Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Shutdowns Painful For Car Dealers, Good for Buyers; Company Moves Former Gang Members into Green Jobs; Fossil Provides Evolutionary Clues; GAO Finds Abuse of Special-Needs Students; Hearing Examines Bonuses for Faulty Electrical Work in Iraq; Mom Flees Treatment for Cancer-Ridden Son; Former Detainee Alleges Abuse; Professor Builds Robot Double
Aired May 20, 2009 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Tony, thanks so much.
We are pushing forward. Cracking down and calling out. Any minute now lawmakers give their final approval to a credit cardholder's bill of rights. Card issuers say it's all wrong.
How wrong is this? Shoddy wiring at U.S. bases in Iraq. U.S. troops electrocuted, and millions of bonuses for the well-connected contractor.
Special-needs students abused by their own teachers. We're not letting up on the outrage, the heartbreak and what all parents need to know.
And L.A. homeboys learn to go straight by going green. Solar power keeps ex-gang members off the streets.
Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
We begin with our outrage of the day. Backlash over bonuses. Not for corporate fat cats but for KBR, the military contractor that purportedly botched wiring in tens of thousands of brand-new buildings in Iraq, electrocuting at least three U.S. troops while showering in their own barracks.
Today a panel of Senate Democrats is looking into more than $80 million in bonuses, paid to KBR specifically for electrical work in Iraq.
CNN's special investigations unit has been on the story for months. Here's a piece that we first aired in March from Abbie Boudreau.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBIE BOUDREAU, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thousands of the buildings where U.S. troops live in Iraq and Afghanistan have dangerous wiring, putting troops at serious risk of being badly hurt or even electrocuted, according to this man, Jim Childs. JIM CHILDS, TASK FORCE SAFE: The electrical systems over there, with the buildings the way they are, we're playing Russian roulette.
BOUDREAU (on camera): Why?
CHILDS: Because we're just waiting for the stars to align right, and something to fault, not open a breaker and have another electrocution. All the potentials are there. It just hasn't happened.
BOUDREAU (voice-over): For the past year, Jim Childs has been the top civilian expert, helping lead a U.S. Army team called Task Force Safe. There are roughly 95,000 buildings in Iraq used by U.S. forces, according to a Task Force Safe report giving to CNN by Childs. As of February, only about 25,000 had been inspected by the team. And according to Childs, of those buildings inspected, roughly one third failed inspection, posing immediate risk to troops.
In January last year, a highly-decorated Green Beret from Pittsburgh was electrocuted in his shower. Houston-based contractor KBR, which maintained the building where Sergeant Ryan Maseth lived and died, has been criticized for its work and faces a lawsuit from his family.
(on camera) Do you feel KBR and KBR's work led to Sergeant Ryan Maseth's death?
CHILDS: They had been there on at least two occasions from service orders that I had seen with reports that the pipes were energized. A competent electrical contractor and electrician would have gone to that job site and tried to discover why pipes could have been energized.
In addition, the grounding connectors were not connected to the pumps themselves. So there was basically two simple electrical 101s that were not done at that building, both of which should have been checked by a competent electrical contractor and electrician.
BOUDREAU: And if they were checked?
CHILDS: Then Ryan Maseth would not have been electrocuted, in my opinion.
BOUDREAU (voice-over): KBR has denied doing any improper or dangerous wiring. As for the death of Sergeant Maseth or any other electrocution, the company maintains it is not responsible, stating, quote, "KBR has worked diligently to address electrical issues when asked. What is important to remember is the challenging environment in which these issues exist. The electrical standards in Iraq are nowhere near those of western U.S. standards. Add to this the challenges that exist in a war zone. We have been and remain committed to fully cooperating with the government on this issue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOUDREAU: The army confirmed Childs' numbers and told CNN, "We take inspection, identifying potential hazards and repairing them very seriously and work hard to identify and correct electrical conditions which might contribute to accidental shock. We're committed to the safety of our military and civilian personnel serving in Iraq," end quote.
Now, some 18 servicemen have been electrocuted in Iraq since 2003, all under different circumstances. Many of them occurred because of improper grounding or wiring on U.S. bases, according to Pentagon sources.
PHILLIPS: All right. Now, the electrician in your story was one of the main witnesses today.
BOUDREAU: Yes.
PHILLIPS: What came out of the Senate hearing?
BOUDREAU: There were -- a lot of information came out of this hearing today, a lot of it really surprising and important. Today's hearing exposed internal Pentagon documents that the Senate Democratic Policy Committee uncovered, which show that in 2007 and 2008, KBR received more than $80 million for work that may have led to the electrocution deaths of U.S. troops. That's according to the Pentagon's own investigation.
Obviously, that was the big headline from today's hearing. This means KBR got millions of dollars in bonus money for wiring and electrical work that top military and electrical experts say was dangerous and may have led directly to the death of troops in Iraq.
This hearing was actually the 19th oversight hearing to examine contracting fraud, waste and abuse in Iraq. Senator Byron Dorgan has been pushing this issue. Here's what he had to say about those bonuses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BYRON DORGAN (D), NORTH DAKOTA: If we have contractors that are getting a lot the money through the Defense Department, given to contractors, and the work is shoddy, not well done, reckless and unsatisfactory, how on earth can they be paid for that work, No. 1? And even worse, how can anyone suggest they be given award fees or bonuses above that which they are paid to do?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: So what do we know about the subcontractors that are doing electrical work in Iraq and Afghanistan?
BOUDREAU: Well, this has come up in a lot of the different hearings, and it came up again today, that many of these subcontractors are not even properly trained. Some don't even speak English, and some don't even know the basic standards of bonding and wiring. Yet, they're allowed to work on U.S. bases.
Of course, KBR has said all along that they are committed to the safety of our military personnel working in Iraq. But this story just keeps growing. We first reported this story last year, last February, and it's taken more than a year to get to this point. A lot of new information, and we're keep our eye on all of this stuff.
PHILLIPS: So will we. It's important to us. Thanks, Abbie.
BOUDREAU: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Well, searching for a cancer-stricken boy and his mother. The mother doesn't want her 13-year-old son to undergo court- ordered chemo for his Hodgkin's lymphoma because of her beliefs, so they skipped a child welfare hearing. And now the father says he has no idea where they are. But he definitely has a message for them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY HAUSER, FATHER: I'd like to tell them that, you know, come back and be safe and be a family again, I guess. That's what I'd like to tell them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is in New York today. She's tracking this story.
Elizabeth, what do we know about the young boy's health right now?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, what we know is that he went to go to the doctor on Monday and had an X- ray. It found an enlarged lymph node, and significant worsening of a mass in his chest. Said this was fairly dramatic evidence that his cancer was worsening.
PHILLIPS: All right. So the family has talked about -- the mother has come forward and talked about these alternative therapies that she believes in. She's particularly interested in this one native way of alternative therapy. What kind of proof is out there, or does any exist that these alternative therapies even work for cancer?
COHEN: You know what, Kyra? I talked to doctors about this, and they say there is no proof that alternative therapies works for Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is the cancer that Danny had -- or has. Cancer and chemo -- I'm sorry, chemotherapy and radiation, on the other hand, are 90 to 95 percent effective for a boy his age.
Now, there are some alternative therapies that some people use to handle the side effects of the chemotherapy, but not to treat the cancer itself.
PHILLIPS: All right. Well, the parents made a statement on Friday, right? What did they say?
COHEN: You know, they said two interesting things in the statement, so let me read to you two parts of it. First, what they said is they said, "The Hausers believe that the injection of chemotherapy into Danny Hauser amounts to an assault upon his body and torture when it occurs over a long period of time." This is the statement from the parents' lawyer.
Here's something else that I noticed, is that at the end of the statement, they said, "Danny Hauser is presently abiding by the new court order." And I thought how strange; it's not a court order for Danny Hauser. He's 13. The court order is to his parents. So they didn't say that the parents would abide. They said that Danny Hauser is, on Friday, abiding by the court order. It wasn't an order to him.
PHILLIPS: All right. We'll keep following the story. Thanks so much, Elizabeth.
COHEN: All right.
PHILLIPS: And Colleen Hauser's case isn't unique. Other parents have battled the courts over medical care for their children.
A Virginia court allowed a 16-year-old boy to forgo chemo for his Hodgkin's lymphoma as long as he saw an oncologist. A 12-year-old Texas girl was placed in foster care in 2005 after her parents refused conventional medical treatments for her Hodgkin's disease. She later was returned home.
And then five years ago, a Utah judge order -- ordered cancer treatment, actually, for Parker Jensen. His family sued, and the state eventually gave up its case.
Former vice president, Dick Cheney, claims that waterboarding of terror suspects was isolated. Not so, according to a military lawyer who spoke to CNN's Jim Acosta. We're going to tell you what she says about waterboarding and other forms of what she calls torture.
And want to buy a car? It doesn't work quite the way it used to as factories fade and dealers fold. We want to hear your questions. Send them to CNN.com/newsroom or tweet me at KyraCNN. We've got some car dealers coming on live.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Just in: Gitmo won't close anytime soon. That's the vote from the Senate just moments ago. It denied President Obama's money to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and also blocked the transfer of Gitmo detainees to the United States.
You may recall in one of his first moves in office, the president vowed to close Gitmo by next January. Well, he'll speak about this in a major address tomorrow. We'll have live coverage right here on CNN.
Also, another new development: FBI director Robert Mueller testified today that bringing the detainees here would pose a number of possible risks, including carrying out attacks right here in the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Do we have the capacity to hold dangerous people in our maximum-security prisons?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
NADLER: Does their presence in our maximum-security prisons present any danger to the United States?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Again, I -- it depends on the circumstances of national security, if it's large or something, I think it would be very difficult for the person to get out and very difficult for the person to take any activity.
However, I will caveat by saying that in gang activity around the country, using it as an analogy, there are individuals in our prisons today, as I think you and others are family, who operate their gangs from with inside the walls of prisons.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Just today a federal judge ruled that the U.S. can hold Gitmo detainees indefinitely without charging them.
This latest flap over Gitmo comes amid new allegations that torture was more or less routine in obtaining information from terror suspects. Making this change, a military lawyer for a former detainee. Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley spoke to CNN's Jim Acosta, and we want to warn you that some of what you're about to hear is pretty graphic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What you're saying is, is that waterboarding is only the beginning.
LT. COL. YVONNE BRADLEY, MILITARY LAWYER: Absolutely. It's the tip of the iceberg.
ACOSTA (voice-over): Air Force Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley says she came to that conclusion as a lifelong Republican, who never had questioned the war on terror when she was appointed the military attorney for Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed.
(on camera): You thought, this is a terrorist I'm dealing with?
BRADLEY: I absolutely did. I mean, my government was saying this was the worst of the worse.
ACOSTA (voice-over): A British resident originally from Ethiopia, Mohamed was detained by U.S. authorities in Pakistan right after the 9/11 attacks. Bradley says Mohamed may have attended an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan.
(on camera): So he may have been to a camp?
BRADLEY: He may have been -- he may have been to a camp.
ACOSTA (voice-over): After Mohamed's arrest, Bradley says he was flown to Morocco, where he was drugged, beaten and worse.
BRADLEY: In Morocco, he also reported that they started this monthly treatment with they would come in with a scalpel or razor-type instrument, and slash his genitals, just with small -- small cuts.
ACOSTA: Bradley says Mohamed was eventually shipped back to Afghanistan, where he wrote out this confession, admitting to training at an al Qaeda camp and discussing plans for a dirty bomb. When asked if he had been abused, he wrote no.
BRADLEY: He confessed to all these things after he had been abused and tortured. There's no reliable evidence that Mr. Mohamed was going to do anything to the United States.
ACOSTA: Late last year a military commission's judge dropped the charge against Mohamed.
On his third day in office, President Obama ordered Mohamed released from Guantanamo, a move blasted by one group representing military families.
BRIAN WISE, MILITARY FAMILIES UNITED: When we release these detainees, when we release these terrorists, we put America and we put America's allies in more danger.
ACOSTA: Mohamed told the BBC he is trying to move on.
BINYAM MOHAMED, FORMER DETAINEE: It's been seven years of literally darkness I've been through. Coming back to life is taking me some time.
ACOSTA: Yvonne Bradley believes there are other former and current detainees on the same journey.
(on camera): You feel comfortable saying that in a U.S. military uniform?
BRADLEY: I do, because I raised my hand to protect the Constitution of the United States. This has nothing to do about national security. It has to do with national embarrassment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, Jim joins us now from our Washington studio.
So what's the government's response to the allegations?
ACOSTA: Well, Kyra, the Pentagon is not commenting on the matter. The Justice Department did refer us to a statement it released on Mohamed, saying that his release is consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice. Important to note, interesting to note here, Binyam Mohamed was the very first detainee freed by Barack Obama after becoming president.
PHILLIPS: So is this military attorney alone in making this claim?
ACOSTA: She's not. There have been a number of military attorneys who have spoken, mainly in published reports, criticizing the process down at Guantanamo. The military commissions process that Yvonne Bradley, the lieutenant colonel in that piece we just watched calls a farce.
And there are other military attorneys who describe the process the same way, that in many cases, the government was trying to use testimony, evidence that was obtained through some of these harsh interrogation techniques.
And she says that in her -- in her mind, none of that material is usable. And now we're starting to see the Obama administration change some policies as a result of some of this criticism. That -- that kind of testimony is no longer going to be used in those proceedings.
PHILLIPS: Got it. Jim Acosta, thanks.
ACOSTA: You bet.
PHILLIPS: And as we mentioned, President Obama speaks on his plans for Gitmo tomorrow. It's set to begin at 10:10 a.m. Eastern Time. We'll bring that to you live.
Also tomorrow, Dick Cheney touches on one of his favorite topics of late: keeping America safe. That's live on CNN, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
You and your credit cards could soon be on much better terms. Well, maybe not soon, but the House of Representatives due to vote soon on a credit-cardholder's bill of rights, which then goes to the president's desk. It will force banks to give 45 days' notice on interest rate hikes and bar rate hikes on late payers unless they're more than 60 days behind. It won't take effect until early next year, by the way.
GPS, the global positioning system, it's a big part of the high- tech world that we live in. And now there's a new warning, that it might be close to a breakdown.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, whether you know it or not, your life is probably linked to the global positioning system, better known as GPS. For making cell phone and 911 calls, for helping you find directions, from landing in airplanes and timing financial transactions, you know that GPS is everywhere.
Now, a new government report warns that it may be close to a breakdown. The Air Force operates the system using 31 satellites. Eight of them are just one component away from failure, and new ones won't be launched for quite a while.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICHOLAS THOMPSON, SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "WIRED" MAGAZINE: They've just fallen behind, because the government is bureaucratic, the Air Force is bureaucratic, and lots of people oversee this or oversee that. So they've tried to, and they've fallen behind.
So the problem is we wanted to launch them, but we didn't. So they're going to be launched in the next couple of years. So in 2014, no problems at all, but for now there's a slight concern because everybody is falling behind schedule.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, the Air Force is standing by the GPS program, saying it's committed to maintaining at least the current level of service.
The rain in Florida just won't let up. It's pouring again today.
(WEATHER REPORT)
PHILLIPS: Big surprise for passengers on board the U.S. Airways plane that landed in the Hudson River in January. Guess what? They're getting their luggage back. This month boxes are actually being delivered to the 150 people on board Flight 1549. Inside? Wallets, purses, cameras, jewelry, and a lot of other items, even toothbrushes. Everything has been cleaned for them.
A Texas company was hired to recover it all, clean it, sort it out. Thirty-six thousand items were recovered from that plane.
Well, you want to buy a car? It doesn't work quite the way it used to, does it? Well, as factories fade and dealers fold, we want to hear your questions. Send them to CNN.com/Newsroom or tweet me at KyraCNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, we all wish that we could be in two places at once sometimes. Well, the reality of that could be closer than you think.
Kyung Lah is seeing double on "The Edge of Discovery."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You are not seeing double -- well, sort of. This is the Geminoid, an android version of this inventor, Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor of robotics at Osaka University.
(on camera): Looks like you. HIROSHI ISHIGURO, PROFESSOR OF ROBOTICS: And the hair is also mine. This is him as a twin (ph).
LAH (voice-over): But not quite. An operator using multiple cameras and infrared detectors for lip movement runs the Geminoid from another room. Dr. Ishiguro steps behind the curtain, and we continue our talk from here.
ISHIGURO: I can have another person argue or another person. I can be controlling this robot from anywhere. Usually...
LAH: The ability to be in two places at once: say roboting into the office while you work from home. After a few minutes, I even forget that the Geminoid is separate from Dr. Ishiguro.
(on camera): Did that feel like I was touching you?
ISHIGURO: No, I don't feel something.
LAH: Professor, are you studying humans or androids?
ISHIGURO: Both. By developing an android, I'm studying the humans.
LAH (voice-over): Dr. Ishiguro has been developing robots like this for years, but they didn't look human. He believes this machine that looks so much like a man can be used to study human behavior.
ISHIGURO: If we replace all human functions with the technology, then we can (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
LAH: Trying to understand the human soul, by building from the outside-in.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Kyoto, Japan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: They once battled over turf on the mean streets of L.A. Now, these homeboys are putting their muscles to work in a very different way, and they're looking at a promising future instead of the barrel of a gun.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Facing potential bankruptcy in less than two weeks, General Motors is driving a hard bargain with its union, its bondholders, even the U.S. Treasury, but it may have hit a wall. GM is telling the feds it may well miss a government deadline to reach agreements to swap debt for stock. That's the only alternative left to bankruptcy court. The company also says it's not giving up.
Well, one way both GM and Chrysler are cutting costs is by closing dealerships. That means that unimagined pain for a lot of family businesses and incredible deals for buyers. More on that now from CNN's Brian Todd. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Angling out of the Dulles Motorcars lot to test-drive a new Jeep Wrangler. As we tool around Leesburg, Virginia, dealer Hamid (ph) Saghafi points out the popular features.
HAMID (ph) SAGHAFI, DEALER, DULLES MOTORCARS: It's very fun during summertime.
TODD: Folks in this town won't be able to test-drive these models much longer. Saghafi and his brother, Kevin, who own the only Jeep dealership around here, were abruptly told by Chrysler last week the jeep division of their business, which also includes Subarus and Kias has to shut down by June 9th, one of nearly 800 dealerships the automaker is mothballing in bankruptcy.
The Saghafis have to sell dozens of vehicles in three weeks and are slashing prices more than they and many other dealers would have ever thought possible.
(on camera): It's springtime in northern Virginia. Normally, a really hot time of the year to sell the Jeep Wrangler. Normally, dealers would not be offering any discounts on this particular vehicle. But right now, this 2008 Wrangler is $7,000 off the original asking price.
(voice-over): The high-end Jeep Commander SUV is marked down even more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're taking deep discounts from $42,000 and 385 MSRP to $29,900. That's about a discount of $12,000 from MSRP, about $10,000 from invoice.
TODD (on camera): Right. Below what you paid for it.
(voice-over): Down the street, Pohanka Chrysler Dodge is shutting down completely, and Ray O'Bryhim and his partners are making even more drastic cuts.
Take the Dodge Nitro SUV -- please.
RAY O'BRYHIM, CHRYSLER-DODGE DEALER: This particular vehicle here, it's almost 30,000, $29,170. And we've marked this thing down to a sale price of $17,510. You know, if you do the math on that one, it's 40 percent off.
TODD: These two dealerships have been successful, but now have no choice but to take huge losses on the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep brand.
(on camera): Can you put a dollar value?
KEVIN SAGHAFI, JEEP DEALER: Millions. It's literally millions.
TODD (voice-over): That's because unlike a normal situation when a dealer has to shut down, this time because Chrysler's in bankruptcy, it can't buy back the cars or parts, so the dealers have to absorb all the losses. A Chrysler spokesperson told us they're sorry for what the dealers on the shutdown list are going through, but they're trying to at least help them sell their cars and parts to other dealers who will remain in business.
Brian Todd, CNN, Leesburg, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: All right. Joining me here in the NEWSROOM to talk about the changing landscape for car sales, Chip Perry, president and CEO of autotrader.com, and William Strickland, owner of Bellamy Strickland Automotive, a GM dealership in McDonough, Georgia.
Thanks for being with me, guys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, well, we've gotten, obviously, a number of tweets and questions on our blogs, so I'm going to get right to it if you don't mind, OK? Maureenmower, via Twitter, her question -- William, this might be to you, but if you guys both want to chime in -- she says, "I owe $12k on a 2004 Jeep in excellent condition. Best trade offer I got was $5k. Will the dealer desperation equal better trade offers?"
What are your thoughts?
WILLIAM STRICKLAND, OWNER, BELLAMY STRICKLAND AUTOMOTIVE: Well, a couple things. The first thing there, if she got her offer, if she was doing this -- doing her research a few months ago, I would tell her to come back in to a dealership, come back in now, have us take another look at it, because there's huge fluctuations in the prices.
To give you an example, October-November time frame, truck prices were terribly low. And if she had -- certainly if she had an appraisal done at that time, she needs to really come back in and have somebody else take a look at it. Now, will the desperation -- you know, the desperation's -- the dealerships are not as desperate as it seems.
We do need to move inventory. The whole retail segment is very flat right now. So, we definitely need to move the inventory. But the biggest thing that may change in her scenario is just a totally different price for a trade-in. I would imagine it's actually gone up.
PHILLIPS: Got it. And, let me -- Chip, let me ask you this. This comes from Bob from CNN NEWSROOM blog. He says, "My son needs to buy a car but cannot afford a new one. What are your recommendations for reliable transportation under three grand?"
Maybe he needs to buy Maureen's Jeep there. She might want to -- but then again he wants to stay under three grand. Is it possible to get a good car at that price right now?
CHIP PERRY, CEO, AUTOTRADER.COM: Yes, and actually, it's a very common question. And at autotrader.com, we see a huge amount of demand for low-price cars, particularly in this difficult economy. So, it's possible to go online and search on a price range basis across all makes and models. And because there are so many vehicles out there, it's hard to pick one, an Acura Integra, a Ford Taurus, you know, 10 years, 12 years old.
PHILLIPS: You're naming some of the popular cars that really do well after 10 years.
PERRY: Yes. Those are cars that are out there still. If they've been well-maintained, they're a good value, good basic transportation for a young person. I think the best way to find them is to go online, a place like autotrader.com and others, where you get a huge choice of local inventory.
PHILLIPS: William, you want to add to that?
STRICKLAND: No, he really hit it correctly. There's a -- we're seeing an enormous amount of vehicles now that are coming in our shops that are very reliable transportation that are 10, 12 years old, and they -- they're very good, very, very reliable. PHILLIPS: You know, Scotty, my director, said, will you please ask them if the business closes -- so, for example, and God forbid your car dealership were to close, and you didn't sell all the cars, where do those cars go?
STRICKLAND: That would be whoever finances them. We all rely on a floor plan lender, someone like a GMAC. There's been quite a bit of conversation about them lately. But there's -- you know, some of the banks also provide that. And in their cases, whoever has floor planned that would end up with the cars. Fortunately, we're not one of the dealers that's going to be closing, and I feel really sorry for those people.
PHILLIPS: Yes, you didn't get the letter.
STRICKLAND: I know I didn't get the letter. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Oh, yes, we talked about that for a couple days.
STRICKLAND: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Well, this leads into Gady Mayen via Twitter, Chip, "Will the price of Chysler/GM cars go down dramatically?"
PERRY: They will drop a modest amount, but because the factories are turned off right now, the supplies are going to start to dwindle over the next few months...
STRICKLAND: Yes.
PERRY: ... and actually, prices will tighten. There's a short- term effect of the dealers that are going bankrupt having to release their inventory, so there will be a lot of deals in the market short term. Once that filters through, there's about 100,000 vehicles out there, which is a large number but relatively small in the context of the entire industry over a period of time.
So, this is the best time to buy a car. And then, over time they should tighten, the prices.
PHILLIPS: I mean, you own the dealership. I mean, what's your philosophy? What's your strategy? Are you thinking, OK, I'm going to give great deals right now, or are you going to hold out? Because you're not going to get closed down. You didn't get the letter.
STRICKLAND: No. No.
PHILLIPS: So, what's your mindset about price?
STRICKLAND: Well, you know, I think that we're all doing everything we can on the retail side. Retail's struggling, period. It's very challenging. We're doing everything we can to put these deals together.
You've got several components that most people don't realize. You've got the price of the used car that they're generally trying to trade in, the price of the new or used car that they're buying, and then the finance option.
You know, one of the things that's hurt the sales of automobiles has been the credit aspect of it. Earlier in the year, November- December time frame, credit was really a problem, in particular for some of the GM dealerships and some of the Chrysler dealerships as well as many of the other stores. And everybody was having real trouble getting things financed, even for people with excellent credit.
So, that said, you know, today's environment's entirely different. We have many different financial sources that have really stepped up, and we're selling some cars because of it.
PHILLIPS: People are getting creative.
Real quickly...
STRICKLAND: People are getting very creative.
PHILLIPS: Yes. Quickly, Chip, because we've got to go, how realistic is President Obama's plan for fuel-efficient vehicles? We've gotten a lot of questions about that. Will they sell? You know, how much can we depend on that?
PERRY: Well, I think it's definitely going to have an effect because it's going to restrict the kind of supply of vehicles we have in America.
PHILLIPS: OK.
PERRY: One would hope that there's a mixture of both market forces and government mandates that ultimately affect how -- what kind of cars we're able to buy. The simplest way to regulate what cars people buy is through the price of fuel. One way to tilt the economy away from oil dependency on foreign sources and on CO2 emissions is to raise the price of fuel and raise it enough so people change the kind of cars they buy. It will happen over time.
PHILLIPS: All right, if you want more information, Chip Perry, president and CEO of autotrader.com. We check that out quite often. And also William Strickland, owner of Bellamy Strickland Automotive in McDonough, Georgia, he'll give you a good deal. STRICKLAND: Thank you, Kyra.
PERRY: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: All right, guys, thanks a lot. We appreciate it.
Well, working on solar panels may seem like an ordinary job, but not for two of these guys. They're vets from the street battles of L.A. Their story an inspiration for us all.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Abuse at cool, but he couldn't speak to tell anyone. The parents of a boy with autism finally capture his nightmare on tape and can't get anyone to do anything about it. Outrageous, shocking, infuriating, well, you picket your own adjective. They all fit.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, every day we bring you hard news and news about the hardships that people endure. Well, at our team meeting this morning, we agreed we needed something to add into the mix, something a little different, a mix of good news that we hope will bring a smile to your face or move you in some special way.
So, to kick things off, a story about gang members who could have easily killed each other on the streets of L.A. until they found a new road to travel down. Here's CNN's Thelma Gutierrez.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was a gang member. I was a drug dealer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I turned out the worst out of all my brothers. You know, gangbanging, jail.
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There was a time these men couldn't be together on the same Los Angeles street corner.
(on camera): Two years ago, could you have seen yourselves working side by side like this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
GUTIERREZ: Why? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We come from different backgrounds.
GUTIERREZ: Different gangs?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Different gangs.
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): Today, former gang rivals Richard Reyes, Cesar (ph) Cruz and Rudolpho Marquez carpool together to their job and work side by side installing home solar systems.
RUDOLPHO MARQUEZ, SOLAR TECHNICIAN: We treat each other like normal human beings. We get along great.
ALBERT ORTEGA, SOLAR TECHNICIAN: Are you guys going to run it all the way up?
GUTIERREZ: Albert Ortega learned the trade by taking solar installation classes paid for by Homeboy Industries, a community organization that's been working with parolees and former gang members for more than 20 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice. We got voltage!
GUTIERREZ: The classes offered Albert a chance to break into alternative energy programs. Homeboy Industries, led by Father Gregory Boyle, pays the class fee, about $130, and $8 an hour to attend the ten-week program. He says it's a lot cheaper than incarceration, which costs taxpayers $45,000 a year.
REV. GREGORY BOYLE, HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES: What's your alternative to not trusting them? You know, I mean, on the one hand, this is a thing that actually helps keep our streets safe. This is what you call smart on crime.
ORTEGA: It just opened my eyes, you know, to so many things. You know that this man right here believes in is so much. And I mean, if you see his logo, I mean, his motto is, you know, guns, not jail. Nothing stops a bullet like a job.
RICHARD REYES, SOLAR TECHNICIAN: Which one do you think is easier?
GUTIERREZ: After spending 10 years behind bars and missing the births of his daughters, Valerie (ph) and Vanessa (ph), Richard Reyes now has homework duty and says he's finally learning what it means to be a father.
R. REYES: I just thought making babies was being a father, but that's not a father. A real father is somebody who takes interest in their kids.
GUTIERREZ (on camera): How hard is it?
R. REYES: It's hard. That's one of the hardest things in life, being a parent.
SUSANA REYES, RICHARD'S WIFE: Before, he was more immature. Now, he knows what his responsibilities are.
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): Now, Richard says it's all about his kids.
(on camera): What do you want for your daughter's future?
R. REYES: I want her to become somebody in this world.
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): He says for the first time he's looking to the future with confidence. He's up for a promotion at work, and Richard says he knows he can support his family.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: A 47 million-year-old primate fossil with fingernails has paleontologists all atwitter. Could she be the missing link?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Our most vulnerable children, kids with special needs, abused at the hands of teachers. It's a bigger problem than most of us knew so we are pushing forward on it today. Next hour, a follow-up on our SIU piece on seclusion and restraint in schools and a one-on- one interview with the man who put together the shocking abuse report.
Well, topping our "What The...?" file today, a 47-million-year- old fossil of a baby primate has paleontologists going ga ga. Nicknamed Ida, the fossil has opposable thumbs and fingernails instead of claws, and scientists think that Ida could help explain the roots of human evolution.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENS FRANZEN, SENCKENBERG INSTITUTE: We are not dealing with our grand-grand-grand-grandmother, but perhaps with our grand-grand-grand- grandaunt.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Did you catch that? Scientists believe that Ida was overcome by carbon dioxide gas, fell into the ooze at the bottom of Germany's Messil (ph) Lake, which is why the fossil is so well preserved.
Well, speaking of missing link, a Louisiana woman is shocked that she found hers right across the street. She knew that her mom had gotten pregnant as a teen and gave the baby up for adoption. Well, about eight months ago, a new neighbor moves in. They become fast friends. They get to talking, and what do you know?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMIE WHEAT, REUNITED WITH BIRTH FAMILY: You know, I had a brother in 19 -- January 27, 1977 that was adopted. And I thought, well, I'm adopted. And when we started talking like that, and he was -- my mom was 16 with red hair when she had it -- when she had -- you know, I thought well, I was -- my mom was 16 when she gave me up for adoption.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS; Well, they were pretty sure already, and the DNA test confirmed it. Both his birth mother and his adoptive parents say they're pretty thrilled about the totally unexpected reunion.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: If you were with us yesterday, you know that we spent quite a while talking about the abuse of special-needs children in schools. It followed a House hearing on teachers' use of seclusion and sometimes deadly restraints.
The abuse story you are about to see is a bit different. It's the result of a month long investigation by Jaye Watson of our Atlanta affiliate here at WXIA. Parents horrified at what they caught on tape, more horrified that they had to bring a lawsuit because police and child services would not act. Here's Jaye Watson's report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAYE WATSON, WXIA-TV CORRESPONDENT: A judge has ruled a school employee caused these injuries to 11-year-old Stefan Ferrari. Stefan cannot speak. He has autism and is nonverbal. He couldn't tell his parents, couldn't tell anyone what happened to him.
But he had a mother who believed, before this happened, that something was terribly wrong at school.
So, Stefan's mother bought this microphone, sewed it into his shirt and sent him to school on October 21st. Carolanna Marcelo stayed up all night listening to the tape, picking up the sounds around their son. The Ferraris listened to the voices in the room talk, talk about the size of a boyfriend's genitals.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The man I'm dating is intelligent, he opens doors for me and puts up with my moodiness, but he has a small (EXPLETIVE DELETED). I know they say it's not the size of the ship, but I'm going to be real. You can't throw a pebble into the ocean.
WATSON: The adults talk about drinking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Russian vodka with olive juice. That's a Dirty Martini.
WATSON: At one point in the day, Stefan eats some pizza out of the trash can. The adults joke about it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "I mean, he was chillin'. Chillin'. Finger licking good. Chillin'. Eating pizza out of the garbage.
WATSON: But what the ferraris hear that horrifies them, this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please make him be quiet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stefan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't see nothing. I don't see nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stefan, you want a hit? You want a 'be quiet' hit? There you go.
WATSON: Two minutes later, listen as an adult tells others to leave.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go away. Go. Take a minute.
WATSON: Fifteen seconds later, this.
STEFAN FERARRI, STUDENT: (CRYING)
CAROLYN FERRARI, STEFAN'S MOTHER: It was numbing. And yet at the same time, you can't stop listening to it because you're thinking, oh, my God, you know, if my child went through this, I need to hear what happened to my child.
WATSON: In his ruling, Judge John Gatto found Stefan was not injured at home. He was injured at school. His injuries were caused by multiple infliction of trauma. They were caused by his being struck by a hand or an object by an adult.
In a state hearing, Stefan's teacher, Sherri Jones (ph), takes the stand and was asked if she was the one talking about a man's genitals.
SHERRI JONES (ph), STEFAN FERARRI'S TEACHER: I don't remember.
WATSON: If she was the one talking about drinking?
JONES: I may have.
WATSON: If she was one of the people joking about Stefan eating out of the trash.
JONES: I don't recall if I said it.
WATSON: But after Sherri Jones is made again and again to listen to the audio, her answers change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that was your voice?
JONES: Yes, it was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you did say that?
JONES: It came out of my mouth, yes. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said that, did you not?
JONES: Most likely, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was you?
JONES: Could have been what I said, yes.
WATSON: Jones denies ever hitting or threatening to hit Stefan, and the judge did not find that she did. His decision stated only that he was injured at school by an adult.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that was your voice, was it not?
JONES: No, it's not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whose voice was it?
JONES: I do not know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your honest testimony to His Honor is you do not know?
JONES: I do not know who the voice is on the tape, and it is not me.
WATSON: The judge ruled what happened was appalling and ordered Atlanta Public Schools to pay for Stefan's private education until he's 22 years old.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Now, just to be clear, on the stand, Stefan's teacher admitted to the making some of those comments caught on tape but denied it that she was talking about in carrying out that abuse.
Since this report aired locally, Atlanta Public Schools says that Sherri Jones (ph) is no longer in the classroom.
The testimony simply heartbreaking. Two mothers in the spotlight on Capitol Hill, telling House members about the mistreatment of their kids, special needs kids, at the hands of school teachers. All of it backed up by a reports from the Government Accountability Office detailing abusive seclusion and restraint practices across the country.
This follow-up piece by CNN SIU correspondent Abbie Boudreau.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOUDREAU (voice-over): At a packed hearing on Capitol Hill, horror stories from parents of children with special needs.
ANNE GEDES (ph), MOTHER OF ABUSED SPECIAL-NEEDS STUDENT: My name is Anne Gedes (ph), and this is my daughter, Paige.
BOUDREAU: A California mother recounting what happened to her then-7-year-old daughter at a California public school.
GEDES: Paige was then very small, barely 40 pounds. Within a week, she came home bruised and told me, mummy, my teacher hurt me, and I couldn't breathe.
BOUDREAU: A foster mother from Texas. Her son, Cedric, was 14.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, the teacher put him face down and sat on him. He struggled and said repeatedly, I can't breathe. If you can talk, if you can speak, you can breathe, she snapped at him. Shortly after that, he stopped speaking and he stopped struggling and he stopped moving.
When I got to the school, my son was laying on the floor with a paramedic beside him. I kneeled down and said, "Cedric, get up. You're not going to be in trouble." But Cedric didn't move. Instead, the paramedics stood me up. My son was dead.
BOUDREAU: The death was ruled a homicide. But according to the Government Accountability Office, the teacher was never prosecuted.
That case was one of 10 studied y GAO, a small sample of the hundreds of reports collected by advocacy groups around the country. Education Committee Chairman George Miller said teachers need better training, but they also need more oversight.
REP. GEORGE MILLER (D), EDUCATION COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: This is, you know -- this is just unacceptable. It's a just unacceptable that this would be a policy within a public institution with respect to the care of these children.
BOUDREAU: Abbie Boudreau, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
