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Nevada School Shooting; Woman Blows Up Bus; Obamacare Website; Mom of Alleged Bully Arrested

Aired October 21, 2013 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: The Obamacare sign-ups, a fiasco, a disaster, a total mess. Whatever you want to call it, the president himself is calling in his techies and we're talking to one of our own. The question we're asking: How will you fix it?

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

A mom goes on national TV saying her daughter would never bully. But now, new video uncovers the mom's secret.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

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BALDWIN: A mysterious blonde girl found inside a gypsy camp. Abducted or adopted?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMINEM (rapping): Just about to kick off this party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Is Eminem getting a free pass for homophobic new lyrics.

And --

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She loved SpongeBob.

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BALDWIN: A family orders a special headstone for their daughter's grave, but the cemetery now says it's coming down.

Hi, there. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We begin with breaking news on this Monday. Some horrific news to pass along out of Nevada, a deadly school shooting. Here's what we know right now. Two people are dead and police say their bodies were found when they arrived on the scene at Sparks Middle School. We also know two others right now are listed in critical condition. Press conference just began. Let's take a listen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Emphasize at this point that information is preliminary. I will confirm that there are two deceased and two individuals injured. I want to emphasize that the students are safe and the community is safe. There are no outstanding suspects.

The students are in the process of being reunited with their parents at this time. Sparks Police Department will be the lead investigating agency, with the assistance of the Reno Police Department, Washoe County Sheriff's Department and the Washoe County School District Police. I want to thank all the agencies that responded so rapidly to this unfortunate situation. We really appreciate their assistance so quickly.

At this point I'm going to turn it over to Chief Mike Mieras of the Washoe County School District Police.

CHIEF MIKE MIERAS, WASHOE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT POLICE: I'm Mike Mieras, the chief of police for the Washoe County School District.

We've finished up our parent reunifications. Finishing up right now at Sparks High School. An excellent job by the Sparks High School staff of reuniting the Sparks Middle School students back with their parents.

The -- two of the injured students have -- one has gone through surgery and is out at this time. The other individual is doing well. The one deceased is a - is a staff member of the school, of Sparks Middle School. The other deceased individual at this point in time appears to be a student/suspect in this case.

The parent reunification, again, went very well. The school did an excellent job on going into their emergency management procedures. And if the parents do have questions or concerns, if they do want to call, I'll give out three numbers here that they can call, and we have counselors working those switchboards and working with parents. We are setting up, later on this week, we're setting up a parent - or a student service at the school, which we will have additional counselors there. So those numbers are, the first one is 789-3804. The other number is 789-3802. And 333-3786. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning.

First of all, our heart and prayers go out to all our staff, children that have been affected, and our parents. I want to thank the Sparks Police, the sheriff's department, the city of Sparks. We have our mayor here. We have our trustees here with us. This is just a very sad day for us. A very tragic day.

We'll be working with our children and our parents throughout the week to try to get them through this ordeal. But again, I just want to thank the community for coming together behind - behind this tragedy. I'm going to have President Clark - oh, I'm sorry, Mayor Geno come and speak next.

MAYOR GENO MARTINI, SPARKS, NEVADA: Thanks, Pedro (ph). And thank you all for being here today.

Again, it's been sad. It's a tragic day for the city of Sparks. Our hearts go out to all those that have been affected, the students, the families, all those people involved. But I want you - I want to reiterate again that the city itself is very safe. This is just an isolated incident that I don't believe this is any kind of spree that's going to go on or anything like that, crime spree.

Again, it's very, very tragic. I'm saddened to be here, saddened to have to come before you and talk about this. But it's happened. I want to thank all the local law enforcement. What a great response came from all these folks, all these folks all around. Not only from the Washoe County and Reno and Sparks, but the highway patrol was there. So everyone was very good in coming together to help us respond to this tragic day.

So, again, I want to reiterate, the city is very safe. This is an isolated incident, and I apologize for having to be here today to speak about this, but it's one of those things that happens. Thank you.

Barbara Clark.

BARBARA CLARK, PRESIDENT, WASHOE COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD (ph): Hi.

As president of school board, on behalf of my fellow board members, I want to say how tragic this is and how saddened we are. Our student safety and our staff safety is of utmost, paramount concern to us. And we are doing everything that we possibly can to assist the police, as well as our parents, our students and staff, by providing interventions and counseling, and we will be here and do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to have their needs met.

I would like to say the governor has called as well and expressed his sympathy. We appreciate everything that the police have done. And we are going to pursue this to see what measures that we need to take. Again, our most heartfelt to all of our students and our families. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Another news briefing will be held at 4:00 this afternoon here at the Sparks --

BALDWIN: Clearly an incredibly difficult day for school officials, for members of law enforcement in Sparks, Nevada.

Learning some new information there in that brief press briefing. The fact that they mentioned, this is according to the chief of police, those two who were injured in this school shooting at Sparks Middle School. They were both students. One of whom has just undergone surgery and the other is, quote/unquote doing well.

As far as the two who are dead, according to the police chief, he said one was a school staff member, and the other, this is how he described this individual, appears to be a student/suspect. And just quickly, a little color from this newspaper from the "Reno Gazette Journal." That a 13 to 14-year-old person wearing a Sparks Middle School uniform was the one, according to eye witnesses there at the school, firing the shots near the basketball courts. And, quote/unquote, fired a shot at the teacher. And this newspaper reporter asked, was he a young kid? And the answer was yes.

We're keeping a close eye on this tragic story out of Sparks, Nevada. Stay tuned to CNN, we'll pass more information along as soon as we get it.

Now this.

A woman blowing herself up on a bus in southern Russia today, and the whole thing was caught on dash cam video. Here it is, the horrific moment this explosion rips through the bus. You see just smoke here. People running moments after the woman detonated this bomb. At least six people were killed, and more than 30 other were hurt, many of them critically. CNN's Phil Black joins me now from Russia.

And, Phil, what exactly are we seeing in the video other than this smoke and this bus blowing up? And who is this suicide bomber?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, it shows the bus just moments before the blast on this dash cam video. A lot of Russian drivers have these. So you can see the bus. Then you see the moment of the explosion. The debris thrown across the road. The car with the camera slows, eventually stops. And further on down the road, where the bus stops, you can see the survivors fleeing from the vehicle, running away.

Investigators here have said that one of those survivors told them that the blast took place just moments after a woman boarded the bus. So investigators believe it was a female suicide bomber. A 30-year-old from the Russian Republic of Dagestan.

Now, Dagestan is in the northern caucuses region of Russia. This is a part of Russia where there is an ongoing Islamic insurgency. Where militants are fighting to try and establish their own independent Islamic state. And it is relatively close to the city of Sochi, where Russia will host next year's Winter Olympics really in just a few months' time, in February, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Phil Black for us in Moscow. Phil, thank you very much.

Coming up, President Obama is mad, and he wants the entire world to know about this. Find out how he plans to fix the Obamacare rollout, and hear what one tech expert says is really the biggest problem with this website. This is CNN. Stay with me.

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BALDWIN: With even his allies blasting the launch of the centerpiece of his long awaited health care reforms, the president said today that Obamacare is helping Americans find health insurance at a reasonable cost. As for those website failures that have hampered potential sign- ups, the president said there is no excuse for that.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nobody is madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed. And in the meantime, you can bypass the website and apply by phone or in person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, so he's told us that. He has also said, the president has launched a tech surge to fix the website problems, but he never said what exactly it is that's prevented many users from signing on and he didn't say who's to blame. Kathleen Sebelius was in attendance today, there she is, in the Rose Garden for the ceremony. As the president's health secretary, she is facing calls to resign over the program's launch. So, with me now from Toronto, technology analyst Marc Saltzman. He is also a syndicated writer.

So, Marc Saltzman, welcome. We heard the president talk.

MARC SALTZMAN, SYNDICATED TECHNOLOGY WRITER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Are we any clearer now exactly, you know, what the problems are and when, I think that's the more important question, when they get fixed?

SALTZMAN: Both of those things we don't know. So there hasn't -- the president did not announce a timeline as to when the website will be working correctly. He did discuss the alternatives, like picking up the phone or printing out a form and bringing it to somewhere local. But without saying that he's going to extend the application deadline, it suggests that you bet they're working on it. But he did not also say, nor did - so the administration, nor did the contractors say what is actually going wrong here. You know, I think any sort of tech expert would assume it's one of two things here, if not both. One is too much traffic. They didn't expect or anticipate the influx of people, and I believe it's, I think the president said, about 20 million over the past couple of weeks, to handle all that traffic. And then secondly, are software bugs or glitches. The president called them kinks. I think that's a light word for people not being able to process their applications easily. So it's a major problem and he's doubling up the engineers to work on it.

BALDWIN: Well, with those engineers, you know, he said today, he said, listen, I have the best and the brightest working on the bugs, the kinks, whatever you want to call this. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are doing everything we can possibly do to get the websites working better, faster, sooner. We've got people working overtime, 24/7, to boost capacity and address the problems. Experts from some of America's top private sector tech companies who, by the way, have seen things like this happen before, they want it to work. They're reaching out. They're offering to send help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So they want to help, but I'm sitting there and I'm listening to the president and I'm wondering, Marc, you know, why not get the best and the brightest to start with? Was it a money issue?

SALTZMAN: I don't think though - think so. They had quite a healthy budget to get this going. You know, when you launch a website, you simulate having all that traffic hit your site at the same time. So, you know, there's an assumption that with something as important as Obamacare, that they would have gone through all of those tests and trials prior to launch. So it's an assumption that they didn't - they either rushed to market, that this isn't quite ready for primetime, or perhaps they didn't hire the best. I think it's probably the former, that there was a tight deadline in which to launch the Obamacare website, and I just think they weren't prepared for the amount of people who were signing up, nor did they have the right software. Now, one analyst -- sorry, one of the contractors suggested that they could fix this, but it might take up to five million lines of code to do so. And (INAUDIBLE) just means a lot of programmers --

BALDWIN: Translate that for me.

SALTZMAN: Yes, that means a lot of programmers working around the clock -

BALDWIN: A lot of work. OK.

SALTZMAN: As the president suggested, and that's going to take a long time.

BALDWIN: OK. Marc Saltzman, thank you very much.

So that was, you know, part of the story that came out of the Rose Garden today.

The other, did you notice the woman standing behind the president today? A bit of an interesting, non-scripted moment here at this news conference because this woman there in the red, wavering, wavering, she interrupted the speech. Who -- she nearly fainted. We're going to talk to this woman live.

Plus this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

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BALDWIN: The mom of an alleged bully arrested for a secret of her own. You'll hear the sheriff's candid words, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: First, her stepdaughter gets arrested for allegedly bullying a girl to death, and now this Florida woman faces her own criminal charges after this video has now surfaced of her beating someone up, not with her words, but with her fists. The Polk County sheriff says Vivian Vosburg is seen in this FaceBook video hitting a teenage boy multiple times. So we're going to play this for you, but just a heads up, the video, it's tough to look at.

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VIVIAN VOSBURG: I'm going to beat your (EXPLETIVE DELETED). What the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is wrong with you!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You hear the bleeps. I mean, in the video, Vosburg is apparently cursing. She's screaming at this boy because he had just kicked another teenager in the groin. Now, her arrest is not related to the case of her daughter, who is one of those two minors arrested after 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick committed suicide. The alleged victim of cyber bullying. And CNN's Chris Cuomo explains how Rebecca's death ultimately led to the arrest of this Florida stepmom.

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SHERIFF GRADY JUDD, POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Harsh words from Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd for the mom of an alleged teenage bully after he saw this.

VIVIAN VOSBURG: What the hell's wrong with you (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: A surprising video showing Vivian Vosburg punching and screaming at six kids, ranging in age from nine to 14. The video was deemed child abuse and neglect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Vivian, do you have anything to say to Rebecca's family?

CUOMO: The mom was arrested just five days after Vosburg's daughter, 14-year-old Guadalupe Shaw, was arrested and charged with aggravated stalking, bullying that authorities say contributed to the suicide of 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick. Shaw's attorney denies that charge. According to an affidavit from the Polk County Sheriff's Department, Vosburg said two boy were having a fight and she was just trying "to break them up." She added that she was, quote, "having a bad day."

VOSBURG: What the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is wrong with you.

CUOMO: The woman in this video is a far cry from the concerned mother who told me she was sure her daughter was wrongly accused.

VOSBURG: I think it's not fair because, you know, they're punishing my daughter for something that they're saying that she did over the Internet. And I know that my daughter wouldn't do something like that.

CUOMO: Vosburg told CNN she closely monitored her children's social media accounts, yet this sheriff's department says they easily located this video on FaceBook. Meanwhile, Rebecca Sedwick's family still copes with their loss. Sedwick jumped to her death just a month before her 13th birthday. It would have been this past Saturday. Her mother posting this emotional message to her daughter. "I just want to wish my baby girl a happy birthday in heaven."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Chris Cuomo reporting there.

And so this morning on "New Day," Chris interviewed the Polk County sheriff about the message he thinks this case is sending to families.

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SHERIFF GRADY JUDD, POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA: Chris, everything we saw was really disturbing. She was beating on the two kids with her fists. She actually beat them in the face and in the head. And then once the fight was over and all the other kids were screaming and cussing and high fiving, she gave kind of an editorial comment. And then they posted all of that on FaceBook. And she tells us her daughter would never bully. Well, we saw the real truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me in the next hour, I'm going to talk to a psychologist about this video and how maybe your family can learn from it.

Coming up, the woman who nearly fainted right behind President Obama today. She will join me live. Hear her story and what exactly happened there.

Plus, the NSA under fire internationally for allegedly intercepting millions of e-mails in France. But why?

And remember this video? A lot of outrage from this one. These Boy Scout leaders. Remember this? Vandalizing this Jurassic era rock. So now there's a report that one of these guys may have filed a disability claim. We're on the case.

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