Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
School Bus Bullies Punished; Baby Monitor Hacked; Students Must Pay to Play; Hospital Puts Teen on Transplant List; "Duck Dynasty" Star May Run for Congress.
Aired August 14, 2013 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: You'll remember this video. It got a lot of attention. It showed a brutal beating on a school bus involving a 13-year-old victim. The bullies are now being punished. They appeared in court yesterday. We'll have the latest after this break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: An update on that brutal school bus attack caught on tape last month in Florida. It's disturbing. Three 15-year-old boys went before a judge yesterday facing battery charges. The teens didn't have anything to say but one of their fathers said his son is sorry for his behavior.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): The three teenagers caught on tape beating up a younger student on their school bus faced a judge on Tuesday, all slapped with aggravated battery charges.
RAYMOND GROSS, JUDGE, PINELLAS COUNTY COURT: If you were in an adult court, this would be a second-degree felony, and that's a very serious matter.
BROWN (on camera): Any words for the victim?
(voice-over): The three 15-year-old boys remained silent as they left the courtroom. The father of one only offering these words.
UNIDENTIFIED FATHER: Consequences, just consequences. That's all I can say.
BROWN: Consequences for doing this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SHOUTING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Beating up a 13-year-old boy on their school bus in early July, breaking his arm. Police say the older boys were seeking revenge after the victim told teachers they were trying to sell him drugs. The Juvenile Justice Department is are recommending nine months probation and anger management for two of the boys, and the third, the reported ring leader, facing an additional robbery charge for allegedly stealing money from the victim after the beating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard to convey what happened in this case without seeing the video.
BROWN: The prosecution asked to enter the bus surveillance video as evidence to illustrate that the Juvenile Justice Department's proposed punishments don't match the severity of the crime.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The three will be back in court on August 27th. All of them attended a drop-out prevention middle school in St. Petersburg, Florida. A Pinellas County spokesperson says they are still reviewing the incident and looking at whether improvements can be made to ensure safety on school buses and also she wouldn't elaborate on any disciplinary measures taken against the three teens.
Coca-Cola has a new add out today defending the safety of its artificial sweeteners. The headline reads "Quality products you can always feel good about." The ad assures consumers the safety of aspartame is supported by more than 200 studies over the last 40 years. The company has been fighting falling sales of its diet sodas.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta says, while it's true the FDA says aspartame is safe, studies have looked at a link between diet sodas and obesity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What these studies suggested was that -- could diet drinks raise your insulin level, for example. As a result of that, you go forage for sugar. Or could it be when you eat or drunk something so sweet that your body is getting duped somehow, and therefore, you need to go find the calories now with that sweetness. Those have not been proven, but that's sort of what scientists are trying to unravel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Undoubtedly will remain a controversial subject there.
Coming up right here on NEWSROOM, a family in Texas heard someone speaking to their daughter through a baby monitor. How this story is changing the way people look at wireless monitoring systems. This could affect you and your family. We'll tell you how to stay safe after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This story is sure to creep you out even if you don't have children. Some computer smart guy managed to hack into a family's home Wi-Fi network. He broke into their baby monitor. He was watching their 2-year-old daughter in her bed and talking to her through the monitor. Their house was hacked and, without taking some precautions, your house could be hacked, too. Here's Laurie Segall with more.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAURIE SEGALL, CNNMONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Imagine, your 2-year-old daughter sleeping, and on outsider watching her through the baby monitor. That's what happened to a family in Texas. They discovered the problem when they heard a men yelling at their toddler, reading their name off of her bedroom wall.
MARC GILBERT, HOME NETWORK COMPROMISED: He said, wake up, Alison, (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
SEGALL: The Gilberts believed their device was hacked.
GILBERT: It felt like someone broke into our house.
SEGALL: Someone kind of did. As home automation becomes increasingly popular, there's more and more ways to hack your device and many devices that are vulnerable.
DANIEL CROWLEY, SECURITY RESEARCHER, TRUSTWAVE: I can tell the light, please unlock the door.
SEGALL: That's a hacker, literally unlocking your door. The Smart Lock is connected to a device that enables you to control your home appliances from your phone.
Daniel Crowley, a security researcher, found a flaw in that device.
CROWLEY: I run code on the light and compromised it. Just set up a back door, or I can control any device hooked up to it.
SEGALL: In a world full of these types of devices that let you do everything from flush your toilet to turn or your lights through your Smartphone, a hacker can make your house feel haunted.
CROWLEY: I can open up any of these rooms that have been configured or associated with this device and control it either turning them on or off.
SEGALL: Sounds like something Casper would do? These security researchers found an issue with this Insean (ph) that enabled them to take control of the devices connected to it. A similar vulnerability was found in a children's toy. This toy rabbit had a camera that sings with an app on a mobile device, designed for keeping an eye on your kids. But someone else could, too.
JEN SAVAGE, SECURITY RESEARCHER: That traffic I was able to capture and then pull from it a URL, which was the direct video feed. And as long as the access token was still valid and hadn't been expired yet, I could watch that feed indefinitely.
SEGALL: Insean (ph) has fixed the issue identified by the researchers. A hacker requires an insecure Wi-Fi connection and they say the majority of their users have a secure connection. The makers of the baby monitor and the toy rabbit did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.
As for ways to stay safe, always put a strong password you're your Internet connection, keep your software up to date, and never click on links from strangers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Laurie Segall, great reporting there. This is definitely creepy to say the least that hackers are breaking into our home devices and this could impact any of us that have Wi-Fi as you point out in your story. So does this all come down to the password like keys to your home?
SEGALL: Absolutely. I don't think people seem to understand that that Wi-Fi password is very important, and people don't understand we have all this smart technology in our home now where we can have an automated -- we can open our garage door with our phone and all these cool technologies, but because of that a lot of hackers have having a field day with there. The hacker we spoke to said this is my kid's toy and I was able to hack into it. I just want to show this to people because I'm afraid someone will do this. Fast forward a week later and this happened. Make sure to update software.
The one thing I can leave you with is to make sure you update software in your home. A lot of people don't understand, with their baby monitor, they might have software to update -- Pam?
BROWN: Yeah, I don't think people didn't realize this could happen. This is certainly a wake-up call to say the least.
Laurie Segall, thank you.
SEGALL: Thank you.
BROWN: Now, let's check in with Christi Paul. She joins us now.
Hi, Christi.
CHRISTI PAUL, HLN NEWS ANCHOR: Hi. How are you?
BROWN: This baby monitor home security story is the kind of thing you hit hard on HLN's "Raising America." Really scary stuff here.
PAUL: Yeah. What we wanted to focus on was the invasion of it to your home because not only do you feel like those intimate moments with your child are violated but think about what they now have access to. Just like in that piece they have the child's name on the wall which is very common. Any hacker can sit there and look at not only the name of the child, your habits when you're home, when your not, whose home, your relationships, but they can look at entry points, access to doors, windows, where furniture is placed, how they might be able to get into the house and how they might not be able to, if it's a single mom. There's some real security issues when you think about the plan they may be able to attack with you, just put a big bull's eye for theft or home invasions.
BROWN: Yeah. People really need to be proactive about beefing you have their passwords, et cetera.
Christi, I have another topic I'd like to touch on with you. What if your child had to pay a fee for every school sport he or she plays? That's what students in one suburban Baltimore County will be doing. Affiliate WJZ is reporting that financially strapped Hartford County schools will charge for extracurricular activities. One student will have to pay $150, $50 per sport. A lot of parents not too happy about this. Can public schools really charge students to play sports like this?
PAUL: They can and they have. There's a recent article in Forbes that highlights how many schools are doing this. Not only that, but they talk about how it started as a temporary stopgap to help schools pay for things because their budgets were so strapped. It's kind of involved into a, quote, "permanent part of school of financing." They cited a survey in Cincinnati last year that showed 82 percent of 49 southwest Ohio school districts implemented pay to play.
I think there are two things we need to point out. In this Hartford case, parents are so upset about this because they didn't find out until two weeks before school. It's, you didn't give us any time to pry to prepare for it. We've seen pay to play in sports for many years now. What we haven't seen, and I think is kind of new, is this also applies to all extracurricular activities. $50 for sports and $25 if your kid wants to be in the Spanish club or math club or the honor society or the theater. So you have multiple kids doing multiple things. There was one family in Ohio that said they wracked up $4400 in a public school system last year.
BROWN: A lot of parents are saying the schools are passing the burden onto them because the schools are facing a budget crunch. But a lot of people say this is not the way to go.
What about students who can't afford to pay this? Do you think they will be left out now?
PAUL: I have not heard of any program that is going to try to supplement funds for them. Looks like at this point families are left to their on accord to figure out how to make sure their kids can participate in all the activities they want to.
BROWN: That's got to be tough for them.
For more with Christi Paul, check out "Raising America" weekdays at noon on HLN.
Christi, thanks for talking with us.
PAUL: Thanks, Pamela, appreciate it.
BROWN: He's in need of a heart transplant and may only have a few months to live. Now there's hope. We told you about this story yesterday and we have an update after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: We first brought you the story of a 15-year-old teen in Georgia who desperately needs a heart transplant, his parents say that the hospital refused to put him on the list, because doctors saw him as a troubled teen who would not do what he needed to do to be a good candidate for a transplant, but now, as our Elizabeth Cohen reports, the family says the hospital has reconsidered.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): 15- year-old Anthony Stokes will die if he does not get a new heart in six months, but last weeks, doctors at Children's Health Care of Atlanta said they would not give him one.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have given him a death sentence.
COHEN: According to this statement, provided to CNN by a family spokesman, doctors said that Anthony was currently transplant candidate because of a history of noncompliance.
MELENCIA HAMILTON, MOTHER OF ANTHONY STOKES: They said that they have no evidence that he would take his medicine and he would not have any follow-up care.
COHEN: But a family spokesman said that Anthony's illness was sudden. He had never been sick before so how could he have been compliant with the doctor's orders? The family believes they didn't want to give Anthony a heart because he has low grades and was previously in juvenile detention because of a fight defending his brother.
News of the rejection received national attention.
UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: Surely life and death like it is for a 15-year- old Anthony --
COHEN: And by late Monday, a dramatic change of heart. The family spokesman telling CNN that the hospital did a complete 180 and reversed the decision, and Anthony is now on the transplant list and awaiting a new heart.
The hospital did not confirm it, but released a statement Tuesday saying, "A heart transplant evaluation is ongoing and for the patient and his or her family's ability to meet the specific transplant criteria. While there's been misinformation circulating, Children's cannot discuss the specifics of this case or any other case due to privacy rules."
However, the hospital also said, "Our physician experts are continuing to work with this family to establish a care plan and determine the best next steps for patient."
The family believes that the hospital changed its mind because of media pressure and what it called the handiwork of God.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Elizabeth Cohen joins me with more on this story.
Hi, Elizabeth.
COHEN: Hi.
BROWN: As you mentioned, the hospital will not speak about originally why Anthony Stokes was originally denied, but why are hearts denied to teenagers who desperately need them like Anthony?
COHEN: Well, Pam, the problem is there are not enough hearts to go around and the doctors say they're a precious resource and they want to give them to people who will help them in the long term as possible. If you get a heart and you don't go to doctors follow-up appoints or take medications, you can die within weeks. Getting a new heart can kill you if they don't take care of the heart. So they want the hearts to go to the people who will take care of them.
Here is the catch. It is subjective. Doctors can look at someone and say, we don't think that you will take care of it, because, in this case, maybe it is because they thought he had trouble in school or for some other reason, but it is a subjective decision as to whether they think that someone is going to listen to the doctor's orders.
BROWN: And he is a teenager. If he had known that his actions up to this point would be judged in this way, you would have thought that he would have behaved differently perhaps. But on that note, you are saying that supply does not meet the demand. Last year, there were 3,000 people on the list for heart transplant. Is the criteria more strict for heart transplants than other organs, because of how hard they are to come by?
COHEN: Well, it is not more strict per se, and the reason for this is because -- the criteria are not necessarily very specific. Each team, each transplant team gets to decide, and they look at the patients and say, we think that you should get a heart or you shouldn't get a heart. For example, Pam, a woman I know whose son has autism and he is in the 20s, and he needs a new heart. And she was told, no, we are not going to do it, your son has autism and he can't take care of himself. She said, wait, I take care of him, you don't need to worry about that. And they said, no, you will die before he does. And she said I'm 47. And it went back and forth, they won't give him a heart, because the team of doctors has judged that the young boy, this young man won't take care of it. It is extremely subjective.
BROWN: And Anthony's family said they were being judged based on their race, and the class and the socioeconomic factors. Do you believe it could play a role in this?
COHEN: It is -- and you would never want to say that someone was racist or judging somebody based on the socioeconomic factors. But what is interesting is that the studies show that people who are wealthier and better educated do better with new hearts. They have better outcomes than people who are poorer. But of course, that does not mean that you would say no to a poor person, but that data is out there, and that is what is out there. So I think that some doctors are thinking, what do we do here? BROWN: And the doctors should exercise caution when looking at the data.
Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for that.
COHEN: Thank you.
BROWN: For more on this, check out CNNhealth.com.
Well, the star of "Duck Dynasty" made millions making duck calls, but could he now be looking for a new gig? Why he is getting the call to run for Congress. That is right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you shooting at?
WILLIE ROBERTSON, DUCK DYNASTY: Water snake. Hey look, he's still hanging on. No head.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They'll pop you upside of the head without a head.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: That right there is the non-nonsense Robertson family, stars of the TV show "Duck Dynasty." They've struck a chord with some TV viewers and, turns out, some Republican strategists reportedly think one of the Robertson would be a huge hit with voters.
John Berman has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you squint and tilt your head just the right way, it almost sounds a campaign platform, a very hairy one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: You know what makes me happy besides bubble baths and puppies and not wearing pants to an interview? Watching new episodes of "Duck Dynasty."
BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Willie Robertson is one of the stars of A&E's "Duck Dynasty." The show follows the family behind the hunting company Duck Commander and Buck Commander. Willie, the CEO, and the rest of the family kick off the fourth season tonight. But some are reportedly calling for another type of kickoff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: According to "The Washington Examiner," some Republicans are urging Robertson to run for an open congressional seat in his state of Louisiana. Willie does have wide appeal beyond just beard enthusiasts. The show is one of the most watched on cable. It is not like nobody has made the jump from the world of TV to the corridors of power in Washington.
(SINGING)
BERMAN: Enough of the California voters said "I Got You Babe" to Sonny Bono to elect him to the House.
SEN. AL FRANKEN, (D), MINNESOTA & FORMER COMEDIAN: And doggone it, people like me.
BERMAN: Enough Minnesotans liked "Saturday Night Live" star, Al Franken, to send him to the Senate.
Robertson, the self-described redneck millionaire, has a resume that could shine in Republican politics. He helped to build his company into a multimillion enterprise and is an active supporter of gun rights and he often speaks of his Christian faith. And even the beard doesn't get in the way. Ever hear of James Garfield?
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: All right. We will have to wait to see what happens with that one.
That was John Berman reporting.
I'm Pamela Brown. Thank you for being with us here on NEWSROOM. That is it for me. Brooke Baldwin takes it from here.
