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Victims of the BP Explosion; Chopper Ride with BP Exec; Border Killing Video Raises Questions

Aired June 10, 2010 - 10:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Checking top stories now. At least one person dead in central Texas after heavy rains triggered flash flooding along the Guadalupe River. The governor has called up state search and rescue operations as more rain is in the forecast.

Happening this hour on Capitol Hill, confirmation hearings begin for a new transportation secretary administration chief. FBI deputy director John Pistole is the president's latest pick and acting director has held that post for the last year and a half. Two previous nominees withdrew their names from consideration.

And there's a new twist in the case of the Peruvian murder suspect, Joran van der Sloot. His attorney says he'll ask a judge to toss Van Der Sloot's confession. Van der Sloot is expected to be charged soon in the killing of that 21-year-old woman.

The gulf oil disaster, 52 days, millions of gallons, thousands of miles, but how about the number 11? That's how many men were killed in that explosion of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon and these are their faces. There's a good chance you've never seen them before. Their families want you to know they were husbands, fathers and brothers and today the grieving loved ones are headed to the White House to keep their memories alive and demand answers.

The families say their anger and frustration have been growing as they wrestle with too many questions and too few answers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-eight-year-old Gordon Jones was a mud engineer on the Deepwater Horizon rig when it exploded and sank. His father Keith and brother, Chris.

KEITH JONES, FATHER OF GORDON JONES: We don't know exactly what happened to Gordon. We're not certain exactly where Gordon was. There was mud that began shooting out of the well which means that a blowout was about to happen.

MALVEAUX: Chris got a call shortly after the rig went down.

(on camera): When you found out what happened that your brother was one of those who was killed on the rig. What was going on through your head and your heart? CHRIS JONES, BROTHER OF GORDON JONES: Disbelief. After a while I got into the car, and drove down to Port Fourchon. Because I wasn't satisfied, number one, with what everybody was telling me.

MALVEAUX (voice-over): Gordon's family has been fighting for answers ever since. Visiting Washington to testify on Capitol Hill to get better benefits for families of those who perished in the rig explosion and now an invitation from President Obama to the White House.

(on camera): Do you think the president has been doing enough?

KEITH JONES: I do. I don't know what people expect him to do. If they expect him to go down and clean pelicans, but I think that the criticism of the president that I've seen is, from the public relations standpoint.

MALVEAUX (voice-over): The last memories of Gordon with his wife, Michelle and son, Stafford, are still fresh for the family.

KEITH JONES: We were at the golf course. Michelle had just taken the picture of Gordon giving Stafford his first golf lesson, and I was standing right behind Michelle when she took that picture, and I remember driving away thinking they're so happy. Everything I remember about my last times with Gordon were good.

MALVEAUX: Gordon had just a couple of days left on the rig before he was scheduled to take seven weeks off for the birth of his second son.

(on camera): What was that like, that day when his wife delivered his son. A son that he never even saw born?

KEITH JONES: It was the ultimate bittersweet experience. It was the joy of delivering a healthy baby boy who from the start looked like Gordon, and there was the sorrow with the realization that he would never meet his dad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Suzanne Malveaux joining us live from the White House. You know, it's day 52, Suzanne. So why didn't this meeting happened sooner?

MALVEAUX: Well, Kyra, what the White House would say to that is essentially what the priority was trying to stop that leak, the initial leak. We know that has continued on from this point and then furthermore, the environmental disaster that's unfolded that the president is offering his condolences, but he also wants to offer these families today some ideas, some reassurances that there are things that they can do so that this doesn't happen again.

He wants their ideas from the perspective of the families if there's anything that they think that their loved ones might have been able to share to prevent something like this from happening again. But you know, you do bring up a point that others have brought up is why it has this taken so long. Some of the families do feel like they have been forgotten in all of these.

The Jones, the family that I spoke with, they say they feel that they want the president to know that they're here in Washington to try to change the law, the death in the high seas act to change that law, to try to get better benefits for these 11 families because they are indeed struggling, Kyra. But you know, that is one of the things that they're going to bring up to the president and that is a concern that some of them have had is why it should take this long.

Many of them are happy though that they're going to have a voice today and be able to listen to the president and what he's actually trying to do about this.

PHILLIPS: And we'll make sure we cover that get together in its entirety with you. Suzanne, thanks so much.

And you're going to hear more from the brother of Gordon Jones, whom you just saw on Suzanne's piece. In the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM, Tony Harris talks with Chris Jones today ahead of his meeting with President Obama. That interview coming up in the 11:00 hour.

Now, all this week CNN's Anderson Cooper has been talking to the families of the men who worked on the oil drilling rig. All complained about the lack of communication from its owner, Transocean. In fact, one woman said she didn't even know about the explosion until the next morning. The call came not from the company, but her brother.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANDA COOPER BARRON, WIFE OF BP OIL RIG SURVIVOR: What rig does Dan work on again? I said Deepwater Horizon, why? He said I thought it sounded too familiar. I said why do you need to know? What's going on? And he goes, his rig has exploded.

DANIEL BARRON III, BP OIL RIG SURVIVOR: Can you imagine what our wives were going through? She didn't get a call until 2:00 that afternoon, and basically "hey, this is Transocean. We want to let you know your husband's on the boat" and she's, like, "oh, my god. What happened?" "That's all we can tell you. We just want to let you know he's on the boat."

So she doesn't know if I'm hurt, injured, you know, burned. She doesn't know anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, we asked the company for its response and here it is, "Transocean's first commitment has always been the safety and well-being of its people." The statement goes on to say "immediately following the news of the tragic accident on April 20th, Transocean family support groups were dispatched to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to receive rescued crew members and support their families in every way they could. This continues to be the top focus of the company and the entire Transocean family." Now let's turn to BP and its chief operating officer, Doug Suttles. He is by any accounts, one of the most hated men in America right now. So, how does he deal with that?

CNN's John Roberts asked him exactly that when he accompanied Suttles to ground zero of the disaster. John joins us live from New Orleans. John?

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra. You can imagine, 52 days into this crisis and Doug Suttles is the person with BP who has emerged really as the corporate face of this disaster. He's the one who goes out several times a week, putting himself out there in front of the cameras and facing the tough questions about why BP isn't doing more and how this disaster started.

You can just imagine that after that long and not getting a whole lot of sleep it begins to wear on you just a little bit. So yesterday when we went out to the development driller 3 out there in the Gulf of Mexico, looking at the operation to kill the well I asked him how these past seven weeks have been.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DOUG SUTTLES, BP CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: You know, there's a lot of very proud people on this industry. You've met some of them here on this rig. And a lot of them don't believe the whole story's coming out about the level of commitment, the focus on professionalism that's done in here. And so that's tough.

You know, I'm third generation in this business. I do this because I love it. And a lot of these guys out here are the same way. This is more than a job, it's a way of life. It's what people do. But at the same time, we've got that horrible thing happening, and I appreciate that. And I think we just have to be patient. We just have to, you know, we got to get this job done. We've got to get this well killed. We've got to get that flow stopped. And with time, I think the rest of the story will come out.

ROBERTS (on camera): But you know, the president said he doesn't fully trust BP, there are a lot of other politicians for whatever reason are saying they don't trust BP. There are a lot of people across the United States who probably think that you're shaving the truth to some degree to minimize your liability, to try to make things as good as possible for the company.

SUTTLES: Well, John, you know, if you look at what we've done since the beginning. I mean, today, we were over $1.3 billion. On any given day, we spend $30 million, $40 million a day on this activity. I believe that shows our commitment to do the right thing. We didn't hide behind some cap in the law. We've been out here doing everything we can not only to stop this thing, but to clean it up and try to do it right. It's very difficult for people to believe that right now. And I know that. But I would just ask, just give us a chance.

ROBERTS: Is it difficult for you on a personal level to get up every day and attack this problem to the best of your ability knowing at the moment, you may be one of the most disliked people in America?

SUTTLES: I'll tell you what I don't do, John, is we have got so much to do here every day. And there are really aren't enough hours in the day to do it all. And we get frustrated by the views. But at the same time, it's a horrible accident. And you know, I do go out every day and I meet people in these communities. I talked to the mayors. I talked to the governors. I go to their claim centers and meet the people and you know, these people are scared. They're worried, their livelihood, their way of life is they believe, is at risk. So I understand that anger. And what I try to do is just turn that into, you know, we just got to get this job done.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: You know, I asked Suttles, Kyra, that if there were to be another blowout tomorrow from what they have learned over the last seven weeks, would they be able to handle it any differently? And well, it might not be able to stop the oil they probably would be able to act out much more quickly than they did with this one. They were learning as they went along. He says the technology has advanced more in the last seven weeks than it has in the previous seven years and that they're doing things under water that they never thought possible.

We should also point out that Suttles is on the Dean's Advisory Board at the School of Engineering at the University of Texas, which is his alma mater and he's got some liaison with them, talking with their students about what they're doing under water and the dean told him just the other day, he shared this with me, that watching this from afar, a lot more young people have gotten interested in offshore drilling engineering. So perhaps it has attracted more people to the field as a result of this. Somewhat ironic.

PHILLIPS: Interesting. Question for you and I don't know how well you can answer this because things moved so quickly, but on camera, Doug Suttles is definitely trying to be positive and optimistic and give that impression, but when the camera wasn't rolling, did you ever get a sense that he was discouraged or when you looked into his eyes or watched him interact with the workers or maybe just sat down for a moment as he observed everything, did you get a sense that maybe at times this is incredibly overwhelming for him?

ROBERTS: You know, you can often catch at times when you see a person in a quiet moment sort of looking dejected or whatever or beset with frustration. But I spent probably about six or seven hours with him yesterday and not once did I see his demeanor change. Everyone that he met, everyone he talked to, he was upbeat about this, saying that we're going to get this done. Thank you very much for everything that you're doing.

Even the helicopter pilot when he landed he went forward into the cabin and thanked him for the ride. So I don't quite know how he does it, because he's only operating on about five hours' sleep and he is under such extraordinary pressure, but I guess, it's just the commitment, the personal commitment that he has to see this thing through and to get it stopped and fix it is sort of pushing all that negativity aside at least for the moment.

PHILLIPS: He definitely has no choice. He's got to make something happen. He, Tony Hayward and everybody underneath them.

John Roberts, fantastic work from New Orleans. Really appreciate it.

Nurses, thousands of them walk out, on strike. They say no one's listening to their concerns. They're hoping that changes after today.

And live pictures coming to us right now into the CNN NEWSROOM. A beached whale off of Long Island, New York. We're getting information on this and we'll bring it to you as soon as we get it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: More than 12,000 nurses in Minnesota on strike right now, just for today. They're upset with the level of staffing where they work and they say patients' health is at risk and they're upset about their pension benefits. Scott Goldberg of CARE TV in Minneapolis reports on the strikes and who's taking their place.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT GOLDBERG, REPORTER, CARE TV (voice-over): The 14 hospitals where nurses are walking out are telling patients what happens on the inside won't look any different.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's the thing is that we're trying to make it as boring as possible.

GOLDBERG: They've flown in replacement workers. They say 2,800 temporary nurses, plus medically-trained hospital managers who plan to take care of more patients than usual will be more than enough to get through the one-day strike.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The role of the nurse is going to remain the same. We are going have nurses there and when the patients come in, are they going to receive services? Just like they always would, yes.

GOLDBERG: The striking nurses want to bring attention to what they say are low staffing levels. The hospitals say the nurses are asking for rigid rules and higher pay, neither of which would improve patient care. Labor historian Peter Ratcliffe (ph) says the 24-hour strike gives nurses a relatively safe way to make their point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A one-day strike is a way to make sure that you're not going to be permanently replaced.

GOLDBERG: And yet, the hospital said all of the 12,000 nurses on strike won't necessarily have jobs on Friday. They'll be called back when they're needed and this, historically, is not a busy time of year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to be a little bit of jockeying about how large a paycheck individual nurses might miss. It might be bigger than one day's pay, but they don't risk at this point being permanently replaced.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And talk about timing. Preemie quadruplets were born Saturday at one of the 14 strike target hospitals. They were moved to the neonatal ICU of another hospital that wouldn't feel the effects of the strike. The baby's dad doesn't like getting caught in the middle of that dispute, though.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're stuck in the middle of these things. You don't want to have to transfer your kid if you don't want to. You know, you just want them to be in that level of care that they should have until they're ready for the next step instead of transferring in the middle of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: The first hospital paid for that transfer.

There was a similar plan in California. Thousands more nurses planned a one-day strike there, but a judge in San Francisco blocked those plans earlier this week.

People who live along the Guadalupe River in Texas are used to flooding, but nobody was ready for this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Day 52 of the gulf oil crisis and an ominous new development. Oil from the massive spill in the gulf has moved into the inland waterway along coastal Alabama, forcing the Coast Guard to close Perdido Pass. That's the main water access, by the way, to the gulf, for fishermen and boaters in that popular resort town of Orange Beach.

Other top stories. Iran dismissed the latest U.N. sanctions as annoying flies and useless. It comes a day after the U.N. approved a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran over its disputed new program. Tehran also says they will review relations with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.

And he was just seven years old, but in the end, he was brutalized like a grown man. Afghan officials say suspected Taliban militants have executed a seven-year-old boy in Afghanistan's Helmand province. The Taliban accuses him of being a spy.

The Mexican government continues to press for information and wants a quick and transparent investigation into the shooting death of a 14-year-old Mexican boy. A U.S. border patrol agent shot and killed him at the border in Juarez on Sunday. Now, cell phone video of the incident has been released. The agent claims illegal immigrants surrounded him at the border and were throwing rocks. On the right side of the screen you see him on the U.S. side holding someone and aiming his weapon at someone about 60 feet away in Mexico. You can then hear at least three gunshots on the tape. And then 14-year-old Sergio Hernandez was shot in the head. The boy's parents say he was a straight A student and too small to even threaten anyone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He was just a kid.

MARIA GUADALUPE GUERECA, MOTHER (through translator): He didn't even kill him in his land. He was here in Mexico. Why did he do it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: The cell phone video may offer clues but it doesn't necessarily provide much context. Let's take a closer look.

CNN Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve in Washington. Jeanne, what is the U.S. saying about this now?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point they're not making any comment on the video because this is an ongoing investigation.

Last night I spoke to the FBI in El Paso. At that point, at least they're still sticking to their version of events. If we take another look at that video, you can see that these group of men was on the U.S. side of the border. When the border patrol agent approaches on his right, then they turn and as you can see, then they run back across except for one that he is detaining, obviously as he appears to hold his gun up, but there's an edit in this videotape right there.

And it is unclear, of course, what's happening during that period of time. We don't know if indeed rocks were being thrown or not. That part of the video is missing here. It's unclear where exactly the young man was when the first shots were fired and when he was hit and what direction he was heading. And so still things, very unclear.

What appears to be at issue, at least is the version of events that says the border patrol agent was surrounded by people. That's what the FBI said. That he was surrounded being hit with rocks. There's no indication from what we can see here that there's anybody behind him. Everybody appears to have fled towards or over the Mexican border, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So how troublesome is this border? Can you put that in perspective for us, Jeanne? And what's become of the shooter at this point?

MESERVE: Well, at this point in time, the shooter is on administrative leave as this investigation is ongoing. We all know how troublesome this border is. There have been a lot of incidents down there and each side in this dispute is presenting numbers that they say illustrate one side of the story or another. The Mexicans, for example, the Mexican government are saying that in the last three years, you've seen an increase in the number of Mexicans killed or injured by immigration authorities, the numbers go back to 2008 where there were five incidents. The next year, there were 12. So far this year and there have been 17, but CBP also has numbers.

These numbers cover from the period from the beginning of the fiscal year, October 1st to May 31 and this the number of assaults on border agents. They say the numbers have gone from 745 in '08 to 658 in '09. In '010, there have been 799. So clearly more instances of confrontation. The border patrol also saying that agents have fired their guns 31 times so far this year. Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jeanne Meserve, thanks.

And the Texas river burst its banks that rises more than nine feet in just a few hours and takes everything in its path.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Let's take you to some stories across America. Cleanup is under way in central Texas after two rivers flooded. The Guadalupe River rose more than nine feet in just a few hours forcing evacuations. One person died in the floods, dozens of others were rescued. Most people got out of their homes by themselves but some say they never got calls from the reverse 911 system.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We normally get a call. We didn't get the call. By the time the siren started blowing it was too late for these people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just think that the water started rising between 6:00 and 7:00 just at a rate like it did in '98, you know, two or three feet every 10 or 12 minutes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: A friend in need is a friend indeed. There is new meaning to that phrase in Kettering, Ohio, after a fire earlier this week. 17-year-old Tim Dugan awoke to find their complex in flames and then went to work. The boy's father explained how it all happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATHANIEL BEARD, HOUSE CAUGHT FIRE: My neighbors, they kicked in my door which I would have done the same for them, you know? There was - it was just very honorable of them to give me calls and you know, make sure my kids were OK because they knew my kids were in there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: No one was injured in that fire. And Chicago Blackhawks fans hit the streets last night for a celebration. Their beloved Hawks have won the Stanley Cup. It's the team's first NHL title since 1961. Chicago beat the Philadelphia Flyers to win the finals, four games to two.

The FBI says a suspected killer accepted thousands of dollars to disclose the location of Natalee Holloway's body. So why didn't agents arrest Joran van der Sloot right then and there? We're going ask a former FBI agent who once worked on that very case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, this morning, the lawyer for Joran van der Sloot says he wants his client's confession thrown out. Van der Sloot was arrested last week in connection with the murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in Peru. His lawyer says that van der Sloot was not properly represented at the time that he made his statement to police. Of course, he's also the suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway five years ago in Aruba.

A lot of mounting questions of how the FBI handled that case. A source is telling CNN that van der Sloot offered to reveal the location of her body for cash. Apparently, an FBI sting was set up in Alabama and $25,000 was given to van der Sloot. But even after he took the money, agents didn't arrest him. Critics are asking why FBI allowed him out of their sight, rather, able to travel to South America and even possibly kill again.

Former FBI special agent Harold Copus is here to help us sort this out. You actually worked on the Natalee Holloway case about two months in, right?

HAROLD COPUS, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: That's correct.

PHILLIPS: First of all, what's your initial reaction to the latest developments?

COPUS: Phony baloney.

PHILLIPS: What do you mean by that?

COPUS: The FBI has no jurisdiction in Aruba. This had been set up with van der Sloot making contact with a Holloway family attorney up in New York.

PHILLIPS: So, who paid the money? Has that been confirmed? Because we're reporting that an FBI undercover agent paid that $25,000 of private funds to van der Sloot.

COPUS: It's my understanding that that's not true. That could be a difference. Maybe the agent was in there with the spokesperson for the attorney or whatever from New York who came down. I don't know --

PHILLIPS: So let me ask you this then. Okay, we can't confirm that, and you're on the inside here. But he was paid 25 grand, and an FBI agent knew that that money was paid, so why not take him in then and there?

COPUS: Well, first, he's in Aruba so there's absolutely no jurisdiction for the FBI in Aruba. We don't have any jurisdiction -- or they don't have any jurisdiction in a foreign country, number one. Number two, you just can't go in willy-nilly arrest people.

Now, I can tell you as an agent if there had been a murder and it was in my presence, yes, I could make an arrest. Bank robbery, yes, something of that nature. At best, all we had here was an extortion and fraud by wire because there was $10,000 paid in cash. Fifteen was on a transfer. You had to come back to the United States. You have to go through our judicial system, which happened, and you got an arrest warrant.

Even having the arrest warrant didn't do you any good because he's not in the jurisdiction of the FBI. He's in another country. So, now you have to go through the process of having him presented to Aruba, have them agree, and extradite him back to the United States. While this has happened, this guy is down in Peru, and now he's murdered someone using this money.

PHILLIPS: And that's the frustration.

COPUS: Sure.

PHILLIPS: People are thinking, wow! Twenty-five grand; the FBI knew about this extortion. The perception is wow! The FBI just kind of let him go with 25 grand and now look. He's murdered possibly a second person because still -- the Natalee Holloway case, it hasn't been confirmed that he murdered Natalee Holloway.

Which, let me ask you, do you think -- I mean, you know the mind of these killers. You had to deal with the psychological angle of these arrests, et cetera, through the years. Is it possible that he confessed to this murder in Peru? Do you think somehow -- or is it possible that he may confess to the murder of Natalee Holloway? I mean, what usually happens in a case such as this?

COPUS: Van der sloot has confessed. If he's 22 years old, there's 22 confessions about what happened with Natalee all this period of time. So much so, how do you know what he believes? He was with a German video crew, and he made one statement about what happened. Then he was with a Dutch crew and he said something else. And then you pick him up on tape in Thailand saying something else.

PHILLIPS: But he never said, "I killed Natalee Holloway," yet he did say, "I killed Stephany Flores."

COPUS: Well, he had to say that because they had him so jammed that video camera nailed him.

PHILLIPS: Nailed him.

COPUS: We don't always know what physical evidence was in that room that further nailed him. His hands are dirty in that one. If he said to the people in Aruba, and if he got some money for it -- all they did was pay him some money for another confession that may or may not stand up.

Now, I've heard that they immediately went out and looked where he said the body he been buried. There was no body there. It was just one more time he pulled a scam.

PHILLIPS: Final question. He's confessed to this murder in Peru. He's boxed in now. This is it, basically.

COPUS: Sure.

PHILLIPS: But it is interesting because in Peru he may spend time in jail but also may be released. And there's no death penalty, et cetera. Let's just say he's going to be behind bars. Is it possible that we could get another confession out of him, that he just inally decides all right. You got me. I've got nothing left in my life here, I killed Natalee Holloway as well.

COPUS: Well, what you do in that case, and I'm not sure how the Peru system will work, but I'll tell you on the American side, when someone's been convicted, to help reduce their sentence, they come up with what's called a proffer. I've worked those cases. The guy makes his proffer through his lawyer, Justice Department. He gets to sit down with me, and he has an opportunity to tell me the truth of what he did. And I tell him up front I'll check it. If it's wrong, pal, you get no reduction, no good time for eating your veggies. You stay in jail the whole period of time.

I will tell you in Peru probably the same thing will take place. If you want to get a reduction in your sentence, tell us where Natalee's actually buried, who participated, and what went on. And if we can verify it instead of 35 years, maybe you'll get 25. Either way, he'll have to be careful with his roommate winking at him.

PHILLIPS: Isn't that true? As you know in the big house.

COPUS: That's right.

PHILLIPS: We'll follow it. Harold, always good to talk to you.

COPUS: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: BP says it's not aware of any reason for its shares to take a dry. Maybe our Wall Street peeps can shed some light on that. We'll have that after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: BP's stock price took a beating yesterday, and that's putting it mildly. The company's shares tumbled nearly 16 percent.

Alison Kosik on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with the details. So, Alison, oil has been spilling into the Gulf for nearly two months now. Why all of a sudden did we see a big plunge in BP shares yesterday?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, if you ask BP that question, they'll tell you they don't know of any reason why we saw the huge hit in the share price for BP yesterday. Kind of a strange answer, especially when you hear what's being talked about right here on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Traders telling me they wouldn't be completely surprised if BP was forced to file for bankruptcy.

Because BP is the face of this oil spill. The public is outraged, politicians are outraged, and you're seeing it right there on the share price. Take a look at this chart. I want to show you. BP shares hit a 14-year low yesterday, and they've been sliding ever since the accident happened. The stock price is actually cut in half from the April 20th explosion. Its share price back then was 60, and now it's around 30.

But analysts are saying that BP can afford this spill. An even bigger problem for BP might be the backlash that we're seeing. The real hostile backlash. Politicians are calling for BP to suspend its dividends, and others are asking BP to maybe even pick up the tab on unemployment benefits for oil workers if they're laid off during drilling moratorium. Other traders I talk to say wait a minute, take a breath. All of this market reaction is way overblown. Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Alison, well, the market is coming back today, though, right? BP rebounding also?

KOSIK: It is. BP shares up 12 percent right now. They came out trying to calm investors saying the company is generating significant cash flow. And at the same time we did expect this huge rebound because the shares are so undervalued right now.

Checking on stocks as well. We're seeing a big rebound on the overall market. The Dow Industrials up 214 points. The NASDAQ higher by 40. We did get a strong report about China's economy. Also, here in the U.S., continuing jobless claims plunged. It shows the market may be improving. Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Alison, thanks.

Job prospects looking bleak in one sector. Fishermen in the Gulf pushed to the brink. We'll see how they're doing more than 50 days into this disaster.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Top stories. It's Day 52 in the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis. President Obama meeting today with family members of the crew of that oil rig that exploded. The president plans to travel to the Gulf coast next week for his fourth trip to monitor the response.

And the shoreline at Orange Beach, Alabama, being cleaned of oil. There's a lot of concern about the oil that's reached the state's inland waterway. The Coast Guard has closed a water route to the Gulf that fishermen and boaters used.

The feds have given BP until tomorrow to submit a contingency plan. It would kick into effect if the containment cap fails or the hurricane forces the crews to evacuate the Gulf.

Fishermen, the people who make their living off the Gulf coast, are among the hardest hit by the ongoing oil disaster. CNN's Brian Todd reports on their struggles to survive.

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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Delivery time. The boat Sugar Babe pulls in with a fresh catch of shrimp. It looks plentiful, but this is a harbor in distress. With about a third of federal waters in the Gulf shut down fishing, this is what often passes for a day's work for fishermen at Pass Christian, Mississippi: signing up with BP to inspect boom and collect oil.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want you to stay 100 feet away from the booms. We have a process for the booms and stuff like that.

TODD: Joe Jenkins and his daughter Jennifer have been in the seafood processing business their entire lives, bringing it into the docks, packing it, shipping it to retailers.

(on camera): Where's your business at right now?

JOE JENKINS, OWNER, CRYSTAL SEAS SEAFOD CO.: Well, we are on the verge of being closed up totally, and our shrimp dock is closed, our oyster docks are close. We've got one boat here. So, we're almost closed here.

TODD (voice-over): A story you can see unfold with the catch brought in by the Sugar Babe.

JENKINS: As fast as you can see it, all the shrimp are going through the tube.

TODD: Through the tube to a conveyor belt where appearances are very deceiving.

(on camera): Coming off the conveyor belt and they got to get weighed over here on these scales, about 14,000 pounds brought in on this batch.

And, Joe, 4,000 pounds not very much on a day. How much do you usually get on a good day?

JENKINS: Some of our best days, we've bought upwards of 70,000 or 80,000 pounds on a day.

TODD: This is only -- this is the only boat that's coming in for you today.

JENKINS: This is the only boat we have coming in today, or this week. We only have one boat left.

TODD: This is Kimball Seafood Company in business since 1930. This catch, not so much, in fact, these are crawfish that are brought in from Louisiana, from ponds on farms. So, they're getting about their normal catch with the crawfish here, but it's the shrimping aspect of it, what they're bringing in shrimp-wise, that is really hurting. These shrimp are from Louisiana.

Darlene Kimball, the owner of this company -- normally, you're not getting these shrimp from Louisiana, are you?

DARLENE KIMBALL, OWNER, KIMBALL SEAFOOD CO.: No, we're getting them here from our docks.

TODD: So, this is really hurting your business. What do you have to do to get these?

KIMBALL: Well, we will travel. Either to -- either I will go get them or they have to be delivered, and if they're delivered, we have to pay a little bit extra.

TODD (voice-over): Rudy Toler, captain of the Sugar Babe, is hoping for a job with BP. He knows there's only so long he can bring in these meager catches.

RUDY TOLER, SHRIMP FISHERMAN: We're doing the best we can because it's all we got. And we're just trying to get as many as we can before they close it, because like I say, we're still waiting for BP.

TODD: Joe and Jennifer Jenkins now face laying-off several employees, cutting back the hours of those left.

JENNIFER JENKINS, CRYSTAL SEAS SEAFOOD COMPANY: It's not fun. It's not fun to tell somebody that's worked here longer than I have, that you probably don't have anywhere to come back to work to tomorrow.

TODD: A BP official on this dock told us they can pay fishermen between $1,200 and $2,200 every day they hire them. That's more than a lot of them make on a normal day. But the work is certainly not consistent.

Brian Todd, CNN, Pass Christian, Mississippi.

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PHILLIPS: Have you seen the last pictures of Gary Coleman, of him dying in the hospital? Well, if you took them and sold them, could you live with yourself? We'll discuss in a couple minutes.

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PHILLIPS: Those disgraceful death bed pictures of Gary Coleman. If you want to see them, they're on "Globe" magazine's Web site. We're not going show them to you, but we've seen them. Coleman hooked up to a machine, his ex-wife posing right next to him. How sick of the "Globe" to pay 10 grand for those pictures, and how sick of the person who pimped out his last moments the pictures for a buck.

It's not clear just who sold those pictures. The executor of Coleman's estate says the ex-wife, Shannon Price, did it. Her spokesperson's not denying it; admits she needs the money. If this woman had the power to tell the doctors to pull the plug, surely she could tell a photographer to pull the film out of the camera. Or better, get the hell out of the room.

As Todd Bridges put it -- he said this about his co-star in a tweet. "I hope someone burns in hell for this one."

That brings us to today's blog question. We wanted to know if you thought the images should be made public. Here's what some of you had to say.

Michael Wilson said, "It's another way for someone to profit from someone's death. There are ghouls out there that are willing to spend money to see this garbage. If his wife is involved with the sale of the photos, she will be vilified. If not, she should have those pictures blocked from publication or file a court order to prevent it." Sad. Sad.

This came from James. "No, it shouldn't have been taken, period. But what can we say about certain media people? Anything for money. That's sick."

This from David Cheesman. "Those who are celebrities have no privacy and no peace even in death. However, those photos would not have sold if there wasn't a demand to see them. We may have to look inward as a society to understand this shameless breach of privacy."

Remember, we always want to hear from you. Just log on to CNN.com/kyra and share your comments.

And you what? We refuse to remember him by those last days seen in those pictures. So, we're going to remember him as that cute, sassy, funny kid who made all of us laugh every week, and of course, the catch phrase that we're still saying today.

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GARY COLEMAN, ACTOR: What are you talking about? What are you talking about? What you -- what you talking about, Willis?

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PHILLIPS: It's not your everyday find. A Massachusetts teacher cleaning up her classroom found a document dating back more than 200 years. The paper was protected by plastic and was pretty well preserv

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MICHELLE EUGENIO, TEACHER: As I was doing the back shelves and cleaning up the back shelves and packing everything up, I came across this document.

When I saw that it was in plastic, I felt like somebody took the time to put it in plastic that it -- maybe it was a real document. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: It was real, all right. The Peabody Historical Society verified the document. The teacher's daughter was so excited, she wanted to sell the centuries-old paper and made some money. But Mom wants to keep the document at the school and show it to future students.

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PHILLIPS: Now for the last part of our newscast. It really means a lot to us as a team. It's called "Home and Away," and it's a tribute to our fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan. We'll tell you how you can take part in just a moment. But first, we want to tell you about Lance Corporal Sean Hefner. He died in Afghanistan in November 2009. His mom was asked to write a story for a book for a group of Marine moms putting it together.

Here's her memory of Sean after completing boot camp. Quote, "Seeing my son after three months of training was a shock. Sean's countenance had changed. He was sure of himself, he was proud of himself. He stood taller, and his shoulders were broader. I could never put into words the pride that a mother feels when witnessing the fulfillment of your child's dream. He was now a U.S. Marine."

We want to lift up more men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice, but we need your help. Go to CNN.com/homeandaway. Click on a hometown, pull up a profile and send us your memories, your photos and your video. We'll put them on our air and post them on our site.

That does it for us today. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, 9:00 a.m. Eastern. Now, Tony Harris takes it from here.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Aww, Kyra, have a great day. Good to see you.

PHILLIPS: You, too.

HARRIS: All right. Take care.