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Racial Tensions Ignite over Trayvon Martin Case; Lottery Fever; Remains of 9/11 Victims Dumped in Landfill; Google Car Drives Itself; Gay Man Beaten to Death in Chile by Neo-Nazis; Senate Blocks Bill To Eliminate Tax Breaks for Oil Companies

Aired March 30, 2012 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: As we continue on, top of the hour here, I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And I want to begin the shooting death with unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, peeling back the layers of our society to reveal seething racial undercurrents. Trayvon Martin was black. The man who admits shooting him, George Zimmerman, had been identified as Hispanic or white Hispanic in reports.

There's disputes over whether Zimmerman used a racial slur when he called 911 after the shooting. But right now, the public has seen no definitive evidence that race played a role in this incident. Still, that's not at all stopping all this rhetoric.

You have the Black Panther Party offering a $10,000 bounty for the capture of Zimmerman. And we don't mean by police here. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law center call the New Panthers a hate group. On the flip side, you have this white supremacist hacker claiming he broke into Trayvon Martin's e-mails and social networking accounts.

This is according Gawker. The hackers claims to have pulled messages and photos that show Martin was a drug dealer. These are obvious two extreme examples here and we're seeing more and more examples like this each and every day. But there are so many reasonable people who see a racial component to this case.

I want to welcome Charlton McIlwain, an associate professor of media, culture, and communication at NYU. He's also the author of "Race Appeal: How Candidates Invoke Race in U.S. Political Campaigns."

Charlton, welcome. As you have been watching the coverage of this case, what do you find most troubling?

CHARLTON MCILWAIN, NYU: Well, I think what's really troubling as I look at the responses to this case, I can't help think back to Rodney King, back to the O.J. trial and the fact that this case is becoming increasingly racially polarized and quickly getting to the point where I don't think we're going to be able to talk about this case and talk about Trayvon Martin and the issues surrounding it in any kind of a productive way.

BALDWIN: That's unfortunate because as a professor, you know we should have this discourse, we should be able to have this national conversation. And part of the conversation has been on social media. And we have seen hate-filled tweets by people who, you know, sit there behind their computer, they can tweet whatever they want.

Have you ever seen it get this bad in terms of this hateful rhetoric online?

MCILWAIN: Not that I can remember. And I have sat over the last two or three days and literally looked over hundreds of thousands of Facebook posts, Twitter posts, things out there.

And type of language that is being used, the types of accusations being made are really just untenable when we think about trying to use this Trayvon Martin case as a way to talk about and speak productively about race in America, about racial injustice and things we can do to more forward and productively change things that many of us see as racially wrong with the way that things are going in this nation.

BALDWIN: How can we have, Charlton, that kind of discourse when this increasingly polarizing?

MCILWAIN: I think it's difficult. We always have to, as hard as it may be, keep our passions in check. I'm not saying not to be emotional. Obviously many of us are very clearly touched and strongly touched and identify with Trayvon Martin and the circumstances surrounding his case.

At some point, we have to let our emotions be tempered with reason and let our language reflect our intention to really move forward, to have a dialogue, to be productive in pointing out not only what's wrong, but how we can move forward.

And I think it's difficult to move forward when you can't even engage anyone in a conversation because our rhetoric has become so polarized and so damaging.

BALDWIN: When you talk about the rhetoric and you think what is the root of some of this rage, I know there is disagreement over what race George Zimmerman is. Is part of the issue people just need to be mad and they just don't even who to be mad at here?

MCILWAIN: I think that's part of it.

And I think that in part because so many of us really identified with the case very early on and really saw it as a form of racial injustice, I think what happened was very quickly folks on the other side, whites, people who did not agree with that particular viewpoint tended to get implicated in these calls for looking at racial injustice.

And when they hear racism and hear a system or criminal justice system that is racist and unjustly deals with black men and boys, they see themselves implicated in that. And I think taking that sort of personally tends to put both people back in the same corner. What we end up with is two sides equally committed to their cause and all of a sudden Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman are turned into both heroes and villains.

And we kind of cast our full emotions and projections on them. And so Martin becomes, or Zimmerman becomes a god or devil, depending on your perspective, good and evil, hero or villain. And it's hard to talk past that kind of rhetoric and that kind of viewpoint.

BALDWIN: When we talk about race, and this is something in telling the story, I just have to share on a personal level with this show, there was controversy on this show just this past week, the last couple of days.

I had a congresswoman from this particular district, Corrine Brown, she was on the show and I asked her many questions, one of which was, you know, whether she and her fellow African-American lawmakers would care as much about this particular case if Trayvon Martin wasn't black.

What are your thoughts on that?

MCILWAIN: Well, I think that Congresswoman Brown made the mistake of simply not being truthful.

I don't think that it was any slap in the face to be able to say, look, when we look at what happened to Trayvon Martin and looked at a white young girl who was murdered, sure, we're going to have equal outrage at the fact of what happened to them, no question.

But I think it's not out of realm of possibility for her to admit, as I would believe, to say when I look at Trayvon, I see someone who represents something even larger going on in the system, something that threatens not only Trayvon, but threatens all of us out there who are African-American men, boys, African-Americans in general who by and large are seen as suspicious, in part just because of the color of our skin.

And so I think where the congresswoman went wrong was simply not to be up front. And it seems and appears to many in the public when you do that that you're simply playing sides, playing favorites.

BALDWIN: Yes. Where do we go from here? Let's say, does it ultimately take, you know, an arrest to Zimmerman for this hate, this hateful rhetoric, this polarization to go away? Or is that foolish to think that and there will always be racial tension and it's just simply bubbling at the surface because of this story?

MCILWAIN: I think in part my pessimism comes in thinking this is not going to go away, this tension is -- not there. And part of what we're seeing is the fact that we have greatly unaddressed issues. When it comes to issues of race, when it comes to issues of systemic justice, of racism, we have not been able to really come together and talk directly as a country about that and take productive steps to try to move forward.

And so I think anytime you have a case like this, and I think there are many twists and turns probably left to go in this case and I think at every step of the way, it's going to be difficult for us to get past these tensions because these are things that we simply have refused to talk about.

BALDWIN: I'm glad you and I, sir, I'm glad we're talking about this today. Charlton McIlwain from NYU, I appreciate it. Come back anytime.

MCILWAIN: Absolutely. Thank you so much.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Speaking of a good dialogue, we want you to watch tonight 8:00 Eastern here on CNN. You can watch this entire special town hall hosted by Soledad O'Brien and she will be examining the racial tension in our country right now and how this neighborhood tragedy in Sanford, Florida, has become such a nationwide story.

But now it's something we have to talk about here. More than $600 million up for grabs right now, the Mega Millions jackpot now the biggest lottery prize in world history. Coming up next, a mathematician explains whether your numbers have an edge tonight. Plus, if you do win, what's the very first thing you need to do to protect yourself? That advice, because you're going to win, right?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let's talk lottery.

Look at these lines. Hello, sir. There he is plunking down money, hoping to win, for a teeny-tiny microscopic speck of a shot to win $640 million.

So just how bad are your odds at winning tonight's drawing of the largest jackpot ever? You're more likely to die from a bee sting. That is one in 6.1 million or experience a shark attack. Yikes. That is one in 11.5 million. Or make a hole in one, that is one in 12,500.

What are the odds tonight? The odds are one in 176 million you're gong to win tonight's Mega Millions drawing.

And mathematician Aaron Abrams from Emory University showed me where that number comes from. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AARON ABRAMS, EMORY UNIVERSITY: It's the same as for any Mega Millions drawing any night. Just that the jackpot is extra large tonight. Here's the formula for the number.

BALDWIN: And for all you math nerds, because I was wondering this myself, this is a factorial equation starting at 56 down.

ABRAMS: That's right. And there's a 46 at the end which is for the Megaball.

BALDWIN: That's the Megaball.

ABRAMS: That's right. So this tells you how many tickets there are for the first five numbers and this is the last number.

BALDWIN: OK. What is the answer?

ABRAMS: And the answer is very large.

BALDWIN: Very large. We need to consult.

ABRAMS: The answer is 175,711,536.

BALDWIN: So this is the number. These are your odds, so one in this number, the odds of winning.

ABRAMS: That's right. That's correct.

BALDWIN: OK.

ABRAMS: That's about how many glades of grass there are on a football field, by the way.

BALDWIN: So what are you telling me, you're not playing the lottery since you know the numbers very well. You laugh at us who play?

ABRAMS: Well, I probably won't play.

BALDWIN: What about the odds of having multiple winners now that the jackpot is so high?

(CROSSTALK)

ABRAMS: Well, yes, certainly it does. Because there are so many tickets sold for this particular drawing, that makes it much more likely there will be multiple winners. So if you do win the jackpot, you are very likely to have to share the jackpot.

BALDWIN: What about just today? My team, we just put in some money. A lot of people are doing the office pool thing vs. a single ticket. That has to increase your odds as well, correct?

ABRAMS: It's true, if you buy more tickets your odds increase, yes. The numbers that are chosen, if they're chosen randomly, as they should be, all the numbers have the same odds.

However, you can increase your odds of being -- if you do win, you can increase your odds of being the only one who wins.

BALDWIN: And do tell.

ABRAMS: The way you can do that is, as you say, there are a lot of popular numbers. People like to choose birth dates and favorite numbers, and things like this. And so there are more common tickets -- it's more common to have tickets with lower numbers because birthdays, for example, are never more than 31. No one is born on the 32nd of the month. BALDWIN: So you're saying pick a higher number?

ABRAMS: If you pick higher numbers, those are likely to be less common numbers. And it will not increase your odds of winning, but if you do win, it will increase your odds of being the only one who wins.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Did you get that? My thanks again to Aaron Abrams from Emory.

All this watercooler talk boiling over with lottery dreams. This is Tina Kim's (ph). Tina, good luck.

Admit it, your office mates and you are pooling your money and buying tickets together, right? I know my team did that today. It's all fun, it's all games. But things get very serious very fast if you actually do win, like the New Jersey construction worker Americo Lopes. This month a judge ordered him to pay his co-workers $2 million each after he claimed the winning ticket as, oh, that was just his, he says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC KAHN, ATTORNEY: There was no real -- there was documents, there was no hard evidence. It was our clients' word vs. the defendant's word. And there also were a couple of witnesses who had testified, people who had filled in with the crew on occasion, somebody who was there that week in question who confirmed our clients' versions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So what do you do now to avoid that type of scheme down the road?

Attorney Joey Jackson joins me.

Joey, I understand you actually represented an office pool. They were having some issues a couple of years ago in New York. You know about this. My team just we're all plunking down money. We have got like $150 or something. What do we need to do to avoid a lawsuit down the road, if we win?

JOEY JACKSON, LEGAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, Brooke, I appreciate you crushing my hopes with that last segment.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Yes, sorry.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: No hope and humanity of winning.

But there's a few things you can do. I call it DDP. I learned this from the case that I handled. The first thing is you have to define the group members. You have to know who's going to be involved, who's not, who's a participant and who's not.

This preserves and protects the integrity of the group as well so that in the event you win, people can't come forward and say I intended to play, it was me. I was going to play. You just define the group. After defining the group, what you do is you designate an individual or individuals who are going to be the purchasing agents. That is they're going to collect the money and they will go and purchase the ticket.

Then the final thing you do is you photocopy the tickets that you purchased for the group. You give them out, distribute them to all concerned and then you have them ink them.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: You know, everybody signs on board so that everyone knows it's a finite group. These are the participants and everyone is protected in the event that you win the jackpot.

BALDWIN: I can't say sorry guys, I did buy a couple of extra tickets, but I bought this one for my family and that's the winning one, so too bad for you? You can't do that.

Photocopy. I hope my team is listening because we need to be doing that. What about people on vacation? I have heard of people here at CNN. They're on vacation. They're calling in to different people saying all right, I want in on this pool. Do they get equal rights if they win?

JACKSON: They absolutely do.

What happens is, remember this, these are predicated upon oral agreements. And you depend upon the good faith of group and the good nature of the group. There's one thing the courts don't like. We have seen that in these lottery cases and it's fraud. Right? The courts hate fraud and they don't like unfair dealing and they don't like bad faith.

In the event that that person who was on a vacation was a normal participant and was a standard member of the group, the mere fact that they're away and someone in good faith forked over a couple of bucks on their behalf does not mean they're precluded from collecting when they get back. It doesn't mean people will try not to get them their money. But they should be involved.

BALDWIN: OK. What about back to the whole bit about the office pool? Let's say I'm putting in for a couple tickets for my co- workers, but I'm also buying three tickets on the side and one of my three tickets on the side is actually the winning ticket. I get all that money, do I not, Mr. Jackson?

JACKSON: You absolutely do. See, what ends up happening is -- and that's why you have to photocopy it. Because now we know what were the tickets that were purchased for the group and what are those tickets that you purchased for yourself. You don't lose your individual rights or your individual identity. But you are able to segregate out what's for everyone else and what's for me. That's how it works.

BALDWIN: Let's say I win, what's the first thing I should do?

JACKSON: After you jump up, scream and hug everybody next to you, just make sure that that ticket is preserved, of course. Keep it in a safe place. This is obvious but some things can happen and you won't ever end up finding it.

The next thing, of course, you want to do is you want to consult someone and that might be a professional, whether it's an attorney, whether it's a financial planner, so that you can of course make provisions for what you're going to do with it. Some people have a real issue with their identity really being made known.

There's been a lot of bad karma with people who win these cases and as a result of that life ends up taking tricky terms. Ultimately, just preserve the ticket, consult a professional, whether it be financial or law, and this way you can have your money, enjoy your money and do good things and even this, Brooke, see that it grows even beyond that which you have collected.

BALDWIN: I know, be responsible, yadda, yadda.

May the best and most lucky lottery winner win. Joey Jackson, and I may or may not see you on Monday. Thank you very much.

(LAUGHTER)

JACKSON: Good luck.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Now to this club that only allows men. And despite protests, backlash and pushback over the years, the club has always stuck to this rule. You know what I'm talking about? Think golf. There's a female CEO, though, who may turn this boys' only club upside down. Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: One woman's career as a journalist ends in an instant.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains how a blow to the head forever changed her life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIETTE MARKHBEIN, ACCIDENT SURVIVOR: I was on my bike, and I heard this roaring car coming behind me. And I realized at that point the car was going to hit me.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Eight years ago, Eliette Markhbein was hit by a car and flung into the air. MARKHBEIN: While I was in the air, I was seeing Central Park on my left and I was seeing people on the sidewalk going, my God, my God.

GUPTA: At the moment she slammed into the ground, Markhbein's successful career as a journalist was over. She had a traumatic brain injury.

MARKHBEIN: My helmet, it was cracked in two like a ripe melon.

GUPTA: Words that once came easily were now garbled and the pain radiating throughout her body became a daily sensation. Markhbein needed an outlet.

MARKHBEIN: I just naturally started to, you know, take paper and pencils and color things and draw things. And I didn't have a TBI. My mind functioned seamlessly when I was doing art.

GUPTA: Eventually, art was not just a respite from pain, but a new vocation. Eight years after her accident, Markhbein is still coping with her injuries, still feeling cathartic when she paints. Her latest work now hanging in a New York gallery depicts people who also had a TBI and through intensive rehabilitation of the mind and spirit also overcame.

MARKHBEIN: Do not ever lose hope. You will recover, you will do something with yourself. It's long, it's painful, but there is hope.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(NEWS BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just into us here at CNN, the Pentagon has now revealed new information about how the remains of 9/11 victims ended up in a landfill, including the debate that went down over what to do with those remains.

We're live at the Pentagon next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just into us here at CNN, new details as to where the remains of some of the victims of 9/11 ended up. Also, a blind man drives a car. Time for "Reporter Roulette."

I do want to begin here with some of this information that the military has just now released on how the remains of some people who died on 9/11 end up in a landfill. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, what do you know?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, 1,321 sets fragmented, if you will, of remains of those who perished here at the Pentagon on 9/11 buried in a landfill. If you didn't think that was bad enough, listen to this. The Pentagon this afternoon releasing thousands of pages of documents about all of this and how it came to happen.

Of course, this has been going on for some time, unidentified remains being buried, incinerated and buried as medical waste. Dover Air Force Base was in charge of all of this. And apparently back in 2002 there was actually a debate about whether it was a good thing to do. These documents show an extensive e-mail debate between officials. Some officials saying the remains should be buried at sea, such as military remains are with appropriate military dignity. Others saying no, they're unidentified. Incinerate, put them in the land fill as medical waste. And other officials still saying there's no way these were normal medical waste remains if such a thing even exists.

So these pages of documents we've gotten today show us more insight into this very difficult debate for the public to view about how remains should be disposed of. And what it really underlines, of course, more than 10 years after 9/11, the anguish of it all still remains here at the Pentagon and the remains of troops who perished in the war also incinerated and disposed of as medical waste. Brooke?

BALDWIN: Right, Arlington National Cemetery, elsewhere across the country, to think that there was a debate and this wasn't simply accidental. What about families? Will it be possible to know if it was their loved ones at this particular landfill? And will they have any recourse, do you think?

STARR: Probably not, Brooke. The military is making the case that they did this because the remains, the bits, the fragments were so small as to be unidentifiable. So that's the case that they're making.

But other people are making the case, of course, that nonetheless, these were the remains, the fragments of people who perished, and they should have been treated with some other level of dignity than to be treated as medical waste. That's the case that so many people are making.

And of course now, since this all came to light, procedures have changed, and they are now buried at sea with all appropriate military dignity. Brooke?

BALDWIN: Barbara Starr, thank you.

STARR: Sure.

BALDWIN: Next on Reporter Roulette, Chad Myers is back. Welcome back.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I was at the hurricane conference.

BALDWIN: Of course. I'm sure you loved it.

MYERS: I got to tell the Hurricane Center what they did right and what they do wrong. They weren't listening, but I got to tell them. BALDWIN: OK, talk to me about this -- there's this blind man, and he drove a car?

MYERS: Yes, legally. And this is a Google car. It's a Prius, and it has light-dar, which is kind of like radar but with lights. It also has GPS. This car now has 100,000 miles on it driving all by itself. It has actually gone down Lombard Street, all the way down, didn't hit anything. This man is 95 percent blind. He's beyond legally blind. It went all the way to a Taco Bell. It knew where to stop because of the Google maps and also the Google on the road images. The car is literally driving by itself. It's no hands, no feet, it's nothing. I think this guy had a good time. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go. Look ma, no hands. No hands anywhere. No hands, no feet. No nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Pick my jaw up off the table. I have so many questions. So based upon then Google Maps, they just know exactly down to the inch at the end of the street, no when to turn. What about traffic lights?

MYERS: It has radar, light-dar. It has to see there's a stop sign and it has to be able to yield to pedestrians. It has to be able to do all of these things. So this is an experimental car. But it was fantastic and it worked great.

BALDWIN: And it worked.

MYERS: There's only been one accident, 100,000 miles, there's only been one accident with this car, and that's when a human was actually overriding what the car was doing.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Wow. So we'll see.

MYERS: It would be great. This is like Knight Rider.

BALDWIN: Can you imagine pulling up to someone and they're doing look ma no hands, just like that guy.

MYERS: Kit, take me home.

BALDWIN: Chad, thank you. And that's your Reporter Roulette on this Friday.

Coming up next, police respond to a 911 call. It turns out the caller lied, and what happened next led to someone's death.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Time now for the Help Desk where we get answers to your financial questions. And joining me this hour is Jack Otter, he is the executive editor of CBSMoneyWatch.com and author of "Worth It...Not Worth It?" and Stacy Francis, she's a financial adviser and the president of Francis Financial.

Andy in Iowa is asking, "I'm 35 and make about $50,000 a year. I have $20,000 in the bank. My only debt is a $130,000 mortgage. How can I start planning for retirement and my seven-month-old daughter's college fund." What should he do?

STACY FRANCIS, PRESIDENT, FRANCIS FINANCIAL: The first this is, I would take a step back. He has $20,000 in cash savings. That might not be a big enough emergency fund for him. So definitely beef up that emergency fund. The next thing is the step between retirement or college saving. We're going to give you a loan for retirement. So beef up your retirement at work, open an IRA, and then only after that a 529 plan for your daughter's college savings.

KOSIK: Let's go to another e-mail from John in Michigan. He's asking, "I'm considering investing $100,000 in an annuity. How much should I expect to pay in fees?" Jack, how much?

JACK OTTER, AUTHOR, "WORTH IT... NOT WORTH IT?": The first thing he's got to know, fixed it immediate annuities. I don't think variable annuities are worth it. How much in fees? With a fixed annuity, it's actually tough to tell. The key is the return he gets. Let's say he's 65, he would get $561 a month for life. That's a great deal. One of the problems seniors have is they run out of money before they die. This guarantees a veritable annuity. He tends to pay high fees. If he has to get one, I would go with fidelity or Vanguard. With Vanguard you pay about 0.5 percentage points to 1.5 percent depend on the various benefits. But I would rather he invest in mutual funds, life insurance, bonds. Stay away from variable annuity.

KOSIK: All right, if you have a question you want answers, send us an e-mail anytime to CNN Help Desk at CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Trending today, this medical study out of Scotland suggests taking birth control pills changes what women find attractive in men. The study even suggests the very things women on the pill find attractive may be a turnoff once she's off the pill. Last hour I talked with the sex therapist Judy Kuriansky, and she warns that she takes this study with a grain of salt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDY KURIANSKY, CERTIFIED SEX THERAPIST: The pill changes your hormones, OK? So if you're going to have a higher level of hormones or lower level of hormones that's going to change how you see guys. But I'm going to caution women that they don't go rush to their gynecologist and say I want to go off the pill, because if I stay on the pill then I will be less sexually attracted to my husband after a period of time. They're going to get all confused about it and that will end up really creating lots of havoc.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was just a portion of our interview. We're going to put it on my blog, CNN.com/Brooke for the whole thing. On a serious note, though, Kuriansky advises before you go on or off the pill, go to your doctor and have your hormones checked.

Coming up next, a story that's going to give you the chills. Police say a group of neo Nazis beat a guy for an entire hour and burn swastikas in his hand. But prosecutors suddenly change their mind about the charges. We're going to tell you why next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A gay man was the target of a beating so brutal he couldn't survive it. His death Tuesday has rallied the country of Chile to fight homophobia and the neo-Nazis accused of this attack. CNN's Rafael Romo has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: For more than three weeks they held vigils and lit candles and prayed for the recovery of the young man, but 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio, allegedly targeted for being gay, couldn't survive his injuries. He died Tuesday night in Santiago, the Chilean capital.

JAIME PARADA, HOMOSEXUAL INTEGRATION AND LIBERATION MOVEMENT (via translator): He's a victim of intolerance, homophobia, and hate that some have in their hearts.

ROMO: On March 3rd, a clothing store salesman was attacked in a park in Santiago. Authorities say he was beaten for at least an hour and burned with cigarettes and Nazi symbols were carved into his body. The attack has galvanized human rights groups in Chile. The victim's father says the support he and his family have received since the attack happened has been overwhelming.

IVAN ZAMUDIO, VICTIM'S FATHER (via translator): they have given me comfort and strength to keep supporting my family and son. I would like to ask you all to please respect our privacy.

ROMO: Four young men between the ages of 19 and 26 have been arrested as suspects in the killing. Local media outlets are reporting the suspects are members of a neo-Nazi group. Chilean president Sebastian Pinera speaking during a trip to Asia condemned the attack.

SEBASTIAN PINERA, CHILEAN PRESIDENT (via translator): We want to reiterate today that we have made a commitment. We are not going to tolerate any kind of discrimination on citizens based on their socioeconomic status, their religion, or sexual orientation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: I want to bring in Rafael Romo. It's horrible. You talked to the people who conducted the autopsy. What did they say?

ROMO: I was talking to the main prosecutor in the case today, and he was just telling me that the level of brutality that this young man endured. He had swastika symbols carved into his skin. His legs were placed in such a way that his tibia in the lower leg was broken. Also, it seems like they used a big rock to beat him in the head, and that's what eventually caused his death. So that tells you the level of brutality is just unimaginable that somebody can do that kind of -- cause that kind of injury to somebody else.

BALDWIN: What about the government? We just saw the President Sebastian Pineda talking. What is the government doing in reaction?

ROMO: For the last seven years they have been trying to approve a law that would punish exactly that kind of hate crime, exactly that kind of situation. There's an antidiscrimination that not only covers this kind of crime, but all kinds of discrimination. Conservative groups and the Chilean Congress have prevented this bill from becoming law. But then again, after this happened, a lot of people are saying enough is enough and it's time to do it.

BALDWIN: It's time. Rafael, thank you.

ROMO: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up here, nothing gets a Senate Democrat fired up quite like an oil company's bottom line.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL, (D) MISSOURI: This is so dumb. They've had these subsidies for what, 30, 40, 50 years? And I think most Americans realize the price of oil has gone up just fine during that time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Well, we are going to look at those subsidies today as we watch gas prices go up and up and up. And my next guest has an idea that might actually get the court of public opinion to think more highly of these big oil companies.

But first, it is Friday and that means it's time for our week wind-down. And today, a bet paid off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: There was a little healthy bet between Ms. Massey and I, Bobcat O.U. alum and the Tarheels. Granted, neither of our teams are in the final four, but I do believe that I won the bet, and we went into overtime. So the bet was that I got to decorate her scooter with Carolina swag.

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BALDWIN: Gas prices are rising again this week. The average cost of a gallon of regular is $3.93 cents. Folks, that is up four cents in a single week. And while gas prices creep toward that $4 mark, ballooning $4 a gallon, oil companies are raking in the profits. And the senate just voted against killing $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies for these big oil companies, tax breaks with wonky names like "section 199, intangible drilling costs" and "dual capacity rules." You hear me say that and you're thinking, OK, what does all that mean and why? Here's what I want to know -- why am I paying so much at the pump?

Rick Newman, chief business correspondent for "U.S. News and World Report." Rick, if I can just ask in plain English, what are oil companies getting from us, the taxpayers, and should they stop taking it?

RICK NEWMAN, "U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT": It's between $2 billion and $4 billion worth of tax breaks each year, and that was decades ago in many cases to just stimulate drilling activity for an industry that was younger than -- and perhaps needed a little bit of support. Obviously, these days, the oil companies are getting these subsidies, and that includes Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, and two companies that aren't even oil companies, BP and Royal Dutch/Shell. These are some of the most established and most profitable companies in the world.

Brooke, I added their profits in 2011, and their combined profits were $116 billion. I'm thrilled they're making money and that's great for shareholders. Their stocks are doing great. But why give them $4 billion worth of tax subsidies? It really makes no sense.

BALDWIN: This is Senator Claire McCaskill yesterday.

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MCCASKILL: They've had these subsidies for what, 30, 40, 50 years? I think most Americans have figured out the price of oil has gone up just fine all of that time. We pay plenty at the gas pump right now and they have those subsidies. How is that working out for us? Those subsidies are really keeping down the price of gasoline, aren't they?

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BALDWIN: Ha, ha. We're doing away with the subsidy, Rick? Would that make the gas prices go down and would that have any kind of impact as far as what we're paying each and every day?

NEWMAN: I think this is a silly distortion that's typical of an election year. I think these subsidies have probably nothing whatsoever to do with the price of gas. The price of oil and the price of gas is set by supply and demand in the global market. For the most part it's that simple. And if these tax subsidies were eliminated. The oil companies would keep pulling the same amount of oil out of the ground because we're making a profit out of that oil, especially with gas prices over $100 a barrel as it is now. So that wouldn't affect the supply which means it wouldn't affect the price.

BALDWIN: We have a graph and let's throw it up quickly. In 2008, $147 a barrel and today it's just over a hundred, and we're still paying right around four bucks for a gallon of gas. So why -- it doesn't make sense when you look at the differential. Why are gas prices still so high there?

NEWMAN: There's not an exact correlation between oil and gas prices. It's a very close correlation, though. But we have to remember oil is a product that goes into making gasoline, but gasoline has to be refined. And one of the reasons -- one of the things that's keeping gas prices high is that we're not building any refineries here in the United States. It's a permitting problem, nobody wants refineries in their states, and the ones that are there tend to be old and less efficient. Some refineries are shutting down. So the theoretical pipelines through which oil flows as it turns into gasoline are somewhat constricted.

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BALDWIN: Forgive me, Rick Newman, I'm hitting the 4:00 mark for Wolf Blitzer. We can have that whole other conversation, which we will another day. I appreciate it so much. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Wolf Blitzer, to you, sir.