Return to Transcripts main page
CNN News Central
Man Charged in Deadly Doorbell Prank; Florida Looks to End All Vaccine Mandates in the State; Patient Getting Relief After Living with Chronic Pain for Decades. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired September 03, 2025 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We're learning new details about what happened moments after an 11-year-old boy in Texas was shot while playing a prank. Officials say the victim, Julian Guzman, was shot in the back on Saturday while playing Ding-Dong Ditch with his cousin. Officials say the victim's cousin told police that the shooter dragged Julian away after he collapsed, cried out in pain, and appeared to be paralyzed.
CNN's Ed Lavandera is live in Dallas with more. And Ed, the man accused in the fatal shooting was back in court today. What happened?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was a bond hearing, 42-year-old Gonzalo Leon Jr. He's the man who has been charged with murder in this shooting. He was in front of a judge today. The prosecutors asked for a million-dollar bond, and the prosecutors also said they expect more charges to possibly be filed in this case, and the judge agreed with that.
So Leon Jr. remains in a Harris County jail held on a million-dollar bond.
[14:35:00]
SANCHEZ: And, Ed, what more are we learning from this interview between police and the boy's cousin?
LAVANDERA: Well, this happened in the moments after the shooting as investigators arrived there on the scene, and the details come from a court warrant, an arrest warrant affidavit that details the conversations investigators had with 11-year-old Julian Guzman's cousin who was with him. The boy told investigators, according to this document, that they had knocked on the door of the Leon Jr. house several times, and it was the final time that the suspect came out of the house from the side of a gate, and then, as the boys were running away, fired twice, once, apparently, not necessarily at the boys, but the second shot is the shot that wounded and ended up killing Julian Guzman, and then, as you mentioned there off the top, that the cousin described dragging his cousin away to try to get him the help that he needed.
They said, in, you know, our conversation we had with the district attorney in Houston, they told us that the shot was fired from more than at least 20 feet away, and according to these court documents, Leon Jr. had kind of left the edge of his property and was standing next to a stop sign at the corner of his house when the shot, the fatal shot, was fired. And because of that, prosecutors say that this is not a case of self-defense, that it is cold-blooded murder.
SANCHEZ: Ed Lavandera live for us in Dallas, thank you so much for the update -- Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Now to some of the other headlines that we're keeping our eye on this hour. A California grand jury has found Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B not liable of assault in a high-profile court case. The civil lawsuit stemmed from a 2018 incident involving a former security guard who accused Cardi B of scratching her face during an alleged spat outside her doctor's office. The jury's decision in the trial was unanimous.
Also, a group of Chinese researchers have created the first-ever succulents that glow in the dark. Look at these things. Scientists made the avatar-like plants by injecting a chemical compound into them. It's one typically used in glow-in-the-dark toys. Researchers hope that techniques used here could one day help create a more sustainable lighting system.
And finally, newly released body cam footage shows a sneaky suspect caught red-handed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And as we walked in, we see a little kid sitting at the table eating his breakfast with one of the managers. Hey, buddy. Oh, look at that.
We asked where he came from, and he kept saying he walked to Chick- fil-A.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know where your house is, right, honey?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE CHILD: It's right across the street, right over there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, cool.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Now, the 5-year-old seen in the video slipped out of his home, walked on his own to the nearby Chick-fil-A for breakfast. A restaurant staff called police, who took him home to his surprise parents. The officer said the parents were not in trouble, but this was a good time to remind families that children should know their address, their phone number, and their parents' names, and maybe not go to Chick-fil-A on their own, no matter how delicious it is.
All right, up next, Florida's Surgeon General says he plans to end all vaccine mandates in the state, including ones for school kids. So what would be the impact on public health? We'll talk to an expert.
[14:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: A hugely impactful public health announcement was just made in Florida. The state is looking to end all vaccine mandates. Florida's Surgeon General, a known vaccine skeptic, said this a short time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JOSEPH LADAPO, FLORIDA SURGEON GENERAL: The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida.
(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING)
LADAPO: All of them. All of them.
And that's how it should be. That is -- that is a moral, ethical universe, not this nonsense where people who don't know you are telling you what to put in your temple.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: This would make Florida the first state to end a longstanding and constitutionally upheld practice of requiring certain vaccines for school students.
Joining us now to discuss is Dr. Meghan Martin. She's a pediatric ER physician in Florida. Thanks so much for being with us, Dr. Martin. What do you expect is going to be the impact of Florida's decision here?
DR. MEGHAN MARTIN, PEDIATRIC ER PHYSICIAN: You know, I'm concerned about the decision. Vaccines, we have really great evidence and really great science that they are effective to reduce the burden of illness and honestly, even reduce deaths in the pediatric population, especially things like influenza, measles, pertussis. So their vaccine mandates are a way to improve adherence to the vaccine schedule.
And I think we all want the same thing. We want kids to be healthy. And this is one very evidence based way to do that.
SANCHEZ: The surgeon general of Florida made a comment about vaccine mandates that stuck out to me. And I just wanted to get your reaction to it. He said that every vaccine mandate is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.
I mean, what is that about?
MARTIN: You know, I'm not sure what that's about at all.
[14:45:00]
Vaccine mandates are present in every state. We have really good longstanding evidence for decades that vaccines are effective. We have really good safety profiles for them.
So I think that it's really important to look at the evidence when we're making these public health decisions. And especially for us pediatricians who work with vaccines every single day, we will continue to work with public health officials to do the best thing for the kids in our communities.
SANCHEZ: Now that summer is wrapping up, doctor, and we get into the colder months and more people are indoors, we're anticipating that, as always, there's going to be a resurgence in the numbers when it comes to things like the flu and COVID, potentially measles as well. I'm wondering what specific diseases or conditions are on your mind. And are you particularly concerned about when it comes to students that are going to be in classes now and into the future where there are no mandates on vaccines?
MARTIN: Yes, so I'm a parent and I'm sure a lot of the people out there are parents as well. And I think there's one thing that we know about schools. They're learning a lot, but they're also sharing a lot of germs.
And this time of year, especially, you know, we're looking at the respiratory illnesses like influenza, RSV. We'll likely see some COVID and then some of the other things like human metapneumovirus and adenoviruses. It's really important that we do the best to decrease the amount of illness in our communities. There's plenty of vaccines out there that can help us with that.
There are certainly not enough pediatric beds when we see these big outbreaks of illnesses, like when we saw the triple-demic a couple years ago. So trying to keep kids out of the hospital and healthy is always our goal.
SANCHEZ: Do you think that this step by Florida, if other states go the same direction, it might alter the demand for vaccines and perhaps in such a way that it could affect their supply? How many are being produced and put out there?
MARTIN: You know, I think that's something that remains to be seen. I'm concerned because it's really important to have good vaccine adherence so that we can decrease the outbreaks in our community. I'm concerned that other states could potentially follow suit and then we could have decreased adherence around the country, which again could open us up.
We saw the measles outbreak this year, more cases than we've seen in 30 years, over 1,400 people sick, many hospitalized, and unfortunately some people that passed. We can decrease these by kids getting vaccinated.
SANCHEZ: Dr. Meghan Martin, we'll leave the conversation there. Thank you so much for the time and expertise.
Still to come, after living with debilitating pain for decades, a patients finally finds relief after an innovative treatment where doctors implanted electrodes deep inside his brain. We'll break it down in just moments.
[14:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: 54-year-old Albuquerque man, Ed Mowery, suffered from chronic pain for decades. He underwent multiple surgeries. He tried dozens of medications, but nothing worked until he joined a groundbreaking clinical trial at UC San Francisco that actually implanted electrodes deep inside his brain.
SANCHEZ: Yes, it's intense. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and the author of the new book, It Doesn't Have to Hurt, got to know Ed and saw firsthand how his life was changed. Here's an excerpt from his new documentary.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the fall of 2024, Ed had electrodes implanted deep into his brain.
DR. PRASAD SHIRVALKAR, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR, UCSF PAIN NEUROMODULATION LAB: You're seeing here Ed's brain, and all of these little colors represent probes.
GUPTA: And there are as many neurons in your brain, if not more, than there are stars in the sky.
ED MOWERY: Yes, exactly.
GUPTA: It's like throwing a telescope up at the sky and just seeing what you see or hearing what you hear.
MOWERY: Yes, that's exactly that.
GUPTA: It's quite a daunting task.
SHIRVALKAR: And we're actually recording activity from each one of those 140 contacts to try to identify where to stimulate, but identify what is the signal, the biomarker, that tracks his pain.
GUPTA (voice-over): And for the first time ever, they obtained a real- time pain map. What you're looking at is Ed's brain in pain. And then they pass an electrical current into Ed's pain centers.
And watch what happened.
MOWERY: Both dropped to zero.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To zero?
MOWERY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't feel pain right now?
MOWERY: I don't feel nothing. I feel my -- I feel my feet, like I can, but yes, the pain's gone.
The pain's stopped.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not kidding me.
MOWERY: I'm not kidding.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe you.
MOWERY: I'm not kidding. It dropped. I mean, it's barely hooking at a one on both of them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's incredible.
MOWERY: It was like a veil lifting. It was like a ton of bricks falling off your shoulders. It was all at once. All that, all at once. And it was euphoric.
GUPTA: But that was the first time in a long time, Ed, that you had not been in pain.
MOWERY: Yes. It's like the best drug I ever did. And I didn't do any drugs.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Whoa. Here's Dr. Sanjay Gupta with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: I got to tell you, it's some of the most amazing science I have seen. Just putting these probes into the brain and listening for any signal of pain, a biomarker, as Dr. Shirvalkar calls it.
And I think what this experiment showed was that you can find pain in the brain. That's where it lies. You can measure pain in the brain. You can predict pain in the brain. And you can even interrupt it, as we saw with Ed Mowery.
Look, he had had pain, chronic pain, for 20 years. Tried everything. Nothing really seemed to work. And then he had this procedure done, and it completely changed his life.
To be clear, brain surgery is not going to be the answer for the masses in chronic pain. But it has taught us so much about where pain really lies, and what can be done about it in the brain. And I think, hopefully, that's something, guys, that can help a lot of people -- Brianna, Boris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[14:55:00]
SANCHEZ: No doubt about that, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Thank you so much. You can watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports, "IT DOESN'T HAVE TO HURT", this Sunday, September 7th, at 9 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN. And of course, don't forget to send us your questions about preventing
and treating pain. Sanjay will be back later this week to answer them.
Coming up, a group of women who alleged that they survived abuse at Jeffrey Epstein's hands are speaking out today outside Capitol Hill, intensifying pressure on Congress to force the government to release more files, as they continue to seek justice.
END
