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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
U.S. General and His Troops Quarantined after Ebola Aid Trip; CDC Recommends Home Quarantine for Health Care Workers; New Details About Deadly Shooting in Washington State; ISIS Releases New Video; Lava Flow Threatens Hawaiian Town
Aired October 27, 2014 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, tonight. Thanks for joining us.
There is breaking news on this hour on Ebola on the U.S. military taking new steps to quarantine troops on the fight over states like New York and New Jersey quarantining civilians and this out of the Baltimore, Washington area.
The University Of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore now says it's evaluating and caring for a potential Ebola patient. No word on who the patient is, male or female or his or her circumstances. We are going to have more on that to learn in just a moment.
There's also breaking news as well on another potential case of it that tugged a lot of heartstrings today. A 5-year-old boy just back in New York from Guinea taken to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital in a biohazard equipped ambulance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: We did the caution thing and brought the child in under the full protocol.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I can just imagine what it must be like for that little boy, for his family, from people across the city and country who have been struggling with how to come to grips with Ebola.
Tonight Miguel Marquez with the breaking news on the boy's condition.
Jim Acosta on the New York and New Jersey quarantine battle.
And Barbara Starr with new rules for troops coming back from West Africa. We begin with Barbara Starr.
So exactly, how is the army planning to deal with soldiers and others returning from serving in Liberia or Guinea or Sierra Leone?
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Anderson.
The U.S. army took an extraordinary step today and ordered that all army troops, all soldiers returning from West Africa will go into what they are calling controlled monitoring, what the rest of us might call a 21-day quarantine.
They're housed separately, their temperature will be monitored, they will not be allowed to see their families. They will have to stay inside during that 21-day period. Already a two-star General, General Darrell Williams and about a dozen of his folks are just back from Africa are undergoing this monitoring, this quarantine in Italy at their home base now, the store opened to all U.S. army troops doing this.
And General Williams and his team right now are said to be completely asymptomatic. None of them are showing symptoms of Ebola. The army says it is doing this out of an abundance of caution, but this is really way beyond what the Pentagon had even laid out as the steps for those having no symptoms for when they come back from their duty assignments.
COOPER: All right, Barbara Starr, thanks very much for that.
The test results on the 5-year-old boy in New York's Bellevue Hospital note, Miguel Marquez is there with that. What have we learned, Miguel?
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, fortunately they're negative for now. The young boy and his mother will remain here at Bellevue and he will go through undergo more tests in the days ahead to make sure that it remains negative. So for now he will stay in the same containment in that isolation unit here at Bellevue.
He came on Saturday night from Guinea. They've been there for about a month. On Sunday, he began to get sick and that's what they brought him here.
The one thing that both the CDC and the mayor of New York said that's throughout the day is that he it did not appear that his symptoms were like Ebola. He apparently seemed to have the vomiting and the diarrhea first, then the fever came on, when he came -- when he came to the hospital. So they didn't think it was Ebola, but because they want to be completely cautious, they tested him. It came out negative so far. They going to keep him here for further tests to make sure that he's completely Ebola-free -- Anderson.
COOPER: And what's the latest on Dr. Craig Spencer?
MARQUEZ: He remains here at Bellevue as well in serious but stable condition. He has had a plasma transfusion from Nancy Writebol who survived the Ebola, who you interviewed and who survived Ebola. He has also his symptoms to have begun to get worse, but he is remaining in a stable condition, so they think that he took the plasma well, and they're hopeful that he'll eventually survive-- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Miguel, I appreciate that update.
In fact, I'm going to talk to Nancy Writebol and her husband David, who are those missionaries from Liberia. Nancy, as Miguel said, did test positive for Ebola. She was treated at Emory University and she has recovered fully and has been able to first time donate her plasma. So I'll talk to her about that process, coming up in a few minutes.
The CDC today announced new guidelines recommending voluntary home quarantine for the people at the highest risk for Ebola infection. Now, that includes health care workers who suffer a needle stick, for instance, while caring for an Ebola patient or who treated someone while not in protective gear. Most health care workers including most returning from West Africa would only need daily monitoring, not isolation.
They will contrast that with what nurse Kaci Hickox encountered under tough rules laid out by New York and New Jersey last week. She was taken from Newark airport to a hospital where she was in a kept in a bio-containment tent in face 21-days mandatory quarantine even though she showed no symptoms whatsoever.
Tonight, after weekend of outcry from disease fighting professionals from experts advising New York Governor Cuomo and President Obama, nurse -- the nurse was allowed to leave the hospital and continue her quarantine at home in Maine.
More now from Jim Acosta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The White House today slammed Governor Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo for going too far in their new quarantine policy. Christie first offered no apologies.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW YORK: I think this is a policy that will become National Policy sooner rather than later.
ACOSTA: But then he freed Nurse Kaci Hickox after she protested her confinement in a tent at a New Jersey hospital.
CHRISTIE: I think the first thing is that why do your saying I'm reversing? If she was continuing to be ill she have to stay. She had no any symptoms for 24 hours and she tested negative for Ebola, so there's no reason to keep her.
ACOSTA: White House officials refused to say whether they were ever consulted.
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: What I'm telling you Jim is I'm not going to be in a position to detail all of the phone calls.
ACOSTA: And they would not say whether the nurse's rights were violated.
EARNEST: Per service and commitment to this cause is something that should be honored and respected. And I don't think we do that by making her live in a tent for two or three days.
ACOSTA: Despite new CDC guidelines on how to deal with those returning health care workers, the Obama Administration is leaving it up to the states, some already stepping forward to come up with their own policies.
ACOSTA: In states where people intense, they can do that.
EARNEST: Well, subject to the laws of these individual states. What we hope and what we think has been true in the vast majority of circumstances is that these kinds of policy decisions should be driven by science.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Jim Acosta joins us from the White House. That -- I mean, isn't what's happening inside the Pentagon only adding to this confusion now?
ACOSTA: It really is. You heard Barbara Starr talking about what the army is doing, those extraordinary steps the army is taking right now. Anderson, that is separate and apart from an overarching quarantine policy that the Pentagon is looking at right now.
The Pentagon has not made a decision on that. The White House said earlier today that they're anticipating that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will announce that policy when they get to it. But when you add to that all these states with these different Ebola quarantine policies, potentially you have a real hodgepodge.
COOPER: Where is the so-called Ebola czar, Ron Klain during all of these?
ACOSTA: Yes, he's been something about a television or a press quarantine you might serve over the last week in a half since he was tapped as the President's Ebola response coordinator. He really has not been in front of the cameras at all. We have not seen him publicly since he came on the job last Wednesday. He is expected to go to the CDC this week to talk to officials down there.
But Anderson, today was one of those cases where you have all these different states saying what do we do? And the CDC coming out with new guidelines which really fall short of what New York and New Jersey tried to accomplish. And then the White House acknowledged earlier today that the CDC doesn't really have the enforcement capacity to make these states adopt these new guidelines.
So really, this was a case in point where an Ebola response coordinator could come out publicly and sort of calm things down and say, OK, this is what we're going to do. But at this point they're just not using Ron Klain in that capacity. They say that his role will be more behind the scenes coordinating the responses from these various agencies of the Federal Government. We're just going to see him that much publicly.
COOPER: All right, Jim Acosta, thanks for that.
Today, the state of Georgia also announced new guidelines. And I want to dig deeper into the question of whether routinely quarantining health care workers or troops for that matter coming into this country will do more or less to contain the spread of Ebola in either West Africa or ultimately here at home. Because that's the most important thing, containing the outbreak not just here in the United States, most importantly in West Africa. That's the only way to finally really keep us safe.
Sophie Delaunay, joins us now. She is Executive Director of Doctors Without Borders or MSF, Medecins Sans Frontieres. Thank you so much for being with us.
SOPHIE DELAUNAY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MSF / MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES: Thank you very much.
COOPER: Doctors Without Borders does extraordinary work all over the world. I've worked with them a lot over the years. Why is it from a science standpoint this quarantine make no sense?
DELAUNAY: Well, we're not just concerned about the quarantine, we're totally opposed to it. And the three main reasons for that. The first reason is that it is not based on medical science. And we -- we feel that -- we've learned by experience that's the best way, the most effective way to tackle infectious disease like HIV is transparency, is education. The population need to be informed about the risk. They need to be in a capacity to protect themselves. And the quarantine is actually misguiding and providing the false sense of security.
COOPER: You're saying it's not based on science because somebody who has no symptoms of Ebola cannot transmit the virus?
DELAUNAY: Exactly. So quarantine of a healthy aid worker who presents no symptoms, is not -- does not present a danger to society. And the second concern, of course, is that because it creates the perception that the person is a threat, the danger to the community, it contributes to stigmatization.
And more importantly, we already know that it will inevitably lead to a disincentive for aid workers to respond to outbreak where at its source, where it has to be tackled. Ebola in Guinea is spiking, again.
COOPER: It's going up?
DELAUNAY: It's going up. It has been declared in every single district of Sierra Leone. It's still out of control in Liberia. We absolutely need more assistance there. There has been some huge commitments in the month of September by the international community including the United States, but those commitments have not been translated into action yet.
COOPER: This is incredible. I mean, and really it -- we really should focus on this right now because for all the talk about how this is a global emergency, what you're saying is on the ground in Guinea the numbers are still going up. In fact it's spiked and that it's still out of control in all these other places.
And so for all the promises of aid, all the promises of money, the bottom line is this thing is still out of control even though now you guys at Doctors Without Borders have been raising red flags for months now.
DELAUNAY: Because it takes time, because it's a very difficult to tackle this outbreak and because the main constraints to responding to Ebola is human resources.
COOPER: Getting people, nurses, doctors.
DELAUNAY: Getting people. And this is why we're so concerned about these measures because they will slow down the response where it is most needed. We need additional resources for more bed treatments, for contact tracing, for surveillance, for taking care of orphans, the lack of care givers.
COOPER: So --
DELAUNAY: So anything that will decent -- demotivate aid workers to go and response to the outbreak in West Africa will actually have the opposite impact.
COOPER: So you have no doubt that this is going to make it -- make some aid workers say, look, I just can't take -- it's not only can I -- you know, it's already sacrifice to take off three months commitment to Doctors Without Borders and risk my life to take off an additional 21 days when I get back and have people point fingers at me like I'm some sort of criminal and put me in a tent. You're saying that you have no doubt that's going to cut down on the number of people willing to go?
DELAUNAY: Absolutely, it's not an assumption. We're already experiencing it.
COOPER: You're already seeing that.
DELAUNAY: Yes, because in most of the field assignments where as people, we ask people to stay between nine to 12 months. In the Ebola outbreak, we manage to keep people for five, six weeks already. Because of the demanding nature of the work and because we need some very specific trained, professional teams.
COOPER: So you're rotating hundreds of people through and you need more volunteers. You need more people.
DELAUNAY: We need more people constantly. And we, the announcement of home quarantine by the state authorities has already had an impact on the field. It's been received negatively. People don't want to go through these measures. They know this disease. They've witnessed firsthand the suffering of the patients and their family. The last thing they want to do when they come back home is to infect their loved ones and the population. But still, they consider that these measures are totally inappropriate and unnecessary.
COOPER: And I know, you're not about bashing politicians or getting into the politics of this, but let me just say, for politicians in New York and New Jersey to say, my number one concern is keeping the people of New York and New Jersey safe. If you really want to keep the people in New York and New Jersey safe, you got to -- you got to defeat this in Liberia and Sierra Leone and Guinea. And that may not play politically all that well. But unless this is defeated over there, it's never going to be safe here because people are still -- I mean, it's still can move around. So the key is doing everything possible to get as many health care workers over there dealing with this. It seems to me that simple.
DELAUNAY: Absolutely. And at the same time we perfectly understand the anxiety of the population, but we believe there are ways to address it. And the -- like reinforcing the monitoring is one way, if the problem is the transmission is linked to symptoms, then the best way to mitigate transmission is certainly to enhance the monitoring which was the CDC is recommending.
COOPER: It also seems to me that, if you stigmatize this and you say you're going to be quarantined automatically, it's going to have the opposite effect. It's going to make people less likely to go to the hospital when they first get a fever, more likely to say, you know what, I'm just going to wait a couple days and maybe my fever will go down rather than risk, you know, having fingers pointed at you and being locked up.
DELAUNAY: This is our concern indeed.
COOPER: Sophie, I'm a huge -- again, I just think Doctors Without Borders does extraordinary work, in particularly in this epidemic, and I appreciate for being on. Thank you very much.
DELAUNAY: Thank you so much for the invitation, Anderson.
COOPER: Thank you.
Quick reminder, make sure you set your DVR, you can watch 360 whenever you like.
Coming up next, Nancy Writebol who got Ebola in Liberia, fought it, beat it, who's plasma is now helping Doctor Craig Spencer recovers. She joins us with her husband Dave.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY WRITEBOL, EBOLA SURVIVOR: When you think about all the people that helped us, Dr. Brantly and myself, to survive, just giving back part of our plasma is just a way that we can say thank you for what was done for us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Loosing enormous quantities of bodily fluid and needs a specially intense of support. Nurse Nancy Writebol has been medically where Dr. Spencer is right now and she's with him more than just spiritually. She donated plasma that Dr. Spencer has received in the hopes that her antibodies will help stop his infection. Just one way that people who have already sacrificed their time, safety and health in the battle against Ebola continue the mission. I spoke earlier today with Nancy Writebol and her husband David.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Nancy, first of all, you've been Ebola-free for ten weeks now. How are you feeling?
N. WRITEBOL: I'm doing great, thank you, Anderson. It's just great to be feeling so much better.
COOPER: I wonder, Nancy, what you think when you heard about Kaci Hickox's isolation, the nurse who was held up after landing at New York on Friday. She said she didn't have running water for a shower or flushable toilet. They wouldn't let her see her lawyer even after she tested negative.
N. WRITEBOL: Well, I think -- I think that's a real problem for us to be putting health care workers or those from West Africa into isolation when they're not symptomatic. I think that it would be wiser if we had them being monitored by health care officials here in the state, but still, as I said, being monitored but not in isolation. I felt for her, Anderson.
COOPER: David, how about you? I mean, it seems to me these nurses, these doctors, I mean, they're doing extraordinary work, what you guys were doing in Liberia with Dr. Brantly, Dr. Sacra and all the nurses and doctors who are willingly, you know, jeopardizing their own lives to try to stop this outbreak in Liberia, in Guinea, in Sierra Leone. And it seems like a lot of people are pointing fingers at them when they come back as if they've done something wrong.
DAVID WRITEBOL, HUSBAND OF NANCY WRITEBOL: Yes, I can relate to that. In the you know, days after I came back from Liberia and being in isolation, not being symptomatic, I understand the concern of that, the concern for that. But if they're not symptomatic, then they're being treated as though they've done something wrong and they wouldn't want to do it again. And that has to be taken into consideration.
And I think it's somewhat unproductive if we're not going to help our health care workers and make it possible for them to volunteer, then we're not going to get in front of this thing and it will just prolong the outbreak.
COOPER: Would -- David, I know you and Nancy have said, you'd be willing perhaps to return to Liberia or somewhere else. Would a quarantine would that be something that might affect your decision?
D. WRITEBOL: Well, it certainly would, because you have to think about, OK, I have to spend an extra amount of time under -- under those conditions and not be able to return to our families. And there's a cost involved in that. And not only a cost personally to ourselves as a family, but also a cost to the --- to those that have to provide the place for the quarantine, you know the tent and all of the other equipment that this nurse had to have, somebody had to pay for that. COOPER: You know, Nancy and David, you both relic in your own way
right now continue to fight this virus by speaking out, by trying to educate people. And Nancy, you've also taken another step, which is to help Dr. Craig Spencer who's fighting Ebola right now at Bellevue Hospital.
I understand you were able to give him a transfusion of your plasma. When you found out you were a match, because I know you have a rare blood type and you weren't able to do this for others though you had volunteered to do it. What did you think when you found out you were a match?
N. WRITEBOL: Well, I have to tell you I'm very grateful to be able to help and to be able to give. You know, when you think about all the people that helped us, Dr. Brantly and myself, to survive, just giving back part of our plasma is just a way that we can say thank you for what was done for us.
COOPER: And finally, Nancy, to folks out there who are understandably fearful and may be acting out of fear or making decisions based on fear about how they think about other people, or treat other people. What would you say to them right now who are listening?
N. WRITEBOL: Well, I think one of the important things we have to remember is not to panic, and to not prejudge people, and to make sure that you're educated on how Ebola is contracted and, you know, just to -- to not panic. I think our country right now is just living in fear, and I don't think that's really necessary. I think the important thing is that we take precautions and for health care workers to be educated and trained and then to do what they have been educated and trained in doing.
COOPER: Nancy and David, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much.
D. WRITEBOL: Great. Thank you.
N. WRITEBOL: Thank you. Thanks, Anderson.
COOPER: More now with our medical and legal panel because the news tonight concerns public policy as well as medicine.
Chief Medical Correspondent Doctor Sanjay Gupta has seen Ebola up close in Guinea. Former CDC Disease Detective Doctor Seema Yasmin, who is professor of public health in University of Texas, Dallas and a staff writer for the "Dallas Morning News" Also with us Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, former Federal Prosecutor.
So Doctor Yasmin, do you share the concerns of the Writebols with how her treatment could affect other health care workers going to Africa to fight this epidemic?
DR. SEEMA YASMIN, STAFF WRITER, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: This is really caused outrage in the medical community here in the U.S., Anderson. In fact some of the biggest names in infectious disease and public health has signed on to a very powerfully strongly worded petition from the Infectious Disease Society of America and two other huge health care associations in the U.S. That outraged about how this nurse was treated and the potential that it has to hinder the outbreak response in West Africa.
And also the stigma that is then associated with returning health care workers could really actually threaten the public health of people here in America if they don't stop the outbreak and if we don't treat returning health care workers and troops with dignity.
COOPER: Yes. I'm going to talk in fact to Peter Staley, the legendary HIV/AIDS activist in our next hour, in the 9:00 hour on "360." Who said this is like the early days of HIV/AIDS fears and the stigmatization of people who had that then.
Sanjay, that the new guidelines, the CDC announced today, those guidelines, they're not even enforceable, correct?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No. I mean, these are guidelines. You know, the CDC is making these recommendations. You know, we've been talking about for sometimes now, but the CDC doesn't have any sort of mandate power within the states. And that's why some of the states look at these guidelines, follow them, some other states decide to go beyond them. It's a -- it can be very different. And now we have a situation as you've been talking about, Anderson, where you have two government agencies, one, the CDC and one at least part of the Department of Defense having sort of different approaches to this. So it's not enforceable and doesn't seem to be consistent either.
COOPER: And Jeff, in terms of the law and the regarding Kaci Hickox, this nurse, I mean, I know there are laws to protect the public against communicable diseases. But could New Jersey just keep someone showing no symptoms in isolation any longer? I mean, can the government just say we think you're a threat to people and we're going to lock you up even though you have no symptoms?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely not. And I think that's why Governor Christie backed down is because he knew that if Kaci Hickox went to court, and she was getting ready to go to court, no court would keep her locked up in that tent without proof that she was communicable -- she had a communicable disease. Yes, it's true that states have laws that say communicable -- people with communicable diseases can be quarantined, but only if they're contagious. And she's not contagious. And so there's no doubt that a judge would have freed her had this gone to court.
COOPER: Doctor Yasmin, and there some people says, look, health workers should be rely upon to self monitor and self quarantine, as example they pointed the, you know the NBC doctor who went to a local restaurant while under quarantine or Dr. Spencer, the patient in Bellevue wasn't under quarantined but you know, went bowling before he developed a fever. To them, you say what?
YASMIN: I think the issue here is that these public health experts and these physicians and nurses are really public health heroes. They're doing what very few of us are doing. They're actually going to West Africa, stopping the outbreak there.
When they return there are guidelines that, for instance, Kaci said that she was going to follow, those are guidelines set by Doctors Without Borders that maintain that she would have self-monitored at home for 21 days.
When we put people in quarantine when they don't have any symptoms, it sends a message that they're a threat to public health when they're not. And that's really going to hinder the outbreak response.
COOPER: But Sanjay, I now look I'm getting tweets from people who say look, we don't know enough about Ebola to say for sure that someone cannot spread it just because they don't have a fever of 101.4.
GUPTA: Well, there are people who do know a lot more about Ebola. There are people like you pointing out to Anderson, the Doctors Without Borders, they've been doing this for a long time. They have guidelines. It's not like they haven't thought this through. And their guidelines say quarantine it's neither recommended nor warranted. It doesn't do any good. It doesn't -- it doesn't provides a sort of false sense of security here. It not going to do any good in terms of protecting the public health. So I think what's really important.
Also, you know, one thing that just reminded me when Jeff was talking about this thing, the difference between someone who is carrier, for example, which means that they can be healthy but still transmitting the virus. People think of typhoid Mary, for example. She never got sick of typhoid, but she was a cook and she transferred the pathogen to lots and lots of people. They eventually did have to put her under a quarantine. And that was mandated quarantine.
Ebola, you're not -- people don't carry Ebola the same way. You are sick before you start to spread it. So it's a very different scenario. And I bring that up, Anderson, only because I think sometimes people are co-mingling all these different terms and all these different facts. There are people who done it for a long time, Doctors Without Borders, they pride pretty good (inaudible).
COOPER: Jeff, I think people would be surprised to hear there is no federal quarantine law. The only ones that exist are at the state level.
TOOBIN: That's right. That's why the CDC is releasing guidelines, not requirements, because there is no federal law that says we can tell all 50 states to impose the following requirements.
These guidelines seem reasonable. They come from experts, but ultimately this is up to all 50 states individually, and, as we've seen, there are different rules, and the states themselves are evolving their rules. New York has suddenly changed its rules. New Jersey apparently is changing its rules. But that's not on the federal government. That's on the states.
COOPER: Jeffrey, Sanjay, Dr. Yasmin, thank you very much. There's so much that we need to focus on about this and so much continuing confusion about Ebola, especially in light of these new state guidelines. A panel of doctors that will take your questions in the next hour. Tweet us #ebolaq&a, one word, all spelled out. EbolaQ&A. Tweet us your questions, we will try to answer as many as we can. Just ahead in this hour, grieving community in the wake of that deadly school shooting. We have new details tonight about how police say the gunman set up his victims.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: More breaking news tonight. Disturbing new details in the deadly shooting at a Washington state high school. Police now say the gunman set up his victims with a text asking them to meet him in the cafeteria. His classmates, including two of his own cousins, were sitting at a table, presumably waiting for him, when he opened fire. 14-year-old Zoe Galasso died at the scene, the others were rushed to hospitals, all with gunshot wounds to the head. Gia Soriano died over the weekend. She too was just 14 and a freshman.
The three surviving victims remain hospitalized, two in critical condition.
The community of Marysville, Washington, is struggling with the loss, obviously, and also with disbelief. By all accounts the gunman, a popular athlete, defied every preconception about school shooters. Pamela Brown joins me now with the latest. What more do we know about the level of premeditation that may have gone into this?
PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it appears, Anderson, the gunman took a number of calculated steps leading up to the shooting rampage here on Friday. We learned from the Snohomish sheriff here that he actually invited, as you pointed out, five victims to sit at a certain lunch table in the cafeteria in the moments before he walked in and then opened fire at their backs. We learned that from the sheriff. We also learned from a law enforcement source that he sent a selfie of himself holding a gun to his ex- girlfriend shortly before the rampage here on Friday.
Now, as far as a motive, that remains unclear, Anderson. We've been speaking to officials as well as those who came out here to pay their respects, those who knew the victims. We learned that there was some sort of a family dispute. One friend of the victim said that his cousin, the gunman's cousin, was dating his ex-girlfriend. He may have been upset about that. But at this point, there's just really no concrete explanation or motive to explain the gunman's actions here at school last Friday, Anderson.
COOPER: I'll talk to a relative of his in a moment. He was very close to pretty much everybody at that table from what I understand. What's the latest on the condition of the victims?
BROWN: That's right. He targeted his best friends, his family. This is what makes it all the more baffling, Anderson. In fact, two of his cousins remain in the hospital at this hour. We know one is in critical condition, another is in critical condition, and then his other cousin is in satisfactory condition. The one that is in satisfactory condition, we've learned is now up, he's able to walk, he's able to talk. But he still has a lot to go through. More operations. And, of course, the other ones, as I point out, in critical condition. And we've learned overnight that there was a second victim that died. So now two have been killed and three remain in the hospital, Anderson.
COOPER: Pamela, thanks very much. So sad. As we said, two of the shooting victims remain in critical condition tonight. A 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy who is the cousin of the shooter. 14-year- old Nate Hatch, also a cousin of the gunman, is in serious condition. Their families say the boys were extremely close. To them, the tragedy makes no sense whatsoever. Don Hatch is Nate's grandfather. He joins me tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Don, thank you for joining us during this incredibly difficult time. I know you visited your grandson Nate at the hospital earlier today. How is he doing?
DON HATCH, GRANDFATHER OF SHOOTING VICTIM: He's doing tremendously. Probably the biggest one is, when I was leaving, he was -- I went back to see him (inaudible) come back home, and he was walking down the hallway. Him and the nurse holding his arm. And just, you know, you know, there's so many things that come in their life that you don't expect this fast, you know. He just -- yesterday he was talking. Today he's walking. And that's just tremendous.
COOPER: Does he remember what happened?
HATCH: He remembers, you know, the gun being pointed at him, and, you know, him just freezing and just the other two getting shot. You know. I think things are coming closer to him. The healing is the easy part. The memories of everything and the friendship that he had with his cousin is going to be the toughest part.
COOPER: I saw a tweet that he sent out forgiving the shooter for doing this. His cousin. And technically, he was his cousin, but you say they were more like brothers.
HATCH: Yes, yes. In fact, the other one, the one that got shot down in Seattle, Andrew Fryberg, all three of them were kind of inseparable. They did -- if the two -- you see three of them together, but then the two, it could have been Andrew and Jaylen or Nate and Jaylen. It was always the two of them together or three of them together.
COOPER: I understand also that Nate has told you or told the friends about one of the teachers and about some of the heroic things that she did.
HATCH: Yes. And how she did this right there. Everybody else ran away. She ran too. And really made things happen. And when they said that on TV, I didn't believe it. But here's my grandson saying that was right there in the middle of the action, that she was it. And she's, I feel, is a hero's hero.
COOPER: The shooter's grandfather and you were first cousins. So that's the relation --
HATCH: We are.
COOPER: How are you doing with this?
HATCH: Yes.
COOPER: It's your grandson who was shot, and yet also you have this other link to the boy who shot himself and others?
HATCH: Well, I went earlier -- I think it was Sunday morning -- Saturday morning, and went and talked to my cousin and his family and talked to him about we're praying for them, because they lost a grandson, too. And nobody knows why this happened. Because we can point the fingers every which way, but I don't think there's anything we can point the finger at the grandfather and the grandmother or the mom and dad. And we just have to forge ahead.
COOPER: I know you're a former school board president, and I know your community is very close. The tribe is, obviously, all suffering through this together. Did you ever believe something like this could happen in your former school district?
HATCH: Sure, sure, I did. You know, it can happen anywhere. And we just have to take care of it. We have to be more vigilant on the children and watch what happens. Because sometimes we close our eyes and plug our ears over things that are out there. It takes a village to raise a child, but sometimes nobody wants to be the village. Everybody wants to play the side role and not do nothing. Let somebody else do it. And we in our communities, whether it's in the United States or across the world, that we need to do a better job with our children. Otherwise we're going to see more and more of this.
COOPER: I'm so glad that your grandson is on the mend and walking and talking, and I wish you well. Thank you for talking to us.
HATCH: Okay, thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Just ahead tonight, more breaking news, a new propaganda video from ISIS, different from all the others they've released, a British hostage who says he's in Kobani near Turkey's border.
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COOPER: A breaking story we're following tonight. ISIS has released a new propaganda video featuring British hostage John Cantlie. These are stills from the video. We're being very careful, as always, about not giving too much air time to ISIS propaganda. That said, we do think it is important for you to see and hear some of it, because of what Cantlie says about where he might be. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN CANTLIE, HOSTAGE: Hello. I'm John Cantlie. And today, we're in the city of Kobani on the Syrian/Turkish border. That is, in fact, Turkey right behind me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Whether that's true or not, it's strange to see these production values, it's almost like he's working as a reporter. Kobani is a key city in northern Syria that's been under siege for weeks. This is the first hostage video from ISIS that wasn't shot in the desert. It lasted under five minutes. Mr. Cantlie was kidnapped in 2012 with fellow journalist James Foley. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh joins us now. I mean, the video, you say John Cantlie is basically reporting for his life, and that's what makes it so surreal.
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's quite chilling to watch, partly because of the sophistication of the production techniques, as you say, but also, you got to realize, this is a man who was a war reporter, who has been a hostage for months now, and must be doing this either under duress or as a product of a lot of psychological trauma he's endured.
It does seem that he is in Kobani. You can see some landmarks behind him there. He wants to counter what he considers in the speech he gives as Western propaganda, saying how ISIS is mopping up, really, the territory that they've taken there. The fighting is slim compared to the explosions we've been hearing on an almost daily basis. And he goes on to point out that there is no Western media, therefore we shouldn't be believing their media, the Kurdish officials and White House officials who are suggesting that ISIS is losing ground rather than gaining ground there.
COOPER: There's what looks like drone video of Kobani. Is it possible that ISIS actually has a drone?
WALSH: Very much so. Easy technology to come by. Online, frankly. And, yes, it does seem that they've flown a drone over. Then they use quite sophisticated graphics to point out key landmarks, and where John Cantlie actually speaks. I think it's part of two things. It's perhaps ISIS's way of responding to the laser-guided technology that's been dropping munitions on them from coalition aircraft. This is perhaps an area where they're adept, in high technology, social media, high definition video, surprising people frankly with the chilling nature of the kind of messages they're able to put online. And it also answers the question many have been asking, how important is Kobani to ISIS? We know it's very important to the Syrian Kurds. We know it's becoming increasingly symbolic to the coalition. Does it matter to ISIS? Well, they've put a lot of resources into getting this propaganda video right and putting it out online, and that suggests they really are in this fight for the longer haul.
COOPER: This is also particularly chilling given the New York Times recent reporting just yesterday about the torture which Jim Foley and others sustained while in captivity before they were killed. So who knows what's been done to this poor hostage. What else does he talk about in the video? WALSH: He talks a lot about how the city seems to be much more in
ISIS's control. His focus is really much more I think in countering what they consider to be Western propaganda about how that fight is going. He talks about how the nearly half a billion dollars in coalition munitions haven't stopped ISIS from taking much of that city. They can't use heavy weaponry armor now, but instead they're using light weapons and claims they're experts in urban warfare. It's about them using a clearly distressed man under duress to put their message forward in English, and in that way I think it is chillingly sophisticated.
COOPER: Nick Paton Walsh, appreciate your reporting. Thanks. There is a lot more happening. Susan Hendricks is here with a 360 bulletin. Susan.
SUSAN HENDRICKS, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson, South African prosecutors will appeal the verdict and sentence given to Oscar Pistorius for killing his girlfriend. Last week, the double amputee Olympic track star got five years in prison for culpable homicide for the death of Reeva Steenkamp in February of 2013. She was shot to death in the bathroom of his home.
And a Maryland man who jumped the White House fence last week and was stopped by Secret Service dogs has been found not competent to stand trial. A judge has ordered the 23-year-old suspect to be held for more psychiatric testing and treatment.
And in Virginia, amazing. A group of people are being called heroes for rescuing a man from his burning car. It happened on Sunday. Authorities say the victim was shaken but okay. Apparently one of the guys who was walking by, Anderson, had access to a hammer, crushed the sunroof and was able to get him out.
COOPER: Wow. Susan, thanks very much, we appreciate the update.
Just ahead, lava flowing from a volcano sparks fires in homes in Hawaii. Latest incredible pictures next.
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COOPER: Lava from a volcano is threatening homes in a small town in Hawaii. The lava flow picked up speed over the weekend, with fires burning around the edge. Paul Vercammen reports tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kilauea volcano flow engulfed a cemetery, and now residents of Hawaii's big island hope it doesn't kill off a town. Civil defense authorities reported the flow moving 10 to 15 yards per hour, heading towards Bahoa (ph), population 950.
TIM ORR, USGS: It's moving through thick brush, uluhe (ph) fern. A lot of smoke coming out the front, a lot of cracking noises, methane explosions are going on. So it's a noisy situation out there just from all the burning vegetation. VERCAMMEN: The lava is swallowing up fences as it moves inch by inch
towards Bahoa, where the townspeople have been placed on an evacuation advisory. The lava is now chest high in some places, criss-crossed with ribbons or incandescent cracks. (inaudible) just explain this dark gray mass inflates as still more lava accumulates underneath the flow's upper crust. Hawaii's governor, Neil Abercrombie, signed a request asking for a presidential disaster declaration and federal aid.
BILLY KENOI, MAYOR, HAWAII COUNTY: As it gets closer, the key is communication with the community, keeping people informed, and everybody continuing to work around the clock really hard, just to minimize as much as possible the impact on the people of (inaudible).
VERCAMMEN: This lava flow is expected to displace 900 school children in the greater area. Some residents tell us while the lava won't necessarily hit their homes or businesses, they fear they will be cut off. To combat this, Hawaii County has built alternate gravel roads around the expected path of lava. But getting around this lava may be so difficult, Bahoa's main clinic is prepared to dispatch a mobile unit on the other side of the flow. People downwind from the smoke, especially residents with respiratory problems, have been told to take precautions and head indoors.
For now, there's no end in sight to this gray and orange advance. As the Hawaiian volcano observatory says, Kilauea is still erupting at its summit on the eastern side of the volcano. For this Hawaiian community, Kilauea represents the ultimate dangerous beauty.
Paul Vercammen, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Incredible sound and pictures. In the next hour of 360, breaking news out of Baltimore, where a hospital is evaluating a possible Ebola case. Plus, the nurse who was forced into isolation after coming back from West Africa, even though she showed no signs of illness at all, why that happened and how guidelines have now been changed, next.
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