Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Georgia Police Kill Preacher; Military Contractors Behaving Badly; Brown's Bumbling on Larry King Live
Aired September 03, 2009 - 14:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Say it ain't so. Agents shoot and kill this Georgia pastor. Did they think he was a suspect? Did he think they were robbing him? Either way, uh-oh.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS BROWN, SINGER: I don't -- it's crazy. I'm like, wow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: The question, almost all who watched are asking: why did he even do the interview? Sadly, Chris Brown bombs on "LARRY KING." How much did he damage his brand? We're asking.
Your tax dollars at work. Another example of contractors gone wild. Is it time to take a serious look at companies that profit from war? We're asking.
Tom Ridge's book says he was pressured to change the threat level for political reasons. But now Tom Ridge is saying, those aren't my words.
Huh?
All this and more as part of your national conversation for Thursday, September 3, 2009.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: And hello again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez with the Next Generation of News. This is a conversation. It's not a speech. It's your turn to get involved.
And I guarantee you will get involved after you watch this story. This is surveillance video that I'm going to show you. You're going to see a man, right? He walks in with a red shirt. He's a preacher. He's in his late 20s. His name is Jonathan Ayers. That's enough.
Let's roll the video, and I will take you through it. There he is. He is stopping at a convenience store, his own business. The convenience clerk says there was nothing strange or bizarre about that. Then he goes back out to his car and, suddenly, that truck pulls up.
You see that truck that pulled up right there? There are several police officers. They are all members of a task force from several counties, Habersham, Stephens, and Rabun counties. Now watch what's about to happen. It seems like they approach his car thinking that he has a suspect in the car or that he himself is a suspect.
He, apparently not knowing or realizing they're police officers, backs his car up into them, they shoot. And as a result, this young preacher, so beloved by all indications from the information that we're about to get was killed after his car sped off and eventually hit another light pole. That's the scene.
We will show it to you several times again, and you will be able to see, there's the officers. They're coming up. They think that there's something going on here because there was a drug suspect in his car moments ago, a woman that they were investigating as a drug suspect.
They follow him. Now, the drug suspect's gone. He's in a car by himself. And when they approach the car, he freaks out for some reason. He reacts as such, and then they fire on him.
The questions that we're asking now obviously have to do with whether he believed that maybe they were trying to rob him and he didn't know that they were actually police officers and whether they should have actually made sure that he was in fact a drug suspect before they moved on his car.
This is bound to become a major controversy. Again, we're talking about a rural area. This is about 150 miles or so from Atlanta, just north of Atlanta, just before you get on the South Carolina and Tennessee border. According to everyone that we spoke to, this preacher led an exemplary life. What gives?
Now, let me read you something right now that I just got from his blog as I was getting ready to go on the air. He says in his blog: "I have three loves in my life, Jesus Christ, my wife, Abby, and the church."
All right, come back to me now, Rog, because I want to show you something. We have just before coming on the air moments ago received this document. We have finally been able to get a hold of the GBI. The GBI is the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They usually do a real good job with this information.
There is all kinds of information on here which seems to give us a better idea of what actually happened here. And you know who else will give us a better idea of what may have actually happened here? Our own law enforcement analyst, Mike Brooks. He's going to be following this with us. We're going to get into a conversation about what may have happened and where this investigation will lead us now.
We will have that, so stay with us.
Also this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": Do you remember doing it? CHRIS BROWN, MUSICIAN: No.
KING: Don't remember doing it?
BROWN: I don't -- it's like, it's crazy to me. I'm like, wow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Wow. Crazy. Chris Brown really has no good answers on "LARRY KING," literally, no good answers. Just how much damage has he done to his brand as a result of that?
Also, the after-show is coming up at 4:00, CNN.com/live. Stay with us. We're going to get through this conversation in just a little bit. It's about a minute-and-a-half to two minutes away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: OK. There's a lot of stuff to get through. I'm going to show you the video one more time. All right, Rog, if you got that video.
Mike, you're standing by. You have been watching this thing with us. Let's do this together.
Again, that is Mr. Ayers, Pastor Ayers. He's a preacher in north Georgia. It makes one think that perhaps he's living a good life. At least that's what all his parishioners say. He's at a gas station. There was just a woman in his car. That woman is said to have been a drug suspect.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: He dropped her off.
SANCHEZ: He dropped her off. There he is at the gas station. Now the police officers come in behind him. They seem to approach his car. He freaks out for some reason. And suddenly the police officers fire. They hit him. His car takes off. The police officers say their lives were in danger when he backed up and almost hit one of them. Eventually his car goes on, hits a tree, and he dies, partly as a result of the gunshot wound.
Now, let's go to Twitter and let me see what you guys are saying. Everybody has something to say about this they already.
At the very top, we got Stepshep. He's saying: "You know what? Were the police obviously cops or were they plainclothes?"
Well, the answer is they were in plainclothes. But Mike Brooks is going to take us through that in a minute.
"Why focus on the preacher part of the killed man? Would you have the same if he was a plumber? Bigotry at its finest."
I don't know. I think we give the benefit of the doubt to people who are dedicating their lives to their religion.
"I think he knew what he was doing and now he's trying to cover it up."
Finally, Ryan says: "Don't they have an obligation to show their badges in a situation like this? I hate this shoot-first, ask-later policy."
Mike Brooks, let me bring you in. Go.
BROOKS: Now, on that question right there, don't they have an obligation? They do and they had their badges around their neck. That document that you spoke of right before we went to break...
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Let's look at the video again. Did they obviously show themselves to be -- they have an unmarked car, and they are not wearing police officers' uniforms.
BROOKS: No. But...
SANCHEZ: I got to tell you, Mike, the average citizen just sees all this commotion, we're not -- I'm not looking for a badge.
BROOKS: You know what? That's fine. But I have been involved in -- we call these jump-outs many, many times, badge around my neck, weapon in my hand. "Police officer. Stop."
Now, if he wasn't doing anything wrong, why didn't he go ahead and stop? Broad daylight. So he probably saw the badges around their neck. This document that we got from John Bankhead, who is the Georgia Bureau Investigation of public information officer, it says basically they thought that they saw a drug transaction.
Now, the woman that he dropped off, they have charged her with cocaine drug possession and distribution.
SANCHEZ: Who cares?
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: ... part of the investigation.
SANCHEZ: Hold on a minute. Carolina Sanchez (ph) just finally got this interview with GBS just a little while ago. Listen to what they're saying.
They have a man who dropped off a woman who was a drug -- he's a preacher. He's supposed to be...
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: It doesn't matter if he a preacher, a plumber, another police officer.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: No, it does matter. Michael, if the man is a preacher, his job in life is to try to find and help souls that are troubled, including people who are alcoholics or drug addicts.
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: Maybe they didn't know he was a preacher.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Let me tell you what they did know.
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: And he knew that they were cops because they identified themselves and had badges around their neck. Why didn't he stop?
SANCHEZ: Hold in a minute. Here's what they believe.
BROOKS: Help me understand that.
SANCHEZ: No. Well, hold on a minute. Here's what they believe.
They believed that a drug transaction had taken place between him and her.
BROOKS: Exactly.
SANCHEZ: Now they're admitting there was no drug suspect.
So, you're telling me, oh, sorry, we thought you guys had exchanged drugs, but we're wrong and you're dead?
BROOKS: Well, why didn't he stop?
OK. The car...
SANCHEZ: He was stopped. He was in a convenience store.
BROOKS: These officers got out with their badges around their neck, identified themselves. He decided he was going to try to back over one of them and one of them fired at -- he hit one of them and was going towards another one, and that's when they fired.
Now, I don't know and I was trying to check into this. What...
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Hold. No, let me respond to what you just said, though.
First of all, there's always the possibility that just because they had badges around their necks and they yelled out cops that they so freaked this guy out, as any person would understand. Then he reacted, thinking, I'm about to get assaulted or robbed at a convenience store. I read about it all the time. I'm getting the hell out of here.
BROOKS: You know what? That's -- that's... (CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Why is that not a possibility?
BROOKS: OK. Well, every car chase that we have and we watch on CNN or on HLN all the time, why don't they just stop and pull over? A crash wouldn't happen. Nobody gets hurt. Why didn't he just comply with what the officers were trying to do while they were conducting this investigation?
Who was this person in his car? Was this one of his parishioners? We don't know. That's what they're trying to find out, because they thought that they saw a transaction go down. They were in plainclothes.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Key word, thought.
BROOKS: That is called an investigation, Rick. And John Bankhead said they identified themselves as police officers. And civilian witnesses say the same thing. So, why didn't he stop?
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: They were -- but, in the end, will you not give me this? And maybe -- maybe I should ask you.
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: ... investigation.
SANCHEZ: Let me ask you. You're the expert and I'm not, and I will make room for you on that.
An officer is under the mistaken possibility that someone may have had a drug transaction, which may mean that they shared a marijuana cigarette for all we know, right?
BROOKS: Right.
SANCHEZ: Follow the person to the gas station. Do you need to get out of the car guns drawn approaching the car for that?
BROOKS: What usually goes on...
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: By the way, he's not your suspect. He's not your suspect.
BROOKS: Well, they thought there was a drug transaction. So, there's a possibility. There's a thing called probable cause. Now, drugs -- what usually goes along with drugs, Rick?
(CROSSTALK) SANCHEZ: Guns.
BROOKS: There you go.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Hold on. Let me help you. Let me read you the rest of this.
It says, by the way, nothing illegal, no drugs were found in the car, even though what occurred would make an undercover officer working drugs perhaps think that there was that possibility.
BROOKS: There you go.
SANCHEZ: They found nothing in the guy's car. It looks like the guy is perfectly innocent.
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: It's a possibility.
Let me tell you what probable cause is, a set of facts and circumstances that would lead a prudent and reasonable officer to believe that a crime is being committed, has been committed, is about to be committed.
They thought that their was a transaction going down, a crime, probable cause. They try to get the guy to pull over. He tried to run over -- he backed over one of them, hit one of them, and tried to run over another one.
Now, they're going do have to look into see what the policy is in on shooting from or at a moving vehicle. And that's the why the GBI is on this case, Rick.
SANCHEZ: I'm just saying that the standard needs to be more judicious, Mike. They need to study this case and say, do we want our officers to move in with guns drawn on the possibility that somebody may have seen somebody do something with a drug?
BROOKS: Absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: We're not talking drugs. We're not talking murder. We're not talking child abuse.
BROOKS: We're talking drugs.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: We're talking about somebody who may have exchanged a drug.
BROOKS: We're talking about a drug task force. If you don't have anything to hide, why not go ahead and comply with what the officers -- and there's no excuse to say, well, it was dark out, and they couldn't see a badge around their neck.
Citizens said, other witnesses, who are impartial, they said they were police officers. They had badges around their necks. So, why didn't he stop, Rick? That remains the question.
SANCHEZ: All right.
BROOKS: And that is what GBI will get to the bottom of. And I'm sure when we find out exactly what happened, we will come back and we're going to get let everybody know.
SANCHEZ: We will.
BROOKS: Absolutely.
SANCHEZ: Mike Brooks, always enjoyable having these conversations with you. We appreciate it.
BROOKS: Thank you, Rick. Absolutely.
I call it like it is.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: I know.
(CROSSTALK)
BROOKS: You know, if they're wrong, I will say that they're wrong.
SANCHEZ: And there's nothing wrong with a healthy argument.
BROOKS: Absolutely.
SANCHEZ: And as I have told you many times, my little brother is a cop, and I love him dearly.
All right, he told a woman that he wanted to shut her up, shut her kid up, I should say, or else he would move in and do it for her. If the woman didn't shut up her own kid, he would do it. And you know what he did? He did exactly that. He smacked the baby four times. It made you so angry that you have written in to us in droves. We're going to be sharing some of that with you.
Also, I'm going to show you some unbelievable pictures of military contractors behaving badly in Afghanistan. But as stunning as the pictures are -- and that's what everybody in the media seems to be caught up on -- the real story is much deeper. Would you believe there are more contractors than there are military personnel now working in our war zones, ever more so than there's ever been in the history of the United States?
It's true. It's important. You should know about it and I'm digging down on it. I will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Oh, boy, so many of you were caught up in that conversation we had just moments ago about that story that we have been following.
Go ahead and take that, Robert, if we could. Let's go to our Twitter board. "Argue the particulars of this incident all you want. Bottom line, drugs don't kill people. Drug enforcement sure does." Well, at least in that particular incident, but let's wait for the details.
And then the one at the bottom. A lot of you are really hung up about this preacher thing. Yes, I did say we tend to give people of the cloth the benefit of the doubt. "Preacher? Irrelevant. People dedicated to God have done a lot of illegal and dishonorable things through history."
OK. I get it. Some of you are not sharing my opinion on that.
Let's talk about this, where a lot of people are sharing an opinion. Singer Chris Brown does his only TV interview about the night that he beat up his pop star girlfriend Rihanna. You think he would be ready for his closeup, come clean, tell all that he can, so he can start resurrecting his image and his career and his brand. But take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING: So what happened to you, do you think?
BROWN: Well, Larry, I would just say, I guess that night it was just one of the nights I wish I could just take back and -- and I really regret and I feel totally ashamed of what I did.
KING: It never happened to you before?
BROWN: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: So, what happened? And what happens to Chris Brown? And has irreparably damaged his brand? We're going to drill down on all of that by talking to an expert who has dealt with other superstars in these kinds of situations. By the way, he's saying last night after watching it, not good for Mr. Brown.
Next, we know what happened to the man who admits kidnapping Jaycee Dugard 18 years ago. But we haven't heard yet from anybody having to do with Jaycee herself or those two kids that she had with this man. We're going to hear from them today. Stay here. We will have it for you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SANCHEZ: You and I have heard more than we want to know about this man you have Twitter labeled on this show as a piece of human garbage -- that's what you have called him -- who's charged with abducting a child, fathering two children by her, and then holding all three captive in his squalid backyard for years and years and years.
You and I have also heard plenty about his wife, who is his alleged co-conspirator. Well, today, finally, we're hearing about the victims, Jaycee Dugard, abducted at age 11. Now she's 29. The children, Starlet and Angel, now 11 and 15. The account comes from Jaycee's aunt, who has spent significant time with the girls since their rescue last week.
All right, this is Tina Dugard, who spoke just a short time ago at the West Los Angeles Federal Building in Los Angeles. We want to hear a piece of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TINA DUGARD, AUNT OF JAYCEE DUGARD: Jaycee and her daughters are with her mom and younger sister in a secluded place reconnecting. I was with them until recently.
We spent time sharing memories and stories and getting to know each other again. Not only have we laughed and cried together, but we have spent time sitting quietly, taking pleasure in each other's company.
Jaycee did a truly amazing job with the limited resources and education that she herself had. And we are so proud of her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: There you go. That's Tina Dugard, aunt of Jaycee Dugard.
As you heard Tina say, Jaycee and her girls are being held right now in an undisclosed location trying to come together as a family. We wish them well.
All right, these pictures right here that I'm about to show you, they tell an embarrassing story of military contractors. Imagine if one of these guys was your son or my son. It's really embarrassing.
And there's a bigger story behind this. We now have more contractors than ever in U.S. history. That's important as well. And it's a very important part of this story. Think President Eisenhower.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Everybody's talking about it. And so are you. And we promise that we will be in just a little bit. We're going to let you see chunks of it and then we're going to have an expert here, talking about Chris Brown last night on "LARRY KING." Here's some of the comments coming in from you right now off the Twitter board. This is interesting. Look what this person writes: "Not picking up what Chris Brown throwing down. Body language negative and insincere. Looked like he didn't want to be there."
A lot of people are agreeing with that. All right, let's go to the scripts. Ready?
This is something a lot of Americans are asking themselves about as well. At what point do they ask themselves if enough is enough when it comes to the use or some might suggest the overuse of military contractors by our country? Let me read you some of the quick headlines that you could find yourself by just doing a quick Google search. All right?
We looked for these just before I got ready to go on the air. Military contractor accused of killing 18 innocent Iraqis. Military contractor accused of rape. Military contractors accused of faulty wiring that kills U.S. soldiers. Military contractor accused of overbilling U.S. taxpayers. Military contractor accused linked to Abu Ghraib scandal.
And the list, as you know, could probably go on and on. But now we have this latest story about military contractors. And this one is just downright embarrassing, I mean, embarrassing. Look how these contractor who have been chosen instead of Marines to guard the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and represent our country are behaving. Look what they do. Look what they photograph for themselves.
Our CNN correspondent on this story is Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a summer of growing attacks near the Kabul embassy and growing fatalities among American troops, these pictures: private embassy security guards holding what appear to be wild, half-naked drinking parties while away from the embassy and off-duty, hugely inflammatory in a Muslim country.
The independent watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, or POGO for short, says the photos came from guards who say supervisors pressured others to join in.
DANIELLE BRIAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT: And, then, if they don't engage, they sort of hold it against them, which is ripping apart the fabric of the whole chain of command.
FOREMAN: The guards surrounding the embassy are employed by ArmorGroup, owned by Wackenhut Services, under a $190 million State Department contract, which has been under fire.
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: ... that, at times, the security of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul may have been placed in risk -- at risk. FOREMAN: At a hearing in June, Senator Claire McCaskill brought up a laundry list of concerns.
And that watchdog group, POGO, is now adding more: foreign guards who speak so little English, they cannot understand their bosses; acute understaffing causing massive turnover; and missing guards. One inspection this spring found 18 absent from their post.
The State Department said in June it was working on the problem and... UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At no time was the security of American personnel at the U.S. Embassy compromised.
FOREMAN: But POGO says these pictures were taken last month. So a State Department delegation will soon head over to investigate.
IAN KELLY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: It's clear there were some things going on in Kabul which we were not aware of. But frankly, we should have been aware of them.
FOREMAN: At this point, however, that may not be enough. Senator McCaskill clearly wants full disclosure, wants to know why the State Department defended Wackenhut in front of her committee, despite all these problems.
CNN has reached out to Wackenhut officials, asking them to explain these photos. So far, they have not.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Laura Dickinson is a professor at Arizona State University's Law School. She's also writing a book called "Outsourcing the War and Peace," which looks at, among other things, the increasing privatization of the military and the impact on public values.
Ms. Dickinson, thanks so much for being with us.
LAURA DICKINSON, PROFESSOR, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY: Thank you so much for having me on.
SANCHEZ: This case notwithstanding, what in the world is going on with our military, where it seems that there are more contractors than there are soldiers.
DICKINSON: It's really quite striking. It's a huge shift in how we project our power overseas. And this is just one in a long line of incidents of abuses committed by contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
SANCHEZ: Here's the problem.
As a matter of fact, we have got a graph. There's a bar graph I want to show you. And I want to make sure the viewers at home take a look at this, because this pretty much details exactly what we're talking about. This is from the Congressional Research Service. It was also published recently in "The New York Times." Look how many of these contractors we used in World War I. Hardly any. Now look at World War II. Now look at Korea. Now look at Vietnam. Remember, Vietnam, that's about the time that General Eisenhower said, beware of the military industrial complex.
Well, guess what? Nobody has been bewared, because look at the Balkans war. Look at Iraq. Look at Afghanistan. Sixty-something percent in comparison to soldiers. That means at that given moment, 60 percent of the people defending and representing our country in Afghanistan are contractors, and that means 40-some percent are soldiers.
That doesn't seem right.
DICKINSON: Well, you know, the stakes are really high. And as this incident shows, our core public values, values like human rights, and even potentially the success of the mission itself in Afghanistan, these things are at stake.
SANCHEZ: The problem is, these guys are workers, just like you and me. I come to CNN and I draw a check. I mean, I believe in what I do, and I'm a dedicated journalist, but it's not about honor, country and duty for me. It's a job, just like -- or unlike soldiers.
See, I believe soldiers defend their country as their cause, as their duty. It is the honor for them.
I'm not sure that's true with these people. They're hungry, they need a job, so they get a job in the military, or a fake military.
DICKINSON: Well, you know, it certainly is different, but it should also be noted that contractors are risking their lives overseas. I think...
SANCHEZ: So are cops and so are a lot of other people. So are firemen, so are people who work in dangerous professions. So are fishermen, so are scuba divers. It's not the same as being the soldier, where you're working for me, the citizen, and you're also liable to me, the citizen.
These guys aren't.
DICKINSON: Well, look, I think we need to dramatically strengthen oversight and accountability of contractors. Too often, the debate is about whether we should have them at all. But the reality is that they're there and they're working in our name. So, while this administration and the previous administration have taken some steps, we have got to go much further to ensure oversight.
SANCHEZ: But working for us at what point? I mean, shouldn't there be a difference?
I know that these guys should be helping our military in terms of support, in terms of road construction, in terms of a lot of different things, everything from the kitchen on down, soup to nuts. But it looks more and more as we study this -- and you're writing about it -- that they're soldering.
They're the solders. They're like the French Foreign Legion for us, and that takes me as a citizen out of the equation, because it's not a national cause that they're doing, it's a business.
DICKINSON: Well, look, it's getting awfully close to soldiering, and that's why I think we've got to dramatically strengthen the regime we have for overseeing that. We have got to make sure that they can be criminally prosecuted if they commit egregious abuses, just as our soldiers would be.
We've got to write the contracts better to make sure there are terms about human rights in them. We've got to make sure they get better training. And we've got to have more monitors on the ground observing them. And finally, we've got to have much more transparency.
SANCHEZ: Let me ask you the difficult question as a citizen that I know we probably get a lot of heat from when we raise this issue, but it's one that a lot of Americans think of as well.
We recently had a vice president of the United States who was himself, prior to becoming vice president, the leader of a military industrial complex company himself. I'm talking about Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown & Root.
Since then, since he became a very powerful man in our government, there has been a rise in these types of contractors being used in these jobs. Is there -- you have studied this -- or is there not a correlation?
DICKINSON: Well, I think it raises some very, very troubling questions that we need to have a public debate about, and that's why we need much more transparency, so that we can find out just how deep this goes, how many contracts we have, what they actually say. And we need much better reporting on what these contractors are doing.
SANCHEZ: I agree. And some of them, you're right, do a darn good job. But it just seems like we as citizens are being a little bit taken out of the loop on this, and that should be troubling for a lot of Americans.
My thanks to you for working on this with us and for joining us with this.
DICKINSON: Thank you for having me.
SANCHEZ: My pleasure.
All right. He smacked a baby at Wal-Mart and it got all of you riled up. It got me riled up, actually, as I heard of this yesterday. It wasn't even his baby.
We told you about this story and you responded like crazy. I'm going to share with you what some of the response has been and the follow-up to this story. And remember the after-show. It's at 4:00. We'll see you then.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: It's a national conversation, it's time to see what you're saying. Boy, you had a lot to say about that last story that we were just talking about.
Let me share with you some of the comments here. Let's go to our Twitter board, if we possibly can.
"The price we pay contractors overseas is no comparison to what our military personnel are paid. Pay the military to do it," you say.
"We need to stop using contractors. They've got no supervision. They do not show America in a good light and get paid mucho dinero."
"Rick, you hit the nail on the head... Cheney."
I didn't say that, by the way. I asked that.
Also, "Military contractors gone wild! We need a big military with a big chain of command. Low taxes and small government does not work."
And finally, Margaret says, "They're paid-for-hire thugs."
I thank you for your comments.
By the way, yesterday we did another story that got a lot of response from you. 11,870 of you went to my blog yesterday when I did this story. I'm kind of surprised.
It was an interesting story, but I didn't think it would get that kind of reaction. Five thousands views so far already today. Incredible.
What is driving so many people to the blog? It's this story, interestingly enough.
It's a story we showed you yesterday. Roger Stephens is accused of going up to a woman, a stranger at a Wal-Mart Monday, and telling her, "If you don't shut that crying baby up, I'll shut the baby up for you." And then he did. He did.
Police say he slapped the woman's 2-year-old -- 2-year-old -- four times. Stephens is being held without bond and is charged with felony cruelty.
Many of you have flooded my blog with comments, and the comments are still pouring in today. We're going to share some of them with you.
Norma says, "I think I would have to grab that man and slap him a few times to let him know how it felt."
Lori says, "I would give this man some type of award for trying to control noise pollution."
Ouch.
Scott says, "If someone did that to her, my 2-year-old daughter, you wouldn't have to worry about a court date. You could visit them in the morgue!"
Bill says, "I hope they lock him up until the child is 18, and then she can slap him five times."
Ann: "There is no such thing as a perfect child. As far as this man hitting a stranger's child, I hope he gets horsewhipped by someone."
Kat: "I would have started slapping him or kicked him in his groin area before he could have gotten four slaps in."
Alaina: "That woman should learn to control her own offspring. If you do not discipline them in some way, they will be obnoxious forever."
Chris: "I would never do it, but we have all wanted to knock an obnoxious kid out. I think it's crazy that he did it."
Tanda: "Instead of him being in court, it would be. Need I say more?"
Traci: "It's called the 'terrible twos,' not the 'terrific twos.' Toddlers cry all the time, and for no good reason p."
John: "They need to slap him around and throw him to a ring of wolves. What a total jerk."
Val: "What the man did is so over the top... but wow, what about all the people who would also assault the man? What is the difference?"
There you have it, lots of comments. We could have read many, many, many more. In fact, it feels like we read many, many, many more.
Chris Brown, some say that he bombed on "LARRY KING LIVE" last night big time. What should he have said?
We're talking with a PR strategist who has handled big superstars and told them what to do. She's going to tell us what Chris Brown should now do.
And then look at this car and the bad trip it took.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Student athletes are often superstars on Saturday nights, and too often the rest of the time they get in the news for something that they screwed up.
Not this time. Let's do "Fotos."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ay, dios mio.
SANCHEZ: "Ay, dios mio" is right.
Mississippi, students on a school bus are about to be threatened in what is possibly the most threatening way imaginable. A girl has a gun and she appears ready to use it. Maybe it's a rage, or maybe there's some other reason she's doing this.
Regardless, everyone in that cramped bus is at risk. That is until this young man, Khalid Yules (ph), who is a football superstar, is being recruited by several colleges, literally takes the gun away from the armed student. It's a case of a student athlete doing something right, and we thought you should know.
Out of the slums of Sao Paulo -- this is Brazil -- they aren't great on the best of the days, but they exploded into rioting after police allegedly shot a young girl while pursuing car thieves.. Rioters burned vehicles and wrote the Portuguese word for "justice" on the street.
Police responded with rubber bullets, or so they say. The girl died. This is the third riot there just this year. Expect more.
Dallas, Texas, this is not where the driver of this car wanted to be this afternoon. Apparently, the car had a mechanical problem and ended up at the bottom of this ravine with its four passengers. That is some drop. Talk about, ay, dios mio.
Our affiliate, WFAA, says two women placed on stretchers did not appear -- did not appear at the time to have serious injuries.
All right. You have had a ton of responses to that story we told you about where police shot and killed a pastor in Georgia. I'm going to share some of what you have been saying.
And then, we brought you a story recently about former homeland security chief, Tom Ridge, and the comments in his new book about political pressure influencing the threat of level assessments.
Guess what? Now he's saying that what he wrote is not what he wrote.
Huh?
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Remember when President Bill Clinton said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is"? Such a great moment. He sounded pretty foolish, didn't he, when he said that? Well, he may have just been topped.
Former homeland security chief Tom Ridge is now actively denying what was written in his book -- his book. Keyword, "his."
You ask, what's so weird about that? To which I answer, again, it's his book. He wrote it.
So, essentially, he's having an argument now with himself on national television. His book says that he was pressured by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to raise the threat level for what appeared to be political reasons.
It's right there. You don't even have to open the book. It's on the sleeve.
But in a series of interviews lately, Ridge has gone as far as saying that the words in his book are "not his words."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM RIDGE, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I don't think it was ever politics.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: You don't think...
(CROSSTALK)
RIDGE: In the political environment, a lot of people were thinking that it was generated by that, but the president himself created and oversaw the creation of a process that even he couldn't influence, because he set up a homeland security cabinet, about two- thirds of his cabinet agency, and we rendered opinions. And if there wasn't a consensus, we didn't go up -- so, at the end of the day, whether we went up or didn't, I think we always made the right decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: I've been doing journalism for a long time, and I can't ever recall a story where someone has actually refuted something written in a book that they wrote.
Why the sudden change of heart, many would ask. Well, there are some theories floating around. One of which is that Tom Ridge may have become aware of a certain part of the U.S. Code which reads as follows. Let me bring it to your attention.
"If two of more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof, in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to affect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
Think how people were nailed during Watergate. It's part of what I just read to you, that statute.
Two or more people defrauding the United States, is that perhaps the only explanation for somebody suddenly contradicting his own words, his own book? We don't know.
We ask. And we will, tomorrow, devote a segment with Dallas Morning News's Wayne Slater, who's been drilling down on this for us.
We'll have that right here.
Meanwhile, up next, Chris Brown bombs on "LARRY KING LIVE." Just how much damage has he done to his brand? Not necessarily his career, but his brand?
I'm going to be asking an expert on this.
Stay with us. There she is. She knows all about it.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Oh, boy. Somebody's talking about something over here.
This is from MySpace, by the way. Let me share it with you.
"What should Chris Brown have said? Hmm. An apology? Tell others not to follow in his footsteps? Maybe he should have looked at the camera, spoken in a clear voice, not fidgeted around as much. Yeah, that sounds about right."
"Wow. This job is easy."
Well, you're talking about Chris Brown. We're talking about Chris Brown.
Acknowledging what you did wrong and apologizing publicly are almost always the first steps when a star, celebrity, tries to come back from a self-made disaster. Not for Chris Brown.
The singer was on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE," who shoots straight. You know Larry's a minimalist. He didn't challenge him with difficult questions. He just asked the questions that everyone wanted to know for a whole hour, to talk about the famous or infamous beat-down of pop star Rihanna.
At least that was what most of us thought he was there to talk about. Instead -- well, let's watch parts of this together.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": What happened?
CHRIS BROWN, SINGER: Well, Larry, I don't feel like it's appropriate for me to speak on what actually happened that night just out of respect for Rihanna and myself. And I respect our privacy more, and I don't want to just go into that.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: Out of respect for Rihanna. Larry didn't stop there, by the way. But the non--answers did keep coming. Take a look at this series of exchanges.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING: You don't have to be specific, but can you tell me what -- I mean, had you done this before?
BROWN: I'm sorry. I mean, I don't want to really talk about what went on or what -- I feel like I owe it to her not to talk about that.
KING: All right. Was drinking involved?
BROWN: I don't want to discuss what was going on or what was done that night.
KING: Why do you think you were violent?
BROWN: I don't -- I don't want to go into that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Marvet Britto is a celebrity PR strategist who has handled the likes of Mariah Carey. So, she's an expert on this. She says, by the way, that Chris Brown may have ruined his brand in many ways.
Tell us why you think he may have done so last night with Larry King.
MARVET BRITTO, CELEBRITY PR STRATEGIST: We didn't hear anything from Chris Brown. He never answered any questions. He was fidgety, he was nervous.
Getting on the road towards resuscitating and restoring your brand is very precise and takes strategy. We're not seeing a whole lot of strategy from Chris Brown.
SANCHEZ: Yes. It almost seemed like he just kind of showed up and figured he was just going to have, you know, a chat with an old buddy over beer or something.
BRITTO: Absolutely.
SANCHEZ: It was almost like he was unprepared. Was he?
BRITTO: He didn't seem prepared at all. He didn't maintain eye contact with Larry.
He was fidgety, he was nervous. His mother was there. His lawyer was there.
It would have been better for Chris to show up by himself. It would have been more important for him to answer the tough questions and tell the public something we didn't already know.
He didn't share any of that. He didn't give us any on-the-point -- he didn't answer any questions succinctly. And, you know, he really wasn't as humble as we expected him to be. We should have heard how he chose or how he plans to use the platform to change the face of domestic abuse.
We didn't hear much from Chris Brown, and I think that did him more harm than good.
SANCHEZ: You must have just been screaming at the TV...
BRITTO: I was.
SANCHEZ: ... given what you do for a living. You must having going, oh, my goodness.
BRITTO: I was, because it's a missed opportunity for a kid who really made a mistake to really capture the hearts of his fans who really have supported him and want to see him get on the right track.
SANCHEZ: Yes. You don't know whether to strangle him or hug him, because it was, like, on the one hand, you felt sorry because he was just lost during the entire interview. And then there's another part of you that's looking at him and going, come on, you've got to bring it, man. You can't show up with Larry King on national television and do that.
But there's something else that I found, too. It almost seemed like his attorney was trying to speak for him. And there's one interesting exchange.
My wife and I were watching last night, and I caught this. And I want to share it with you.
Watch how -- Larry asks him about a letter he wrote to Rihanna saying, "I'm sorry." And then the attorney tries to say, that was all Chris's letter. As a matter of fact, I tried to help him write it and he scratched out what I wrote.
And then Chris comes back and says, yes, it was mostly all my wording, except for what the attorney added. So, he's not even listening to his own attorney.
Watch this exchange. See if you catch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK GERAGOS, BROWN'S ATTORNEY: What you saw there was largely written by him. Those were words that came from his heart. In fact, I plugged in a couple of things and he scratched them right off and he said no.
KING: So that's all your writing?
BROWN: Yes. I got a little help because of the wording. But it all came from my heart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: It all came from -- it's just kind of funny. It looks unplanned.
Like, the attorney was saying one thing and he's saying something else. And I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, did these guys even come up with a game plan?
BRITTO: They didn't seem to come up with a game plan. They should have prepped before the interview, and Chris Brown should have stood alone, the same way he was alone with Rihanna when the alleged incident took place.
He was being ushered along the entire interview. His mom, not really sure what she was there for, apart from moral support, which she could have easily done from the green room.
He should have stood like a man and really went toe to toe with Larry King, answered the questions honestly, succinctly. And he didn't do that.
SANCHEZ: You know what? He's a young man. He's, what, 23 years old?
BRITTO: He is young, but it's time for him to grow up.
SANCHEZ: You're right. You're right. But at the same time, he was probably very nervous, in a setting he usually doesn't find himself in. And just didn't know what to do or say.
BRITTO: You're probably right, Rick. But in those instances, it's best to say nothing until you can gather yourself and come up with a strong statement.
SANCHEZ: That's the point. That's the point. He probably -- and, you know, I've been meaning to get this. I'm glad you got me here. He probably shouldn't have done this interview, right?
BRITTO: Exactly. He shouldn't have done the interview. I would have preferred he sit down with a woman as his first interview, a woman who could have dug deep, and he could have really had a different heightened sense of responsibility to answer the tough questions.
You know, we want to know, what happened, why did it happen, will it ever happen again? And what are you going to do differently, Chris? How are you going to change and use your platform to do good and to really make a difference for the face of domestic abuse in this country and abroad?
SANCHEZ: Here's what some of the folks at home are saying. Let's go to MySpace.
"Nothing says manning up like having your mom and lawyer with you when you answer questions. Hmm. LOL."
"He should only have to apologize to Rihanna. He didn't hit me, so therefore I don't feel he owes me an apology."
Well, there's two perspectives. Interesting perspectives. But I suppose, then, you have to ask yourself why you're going on a nationally televised show with Larry King.
People will keep talking about it. You and I will in a minute as well.
Here's Suzanne Malveaux in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
