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Man Barricades Himself inside TV Station; Ground-Stop At Chicago Airports; Fears of MERS Virus; Alec Baldwin Arrested; Sterling Stirs New Controversy; Santa Maria Possibly Found

Aired May 13, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thank you.

Great to be with you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A lot to get to here on this Tuesday. Let me begin here with three different breaking stories.

First one out of Baltimore where someone has crashed some kind of truck straight into this local TV station. Evacuations are underway. Athena Jones has been all over this one. She joins me live from Washington.

And, Athena, tell me what we know at this point?

ATHENA JONES, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Brooke, this is a bizarre story and a scary story. It started unfolding a little over two hours ago, 11:45, folks from the station there, WMAR, that ABC affiliate, say a man tried to ram a large truck -- it's been described by the station as a stolen dump truck, they're citing police there -- tried to ram it into the front door of the station three times. Eventually broke through. The truck all the way into the station lobby. And he was shouting as he tried to do this, "I am God." He was saying that he was God. This is still, as I mentioned, an active situation.

The station has been evacuated. This is a very densely populated area. It's near Towson University. There's a big hospital nearby. A school next door, a pre-k through 8th grade, St. Pius X, has been put on lockdown as a precaution, as these -- this law enforcement tries to make their way through the building.

I'm not sure if you can see some of the pictures. It's a very, very large building. So you can understand why it could take some time for police to make their way through. And so we've been learning a lot about what's been going on from members of that station itself.

Now, they're not on the air. They're in taped programming because they've been evacuated. But they're reporting this online and through tweets. And one of the station executive producers spoke with Wolf Blitzer just last hour and gave us a little bit more of an idea of what happened. This man tried to come through the front door. The security asked him why he wanted to come inside. He refused to answer. And so that is when he ended up getting back in this truck and ramming this front door several times to get in.

Now, another thing that this EP said, this executive producer said, is we know the man had several guns in his car, in his truck, and so they say they believe he's on the (INAUDIBLE) floor of this building somewhere right now and so that's what law enforcement are doing, they're trying to make their way through.

I should mention one more thing. The station has just tweeted about half an hour ago, that's the latest update we have from Twitter at least, saying that they're still on lockdown. Those here are trying to stay positive about the situation. Please keep WMAR staffers and visitors in your thoughts.

They have done a head count, they say, and say that everyone is out of the building safe. And so they're just watching to see how long it takes and whether they can resolve this peacefully.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: I hear the phones ringing in the background. I'll let you go. Athena Jones, we're staying in close contact with you, and also with the news director, the boss of this newsroom, this TV affiliate, so hopefully we can talk to her as soon as they're out of a meeting right now. Thank you so much on that in Baltimore.

Also breaking right now, a ground stop underway for Chicago's two big airports because of an incident involving smoke. These are live pictures from O'Hare. And you see, what, six, seven planes just sitting there on the tarmac. Rene Marsh working this one for us from D.C.

Rene, what's going on?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, you know, if you're flying in or out of Chicago, you are going to be impacted by this. All flights, as you see right there on your screen, they are stopped from either taking off or coming in to both Chicago O'Hare, as well as Midway. The reason for all of this, smoke inside of an FAA air traffic control center. Everyone had to be evacuated. And all of the duties had to be transferred to another air traffic control center, which was a high altitude air traffic control center.

You know, we just visited Flight Aware. We can see it is topping the list as far as Chicago airports as far as cancellations and delays. So just know that if you're going in and out. You're going to be seeing some problems. At this point, we don't know what caused that smoke inside of FAA's air traffic control center. Still working on getting that. And no idea at this point when they will lift that ground stop, Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right. Heads-up to people heading to Chicago, or coming from Chicago, you may be there for a little while.

MARSH: Yes.

BALDWIN: Rene Marsh, thank you so much. We'll watch that one. Also, a developing story this afternoon out of Orlando, Florida. This involved that contagious virus blamed for hundreds of deaths in the Middle East, but now three people, not just one here, but three people are under close observation in the U.S., two in Orlando. And we've just gotten word actually now from the White House that aides are briefing the president about this situation. Elizabeth Cohen, our senior medical correspondent, was here yesterday talking about these two additional people in Orlando. And now we have the latest here.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So we have -- to make the big picture here, we have a patient in Indiana who has MERS. We have a patient in Florida who has MERS. Both of those people traveled from Saudi Arabia to the U.S.

BALDWIN: (INAUDIBLE).

COHEN: Right. And now we have two health care workers who had contact with one of these MERS patients who are ill. We don't know what's making them ill. They are watching them. They are testing them for MERS, this Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. They might have MERS, but they might not.

So, again, this is two health care workers --

BALDWIN: OK.

COHEN: In Orlando who we're watching, who are being watched for MERS. And they are, you know, told not to be out and about in the community. One of them is actually in the hospital. And so they're being watched for signs of MERS. All we know about these two health care workers is that they are not doctors.

BALDWIN: OK. How concerned, a, should we be? Let me just ask you that again. And, b, the issue being that these people were on these planes, multiple planes, coming from overseas. So what about the people on those flights?

COHEN: Right. So how concerned you are really depends on who you are.

BALDWIN: OK.

COHEN: If I was the wife of this patient with MERS, if I was a very close friend and spent a lot of time with him, if I was a nurse taking care of them or any kind of health care worker, I would be nervous.

BALDWIN: You'd be (INAUDIBLE).

COHEN: Yes, I would be nervous. This disease has a 30 percent mortality rate. One out of three people die. That is high.

However, if I were just a citizen of Orlando, Florida, I would not be nervous because this doesn't seem to be the kind of virus that spreads easily. You don't get it, you know, if you and I were just having coffee right now and I had MERS and you didn't, I --

BALDWIN: It's not highly contagious in that way. COHEN: Right, it's not highly contagious in that way.

BALDWIN: OK.

COHEN: The people who get it tend to be family members or health care workers who have very, very close contact.

BALDWIN: OK. Elizabeth Cohen, on your day off, coming in to report that. Thank you so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

BALDWIN: And now this. Alec Baldwin, can't seem to stay out of trouble, it appears, because today he was arrested in New York after biking down the wrong way down Fifth Avenue. That's a no-no. On top of that, he got a ticket for disorderly conduct. CNN's Poppy Harlow joins me on that one.

And, Poppy, what happened?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alec Baldwin not happy about this at all, tweeting about it. He was biking the wrong way in the street, which you can't do here in New York, and 16th Street and Fifth Avenue. He was taken into custody. He was handcuffed. He was issued two summons, one for riding his bike the wrong way, one for disorderly conduct. The NYPD telling us here at CNN that he got belligerent, started arguing with the police officers, using some profane words.

A law enforcement source also telling us that he apparently was yelling at some of the police officers saying, quote, "give me the summons already." And then, interestingly, asking one of the desk agents at the precinct, quote, "how old are these officers that they don't know who I am?" Because they had asked him for I.D., which he did not have on him.

In terms of what his camp is saying at this point, they're saying he is back home with his family. So he's been released. But he is going to have to appear in court on July 24th here in New York.

BALDWIN: OK. The, "you don't know who I am" line. We've heard that before.

HARLOW: Right.

BALDWIN: Poppy, let me -- let me back up because you mentioned off the top that he has since taken to Twitter.

HARLOW: Yes.

BALDWIN: What is he tweeting?

HARLOW: So let's go through. There have been three tweets. They were in a matter of about 10 minutes each, within the last two hours. Let's start with the first one. H e's calling out the police officer here who apparently arrested him, saying "Officer Moreno, badge number 23388, arrested me and handcuffed me for going the wrong way on Fifth Avenue." A few minutes after that he tweets, "meanwhile, photographers outside my home once again terrified my daughter and nearly hit her with a camera. The police did nothing." And then the final tweet, I just checked again, this is the final tweet from his foundation's page, which has, by the way, more than a million followers, saying, "New York City is a mismanaged carnival of stupidity that is desperate for revenue and anxious to criminalize behavior once thought benign."

Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Poppy Harlow, thank you very much.

Just ahead here on CNN, as terror takes hold in a Nigeria state where Boko Haram snatched hundreds of girls in the middle of the night. The U.S. is stepping up its role, bringing in drones to help in this hunt for the missing girls.

And just when you thought Donald Sterling's comments couldn't get worse, well, his mea culpa morphs into a brutal attack on, of all people, Magic Johnson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD STERLING, LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS OWNER: Big Magic Johnson. What has he done?

ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "AC 360": Well, yes, he's a business person. He's --

STERLING: He's got AIDS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Hmm. That.

Plus, this may not bode very well for the hunt for Flight 370 because some 500 years later, divers think they may have now found the long- lost remains of the Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus' flagship vessel. Stay with me. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Starting to see a bit of a pattern here. Donald Sterling speaks, controversy erupts. Sterling's interview with Anderson Cooper was supposed to be his chance to, you know, mea culpa, make things right. Yes, he apologized, but he couldn't resist taking new shots at Magic Johnson. And he may have made his own troubles with the NBA and in the court of public opinion even worse. Now Sterling obviously had a lot of issues with Magic Johnson specifically. We know he criticized him in that recording that first got him in trouble in the first place. But during his sit-down, during this exclusive interview with Anderson, Sterling opened up a new line of bitter criticism. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD STERLING, LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS OWNER: Big Magic Johnson, what has he done?

ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "AC 360": Well, he has -- he's a business person and he --

STERLING: He's got AIDS. Did he do anything business? I'd like -- did he help anybody in south L.A.?

COOPER: Well, I think he has HIV. He doesn't actually have full-blown AIDS, but --

STERLING: Well, what kind of a guy goes to every city, has sex with every girl, then he catches HIV and -- is that someone we want to respect and tell our kids about? I think he should be ashamed of himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And that was just the beginning. Sterling also questions whether Magic Johnson has used his wealth to help others, including children and minorities. He even took it one step further implying that wealthy African-Americans do not do enough to help their own communities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STERLING: That's one problem I have. Jews, when they get successful, they will help their people. And some of the African-Americans, maybe I'll get in trouble again, they don't want to help anybody. What has Magic Johnson really done for children's hospital, which kids are lying in the hallways. They're sick. They need a bed. The Jewish people have a company, and it's for people who want to borrow money and no interest. They want to give them a fishing pole. We want to help people. If they don't have the money, we'll loan it to you. You don't have interest, one day you'll pay us back.

COOPER: So --

STERLING: I'm just telling you, he does nothing. It's all talk.

COOPER: So you're -- so you're saying that African-Americans don't contribute to their -- to African-American communities as much as Jewish people do --

STERLING: There's no African-American -- never mind. I'm sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about Donald Sterling's remarks on race, Magic and beyond. Writer and cultural critic Michaela Davis is here. And I'm also joined by Kenneth Shropshire, professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and he's also the author of "In Black and White: Race and Sports in America."

So welcome to you both. And, Michaela, I'd like to start with you. And here's really the skinny on the interview. This is what we got from Anderson. Apparently Sterling sat there and for the first hour really -- that was the, I'm sorry, the mea culpa, and it was the last 20 minutes apparently when he was like foot-mouth, OK. So here he is going off the last little bit. You know, not just further on Magic Johnson, but further insults the black community.

MICHAELA ANGELA DAVIS, CULTURAL CRITIC/WRITER: Uh-huh. It was stunning to watch. I think -- I think what was interesting, he got loose, right, and he got more open.

BALDWIN: He got loose.

DAVIS: And when he -- all -- I was -- my jaw was on the ground. I didn't know what he was going to say after, you know, when he stopped himself. But I think what's interesting here, and his obsession with Magic Johnson, I think Magic is his greatest nightmare. I think we've seen him --

BALDWIN: Why?

DAVIS: Because we've seen him have this very strange pathology around the black male physical superiority, or their athleticism, or their prowess. And his wealth has been his weapon against that. And it has placed him in his superior spot. So here we have Magic Johnson, both a superior champion, and wealthy, and a businessman, so he's completely displaced, completely dismantled. And so this odd obsession that he's had with these players, and you can -- this is that mentality that he seems to say that he doesn't understand this idea of plantation mentality, of like being really -- this weird pathology, admiration and brutality around his players.

But here you have Michael Jackson (sic), who breaks his ceiling. His wealth was his only protection. And now you have a man who is wealthy, and so well respected, and what he has done to break down the stigma around HIV and AIDS, in all communities, but particularly the black community, that he would pick Magic Johnson of all NBA players who's done so much.

BALDWIN: You said Michael Jackson. I think you meant Magic Johnson. But I'm with you. I'm with you, Michaela. I'm with you.

DAVIS: Magic Johnson, of course.

BALDWIN: And let me say --

DAVIS: I mean it's so absurd. You know, but he picked the most beloved player arguably in the NBA.

BALDWIN: And let me stay on that. Let me stay on that because, Kenneth, here's the other, you know, possible layer to this, which is, you know, as other people are now throwing their proverbial hats in the ring, if and when Don Sterling is out, if he gets that three- quarters majority and he's forced to sell, you know, Magic, there has been -- you know, he may be wanting Donald Sterling's job. And I'm wondering, you know, Spike Lee said to Anderson last night, to echo Michaela's point, you know, Magic is the wrong guy to mess with.

DAVIS: That's right (ph).

BALDWIN: But do you think that this is more of a -- Kenneth, more of a personal or a professional attack on Magic Johnson?

KENNETH SHROPSHIRE, PROFESSOR, WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: Well, it's certainly sounding personal in many ways. And whatever the women had to do with this, that seems to be part of the issue, too, at a personal level. But, you know, he is -- he is the wrong brother to mess with. I grew up in the (INAUDIBLE) district in L.A. This is where Magic originally made his investments in the city. So not only economic, but sociologically --

BALDWIN: The restaurants, the gyms.

SHROPSHIRE: Yes. Sociologically, the idea that you can invest in the African-American community. I mean Magic's really a mover in this urban investment kind of situation. So, you know, this is a gentleman, Mr. Sterling, doesn't know what he's talking about. To talk about what giving the African-American community does not do relative to the Jewish community. I mean giving is an individual decision. There's not a group ethic about whether or not you should give and who gives to whom. So he's really off track. And as you said earlier, the more he spoke, the further he got away from what wasn't a very good apology in the first place, the worse he did.

BALDWIN: You listen to the possessive pronounce, my players. At the same time, he did say, you know, I am theirs. And, Michaela, though, I'm, you know, he still insists that his players love him. And I'm wondering, I mean the man is 80 years old, he's been in the game for years and years, I mean I'm wondering if he really, in his heart, believes that, or if that's just wishful thinking.

DAVIS: You know, I think he does believe it. And I do -- you know, when his wife said she thought he may have dementia, I think he -- it's more delusional. You know, when we heard him saying that they still love him, and it's just the media, this interview was -- had so many layers --

BALDWIN: So many layers.

DAVIS: Of areas in which I think, again, his wealth, I think, was able to protect him from the bubble. But again in 2009, there was an article on ESPN where the opening line was, Donald Sterling makes Rush Limbaugh look like Martin Luther King Jr.

BALDWIN: Ooh!

DAVIS: So --

BALDWIN: Ooh!

DAVIS: So there has been -- there has been --

BALDWIN: Sure, it's documented. It's documented and it's gone on for years.

DAVIS: Yes. Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: And I've talked to players and they -- you know, I've said, well, why are you playing, you know, for this man?

DAVIS: Yes. Yes.

BALDWIN: And they said, it's a job. It's a job.

Kenneth, I have to get to you because I'm really curious about this because let's say hypothetically we get to October. This whole thing could take months and months. We could still be in legal limbo by then. I'm curious, if you think it's more of a message for the coach, Doc Rivers, to stay, to stick around with the Clippers or to leave in protest? Which should it be?

SHROPSHIRE: Well, I think the professionalism of Rivers will allow him to wait to see that the league moves at a good pace. And I think the leverage that he sees himself having, and the players understand they have, is if the league does not move, that they have a lot of rights from one team strike, to the union striking, to Rivers not signing back on. There are a lot of steps that can be taken.

But I think they're trying to (INAUDIBLE) and say we've got a business that we're involved in. We're trying to stay committed to the business. You've taken some good steps in terms of bringing Parsons in. Let's see what you can do next. So there's a great deal of leverage on the side of Rivers and the players right now.

BALDWIN: OK. Kenneth Shropshire and Michaela Angela Davis, thank you both so much.

DAVIS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Great assessment (ph) today.

DAVIS: I can't wait to hear what Magic is going to say.

SHROPSHIRE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: I know. Let's talk about that.

DAVIS: Oh, my gosh.

BALDWIN: He is talking tonight. In fact, he's sitting down with Anderson in a matter of minutes here. So we will be hearing this interview tonight, "AC 360," the special interview, Anderson sitting down with Magic. Don't miss it, 8:00, only here on CNN. That will be incredible to watch.

Coming up, a 500-year mystery solved? An explorer says he thinks he's discovered the long-lost remains of Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria. That's right, the ship he lost on his first voyage to the new world. How about that?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: An underwater explorer may have solved one of the biggest mysteries in archaeology. What happened to the Santa Maria? Remember the rhyme, in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Well, the Santa Maria was Columbus' flag ship, one of the three. Of course we remember the Nina, the Pinta and, of course, the Santa Maria. Barry Clifford, who found the wreckage, described the Santa Maria as the Mount Everest of shipwrecks. And Miguel Marquez is working this one for us today from New York.

OK, so he knows a lot about Christopher Columbus. I heard you earlier today saying he's got inside his brain. But how sure is he that this really is this ship?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's pretty darn sure. There's a lot of evidence out there, and I should say, should note that we're doing this under the watchful gaze of Mr. Columbus himself here in Columbus Circle in New York. He's pretty sure. There's the physical evidence they found under the water. Those rocks you're looking at right now are actually what he believes is the ballast pile from the ship. There is the diary of Columbus himself. And here he is talking about some of the evidence that he has.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARRY CLIFFORD, UNDERWATER ARCHEOLOGIST: We're looking under 20 feet of clear water for a big pile of stones that's about 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, which would be the fingerprint of the Santa Maria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: So those stones are the ballast weight for that ship. And he believes that the size of it, the weight of it is about right for the Santa Maria, a fairly small ship for even its day. But the big eureka moment for him was when they found a cannon basically (ph), something called a Lombard (ph), which is sort of a cannon with both ends open. He believes that indicates that this is most likely the Santa Maria. Now they have to go in and prove it. He thinks it could take, at best, six months, probably longer, to work out all of the details to get in there and actually -- you're looking at the Lombard right now, to get in there and find out if they can find any trinkets, anything that they think Columbus may have been taking back to Spain when he was about to leave the new world for the first time. An amazing, amazing story.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Can -- can he find planes as well?

MARQUEZ: That might be a little tough, I think. A little deeper. Slightly deeper.

BALDWIN: (INAUDIBLE). Miguel Marquez, thank you very much.

I know this was found in just 15 feet of water. How about that? Coming up here, a man shoots and kills a police officer who responded to a domestic dispute. The shooter dies, not by police gunfire, but in this massive explosion. A house fire. We'll tell you how the whole thing went down.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)