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Grenades, Propane Bombs in Denver; Do "Missing" Posters Work?; Student Sues over Nude Photos; Robin Thicke Sues to Protect "Blurred Lines"; Attracting Immigrants to St. Louis
Aired August 16, 2013 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Here's the breaking news just into us here at CNN. People in an area of Denver are on edge right now as police say there could be possible bombs. I'm talking specifically propane tanks, grenades out in neighborhoods.
Let me let the police chief here explain the back story, at least one death so far as far as what's happening. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- 2200 block of South Irving. Officers responded to the scene. Approached what they thought was a possible suspect. As they were approaching, the suspect fired one shot at looked like a makeshift incendiary twice which was activated.
Shortly thereafter that one of the officers fired a shot, striking the subject in the shoulder, in the chest area. He's in the hospital undergoing surgery.
After securing him, members from our department actually went to the home where the alleged shooting had occurred, discovered there was one female deceased. At another house nearby, there was another female that was shot in the leg. She was transported to a hospital.
Also it should be noted that there's potentially several incendiary devices in the area. Thereby we kind of evacuate the area so no one would be in harm's way. The bomb squad right now is actively trying to mitigate those potential devices. This is obviously an ongoing investigation. The information is very preliminary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So again, just to recap, the shooter, who police tracked down, is now in the hospital undergoing surgery. One woman is dead. Another has been shot in the leg. And police believe there are several incendiary devices, again the words we're hearing, propane tanks, grenades.
They believe there could be two, possibly three of those devices. They do not know why. Don't have a motive or connection between the shooter and the victims. We'll stay on it for you. Stay tuned to us right here on CNN for that. Coming up, imagine this. A playground plastered with these. Missing child posters. Only this time, the child is actually right there in the playground. It's a new experiment from our friends at HLN. The results may surprise you. That's next.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: We have been talking all this week about Hannah Anderson, the 16-year-old who was kidnapped and rescued only to learn her mother and brother were murdered. I want to take the conversation today just a bit further from that, because when a child goes missing, the first three hours are considered the most critical.
Conventional wisdom is to blanket an area with posters of the missing child.
But what if no one stops, puts their phones down and looks at them?
Let me stress in this piece you're about to see that the child featured was never missing, never in danger. With that said, here is HLN'S Lynn Berry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LYNN BERRY, HLN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet Ryan. He's the son of a producer on "Raising America." We put Ryan's picture on a missing poster with his age, height and weight. And surrounded a playground at a busy Atlanta park with the flyers on two separate days.
Then with cameras rolling, we sent him out to play right by the posters. These people sitting on a bench right next to the playground, not acknowledging the flyers or Ryan.
And how about these people? Swinging near him. David Zizi's (ph) daughter noticed the posters though he didn't at first.
DAVID ZIZI (PH): A lot of times it's usually a dog or cat or something. I just don't really pay a lot of attention to them. So when we walked by them, I didn't look initially because I thought that's what it was.
BERRY (voice-over): Other people looked at the posters and kept right on walking. But even some people who looked intently didn't notice the supposedly missing boy right in their midst.
Did you keep extra attention because you'd seen the sign?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.
BERRY: So what if I told you you were actually swinging right next to this little boy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? No way. I thought I actually -- the guy with the cap, the hat on over there? The Atlanta hat? Is that him?
BERRY: That's him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.
BERRY: I mean, doesn't that -- are these effective?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess not.
BERRY (voice-over): The few people who noticed Ryan and took action, heroes in our book.
That's Marie Williams (ph), a mom herself, recognizing Ryan, pointing him out to others in the area then trying to make sure he was safe.
MARIE WILLIAMS: I looked at him and I looked back at the poster. I'm like, you know, started walking to him, asking him, what's your name? He's like, Ryan. I'm like, that's the little boy that's missing because I see the posters around the park. So I immediately grabbed him and asked him does he know where his parents are.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: Go, Marie, is what I say.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN HOST: I know!
BALDWIN: Christi Paul. Again to be clear, Ryan was A-OK, son of a producer. She was the only one, at least in the clip we saw, that said something.
PAUL: There were only a couple people that did. We have this conversation with a whole live audience today. You know, there was a psychologist who was at the park as well. She said there is a psychological issue here because if people see it but they don't see anybody else recognizing it, maybe they second guess themselves and they don't want to get involved so they just don't say anything.
That can be, you know, a real issue at the same time. But there are a lot of people online who have tweeted me, who have gotten on Facebook and said, you know what? We just need to -- when we go to the parks with other kids we need to put our darn phones down.
BALDWIN: Put the iPads down, phones down, pay attention. Christi, thank you for scaring us a little bit. Making us pay super duper attention.
PAUL: I'm sorry. But he's fine.
BALDWIN: I'm glad you did it. Thank you very much.
PAUL: You need to be beware.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: Thank you, Christi Paul.
Coming up, a woman takes her computer to the Best Buy Geek Squad. They're the best in the business, right, to be repaired?
One year later some risque pictures of her suddenly show up online.
How did that happen? That's next.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Ever take your laptop in for a cleaning? You know, the good scrub the hard drive, that kind of thing? You're saying to yourself, I'm giving these people all of my stuff. Passwords. Photos. Credit card information. Is this going to be OK?
There is a lawsuit out there filed just last week against Best Buy by this Alabama art student who says she found her personal photographs plastered on the Internet. Nude ones. She claims a Best Buy employee plucked them off her hard drive when she took her computer in for repair. She says she has a witness who works there.
It's scary stuff. What is a computer owner to do? Charlie Warzel of Buzz Feed, deputy editor. Thank you so much for joining me. Let me read something to you first, Charlie. This is the Best Guy Geek Squad privacy promise. OK?
So, quote, "When you work with Geek Squad you can be 100 percent sure that we're looking out for your best interest. We are committed to responsible information handling practices, et cetera, et cetera."
In light of the allegations here I'm guessing that is a promise we might want to be a little skeptical about?
CHARLIE WARZEL, DEPUTY EDITOR, BUZZFEED.COM: I think you're right. I think the takeaway from this is that whenever you hand over your data and it's not encrypted to another person, you can never know what they're going to do. There are a lot of cases out there where people don't do the right thing.
BALDWIN: So knowing that, that not everyone is good and honorable and just, you know, scrub the hard drive and give you back your laptop, what's the takeaway?
Who doesn't own a laptop or some kind of computer, right?
What do we need to do? What are the safeguards?
WARZEL: I think there's a couple things. First off, when it comes to unsavory pictures of yourself, in this case, the best thing is probably not to take them or if you're going to take them, to delete them, to remove them to a different hard drive, to remove your hard drive before you go and take something to Best Buy or any other computer repair place.
Or there's a great number of free encryption services out there that will make it so that, you know, people won't be able to read your e-mails or look at your photos. It's not that hard.
BALDWIN: Free encryption services. Got it. Charlie Warzel, Buzz Feed, thank you so much for joining me. Note to self.
Coming up, some people say it is the song of the summer. Critics of "Blurred Lines" say it's a rip off of a Marvin Gaye song. You be the judge.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Robin Thicke. T.I. Pharrell (ph), they're all headed to court to protect the rights of their super hit song this summer, "Blurred Lines." Doing this all from the family of R&B soul icon, Marvin Gaye.
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BALDWIN: Sorry. This will be stuck in your head whether you want it to be or not.
According to the "Hollywood Reporter," Robin, T.I. and Pharrell all claim Marvin Gaye's family and Bridgeport Music threatened them with litigation if they don't pay up for allegedly stealing the feel, the sound of Marvin Gaye's hit song, "Got to Give It Up." Here's that song.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BALDWIN: What do you think? Similar?
In a proactive move, the attorneys for Robin and company filed a lawsuit in a California federal court yesterday claiming their clients created a hit and did it without copying anyone else's work.
We have former federal prosecutor Tanya Miller and criminal defense attorney Janet Johnson joining me here.
OK. Janet, let's begin with you. Robin Thicke says he has the utmost respect for, you know, Marvin Gaye, his legacy.
But if the Gaye family goes after him, you think there'll be a case there?
JANET JOHNSON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. I think Robin's going to have to give it up. Because the song is exactly the same song. Thank you. It's plagiarism. You could say there's a spirit. He actually says there are no similarities in this pleading through his lawyers.
There are so many similarities. You could take a note. You could take a lick. But this is the little hooting in the middle. The drumbeat. It's exactly the same song.
I think the reason he's going to court is because he knows it's the same song and he wants to get a deal on the table before he gets hundreds of millions of dollars that he's going to owe to Marvin Gaye's family, who quite frankly are entitled to that money.
BALDWIN: So, Tanya, this reminded me, remember the whole kerfuffle, the copyright infringement between Vanilla Ice and you had David Bowie. Vanilla Ice, he sampled -- he admits he sampled part of Bowie's song "Under Pressure" but said the song wasn't the same. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANILLA ICE, ROCK STAR: We sampled it from him, but it's not the same bass line. Like it goes -- that's the way theirs goes. Ours goes. That little bitty change. It's not the same.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: That might be the best sound bite ever. But "The New York Times" notes that "Blurred Lines" was heavily influenced by Gaye, but the lawsuit makes the point that the intent of producing "Blurred Lines" is to evoke an era.
TANYA MILLER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Right. That's one way to put it. I mean, what they're trying to do is wiggle around here. The standard is whether or not it's substantially similar to the original or copyrighted piece.
So they're trying to say while it's -- while it might be similar or inspired by the copyrighted piece, it's different.
And I think secondly it's interesting, because they -- that's what they're going to say. Now I see Janet shaking her head. But that's what they want to be in a position to say. I thought it was interesting they also added in the Funkadelic folks to say they've also said this song is copyright infringement on their piece.
BALDWIN: Everybody jumping in.
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: That came out before Marvin Gaye's piece came out. There's this line of similarity between all these pieces. I think what they might be setting themselves up to say is, look, the less original the piece is, the more likely it's going to be used in different ways by different people. I think that's what they're trying to say.
BALDWIN: We'll see where the fight goes. Tweet me. I'm curious what people think, if they think it's similar or not.
Ladies, thank you very much.
When we come back, we're going to have an update on our breaking news out of Denver as police have shot this man, this active shooter. There are now bombs, possible bombs, propane tanks, grenades in one neighborhood. That update is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, welcome to FroYo (ph). Hello.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Frozen yogurt is a hot commodity amid the summer heat of St. Louis. Nobody is happier about that than Jason Jan. When he came from Malaysia 15 years ago he hoped to open a business. Now he has a string of places like this and nothing but praise for his adopted home.
JASON JAN, IMMIGRANT: Great city to raise my kids. And most importantly, it has been very immigrant friendly.
FOREMAN (voice-over): That is a message local leaders are desperate to get out ever since a study found this area lags far behind other cities in attracting immigrants. The nonprofit International Institute here serves 7,000 a year. But that's half as many as expected in a town this size.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to welcome you.
FOREMAN (voice-over): The institute is now a key component in the Mosaic Project, an ambitious plan to make this area much more inviting to immigrants.
CHARLIE DOOLEY, COUNTY EXECUTIVE: St. Louis wants to be an opening and welcoming community. That's what we're going to do.
FOREMAN (voice-over): That's county executive Charlie Dooley and Mayor Francis Slay.
FRANCIS SLAY, MAYOR OF ST. LOUIS: Our goal is to be one of the top 10 cities in America in terms of increase of population of foreign born residents by the year 20. That's our goal.
FOREMAN (voice-over): So the city is helping immigrant groups connect with loans, opportunities, education. This is not just a feel-good measure.
A study found immigrants are more likely to open businesses, create jobs, raise wages, and pursue higher degrees than the general population. And at places like Washington University in St. Louis, the plan is working for many foreign born students.
BO BI, STUDENT: This place is getting more and more closer to my home. I mean, that is a very strong feeling.
FOREMAN (voice-over): So you could stay.
ALICE TSENG, STUDENT: I could stay.
FOREMAN: It's still early in this plan. Leaders are feeling their way through the process. But they're convinced that tens of thousands of jobs could hang in the balance.
FOREMAN (voice-over): As for Jason Jan, well, the jobs he's created may be permanent. He's applied to become a U.S. citizen -- Tom Foreman, CNN, St. Louis.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Top of the hour here on this Friday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Breaking news into us here at CNN. Police have shot a man who went on a deadly shooting spree in Denver, Colorado.