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CDC Investigating Mysterious Brain Infections In Nevada Children; NYC Mayor Asks FEMA To Stop Funding Cities That Bus Migrants; 3 Soldiers Killed, 1 Hurt After Army Helicopters Collide; Idaho Victims' Roommate Agrees To Speak To Suspect's Attorneys; Police Departments Tap New Technology To Analyze Bodycam Video. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 28, 2023 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I never thought this would happen. A rocket hit our building. We are all covered in blood. I don't know. Our windows were blown out. This is the room where children were sleeping.

It is good we are all alive. We are just all covered in blood. God, we don't have windows. Nothing. I was so afraid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The death toll is likely to rise as rescuers continue to search through the rubble.

Back here in the U.S., utter devastation in the Florida Panhandle outside of Tallahassee after a possible tornado. Roofs ripped off, personal belongings scattered everywhere. You can see the scene here.

Today, more than 50 million people across the south and the mid- Atlantic are under severe thunderstorm threats with tornadoes possible as well.

Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We are also watching a disturbing trend increasingly affecting kids in Nevada. The CDC is investigating a cluster of serious brain infections, which include pus-filled pockets known as brain abscesses, that seem to be growing at an alarming rate.

CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is now live with more.

Elizabeth, walk us through these symptoms. What are they seeing?

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Doctors in Clark County, Nevada, Boris, were seeing more children than they're used to seeing. This is an unusual event. But they were seeing more.

Let's take a look at what the numbers say. Before Covid, they were seeing about four cases of brain abscesses, infections in the brain in children. And then when they looked in 2022, it was 18.

So they saw the numbers go up and up during the pandemic. And those numbers, again, still very strong. There is no other documentation of this happening in other places in the U.S.

But doctors do, in other places, are telling CNN sort of anecdotally they're seeing more of these. These are infections that can often start, say, in the mouth. Maybe sort of the child has a cavity or something like that or a sinus infection and that can sometimes travel into the brain -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: So, Elizabeth, what is causing this?

COHEN: You know, some people have a theory that it is because, for a period of time during Covid, children weren't in school. They weren't being exposed to germs the way they usually are. Now their defenses are lower.

I've been speaking with experts who say -- actually, one said ridiculous. That was how they described that theory.

They are saying is it possible? Sure. Anything is possible. They think there are other explanations here.

First of all, remember, this is just one county. This could just be a blip. But in addition, there could be other things going on. For example, during Covid maybe children got Covid and then they got these secondary infections.

There are all sorts of reasons this could be happening -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: It is certainly potentially a statistical anomaly but concerning, nevertheless.

Elizabeth Cohen thanks so much for that.

Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: The migrant crisis has repercussions far beyond the southern border, extending to many cities, notably Democratically run cities, including New York.

Mayor Adams now calling on FEMA to stop sending money to cities and states that are using the FEMA funds to then bus migrants to cities like the Big Apple.

He is also calling on the Biden administration to step up before Covid-era border restrictions end next month.

CNN's Polo Sandoval, he's been looking into all of this.

Polo, this is one of the ironies here, you have these states doing this, certainly with politics in mind, using federal money to drop those migrants. We've seen it here in D.C. outside the vice president's house. We've certainly seen it in New York.

What does he want done?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, this certainly has potential to lead to a thorny relationship between New York City's mayor and President Joe Biden.

The mayor has really been amping up the pressure on Joe Biden to step in and help New York City shouldered that mounting cost of addressing this asylum seeker crisis in New York City for the last year already and still seeing about 200 arrivals a day.

So you consider that we've seen about 58,000 arrive since last spring. Out of those numbers, about 36,000, Jim, are still being cared for by the city of New York.

Talk about a major price tag. I obtained some of the documents submitted from New York City's government to FEMA trying to get their hands on some of the -- or at least recover some of their funds.

They are still paying roughly $383 a night per household. We should say household typically would be a family unit. It is not necessarily individuals.

But that is $383 a night for an average of 7,000 households per day. That is millions of dollars that the city is out.

What we've seen recently is Eric Adams really amplifying that and calling on the president to step in and assist in the form of expanding TPS, temporary protection status, to include Central America, Venezuela, Sudan, as well.

And, also, to increase U.S. CIS personnel to deal with some of those work authorization requests.

Because as you are about to hear from Mayor Eric Adams, he feels he's not just being abandoned by Republicans in Congress but his fellow Democrat in the White House.

[14:35:07]

Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NY): The greatest challenge is the migrant and asylum seekers. The Republican Party's failure to come up with real immigration reform is going to devastate this country. And the White House not having a real plan I think is irresponsible. The lack of funding is going to undermine this entire city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: We should mention CNN has reached out to the White House for comment, Jim.

As we wait to hear from them, it is important to really just underscore that very direct language from Eric Adams recently saying this crisis is, quote, "decimating" the foundation of New York City if the government does not step in to help.

SCIUTTO: Of course, this is happening with a city of New York, which already has a homeless problem as well.

Polo Sandoval, thanks so much.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Jim, one of the surviving roommates in the University of Idaho murders has agreed to speak with alleged killer Bryan Kohberger's attorney. What this will mean for the case moving forward.

And a close call for two brothers in Texas after a lightning strike. We have their miraculous story, still to come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:40:35]

KEILAR: In Alaska, three U.S. soldiers have died during a training exercise after two Apache helicopters collided. Both helos were returning to Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks.

The victims' names have not been released as the Pentagon is notifying their families. This is the second deadly helicopter crash during an Army training mission that we've seen in the past month.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is at the Pentagon with more.

Natasha, what are you learning about this accident?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Brianna, The Army is still investigating this accident.

But what we are told from the Army's 11th Airborne Division is that the helicopters did collide in mid-air when they were coming back from a training exercise in Alaska, flying near Healy, Alaska, about 100 miles south of Fort Wainwright.

And the crash occurred about 200 miles north of Anchorage, just to give you a sense of where it occurred.

We are told that three of the servicemembers aboard the helicopters out of the four were actually killed in the crash and the fourth soldier is receiving treatment for his injuries at a hospital there.

But still under investigation how this happened, why this happened.

And of course, as you noted, this is the second time in under a month that there has been a helicopter crash, military helicopter crash. The last one occurred in Kentucky and nine U.S. servicemembers were killed in that accident.

The U.S. military says they are not releasing the names of these -- the deceased until after 24 hours after the families have been notified. But sadly, this is not an uncommon event.

KEILAR: Certainly not, here recently especially.

Natasha, thank you very much. A very sad day.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching for at this hour.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is moving to shield himself from the intense media scrutiny that would come with his expected 2024 presidential run.

The state Republican Party is pushing through a bill that would conceal information about his travel and meetings. And he is exerting executive privilege in court to block staff testimony and the release of records.

Now, that may sound familiar, but it's never been asserted by a Florida governor before.

A manhunt is still under way for two of the four men who escaped a Mississippi jail over the weekend. Corey Harrison and Casey Grayson are still on the run.

Jerry Raynes was captured yesterday in Texas. Dylan Arrington was confirmed dead after a fire broke out as he was barricaded inside a house and engaged in a shootout with police.

A Texas woman's two boys were playing outside when they were struck by lightning. And 7-year-old Isaac Martinez and 13-year-old Jaden Alvarado both collapsed and lost consciousness when it happened on Wednesday but miraculously the brothers survived. They are expected to be OK.

Their mother understandably, though, was overcome with emotion. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSICA MARTINEZ ALVARADO, SONS SURVIVED LIGHTNING STRIKE: It is a blur. I just remember everybody praying and telling them, Jaden, Isaac, come on. Come on. Breathe. Breathe. You have to wake up. Wake up.

I thought I had lost my boys honestly. It's the worst feeling ever. And now, thank God every second that he didn't take my boys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Understandably shaken up there.

Jim, glad they're OK. Now they have a pretty cool story to tell.

SCIUTTO: Lord, so close. Happy for the family.

Well, another story we're following, a legal fight has ended, at least for now, in just a horrible, quadruple murder case that has engrossed so many of us.

You may remember the four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in their off-campus home. You'll recall about a month later, police arrested a 28-year-old, Bryan Kohberger, a grad student in criminology.

Now we're learning that a roommate of the victims, Bethany Funke, has agreed to speak with his attorneys after she initially resisted their request to testify at Kohberger's preliminary hearing, which is coming up.

CNN's Jean Casarez has been covering the story.

Can you explain what is behind the Kohberger team request to speak to this roommate? What's going on here.

[14:44:58]

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't know. You know, this is fascinating. We don't know what the defense believes they had.

So we have to look at the legal documents. Here is what they say.

The defense investigator in a sworn affidavit, sworn under penalty of perjury, says that Bethany Funke had numerous interviews with law enforcement, that she was at the home eight hours later when law enforcement arrived after the murders had happened.

"But during the course of my investigation," he says, "I have uncovered information that is material" -- key word - "material to the defense of Bryan Kohberger."

The judge in Idaho must know what it is because she did the extraordinary measure at this stage of the proceedings of issuing a foreign subpoena to the state of Nevada to a judge, asking a judge to compel her attendance in Idaho to testify for the defense during the preliminary hearing. That is in June.

Well, Bethany Funke got an attorney and she didn't want to do that. So Bethany Funke, we do know, was in the house. She was on the first floor. Everybody else was on the second and third floor.

And she now has reached an agreement that the chief public defender will fly to Nevada to interview her.

But, Jim, this is interesting because she is going to have an attorney by her side. That attorney will try to protect her. She may not want to answer these questions. The attorney may agree.

So will this be over or will this continue?

SCIUTTO: Just to be clear here, though, it is not just the defense team that is making this argument that her testimony is necessary. The judge had to, in effect, approve that demand?

CASAREZ: That is exactly right. That is what takes this to a level that you have to make a pause and say, what is it that the judge believes is so critical at this point?

Because normally, a judge would say, you know, at the trial you can put her on as a defense witness. You can question her. But this is before the case is even bound over for trial.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

Jean Casarez, thanks so much for filling us in.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: Can artificial intelligence help police departments evaluate its officers in the field and prevent cases of brutality? CNN got a first-hand look at the new technology being tested across the country. You'll see it for yourself when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:51:46]

SANCHEZ: Artificial intelligence can help write essays, create images, and even drive you around. But can it also help improve policing? That's what departments across the country are trying to find out. They're using A.I. technology to evaluate officers in the field.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich got to see how this technology works firsthand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Officer Dan Janeda is on patrol. He has all his tools for the day, including his body worn camera, which automatically captures videos of his encounters with civilians.

(on-camera): Safety first?

OFC. DAN JANEDA, CASTLE SHANNON, PENNSYLVANIA, POLICE DEPARTMENT: Absolutely.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): Twenty videos a day, over 100 hours a week.

His final invisible piece of equipment, artificial intelligence. A program called Truleo, which analyzes what he records.

(on-camera): Did you have fears about what it meant to have artificial intelligence tracking your day to day?

JANEDA: I did have apprehensions. It is A.I. technology can sometimes have drawbacks. It's not perfect.

YURKEVICH: Yes. JANEDA: But at the same time, I've seen things play out enough where technology has helped us.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): And that is what Truleo's co-founder and CEO, Anthony Tassone, is aiming for.

(CHANTING)

ANTHONY TASSONE, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, TRULEO: We started Truleo after George Floyd was murdered in May of 2020. How do we prevent this from happening again?

YURKEVICH (on-camera): What percentage of body camera footage gets reviewed now?

TASSONE: A fraction of 1 percent.

YURKEVICH: And Truleo could look at what percentage of body cam video?

TASSONE: 100 percent.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): The A.I. was trained by humans to detect five million key terms --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got them in the yard.

YURKEVICH: -- like profanity, noncompliance, as well as professional language or explanations. The goal is detecting early, problematic police behavior before it turns deadly.

KEN TRUVER, CHIEF, CASTLE SHANNON, PENNSYLVANIA, POLICE DEPARTMENT: I get an email alert every day at 06:00.

YURKEVICH: Dan Janeda's Chief Ken Truver of Castle Shannon PD in Pennsylvania, has been using Truleo for a year. He's also an adviser.

(on-camera): These are the keywords that you put in?

TRUVER: They are. So stop resisting, custody, arrest, anything to do with the pursuit. I'm looking for high-risk things.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): Truleo transcribes entire encounters from body cameras but pinpoints the exact moments that need review.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop resisting. Just relax.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just relax.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just relax.

TRUVER: Not a whole lot of resistance, but it was giving me exactly what I was looking for.

YURKEVICH (on-camera): And so for you, this was a good interaction with one of your officers and a civilian?

TRUVER: It is.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): The Alameda Police Department in California has been using Truleo for a little over a year. It's seen a 36 percent drop in use of force by officers, Tassone says.

The A.I. pointed out risky interactions with civilians, giving officers the chance to review and change their behaviors.

(on-camera): What would Truleo's involvement have been in a situation like Tyre Nichols?

TASSONE: I feel very strongly that Truleo not only would have recognized, obviously, the event of the murder of Tyre Nichols, but the hundreds of events that took place prior to that.

I believe Truleo would have prevented the death of Tyre because it would have detected the deterioration in the officer's behavior years prior.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): There are 18,000 police departments in the U.S. Just 20 are using Truleo, with 20 more signing on this year, including Aurora PD in Colorado.

[14:55:09]

ART ACEVEDO, CHIEF, AURORA, COLORADO, POLICE DEPARTMENT: It will be an early warning system that will help save careers and ultimately maybe even save lives.

YURKEVICH: In 2019, three Aurora police officers were charged with the death of Elijah McClain, using excessive force during his arrest.

ACEVEDO: If we see just a little change in the officer's performance, we'll be able to actually intervene early on, get them help, get them counseling, get them training, do whatever it takes to get back on the right track.

YURKEVICH: Back in Castle Shannon, Chief Truver says the technology has only proven what he already suspected about his officers.

(on-camera): What has this changed? Anything?

TRUVER: No. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I want to catch something before it happens. I don't want to be reactionary.

We want to be looking ahead to make sure that we stay ahead of the game, ahead of any issues. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YURKEVICH: And the Seattle Police Department was the first department to start using Truleo. But they have since cancelled their membership with Truleo because they say they have concerns over citizen privacy.

But Truleo says that all citizen privacy data is stored where it's always been stored, and that is on the police department's servers. And, Boris, another barrier to entry for some of these police

departments may be cost. It's about $20 to $50 per officer per month. If you have 100 officers, that's about $60,000.

So, some departments may have a tough time paying for this. But there are federal grant programs in place.

Boris, ultimately, time will tell. Body cams were slow to be adopted by police departments, but they're common practice now. We shall see if this artificial intelligence is accepted ultimately in the same way -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: It is some incredible technology.

Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much for that report.

Jim?

SCIUTTO: Three teens now face charges for throwing rocks at people in their cars, ultimately killing a woman. New gruesome details just discovered by investigators, coming up next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)