direction. Now the gun, here's the gun.
Obviously, you hear him crying. You hear the officer radioing, shots fired, shots fired. I was surprised though, the officer just kind of continues just to stand here. Whereas, the man is down on the ground. Is there a protocol for what happens after you shoot somebody? O'DONNELL: There is a protocol. The problem, of course, is that for everything that's done in the academy and said in the academy, the actual real life event typically creates trauma, it creates disorder, so it's not unusual for officers not to act in accordance with the protocol.
COOPER: A lot of cursing going on in the tape. Is that normal?
O'DONNELL: Well, we've had a 100 mile an hour chase before this. You've had this guy saying things to the officer, indicating he's not compliant. So that's the problem. You have to package it up and try to see it in a larger context. And remember, the officer doesn't know how it ends. So it has to be seen -- as a matter of law, it has to be seen through the officer's eyes, not through what you would do, but what he would do, knowing what he knows at the time it's happening.
COOPER: All right, we'll be following it. Eugene O'Donnell, appreciate it. Thank you.
O'DONNELL: My pleasure.
COOPER: Tough questions being asked by a Senate committee about what went wrong after Hurricane Katrina, and the answers are not forthcoming.
Also tonight, an exclusive look inside the lab in New Orleans, on which so many hopes are pinned.
And the latest on that postal massacre in California. The death tolls have climbed.
Across America and around the world, you're watching 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, the hearings this week in Washington, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee basically asked the question, what went wrong after Hurricane Katrina.
In the hot seat today, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Now, if you listen to any of the testimony or even skimmed a new congressional report, you're tempted to suggest the investigation could go much quicker if people asked what went right. CNN's Tom Foreman has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Five months after Katrina, the debate is still swirling around one week around apparent government failings immediately before, during and after the storm.
Now, a new report from the Government Accountability Office is taking dead aim at Michael Chertoff, saying he failed to provide critical, decisive leadership. "Neither the DHS secretary nor any of his designees filled this leadership role," the report says, "which serves to underscore the immaturity of and weaknesses relating to the current national response framework." SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: So here we are, after the worst natural disaster in modern times, and no one was in charge.
FOREMAN: Chertoff's office immediately fired back, calling the GAO report premature, unprofessional and full of errors. Although, over at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is under Chertoff, officials are not so dismissive of this report.
DAVID PUALSON, ACTING FEMA DIRECTOR: There was not a strong on the ground presence, not a unified command -- a command system was not put in place when it should have been put in place.
FOREMAN: Mayor Ray Nagin is being questioned by Congress for his decision to open the Convention Center with no food, water or medical care there.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: We can't find any evidence of a request to FEMA to get supplies to the Convention Center.
FOREMAN: Nagin says he made the request. And even if he hadn't, how could FEMA not see the need.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN (D), NEW ORLEANS: The entire nation was enthralled on this disaster, so I categorically reject their claims.
FOREMAN (on camera): So some argue there has been precious little progress since Katrina. The federal authorities are still blaming the locals and the locals are still blaming the feds.
(Voice-over): None of it helps the hundreds of thousands who lost homes or signals a better plan for the future.
NAGIN: If another storm like Katrina happened, I'm not sure we wouldn't have a repeat event.
FOREMAN: Almost every official said right after the storm they did not want to start a blame game. Five months later, it seems like the only game in town. Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Tom Foreman, "Keeping them Honest" tonight.
In New Orleans, in the end, the hopes and prayers and fears of the thousands who are still searching for missing loved ones, all come down to a speck of human tissue on a glass slide into a kind of science that barely existed not so long ago. We talk about it all the time these days -- DNA testing. We hardly ever get to see what's really involved.
CNN Sean Callebs has an exclusive look inside the New Orleans labs on which so many people are counting right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is how they ring in good news at Louisiana's Find Family Call Center. It means another person has been located alive and well.
Still, nearly 2,300 are listed as missing.
AMANDA SOZER, DNA IDENTIFICATION COORDINATOR: And after Katrina hit, it was like taking multiple puzzles and throwing them up in the air and scattering them all across the United States. And we're trying to pull those puzzles together and fit the missing pieces in.
CALLEBS: The state ward, near the town of San Gabriel, holds the remains of 113 unidentified people. Trying to find matches from among the legions of missing involves complex DNA testing. Amanda Sozer heads up the state's DNA matching effort, which when done properly, works.
SOZER: We're looking for, in cases where we have a cold hit, where we have a body in the morgue and we don't know who that person is based on other methods, a probability of 99.9 percent.
CALLEBS: You're looking at Reliagy (ph), a New Orleans based company that helps put together a DNA profile.
(On camera): So many people have seen this on TV, but where actually is a DNA sample?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The DNA sample is actually in the place that you see right here.
CALLEBS (voice-over): The robot is watering down the DNA samples. The reason, if the sample is too strong, it can't be read accurately. The same is true, however, if the sample is overly diluted. These spikes, or peaks and valleys, represent someone's unique DNA profile.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a DNA fingerprint, essentially.
CALLEBS: It is also a global operation. Scientists in the former Yugoslavia, who spent years going through mass graves following war and genocide, are pouring over bone fragments from Katrina victims. Researchers there are considered experts in bone DNA analysis.
SOZER: We look for similarities between the profiles or the codes in the bone to the profiles from the families.
CALLEBS: This is what families of missing loved ones go through. A simple cheek swab, creating a DNA fingerprint.
SOZER: Early on, some people may have had the misconception that only one person in a family needed to be tested, so one person gave their DNA. But really, we need more people.
CALLEBS: The more close family members tested, the better chance the state has at putting together an accurate bar code to pinpoint a loved one. DNA sampling also works closely with other methods of identifying bodies, such as dental records.
DOUGLAS CROSS, DENTIST: OK, this is a dental office in the lower Ninth Ward.
CALLEBS (ON CAMERA): Douglas Cross is a dentist, whose business was destroyed. He offered to help in identifying bodies and has been wading through the muck left behind in flooded dental offices.
CROSS: We got a number of records that day and some of them led to an ID.
CALLEBS (voice-over): At one point, the Find Family Call Center had 11,000 missing persons. It's emotional work, but employees here say there is a heartfelt benefit to paring down a painful list.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS (on camera): And we are told there are five labs -- four in the United States, one in the former Yugoslavia -- doing this complex DNA testing to put together a genetic fingerprint. Well, the state medical examiner here, Dr. Louis Cataldi says they probably have about six more months' worth of work, trying to put names to those 113 unidentified remains. But as this work goes on, the numbers simply aren't adding up because he points out there are hundreds of people -- hundreds -- calling every week, trying to find out what happened to their loved one. So, while we may never know exactly how many people died in Katrina, we do sadly know that there are scores of people who aren't going to know what happened to their loved ones -- Anderson.
COOPER: That is just terrible. Sean Callebs, thanks.
Anyone looking for a missing loved one is encouraged to call the Find Family Call Center, toll free, at 866-326-9393. That's 866-326- 9393. And just as importantly, if you have registered that a loved one is missing and you have since found them alive, you need to call and let them know to get that number down, because there are a lot of people out there who likely have been found and authorities just don't know about it.
So, coming up next, what turns a woman into a suicidal killer? And is it any different for women than men? A close look at a postal massacre in California.
Then, who's responsible for the collapse of Enron and the misery of a lot of employees and investors who bet their lives on it? Enron's top dogs on trial.
And can you get fat from drinking diet soda? Here's another of your questions, can you walk your way to weight loss? Well, you asked, and tonight we've got answers from CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta on weight loss.
360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So, remember the 90s, back when Enron, that doughty old energy pipeline company became Enron, the future's trading new economy leading money machine? Just one problem: It was built on a shell of companies and trick accounting. Now, Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and Former Chairman Ken Lay are on trial in Houston. Testimony for the prosecution began today. And for tens of thousands of employees who lost their jobs and their life savings when Enron collapsed more than four years ago, today could not come soon enough. Here's CNN's Chris Huntington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tom and Karen Padgett of Mount Bellview (ph), Texas, are churchgoing grandparents who love to barbecue and root for the Texas Longhorns. But look out when you bring up Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.
KAREN PADGETT, WIFE OF FORMER ENRON EMPLOYEE: I want to see them squirm. I want to see them hurt.
TOM PADGETT, FORMER ENRON EMPLOYEE: I'd like to strangle somebody. You tell me how guys, men, in that position, with that responsibility, don't know what's going on.
HUNTINGTON: Lay and Skilling are on trial now for lying to employees, shareholders and regulators as Enron imploded in a massive accounting scandal. Tom lost his job and life savings -- more than three-quarters of a million dollars. He's one of 20,000 former Enron employees suing Skilling and Lay.
(On camera): Your retirement, 401(k), was -- how much of that was in Enron stock?
T. PADGETT: All of it.
HUNTINGTON: And why was that?
T. PADGETT: Because I trusted Enron.
HUNTINGTON (voice-over): Tom worked for Enron and its related companies for more than 25 years as a lab technician, analyzing the gas that Enron pumped through its pipelines.
T. PADGETT: Enron was one of the best companies I had ever worked for.
HUNTINGTON: In 2001 Enron ranked seventh on the Fortune 500. Its stock was the darling of Wall Street. And the Padgetts were thrilled to be along for the ride.
(On camera): You made a lot of money for a while there.
T. PADGETT: I did.
HUNTINGTON: And you worked hard for it.
T. PADGETT: More than I ever dreamed of making in my lifetime. And I was within, like I said earlier, six months of realizing a dream that my dad talked about all the time, that he knew that he would never reach, and that's retirement. HUNTINGTON: Tom's dad worked on a Houston fuel dock until he died at the age of 59. Tom was 59 when Enron and its stock started tanking.
T. PADGETT: Mr. Lay went on TV and after the stock price started falling, touting the viability of Enron stock and how what a great investment it was.
HUNTINGTON: The Padgetts desperately wanted to dump their Enron shares, but could not.
(Voice-over): For nearly a month, Enron's employee retirement accounts were locked down. No trading activity allowed because Enron was shifting them to a new management company.
(On camera): What did it feel like when you couldn't even pull your money out?
T. PADGETT: Sickening. Very sickening. Helpless.
HUNTINGTON: And when the blackout period ended?
K. PADGETT: There was nothing there.
HUNTINGTON, (voice-over): Karen, a registered nurse, says the stress of losing their life savings keeps her constant pain with arthritis and she cannot work.
K. PADGETT: They just robbed us.
HUNTINGTON: So, Tom, now 63, is back in the lab full time at a new company.
T. PADGETT: The hardest I've worked in a long, long time.
HUNTINGTON (on camera): What do you need to help put this behind you?
K. PADGETT: Cash.
HUNTINGTON (voice-over): Cash and a pair of guilty verdicts for the men they say stole their retirement dreams.
T. PADGETT: I'd like to see him and Mr. Skilling both spend about 20 or 30 years in prison. And to me, that's not long enough.
HUNTINGTON: And that, of course, isn't even going to go anywhere towards restoring what you guys lost.
K. PADGETT: No.
T. PADGETT: Let them sit there and think about what they've done.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HUNTINGTON: Now, Tom and Karen say they want to come here, to downtown Houston, to the federal courthouse where the trial is taking place. They want to see the look, they say, on Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay's face when, as Karen put it, they possibly face losing everything they had.
As for the dreams that Tom and Karen lost, what they really wanted to do in retirement, Anderson, was to set up a ranch for handicapped children so little kids could ride ponies.
COOPER: Oh, man, that's terrible. Chris Huntington, thanks.
Erica Hill, from "HEADINE NEWS," joins us with some of the other stories we're following tonight. Hi Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi Anderson. We're actually going to stay in Houston. Another big story we're following there.
Bail has been granted for the woman who drowned her children. Today, a judge said Andrea Yates can be moved from a jail to a mental hospital. Bond was set at $200,000, but until she comes up with a $20,000 deposit, Yates will remain behind bars. Yates, of course, confessed to killing her five children and was convicted. That verdict, though, was overturned. She will be retried next month.
In West Virginia, Governor Joe Manchin is urging all coal mining operations to shut down, asking the companies to stop operations until safety checks can be conducted on the mining facilities. And the move comes after another mining tragedy today, two accidents killing two miners. Since January 2, 16 miners have died in West Virginia.
A police apology to Cindy Sheehan and the wife of a Congressman today after both were removed from the State of the Union Address last night. And this is why. The messages on their t-shirts. There, you see Cindy Sheehan's, which made mention to the U.S. troops killed in Iraq. Beverly Young's shirt said, Support the Troops Defending our Freedom. Now, the police called them war statements. Today, they apologized, calling the incident a mistake.
And from San Diego's wild animal park, talk about an adorable odd couple. Koza (ph) the lion cub, and his best buddy Cairo (ph), a massive puppy. The cub was born in November, the pup was rescued from Katrina. And they have a grand time together, as you can see. Park officials though say they're going to be separated once the cub joins a tribe of lions at the zoo, which is maybe good. Is that not the cutest -- I mean, that's just a good awe video.
COOPER: We should have a segment, awe video.
HILL: We should. I'll tape my cat and my dog playing at home, and you'll go awe, the same thing.
COOPER: All right, Erica thanks.
Tonight we begin a new feature, 360 MD. It's actually a collaboration with you, our viewers. We've asked you to e-mail your medical questions to CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and you have. Tonight, we tackle two of them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Elizabeth from Atlanta, Georgia, asks, diet sodas can actually make you gain weight. True or false?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That one is actually false.
COOPER: Oh, thank goodness.
GUPTA: But again, this is what -- yes, I know. All the diet soda drinkers out there, phew, but you know the thing about it is that there's a lot of momentum behind these studies as well. A lot of people believe because of a few animal studies out there, that in fact diet sodas could potentially make you gain weight, but none of the human studies have actually panned out.
COOPER: Well, why would some researchers things that diet soda would contribute to weight gain?
GUPTA: Well, what they were looking at was thinking that people who, just in terms of their dietary habits, would drink diet sodas and do nothing else different in their diet. You know, they'd order a cheeseburger, ice cream and then a diet soda and so they think that these people might actually be gaining weight as a result of preference as opposed to actually anything going on in their body.
The other thing that I found really interesting is that, you know, these diet sodas are actually sweetened with these incredibly sweet sweeteners. They're sometimes 100 times sweeter than sugar. So, what people get is this craving for sweets, other than diet sodas, so they actually go up in terms of consumption of other sweets.
COOPER: OK, so we've heard that if you walk 10,000 steps, you can lose weight. Is that true? True or false?
GUPTA: Yes, you know, that's absolutely true, 10,000 steps, this has been a common exercise, sort of adage. In fact, I have a pedometer with me right here. You know, it's a simple little thing, but you can wear it, figure out how many steps you're walking. Ten thousand steps is about five miles, which is about 400 calories. So, if you change nothing else, you eat a good healthy diet and you're burning an extra 400 calories a day, you lose about a pound or two a week. That's 50 pounds a year. And if you keep up that routine, those are pounds that will stay off.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: All right. We want to have you keep sending your medical questions to Dr. Gupta. That's your part of the deal. Ask anything you'd like about your health. Just logon to our website at ccn.com/360 and click on the e-mail link. Next time we'll put people's -- at least their first names on those questions so you know you got your question answered. In California, a murder mystery deepens. Why police believe the blood bath two days ago at a postal facility wasn't the first time the killer struck.
You're watching 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: In a small California community, northwest of Los Angeles, a town rattled to its core. The question tonight is why. Why did a former postal worker walk into her old workplace on Monday, shoot six people and then kill herself? Five of her victims perished at the scene and another died from her wounds today. This, as police link the shooter to yet another murder. CNN's Kareen Wynter has the latest. And we warn you, some of the report is hard to watch.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAREEN WYNTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Less than two hours before Jennifer Sanmarco gunned down six employees at this Goleta, California, postal plant, officials say the suspect's murder spree may have begun here. A condominium complex where Sanmarco lived before relocating to Milan, New Mexico. The target, a former neighbor named Beverly Ann Graham, who according to Graham's mother, Sanmarco once feuded with.
When her mother heard about the postal shootings, she left a message for her daughter, warning her to stay inside.
NITA GRAHAM, BEVERYLY'S MOTHER: I just told Beverly not to go out because there was a crazy woman shooting people up at the post office.
EDWARD BLOMFIELD, BEVERLY'S BOYFRIEND: We never dreamed she'd come in here.
GRAHAM: We have a dream that she came here first.
WYNTER: Graham's boyfriend, Edward Blomfield, discovered her body Tuesday night.
BLOMFIELD: Beverly must have came down and opened the door and then she shot her with a 9 mm once in the head. So, I don't think Beverly suffered. You know, she went quick.
WYNTER (on camera): Blomfield says he's shocked a few harsh words might have led to murder.
How would you describe Jennifer Sanmarco?
BLOMFIELD: A lonely soul that needed help.
WYNTER: Blomfield says his girlfriend argued with Sanmarco about her quote, "bizarre and strange behavior that included late night singing and loud conversations with herself." BLOMFIELD: Beverly wanted a little peace and quiet around here, and she would sing and yell and, you know, Beverly -- if Beverly hadn't have said shut up and yelled at her, Beverly would still be alive today.
WYNTER: Investigators are still baffled as to why Sanmarco traveled 700 miles from New Mexico to Goleta, where she worked at a postal distribution center from August 1997 to June 2003.
Postal officials say Sanmarco was on medical disability and retired early. She was deemed unsuitable for work, based on a psychiatric evaluation. Police were called to the facility in 2001.
JIM ANDERSON, SHERIFF, SANTA BARBARA COUNTY: She was acting irrational and had to be removed from the facility. She was evaluated by our county mental health assessment team and was placed on an involuntary 72-hour hold.
WYNTER: As investigators hunt for more clues into a motive, Beverly Ann Graham's family is also searching for answers.
BLOMFIELD: She'll be in heaven. And we'll all survive, you know.
WYNTER: After the terror that stunned a small community. Kareen Wynter, CNN, Goleta, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, the blood bath at the California mail plant is believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting ever by a woman. Joining me now from Boston, James Fox, professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University.
Why are men more prone to kill in the workplace than women?
JAMES FOX, PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Well, men are more prone to kill anyway, but when it comes to the workplace, men, much more than women, define themselves by what they do. You know, two men meeting at a party, the first question is, what do you do? Women judge their self worth by who they are as a person, their family relationships.
So, when a man loses his job, he's much more likely to think life's over. How can life have any meaning when I'm not employed? Also, men tend to see violence as an offensive weapon, to show them who's boss. Women, when they are violent, it's usually out of the last resort to self-defense.
So, when it comes to someone who wants to get even with people at the job, it's almost always a guy.
COOPER: And how common is it for people to try to get even at the job?
FOX: Well, it happens about three to four dozen times a year. It's not an epidemic, but when it does happen, of course, it sends a chill through workplaces everywhere. But a few dozen cases a year. You know, and the problem is there are thousands of people out there who never smile, who are always blaming other people, who fit a profile of a workplace avenger, but only a small tiny percentage of them actually translate their grievances into bloodshed.
COOPER: All of the victims killed at the post office were minorities. A former co-worker said tonight that the shooter, Jennifer Sanmarco, seemed particularly hostile to Asian workers at the post office. And another official said she applied for a business license in New Mexico, for a publication called, "The Racist Press." Is it common for race to play a role in these crimes?
FOX: Well, it can. These are individuals who are full of hate, full of resentment. Many of the case are white males who see all the jobs and all the opportunities going to minorities or to women and they feel like they're losing out. So it's typically people who feel like they're victims. The act of mass murderer, in their minds, is getting some justice. Now, they take their own lives because life is that unhappy, unpleasant; but before they die, they want to make sure they get even with all the people they hold responsible for their problems. And those people very well can be members of other races or whatever, whom they feel are getting an unfair advantage.
COOPER: There's a term, going postal, which obviously a lot of people working for the post office object to. Is it an unfair term?
FOX: Well...
COOPER: I mean, are people in the post office any more likely to have violence in the workplace than anyone else?
FOX: Well, it depends how you define violence. If you look at all kinds of violence, then no, the postal service is not at greater risk. And that's essentially because postal workers are very rarely ever attacked by customers and clients. But if you only look at cases in which an employee goes after other employees or supervisors, then indeed the postal service has had more than their share of episodes. A lot of it has to do with the climate in the postal service, the management, employee climate. And once these episodes happen, unfortunately there are other postal workers out there who see these shooters as heroes. They're winning one for the little guy. They're getting back at the evil post office and it creates a contagion effect, of which we saw back in the 80s and 90s when there was a whole string of postal shootings. Hopefully that won't happen again.
COOPER: Yes, certainly. James Fox, appreciate you joining us. Thanks.
James just mentioned how what happened in California two days ago was sort of familiar 20 years ago. As he mentioned, another massacre at a U.S. postal facility, gave rise to that term, going postal. CNN's Thelma Gutierrez looks back.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The grizzly scene that played out Monday morning inside this mail processing plant in Goleta, California, is just one more reminder of the horror Retired Postal Worker Peter Gates lived through on the morning of May 6, 1993.
PETER GATES, POSTAL SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I came to work that morning and I was distributing mail into the box section and I heard a real loud noise and somebody said, hit the ground.
GUTIERREZ: Twenty-five yards away, armed Former Postal Employee Mark Hilben (ph), had shot one co-worker in the face and was searching for more victims.
GATES: He saw me. He ran after me and overtook me and shot me in the back of the head.
GUTIERREZ: The U.S. Postal Service says they are tragic isolated incidents. But are they?
1986 Edmond, Oklahoma, 15 people killed, including the gunman. 1989, Escondido, California, three people killed, another wounded. Ridgewood, New Jersey, 1991, four people killed. Again in '91, Royal Oak, Michigan, four killed, five wounded.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like it or not, the term, going postal, has become part of the American lexicon.
GUTIERREZ: But U.S. Postal Service Inspector Oscar Villanuevas (ph) says the term, going postal, is nothing more than a myth, a bad rap.
OSCAR VILLANUEVAS (ph): I think to say that somebody's gone postal, with the connotations that are put in place in this day and age really are insulting to the 700,000 employees for the postal service.
GUTIERREZ: For 33 years, Peter Gates was one of those employees. He says the work environment is stressful; and management, often unresponsive. A potentially volatile mix.
GATES: You got these guys behind you wearing ties, you know, saying we got to get this done in 10 minutes. We got to get this truck loaded so on and so forth. And we have to do it. We just have to do it.
GUTIERREZ (on camera): For a person who's already stressed and may be on the edge and may be suffering from mental problems?
GATES: That's no place for somebody like that.
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): Peter says Mark Hilben (ph), the man who shot him in the head, was just like that.
GATES: I told the postmaster about it. When the sheriff came a week before the incident, I told the sheriff about it. Something was going to happen. You need to be here to address this. And he walked right in there just through an open door and did his carnage.
GUTIERREZ: Since then, the U.S. Postal Service has beefed up its violence prevention programs by educating employees, requiring extensive background checks and training supervisors to identify potentially dangerous workers.
For five years, Peter Gates suffered from severe post-traumatic stress. He says he's coping now and is finally enjoying his life and his grandkids. But when things like this happen, he can't help but remember his mailroom nightmare.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Vista, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, coming up, Rick Warren, author of, "The Purpose- Driven Life." He was at the president's State of the Union Address. Hear how he saw and heard the speech when 360 continues.
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COOPER: So by his own account, President Bush has a purpose- driven presidency, protect Americans from terrorism. But other issues need attention too. So, in his address last night, did Mr. Bush strike the right balance? Who better to ask than Pastor Rick Warren, author of, "The Purpose-Driven Life." It's one of the best selling books in the United States and it's helped make Warren one of the most influential evangelical Christians in America. He was in attendance last night and we spoke with him there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: You know, the president talked a lot about bipartisanship and sort of across the divide, but you know, you see the audience and, you know, some stand at one time and some stand at the other time, and just as a viewer, at least for me, it kind of turns me off the whole thing. When you're actually there, does it feel -- do you get that sense? Do you think people get turned off by that?
PASTOR RICK WARREN, AUTHOR, "The Purpose-Driven Life": You know, sometimes it does feel a little sophomoric, we're rooting for our team. And I think that that really is kind of a distraction. The president said something early on that I really agreed with. He said we can't let our differences harden into anger. We're going to have differences. That's OK. We live in a pluralistic society. Differences are good.
COOPER: Across the country, churches organized watch parties for members to watch the president's speech. How do you think the speech played to those groups?
WARREN: You know, it's interesting. I think this is classic President Bush. In my judgment, Bush is not a populist. In other words, he doesn't go by popular opinions, he doesn't go by polls. He's a leader and leaders do what they think is the right thing to do, even when people disagree with him. And it's easy to be a leader when you do something very popular, but as the polls have shown, some of the things he's chosen to do right now are not really popular, but he really believes they are the right thing to do.
COOPER: I want to play something that the president said about fighting poverty and AIDS around the world.
WARREN: OK.
COOPER: Let's play that.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In recent years, you and I have taken unprecedented action to fight AIDS and malaria, expand the education of girls, and reward developing nations that are moving forward with economic and political reform.
COOPER: You've been very vocal about the need to fight poverty and to fight AIDS...
WARREN: Yes.
COOPER: -- in the world. You were just now for yourself. Are you satisfied with what he said about the issue? Has the U.S. gone far enough?
WARREN: You know, it's interesting, I was in Rwanda about 10 days ago and in Uganda and Burundi, and there are at least a half million people in Rwanda right now who are still alive because of PEPFAR, which is the president's emergency, you know, plan to fight AIDS in Africa. And I was amazed at how many people, even in the villages, were actually getting antiretroviral drugs. They were in houses with no electricity, no water, but over in the corner they had their ARVs. And that is only because there was a president who said, you know, we're going to care about this.
COOPER: But those same Africans with HIV are not allowed to enter the United States because they have AIDS.
WARREN: You know, and I've actually talked to the administration about this, and I have encouraged them -- I have actual people in my church who would like to adopt children with HIV AIDS, and are not able to right now. There are only two countries in the world that don't allow people with AIDS into the country; one of them is Libya and the other is U.S. And my guess is that's going to be changed this year because it's just not right.
COOPER: Is there a change in the evangelical movement? I mean, you have talked -- I forgot the quote that I've heard often quoted that you've said, but that you're tired of evangelicals only being portrayed for what they're against and not really talking about what they are for.
WARREN: Right.
COOPER: It's a little bit like I guess the problem the Democratic party faces. You know, they're sort of good at criticizing things, but the question is, what are they for? Do you think there is a change in the evangelical movement?
WARREN: Oh, no doubt about it, Anderson. I see it happening all over. The bible calls the church the Body of Christ. And what I've said is often the hands and the legs have been amputated and all that's left is a mouth. And a lot of times we are known for what we're against, instead of what we're for. But I see a whole new generation of evangelical and other Christian leaders who are saying, you know what, values involve a whole lot more than just personal values. There are social values like poverty and equality and justice and things like that, that we have to care about every part. We have to care about the person, we have to care about society, we have to care about the family, and I think it's a more fuller orbed message.
COOPER: Pastor Rick Warren, thanks for joining us.
WARREN: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Erica Hill, from "HEADLINE NEWS" joins us now with some of the business stories we're following.
Erica, good evening.
HILL: Good evening to you, Anderson.
After three years, United, the number two U.S. airline, emerged from Chapter 11 today a much leaner company. During bankruptcy protection, it slashed costs by $7 billion a year. Much of it in wage and benefit cuts for workers. Four hundred of United execs, though, will get an estimated $115 million in stocks under the restructuring plan.
Google, getting a loud message from Wall Street today, and not a very friendly one. The company's stock price plunged more than 7 percent, wiping out more than $9 billion in shareholder wealth and trimming about $2 billion from the net worth of its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Now, all this just a day after the high flying internet search engine fell short of earnings expectations. The first time it happened since the company went public.
In Detroit, some welcome news for the big three automakers. Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler all saw sales rise in January. It's normally a pretty slow month for the car industry. Automakers said warm weather and strong sales to rental car companies, corporations and the government were behind the gain. In the meantime, Asian automakers increased their share of the U.S. market last month.
And if you've always dreamed of owning, not just eating a whopper, well sometimes dreams really do come true. Burger King's parent company said today it's planning an initial public offering for some time later this month or early in March. You can also look at it, Anderson, as even if you can't be royalty, you can own a piece of a kingdom.
COOPER: I guess so. HILL: Yes.
COOPER: Erica, thanks very much.
Coming up, the State of the Union and our version of the Oscars. One who lost, what were they wearing?
You're watching 360.
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COOPER: A little bit more about the State of the Union. The president is on the road this week, selling the substance of it. But if you think that either the presidency or the speech is only about substance, well, think again. On to the style. Really, what's important. And in keeping with season, some awards. Just one thing about the name, it was all Tom Foreman's idea.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN: Hollywood is abuzz over "Brokeback," "Capote" and "Crash." But hold on, Oscar, it's "Cooper Time in the Capitol."
First up, best drama: Newly mentioned Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wins a Cooper for a cliffhanger. Watch how Alito struggled with the question of how much he should clap for the president. Not at all, a little, OK a little more. Give him a break. He hasn't even picked up his parking pass yet.
Best direction: The Republican and Democratic leadership. All right, I need everyone on the right side of the room to stand and clap like teenage girls at a Justin Timberlake concert. Great. Now, everyone on the left, act like you haven't noticed the most powerful man in the world is 20 feet away and talking to you.
Best walk on: Kathleen Blanco, the governor or the hurricane- stricken state of Louisiana.
Worst walk off: Anti-War Activist Cindy Sheehan, who got into the chamber for the speech, then got thrown out for displaying her t- shirt with an anti-war message before the president even arrived.
Best supporting role: The First Lady.
Worst support role: All the potential presidential hopefuls who were clearly thinking, my state of the union speech would have been so much better.
Most popular costumes: Blue suits for the guys, red for the gals.
And finally, best picture: Rex, a retired military working dog and his owner who was wounded in Iraq were awfully compelling. But no kidding, best picture goes to the family of Staff Sergeant Dan Clay, who was killed in Iraq. Amid all the political posturing, they were dignified, brave and got the longest ovation of the night. The only thing that could be improved, well, the "Coopers" could be called the "Tommy." But that aside, congratulations to all the winners. That's the State of the Union, that's your government, that's entertainment.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington,
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's kind of creepy to see Tom's talking head on top of that thing. Man.
"On the Radar," tonight, in the headlines tomorrow, the nuclear watch dogs or the IAEA, kick off an emergency meeting on Iran's nuclear program. It begins in just a few hours in Vienna. Iran is promising to restart large-scale uranium enrichment if IAEI inspectors refer the case to the U.S. Security Council.
I'm still stunned by those awards.
House and Senate negotiators will be working to craft a compromise on extending the Patriot Act. The original expires on Friday. Today, the House narrowly passed its own version of the sequel.
And with millions of confused and angry seniors trying to figure out which Medicare drug plan to sign up for, Congress is getting into the act. Hearings tomorrow, scheduled by the Senate's Special Committee on Aging. They're already getting an earful from constituents fed up with the program. All those in the headlines tomorrow, on our radar tonight.
We're going to have more of 360 in a moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, "LARRY KING" is next. Former President Jimmy Carter on the president's State of the Union address, Iraq and a lot more. Thanks for watching 360. I'll see you tomorrow.
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