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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
CIA Leak Indictments Expected Next Week; San Francisco Woman Suspected of Murdering Her Children; Interview With Acting New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley
Aired October 20, 2005 - 22:00 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, everyone.
We are watching a hurricane named Wilma and waiting for its next move.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Wilma, the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Atlantic, now a monster Category 4 hurricane and menacing Florida.
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: Floridians south of the I-4 Corridor and in the Keys should prepare for the possibility of a major hurricane.
ANNOUNCER: We're tracking Wilma's every move, when and where she will make landfall. Is the coast ready for yet another direct hit?
Plus, horror in San Francisco -- a young mother is suspected of throwing her three young children off a pier and into the San Francisco Bay. We have seen it before. Remember Andrea Yates? What pushes a woman over the brink?
Who you going to call? So many lost their homes and their families. But most of the cops in New Orleans gave everything to stay to protect and serve. Tonight, Anderson rides along with the good guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEWSNIGHT.
Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York is Aaron Brown and, live from New Orleans, Anderson Cooper.
BROWN: Well, there are the evacuations, the state of emergency. There is, of course, fear, another hurricane on the horizon. This time, it's Wilma. And we will be tracking the storm over the next couple of hours -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And it's hard to believe that it's happening again.
Thanks, Aaron.
Good evening. I'm back in New Orleans again, back in the French Quarter on a balcony on Bourbon Street. We're here to follow the recovery effort from Hurricane Wilma. At the same time, we are following Hurricane Wilma. It has already killed 12 people that we know about. It is massive and it could make landfall in Florida by Sunday.
We have all the details you need to know.
First, here is what is happening at this moment.
In San Francisco, a mother is under arrest for a shocking crime, accused of throwing her three children into the San Francisco Bay. All three children are presumed dead. Only one body has been recovered. Neighbors say the woman had a history of schizophrenia.
A strange kidnapping out of Iraq. Today, a lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants was abducted from his home. He represents a former judge of Hussein's judge. The ex-judge is charged with the killings of more than 140 people.
The situation in Iraq has led to a severe erosion in the National Guard. A congressional report says the war has left the Guard underequipped and unready to deal with domestic disaster relief efforts.
And another attack on the former head of FEMA Michael Brown, this time, it is coming from his own agency. Today, a FEMA official said that Brown ignored the dire warnings about Hurricane Katrina and, when told of -- victims were dying, he did not respond.
We continue to track Hurricane Wilma by the minute. Wilma is expected to bounce off Mexico, spiral towards Florida. And what makes the threat even more dangerous is Wilma now with wind speeds up to 155 miles an hour. It could become even more powerful.
CNN's severe weather expert, Chad Myers, has been tracking the storm all day. He joins us now from Atlanta.
Chad, what's the latest?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The storm has a big eye, a 35- mile-wide eye.
When the storm was a Category 5, at 175 miles per hour, the eye was only five miles across, which means there was more momentum in the middle, that ice-skater thing, pulling her arms in. Arms out and you go slowly when you're spinning. Arms in, the ice skater goes a lot faster, doing that little pirouette thing.
The storm, though, is on the track for Cozumel and also into Cancun -- already reports of some flooding there, coastal flooding -- some of the waves on some of the buoys out here, 33 feet. And that wasn't even where the center of the eye was. That was away from the eye wall.
I will think you to one of those buoys right now, 69 miles per hour, the live buoy report, just to the east of Cancun. And it's actually going up from here. And there's the wave height, 33 feet. We're already seeing rain into parts of Southern Florida because of this storm. This storm is huge. It is 1,200 miles from top to bottom. And there is the eye in the center.
One more thing I can show you, the Cancun radar. We have Susan Candiotti down in Cancun. And her signal has been coming on and off every time a squall goes by. This squall right here probably has winds of about 50, this one, 70, down to about 100, and then 120, and the eye wall itself at 150 miles per hour.
So, every successive line here of showers and thunderstorms, the winds will begin to pick up and continue to pick up all night long, Cozumel in the past, Cancun in the past, Playa del Carmen, all of those resort towns that people like to go to -- back to you.
COOPER: You know, Chad, this -- this hurricane seems much more unpredictable than any other hurricane we have talked about over the last year...
MYERS: Yes.
COOPER: ... or 15 months or so. Is that true?
MYERS: That is true, because there is -- there's no wind to speak of, Anderson. There's not enough forward motion in wind speed, whether it's a jet stream or a low-level flow.
This storm is only making its own wind by spinning. What we need, we need a kicker. We need something with a wind to push the storm along, not the -- not the winds that is going around and around, a wind from one direction to push it one way or the other. That wind looks like it doesn't really get here until Saturday. That's when the storm gets picked up and gets pushed toward Florida.
The longer it's over the Yucatan Peninsula, if it goes inland, just, let's say, to the west of Cancun, the storm could really kill itself. That would be the best thing for the United States, one of the worst things for -- for Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula. But the Yucatan is pretty flat. There are very few rivers, if any rivers, in the Yucatan Peninsula. All the water is groundwater.
When rain rains on the Yucatan Peninsula, it goes down into these what they call cenotes, big round holes in the ground. The water goes straight down and becomes instant groundwater. It doesn't really run off and cause a lot of flooding, like it would in a mountainous region of Honduras or Guatemala or Mexico, and especially along the coast there in Mexico, along the Rockies -- Anderson.
COOPER: Man, Chad, there's nothing you don't know.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: We will check back with you in a little bit later on, on NEWSNIGHT, because this is a fast-changing storm. We will continue to get updates over the next two hours. Aaron, you know, you asked me last night if I already had my ticket. The plane is leaving tomorrow morning. The only problem is, we're not really sure where the plane is going or where we should ask the plane to go to. So, it's kind of hour by hour.
BROWN: I would just ask Chad, because Chad clearly knows. Whatever it is we throw at Chad, he knows.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: You know, the -- the only big swing at this one I would take would be Key West. That would be the place to be. But that's the most dangerous place to be. And I don't like to put my reporters in harm's way.
BROWN: Chad, thank you. I will spend the rest of the night trying to figure out a way to stump you. Thank you.
He is good, man.
On to Washington. In the CIA leak affair, it's now starting to look like an elimination match between the president's brain and the vice president's right hand, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, Mr. Rove apparently fingering Mr. Libby in testimony to a federal grand jury. How did we learn about this? Brace yourself here. Somebody leaked.
However it got out, it kicks up the tension yet another notch, with indictments, if any, now expected some time next week.
Reporting for us tonight, CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the Rose Garden to talk Mideast peace, the president insisted he's not distracted by the slew of political problems coming at him at once.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining. But the American people expect me to do my job. And I'm going to.
BASH: The biggest question, is the special prosecutor investigating who leaked the classified identity of Valerie Plame about to indict anyone at the White House? New information about what top Bush aide Karl Rove told the grand jury added to the drama.
Rove may have first learned Plame worked for the CIA from Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby during a discussion what they were hearing from reporters. According to an informed source sympathetic to Rove, that discussion took place before her name appeared in this column by Robert Novak, which outed Plame's covert identity. This further puts into question past White House statements, neither Rove nor Libby had anything to do with the matter.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this.
BASH: Rove's attorney insists, he did not leak classified information, but experts warn, Rove's account is just his perspective.
DAVID SCHERTLER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: What the prosecutor is looking at are not exculpatory statements that Karl Rove may have given when he testified four times before the grand jury, but he's looking at other evidence that comes from other witnesses or other documentation.
BASH: And over two years, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has called dozens of witnesses, from the White House to the CIA. But the public might never get a full accounting.
Department of Justice guidelines do not call for a final report in such cases. And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who recused himself from any involvement, would not answer when asked by CNN if such a report is in the public interest.
ALBERTO GONZALES, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't want to be viewed in any way influencing one way or the other what Mr. Fitzgerald does in connection with this investigation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: And, of course, there are a lot of unanswered legal questions. But one of the most interesting and intriguing political question is, why is it that we're now hearing from the perspective of Karl Rove, from people close to him, but, when it comes to Scooter Libby, his side, stone silence, Aaron?
BROWN: Well, the week isn't over yet.
Sometimes, it seems to me we lose sight of a number of things here, one of which is, why would people -- assuming what's been leaked out now, particularly over the last three weeks or so, is all true, why would people at the highest levels of the administration be involved, be as concerned as they appear to be over one little op-ed piece in "The New York Times"?
BASH: Well, at this point, they're concerned about it -- or -- oh, you are talking about back then.
BROWN: Yes.
BASH: Oh.
Well, you have to remember the time, two years ago, Aaron. This president was -- was -- was -- it was a very tense time. The war had been going on for quite a -- for quite a while. No weapons of mass destruction had been found. And Joe Wilson, essentially, at the time, in this op-ed, was saying that the president, in his State of the Union address, a pretty big speech, used 16 words, talking about getting uranium from Africa, that shouldn't have been in there.
And, again, it was a very tense time. And so, what the White House, we know, whether anybody leaked information or not, was trying to do was to beat back that criticism. It was a political strategy. And the key question, when it all boils down to it, is whether or not that resulted in leaking the identity of a person. And that's what perhaps we will find out.
BROWN: Perhaps we will. Dana, thank you -- Dana Bash at the White House tonight.
Congressman Tom DeLay scheduled to make his first court appearance formally tomorrow in Austin, Texas. He made his criminal justice debut, if you will, today, turned himself in to the sheriff's office in Houston. The former House majority leader was booked on conspiracy and money-laundering charges, charges stemming from an alleged scheme to funnel corporate donations into state Republican campaigns. That is a no-no under Texas law.
He made bail, not surprisingly, $10,000, after which his lawyer petitioned for a change of venue in this case.
As for the mug shot, we asked a deputy why it looks, well, so little like a mug shot, frankly. She assured us that Congressman DeLay got no special treatment in the photography department.
Up next, post-Katrina, New Orleans cops got a bad reputation, from the charges of desertion, to looting, to brutality. What about most of the cops, good cops? NEWSNIGHT goes for a ride-along.
And, later, a San Francisco woman is accused of the unthinkable, murdering her own children. Why would someone do this?
That story and much more, as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York and New Orleans on a Thursday night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: It's safe to say the police in New Orleans have seen better times in their city, in the media and within their own ranks.
There's still no definitive word on how many officers deserted during the storm. But, whatever the number, it's a fraction of the 1,400-member police force. Most of the police did not dessert. They showed up to work in difficult circumstances. And they continue to work in very difficult conditions.
There's the beating of Robert Davis now to deal with. But, again, that involved three New Orleans police officers, not the vast majority. Whatever, though, all the attention on that case and the other challenges adds up to a challenge for all the other police officers. It's the backdrop, backdrop, to the time we spent today out on patrol with some of New Orleans' finest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER (voice-over): For New Orleans police officers, working in the Big Easy is anything but easy right now. Allegations of police brutality, stories of police looting have only added to the trauma Hurricane Katrina has left behind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are trying to get their lives back together. Most of the guys lost, if not everything, most everything. People really don't know realize what that means, when you have no place to call home.
COOPER: For Travis Saint Pierre (ph), the police force is home. He has worked 12 to 15 hours a days since Katrina hit. A reserve officer, he's a volunteer and doesn't get paid a dime.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think everybody thinks I'm crazy, even some of the local police officers. It's like, why are you here?
COOPER: His supervisor, Russell Philabert (ph), lost his home in Hurricane Katrina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I had, you know, the den here. This was my piano, computer room. The kitchen was over there.
COOPER: Though some 249 New Orleans police officers didn't show up for work after Katrina, the vast majority of the 1,400-man force did.
Officer Philabert (ph) came directly from his flooded home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The police department, you know, has been my life for the past 14 years and a family, basically. And not -- skipping out of work would -- would have never crossed -- crossed my mind.
COOPER: Much of America may have moved on from this storm. But, for the police who worked through it, the memories are still very much alive. Philabert (ph) visits the home of his neighbor Elaine (ph), whose body he found two weeks after the storm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I had known that, I could have gotten to her. You know, I wish -- I wish, you know, we were able to have contact, even though we are three houses away.
COOPER: Even now, Travis Saint Pierre (ph) can't forgot the bodies he saw lying in the streets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was the day after the storm. We were riding by and we found this lady just laying here on the sidewalk. Didn't know what had happened to her, heard later her name -- her name was Vera (ph). But we had to leave her here. We didn't -- we couldn't do anything with her. We had no place to put her.
And some civilian came along and asked permission to bury her. And we said, sure, go ahead. And he made a grave for her. And this is what you see right here.
I had to leave this lady lying in the street. It's one of the hardest things I have had to do. Just, you want -- you're not trained to do that. You're trained to do certain things. And our training didn't teach us to do these type of things, where you just couldn't -- you felt helpless. You truly felt helpless.
COOPER: At District 6 headquarters, police are cleaning up water-damaged guns and cataloging truckloads of merchandise they have covered from looters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's loaded.
COOPER: Sergeant Dan Anderson (ph) has helped find tens of thousand of dollars in stolen goods.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The goods we have here with the markings and the print on them are all recovered from Wal-Mart.
COOPER (on camera): How you do find out where it is to get it back?
DORNIN: The military advised us of quite a few locations where they had found property when they looking with dogs or -- or human bodies.
COOPER (voice-over): At noon roll call, Captain Anthony Canotella (ph) advises his officers to be on the lookout for people trying to rip off storm victims.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You watch out for these tree cutters. All right? A lot of them come in to town. They charge these little old ladies $5,000 to cut down a three-inch pine sapling.
COOPER: Saint Pierre (ph) and Philabert (ph) spend their days responding to reports, like this one of a missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A cadaver dog into this pile, it's even dangerous for the dog.
COOPER: They check out a collapsed building. Someone has said a body may still be inside.
It turns out to be a false alarm. Neighbors report, the man has already been removed. It is the kind of call that will never make headlines, but is the kind of work New Orleans police must do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think, despite what the public sees on TV, you know, this department is a great department. These guys, no matter what, get up every day, put their uniform on and come to work, serve the city proudly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And they wear the uniform proudly. And they continue to day in and day out. And they continue to show up to work, despite all the difficult conditions they are suffering at home and in their personal lives.
I will talk to the acting police superintendent in a second about what he says the department is up against and how he wants to see it change.
But, first, a quick update on the top stories of the evening.
For that, we go to Christi Paul in Atlanta.
Hey, Christi.
CHRISTI PAUL, HEADLINE NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Anderson.
A teenager has been arrested in connection with the murder of a high-profile attorney's wife. Authorities in California have not identified the boy and said they did not yet have a motive for Pamela Vitale's fatal beating. Vitale's body was found Saturday by her husband, Daniel Horowitz.
New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg won more than $850,000 in last night's Powerball lottery. The senator, already a millionaire, matched five of the six numbers. When he picked up the check, he told reporters, hey, his -- his wife already has plans for that money. Meanwhile, the overall winner, a ticket-holder from Oregon, has not yet claimed the record $340 million prize.
Have we been given the soft soap over antibacterial soaps? An FDA advisory panel says that antibacterials are no better than regular soap and could encourage the growth to bacteria resistance to antibiotics.
And a plucky escape for a California surfer. A 20-year-old girl beat off a 14-foot shark by hitting it in the tail. The shark, believed to be a great white, bit her leg and her board. She is recovering in the hospital.
Glad to know she's all right -- Anderson, hand it back to you.
COOPER: Man, that -- that is incredible. That's an unbelievable story.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Coming up...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Coming up -- yes -- coming up, Christi, more from New Orleans. New Orleans top cop defends the force.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN RILEY, ACTING NEW ORLEANS POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: I don't think the nation realized the magnitude of the devastation that occurred here. Our officers see it on a daily basis, especially if you're in the New Orleans east area, some areas of the city that it still looks like an atom bomb.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: You are going to hear more of my interview with him just after the break.
Plus, keeping the music in New Orleans alive halfway across the country. They're playing a lot of music here now on Bourbon Street, but the city of Portland, Oregon, is doing more than its part to keep the jazz alive.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Bourbon Street in New Orleans, this is the scene the city would like you to see, people walking around, strolling around, business returning to normal.
But most parts of this city, of course, are not returning to normal, many parts of this city completely decimated, no one able to go there, no electricity, life very far from normal here in the Big Easy.
As you saw before the break, we spent some time with police here in New Orleans. Part of our day included a talk with their boss. As you might imagine, much of the discussion centered on the Davis beating and how acting Superintendent Warren Riley is handling it.
But we began by talking about the water view. (ph)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: I think a lot of people who haven't spent time here don't really understand what your police officers continue to go through on a daily basis. How tough is it for them?
RILEY: Well, it's very tough.
The most important thing, I don't think the nation realized the magnitude of the devastation that occurred here. Our officers see it on a daily basis, especially if you're in the New Orleans east area, some areas of the city that it still looks like an atom bomb. There's still displaced, still separated from families, living on a ship. Our future is uncertain. So, there's a lot of things that officers are going through.
COOPER: We talked to Mr. Davis the other day. And he ends just about every interview we have done with him by saying, this is not the face of the New Orleans Police Department, and that he has no animosity toward the New Orleans Police Department, and that whatever occurred was the work of the people there, not a police policy.
Do you feel or do you worry that the police department gets unfairly tainted with a very broad brush?
RILEY: Well, certainly, we do.
That situation, obviously, whatever all the facts really are, certainly, what has been depicted certainly puts us in a bad light. I think Mr. Davis has truly been a gentleman, in the sense of how he has handled this situation.
Our department is an outstanding department. Obviously, we have had some trouble in the past, just like every police department. But, being in the national spotlight the way we are, and some of the things that have been presented NOPD, truly puts us in a bad light.
COOPER: You have moved very quickly to address the issue, to address the incident that occurred here. The officers have been suspended, pending their trial, which will be in -- in January.
I want to play you something that Frank DeSalvo, their attorney, said about your actions. And just, if you can, respond to them.
RILEY: OK.
COOPER: Let's -- let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANK DESALVO, ATTORNEY FOR NEW ORLEANS POLICE OFFICERS: This is the first time I have seen a chief of police come out immediately after an incident without a full investigation and make a statement like that.
I don't understand why he made it. I don't understand what he had to gain by doing it. But it was clearly without due process. These people were suspended without pay, without a full investigation. And that's sad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RILEY: Well, you know, Mr. DeSalvo is a union attorney. Mr. DeSalvo has to do what he has to do. And, as police chief, I have to do what I have to do. And I will simply leave it at that.
COOPER: One of the things I have been asking every politician, every person involved in Hurricane Katrina -- and I want to put the question to you -- and it's a question an officer asked me to ask you tonight -- will there ever be, on the side of the police force, an accounting, a look back at what went wrong, what went right, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and before Hurricane Katrina? Will there be sort of a -- a -- a police accounting, so that it never happens again?
RILEY: Well, absolutely.
We have -- after every major event, we have action -- after- action reports. We have those done. We're critiquing them right now. We will put a new emergency preparedness plan in place, based on those comments from the commanders and the officers.
No one could predict this event, that it would be this bad, that 80 percent of the city would be covered in water, that we would have no power or communications, that we would not have assistance within the first 48 hours. This is an event, a catastrophe of all time for this country. No one could have handled this anywhere in the country perfectly. Certainly, there's a lot for us to learn, but there's a lot for this country to learn as well.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That was acting Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department Warren Riley.
Still to come tonight, Hurricane Wilma beginning to turn to the north, but not before the resort town of Cancun feels some of its fury. We will take you there.
Also, trying to make sense of the most senseless of all murders, taking the lives of one's own children -- how could a mother do such a thing?
From New Orleans and New York and around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) * COOPER: Having a late night dinner here in New Orleans, in the French Quarter. This is a place several jazz musicians used to call home, many of them in fact. We're going to have more of what they're doing now in Portland, Oregon, in fact, that's later in the broadcast. But first a look at what's happening right now at this moment, and a caution, our first story contains some disturbing images.
The U.S. is moving to limit damage from pictures broadcast by an Australian television network. The video reportedly shows U.S. troops in Afghanistan burning the bodies of two suspected Taliban fighters, something deeply offensive to Muslims, then using the bodies for propaganda purposes. The State Department is calling it an isolated incident, one that does not represent American values. The Pentagon says they are investigating.
A U.N. investigation is pointing the finger at Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al Hariri. The report says the truck bomb that killed Hariri and 20 others in February was enormously complex, it says it's difficult to imagine both Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were not in on it.
Booked, photographed, and fingerprinted, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay surrendered to police today in Houston, Texas, one day after an arrest warrant was issued for him. He faces conspiracy and money-laundering charges. He was released on $10,000 bond.
Forensics experts in California are slowly thawing a frozen body found in a glacier in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a mystery, this case, the well-preserved remains are believed to be those of a World War II airman. He was found wearing a parachute with the word "ARMY" on it, a military plane crashed in the area in 1942. A remarkable story of detective work, Aaron. They are basically going to have to de-thaw the body and try and get whatever forensic evidence they can, whatever DNA evidence they can from any potential living relatives to identify this man.
BROWN: It's an incredible story. Over the next several days, the story will almost certainly be Hurricane Wilma. Our severe weather expert, Chad Myers, continues to watch it. He joins us again from Atlanta.
MYERS: And good evening, Aaron. We are watching the storm now on the satellite. We can also see it on the Cancun radar. We thought we noticed a little wobble to the left toward back into the Yucatan peninsula the past couple of frames. I can get a lot closer.
You can see this in a couple of different places, a couple different ways, a very large storm extending all the way from Cuba all the way down to El Salvador. The eye is going to get smaller in the overnight hours. That smaller, tighter eye is going to get the winds back up.
And in fact I'm just getting now the 11:00 advisory, 27 -- 26 minutes early, boy, the guys are on it now. Northwest is the movement at six miles per hour, maximum sustained winds, still 150 miles per hour. So it is still a Category 4 storm although 156 makes it a Category 5, so kind of splitting hairs here.
There is a hurricane hunter aircraft in the plane right now and another one on the way so that should really give us a really good estimation of what's going on. The NOAA buoy report, in fact, there's a buoy out here just to the south of Cancun and Cozumel, and that buoy just had a wave of 32 feet with a wind gust of 87 miles an hour, sustained winds at 67.
And look at the water temperature, 84 degrees. That is critical for a storm to be able to warm up or enhance itself. If that water temperature was 65, because of a bunch of mixing of the water with deeper water, then the storm would be dying. At 84, it can still grow. So that is part of a problem.
There you go. There's the eye of the storm. We can get you up a little bit closer, on up toward Cancun, having a lot of trouble getting a live shot from our Susan Candiotti because of squall after squall after squall that's coming onshore. Every squall, the wind picks up. Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: What's our best guess about when and if it hits the continental United States?
MYERS: It looks like that's going to be either Sunday night or Monday morning, certainly after dark Sunday even for Key West. Some of the areas here, as they move on up toward the northeast, this really hasn't changed very much. This is the newest track, by the way, Aaron, because that says 8:00 Monday. The old track would have said 2:00 Monday. So the storm, as a Category 1 as it comes across the Florida peninsula, this is the latest thinking from the hurricane center, so Sunday night after dark, even into Monday morning. That right there, that line, if I kind of average it out, that almost looks like 8:00 a.m. Monday. So it looks like they did slow it down a few miles per hour as it makes that right hand turn around Cuba.
BROWN: Chad, thank you very much. Chad Myers, we'll continue to stay in touch with him.
To other matters now. Do a simple Web search for the phrase "mothers who kill" and you'll come up with over 5 million hits, (INAUDIBLE) entirely disproportionate, by the way, to the frequency of the crime but perhaps a perfect measure of the universal need to understand the unthinkable. Tonight, the U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search through 55 degree waters in San Francisco Bay, where yesterday, they recovered one of Lashaun Harris' three children. Authorities say she put them there.
Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a warm autumn afternoon when witnesses say these three children were taken by a woman to the end of Pier 7. The pier juts 700 feet out into the bay, a popular spot for tourists and fishermen.
Then...
CHIEF HEATHER FONG, SAN FRANCISCO POLICE: We received a 911 call at our emergency dispatch center from a citizen reporting that he had observed a woman putting two children into the water.
DORNIN: It was allegedly not two, but three children. Police say they found 23-year-old Lashaun Harris pushing an empty stroller down the pier. She was arrested and charged with the murder of her three children. Her family says she's had mental health problems, including schizophrenia.
ASIA POWELL, SUSPECT'S COUSIN: She was on medication, but they took her off the medication.
DORNIN: Four hours later, the first body was discovered, 2 1/2- year-old Toronta (ph), more than two miles from Pier 7, heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge.
The city launched an all-out effort to find the bodies of the two other children, 16-month-old Joshua (ph) and 6-year-old Treshaun (ph).
The water here is 55 degrees. No one can survive long.
MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM (D), SAN FRANCISCO: All of us are somewhat in shock. These are senseless and inexplicable things that are beyond the pale of imagination.
DORNIN: Former neighbor Angelica Williams says police often came to the house to break up fights, and last year, she says, Harris began behaving strangely.
ANGELA WILLIAMS, SUSPECT'S FORMER NEIGHBOR: Paranoid all the time. She would be up in the house looking out the windows.
DORNIN (on camera): Police told a local newspaper reporter that the woman said she was hearing voices that told her to throw her children into the bay. City officials are so concerned how this story will impact young children they're offering mental health services to anyone who needs them.
Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Heather Fong is the chief of police in San Francisco, she joins us from that city now. Is there much dispute now about the basic facts of the case, what happened?
FONG: I think that we're very clear that last evening at about 5:27 we received a 911 call stating that a woman had thrown two children into the bay. And subsequently, we have gathered more information and as was reported, taken a person into custody.
BROWN: And has she been talking?
FONG: That is part of the investigation. Obviously, that includes interviews, and we do have statements. However, that is part of an investigation that I cannot share for fear of compromising that investigation.
BROWN: So you can't say whether she's been talking to your detectives or not at this point. Does she have a lawyer already?
FONG: I can't-share that at this time, no.
BROWN: You can't tell us if she has a lawyer?
FONG: No, she is being -- she has been interviewed, and we will continue working with her and any representative that she has.
BROWN: There's been a lot out there about her mental condition. You want to shoot any of that down? She has had some emotional problems, some mental problems. Is that essentially accurate as far as you know?
FONG: That information has been brought to our attention and obviously, any thorough investigation would include the verification of any of that information.
BROWN: Is the recovery operation still ongoing in the bay?
FONG: Yes. The recovery operation is continuing. The United States Coast Guard had worked with us from the time of the call until late this afternoon. And at this time, the San Francisco Police Department and the San Francisco Fire Department will continue with that recovery operation. BROWN: Chief, do you have any idea when charges will be filed?
FONG: She -- the suspect in this case was booked on the charges late yesterday evening and she will be pending arraignment early next week.
BROWN: Good to talk to you. Thank you.
FONG: Thank you.
BROWN: Chief Heather Fong of the San Francisco Police Department.
When we come back, the lawyer who defended Andrea Yates, we will talk him about what we know about mothers who kill, why they kill, whether children are adequately protected in the system.
And Bourbon Street's cool cats finding a home in the Northwest, in the Rose City, in fact, will Portland, Oregon, ever be the same? (INAUDIBLE) this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This era of notoriety of mother whose kill their children dates back 11 years next week. Susan Smith's crime, her tragedy, was first to play out in the current media environment of wall to wall TV coverage. Too soon to know whether something in Lashaun Harris' background will win her a measure compassion, but the horrific circumstances of her alleged crime definitely put her in select company.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FONG: I'm confirming the name of the person who was stopped last evening and is now booked, her name is Lashaun Harris.
BROWN (voice-over): There is something unthinkable about it that any mother could kill her child. In this case, the mom was 23, the accusation she threw her children into the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay.
NEWSOM: Makes you, frankly, sick to your stomach, that you live in a society where something like this could happen.
BROWN: And that it does but it doesn't explain why it happens. Perhaps nothing really can. Lashaun Harris' family says she was sick, mentally ill, schizophrenic. We don't yet know if that is true.
Andrea Yates drowned her five children in Houston. Her lawyer says it was severe postpartum depression which untreated became postpartum psychosis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think her clock has been ticking well before June 20th, 2001, when those children died.
BROWN: Sick or not, a jury found she did know right from wrong and therefore found her guilty, a verdict since overturned and Andrea Yates awaits a new trial.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, please take your seats.
BROWN: Before Andrea Yates there was Susan Smith back in 1994, she placed her two sons, Michael, who was then 3, and Alex, just 14 months, into a car and rolled the car into a South Carolina lake.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you guys have got to be strong.
BROWN: She told police it was carjacking. And for nine days, she and her estranged husband pleaded for the boys' safe return. Nine days until she finally confessed. The prosecutor said she did it to win back a boyfriend. Her attorney said she was depressed, was herself a victim of molestation as a child. A jury found her guilty of murder and sent her to prison for life.
In 1996 there was the case of Darlie Routier, a Texas mother who stabbed two of her sons to death, then cut her own throat to cover up the crime. She blamed an intruder, prosecutors said she was self- obsessed and in search of a better lifestyle. She was convicted in just one day, sentenced to die, her family fighting to set her free.
In 2003, Deanna Laney called 911 in New Chapel Hill, Texas, and told police she had just stoned her sons, killing two of them, nearly blinding the third. She said God told her to do it. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
These may be the most notable cases of mothers committing the most incomprehensible of crimes. They aren't the only ones. According to the Justice Department, 30 percent of children killed under the age of 5 were killed by their mothers. And that, says George Parnham, is more a failure of the system set up to protect children.
GEORGE PARNHAM, ATTORNEY FOR ANDREA YATES: It screams out for education, not only in the general public but also with medical schools, medical students, lawyers, all of us need to become aware of the reality of this mental illness.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: When Andrea Yates was a household name, her attorney, who you just heard from, George Parnham, was a familiar face. And he joins us for a few minutes tonight.
It's nice to see you again. Where is Ms. Yates now and what is her circumstance?
PARNHAM: Thanks, Aaron. I'm glad you asked me to appear. She is now being housed in a penitentiary unit in Rusk, Texas. I'll be at the Skyview Unit (ph) which that takes care of inmates that have severe mental illnesses.
BROWN: And is she on medication?
PARNHAM: She is on medication. She has an attending psychiatrist as well as a psychotherapist that monitors Andrea. Obviously these days behind bars and the rest of her life will be filled with grief, remorse, the memory of what happened on June the 20th, 2001, will never leave Andrea Yates.
BROWN: I want to talk a minute about how we handle these cases. Is the -- do you think the adversarial system of prosecutors and defense lawyers and psychiatrists who say one thing and psychiatrists who say another, is that the best way to handle this sort of crime?
PARNHAM: I think, Aaron, that we have in place at least a system that can make a valid legal distinction and medical distinction between, for instance, cases that you just named, the Susan Smith case, and the Routier case. I'm not so certain that those two instances are examples that compare to Deanna Laney or to Andrea. Those two women were absolutely suffering from a severe mental disease. And that's the requirement within our standard. I think with...
BROWN: But if the only -- where these things, it seems to me, get tripped up is, if all the prosecution has to establish no matter how sick the person is is that at some level she knew right from wrong, at some level. It's very hard for me to believe that justice, at least, some sense of fairness and understanding, is really accomplished.
PARNHAM: And, Aaron, you hit the nail right on the head. The very fact in Texas, that the word "know" in our insanity definition, that is, does she know what she is doing is wrong is not defined for a jury. And we know, as individuals hopefully that are free from psychotic delusions, that the psychotic world in which these mothers live are filled with -- or is filled with values that we don't ascribe to, judge-making processes that are riddled with impairment from severe mental illnesses. And it's...
BROWN: Again, I didn't mean to interrupt. I just think it's one of those things that people hopefully will think about how we handle these things. They're not all the same. I know you'll be back in court. It's nice to see you again, thank you, sir, very much.
PARNHAM: Thank you, Aaron, very much.
BROWN: Thank you.
Still to come, the Big Easy of the West, giving the musicians of New Orleans a new home, a good home, too, as it turns out, the Rose City.
And watching Hurricane Wilma. We'll update the storm as we go along as well.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back to New Orleans. You know, New Orleans has always been a city of music. But not all the musicians are big names, the Fat Dominos, the Aaron Nevilles, they're the sidemen, the street players, the young emerging talents that give the Big Easy its sound, its style, now they're faced with starting over after Katrina. And some have ended up in a city where they and their music are being welcomed with open arms.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Jesse Young (ph), his father by his side, is back home in New Orleans for the first time, six weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anywhere from six to 12 inches of water is all that was in here.
COOPER: That water was enough to leave mold on everything: the walls, on shoes, even on books. Jesse salvages what little he can and throws out the rest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is -- I paid $20 for this guitar a long time ago. Sounds like what it looks like in here, huh? There's the soundtrack.
COOPER: Jesse is an acoustic guitar player by trade. Before Katrina, he serenaded couples on the New Orleans gondolas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): I am crying for my city but now another day is gone.
COOPER: One final blues song on his front stoop and Jesse himself is gone, Mardi Gras beads in tow. He leaves New Orleans for good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): I keep crying for New Orleans.
COOPER: He is now homeless, jobless. Katrina has forced many musicians like Jesse away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the first thing I grabbed when I left.
COOPER: Devon Phillips (ph) is a New Orleans saxophone player.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I took one pair of jeans that I can find, one that I can't, and three T-shirts like that. That's what I came with. Everything else I've gotten since I've been here.
COOPER: Here is Portland, Oregon, the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, a far cry from Bourbon Street and the birthplace of jazz.
Jesse, Devon, and about 10 other musicians are now in Portland. More are on the way, thanks to local jazz organizers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much time you do need before making sound check?
BILL ROYSTON, PORTLAND JAZZ FESTIVAL: We literally were watching 150 years of music float away. We've got jazz in a sushi bar. We have got jazz in a hotel lobby that's barely big enough to put a piano in. Any little space that people will provide, we'll do jazz there.
COOPER: The city of Portland has issued an open invitation, offering gigs, instruments, transportation, whatever any New Orleans musicians may need. There's the occasional breakfast.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is why we play the music that we play.
COOPER: And a place to stay and share a laugh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Instead of crying, I try to laugh. That's what we all do. It could very easily been different. I could be looking for another profession right about now.
ROYSTON: Let the good times roll.
COOPER: Instead, Devon and his fellow New Orleans cats are kicking off a Portland benefit in their honor, with masked stilt- walkers, and Mardi Gras Indians, they're infusing Portland audiences with their unique mix of Dixie, funk, and all that jazz.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jazz is part of a culture that's been around so long, and been through so many hard things, so many racial lines, social lines, that it would take way more than a hurricane, you know, to mess it up. There's a -- Betsy didn't destroy jazz, Camille didn't destroy jazz.
COOPER: If Portland has anything to do with it, Katrina won't destroy jazz either.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): But I won't be blue always. The sun has got to shine on my backdoor someday.
COOPER: The sun, these New Orleans musicians hope, will emerge from a cloudy Portland sky, for now they are happy to have a place to play, a place to call home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And you can't kill the music. From New York and here in New Orleans, we'll be tracking Hurricane Wilma throughout the program as new information comes in from our weather center and from the scene.
Also the warnings that FEMA Director Michael Brown during Katrina, warnings that fell on deaf ears, and the e-mails you will not believe.
And later, the iceman cometh, and with him a mystery. A break first, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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