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Hero & Rescued Baby Reunited 18 Years Later; Pope Francis Visits Jerusalem with a Rabbi and a Sheikh; Shinseki Posts Letter to Vets on V.A. Site; Deadly Police Shootings Spark Outrage

Aired May 23, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Taking a look at some other top stories this morning at 29 minutes past.

He's overseeing the military for two presidents but starting in October, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates will take over as President of the Boy Scouts of America; this, during a time of declining membership in that organization and a debate over policies toward gay people. About his new role, Gates says quote "I believe every boy deserves an opportunity to experience what scouting offers."

Shocking new developments in the case of a California woman who says she was kidnapped at 15 and then forced to marry her alleged abductor and have his baby. The suspect's lawyer claims the victim is making it all up saying she went along willingly and only turned to police now because she wants a divorce.

Now, a story about a hero who made his mark and a reunion 18 years in the making. In 1995, a baby was abandoned after birth. A woman anonymously calling 911 to report she left a baby in a cemetery in freezing temperatures.

Well Charlie Heflin was a volunteer firefighter at the time who actually went to that cemetery and found the infant and saved her life. Well that little girl Skyler James is now all grown up. She just graduated from high school. At her graduation last weekend, Heflin reunited for the first time with the little baby he rescued.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLIE HEFLIN, RESCUED SKYLER JAMES IN 1995: Oh it was so exhilarating -- just a whirlwind of emotions. I handed her off to the paramedics 18 years ago and I haven't been able to see her since. And just to know that she was so close to me and so local and has done so much with her life is just incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: It is incredible. What a great graduation gift for her actually a great gift for both of them.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a rabbi, a sheikh and a Pope travels to the Holy Land. It's not the start of a joke but it is the start of a big controversy. We'll talk about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: So a rabbi, a sheikh and a Pope travel to the Holy Land and all hell breaks loose. OK so I'm exaggerating just a tad. Still there has been quite the backlash. Pope Francis will visit Jordan, Bethlehem and Jerusalem along with two old friends, a rabbi and a sheikh who leads Argentina's Muslim community. Some conservative Israelis are not exactly thrilled. They scrawled anti-Christian graffiti on Catholic buildings in Jerusalem. Take a look among the sentiments posted on the wall "Jesus is garbage." There are also calls for death to Arabs and Christians. People are also planning protests.

CNN's Ivan Watson joins us from Jerusalem to tell us more about that part of the story. Good morning.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

I've spoken with a spokesperson for the Israeli police here in Jerusalem and he told me that basically the main threat -- political threat that the Israeli police are worried about during Pope Francis' upcoming visit is from ultraorthodox nationalist Jewish groups that have been carrying out what he describes as a campaign of quote, unquote "Price tag vandalism attacks", things like the graffiti that you've mentioned right there. Take a listen to what the spokesman of the Israeli police had to say. We were in the command and control room which has cameras -- more than 300 cameras stationed around the old city which will all be working during the Pope's visit. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICKY ROSENFELD, ISRAELI POLICE SPOKESMAN: Our units are dealing with criminal incidents with nationalistic motives, price tags as they are known. The majority of incidents that have taken place over the last few weeks have been against Israeli Arabs. There have been one or two unfortunate incidents against churches.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: And the thing is that the Roman Catholic Church here has expressed concern, Carol, about the quote "unrestrained acts of vandalism that are poisoning the atmosphere ahead of Pope Francis' trip."

The remarkable thing is I met the Rabbi who is traveling with him. Rabbi Abraham Skorka and he said without question Pope Francis is a friend of the Jews -- Carol.

COSTELLO: It will be a very interesting trip. And I want to talk more about it. Ivan Watson, thanks to you.

Joining me now: Rabbi Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and Imam Mohamed Magid president of Islamic Society of North America. Welcome to you both.

YEHUDA KURTZER, PRESIDENT, SHALOM HARTMAN INSTITUTE OF NORTH AMERICA: Thank you.

MOHAMED MAGID PRESIDENT OF ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for being here. Dr. Kurtzer I want to start with you why is the Pope bringing guests? Why not go visit these places alone? Why is he stirring the pot, so to speak?

KURTZER: I'm actually not sure that the Pope is stirring the pot as much as trying to avoid controversy. He's framed this trip primarily as a religious pilgrimage and I think he's trying to send a message by bringing colleagues on an interfaith mission that this is still a holy land. That it's primarily historically been a holy land and that the mission of his trip is not to create political problems but to model a type of interfaith discourse and model the possibility of Jews, Christians and Muslims praying together and being hopeful together.

COSTELLO: And I hear -- I hear you Dr. Kurtzer but Imam Magid the Pope said the same thing. He said this holy land excursion is strictly religious. Earlier he had described it as a pilgrimage for prayer. But how can it not be political in this particular part of the world?

MAGID: I would like to -- to take another understanding of this mission is to raise the profile of the interfaith work to have religious leaders around the world model this example, build an example after this model of the Pope taking an imam and a rabbi with him to the Holy Land. I do believe that the Christianity and Islam and Judaism share the same roots of Abrahamic faith. And the Holy Land having to have Christians and Muslim and Jews living there for a long time together, it's about time to get the leaders of those three major religions to think about peace, to pray together for peace.

COSTELLO: That sounds so wonderful.

But Dr. Kurtzer, I know that the Pope is going for religious reasons. But he's also expected to call for a Palestinian state which has long been a Vatican policy. And that will surely upset some Israelis, won't it?

KURTZER: You know look, religion can't -- can't ever remain divorced from politics especially in the Middle East and I think part of the implicit message that the Pope is sending is that the negotiation process should take into account religious instabilities in a way that it hasn't in the past. It's often been portrayed as a secular national conflict and there are so many religious instabilities that there's a possibility of reconciliation through religion.

No doubt that whatever the Pope says with respect to the Palestinians will anger some Israelis even though I think there's a wide consensus among Israelis among people worldwide about the inevitability of a Palestinian state and the need for a much -- a much better reconciliation. There is no questions there's going to be moments along this trip that are going to be so heavily interpreted of the choices that he makes, the places that he visits, how he portrays who the victims are in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and the historical relationship between Jews and the church.

So you're right. There will be political traps but I agree with the Imam that I think what he's trying to do is to model the way in which religion can be a source of resolution to this conflict and not an indicator of the conflict all together.

COSTELLO: And Imam Magid, I want to -- I think the Pope is trying to demonstrate what the Dr. Kurtzer was describing. He's not going to travel in a protected vehicle, an armored vehicle down the streets of Jerusalem, let's say. He's going to try to be out amongst the people. And I'm sure that will kind of be concerning to security forces there. Do you think that's a good idea? What message does that send when the Pope does things like that?

MAGID: I think the message he tried to send that we have to create an environment of tolerance and understanding for everyone. No one should fear any kind of backlash of practicing being open about the religion. This is the Holy Land. Everyone should be able to practice freely their faith and I do believe that the freedom of religion is one of the most important principles the Pope will like convey here that everyone should have no fear to be able to be who they are and practice their religion freely.

COSTELLO: Thank you both for being with me today. I appreciate it. Imam Mohamed Magid and Dr. Rabbi Yehuda Kurtzer, Dr. Kurtzer. Thank you so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, outrage in Washington and beyond over the VA hospital scandal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: We didn't just let them down. We let them die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But as calls for Eric Shinseki to resign grow louder, is the real problem bigger than Shinseki? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Eric Shinseki speaking directly to veterans this morning via an open letter posted on the Veterans Affairs Web site. In it, the embattled secretary vows to get to the bottom of the hospital scandal that has rocked his agency. Shinseki writes in part quote, "You and your families deserve to have full faith in your V.A. and we intend to earn it every day." Shinseki goes on to say quote, "If any allegations under review are substantiated, we will act."

His letter comes as a new CBS News poll shows Americans are split on whether Shinseki should keep his job. 45 percent feel he should resign; that's compared to 31 percent who say Shinseki should remain in the Obama administration. But some of Washington's top lawmakers say the issue runs much deeper than one man.

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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: Some of this is the system and just changing people at the top may appear to represent change but it's the culture, it's the system, and it's the challenge that they face.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This isn't about one person. This isn't about the secretary. It's about the entire system underneath him. And the general can leave and we can wait around for months, they go through a nomination process and we get a new person but the disaster continues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Complicated situation. I want to bring in Tom Foreman to help us parse this out. Tom, the delays facing the V.A. patients have been disgraceful and dishonorable. You found the agency has tried to remedy some long standing issues so tell us about that.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, you hit the word right there, Carol -- long standing. There's no mistake about this. V.A. hospitals have been under fire for decades about substandard care, about crumbling facilities, about having all sorts of problems out there and red tape but since the 1990s real strides have been made to address these complaints so much so that some studies have shown that there have been some real improvements in some areas in the V.A. hospitals where they compare favorably to the other hospitals that we use.

For example, they've found that in general surgery and vascular surgery and cardio surgery, they generally compare pretty well with some other ones out there, Carol.

COSTELLO: So the main issue here really is the time it takes to get care as opposed to the quality of the care itself.

FOREMAN: Yes. This is the breaking point on this. What you have is these allegations particularly in Phoenix. The goal according to these whistle blowers was to get people in, in about 14 days to make this thing work but that was not happening even though the paperwork said that.

In reality some of these veterans were waiting six months, nine months, 21 months to get an appointment. We compared that with a study in recent years of what was happening in other normal hospitals that the rest of us use. In many places -- Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C. -- many regular procedures that many of us might need in a hospital, we can get in within a matter of days -- 9, 12, 15 days.

That's the problem. The vets are not getting that kind of access even if the care might be pretty good when they get there -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Tom Foreman thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, residents of Salinas, California are outraged over three deadly officer-involved shootings since March. The most recent killing caught on camera -- the victims' weapon, a pair of garden shoes.

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COSTELLO: The police chief of Salinas, California says he understands the anger over recent officer-involved shootings. His words are not enough to calm frustration that sparked protests this week, though -- residents accusing officers of brutality and racism.

Salinas police have fatally shot three people since March, the most recent shooting was Tuesday afternoon and it was captured on tape. I want to warn you this footage is disturbing.

Sorry -- you couldn't see much there but you heard it. Police say they opened fire after a suspect swung a pair of garden sheers at them. At a press conference the police chief revealed new surveillance video showing the shooting from a different angle.

CNN's Dan Simon is in San Francisco following this story. Good morning.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, there are really two separate stories here. There's the shooting itself and then there's the growing tension in that community between the white police officers and a largely Latino community.

Let's first talk about the shooting. When some people look at that, people in that community are looking at that video and they're saying, well, this is a suspect who doesn't seem to be posing a deadly threat to those police officers. That's their interpretation that he has his back turned to them.

But you know, when you hear the police chief, not surprisingly he has a different take. He points out that this is a suspect holding what he says is a very large weapon, a pair of garden shears. And according to the police chief before the shooting the suspect plants his foot and begins to pivot toward those police officers.

Here's what he said during that news conference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF KELLY MCMILLIN, SALINAS POLICE: It's a pretty common item. We see it all the time. It's a gardening implement but in the manner in which it is presented in front of the officers to the victim this clearly is a weapon and obviously a dangerous one with these. And in the way it's being manipulated. That tells the officer something about the intent of the suspect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: Well, people in that community, the Latino community, say it did not have to happen. They say this is a growing pattern with police officers in that community and they staged a very large protest following that shooting. During that protest there was actually another shooting where a man died. It wasn't a police shooting but when officers arrived some people in the crowd began throwing things at those officers hitting one officer in the head with a bottle.

That's what we're looking at in that community right now. The tension is really building. One community activist put it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLOS RAMOS, COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: There's a feeling of being marginalized and feeling of being discriminated against and a feeling of not counting and not being a human being. There's more that's done for a bear that's loose out in the wilderness that is now in the city than for a life that is walking along a street.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: Well, more protests are even planned this weekend. Things are not dying down. The police department says they are investigating this shooting and the two others and that they will forward the findings to both the FBI and the Department of Justice but Carol things really bubbling in this farming community in central California. Again another protest planned for this Sunday.

We'll send it back to you.

COSTELLO: Dan Simon reporting live from San Francisco this morning.

NEWSROOM continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. Let me say it one more time. CNN, Thursday, a new series from executive producers, Tom Hanks and Gary Gossman (ph), "THE SIXTIES: THE DECADE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD" -- the space race, the Cold War, free love, civil rights and so much more. The 1960s reshaped Americans' lives in ways that affect us today. Watch or set your DVR for "THE SIXTIES" -- premieres Thursday night 9:00 Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN.

Checking some top stories for you. Tennessee has figured a way around the lack of effective lethal injection drugs. Death row inmates can now be electrocuted. Republican Governor Bill Haslam signed a law that would allow Tennessee to electrocute prisoners at the state's discretion.

More jobs cut at Hewlett-Packard. The company has lost revenue for 11 straight quarters and after its latest earnings results came in below analyst expectation, Hewlett-Packard announce it will cut as many as 16,000 jobs worldwide. The company trimmed 344,000 jobs in a restructuring plan two years ago. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"@ THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" starts now.