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Storms and Tornadoes Threaten Mississippi; Controversy Grows Over Alleged Racial Remarks from NBA Team Owner

Aired April 28, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: Reports of a tornado touchdown in Mississippi, Jennifer Gray in Atlanta with more.

Jennifer, what do you have for us?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, this is that tornado we were telling you about 15 minutes ago, still on the ground.

It was in Yazoo City moments ago, now on the move just to the east of Yazoo City, and it's continuing its northeast track at about 45-miles- per-hour.

These are fast moving. So if you're to the south of Eaton or just to the west of Pickens and all the points in between, take cover now. This is a very dangerous situation.

We have reports of an actual tornado on the ground and it will be crossing over I-55 just in a few minutes, and so, very dangerous out there, Deb. These storms are popping up. They've been popping up for the past couple of hours, and you will see this continue throughout the rest of the evening hours.

We're going to see a very similar situation, unfortunately, that we saw yesterday in Arkansas, now Mississippi, Alabama, and southern Tennessee, the target.

So Yazoo City area, just to the east and northeast of you and all the points in between, Pickens, and then it will be pulling up towards Durant. This is until 2:45 p.m. And so, very dangerous out there, take cover now if you're in the path of the storm.

FEYERICK: Very scary, Jennifer. Thanks.

Joey Ward, director of emergency management from Yazoo County, Mississippi, we believe he is on the phone with us. Is he there?

JOEY WARD, DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, YAZOO COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI (via telephone): Yes, ma'am.

FEYERICK: Sir, first of all, describe what you're seeing. Describe the situation there and what it looks like out when you look out your window WARD (via telephone): Currently, I'm in Yazoo City, which is going to be to the southwest of where the storm is now. We're clearing up a little bit. It's still raining.

However, this is moving -- like Michael said just a moment ago, it is moving towards the I-55 Pickens-(inaudible) area right now.

The storm -- we did receive some good news. The storm has lifted up, and it is not riding the ground any more, and also we have had no initial reports of any damage.

We do have law enforcement, our deputies and police officers, are out within city and counties looking for damage, and currently have not received any reports of any.

FEYERICK: And sir, can you tell us, what do families there do? Do the kids-- for those of us here in the North, do the kids usually stay home from school?

Are the families basically sheltering in their homes or in basements? What do you tell people to do right now?

WARD (via telephone): Well, as -- we always recommend to be as safe as possible.

Our schools here closed around 1:30 this afternoon. Parents were told to come get their children. I have been told that all the children have been secured and taken care of.

Typically, we encourage people not to get on the road. That's standard knowledge. We shelter them in place, and you know, lowest level of the home, things of that nature, for their protection and just have them ride it out.

FEYERICK: All right. And do you expect -- obviously, it's so scary to think of the possibility of the damage that a tornado can do.

Is this expected to get worse over the next couple of weeks? Are we sort of in the thick of the season now?

WARD (via telephone): We're in the early parts of the season, which is, as far as I'm concerned, I consider it an earlier part.

This is the exact -- almost a year -- four years ago to the day was when the 2010 tornado devastated Yazoo City and Yazoo County, as well.

So it's still hopefully very fresh on people's minds and that they take all of the warnings we have been putting out all day very seriously.

FEYERICK: Is it fair to say, sir, that it's been four years, people really sort of just got rebuilt and on their way and now it's threatening once again?

WARD (via telephone): Yes, ma'am. That's a very fair statement.

FEYERICK: All right. Joey Ward, director of emergency management there for Yazoo City, we really appreciate your time and your efforts.

Stay safe. I'm sure we will be checking in with you over the coming weeks. Thank you.

WARD (via telephone): Thank you.

FEYERICK: And a lot of severe weather is popping up right now. We are keeping a very close eye on the radar.

We will have continuing coverage after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: And we are keeping a very close eye on the weather as it happens, four new hurricane -- excuse me -- tornado warnings all across that part of the country there, Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery, Little Rock, people digging out from severe dam damage, Arkansas, especially.

Sixteen people, so far, dead, we will bring you the very latest.

And the controversy now surrounding NBA owner Donald Sterling has engulfed the league's playoffs and has spread far beyond the sports world.

A recording reported to be made by Sterling has him making racist remarks. It has shaken the league. It threatens Sterling's status as a team owner.

Here is a portion of the recording. It is allegedly Donald Sterling talking to his girlfriend.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well then, if you don't feel like, don't come to my games. Don't bring black people and don't come.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know that you have a whole team that's black that plays for you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do I know? I support them by giving them food and clothes and cars and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them?

Do I know what I -- that I have? Who makes the game? Do I make the game or they make the game? And is there 30 owners that created the league?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And that was just the beginning.

Let's move the story forward talk about the potential fallout. David Cornwell, a sports attorney, Joey Jackson is an HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, good as always to see you both. David, first of all, the potential penalties are we talking about sanctions or the possibility that he's going to be forced to simply sell that team?

DAVID CORNWELL, SPORTS ATTORNEY: I certainly hope that he's going to be forced to give up the team.

Now, under the NBA's constitution and bylaws, the commissioner's authority is actually relatively limited. He can suspend him and impose a fine up to one year.

But this is an unprecedented act that warrants an unprecedented response. I believe that the public, sponsors and players and, frankly, the other 29 owners have the ability to put pressure on Donald Sterling to make him understand that he has a right to be ignorant. but he does not have a right to be an owner of an NBA team.

FEYERICK: Now, over the weekend, the Clippers president did release a statement that basically said that Sterling's comments were not consistent or reflective of his views, that it's an antithesis to what he believes.

Clearly there has to be an investigation, but, Joey, when you look at the constitution of the NBA, it's confidential.

Does Sterling's future with the team depend on the nuanced language, as we all know lawyers tend to use, about how those rules are written?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: No, Deb, it depends upon his language, and his language was deplorable, disgusting and there's no room for it.

So let's say what's going to happen, OK? First of all, knowing that he engaged in such a vicious attack against a minority group, everybody should be outraged.

Now the NBA will conduct an investigation and as they have said, Deb, he is entitled to due process. I represent people every day that are entitled to due process.

But once that due process is done and the investigation concludes that those were his words and his remarks, the NBA will act swiftly to remove him.

Now it is true that you cannot just unilaterally divest an owner of ownership responsibility from a team. They have legal protections, and certainly as a result of that, he would be expected to use those legal protections to defend himself.

But what they can do is certainly remove him from the team via a suspension. The commissioner has the authority to do that. That would avoid him being involved with the team, operating the team, overseeing the team, and as a result of that, the end would be near and he would be out.

And that's what I suspect will happen, should happen, in this case. FEYERICK: There is such a major "ick" factor. You listened to the eight-minute tape. I listened to the -- it's actually closer to 10 minutes, but there's still a real "ick" factor there, the fact that this girlfriend who he has paid upwards of $2.5 million to support over time would do this. We don't know what the circumstances are.

But Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, he also is a former NBA player. He's emerged as a spokesman and advisor to the players' union on this issue.

He's come up with five player demands. Sterling -- one, that Sterling stays away from future games, that Commissioner Silver must explain why Sterling was never penalized for past racial incidents.

He's got to explain the full range of potential sanctions. Engage the players' union in the process, and also carry out the entire process very, very quickly.

So, David, are these demands realistic? Joey mentioned due process. Due process does take time.

CORNWELL: It may with Joey's clients when we are talking criminal prosecution, but this is a private business governed by the constitution and bylaws.

Here's the investigation. Adam Silver calls Donald Sterling and says, Was that your voice? End of investigation.

I don't think he needs to do anything else. That man expressed the most vile, delusional ignorant things that you can think about a minority, and it's about the men who support him. He got it wrong.

This is the first time I can remember his team being in the playoffs, so for years through revenue-sharing, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, players all over the league have supported this man.

He's absolutely ignorant. He's absolutely delusional. And he needs to be gone.

So what you do, you ostracize him. You lock up his revenues. You give him enough money to pay the players, his expenses and his other salaried employees, and take net revenues, put them in the bank. Don't give it to him.

Make this man realize he can go anywhere other than the National Basketball Association.

FEYERICK: But it's not just the players. OK, let's be clear on that, maybe that turned a blind eye or the league itself that turned a blind eye.

Let's not forget the NAACP was about to give him a lifetime achievement award. Wouldn't you think that they would vet his record on race and race relations? That's not given arbitrarily.

Joey? JACKSON: You don't know a person, Deb, until you know a person, and clearly with the NAACP, what they were really doing was they said, look, he gives a lot of tickets out to youth groups.

Those youth groups happen to be people of color. We appreciate that, and we will express our appreciation by virtue of supporting him.

Now, should they have vetted him out more closely or more clearly or known all these things? Yes, potentially. And, in fact, when he got the previous award, he did before in 2009, Elgin Baylor had filed a lawsuit against him, alleging issues relating to race, alleging issues relating to age.

But certainly you would have no basis to know and get within someone's mind, Deb, to know that they would harbor such evil and terrible beliefs as they did here.

And so the question now has to become not what has the NAACP done in the past, or the NBA, really, done in the past.

How are they going to deal with this now? Will it be effective? Will it be swift? And will he get the sanction that would be appropriate here, which is his removal, really, from the game?

FEYERICK: You know what's fascinating to me when I listen to the tape? The one thing that I couldn't shake, David, and that is that this is a man who clearly feels betrayed, he feels insecure.

It's almost as if this wasn't just about race. This was also about somebody who was jilting him for somebody a lot younger, certainly -- there's just -- again, I go back to that whole kind of "ick" factor, David.

What do you think ultimately? How do we process this whole thing? Because this whole thing is just not good.

CORNWELL: I couldn't care less about the personal impact of his relationships on him. He expressed -- and the way that he did it demonstrates that he's absolutely delusional. This man is insane.

And I don't care less about his personal relationships. He has the right to be ignorant. I'm not outraged by the fact that he's ignorant. I'm outraged if he doesn't suffer consequences for his ignorance.

He cannot profit off of the labor and excellence of black men and turn around and express bigoted views about these men.

He cannot insult players in the public while accepting the concessions from the city and states that all professional teams get. He does not belong in professional sports.

If his heart is broken, so what?

JACKSON: Deb, I am outraged by his ignorance. I would not have any reason to believe that in 2014 you would have a person who would harbor this. And certainly there will be attacks on the victim. She's a gold digger. She's a horrible person. She is just looking to get money and her day in fame.

Nonsense. What did she have to do with the statements he made, with the things that are in his heart that are on his mind that were on his lips? Nothing.

So you can attack her all you want, 20 days until Sunday. The reality is that he engaged in appropriate behavior and conduct and he espoused views that were in his mind that are now known and he needs to be gone and should be.

FEYERICK: Yeah. No question. No question.

David Cornwell, Joey Jackson, thank you so much, certainly an interesting and passionate debate, and clearly very powerful to watch those players last night, really recalled images of the 1960s, the show of defiance. So, bravo to them.

All right, well, we are continuing to follow the weather situation impacting millions across the Southeast. There are several tornado warnings in effect right now.

We'll have a check on the areas in the storm's path, right ahead.

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FEYERICK: And we are watching the tornadoes that are touching down. Right now a tornado warning in Tupelo, Mississippi.

We go now to Jennifer Gray, who's in our Weather Center. Jennifer, what can you tell us?

GRAY: Yeah, Deb, a tornado emergency has been issued for the Tupelo area, and this is the highest level of alert that you're going to get. Tornado on the ground near Tupelo, and so, if you're in this area, take cover.

A tornado warning now right over Tupelo. It's heading to the northeast at about 45-miles-per-hour, a very, very dangerous situation. It's going on right now. I want to show something that we use when we're looking at the possibility of tornadoes and this is called velocity.

And I want to circle this area right here, right over Tupelo, is where we're seeing the possible signature that there is a tornado. We have video, actually, of some storm chasers that are out there, and they have caught a tornado on the ground on video, and so there's your confirmation right there as well.

So, as we go forward in time, these are going to continue to threaten areas of Mississippi. They are going to be in the areas of Alabama, as well.

This is a very serious situation. We have now a high risk of tornado development from the storm prediction center for portions of Mississippi and Alabama as we go through the evening hours.

But right now, the focus is going to be on the Tupelo area. It's not going to last there long, because it's only -- it's moving at 45- miles-an-hour. That's very, very quickly.

You get the warning out, you take cover and then it's going to move on to the next town. Hopefully it won't be on the ground very long.

But right now we do have spotters that are seeing this on the ground right now, though.

FEYERICK: Yeah, we're talking about tens of millions potentially affected from Iowa to the Gulf Coast to the Carolinas.

How many days are we expecting this system to continue?

GRAY: We're expecting it go through today. It's going to last through tomorrow, as well, and so then you're looking at the possibility of a flooding threat across much of the Southeast.

And so this area that we're looking at basically stretches anywhere from Louisiana all the way up through Illinois. You can see the line of showers that's developing across the Mississippi River Valley now.

This tornado watch right across Mississippi and Alabama, that's the one that we're very, very concerned about. That's considered a potentially dangerous situation. Those are not issued very often.

We also have a high risk of development right over that area, as well, for today. There's only a couple of days a year that high-risk areas are issues. Today is one of them. Yesterday was one of them.

So we could, again today, see the potential for very large tornadoes, long track tornadoes like we saw through Arkansas yesterday. The potential is there.

The atmosphere is very unstable so we could possibly see those tornadoes develop again.

But today it's going to be across Mississippi and Alabama. We could see another day, pretty much in the same area, for tomorrow, and then as we move on into Wednesday and Thursday, it's going to be more of a flooding threat, could see severe weather across portions of the East Coast, so a multiday event.

FEYERICK: Yeah, we think about Tupelo. It's the seventh largest city between Memphis and Birmingham. There's about 35,000 people.

When we think about the damage in Arkansas, that may have been by more than one tornado, something called a super cell thunderstorm.

GRAY: Yeah.

FEYERICK: Are we expecting the same thing potentially in this Tupelo area? GRAY: Well, yeah, I mean, potentially. We're going to see these super cells develop. The atmosphere is exactly the same as it was yesterday, so you're going to have the potential for a very similar weather setup.

These super cells can form very quickly with an atmosphere like this, and they can definitely spawn these tornadoes. They can produce very large, long-lived tornadoes. And so that's what the danger is now.

Right around the Tupelo area is the concern. These are racing off to the northeast at about 45-miles-per hour, and so that's why it's so important to take cover if you are in this area, and that's Lee County. Anyone in Lee County needs to take cover, Deb.

FEYERICK: All right, and, Jennifer, we've got Greg Flynn from the Mississippi Emergency Management Office on the phone with us.

And, sir, what are you telling people there? What is your greatest concern now with what is happening?

GREG FLYNN, MISSISSIPPI EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SPOKESPERSON (via telephone): Our greatest concern is that people had their plan in place to know exactly what they were going to do as soon as these tornado warnings are issued.

It looks like they have one on the ground near Tupelo, Mississippi, a very highly populated area. They are ravaging through the area as well. Just get to your safe place and be able to ride it out.

FEYERICK: How do you instruct people ahead of tornado season to take the kind of precautions?

For example, tell us about whether schools are closed, whether people just need to be sort of prepared and minimize activities during the day where you think tornadoes are going to touch down?

What are some of the key things that you tell your folks?

FLYNN (via telephone): I tell you what. The storm prediction center did a great job of putting this on our radar last week.

We've done a tremendous education campaign warning people of the potential outbreak that was forecast for today and it appears to come into fruition, just making people think about where they are going to be.

Are you going to be at work? Are you going to be at school? Are you going to be at home? If you're out in a store, know what you are going to do. Have your plan ready to execute.

Get into your lowest level of your house, put as many walls between you and the outside and cover up. Hopefully that's enough to keep you safe.

But, you know, we certainly want our public to be aware and to really -- this is going to be an ongoing situation for the entire day. It won't be over yet after this first round comes through because it's going to be wave after waves, from what these forecasters are telling us.

FEYERICK: Are you getting any reports of damage or of people having to evacuate at all?

FLYNN (via telephone): Well, right now it's still so early into it. But not a whole lot of damage being reported yet from Yazoo City where they had a tornado on the ground earlier. It appears that it was not on the ground very long.

But again, it's still very early and these things are ongoing. We're very concerned about what we're going to hear out of Tupelo because that's moving over a major population and I'm just reading from my national weather system in Memphis. The storm is just north of Tupelo now. We really want people to take stuff seriously.

FEYERICK: When you say that there's debris in the tornado, how does that up the risks and the danger?

FLYNN (via telephone): Oh, no question, with debris flying around in the area, they become missiles and projectiles. Your cell phone will survive. You may not.

You don't need to be taking the chance of going outside. You don't know what is flying around in the air and these tornadoes will move.

One moment, you think you're in a safe place. The next minute, no, it could be right upon you.

FEYERICK: When you think about a tornado going through Tupelo, Mississippi, how much greater of a risk is it to the people who live there as opposed to those who live in the surrounding areas where there's perhaps less reinforcement, less infrastructure?

FLYNN (via telephone): Well, certainly the risk is higher because it's a population base.

Any time you have a tornado that is going to come through a major city or come close to a major city as Tupelo is, a lot of houses in the suburbs -- much of Mississippi is rural and in the population bases is where we get concerned about the large amounts of potential damage.

We don't have any reports of that as of yet but it's ongoing at the moment.

FEYERICK: All right. Well, Greg Flynn from the Mississippi Emergency Management Office there, we appreciate you joining us.

We appreciate all of the warnings that you're giving to the folks there who have been told to stay inside and take precaution.

Thanks, everyone, for watching. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.