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Bradley Manning Verdict; Deadly Parasite

Aired July 30, 2013 - 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: Top of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin. I want to begin with breaking news out of Kansas City, Missouri. We're getting new information. This car has slammed into the side of this daycare center. We've got these aerial pictures. These are live pictures where you can see. We just learned in the last couple of minutes, at least three children and one adult were hurt. It's still not clear at this point in time how badly. We do know that they are being taken to the hospital right now. This happened -- if you know Kansas City, it happened near the Christian Academy Child Care Center just about an hour ago.

We have seen ambulances. We have seen fire trucks. You see the whole area is cordoned off by crime scene tape. The fire department is at the scene. The cause of the accident because really this just happened obviously is still under investigation.

But joining me now is Danny Rotert, communications director for the city.

And, Danny, tell me what you know.

DANNY ROTERT, KANSAS CITY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, here's what I know, Brooke.

In Kansas City, we have two vehicles that ran into the front of a child care on 27th Street, which is in the central part of Kansas City. Both cars, again, were somehow in an accident and pushed into the front of the building. It involves an SUV and a silver car. Three children have been taken to local hospitals.

They are young children. They are -- have sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries. They have been taken to Children's Mercy Hospital, which is one of the best in the country. One adult has also been injured and taken to an area hospital as well, again, with serious but not life-threatening injuries.

Obviously, it is still a serious situation. All of the children have been accounted for at this point. We have done a primary and secondary search. But as you can see with the aerial footage you're looking at, we have got -- firefighters right now are trying to get the cars out of the front of the building and then a final search will be done to make sure that we have all children accounted for at the day care.

BALDWIN: I see, Danny. That's so helpful. As you're explaining, what we have been seeing, these aerial pictures, this car is being removed from the day care. Just to reiterate, three children, young children. We don't know ages?

ROTERT: We don't know ages, no.

BALDWIN: OK. So three young children serious but not life- threatening been taken to the hospital, one adult. And again -- so you broke news saying not just one, but you're saying two cars. Again, we don't know. You don't know exactly how these cars landed in the side of the day care?

ROTERT: No, we're not sure. It's very clear that they seem to have had some sort of accident. The day care is relatively close to the street. So it's right on the sidewalk. You know, I'm not sure if this was an accident or careless driving. That is under investigation at this point. Obviously, it's a serious situation and currently we're worried to make sure that we have the front of that building shored up so it doesn't collapse further.

BALDWIN: What are eyewitnesses telling you? Do we know if they have said anything as far as the speeds of either of those cars?

ROTERT: I don't know yet, Brooke, I'm afraid.

BALDWIN: OK. And just finally, again, how many kids? You're saying every single one of those kids including the three who have been taken to the hospital are accounted for?

ROTERT: We believe so at this point, but I will put the caveat and the fire chief has made it very clear about the caveat. We're still removing the vehicles and the rubble from the front of this building.

We feel comfortable that we have gotten everyone. But obviously we want to make sure we get those cars out of the front of the building and searched as thorough as we can to make sure that neither children or anyone who have been on the street or passersby are still in that building.

BALDWIN: Danny, do we know what was happening? This is lunchtime. This is when typically day cares are pretty full. Do we know what was happening inside the day care when these cars slammed inside?

ROTERT: No. But it was a pretty full day care. And like I said, it was right on the street. There's not a lot of easement between the street and the building itself. It's just an unfortunate situation.

Just, as you know, it was a day care full of children. We're frankly fortunate that three have serious but not life-threatening and it's only three at this point. I hate to say that, but we are very thankful that we only have three as opposed to it could have been much worse.

BALDWIN: Just awful for these parents. Danny Rotert, thank you so much for taking the time to hop on the phone with us from Kansas City, Missouri.

And again just to reiterate Danny saying not just one but two cars slamming into the side of the Kansas City, Missouri, day care. Three young children. Don't know ages. Three young children have been taken to the hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries and also one adult. We're making phone calls. As soon as we get information on this harrowing, ordeal in Kansas City, we will pass it along to you here on CNN.

Let me switch gears though and talk about another huge story that has broken just this afternoon as well. This military judge has acquitted the Army's Bradley Manning of the most serious count against him, so Bradley Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy. The judge convicted Manning of a number of lesser charges for the largest leak of U.S. secrets in history, in U.S. history since, some 700,000 classified documents. He faces years in prison when he's sentenced.

In a statement released moments after the verdict, WikiLeaks, the web side Manning gave the information to said -- quote -- "Bradley Manning's convictions included five counts of espionage, a very serious new precedent for supplying information to the press."

Joining me now from New York is Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's senior legal analyst, and from Washington, journalist and Manning biographer Denver Hicks.

Welcome to both of you.

Jeffrey Toobin, let me just begin here. Bottom line, what do you make of the verdict?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It strikes me as a very just verdict. This was a terrible, terrible breach of national security. It was a tremendous betrayal of hardworking Foreign Service officers who put their lives on the line for the sake of the United States government and for world peace and they were betrayed by what Bradley Manning did.

I do think the charge of aiding the enemy was excessive and the judge appropriately rejected it. But Bradley Manning is now a proven criminal and he's going to go to jail for a long time and that's what he deserves.

BALDWIN: Denver, to you, as Bradley Manning's biographer. When Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the charges against him, he said he meant no harm to the government. He went on to say -- quote -- "I believe that if the public was aware of the data, it would start a public debate on the wars, some of the wars both in Iraq -- on Afghanistan."

On the one hand, he was obviously conflicted about what was happening in Iraq and what was happening in Afghanistan. But Manning also seemed conflicted about his role and his treatment in the military. Tell me about that.

DENVER HICKS, BRADLEY MANNING BIOGRAPHER: There's no question that Bradley Manning acted as he did because he is idealistic and a somewhat naive young man. He criminally leaked documents as you said, about three-quarters of a million documents, because he thought he was making the world a better place. There's no question about that. His role in the Army, much has made about Bradley Manning being a conflicted soldier. I think there's some truth to that. On the other hand, lost in the back and forth on that is that Bradley Manning was quite proud of his status as an intelligence analyst. I suspect he remains proud to be a soldier in the U.S. Army.

And it's clear that for better or for worse in acting as he did, he thought he was doing the right thing and did it for the same reasons that he joined the Army to begin with. He saw it as a patriotic act, in fact.

BALDWIN: Denver, I want to stay with you, because you talk about the sense of being conflicted. It's since come out that Manning had some discipline problems in the Army. Do you think with everything that you have known and that you have written about, should alarm bells have been ringing before these leaks even happened?

HICKS: Yes. Alarm bells in fact were rung about Bradley Manning's security clearance. They just weren't listened to, you might say.

BALDWIN: Jeffrey Toobin, we know that Manning, he said no thank you to his case being heard by a jury. Do you think that that turned out to be a good decision on his part?

TOOBIN: It probably did. Look, he was going to jail for a long time with or without a jury. This was not a difficult case to prove, but frankly I'm not so worried or interested in his complex motivations. What he did was a horrendous crime and the military was right to prosecute him and, you know, this sort of his psychological state, you know, really we don't care about, you know, most criminals' psychological state, and I certainly don't care about his either.

BALDWIN: OK. Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much. And Denver Hicks, we appreciate you both coming on.

It sounded like bombs going off. That's what people say in this town in Florida, Tavares, Florida. Take a look. You hear that one after another after another. A series of massive explosions blew the roof off the Blue Rhino gas plant. This is in Florida sending a huge fireball into the sky. Eight workers hurt suffering burns and being treated for smoke inhalation, and look at this with me because you will see what is left behind, this sea of propane gas cylinders, 53,000 of them scattered across the yard.

And then picture showing the huge wall of fire and smoke towering above the suburban neighborhood. The woman who actually took this picture is on the phone with us now.

She is Debbie Stivender. She is a longtime Tavares local.

Debbie, tell me, what did you see and what did you hear?

DEBBIE STIVENDER, EYEWITNESS: Well, about 10:48 p.m. last night, I was sitting in my living room watching TV and my son was in his room watching TV. And having lived here my entire life, it sounded like the shuttle, the boom from the shuttle. BALDWIN: Wow.

(CROSSTALK)

STIVENDER: So I said to Tim, I said, is somebody trying -- what's going on? And he's a welder. He walked outside and he looked across and he said it's the Rhino, it blew up.

BALDWIN: So he knew immediately it was all those 53,000 propane tanks. We see the smoke and the fireball. We also know, Debbie, officials came a knocking. They were knocking on your door. You were close. As we can tell by the picture, you were in this evacuation zone. They asked you and your son to leave, but you stayed.

How come?

STIVENDER: Well, I trusted Timmy and I trust myself. Like I said, I have been a public servant for over 30 years.

I have been through the major hurricanes and I have been through other things. The local public servants here are very good at taking care of us. Timmy's experience being a welder, he knew that the propane would burn itself out and. As we watched, it was burning itself out. And by the time they got to us to have us leave, it was almost to the final part that burned on the back where the trailers were. I knew we were secure and we were safe.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Yes. You two were A-OK. Have you wandered over there during the daylight hours? What does that look like?

STIVENDER: Yes, ma'am.

I went over earlier today and took a couple more pictures and the front of the facility looked quite normal. The road's not damaged, any of that. You can see all of the cylinders, the tanks, the individual ones that you were talking about. They are all over the yard and what the locals have done is closed off those roads so that they can make sure there aren't any leaks or anything going on in there that would be harmful to anybody.

BALDWIN: Just think about it. We each and every one of us have one of those in our backyard if we have a grill. Just 53,000 of them, boom.

(CROSSTALK)

STIVENDER: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

STIVENDER: Can I make a statement here?

BALDWIN: Go for it. STIVENDER: I wanted to say what an incredibly awesome job that our Lake County firefighters, our City of Tavares firefighters, the Tavares P.D., the sheriff's department and his dispatchers and the Lake County EMS and the Lake County Emergency Operations --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: It's those first-responders, isn't it?

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: It sounds like they really handled themselves in the situation.

STIVENDER: They have been incredible in the last 16 hours making sure we're aware of what is going on.

Also a shout-out to our county departments that have -- Lake County ended up taking care of making sure the roads are safe for us.

BALDWIN: Debbie, thank you so much.

STIVENDER: Their dedication to our community's safety is never more evident than it was with the incident last night.

BALDWIN: We're glad so many people are OK, despite these pictures. Debbie, thank you so much for jumping on the phone. We appreciate it.

Coming up next, a warning that every parent should hear. A young girl battling for her life. The reason? She went swimming and was infected by this rare but deadly parasite. But there are ways you can protect yourself and your kids. Elizabeth Cohen will join me here in studio seven with that.

Also, he is a former jewelry thief and he explains what he thinks the robbers are doing right now with that loot. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are getting new details on that incredibly brazen $136 million jewel heist on the French Riviera. Prosecutors say a man wearing a cap and a scarf covering his face Just walked inside this important posh Carlton international hotel in Cannes late Sunday through a set of doors that are normally locked.

This guy that then apparently pulled out a weapon, threatened to shoot some jewelry exhibitors before stuffing the stones into a bag and leaving through a separate entrance. So, how in the world is a heist of this magnitude even possible?

A former jewel thief talked to CNN and said there is no doubt this was a professional job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY LAWTON, FORMER JEWEL THIEF: First thing I thought was, you know, they took the jewels before they were out in the case. They knew exactly where they were, so I'm sure they're going to be looking at all the films and everybody to see who was casing the place. It was definitely cased.

I predict they're going to find a car within a few days and that will be the first getaway car because of filming and everything of that nature. I'm really surprised they didn't have an electronic device on the jewels coming out where if the jewels went away from a certain area, you would get shocked by carrying it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Lawton also said it will be very easy for the thief to then sell off all those jewels.

Here at home, a day at an Arkansas water park turned into an absolute nightmare for a 12-year-old; 12-year old Kali Hardig accidentally inhaled the water from a lake and now she's in critical condition as a rare but deadly parasite is attacking her brain.

Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen here with an update on her condition.

How is she doing?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: She's actually doing better.

BALDWIN: Good.

COHEN: Because with this -- this is a devastating infection. It's extremely rare. In the past 10 years there have been 30 people who have gotten this infection. All of them have died.

This is just -- it's devastating. But CNN medical producer John Bonifield just got off the phone with her doctor, with Kali's doctor at Arkansas Children's Hospital, and he said there are some reasons for hope. He said they actually used an experimental anti-amoeba drug on her, so experimental, Brooke, that they had to call the CDC to get it.

BALDWIN: Experimental anti-amoeba drug.

COHEN: Right, because this is an amoeba drug that's eating at her brain. And so she's using this experimental anti-amoeba drug. And they actually checked her cerebral spinal fluid for the amoeba and it's not there anymore. And it was there before.

BALDWIN: So, why do they think they're seeing the progress, because of this experimental drug?

COHEN: They think because the drug and they think because she has a great mom, because that mom knew there was something with the daughter and she got her into the hospital real quickly. By the time she got to the hospital she was still talking and walking and that's unusual. Most of these folks, people wait too long and then there's nothing they can do. But the doctors said because her mom got her to the hospital so quickly and they could get this drug so quickly -- and I would also credit the doctors because a kid walks in with a fever, really tired, sometimes mom gets a pat on the head and is told, oh, she's got a virus and take her home. But these doctors said, wait a second.

BALDWIN: They were on to something.

COHEN: They were on to something. And this water park had another one a couple of years ago.

BALDWIN: Really?

COHEN: I'm wondering if a doctor at this hospital said, wait a second, where did she go swimming? This sounds familiar.

BALDWIN: Listen, I was a kid. I loved water parks.

COHEN: All the time.

BALDWIN: Is there anything you can do like to --

COHEN: Well, first of all, I want to be clear this isn't just any water park. This is a water park in a natural lake. This isn't like a regular one with swimming pools, because this amoeba loves warm waters and loves hot springs and lakes and things like that this time of year with this kind of heat.

If you're swimming in one of those, chances are this isn't going to happen to you. This is so rare.

BALDWIN: So rare.

COHEN: But if you're worried about it, when you jump in, hold your nose, because you don't want the water going up your nose. That's when the problems start.

BALDWIN: That's how it gets there.

COHEN: That's how it gets there.

Hold your nose. Use nose clips. Even if you're just on the surface and want to dive in, I know my kids love to do that, hold your nose. Don't let the water go up your nose.

BALDWIN: I love that we're seeing progress in this case.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: Yes, really crossing our fingers.

BALDWIN: Elizabeth, thank you very much.

COHEN: Thanks. BALDWIN: Coming up next, we have gotten just ahold of an eyewitness of the terrible scene out of Missouri. You saw this. Two cars slamming into a day care, the scene at lunchtime. All the kids were there. At least three kids seriously hurt. We will take you back there live coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. We have an update on our breaking story here as we have learned not just one but these two cars have crashed into the side of this very full Kansas City, Missouri, day care.

You see one car. Here's what we're getting right now. We know that, apparently, this is according to police, that a Range Rover had rear ended a Cadillac and so it forced the Cadillac through the front wall of this day care. This is the Christian Academy Child Care Center. It was totally full. There were 40 kids inside this day care center at the time. We learned because we talked to the communications director for the city a bit ago saying that three kids are seriously injured, not facing life-threatening injuries but they have been taken to the hospital.

This is new. We have also now learned from Kansas City police that when this Cadillac sort of crashed through the side of the day care, two kids were then trapped under the Cadillac. You have those two kids who were trapped, the three kids in total. Perhaps that includes those two kids. We don't know. Three kids in total taken to area hospitals and also one adult. The driver of the Range Rover was the person who was also taken to the hospital.

But here's the thing. The driver of the Cadillac, you following me, the driver of the Cadillac after crashing through the day care ran through the scene. Where that driver is, we don't know. But this is the aftermath after these cars slammed inside and beyond these three kids who are in serious condition, but not life-threatening, everyone else, according to folks we have talked to, are OK and accounted for.

Meantime, the driver at the helm of this train, the one that derailed last week in Spain killing those 79 people, that driver allegedly was on the phone with railway staff moments before this crash as he was rounding the curve here. This is word coming from the Spanish court that's been getting new information from the train's data recorders.

In addition, we're learning that the train was going 119 miles per hour before it derailed. That was more than double the recommended speed for that section of track. This was the driver. Driver hit the brakes seconds before the crash. His name is Francisco Jose Garzon. He's charged with 79 counts of homicide.

Coming up, a brazen jailbreak caught on camera. An inmate on the phone sees the opening and away he goes on the run. We will talk to a security expert who breaks down this jailbreak.

Plus, serious charges for two cast members of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey." They were in court this morning on fraud charges. We're on that case next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)