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Chicago Student Killings; Swine Flu Cases on the Rise
Aired May 04, 2009 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Torture. You know it when you see it. And you're going to see it, done to this man in a country that we call an ally. If this doesn't make you stop and think, nothing will.
Also, a dangerous microburst hits Dallas over the weekend. What's a microburst? It's what made this happen.
JUAN TIRADO, UNCLE OF VICTIM: People actually, you know, feel afraid to say something, but I urge people to say something.
T. HOLMES: This year, it's happened 35 times -- 35 public school children in Chicago have been murdered, this time, a 15-year-old, beaten with bats, run over with a car, shot in the head, and lit on fire. What in the world is going on?
And Richard Nixon said, when the president does it, that means it's not illegal. Guess what Condoleezza Rice was caught on tape saying to Stanford students?
Your comments unfiltered on Twitter, Facebook and more. Like nowhere else, your newscast starts right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
T. HOLMES: And good afternoon, everybody. I'm T.J. Holmes, sitting in today for Rick Sanchez. We start with a tragic state of affairs in Chicago.
And you know it's a sad state when often someone says after a murder that, oh, it's another murder or just another murder. Well, it takes a certain set of extraordinary circumstances sometimes to get your attention, unfortunately.
And this case will get your attention, a high school student brutally beaten with bats, struck by a car, shot in the head, and burned. We're talking about this happening to a 15-year-old kid. It happened in Chicago. This happened on Friday or Saturday.
His name was Alex Arellano. The underlying shame in this all is that he was the 35th Chicago public school kid killed so far this year. It's an epidemic of killing happening now.
We first want to take a look at this latest senseless murder with reporter Evelyn Holmes of our affiliate WLS. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUAN TIRADO, UNCLE OF VICTIM: I just want people to come forward in that area where it happened.
EVELYN HOLMES, WLS REPORTER (voice-over): Juan Tirado makes a plea for help as he struggles with his nephew's murder -- 15-year-old Alex Arellano was found shot and burned in a gangway Saturday afternoon.
Relatives say they last saw Arellano alive Thursday night, when he left a southeast side home allegedly to visit a girlfriend on the city's southwest side. They say he called for a ride home Friday night, but before they could pick him up, his girlfriend called saying he was dead.
TIRADO: Obviously he was taken to a wrong neighborhood and that ended up happening to him.
E. HOLMES: Investigators returned to the neighborhood where the attack happened to gather possible evidence. Police say Arellano had no criminal record and was not in a gang, but appears to have been somehow targeted. Neighbors say the attack happened around 1:00 Saturday morning between these two houses.
This woman, who fears retaliation from gang members, heard the commotion and called 911.
TIRADO: She said that she didn't know whether if it was a boy or a doll or anything. She just saw the body and she just called the police right away.
E. HOLMES: Alex Arellano was a student at the Chicago Public Schools Bowen High School. But relatives say he hadn't attended because of problems with gangs threatening him.
A CPS spokesperson confirms his last attendance date was September 9, 2008, and adds, school officials were told he was transferring to a different high school and were not aware of any harassment.
The boy's family also claims they went to three different police stations before officers would take a missing-persons report. Chicago police responded in a statement, which reads in part: "We know police completed a missing-persons report for the victim on May 1. And all details surrounding that incident are being thoroughly examined."
In the meantime, a family is left with grief.
TIRADO: People actually feel afraid to say something, but I urge people to say something and maybe help us.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
T. HOLMES: Again, that was Evelyn Holmes with Chicago's WLS.
Now let's go to Ashleigh Banfield of "In Session," joining us now from New York.
Ashleigh, these circumstances for this case are just -- they just give you a nasty taste, just a gut -- your gut just hurts when you hear something like this, just turns. But this young man -- oftentimes, some of these murders we see happening in inner cities, oftentimes, you can't get a lot of witnesses, the police, because a lot of people don't want to talk out of fear.
But it seems like this was a massive crime scene. It went on for awhile. Does that bode well for solving this case without maybe some of these witnesses and people coming forward?
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, TRUTV ANCHOR: Yes, you know, it very well may, T.J., because, as you know well, a lot of places have surveillance cameras that are trained out on the street.
And if this crime scene went for several blocks -- and that's kind of the way it's appearing at this point. He was chased with people with baseball bats. Apparently, they hit him with a car. Then, there very well may be some surveillance video that I would bet your bottom dollar that police are looking into right now.
And then there's also the forensics that might be left behind in that very long crime scene. There could be -- there could be some blood or DNA from the perpetrators on the body of this victim, although, since he was burned, that may have been actually disrupted somewhat.
There may be a shoe print if they tried to kick this victim at some point. There may be tire impressions since there was a car used in this. And don't forget, there's a witness, the young girl who called this victim's parents to say there's an attack under way. So, she saw something and that will be a very good lead.
T. HOLMES: And, Ashleigh, does the nature of it narrow down who the police might be looking for? I hate to think there are that many people out there who would be capable of this.
BANFIELD: Well, it sure sounds mystifying at its surface, T.J., but sure.
Look, it's not unknown to police that sometimes gang initiations will have an anonymous hit, meaning the victim has nothing to do with the gang, but the gang member who is trying to be initiated has to do something, either has to seriously assault someone or possibly even kill someone. You have seen bus driver attacks on occasion like this.
So, this could be something like that, a gang initiation hit.
T. HOLMES: And how important is that witness going to be, the one that we -- it seems strange she was able to call the victim's relative and almost give a play-by--play of what was going on. How important is she going to be?
BANFIELD: Well, huge, because there is very little for them to go on right now. But at least she might be able to give a description of a vehicle. My God, if she got a license plate, that will be terrific, although who knows if it's a stolen car.
But, within that car, if it's ever retrieved, might be some clues as well, some forensics, some fingerprints, some hair, some fibers, any kind of things that these criminals left behind. She might also have gotten a look at how many that they are looking for or what descriptions or ages they're looking for, or if they were wearing any gang insignia.
All of those kinds of things will be helpful. She may also have at least been able to find out where they ended up going afterwards. Was there a direction they left in? Did they scatter? Did they say anything? Did they yell out names. There's a lot that these investigators are going to have to be mining through right now.
T. HOLMES: All right, Ashleigh Banfield, again, anchor of "In Session," we appreciate you, as always, on this show and helping us navigate through this sad story.
Ashleigh, thank you so much.
BANFIELD: Thanks, T.J.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't understand why we are not screaming, hollering, doing whatever we can to stop the violence among our youth, because we are losing a whole generation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
T. HOLMES: Alex, that 15-year-old, not alone, unfortunately. A lot of other kids have been killed by gangs. How widespread is this problem? A special report coming up.
Also, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defending America's interrogation tactics to students in a bit of a heated exchange that was caught on camera.
Also, we will have an update on H1N1 or, as a lot of people are calling, the swine flu. We have a jump in the number of confirmed cases, but what does that really mean? And has the alarm been overblown? We will ask somebody who does have that answer.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
T. HOLMES: Now, we just got done telling you about the killing of a Chicago kid, 15-year-old Alex Arellano, 35th murder of the school year this year.
Our Special Investigations Unit, Abbie Boudreau, has been looking into this.
It was 34 when you started. (CROSSTALK)
ABBIE BOUDREAU, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT: It was actually 32.
T. HOLMES: It was 32 when you started.
BOUDREAU: When I started reporting this a few weeks ago.
(CROSSTALK)
T. HOLMES: Here we are now.
(CROSSTALK)
BOUDREAU: Three students.
T. HOLMES: This one certainly got a lot of people's attention because of the circumstances, but it's just amazing to think of what's been happening in that city. What has been happening this year?
BOUDREAU: I mean, well, this is record numbers right now. And, right now, there's 35 students, as you said, and nearly half of those are unsolved.
So, we had a chance to actually talk to the mayor of Chicago and to ask him what is going on there. And I think we have...
T. HOLMES: Does he have a good answer?
BOUDREAU: Well, it's an interesting answer. And we can talk about that. But I know we have some sound. So, if you want to toss to that.
T. HOLMES: By all means, let's hear this.
BOUDREAU: Yes.
T. HOLMES: All right, the mayor of Chicago, here, what his answer is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOUDREAU: I'm wondering what you want the country to know right now about what's happening in Chicago. Tell us beyond what is happening -- for the people here in Chicago, they know what's going on. What about the people in the rest of the country?
RICHARD DALEY (D), MAYOR OF CHICAGO: Forget in Chicago. You go to every community, you go to a small city or a large city, it's all over America. It's not unique to one community or one city. You're killing another generation. That's all they're doing.
BOUDREAU: But there's a lot more students here being killed in the Chicago Public School District. DALEY: Because they follow them. They identify them. In other cities, they're dropouts. They don't call them students anymore. You dropped out of school at 15. You're gone at 14. We count them as even students. Even though they drop out, we count them as students.
The rest of America doesn't count them. You're a dropout forever. We don't think they're dropouts. They're students. They're 13 years old or 14 or 15 or 16 or 17, or even 19 or 20. And that's what you see. People forget them. They're called the dropout society.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
T. HOLMES: OK. I think I'm hearing him correctly. He is saying the reason the number is so high or at least sounds high is because Chicago is counting these murders differently. He's saying a lot of these kids are dropouts and they still count them as students. Does that fly?
BOUDREAU: Right.
Well, we have talked to the school district, and they told us that all of these children who have been killed in this school year, all 35, were enrolled. So, they're not dropouts. So, I'm not exactly sure where that was coming from.
T. HOLMES: Argument doesn't work. OK.
BOUDREAU: No. I mean, the child that was killed over the weekend, he stopped going to school in September, and his parents say the reason for that was because he was being bullied by gang members. He was being threatened by gang members.
So, obviously there's a problem here and something needs to be done. And when you think about the idea that so many of these are unsolved, like I said before, almost half are unsolved.
T. HOLMES: Yes.
BOUDREAU: Why aren't people coming forward with information here?
T. HOLMES: What do you have coming up? And I know that this last one here got our attention, but you all have been looking at this.
BOUDREAU: Yes.
T. HOLMES: What can we expect to see? I know, coming up in the next couple days, you all are going to have a special on about this very topic.
BOUDREAU: Yes.
On the 8:00 p.m. show, we will be doing more on this. We were able to give video cameras to some families and to a teenager. One was a 10-year-old boy who lost an 18-year-old brother, in Chicago, of course. And they're able to tell us, like, what it was really like for them ever since they lost someone that they loved.
And we really got to see some true, raw emotion from these families and from these young kids. And the thing that really stood out to me, these kids think -- they wake up in the morning, and they think that they could be next, because they have seen it happen to so many good people.
And what does that mind-set mean and what does that do to -- how does that affect their behavior, or does it at all? It must.
T. HOLMES: And one last thing.
BOUDREAU: Yes.
T. HOLMES: How far up are they this year as far as the rate goes? How many -- I guess how many were there last year, as far as student deaths?
BOUDREAU: Last year, there were 26 student deaths.
T. HOLMES: For the whole year?
BOUDREAU: Yes.
T. HOLMES: And we're at 35 already, and here we are in May.
BOUDREAU: There's still a month left of school.
T. HOLMES: I'll be danged.
All right, Abbie Boudreau, we appreciate you coming us and helping us out. Looking forward to your story coming up later this week.
Abbie Boudreau of our -- Boudreau of our Special Investigations Unit, thank you so much.
We are asking a question here,. Maybe you have heard the name before, but do you know what you're looking at? Let me ask you that. It looks like an upside-down tornado there. It's a microburst. What exactly is that?
Our meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is going to explain this for us. This is coming to us out of Dallas. And a lot of people think it's responsible for what we saw happening at that Dallas Cowboy practice facility.
Also, Condoleezza Rice goes a bit Nixonian, some would say, and this is caught on tape, suggesting that, if the president did it, then it can't be illegal. And Americans ask, we don't have a monarchy here, do we?
Also, a disturbing torture video to show you that is exclusive to us here at CNN, torture done in a country that we consider an ally. You need to see this one.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD NIXON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
T. HOLMES: You hear that? "When the president does it, that means that it's not illegal."
Well, that's not exactly the case, some would argue, since we do have a president. We don't have a king here, necessarily. But you remember that quote there. A lot of people are kind of getting a history lesson. And some are saying now that maybe Condoleezza Rice needs a history lesson of her own, after she got into a bit of a back- and-forth with a student at Stanford University.
Now, this wasn't supposed to be a formal interview. This wasn't supposed to be a town hall. But it turned into a little something else. She was caught off guard a bit there, trying to defend the Bush administration's policy when it comes to tough interrogation techniques, if you will. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture.
So that's -- and, by the way, I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency, that they had policy authorization, subject to the Justice Department clearance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
RICE: That's what I did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is water-boarding torture, in your opinion?
RICE: And I just said the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And, so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
T. HOLMES: Now, this went on for quite some time there. Even when some of her people tried to pull her away, she said, no, let him finish, and wanted some of this to continue.
She went on to say that, unless you were in there in a position of responsibility after September 11, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemma you faced in trying to protect Americans.
And, again, the quote that a lot of people are picking up on now is that -- quote -- "By definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture."
Some say, you put that another way, when the president does it, that means it's not illegal.
Well, next, we have got an update on H1N1 for you, also known as swine flu. We do have a jump in the number of confirmed cases. But we want to keep that in perspective and see, has it been overblown just a bit? We have a health expert who will have those answers for us. Also, we will be playing some -- some video that you will likely find a bit disturbing. It's a man being tortured for stealing grain in the United Arab Emirates.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
T. HOLMES: Well, it's not exactly time to sound the all-clear, but we are starting to hear some encouraging things from the front lines in the fight against swine flu.
The worldwide number of confirmed cases, yes, has gone up. It's crossed that 1,000 mark today. Also, yes, 286 U.S. cases have now been confirmed in at least 36 states. But they're saying the H1N1 virus, or the swine flu, has peaked in Mexico, Mexico, of course, where this thing first broke out.
Now, I want you to hear what U.S. health officials are saying today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY COX, INFLUENZA DIVISION CHIEF, NATIONAL CENTER FOR IMMUNIZATION AND RESPIRATORY DISEASES: We are keeping very close tabs and looking at all of the virulence markers, at all the resistance markers for antivirals. And, so far, we have very good news. We haven't seen any changes that would cause alarm.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
T. HOLMES: All right.
Dr. Kristy Murray is an infectious disease specialist at the University of Texas School of Public Health. She's in Houston for us right now.
Dr. Murray, thank you for being here.
DR. KRISTY MURRAY, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Thank you for having me. Thank you.
T. HOLMES: Tell us, what -- is the news encouraging that you're hearing right now, at least?
MURRAY: I think it is.
I mean, I think, over time, we are going to start seeing more cases being reported. I mean, if you think about it, we have only known about this really for a week. And, so, a lot of samples are getting submitted. A lot of people are being tested. We are still trying to get a grip of what's happening here in Houston. We are still seeing cases, but, thankfully, they are mild.
And we are not really seeing any of the parents getting sick. It is mostly kids that are getting sick.
T. HOLMES: Did the response really match what was going on?
MURRAY: I think so.
When we got this information a week ago from Mexico, and you see as high the case fatality rate as they were reporting, so, having as high a number of deaths as numbers that were getting sick, that is very alarming.
And, so, you know, I think it was very good for the government at the national level, as well as the local level, to respond the way that they did, so that, that way, they could get ahold of what's happening and stop the spread of the disease, not knowing how potentially dangerous it could be.
T. HOLMES: I guess that was it. We just didn't know.
MURRAY: Right.
T. HOLMES: And now it sounds like Mexico is reporting 26 deaths. We did think it was much higher.
MURRAY: Right.
T. HOLMES: But given what we know now, and it seems, if we say 26 deaths there out of so many thousands of suspected cases, at least, does this mortality rate with this particular virus we're seeing, how does it compare to what we know as the seasonal flu we see every year?
MURRAY: Right. Right.
Well, the seasonal flu, it's less than 1 percent. It's usually a tenth-of-a-percent in terms of what you see in terms of deaths related to seasonal flu.
But when you look at the pandemic flu from 1918, it was 2.5 percent. And, so, when we were getting these reports out of Mexico last week, we were getting worried that this was going to be the next 1918. And the thing is, this is a different virus. Swine flu is a different virus compared to our regular seasonal flu.
It has enough genetic material in there where you do have to be careful with it, and we do have to watch it. And especially for in the fall, assuming that it will probably come back, we are going to have to be very vigilant in watching what is going to happen with it. And public health officials are going to need to do what they can to stop the spread of the disease.
T. HOLMES: Is it possible that this thing was floating around out there before we identified it? I guess the first cases we started seeing in Mexico were last month, in April, but is it possible that other people just thought they had the flu, they were sick, and got over it?
So, could it have been around a little longer, or certainly awhile before we even identified it as this new strain?
MURRAY: It probably was, probably not too much longer, though.
Here in the U.S., they have a laboratory network that is phenomenal at picking up new strains of influenza. And they -- that's what they are doing. They're doing constant surveillance to look for this particular type of virus, because this is exactly what would raise concerns.
So, unfortunately, it was awhile before Mexico started to see that these were new cases. And, I mean, people that get sick, they are going to rarely go to the doctor. You know, they have flu-like symptoms, just like we do almost every year, you know. It's not something that we get concerned about.
T. HOLMES: And we certainly want people to watch out if the government says they should watch out and take this thing seriously.
MURRAY: Oh, absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
MURRAY: I still think we need to take it seriously. I think we still need to show that we're being vigilant about it. Thankfully, it is very mild. But it can mutate. And that's the nature of this particular beast is that they can mutate.
T. HOLMES: But here's a question I guess we get a lot here, is that should they be treating this -- should a normal American, an everyday American, a citizen of the world be treating this any more different, any differently, and be more concerned about swine flu than, again, the seasonal flu, or, I mean, should you be any more worried about this one as you are about any other flu?
MURRAY: I mean, right now, in terms of the clinical picture, I would say no.
T. HOLMES: OK.
MURRAY: If somebody were to become infected and get sick, what we have been seeing is very mild. However, again, we have to keep watching it to see if it could mutate.
(CROSSTALK) MURRAY: And I think it's important for people to understand and hear the messages that CDC is giving, so that we follow what they're saying, because they are doing it to protect public health.
T. HOLMES: OK.
And one more thing, before I let you go.
MURRAY: Yes.
T. HOLMES: Just, what's in a name? Is it accurate to call this thing swine flu? They wanted to switch it to H1N1. A lot of that had to do with the pork producers and whatnot, some suspected.
MURRAY: Right.
T. HOLMES: So is swine flu still accurate?
MURRAY: Well, I mean, when you look at historically, this virus was always considered a swine flu virus, because it does have that particular genetic material in there. And so, it would always be considered a swine flu.
I understand their reason for wanting to call it a novel H1N1 virus, but when you look at historically, that's what it's been tagged as being.
T. HOLMES: OK.
MURRAY: So, it's kind of hard to change that. But pigs really don't have anything to do with it in terms of spreading the disease.
T. HOLMES: All right.
Well, thank you so much, really.
MURRAY: Thank you.
T. HOLMES: You know, there's a lot of questions.
Again, Dr. Kristy, there are a lot of questions.
MURRAY: OK. Thank you.
T. HOLMES: But you helped us navigate this quite well, ma'am. Thank you so much for your time.
MURRAY: Thank you. Thanks.
T. HOLMES: All right, we have a report coming up here that we want you to see, especially in light of what you heard from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, what she had to say about torture. This report's going to make you stop and sit up and think. It's a bit disturbing. And it's important as well.
It's coming up after this break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
T. HOLMES: An act of torture caught on tape. A video has emerged that shows a member of the UAE royal family allegedly torturing a man in the desert four years ago.
Now, we do want to warn you that, even in this heavily edited version we are about to show you, it's still difficult to watch.
Our Drew Griffin from our Special Investigations Unit reports. And it's raising questions around the world over what happened there and why now the UAE has announced it will investigate.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It is more than just disturbing. A man led to believe he's about to be shot, mental torture that takes a very physical turn. Most of this tape, shot in the desert outside Abu Dhabi in late 2004, is so graphic, CNN cannot show it.
It was given to CNN by this man, Bassam Nabulsi, an American citizen who lives in Houston but for years, lived and worked halfway across the world in the United Arab Emirates, a booming kingdom and strong U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf. The tape came to light because Nabulsi is now suing this man, his former business partner, in the UAE, for $80 million.
BASSAM NABULSI, FMR. BUSINESS PARTNER OF SHEIKH ISSA: We were buddies. He swore to look after my family in case something happened to me.
GRIFFIN: That buddy and business partner was a Sheikh Issa Bin Said Al Nian (ph), while he is not part of the government, his family rules the United Arab Emirates. His half brother is the crown prince. Sheikh Issa Bin Said Al Nian (ph) is also the torturer on this tape.
NABULSI: Look, that torture was known to his family. The government knew about it from day one. The government knew exactly what happened. They are looking away because he is part of the royal family.
GRIFFIN: The torture continues with the assistance of a private security guard, who holds the victim down. The sheikh stuffs the man's mouth with sand and on several occasions, orders the cameraman to get closer.
Over the next 45 minutes, the man is subjected to electric shocks from a cattle prod, his genitals, burned, and he is repeatedly beaten with a nailed board.
The torturer demands salt to be rubbed into the wounds. Screams of pain as the victim is brought to the brink, and at the end, an SUV is actually driven repeatedly over the barely responsive man. A grain dealer accused of stealing.
(On camera): How much money are we talking about here?
NABULSI: It's nothing more than maybe $5,000.
GRIFFIN (voice over): The video was shot by Nabulsi's brother, who also worked for the sheikh. Nabulsi says the sheikh ordered his brother to make it. After seeing the tape, Nabulsi says he confronted the sheikh, telling him he must not be a God-fearing person. Nabulsi says that is when the sheikh turned on him.
In his lawsuit, Nabulsi claims security officers working for the sheikh ransacked his home, demanding that torture video back. But by this point, Nabulsi had smuggled the tape out of the country. Shortly afterward, Nabulsi was arrested and ultimately convicted on drug charges. And in jail, Nabulsi says, he, too, was tortured and humiliated by United Arab Emirate police, who demanded he return the tape.
NABULSI: There was a lot of humiliation. And if I can - I really don't like to talk about it.
GRIFFIN: The government of the UAE says Mr. Nabulsi was in no way mistreated during his incarceration. The tape has become evidence in Nabulsi's Houston lawsuit, to bolster Nabulsi's claim that he, too, was tortured.
The sheikh's Houston attorney confirmed that this is indeed the Sheikh Issa on the tape and said the conduct on the tape of course is inexcusable. But the attorney goes on to say the sheikh has been unduly defamed by the entire incident and that the man tortured in the desert was investigated by police for theft and bribery on the farming operation. In a statement the lawyer said that Nabulsi kept the video from the media while his lawyer was asking for money, a claim Nabulsi's attorney denies.
The government of the United Arab Emirates said it investigated the torture incident and found "all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the police department." The review also concluded that the incidents depicted "in the videotapes were not part of a pattern of behavior."
NABULSI: Nobody will dare say this is wrong. In their own country, they are the supreme law. They are the supreme law.
GRIFFIN: On the torture tape, little is heard from the grain dealer besides screams, pleading, whimpers. Eventually, he confesses to the theft, but then the sheikh accuses him of lying and the torture continues. Amazingly, this grain dealer survived. As far as the United Arab Emirate government is concerned, quote, "The parties involved in the incident settled the matter privately by agreeing not to bring formal charges against each other."
(On camera): There's now been a change in how the government of the United Arab Emirates is handling this. Four years after this torture tape, the human rights office of Abu Dhabi unequivocally condemns the actions on the tape, we were told in a statement, and is vowing to open a new investigation into what the government says, quote, "appeared to represent a violation of human rights." Violations that we remind you took place four years ago.
Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
T. HOLMES: Have you seen this, out of Dallas? This was at the Dallas Cowboys practice facility after -- not a tornado, but something else. We'll try to explain what happened there and how this could happen in a lot of other places.
Also, a gas station robbery followed by a police chase. Cameras capture all the action but do police capture the suspect?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
T. HOLMES: All right. Take a look at this, coming to us out of Ohio. This is 4:30 in the morning. Two guys in a white car, there it is, you can make it out there, just robbed a convenience store. Actually shot the clerk in the stomach.
Police turn on the lights, they stay with the car until the bad guys lose it and crash into a tree. Now the guns come out. You see the guns drawn there; the police dogs and handcuffs. The car chase is over.
Now, here is what they were running for, and what they got away with, $37. The clerk shot in the stomach over $37. We do understand that clerk is still in the hospital but we're told he is going to be OK.
Now, a lot of people have been talking about this storm video and it's a storm that had a lot of people running. Members of the Dallas Cowboys organization were running, literally, for their lives. We will show this to you. Also, the unusual storm that caused the damage is what's called a microburst. We will explain what that is and how this is different, totally different in a lot of ways, from a tornado.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
T. HOLMES: All right. You may have heard what really turned in a tragedy down at the Dallas Cowboys training facility in Texas over the weekend. A storm hit there, it hit their facility while practice was going on; 27 rookies were in there, actually. About 70 people all together, when you include a lot of the TV camera crews, a lot of coaches and other staff.
We know at least 12 people were injured, one person is paralyzed. But again, camera crews were in there because they were filming the Dallas Cowboys practice, so a lot of cameras were rolling. Take a look and take a listen to what happened inside.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(WIND ROARING, SHOUTS, SCREAMS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody out? Hey! Go, go, go. Get over here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch out. Watch out. All right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have a light on that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go. Get out of there, fellows. Come on. Enough with the story. Come on, let's go. Get your helmet off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
T. HOLMES: You hear the Cowboys staffer there saying hey, guys, enough with the story, come on. It's time to go. Those cameras were still rolling there. The roof, 80 feet above the ground, came crashing down there. And 12 people, like I said, were injured, including a Dallas Cowboys scouting assistant, who is paralyzed today. Another team staffer needs surgery on his spine.
A lot of people saw this video, saw all that wind and started thinking did a tornado hit. Actually, no. This is what weather experts call a microburst. What exactly is that? Jacqui Jeras coming along next to explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
T. HOLMES: All right. Take a look. Pictures we got here from one of our I-Reporters. You're seeing here some of the damage done and some of that ominous sky from that same storm that did the damage to that - yes, take a look at that. This is the same storm did damage to that Dallas Cowboys training facility. A lot of people thinking or wondering was it a tornado. That's what it was. Let's bring in Jacqui Jeras while we have this picture up.
Jacqui, you have it there still. Obviously, you look at that, it does. It looks like an upside down tornado. Microburst, what are we looking at?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Don't confuse this with a tornado because it's so very different, T.J. Yes, obviously you look at the picture and you see that little upside down looking triangle thing and say, what's that? That kind of looks like a tornado but not really. There really is a big difference. In a tornado, the winds are going up. They are rising in the storm and then it swirls, you know, around that vortex.
In a microburst or a micro-what?, as you're saying, the winds are forced down towards the surface in this area. And what happens, every thunderstorm has an updraft and a downdraft. And sometimes dry air can get mixed in and get cooled in that storm. And it forces a very small, or micro, burst of air down towards the surface. And then, it tends to extend out. So here you see the shafts of the winds, where they're coming down and they'll also come down right in the middle as well. And also what can happen sometimes is that the wind can get forced back up, after it diverges, it can go back up.
And this can be particularly damaging to aviation. So, imagine an airplane that's flying along and all of a sudden it gets this big bump up, right, from an updraft? So, you think you're in the updraft part of a thunderstorm and then all of a sudden the winds can go down and push the plane down. Microbursts have been blamed and responsible for many air crashes including one in Dallas back in 1985, where 150 people were killed in that accident.
So, microburst are not all that uncommon. Sometimes we don't hear about them because they such a small scale, T.J.. They're two and a half miles or less. So unfortunately this very small, concentrated, strong burst of wind about 70 miles per hour, is what we have clocked in the Irving area, just happened to come down in the wrong spot.
T. HOLMES: And you never know, I assume, if you're going into one. Like I said it can cause a threat to a plane. I mean we see one appears to be clearly defined here. Do they always look like this? Can you see it at a distance if it's there?
JERAS: Yes, sometimes you can see them at a distance and sometimes we can actually detect it on Doppler radar, but a lot of times there's very little advanced warn on it.
T. HOLMES: All right. Jacqui Jeras, we do appreciate you walking us through that. It's a fascinating picture. Interesting that we do get a -
JERAS: It is. It looks very cool.
T. HOLMES: A look like that, yes, but some scary stuff there.
JERAS: Yes.
T. HOLMES: Jacqui Jeras, thank you so much.
It's coming up on the top of the hour and the closing bell coming up on Wall Street. And our Susan Lisovicz, we'll check in with her in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
T. HOLMES: All right. A nice little jump today, nice gains 186 points, right now. Just a few minutes away from the closing on Wall Street. We'll be checking in with our Susan Lisovicz in a just a moment.
Well, getting lost, swerving, stinking of booze, not exactly qualities you look for in a limousine driver, especially one who is driving your kids from the prom. Some Massachusetts teens talk about their scary ride home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIANCA CROWLEY, STUDENT: When we were on the highway, he kept hitting the bumps that were on the side of the highway. Someone that was actually sitting in the front looked into the driver's seat and he took a big gulp out of a cup. And they smelled booze on him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
T. HOLMES: Well, the kids demanded the driver pull over, he was arrested and went to court today, has been suspended from his job. Parents, as you can imagine, are livid about this. The limousine company is going to refund the teen's money and give them a free night out, even though they can't get their prom night back.
Coming up to the top of the hour, so of course, Wolf Blitzer is coming up. Wolf, good afternoon to you, sir. What you got coming up?
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We got a lot coming up at the top of the hour, including an exclusive interview with the president of Israel, Shimon Perez. We speak expensively about what's going on in the peace process if anything.
Also Israel's plans, or non-plans, involving Iran's nuclear facilities. An exclusive interview with the president of Israel coming up right here on THE SITUATION ROOM.
Back to you.
T. HOLMES: All right, Wolf, we appreciate you. We'll see you here in just a few minutes.
And as I just mentioned, the Dow still ticking up some points right now, 195. It is up for the day. Our Susan Lisovicz is down there, I assume some happy faces.
And there is your happy faces as well. What's going on down there? What's leading to these gains?
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a surprise in the housing sector, T.J.. Thirty minutes after trading began we got a surprise jump in pending home sales, which is a good gauge of future activity. You know, funny how that works, you have huge discounts in home prices, and mortgages, 30-year fixed below five percent. And so yes, people are buying and that's what we saw and also an uptick in construction spending.
So we had already seen a rally and that rally gained steam after those reports did not lose really much momentum at all when the president started speaking about closing loopholes for corporations, for corporate America. You see, you know, looks like we're going to close pretty close to the highs of the session.
We had a spectacular April, as you know, T.J., where the three averages were each up at least 7 percent for the month and May is not starting out badly at all.
T. HOLMES: So I guess what happens now? I guess these are surprise numbers, but long-term, are these just momentary blips if you will?
LISOVICZ: I think there's plenty of debate, not only on Wall Street, but on Main Street, T.J., as to whether this is just one gigantic head fake, because after all, the Dow had lost 50 percent of its value from its all-time high in late '07. It was, remember, above 14,000. And as I recall, it was about 6,500, so we all saw that in our quarterly statements. There comes a point when stocks are just cheap and people are going to buy. And that's what we have seen.
But what we have also seen, T.J., over the last two months is that the velocity of bad news is slowing. Things are not as bad as they once were. Even Warren Buffett was saying that. He was saying, you know, it looked like we had Pearl Harbor in the fall, but now we have a recession. He's not calling a timetable as to when it will end, but things are not as bad as they once were.
And if you look at the stock market as a forward-looking mechanism, I think that some investors are seeing the light at the end of a very long tunnel. Now, I don't think anybody expects that this is just going to be just one upward trajectory, but it sure is nice to see after the losses and the volatile swings we saw in the market in the past year, in the second half of last year. It's refreshing.
T. HOLMES: I don't want to say, certainly, that Warren Buffet can move markets, if you will, but he is a bellwether. People do listen to him. And they do trust what he's talking about. So, are his comments - do a lot of people, I mean, how powerful can comments from Warren Buffett be right about now?
LISOVICZ: I think they're very reassuring, frankly, because no one has a track record like him. He's been running Berkshire Hathaway since 1970. And I think year over year, over that time, the annual returns compounded 20 percent. No one has a track record like his. It also should be pointed out that he did not come out unscathed. Berkshire Hathaway had its worst year, ever, since he started running the company because of its exposure to financial companies.
He's the guy who did invest in dot.coms because he didn't understand it. Wells Fargo, Berkshire Hathaway, is its biggest investor. I think he understands the financial crisis pretty well and he is optimistic. He thinks that long-term investing, that we're all going to pull out of it. But that we did need the government to intervene, that consumers, for once, started to save and that the U.S. government had to do the spending. It's doing it big-time. There will be ramifications. We'll probably see inflation in his view, in the coming years, but that is another -we'll cross that road when we get to it. Right now you just really need to stabilize the economy, get America working again. He sees that we are on the right path, T.J.
T. HOLMES: All right. We have only got about 25 seconds before the closing bell here. But do we expect, here if you can quickly, to see more reaction to the president's proposal he put out today for closing some of those corporate tax loopholes?
(CLOSING BELL CLANGING)
LISOVICZ: These are proposals, after all. You're going to see a big push back from corporate America and you are starting to see that already. So, maybe there will be some compromise. But for now, it's all systems go for the bulls, T.J. See you tomorrow.
T. HOLMES: Thank you so much. We'll see you later. Going to had it over now to Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM".
BLITZER: T.J., thanks so much.
Happening now, President Obama's new plan to crack down on corporate tax cheats. You may be picking a tough fight with Congress and with big business.
The swine flue outbreak reaches an ominous new level. We're standing by for a news conference this hour, by the Homeland Security secretary.
And disaster strikes the Dallas Cowboys after the team's training facility collapse. Are other structures like this one at risk?
I'm Wolf Blitzer in CNN's command center for breaking news, politics, and extraordinary reports from around the world.
