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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Pregnant Woman Attacked; New Jersey Declares a State of Emergency; Price Gouging At The Pump; Election Day In Baghdad; Lethal Bird Flu Now In Europe; New Orleans' French Quarter Endures Nightly Curfew; Police Beating From A Cop's Point of View; Witness To Suffer in Quake Zone But Unable to Help; High Stakes Vote In Iraq
Aired October 14, 2005 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. Welcome to NEWSNIGHT. Much ahead in the hour, including the French Quarter and the blue wall of silence.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The beating victim has spoken, but why are the cops keeping quiet? Tonight the police code of silence. Are they choosing loyalty over justice?
An inconceivable crime -- a woman accused of trying to cut out an unborn baby from her neighbor's womb. Tonight, what would drive someone to commit such unthinkable horror?
And shocking findings. The lethal bird flu now in Europe. Is it on its way to the U.S.? Tonight, what you need to know to safeguard your health.
Live, from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is NEWSNIGHT with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Anderson is off tonight, and lots of ground to cover. Here's a quick look first at what's happening at this moment.
Rescue workers have abandoned the search for survivors trapped in the rubble of last weekend's deadly earthquake in South Asia. A top U.N. official says reconstruction of the devastated area will cost billions and take up to a decade. The death toll in Pakistan alone now stands at 23,000 people.
Hurricane Katrina's deadly toll rises higher as well. Today the coroner for Baton Rouge Parish raised the death toll for Louisiana to 1,035. That brings the overall death toll from Katrina to 1,271.
The state of New Jersey has declared a state of emergency tonight to respond to rising flood waters. The National Guard, state police and special water rescue teams will be dispatched to severely hit areas. The state has opened a 24-hour emergency operations center as well. More than 500 New Jersey residents have been evacuated because of heavy rain and rising flood waters. And consumer prices skyrocketed last month, energy prices surging to record levels after Katrina. The consumer price index jumped 1.2 percent in September. That is the largest single monthly increase in 25 years.
Those are a few pieces of the day. This, however, is something yet again, something rare and for that we can be thankful, but something that does happen. And when it does, it touches on everything we hold dear and is terrifying.
This time it happened in a small town in western Pennsylvania, not far from Pittsburgh. Reporting the details, CNN's Randi Kaye.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Peggy Jo Conner and Valerie Oskin --neighbors and friends -- good friends. Both, apparently pregnant. The women were enjoying a special bond, until this week when investigators say Conner beat Oskin with a baseball bat, then tried to cut Oskin's baby out of the womb.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THOMAS WILKS, PEGGY JO CONNER'S HUSBAND: We met right here. This is the first place I met her, right here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Thomas Wilks is Conner's husband. He took us to the park outside Pittsburgh, where the two first met a year and a half ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE (on camera): So what's it like for you to come back here, knowing that she's in jail and you're trying to figure out what life will bring next?
WILKS: It's hard. It's a horrible thing to think of.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: For the last eight months, Wilks says he watched his wife's belly grow. She took pregnancy vitamins and suffered through morning sickness.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILKS: I put my hands on her stomach and it would move. And then the baby would kick. I'd lay my head on her stomach and my head would move where the baby would kick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: But investigators say medical tests show Conner is not pregnant now, nor had she been. There is no evidence of a miscarriage. Police say Conner knocked Oskin unconscious at home while Oskin's 7-year old son was there. Then dropped the boy off at a relative's and took Oskin to this remote wooded area. Here, they say, Conner sliced open Oskin's belly to steal her baby. A well thought out crime, prosecutors say, until a teenager on an all-terrain vehicle spotted the women in the woods and called police.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT ANDREASSI, WITNESS: When I first saw it, I knew it was, you know, foul play, because it just, it was very suspicious happening. The lady acted really weird. I mean, she came around the front of the car and she's like, everything's fine here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Oskin was air-lifted to a hospital, where her baby boy was delivered by emergency c-section. Both mom and son survived.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She did indicate that in fact it was the defendant who had attacked her at the trailer and also in the wooded area.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Still, parents like Rick Priester (ph) are outraged.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED WIFE: It's disgusting. My wife has been pregnant a couple summers here. That could have been my wife. It makes me sick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Conner group up here and became a nurse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILKS: She wanted to love to help people. She'd help anybody. It didn't matter who it was, she'd help them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Conner cared for the elderly here. She quit to become a stay-at-home mom, after announcing her pregnancy. Even with three kids from a previous marriage, Conner appeared to be anxiously awaiting her new baby.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE (on camera): Do you think she did this?
WILKS: Nope.
KAYE: Knowing what know you, though -- or not within your heart, but do you think that it's possible?
WILKS: No. KAYE: You won't believe it?
WILKS: I won't believe it until she tells me she did it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Conner is being held here at the Armstrong County Jail. She is now charged with attempted with homicide and two counts of aggravated assault. She is expected to enter a plea on Tuesday.
As for the victim in this case, Valerie Oskin, she apparently is doing much better. Her breathing tube has been removed. Her newborn baby boy is in stable condition. And apparently, Aaron, according to prosecutors, the victim is remembering much of this attack and putting her attacker, Peggy Jo Conner, at the scene -- Aaron.
BROWN: Randi, thank you. That's an odd sort of good news and bad news, I think, that she remembers it all. There is a need we're supposed to make sense out of things like this, even as we know they are senseless. We are joined tonight from San Francisco by Candice DeLong, a former FBI profiler. And here with us in New York, Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner. We're glad to have you both.
Ms. DeLong, why would a woman do this?
CANDICE DELONG, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Usually in cases like this we find that the motivation on the part of the offender is to replace a baby that she has lost, either through a miscarriage or stillbirth, or oftentimes we find that the woman has -- she's worried that she might lose her husband or boyfriend and so she makes up a story that she's pregnant to keep him around and as time marches on, and it's getting into the ninth month, she's got to come up with something.
BROWN: All right. Doc, do you agree with that essentially?
MICHAEL WELNER, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: The driving force -- and it's perhaps something that your viewers can relate to other crime. We're used to the things people would kill for -- money, people they love. There is that very rare individual who it matters so much to her to be able to demonstrate to someone she particularly cares about that she has reproductive success, that she would kill to show that.
BROWN: Ms. DeLong, is this the -- I want to not use the legal definition of sanity, because that takes us into a whole different area. Is this the action of a sane person?
DELONG: Well, it certainly isn't very rational. If one wants a baby, there are easier ways to get one, where the mother of the child wouldn't have to be hurt.
BROWN: Is there a need to commit violence as part of this?
DELONG: No. There is no need to commit violence to get a baby. That's what makes this whole thing so irrational. Your reporter said that the prosecutor said it was, you know, looked like a very well planned out crime. I think it looks like a horribly planned out crime, which speaks to her confused mental state.
BROWN: It sounded pretty messy to me. You talked to me, Doc, earlier about the mentality that drives the crime. This is a very rare occurrence. I mean, when we were talking, you said to me, we almost talked about it -- count them on hands of the fingers in one hand -- the mentality that drives this crime.
WELNER: Well, it's very important for our viewers to know that in the American cases that have been documented -- and they're well documented in the United States -- somewhere between five and 10, that the victims unfortunately were victims of opportunity, someone that the assailant could get access to. So this is something that is planned and it's orchestrated and executed in a remote location where one can't be discovered. So the amount of calculation and preparation around the crime is very organized. And it's what we as forensic psychiatrists don't typically associate with insanity. But what distinguishes it -- our culture doesn't attach as much to the notion of being able to say I am able to bear a child, such that a woman would kill to demonstrate it. There are other markers of successful womanhood, identity. This is an identity crime. This is something where someone says it matters enough to me -- perhaps in order to keep someone that she loves, whom she's falling apart with, in order to do that, where the rights embody integrity of a person doesn't matter, and an otherwise peaceful person becomes violent.
BROWN: About a half a minute, honestly for both of you, though. I want t get both of your view on this. Assuming she's guilty and she's found guilty, do we send her to prison? Is that the right course of action, Doc?
WELNER: Well, there is no method right now for standardizing how do we distinguish the worst of attempted murderers? Right now there is research people can participate in at www.depravityscale.org to distinguish the worst of attempted murders.
BROWN: Ms. DeLong, do you think she knew the difference between right and wrong?
DELONG: Yes, because there were a few moments where she did try to hide her crime. Of course, if she really wanted to hide it, she could have done it in privacy and chose not to. I think she should certainly serve out a prison term and then probably go to a mental facility for the rest of her life.
BROWN: Just an awful story. It's good to, in any case, to meet you both. And we appreciate a Friday night, your willing to talk to us about it. Thank you. It's an unimaginable story, actually. Thank you, both.
This seems almost in some respects trivial by comparison, but more now on the waterlog northeast. Not only has the state of New Jersey declared a state of emergency, as of 4:00 o'clock this afternoon, Central Park, here in New York City, had received almost 13 inches of rain. That makes October the fifth wettest month on record, the third wettest October on record. Are you writing all this down? Even though the month is but half over. CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano is in Greenwich, Connecticut tonight, with more on the flooding there. Rob, good evening.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi Aaron. As you mentioned, just a bunch of rain. Eight days in a row of rainfall across the northeast. All that rain at some point needs to get back to the ocean, and the rivers are struggling. Much of them are rising, many are flooding, and the Byram River behind me is pushing up against this dam that was built in 1917 and there is a torrent or water pouring over this dam. They shored it up last summer, so it's not that much of an issue. As this Byram River rips through Glenville, down through Pemberwick and out into Long Island, but there are over 4,000 dams like this across the state that are struggling to hold back the water.
Also struggling to hold back water -- in come cases, losing the battle -- the state of New Jersey, where a state of emergency has been ordered. In places like Spring Lake, where waist-deep water prevails, people out in rowboats, the National Guard trying to help the cause as well. Loch Arbour, New Jersey, same deal. In some cases, cars buried in water up to their hoods.
Slightly hillier terrain in Montville, Connecticut; and some of those hills gave way. A mudslide there -- bulldozers and front- loaders out to try to clear some of that mud and debris.
All of this rain, after what some folks were starting to call a drought. It was an extremely dry late summer and early fall. Here's why: High pressure and control across the northeast, yielding nice dry weather. Actually, that steered the hurricanes, as you may remember, into the Gulf of Mexico. Well, there's been a pattern shift. Now that tropical moisture heading this way and now it's -- to the record rainfall. Typically 1.6 inches of rain would be accumulated month to date in Central Park. As you mentioned, the fifth wettest month on record so far -- and we're only halfway through it, Aaron.
The good news is: drier weather patterns set to take hold tomorrow. And everybody wants to hear that for sure.
BROWN: Rob, we all do. I must say, as dreary as it's been around here for the last two weeks, I think most of us have kept in mind how much worse it was down in the Gulf and for the people and what they went through. So, while it's been unpleasant, it has only been unpleasant. Thank you for your efforts tonight.
Still to come on the program in less than an hour, an historic moment in Iraq. The country's draft constitution goes before the voters, rather. We'll be live in Baghdad.
Later, disturbing new information on the Avian Flu, signs the deadly virus has made its way to Europe. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A sliver, and we do mean a sliver of good news tonight for anyone who needs to fill their gas tank. AAA reporting that in the last two days the average price of a gallon of self-service regular gas fell two whole cents. Really, two cents, down to about $2.82. Boy, get it while you can.
Katrina and Rita and China and a lot of other factors go into the price of gas. But so, too, it seems is profit and perhaps a fair amount of greed. Here's CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The luck ran out downtown for Steve Thomas.
This can't be good.
STEVE THOMAS, MOTORIST: Yes, it can be.
FOREMAN: He was shopping for the lowest gas price, when his tank ran dry.
(on camera): So you actually ran out of gas, trying to get here?
THOMAS: Never in my life have I seen gas this high. We can't drive, we can't heat our homes. We can't do business. Nothing can be done without this energy.
FOREMAN: So you think there are people who are just flat out taking advantage of this?
THOMAS: Of course. I think it's price gouging.
FOREMAN (voice-over): With that accusation flying everywhere these days. We broke down the average price of a gallon of gas so far this year. Around $2.29, to see where the pennies go.
According to the American Petroleum Institute, you can start by giving $1.34 of that pump price for crude oil, paid to the company or country that pumps it from the ground. Next, give federal, state and local government about 43 cents a gallon in taxes. Gas stations get about 10 cents a gallon; the entire distribution chain, about 12 cents. They have their own ideas about who's getting much more.
TONY HAWKINS, FUEL DELIVERYMAN: I guess the people who are running the oil (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
FOREMAN (on camera): Maybe those people?
HAWKINS: Yes.
FOREMAN: But you're not getting rich?
HAWKINS: No.
FOREMAN (voice-over): The refineries indeed get the remaining 30 cents. But what about the oil companies? Well, for any gallon, they're raking in money from the ground all the way to the tank.
Rayola Dougher is with the Petroleum Institute and she gave us all these numbers. RAYOLA DOUGHER, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE: This is a huge industry. They're making billions of dollars, billions. They're spending hundreds of billions. And the energy that we're consuming right now is brought to us by investments made many years ago.
FOREMAN: She has many explanations about how rising demand among the Chinese, consumption by Americans and hurricane damage in the Gulf may mean even with all those billions coming in, the oil business may not be all that lucrative in the long run.
(CROSSTALK)
DOUGHER: Do you?
FOREMAN (on camera): I'm trying to understand this. But it sounds like everybody's saying it's not our fault. But people are getting fabulously wealthy while other people are paying. Is that fair?
DOUGHER: Well, no. It's really not. Because there are winners and losers, as I said. And we're going to have to add them up.
FOREMAN: Yes, the losers are the people buying the gas and the winners are the ones selling it.
(voice-over): Still, she points out that commodities brokers are also cleaning up. What in the Dow Jones is a commodity broker? Well, you already know the most famous.
RANDOLPH DUKE: Randolph Duke.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How you doing, Randy? What's happening?
DUKE: My younger brother, Marver (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He, Monte, what a (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
FOREMAN: Remember in "Trading Places," how the Duke brothers wanted to buy all the oranges in Florida because they knew the harvest would be small. The short supply would drive up demand and they could resell at a much higher price.
Anyway, the same thing is happening right now with oil. But if that's all part of keeping big oil companies rolling, Marisa Paul says, so what.
MARISA PAUL, MOTORIST: When we see it at the pump, it's a little shocking to us. But I think, in their long-term business, that they're trying to protect themselves.
FOREMAN (on camera): Really?
PAUL: I do.
FOREMAN: Well, they're posting like record profits.
PAUL: Right now.
FOREMAN: Doesn't that seem a little odd when you're paying record amounts?
PAUL: Are they going to be posting record profits in year from now and two to three years from now? I think that's what they're thinking about.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Finally, a voice of calm and understanding in the beleaguered populous. Oh, by the way --
(on camera): What do you do for a living?
PAUL: I'm a lobbyist.
FOREMAN (voice-over): On the other side of the pump, Steve Thomas says it all comes down to fear, fear of shortages, fear of natural disasters, fear of what brought him here -- running out of gas.
THOMAS: Fear -- people would spend all that they have to consider themselves safe.
FOREMAN (on camera): They'll just pay and pay and pay?
THOMAS: They'll pay and pay and pay. At least he remembers.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Just like Steve knows, he'll pay and others will profit when he rolls up to the pumps again in just a few days.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Coming up tonight, Iraq, where an historic vote is about to get underway.
Plus, Avian Flu crops up closer to home. Signs of the deadly virus now in Europe. Dr. Sanjay Gupta makes a house call.
And later, you've all seen the disturbing video from Bourbon Street -- Robert Davis beaten by New Orleans police. You have, if you've been with us. Tonight, inside the mind of a cop, with the help of a former New York police captain.
Break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That's Baghdad on a Saturday morning. It is election day. Another important day in a series of important days if that country -- and it's hardly certain -- if that country is going to find its way down the long road to democracy.
After an especially dark night, Iraqis are heading to the polls. We don't know in what numbers yet, but they will cast their vote -- their second vote in two years. The polls officially open in about 45 minutes. The country's proposed new constitution on the line.
Our Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour is with is from Baghdad.
Christiane, good evening.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening and in fact, good morning, here. About 35 minutes from now the polls will open, 7:00 a.m. local time. And as you say, this is historic. For the optimist, this is an opportunity to see perhaps Iraq get on some kind of more permanent path towards political stability.
For many, many people, however, they are worried. They don't know whether it will get worse or better after this constitution. And for everybody, the question is legitimacy. If this constitution and if the political process here has a hope, it must be viewed as legitimate.
If you look down at our camera, showing not far from where we are is a school, which is being turned into a referendum polling station for the day, there are some Iraqi police and Iraqi soldiers out there. And the security, according to the U.S. forces will be taken by the Iraqis this time, with American forces obviously around, but not in the forefront.
The question, of course, is: Do the Sunnis, who form an important but minority here, do they feel included? And will they feel that the constitution favors the majority Kurds and Shiites? Not just in terms of giving them the power, but also the all important natural resources and economic powers, such as the oil, which is concentrated in the Kurd and Shiite areas. And that is going to be what everybody's going to be looking at after this referendum.
We spoke to the chief of the U.S. forces here, General George Casey, and he says definitely, the next 60 days or so are going to be crucial to see how this things turns out -- Aaron.
BROWN: Christiane, we're going to come back to you a little bit later in the program, just before the end. And just think about this question, if you don't mind: How this day compares to the election you were at and you covered all those months ago when they elected a government, how the country's changed, how the attitude has changed, what the anxiety level is, and we'll get your answer a little bit later, okay? Thank you.
Christiane Amanpour, who's in Baghdad.
The European Union's worst fears could soon be realized. It will find out as early as tomorrow if Bird Flu found in Romania is the lethal strain that's already killed over 60 people in Asia.
In its current form, the lethal strain does not easily -- underscore easily -- infect humans, but officials fear it may mute into something far worse, creating a global pandemic. The E.U. is already taking protective measures. And earlier tonight we talked with CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta about the outbreak and what's being done.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Sanjay, we have Bird Flu now in Europe. The significance of that is?
SANJAY GUPTA, SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't think this was a surprise the way the people that have been following this for some time. This particular virus spreads by birds that migrate around the world. So, I think that this was sort of expected and predictable.
What it's going to mean now, is you're going to see some significant changes in the importation laws of live and recently deceased birds, you know, birds that are frozen, being sent over to several countries. But you're not going to be able to stop these migration patterns. That's just going to continue. And you'll probably see this pop up in other places as well.
BROWN: Just a couple questions on that and the actions that the European nations took. Do they strike you as aggressive enough or does it fall under the category of well, there's not much else they can do?
GUPTA: I think it's sort of the latter, Aaron. There isn't really much else you can do. That's the right thing to do, probably, to limit some of the importation. But again, it's the migrating birds. You just can't control that.
BROWN: We've talked over the last week, week and a half, that we've been talking about this a fair amount. A lot about Tamiflu and the degree to which it actually is effective. How effective is it really?
GUPTA: You know, that's a great question. And the reason is that, you know, this has not been tested in humans. Aaron, in order to be able to know the answer to that question for sure, you'd have to knowingly expose people to Avian Flu, test Tamiflu on them and test them in a control group. That would be a true scientific study and no one's going to do that.
BROWN: One more thing on Tamiflu before we leave. There's a report of a Tamiflu resistant case in Vietnam. This is the sort of thing that happens. I mean, these viruses outsmart the antivirals at some point, right?
GUPTA: That's right. And, you know, this is a 14-year old girl in Vietnam. She had a partial resistance. And I should add that she, you know, she survived as well. That's exactly what happens. The same thing with antibiotics -- you use too many of them, eventually the bacteria figures it out. You use too many antivirals, eventually the virus figures it out as well.
What this means is two things. One, is that we have to be diligent about who we give Tamiflu to. Not everyone should run and start stockpiling the stuff. And two, is we probably already have to start thinking about another antiviral. Lorens (ph) is one that's out there. We may need to start making more of that as well, Aaron.
BROWN: Does the fact that its made its way to Europe tell you that it's closing in on us, in a sense?
GUPTA: Yes, you know, I think that the sense really in talking to the folks at the CDC and the World Health Organization is that we are going to see case of Avian Flu in poultry populations, probably a lot of places around the world. It's just, the migrating bird patterns are somewhat predictable and they're going to -- as the season moves on, you're going to see this pop up in several places. The crucial step, though, the sentinel step, though, Aaron, is if this thing mutates into a form that becomes more easily transmissible. So not only is it going to migrating birds, but it's hitching rides on planes as well.
BROWN: And we're not there yet?
GUPTA: We're definitely not there yet. And an important point, you know, less than 120 cases so far. So, I mean, people are concerned, but certainly not panicking right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That was Dr. Sanjay Gupta. We talked with him earlier tonight.
In a moment, what were they thinking -- literally thinking? What goes through a police officer's mind in that moment when things get out of hand? And what's being talked about now behind the blue wall of silence?
Later, another story entirely, the best one we've seen all day, in fact, that I'm the father of a daughter. She saved the game. She did. Not he, she. We take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: French Quarter in New Orleans tonight looks like the French Quarter in New Orleans tonight, doesn't it? I mean a very normal night. There is a curfew in effect, at about 2 in the morning, but people there have some time to party and they appear to be doing so. Coming up a victory for bar owners in New Orleans, as it turns out.
But first a look at what's happening at this moment. Pakistani authorities today officially abandoned their efforts to find survivors of the earthquake that hit last Saturday. Instead relief workers are now working at a fever pitch to rush supplies to hardest-hit and hardest-to-reach areas; it remains a mess.
The White House says top aide Karl Rove still has the president's confidence, this after Rove spent a fourth session, four and a half hours, with a grand jury in Washington today. The grand jury wants to know what Mr. Rove knows about the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.
Harriet Miers continues to draw fire from conservatives. The National Pro-Life Action Center is calling on the president to withdraw his choice for Supreme Court nomination. But the White House continues to stand firmly behind Ms. Miers.
Now the police beating capture on tape in the French Quarter over the weekend. By now, you and I, all of us, have seen it and talked about it. You've listened to the arguments back and forth. Take a slightly different approach tonight, but we wanted to lay out first a set of what we hope are some relevant, not all, but some of the relevant questions.
When police had Robert Davis up against the wall there was a punch, right there. As Mr. Davis called it, a sucker punch. Or was it a legitimate attempt to subdue a suspect?
Then there is this: At the point when Mr. Davis -- or when police had Mr. Davis down on the ground, they appear to be trying to handcuff him. Is Mr. Davis resisting there? Or is he just stuck?
Or this, by now it looks like a real mess. See the officers' foot there, is that a kick, of Mr. Davis while he was down. Or is that a step down, in the words of the lawyer for the three officers involved. There are lots of questions that ultimately will be decided by a judge and by the police department itself. We can't pretend to know what to make of all of them, but we'll talk about some of them.
And here's one: What goes through a cop's mind in moments like this. We are joined by Joe Lisi, who served for 24 years on the New York City Police Department, New York's finest. And we're glad to have him with us.
Just take a little time and tell me, if there was one thing -- you looked at this tape a bunch -- there is one thing a police officer might see in that tape, that a civilian might not see on that tape that is relevant, it would be what?
JOE LISI, NYPD, RETIRED: Well, the first thing was that Mr. Davis did not submit to the handcuffing procedure in the very first place.
BROWN: It's that point where he seems with his left arm to be resisting.
LISI: No, I think it is even before that. When the police officer stops and we first see him putting him against the wall with his face to the wall, his back to the officer. Just before the horse, mounted officer comes by, you see him spin in what could -- and I wasn't there -- be a confrontation situation.
BROWN: The police officer, which is what you can speak to, the police officer in that moment doesn't know necessarily what he's got in his hands.
LISI: He doesn't know what he's got in his hands, but he does know that somebody is not following the instructions that he is giving to him. So naturally, he becomes concerned and even excited, at one point, because his primary job is to take care of his own safety first.
BROWN: No, his heart's pumping?
LISI: Yes, it's pumping.
BROWN: Even as this might have, in some respects, be a routine activity by police, taking someone into custody.
LISI: Yes.
BROWN: At what point does it not become routine.
LISI: It's never routine.
BROWN: Oh, come on.
LISI: Because you know the most dangerous job in all of policing is the police officer on the street in uniform. Because every person that you come up with, every job that you handle, there is always the element of the unknown.
BROWN: But at some point, this situation gets out of hand. I mean, just in the tape we were just showing -- and this is one of the areas, I'll be honest, I have a problem. If he's trying to turn over on his stomach to submit, if at that point, this point. He's got a guy on top of him, he's got a guy pulling him one way. He's got another guy pulling him another way, I'm honestly sure he could turn over there.
LISI: Well, he shouldn't turn over. What he should do, if he intends to submit, is just do nothing. And if the officer want to roll him over to put the handcuffs on him, that's fine. If they want to lift him up, that's fine. He should be like a mannequin at that point.
BROWN: Does it appear to you that they, the officers, are working in a coordinated way, or is it a mess at this point?
LISI: Well, there are four people in the tape. Two of them are New Orleans police officers, the other two are FBI agents. So I'm not so sure that the FBI may have even had the same field tactical training as hopefully the New Orleans police have.
BROWN: Is that a nice way of saying they're not acting in -- in -- they're not working together?
LISI: Well, yes. It didn't appear that at all times they were working together.
BROWN: It's nice to meet you. Thank you, nice job tonight.
LISI: OK, thank you.
BROWN: Do you miss the police force?
LISI: I do. I miss it. I miss know what's going on.
BROWN: Yes, thank you. I could tell. Thank you.
You could make a case not a happy one that corruption and allegations of police brutality mark a kind -- not a great kind -- but a kind of return to normalcy in New Orleans. Maybe this is another sign. A fight between bars in the French Quarter and city hall about whether you can stay out drinking until midnight, or 2 or all night long in the city.
The French Quarter made it through Katrina pretty well, high and dry, you might say. It may in the end, bring the city back to life; but only, say the bar owners, if you keep the high and lose the dry. Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready to close. You got two minutes to make it to your hotels, it's curfew. Please exit Bourbon Street!
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hurricane Katrina couldn't shut down Johnny White's on Bourbon Street, but the bar that boast it never closes has met it's match.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got to go.
LAVANDERA: About a dozen officers showed up to enforce the city's curfew, a mandatory last call.
Free-spirited French Quarter residents don't like the idea of curfews, no matter what time they make you go home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the last stand in the Alamo. This is what we need to bring back this city. Nobody is going to be here for us. There is going to be no city.
LAVANDERA: For the last week officers have been strictly enforcing a midnight curfew. It has been pushed back to 2 a.m. now, but French Quarter business owners say they can only put up with the curfew for so long.
JIM MONAHANS, BAR OWNER: We have a lot of people here that are go-getters and people that really want to see this place come back. And we're going to do that. But we just need to know that we're not going be impeded by our own government from helping to put the place back together. I mean, that doesn't make any sense.
LAVANDERA: Jim Monahans owns Molly's At The Market Bar, the kind of place where a pope's portrait hangs over the jukebox and Jim's father, who died four years ago, still sits over the bar.
MONAHANS: He requested that his ashes be put above the cash register at Molly's so that he could watch the money. LAVANDERA: Monahans knows a thing or two about New Orleans. Molly's is the city's proverbial political back room. He's mobilizing neighborhood business owners to get the curfew lifted. After all, he says, getting back to business was the mayor's idea.
MONAHANS: You asked us to come back. You want us to keep our businesses going. You want -- then give us some straight answers. If it is five weeks, six weeks, a year, before we can operate normally. Let us know what the time table is.
LAVANDERA: City officials say they are trying to balance public safety and the needs of business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand their frustration and I hope they can just bear with it and we can take care of the problem.
LAVANDERA: The sound of jazz fills the night time landscape of Bourbon Street. But for a city not used to playing by the rules, it is a frustrating time when the music has to end.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: We can show you a live picture of Bourbon Street tonight. The street has changed quite a bit in the last week. Many more people showing up here, Aaron. But they only get a couple of extra hours of revelry tonight. And bar owners say while they do welcome the couple of extra hours they do view it as a temporary solution. They say anymore loss of business will be very painful for them. They have been losing money for the last month and a half, and they're ready to start cashing in again -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ed, thank you very much. Ed Lavandera, who got the good duty tonight, down on Bourbon Street. They'll probably just drink faster down there tonight.
Coming up, covering the South Asian quake, a reporter's notebook. Matthew Chance's thoughts on covering so much devastation.
And a third stringer throws three TDs in a high school football game in California. So what's so unusual about that? A lot, as it turns out, because this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: With the official search for victims called off, the victims of last weekends deadly earthquake in South Asia, the focus now turns on helping the survivors pick up the pieces of their lives. Covering the quake has been an important, but as you can imagine gut- wrenching assignment. Here is CNN's Matthew Chance with a reporter's notebook.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Covering an earthquake is an emotional ordeal, the destruction is overwhelming. The pain of families dragging their loved ones from the rubble can be too much. Pakistan has been no different.
(on camera): The aftermath of earthquake has been hard to watch and it has put all of us here under a lot of pressure. Being surrounded by this devastation and the ever present stench of death takes its toll. But part of this job is being able to put yourself in other people's shoes, because from there, it looks much worse.
(voice-over): We found Muhammad Wasseem (ph) picking through the debris of his school. When the earthquake struck he was the only one in his class to get out alive.
At 14, he's just a kid. Imagine his life with no friends. Add to that, no food, no water, no shelter, and you start to get a picture of what 10s of 1,000s of people in Pakistan now face.
In the remote town of Balakot we arrived by helicopter well before the relief efforts. And we were mobbed. They thought we had supplies they desperately needed, tried snatch out bags. It's hard to explain to people who have lost everything you've nothing to give, but we had to.
(on camera): It is at times like that I really start to think about what it is that we do and whether it's right. Our seats up board the helicopters could have been filled by injured survivors waiting to be evacuated. Maybe we should have brought medicines to be distributed, we could have saved lives.
(voice-over): It is an agonizing dilemma and the reporter's curse. To witness events and only hope it makes a difference. Matthew Chance, CNN, Mazaffarabad, in Pakistan controlled Kashmir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead tonight, she's daddy's little girl, but mamma, can she through a football. And we'll catch you up on voting on the new constitution in Iraq. This is a polling station in the capital, on the sidelines, around the world, all over the place tonight. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: You don't have to be a football fan to appreciate this next story, you don't even have to be a dad. It helps, though, to be a dad, it's even better though to be a certain father of a certain young girl in Torrance, California. A pioneering daughter, the first ever in the state, or as the local paper put it, boy can this girl through a football.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Take a look at the quarterback over there, number 10. The one who throws tight spiral passes, and has the tendency for understatement.
MIRANDA MCOSKER, QUARTERBACK, BISHOP MONTGOMERY H.S.: It's a sport that not a lot of girls have the opportunity to play, so I wanted to try it.
BROWN: And she has, and done quite well it turns out, for the fathers of young girls everywhere another reason to be grateful for changing times and attitudes.
TIM MCOSKER, MIRANDA'S DAD: They say that there is not training for becoming a parent and there certainly is not training for having a 15-year-old daughter decide that she wants to play football and having her actually go into games a the quarterback.
BROWN: Technically Miranda is still on the JV team, but when the starting quarterback got hurt last week, with her team, Bishop Montgomery High, already 28 to nothing before half time, the coach sent her in.
ARNOLD ALE, HEAD FOOTBALL COACH, BISHOP MONTGOMERY H.S.: She did real well. She ended up executing the offense, and you know, opportunities came to where she had to throw the ball. And when she did, she was right on the mark.
M. MCOSKER: I threw three touchdown passes. I did one of the best games I've ever had. And it was just a lot of fun. Just everything happened how it was supposed to.
ALE: If you throw three touchdown passes in a varsity game it is an accomplishment, yes. I mean we definitely weren't expecting it.
BROWN: Bishop Montgomery has a rule. You try out for the team and come to practice, you play. And in Miranda's case, that means you throw passes, make handoffs, run the offense.
T. MCOSKER: I'm totally surprised. I've asked her, maybe 100 times, how do they treat you? Do they treat you good?
BROWN: So far the answer seems to be yes. She's treated like, well, like one of the guys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You put on pads, she's a football player, you know? You don't look this is a girl, you don't let up, because you know what I'm saying, she just like us.
BROWN: No, she's not. And she's mature enough at 15 to know this probably won't last. It is something, she says, she probably won't repeat next year.
M. MCOSKER: It's something I've tried and it is something that I'm -- I've kind of got over it. Like I don't know, football is not a really a realistic sport for me to play.
BROWN: The boys, she says, don't tease her much, no rough stuff so far. And for now she's still suiting up with the varsity, for a game tonight in fact. Living a dream very few girls reach for, let alone experience.
M. MCOSKER: It was something that I would never know unless I tried. Everyone has been really supportive, so it was something that I knew I had to do, because if I didn't then it would just bother me for the rest of my life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That kid will make the papers when she grows up, just as she did when she was a kid. She's got moxie, doesn't she.
Quick look at morning papers around the country, "The Washington Post" starts it off, down in the corner, "Rove Pressed on Conflicts, Sources Say". You get so few leaks on this story, it drives me nuts. Questions said to focus on differing accounts. You mean Mr. Rove gave differing accounts to the grand jury? I can't imagine. Why would he do that. Just go in there tell the truth, one story. Not differing accounts.
The "Daily News", here in New York, yikes, "Tattoo Horror". Brooklyn man gets a last rites design on his arm and drops dead in parlor. Would you buy that paper on the street in New York?
"Hurricane Blows Hole in the Economy," says "The Washington Times", but this is the story that caught my eye, down at the bottom. "Never Mind Your Manners: Parents cited in rude poll." It turns out, but you knew this didn't you? That the country is getting more rude all time. You should see my e-mail.
Whether in Chicago tomorrow, if you happen to be traveling to the Windy City, according to "The Chicago Sun-Times", will be spirited. We'll check in one more time in Iraq, after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, right now, in Iraq, history is being made. Security is very high, everybody is on edge, Iraqis are heading to the polls to decide whether to vote in favor of, or to oppose a constitution. Our Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour is back in back in Baghdad for all of it -- Christiane.
AMANPOUR: Aaron, indeed. You know it is just a simple ballot with a yes/no, unlike what happened last January when the voted in parliamentary elections, huge lists of names and parties. This time, yes or no.
We can show you a few of our live camera locations, which are showing some of the polling stations. They have a couple of schools, there is the convention center in the green zone, where the dignitaries and the civil servants and officials will vote.
Question of course is, what is this going to mean for this country? And that's all that anybody is focused on. Is this going to mean and end to the violence, a proper political stable structure and a unified Iraq. Some hope, yes. Many believe that it might make the situation worse.
BROWN: It might make the situation worse. It is such a weird thing, really.
AMANPOUR: It is. BROWN: I mean, it could pass and make it worse, it could fail and make it worse. It is hard to know what -- I mean, I know what the administration wants, its just hard to know how this going to play out regardless of what happens.
AMANPOUR: Well, it is hard. Look, back in January everybody was really optimistic because 8.5 million Iraqis braved the threat of the insurgents, who threatened to behead them and kill them an savage them in every way, and went out an voted. It was a really great day. We were there, we witnessed it. It was fantastic to see these people go out and just take part.
And now people are going to come out again and take part, but the stakes have changed somewhat. Because the constitution is seen, despite all the best efforts, as favoring two groups, the Kurds and the Shiites, the majority part of this country. There has been a last-minute effort to bring in the Sunnis, who sat out the January elections, with rather devastating consequences.
An effort to try to bring them in this time; we're going to see whether that succeeds. The test of this constitution, as I said, will be legitimacy. Whether they can feel that the whole country is partaking in this political system. Or whether it is a recipe for the beginning of the fragmentation of this country into a powerful Shiite and a powerful Kurd block, with the oil resources, and the Sunni stuck in the middle of the desert with a bunch of sand; and then what that will mean for the insurgency.
BROWN: Christiane, we'll look forward to your reporting throughout the day and over the weekend. It is an interesting time. Thank you, Christiane Amanpour, who is in Baghdad tonight.
Good to have you with us today. We hope your weekend is terrific as well. And we'll see you back here on Monday. Larry King is coming up next. Until Monday, good night for all of us.
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