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Winter Weather; Marijuana Tourism?; Suspect Named in Priest's Murder

Aired January 02, 2014 - 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: Alexandra Field is in New York, where dozens of salt trucks for ready for the streets, and Ted Rowlands is just west of Chicago, where the windchill is about to become a serious factor, and meteorologist Alexandra Steele here in the studio updating us with the latest warnings and advisories.

But let's begin in Boston with Margaret Conley.

And, Margaret, you have been out in this all day long, it's coming been down, and not too far away from those, just, zero flights at Logan.

MARGARET CONLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And, Brooke, it's going to get a lot worse today. We got our measuring stick. Here's an update. OK?

It's coming in about two-and-a-half inches or so. It's supposed to get up to a foot of snow, all the way up to here by tomorrow morning. And now, as you were saying, Logan Airport, they're going to close at 8:30 p.m., they're going to stop flights from 8:30 p.m. until noon tomorrow on Friday.

And that's because of these strong winds. That's the big concern all day and through the night. We have strong winds and we have really light snow, the snow so light, you can't even make snowballs out of it, but it's blowing and it's causing problems with visibility. Visibility issues in the air and on the ground -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Margaret Conley, thank you very much for us in Boston.

Now to Washington we go, Sunlen Serfaty at Washington's Reagan National with an update on the flights in and out of there.

And, Sunlen, what's the update on that air traffic?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, if you're traveling today, you probably want to cross your fingers because there have been major delays.

We're here at Reagan National Airport just outside Washington, D.C., and now, if you can see behind me, there are a lot of cancellations. This is one screen, four canceled flights, one delay, that red that we all dread seeing when we're trying to make our flight. But across the nation, the picture is a lot worse. Let's look at the numbers. According to FlightAware, 1,700 flight cancellations, 3,400 delays, most of those delays at Chicago O'Hare Airport. And we're hearing from individual airlines who are also preemptively canceling the flights in anticipation of this bad weather. American Airlines, 600 flights canceled. U.S. Airways, over 100 flights canceled, and we just heard from United, 550 flights canceled.

We spoke with Rob Yingling. He heads this airport and Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C., and he said it doesn't matter exactly what the weather is where you're traveling, that this has a broad effect on the travel across the country. Let's hear what he has to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB YINGLING, REAGAN/DULLES AIRPORTS: Even though folks may not be flying to places like Boston and New York, because those airports are such important components in the aviation network, that can have a domino effect on flights not even going to those locations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: Now, here at Reagan National, they have 40 people on their snow team overnight will be working. They're going to do maintenance on flights. At Dulles Airport, nearby, 150 people on their snow team. They're getting ready. They know this is going to be a hard 24 hours.

BALDWIN: Check before you head out. Sunlen, thank you very much at Washington's Reagan Airport.

In New York City, Alexandra Field, where salt trucks are ready to roll.

Hey, Alexandra.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brooke. They're rolling out right behind me right now. We have actually seen a number of the New York City garbage trucks with the plows attached heading out. And 1,600 in total will hit the streets of this city. We're preparing for six to eight inches of snow. That's a lot of snow in a city with eight million people.

(CROSSTALK)

FIELD: ... the Department of Sanitation.

Sure. We actually -- you heard one blast right past me as it left the lot here, but they're sort of coming and going. This is the warehouse here where the salt is kept at the Department of Sanitation facility. So, periodically, the trucks are coming in, they're filling up with salt, and periodically we're also seeing the garbage trucks with the plows hitched to them rolling out. It's something that will you see along the streets of New York City tonight.

But even worse weather is going to happen a little bit farther east of us out on Long Island. They're preparing for blizzard-like conditions. The Suffolk County executive is telling people to prepare for potentially treacherous conditions. He's asking people to stay home and stay off the roads overnight tonight to allow the plows out there to do their work. We're preparing for a big storm here. Wind is going to be an issue.

The windchill is going to be the big issue. That's why we're talking about sort of these bone-chilling temperatures. We're right now along the West Side Highway, just along the Hudson river, and I have to tell you, I have actually seen a few joggers who are out here. I know that it's January 2, so people are committed to those New Year's resolutions, but I'm not committed to anything like that.

(CROSSTALK)

FIELD: So I tip my hat to these people.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I do as well. I do as well. Get the working out in before all the snow really starts to fall.

Alexandra, thank you so much for us in New York City.

And, you know, she was talking about the wind and the cold. Let's go to the Chicago area for that, to Ted Rowlands. He's standing by just west of the city in Naperville.

When we say cold, Ted, how cold are we talking by tonight?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's getting cold now, Brooke. The snow is tapering off. It's dropped about 10 degrees in the last hour- and-a-half, and we're starting to really feel it.

Tonight, it's expected to get here in Naperville to eight or nine below zero. That's without the windchill. We're talking about dangerously cold temperatures. The homeless are in danger. There are shelters being opened up across the Midwest because of the dangers out there. We're talking about real significant low temperatures which are expected to last up to 24 hours.

The east is also going to get it. But, right now, we're starting to feel it. It's not fun.

BALDWIN: Not fun. I do not envy you, but we thank you for standing out there and telling us about how cold it is. Ted, thank you.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

BALDWIN: So, let's turn now to a man dedicated to tracking airlines and what they do. He's the CEO of FlightView, which follows all of the flights no matter the airline or the airport.

Mike Benjamin on the phone with me right now.

And, Mike, we were talking ability Boston. We know Logan Airport there just closing at 8:30 tonight. But what about the airlines? How do they decide when to cancel a flight?

MIKE BENJAMIN, CEO, FLIGHTVIEW: Well, it's a good question, Brooke.

The thing that has really changed over the past few years for airlines is, just like the passengers, they don't want to be stuck at an airport, either. So they look at canceling in advance if they can make sure to keep their planes out of the closed airports and running as well.

At this point, we're already seeing a lot of cancellations for tomorrow.

BALDWIN: OK. So if your flight has been canceled, Mike, what should you do?

BENJAMIN: Well, first of all, it's all about information. The more you can learn about what flights are canceled, your flight and other flights, and then really the best plan is to see if you can find an alternate route.

If you're connecting through Chicago, that's a bad idea. Is there a way to get to where you're going, connecting through, you know, Dallas or Salt Lake or one of the other big hubs in the middle of the country, for example?

BALDWIN: That's great advice, thinking of other places to try to go through to get to that final destination, places to avoid. Mike Benjamin, thank you very, very much, from FlightView.

You have heard about wine tours in Napa, monument tours in D.C. What about marijuana tours in Denver? The legalization of recreational pot has opened up this whole new market and tour companies in Denver say sales are sky-high. Coming up next, we will talk next to the man who started what they're saying is the country's first legal marijuana tourism company.

Plus, police investigate a murder scene, this one inside a church, the victim, a well-loved priest, and moments ago, police held a news conference and just announced they have a suspect. We will tell you what police know about him coming up next. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Well, marijuana big, big business in Colorado these days. It's now day two of a new era. Adults in Colorado can buy recreational pot legally.

So these budding entrepreneurs are poised to benefit from this cannabis milestone with pot tours. In fact, the company called My 420 Tours, they will pick you up at the airport, connect you with a pot- friendly hotel, arrange hash-making demonstrations and take you on tours of marijuana grow facilities. Who would have thunk?

Plus, snag you VIP tickets for cannabis-themed parties and events. Due to overwhelming demand and a very long waiting list, right now, you have to sign up at the My 420 Tours Web site just to get an invitation to view the tour. Are you with me here? This is how popular this is.

Matt Brown, founder of My 420 Tours, America's first legal marijuana tourism company, Matt, we have been trying to get you on TV for a couple days. You guys have been that busy. Welcome. Congratulations.

MATT BROWN, FOUNDER, MY 420 TOURS: Thank you. It's been absolutely crazy here in Colorado all week long, lots of changes, but I think yesterday went off fantastically and there's just a lot of excitement in the air. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: Excitement in the air. Very nice. Let me ask you to be specific. Let's say I come out to Colorado. Give me an idea as to what you're -- you call it the Colorado Cannabis Sampler Tour. What would that entail?

BROWN: Yes, so it's a complete end-to-end experience in what we have here in Colorado in our cannabis industry.

So we certainly pick people up at the airport and all transportation while they're in town is absolutely provided. We want to make sure people aren't using marijuana and then driving. We do have cannabis- friendly hotels and we have a series of activities over three to four days depending on the itinerary where, like the name suggests, you see just a little bit of everything. You tour a grow, you get to go right up and personal next to the plants. See the regulation system we have in place.

We work with a number of partners. We had a great partner this week with O-pen VAPE this is a THC e-cigarette company. We can show in and show the processing extraction facilities that are used and again all licensed here in the state of Colorado. We have a cannabis cooking class. Happy hour parties every single day.

Depending on the week that you're here, there's obviously a lot of concerts and entertainment here in Colorado, so we try to give people the complete end-to-end experience that lets them experience what it feels like to come and just be here in Colorado.

BALDWIN: Wow. And let me just point out to viewer, if you're looking this way, these are live pictures. These are pictures of live plants and marijuana plants. This is at a grow facility in Denver. We will take you there in just a minute, but just pointing out it is perfectly legal to be smoking recreationally the stuff there.

I was in Napa recently, so the only way I can relate to this is like wine. I'm just wondering, you know, in Napa, you go to maybe a winery, you do a tasting, maybe buy a bottle. Can you taste on these tours different kinds of pot?

BROWN: Yes, that's exactly the starting point that we begin with when trying to figure out what a legal pot tour looks like. You know, I have been out to Napa Valley myself. I love plants.

I'm a big gardener person, and for me, being able to walk through the vineyard and talk to the farmers there, understand how they make the grapes and watch it go all the through from the farm straight to the bottle, that was an incredible experience. Even as someone who doesn't particularly drink a lot of wine, it was fascinating.

For those of us who have been in Colorado and been a part of the industry particularly for four or five years as we have really professionalized it and brought it into the open, it's one part being proud of what we have done and really wanting to show the world all of our handiwork, and at the same time, peeling back the curtain and giving people the experience that says this is not about a seedy drug market. This is not something that is dangerous.

But because Colorado has addressed marijuana like adults, anyone can come now and kick the tires, learn about it, walk around, feel what it feels like to be in a place where the joint in your pocket is not going to get you arrested.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: You have been working on this for a couple years. Final question. Just of everything you have seen, what's the biggest surprise?

BROWN: I think, you know, for me, the biggest surprise was how much people who come on our tours really want to come here and come out of the closet and be open about the fact that they use marijuana, whether it's recreationally or medically, wherever it is they live, and they're looking to come here and be around other adults where they don't have to feel stigmatized, where they don't have to feel like they're constantly parsing their words or hiding something, and they can just come out and be open and talk.

And watching somebody's face the first time they're around a lot of other adults who are talking openly about marijuana, are seeing and touching it, it's a really powerful feeling to be there and watch somebody have that moment. That's been surprising. Hopefully we will be able to do that a lot, thousands more times this year.

BALDWIN: It's a new day in Colorado at least. Matt Brown, My 420 Tours, Matt, thank you very much. Best of luck to you. Sounds like you don't need it, though.

BROWN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Let me show you this, this is a marijuana line in Denver. A woman cheering and raising her arms in victory as she stands in line in the snow. We are hearing throngs of people brave freezing temperatures just to stand to get some recreational pot for the second day in a row.

Miguel Marquez, he is covering this along with some marijuana there.

Hello, my friend, in Denver. Can you just tell me, wow, so many questions, how are marijuana store owners feeling here on day two?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's -- look, it is off the hook. You can't even say -- that's not even big enough. This stuff is hotter than hot hotcakes times 1,200.

(CROSSTALK)

MARQUEZ: We're in a small, a medium-sized grow facility here for Evergreen Apothecary. They have about 2,000 plants here. This place wants to grow by 12 times in the next couple years, 24,000 plants they want.

They served 400 customers yesterday. They have them lined up out the door today. We were at Medicine Man Denver, which is the single largest grow and dispensary in the state. They did 650 customers on seven different registers. They had to add two, so nine registers. They had to turn people away at the end of the day.

Here's what the owner said he was hearing from folks in line.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY WILLIAMS, MEDICINE MAN: We have had people from all over the country coming today and, you know, saying things like I have never been more excited to pay taxes in my life. The stigma is lifting further. You know, it really feels as if it's much more accepted now.

You know, people were afraid to get a red card or the license that they were -- the prescription they needed to buy before because of making lists or whatever. And now they don't need it. It's really an act of freedom that this is now legal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Now, look, I met folks from Portland, Maine, from Maryland, from Oregon, from all across the country coming here. I didn't think it would happen, to be honest. It did. In some cases, they had 100 people in line, half of them from out of state. Unbelievable -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Dude, I almost don't believe you, but I see that you're surrounded by marijuana and I know you have done so many of these different stories. It's just, really, as I keep saying, it's a new day.

But here is my next question. This is not to imply that people walking around high would commit a crime, but I'm just curious if you have checked in with local police departments. Are they concerned about all this?

MARQUEZ: Well, look, the police are concerned. The marijuana community is concerned.

This pamphlet is put out not by the state government, but by the marijuana community itself. The biggest concern is police, DUI, DUID, diving under the influence of drugs is now a concern here. THC in the system, five nanograms or more, will get you busted here. But we talked to folks, a single puff.

Me, I don't smoke marijuana. A single puff would put you over that five nanogram limit. It dissipates fairly quickly in the blood, but that is a concern. The biggest concern, though, kids and the access to marijuana and the marijuana community itself stepping up because study after study shows the developing brain up to the age of 25, even, if you use it habitually, it can affect the health of the kid, the brain of the kid, and with everything stretched here from public health services to mental health services, there's a very big concern in the public health department and area that this could be a possible public health disaster here -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I'm glad you bring that up, to tell the full story here. Miguel Marquez for us in Denver.

And let me just remind everyone, don't miss Miguel's full report tonight on "OUTFRONT" 7:00 Eastern, right here on CNN. More from Colorado.

Coming up, he bilked hundreds of people out of millions of dollars. A judge declared him legally dead after a suicide note surfaced, but all of that changed when a police officer noticed a car driving down the street with windows that were a little too tinted. We will explain that.

Plus, a priest killed, his body found inside a church. Police held a news conference last hour and named a suspect. We have those details next here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The FBI manhunt for a dead man has just ended.

The man is alive, as you can see here from his so-called perp walk after this court hearing today. Our TV affiliate WJXT reports Aubrey Price has spent the last 18 months doing migrant work. The former banker allegedly bilked millions of dollars from more than 100 people.

Back in 2012, he just up and disappeared, leaving a 22-page suicide note. But the thing is, the FBI, they never stopped looking for him. And one investor who lost her money is incredibly grateful for his capture.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WENDY CROSS, ALLEGED VICTIM: This was a great, great way to start out the new year for us. I started putting money into a retirement account when I was 22. And that was completely wiped out. Him being caught gives you faith that, you know, if you just hold the faith and keep the faith, that good overcomes evil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Price's suicide letter was so convincing, a Florida judge reportedly declared him dead. What led to his capture? A minor traffic stop. Deputies pulled Price over because the tinting on his car windows was apparently too dark and they got him.

Police in Northern California have just named a suspect in connection with the killing of a priest whose body was found just yesterday inside of a church rectory.

Martin Savidge is with me now.

We know the news conference happened, what, last hour. Who is this suspect?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The police have made a lot of progress in 24 hours. The suspect they're identifying now is 43-year- old Gary Lee Bullock. He's from Humboldt County. That's the county where -- Eureka, the city where this murder took place.

They had this man in custody until a few hours before the murder. Let me backtrack a little bit about what we're talking. We're talking about the priest that was killed. His name is Erick Freed. He had been at the parish only two years or so, but he had become loved by many of the parishioners.

He was found dead yesterday morning after he didn't show up for the 9:00 a.m. mass. One parishioner went next door to check on him in the rectory and that's when they found his body. Police revealed today that there was a very violent scene inside of that rectory. There clearly was a life-and-death struggle that took place. They say they have evidence that connects the suspect to the scene.

The suspect had been in custody, as I say, for intoxication. He was arrested on the 31st. That's of course New Year's Eve. He was released 30 minutes after midnight on New Year's Day. He was seen by the police a short time later. They said, look, go to a shelter. He apparently did not. Spotted again by the security guard at the church where the priest was.

The security guard chased him off, but it was only seven hours later when they found the priest's body. That is where it stands. They're trying to locate the priest's car. They aren't sure if the suspect has it. But they would like to find it. If anybody has seen that car, don't approach it. Just notify the police.

BALDWIN: OK, Martin, thank you very much.

SAVIDGE: Sure.

BALDWIN: And coming up, Target, Snapchat, now Skype, companies and Web sites hacked. And this has just been the past week or so. Is this a growing trend? What can we do to protect ourselves? We will talk to an expert about that coming up.

Also, take a look outside. These are the conditions in Boston, Massachusetts, live pictures. Keep in mind, the airport there, Logan Airport, canceling all flights starting tonight, 8:30 p.m., until noon tomorrow, and that's not the only area affected. We will take you live outside coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)