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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Struggle to Survive Continues in Haiti; Looting and Violence Escalating in Haiti; Police Kill Man in Haiti Over Allegedly Stolen Rice
Aired January 23, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening from Port-au-Prince, where we continue to see things, some good, some bad that need to be shown and cannot be forgotten. We have seen, and you're going to see tonight in the hour ahead, rescues, people pulled alive from the rubble seemingly long beyond the body's capacity to endure, crews from all around the globe, men and women, ordinary Haitians, as well, risking their safety on shaky piles of broken buildings to save lives.
We've also seen, and you will see tonight, what all too often happens next, when the rescued and tens of thousands more who were hurt in the quake simply cannot get basic medical care. They've won the battle, and then death wins the war. We're beginning to see a big reason why, security. You'll see how our preoccupation with it may be slowing the movement of badly need supplies, of food and water and medical aid to those who need it.
We have seen, and you're going to see tonight, looting that took place this week and the innocent bystanders caught up in it all. And finally, you'll also see it in perspective. Yes, there is looting, but it is rare. It's not the rule, it is the exception. We'll also show you what we have been witnessing every day here, the orphans of this quake on top of so many orphans from before the quake, how they are surviving here now and how a few lucky kids made it out.
All of it and more in this special edition of 360, "Saving Haiti."
From around the world, rescue teams are here. They are all over this ruined city. You don't have to seek them out, you just have to walk down the streets. There have been incredible survival stories, a young boy 5 years old pulled from the rubble by his uncle, taken to general hospital. His name is Monle Elise (ph). Extremely dehydrated, in need of fluids, he survived for nearly eight days. Doctors say he has a very good chance of recovery.
And from near the National Cathedral, an elderly woman was saved. Thank God, she says, thank God, when she was pulled out of the rubble. Her name is Enna Szizi (ph). Her leg was broken. She needs surgery, but her team cannot find a surgeon. A helicopter arrives and took her to a U.S. Navy ship for treatment.
We witnessed another rescue effort, as well. This one involved a team from the Los Angeles Fire Department, a heroic struggle that took all day. Here is what we saw.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Minushka Polnis (ph) believes her daughter, Leika (ph), is alive, trapped in the rubble of this day care center.
(on camera): Have you heard your daughter?
(voice-over): Yes, she tell us, she heard her 10-year-old daughter just this morning. She's been trying to get someone to go through the building for four days. A search and rescue team from the LA County Fire Department has borrowed our interpreter, Vlad Dutier (ph), to call out for her daughter in French.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got (INAUDIBLE) Bring the dog.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) We got somebody. We got somebody. Quiet! We hear somebody.
COOPER: Believing they've heard a faint cry, the firefighters insert a listening device into the rubble. Vlad is told to tell the victim to tap three times on whatever is nearby.
(on camera): They've heard a very faint tapping sound. They think she's alive, but there's so much noise around, it's just very hard to tell. So now they're bringing in one of the dogs to see if the dog will pick up a scent.
(voice-over): Jasmin Seguar's (ph) dog is named Maverick, specially trained to pick up the smell of a living human trapped in debris.
(on camera): What happened with the dog?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Showing some interest, but not a strong alert of the sign of live human scent. He wasn't showing -- he isn't giving that to us.
COOPER (voice-over): It is possible for a living victim to be so deeply buried, the dog can't smell them, so the team decides to go further in.
(on camera): What they're doing right now is painstakingly difficult and dangerous. It's like moving around pieces of a jigsaw puzzle but a jigsaw puzzle that can fall on top of you and kill you or crush the person you're trying to save. They have to be very careful about what blocks they remove and in what order they remove them.
(voice-over): Unsure exactly which direction to dig, they once again try to get the little girl to tap.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell her to say something.
COOPER: Again, it seems they get a tapping response. A crowd gathers. So do others with pictures of their loved ones they believe may also be trapped inside. Another dog is brought in, a border collie named Hunter. Despite Minushka's silent prayers, Hunter finds nothing.
(on camera): They've now been at this for about three hours. The last dog that they brought in didn't get any hits.
(voice-over): But around the other side of the building, two firefighters have crawled into another small hole and are convinced that they've just heard something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What'd you hear? What'd you hear?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Definitely distinct.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Distinct tapping?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
COOPER: This is the best possible news. They've just gotten a tap. This little girl, or at least somebody, is alive down there. It's incredible.
What goes through your mind when you hear that sound after working on this for so many hours?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That it's time to go to work. It's time to go to work and move to see if we can find her, do our job.
COOPER: The clock is ticking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The clock is ticking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bolt cutter and snips.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
COOPER (voice-over): After seven hours on site, however, they stop hearing tapping. A third dog is brought in (INAUDIBLE) nothing alive (ph).
(on camera): Two hours ago or so, when you guys heard distinctive tapping...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
COOPER: ... is it possible that was just ambient noise?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It very well could have been.
COOPER: The other possibility is that a person expires, that they tap at one point and then they're no longer able to.
(voice-over): Their last hope is to lower several microphones in different parts of the building.
(on camera): They've now placed four microphones in separate locations on the ground floor, in the rubble. This is a critical moment. If they hear something, they'll continue working. If they don't get any response, they're going to stop the operation.
(voice-over): In the movies, this is when a small sound would be heard, a faint tap, a child's cry. But this is Haiti and this is real. And despite their best hopes, they hear no sound of life. They break the news to Minushka and the others. The search is over, they tell them. There's no one left alive.
After four days of waiting, crying and hoping and trying to get anyone to come to her aid, Minushka refuses to believe her daughter and her classmates are gone. The children aren't dead, she says. They might be in a coma, but they're alive. I believe they're still alive. Come by tomorrow and check for us, won't you please? The kids are alive. They aren't dead. I'll wait for you tomorrow.
Tomorrow, the team will not come back here. There are other buildings to check, other families still waiting. The searches go on, but on this site, they're done.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
That poor mom and so many poor moms just waiting for their loved ones to be pulled out of the rubble. And in this case, it was already too late.
I want to bring in Dr. Sanjay Gupta. I mean, how is it possible that a 5-year-old child can survive for eight days?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, no matter how you look at it, it's extraordinary. And this is something that's been studied quite a bit in medicine, looking at survival under extreme conditions. Books have been written about this sort of thing. The longest known documented survivor as an adult was a guy who got lost in the Sahara desert. And it was written about in this book called "Surviving Extremes," about eight days. He lost 33 pounds during that timeframe.
COOPER: Wow.
GUPTA: He needed 16 liters of fluid to rehydrate. Eyes were sunken back, and he looked -- and I mean, he looked like he was dead. That gives you an idea of what, you know, some of what you're seeing now here.
Children, you know, they tend to be a little bit more resilient than adults. They tend to be able to do things metabolically with their bodies to be able to survive this sort of thing. But again, no matter how you cut it, it's just an extraordinary thing.
You know, the thing about survival, now you have all these things, the concerns about preventable deaths, people who were injured in the earthquake. They didn't die, but they were so injured that they could possibly die. And that -- that's the thing you and I have talked about, this idea that you need medical supplies to save them.
COOPER: Well, you -- I mean, even the people who were pulled out of the rubble who survived getting pulled out, sometimes they -- we've seen them die because they don't get enough medical supplies.
GUPTA: That's right. You -- they -- you know, you have people who died and people who lived but were extremely injured. And I think that's why the focus has been on medical attention for some time. But I think -- I think you and I would agree, it doesn't seem like it's been enough to be able to treat those people.
And I was really curious about the supplies. Where are they? How are they actually getting to people? We know they're at the airport. Why aren't the people seeing them? I took a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
It's like everywhere we go -- I'm just walking through the airport even, outside the airport, people are saying, We need supplies. How do we get them? We know they're in there. How do we get them out here? And that's -- people just keep asking me that same question over and over again.
All right, so now we're going to go into the airport here and see if the next step of this works or not. Just take a look out here at all the people that are waiting. I mean, I can tell you that a lot of people are waiting because they're simply hoping that some of these supplies may get outside the airport and to them.
OK, we're now in the airport. It took about five minutes to get in here. We're in the airport. Give you an idea -- I mean, obviously, the airport itself is still very, very desolate inside. But we're going to get to the airstrip. That's where we're hearing so many of these supplies are.
I don't know if you can hear me or not, but when we talk about all these supplies sitting here, just take a look -- I mean, boxes and boxes of supplies, all kinds of different -- there's formula in there, there's antibiotics, pain medications, all sorts of different things.
I'm just wondering if I can get some antibiotics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll walk you over there and...
GUPTA: Should we check in here first?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, let's go over here and walk around (INAUDIBLE)
GUPTA: They seem very much like they want to help. I'm going to see if we can get some antibiotics, at least, to try and take care of these kids. And we'll find out. There is a lot of supplies here, though.
We're able to basically walk into a couple of these tents, tell people what we needed and get lots of supplies here, lots of antibiotics, lots of pain medication, all sorts of things to try and treat so many of the injuries that we've seen. These are medications that people haven't had up until now. Took us about 15 minutes. We got a bunch of it. We're going to try and distribute it to the hospitals.
Basically, just went into the airport and just tried to take as many of the things that we thought you guys would need, based on what the twins (ph) were telling us. So some of this is probably -- broad- spectrum antibiotics...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very good.
GUPTA: ... lots of different pain medications. All that screaming this morning? Hopefully, you can...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll take care of that.
GUPTA: Glad we could help. All right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sanjay, thanks.
GUPTA: You're welcome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
GUPTA: So we came here today and we were able to pick up some of those supplies ourselves. We just asked people, and they gave them to us. We wanted to take them to that hospital and give it to them because kids, adults, as well, need this stuff today. Does that surprise you, what I just described to you?
COL. BEN MCMULLEN, U.S. AIR FORCE: There is stuff here waiting to be taken out. That's a true statement. Is it a lot? I can't speak to it. I will tell you the reason you probably got it is because everybody on this field, specifically the U.S. government side, is dedicated to getting as much stuff outside as they can.
Does it totally surprise me that some are doing without? No, it doesn't, not totally. Do I hope it gets better? Without a doubt. We're doing our part to get things out there and certainly get things into the airport. And it -- and it -- and it is -- it's a shame because you would hope that everything could get out there within seconds. But that kind of infrastructure just isn't in place.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: I mean, it's amazing that, you know, you can just go in and get it. There's a lot of good people. There's not any individual who doesn't want to hand out supplies. Everybody is here because they want to be here, they want to hand out supplies. They want the aid distributed. But there seems to be this bottleneck.
GUPTA: Absolutely. And you know, the stuff is getting to the airport. So the people who are responsible for that, including that colonel you just heard from, they say, Look, we're doing our job. Two thousand flights have landed here over the last few days. A hundred and fifty of them were for security, everything else was medical and health-related in some way. So that part of it's happening. But then you're supposed to show up at the airport with an ID, with a lot number, go collect your stuff, take it out on a truck. And somewhere in that whole process, this is all just simply breaking down.
But you know, you walked around the city a bit today. So did I. You know, you have 300 food and water stations now around the city. There were 30 just a few days ago -- 600,000 MREs have been handed out. So some of the basic necessities are being met. But these medical requirements -- I mean, again, you know, as we've talked about, Anderson, days and hours -- or hours and minutes is how you measure the progress, and it's just not happening fast enough.
COOPER: Right. And it is costing lives. There's no doubt about it. Sanjay, appreciate it. Thanks.
Just ahead tonight, the people who are fleeing Port-au-Prince by any means necessary, perhaps one of the iconic moments of this tragedy, a makeshift flotilla, people rowing out to sea, trying to reach an overcrowded ferry. Ivan Watson was there, his account both uplifting, and frankly, pretty terrifying, when our special report continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's impossible to overstate the sense of indignity here. These are the poorest people in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. They lived in a public old age home for indigent people. It was very basic to begin with. Now they're outside. There's absolutely no plan for what's going be done with these people next.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That was Gary Tuchman reporting from a nursing home where elderly residents were now living outside. They now have some much- needed supplies, but they don't have enough. They don't have caregivers. They need some international aid group to come in and really just help them out. They are in a desperate, desperate situation.
There's some three million people here in need of food and water, shelter and medical care. At the port this past week, thousands were taking desperate measures to flee Port-au-Prince to try to get to other parts of Haiti, rowing out to sea in small, overloaded boats to reach a ferry. Ivan Watson saw the chaos firsthand.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chaotic crowds in the port of Port-au-Prince, thousands of Haiti's new hordes of homeless have been gathering here, within sight of American ships anchored far offshore. Nearly all these people have seen their houses destroyed. Some lost loved ones. They have all been sleeping for days on this filthy, quake-damaged wharf, waiting for a ship to take them out of the city.
This is where we meet Annette Clement (ph) and her daughter, Anaika (ph).
(on camera): And they spent several days sleeping out here. They say they moved up to this hill after this morning's aftershocks because it was so terrifying. And they're just sitting here waiting, desperate for a ship to take them to another part of Haiti. And she says she doesn't know how many days they're going to stay here.
(voice-over): When a rusting blue ferry finally does pull into sight, families jump on wooden rowboats. An armada of dangerously overloaded dingies sets out for the ferry, launching a chaotic scramble aboard the ship, parents passing babies up a floating assembly line. The Haitian government gave away fuel to provide free transport to the port of Jeremie, but officials left out one crucial detail.
(on camera): Has anybody offered you any help with crowd control of these thousands of desperate people?
ROGER ROUZIER, SHIP OWNER: No. We have no crowd control whatsoever. We are trying ourselves to control this crowd, but it's impossible.
WATSON (voice-over): The ferry is licensed to carry 600 passengers, but on board there must be thousands. With few lifeboats, this could be another disaster waiting to happen. But it's here that we spot a familiar face.
(on camera): A nice little surprise here. We came across little Anaika and her mother, who made it on board.
(voice-over): Against all odds, they got on board and plan to travel to an aunt's house in a safer part of the country. Amid this anarchy, a moment of joy and relief, a little girl and her mother are about to escape their shattered city.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's incredible. And that was clearly a dangerous situation, all those people in boats like that without kind of any supervision.
WATSON: Absolutely, and just a sign of how much people are just trying to escape from this town. There was going to be a 12-hour trip that they would be setting out on. I don't know the results of that trip yet.
I do know there were some positive developments on Thursday, and that is that one of the piers that had been badly damaged at the port has been fixed, and a first delivery of aid from a military ship arrived. And that's a lifeline for the city.
COOPER: Yes, big difference, because ships -- and big ships couldn't come up and actually docking and offload supplies, which would have speeded things up days ago.
WATSON: Absolutely. And the main supply routes for Port-au-Prince have been, since the earthquake, the airport, which has been jammed up, and coming over land from the Dominican Republic, which is...
COOPER: Which takes a lot of time.
WATSON: ... just inefficient.
COOPER: A lot of time. I mean, this week, looking back, what's really stuck out in your mind?
WATSON: Well, I was encouraged to see the U.S. military involved in really bringing in some aid at one location, a golf course that's turned into a giant displaced persons camp. And they just have the lift power...
COOPER: Right.
WATSON: ... to bring in helicopters every 10 minutes...
COOPER: And the logistics...
(CROSSTALK)
WATSON: Exactly.
COOPER: It's always impressive when, suddenly, you see the military come in. And you're, like, Oh, this is how it's done.
WATSON: And the ability to control crowds of thousands and thousands and thousands of hungry, thirsty people, as well. Another thing in that camp that was really remarkable -- people have lost everything, very ingenious at starting businesses in the camp.
COOPER: Yes. Absolutely.
WATSON: There are bazaars there, even people who've set up a -- you pay 50 cents, the equivalent, and you can charge your cell phone there...
COOPER: Yes.
WATSON: ... off of car batteries.
COOPER: I was in a camp in Laogone a couple days ago, and somehow had set up -- I mean, there were little markets set up. Someone had set up a little phone booth, and they would charge -- you could make an international phone call. It was, like, You can actually make an international? He was, like, yes. It was -- you know, in the middle of this makeshift tent encampment. It was just incredibly ingenious.
WATSON: I think the greatest hope for Haiti is probably the private sector...
COOPER: Right.
WATSON: ... it seems like. And we visited one radio station that kind of took over providing, disseminating information...
COOPER: Right.
WATSON: ... when the government was paralyzed...
COOPER: Right.
WATSON: ... and the cell phone network was down. And they just created systems allowing people to call in from Internet lines from the States...
COOPER: Haitians find a way...
WATSON: ... Haitians...
COOPER: They find a way...
(CROSSTALK)
WATSON: ... people on the ground here.
COOPER: And there have been generations of Haitians who've grown up without a central government that they could rely on, and they have to rely on themselves. And I mean, I think that's ultimately what is going to pull this nation through. Ivan, appreciate, as always, the reporting.
Haiti had an 350,000 orphans before the quake. Now there are even more. What's being done to save these kids? That's what's next on this special 360, "Saving Haiti."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: This room is filled with patients who are awaiting surgery. Essentially, they're awaiting amputations. They have infections which are spreading through their body and which can kill them if they don't have a limb removed quickly. The problem is there's not enough operating rooms to accommodate all the people they have. They have the doctors and the nurses, they just don't have the supplies.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Well, that's what life is like in Haiti after the quake. Besides the severe physical injuries, a lot of these kids have lost one or both parents. Gary Tuchman's been reporting on the plight of orphans, really since arriving after the earthquake.
And I mean, there's nothing sadder, nothing breaks your heart more than -- not only these kids who had no parents before the quake, but this whole new generation of kids now who are going to be growing up without their parents.
TUCHMAN: Yes. Who knows what's going to happen? I mean, we saw a little boy laying down on a cot at a hospital. An older woman was sitting next to the boy. I thought it was his grandmother. Turns out she didn't even know the little boy. He has serious injuries. His parents were killed. And no one knows what to do with him.
But another part of the story is the orphans from before. And there was a lot of concern, these orphans from before, who are in the middle of an adoption process with American parents, would not be adopted at all because their papers were destroyed in the earthquake. But we found out something much different that just happened a couple of days ago. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): We arrived at the Bresma orphanage three days after the earthquake. It seemed remarkable. None of the orphans were crying. But we also noticed they weren't smiling. Two sisters from Pittsburgh who ran the orphanage were nervous and upset. The children's adoption papers had been destroyed in the quake. They didn't know what they were going to do.
JAMIE MCMURTRIE, BRESMA ORPHANAGE: Their paperwork was in government offices downtown, and the offices are crumbled.
TUCHMAN: Though we didn't know it until later, our trip to the orphanage triggered two amazing coincidences. This is what I said on the air at the time.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(on camera): There are fears the rest of the orphanage could collapse because of the frequent aftershocks we're having. So the decision has been made to leave these children outside 24 hours a day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): The little girl in my lap is the first coincidence. A woman in Denver, Elizabeth Dowling, happened to be watching and she was stunned. The littler girl is Jenna (ph), and Jenna was the girl that Elizabeth was adopting.
ELIZABETH DOWLING, JENNA'S MOM: It's been exhausting. And going from terrifying to, you know, seeing her on TV was amazing, to see she was OK, and then not to know if she was going to be safe at this orphanage and...
TUCHMAN: But the very next night, Jenna and four other children from orphanage were approved to move to America and start new lives. I got to say good-bye to Jenna at the Port-au-Prince airport before she and the others boarded an Air Force C-17 for a trip to Florida. Their new parents would meet them there.
Jenna and her mom would no longer be separated. Thursday night, mother and daughter flew to Denver, where Jenna made her grand entrance into her own bedroom. And how does Elizabeth feel?
DOWLING: I can exhale and get used to it and start a little routine.
TUCHMAN: As for the second coincidence, while we were at the orphanage, a couple from Kansas reached out to our producers at AC 360 in New York and told them they were looking for information about the boy they were adopting. So they called us, and we found him.
MCMURTRIE: This is Alexander.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How's he doing?
MCMURTRIE: He's doing good. ROSS HASKELL, ALEXANDER'S DAD: Well, I guess I've got mixed emotions. I'm incredibly happy to see him. And I'm also terribly worried.
TUCHMAN: Two nights after that Alexander and 53 other children from the orphanage were driven to the U.S. embassy. They did not all have approval to leave but ultimately each child received permission and now Alexander is home too in Kansas with his mom and dad Jean Griffith and Ross Haskell.
JEAN GRIFFITH, ALEXANDER'S MOM: I just kissed him and hugged him and checked him out and made sure to myself that he was OK.
TUCHMAN: These children never would have made it to their new parents so quickly if not for this earthquake. A silver lining from this immense tragedy.
ANDERSON COOPER, ANDERSON COOPER 630 HOST: So, how are the kids doing?
TUCHMAN (on camera): The kinds are doing really well. Fifty four children are in now the United States. Forty two of them are with their new parents. The other 12 were not far enough in the adoption process. So, they are in foster care which is not necessarily good news. But here's a really interesting development, the women we just told you about Jamie and Ali McMurtrie, they have been in Haiti for years taking care of these orphans. They have decided now that all their kids are in Pittsburgh to go to Pittsburgh and start a foster home in Pittsburgh, so they will be the foster parents for these 12 kids until they move to their new parents' house which could be six months to a year and a half.
COOPER: Wow! That is great, very incredible.
TUCHMAN: Yes.
COOPER: And you know, one of the things we noticed this week just all these kids who has now with their parents, have lost their parents in the quake. And there is really not a system in place kind to deal with them and hopefully that is something that, you know, aid agencies, the Red Cross is going to start dealing with, not only reuniting parents with their lost kids but figure out, you know, I guess, new orphanages or new ways to deal with these kids.
TUCHMAN: There is so much chaos here. And it is hard to imagine how this will all work. Ultimately will have to work because you do have so many children right now in Port-au-Prince who are orphaned or we don't know where their parents are. But there is no system in place right now. We've asked officials what they are you going to do and they say, obviously, we want to do something but we have so many problems.
COOPER: Yes, there are strong bonds of family here and, you know, a history of extended families taking in kids that we don't have.
TUCHMAN: We were at a marketplace, the Caribbean market actually huge, it was a beautiful grocery store. We met a young man out there who was babysitting for a little girl, baby sitting for his friends. The parents of the little girl. The parents were killed in the market. And he had the little girl. And I said, are there any other relatives? And she said, I don't know, I don't what I'm going to do with this little girl. It turns out another very close a friend of the parents has taken the little girl. It is not legal but right now that's what going on.
COOPER: Yes, there is a lot of that, just families opening up. Gary, thanks very much.
Up next, tension on the streets of Port-au-Prince. We saw this past week, looting, a child caught in the middle. It can turn very ugly, very quickly when water and food and other needed supplies are nowhere to be found. I show what happened when we got caught in the middle of a looting melee. This Special Report continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone, I'm Don Lemon live here at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Let me give you your headlines at this hour. A clerk has been found alive in the rubble of this hotel in Haiti. Wismond Jean Pierre was buried for almost 12 days after the earthquake destroyed much of Port-au-Prince. A French rescue team found him today and pulled him out just a few hours ago. Jean-Pierre was a clerk in the hotel Napoli Inn when the building collapsed. He was trapped in a small space. Doctors say, except for dehydration, he has no serious injuries.
It was one of the most dangerous Iraqi provinces for American forces, today U.S. marines officially pulled out of Anbar province wrapping up a seven-year mission in that region. Some U.S. army soldiers will remain posted in Anbar but today's pullout is considered a big step in the complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
I'm Don Lemon and those are your headlines. And Anderson Cooper's Special Best Report "Saving Haiti" continues right now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, there was a lot of fear of widespread looting in Haiti days ago. We really have not seen that. In fact, it is really amazing how tolerant and patient many Haitians have been, most Haitians have been just trying to wait for food and aid to arrive. There have been incidents though and we were caught in the middle of one in Port-au-Prince several days ago. A store had been broken into. And what started off is just a few people looting from the store quickly grew in just something else very different. We want to warn you what you're about to see is there are some graphic images, but it is very real and we think it must be told.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over) On Center Street in downtown Port-au-Prince, today a warning on how bad things can get. Haitian police fire in the air trying to scare off looters who broken to damage (INAUDIBLE). (on camera) There are two Haitian police officers on the street corner but they are kind of standing by and watching. They are protecting a building over there. They don't really want to get involved what's going on over here at this point. They don't have enough police officers on scene. So, it has become kind of a free-for-all. Kind of word is spreading in this neighborhood that there are items available. They are climbing up and grabbing whatever they can. This can turn ugly very very quickly.
(voice-over) They are not taking food. They are stealing boxes of candles. The young men on the roof take control and start charging others on the ground to receive these stolen goods. Tony Bennett an American businessman tries to keep the looting from spreading.
Do you own one of these stores?
TONY BENNETT, AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN: I own two of these stores. I came down with some weapons, you know, we just trying to shoot them in the air. I'm going to have them shoot a couple of rounds. It is getting out of hand.
(INAUDIBLE)
Just here in the air, yes.
COOPER: Tony signals for the police officer to fire in the air. It seems to work for a few seconds but not much more than that. A policeman then tries to use a piece of wood to control the crowd.
(on camera) This police officer is trying to insist they return to candles that they have been stealing and that they come down but they are not listening. The looters are just sitting on top of the building basically waiting for this police officer to leave.
(voice-over) It doesn't take long. The block is now in the hands of the looters.
(on camera) The American businessman Tony has blocked off the street in front of his business which is just about 300 feet away from where the main looting is occurring right now. So, he's used whatever debris he could find here on an old table, some crates, pieces of vehicles and they've closed off this entire street. He has those two Haitian police officers with him here protecting his store. They have been able to bring in a truck and they were quickly loading as many of the food supplies from his store into that truck and then they are going to take it away before the looters can get to it.
Now, I don't know how widespread this is in this commercial area in Port-au-Prince, I have only been in this one spot. But from here, I can tell you, I can see about 400 feet in that direction, and they're looting there as well.
(voice-over) As supplies started to dwindle at the store of the candles, the looters become even more determined to get what they can.
(on camera) The mood here is definitely starting to shift. Early on there were a lot more women. Right now, it is really young men and we're starting to see people walking around now with weapons which we weren't seeing before.
(voice-over) A fight breaks out between a gang of men trying to steal from another man. One looter uses his belt to whip the man.
(on camera) Now, somebody takes away something, others will try to grab it. It is basically a battle between to see who is stronger. You can just see a chunk of concrete or rock thrown by one of the looters in the roof. A young boy is hit in the head. That is him on the ground captured on my TV camera. If he stays there he might get killed. I pick him up and carry him to the barricade. Blood is pouring from his head. He is clearly stunned and can't walk. Come here.
(PEOPLE SHOUTING)
I hand him over the barricade. He is carried away. In the end, the store is emptied, the looters move on just down the street. We don't know what happened to that little boy. All we know now is there is blood in the streets.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(on camera) We don't know what happened to that little boy. We haven't been able to contact him at all. We hope he is OK. We think he is.
Chris Lawrence has been tracking the flow of aid and I mean, how is this going from your assessment?
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think it is going a little bit better now than it was even just, you know, a few days ago. I mean, getting that port reopened is a huge deal because we're on an island. We are surrounded by water and yet all the aid we've been seeing has been coming by ground or by air. And there is so much aid that can be off loaded by these huge containers that hasn't been able to get in because the port wasn't open.
But now, they've got it open. Only one truck can go in at a time, so it is a lot slower than normal. But I think, it is going to open up an entire new avenue to get that aid out. And we were here today. We saw an actual charity pick up medical supplies, take it back to their charity and in a couple of hours, they were actually cleaning out wounds with real antiseptic and things like that.
COOPER: And that is the way it should work. And now, there's also the "Comfort" ship offshore. This vessel which, I think it has like a thousand bed hospital and they're already taking patients.
LAWRENCE: And I think, the two things we really need to keep our eye on are that the decisions being made here onshore about who goes out to the "Comfort." It's only a thousand beds because if they get somebody out there who's got a broken finger, they have to keep that person onboard taking up space until they get them an airlift out somewhere else. Another thing is the agreements that they're trying to work out with hospitals in the U.S. and Latin America because they can only keep so many. I mean, you've seen the amount of people who need real medical care.
COOPER: They are performing operations still in parks, in just in public parks, out in the open.
LAWRENCE: Yes.
COOPER: You go into some of these makeshift tent encampments and you look behind the tents and there are people there opened up, they performed surgery, they performed out and many more waiting.
LAWRENCE: With no anesthesia.
COOPER: Right, yes. I mean, I've never seen anything like that.
LAWRENCE: Yes.
COOPER: Chris Lawrence, I appreciate you're reporting as always.
Up next, chaos, confusion, gun fire. Police shoot two men in the back. Why? We'll find out when this special edition of "360" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: An expression of faith we saw on a street corner in Port-au- Prince. We were just driving by. That woman and her family and friends were out on the corner, some of them were sleeping there. They were singing and dancing and expressing their joy of being alive and their faith in God. We've seen wherever you go in Port-au-Prince, there are a lot of scenes like that. People here are strong and they're proud. You know, there was a lot of talk about widespread looting and chaos.
We have seen very little of that, very little violence and anger from people who in many cases have the right to be angry. This week, we did see gun fire and death out here in the airport and conjunction with five bags of rice. We want to warn, it's very hard to look at some of the images you are about to see are very disturbing but they are important. This is what really happened.
Karl Penhaul saw it with his own eyes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
Karl Penhaul, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As we drove up to this busy crossroads just beyond the Port-au-Prince airport, we spot two Haitian police officers detaining two young men. Then a single shot rang out.
(on camera) As we were stopping the truck, more shots rang out and we clearly saw the two detainees falling to the ground.
(voice-over) This is where we began rolling our camera.
(on camera) As we got here to the spot, it became apparent that the incident was somehow connected to bags of rice.
(voice-over) Both men lie bleeding, both shot in the back by the police. We saw one officer firing shots while his captive was on the ground. The 20-year-old Gentile Cherie, is gasping for breath. He is dying. The other young man is unable to stand. He is stunned by speaking. He says, they didn't steal the rice. They were not looting. "The cops jumped on us." "It was a gift. It was a gift," he says again and again. Five bags of rice has scattered nearby. "A truck stopped and we jumped on and the driver gave us the rice as a gift but the cop shot us," he says.
This patrolman was one of three involved. He won't answer. Minutes after this police area commissioner arrives. I asked him if the police have a shoot to kill order for suspected looters. "Nobody can do this in any country even if somebody was stealing a bag of rice. Nobody has a right to do this," he says. He promises to investigate and says he is calling an ambulance. We wait. No ambulance arrives. Passing United Nations peacekeepers stop a truck and load the wounded man aboard. A small crowd carries another wounded man.
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
He says, he was waiting for the bus when he took a stray bullet in the side. He tells us he is a Christian minister who was going home after applying for a job as a policeman. We asked around in the small shops, witnesses told us nobody was looting. This store owner says, the rice bags fell from the truck and passers by simply picked them up. Two and a half hours after the shooting and Gentile Cherie's body was still on the sidewalk. Nearby his mother had come to grieve.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(on camera) Now, Anderson, of course, once we'd seen that scene we asked the area police commissioner who was on the scene. But then, we might every effort, we send a cnn team to the interior minister to ask them if there is a shoot to kill policy in place. Now, as you know, over the last few days, it has been nye impossible to find any represented the Haitian government. They really have not step up to the plate. We couldn't find anybody there. We then went down to the big police commissioner's headquarters. Nobody there either could tell us if there is a shoot to kill policy in place. Of course, we'll continue to try and find out.
COOPER: There was a big concern about widespread looting. I mean, you and I were involved in a melee a couple of days ago. In terms of the big pictures though, are you surprised there hasn't been more?
PENHAUL: I really have. And really based on previous experience, I was here in 2008 in the previous flooding in the City of Gonaives at the farther north. And there, as soon as the aid started get out, then rioting started, the looting started, the gang structures at that stage was still very much in place as well. I think what is going on...
COOPER: They had a huge gang problem a couple of years ago. PENHAUL: Exactly, but as we know United Nations peacekeepers have made big inroads. It's not been a big disarmament program. They have caught some of those gang leaders. They are in prison. Although, down in that looting, you and I in the other day, it was quite clear, it was a kind of a gang structure in place there. But certainly not the big kind of problem as they was in the past. Of course, the gangs not only played a criminal role in the past but also political role. So, that was really my question. Are the gangs really going to take on some political role, they're taking advantage of this political vacuum because we are not seeing the Haitian government.
COOPER: I have talked to a lot of aid groups and they say, look, you know, some places security is a problem that you go through, in some places is not. But in terms of food distribution as long as you are organize and at work with your community in advance, things you can often go very smoothly if you know what you are doing and you know how to do it.
PENHAUL: Exactly, I was speaking to people with Care International, and they was saying, one of the key things here is maybe not even to use security force members to hand out but delegate this responsibility to the Haitian people.
COOPER: Right.
PENHAUL: Because in the past, you can't help feeling that there has been a parallel bureaucracy here, the U.N. or NGO's are coming with the best will in the world not by mistake but set they up their own kind of semi government and then the Haitian government alongside who aren't running those aid funds. It is kind of who really is in control in Haiti.
COOPER: Fascinating Karl. I appreciate it. I appreciate your reporting Karl.
And up next. Haiti's newest orphans. Their parents dead in the quake. Some of these kids seriously injured. What happens to them? What happens to them if they survive and their injuries are treated? What then? That's ahead. "Saving Haiti" continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: More than a week and a half after the quake, the odds of finding another survivor like the 5-year-old boy Monley Elize are growing very slim. We told you about Monley the other night. Finding him exposed a growing problem. Kids, whose parents have died, killed in the earthquake but there is really not a system yet in place to take of them. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over) Outside the crumbling pediatric ward at General Hospital, a nurse sings of God and grace. You can't hear the singing inside the pediatric tents because Wanda Smiley (ph) can't stop screaming. She's 11-years-old, her legs are broken. No one is sure exactly what else is wrong. Nearby a little boy with a broken leg sits silently watching it all. His name is Johnny. He doesn't know his last name. His parents are dead. He has no clothes and nowhere else to go.
DR. MARIE FRANCE CONDE: Right now he has a broken leg, broken femur as well as broken several fractures on that leg. But no one is here for him.
COOPER (on camera): What will happen to him?
CONDE: Last night I did not sleep thinking about Johnny. Because I got up, I said, maybe I should take Johnny home. And I said, I know it is not going to be possible.
COOPER (voice-over): For kids whose parents are dead there is no clear system that is part of the planning that needs to be done.
CONDE: We don't have much. That's all we have.
COOPER: Dominique Toussaint, the Haitian American nurse from Harlem doesn't cry in front of the children but outside the tent, she is overcome by it all.
Dominique TOUSSAINT, HAITIAN AMERICAN NURSE: Everybody has infections. It seems as though to me like they are going to eventually die. I don't even have someplace to wash my hands. I have one bottle of hand sanitizer. We can't do anything under sterile technique, it's impossible not to have, you know, horrible infections, you know, the medications we're giving them, we could use some stronger medications. We don't have them.
COOPER (on camera): It also seems like eleven medications, that the supplies you do have are not geared for children.
TOUSSAINT: They are not. I just went to get an oxygen tank. It took forever to get the tank. It took forever to get a mask. The mask we have is probably too big to fit on my face. We have our needles and syringes but too long. We have nothing for the kids. It is like the kids are forgotten almost.
COOPER: It is like the kids are forgotten.
TOUSSAINT: Yes. So, we are just doing the best we can. I mean, it is frustrating. I'm just -- I'm overwhelmed.
COOPER (voice-over): It is overwhelming for nurses and children the injured keep coming. There's no space to be had.
(on camera) There's no space to be had. So many kids in need right now here in Haiti. That does it for this Special Edition of "360." We are going to be here tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that. For all of us here and back home at cnn, thanks for watching.
