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Soon: News Conference From Harris County, Texas; Alison Parker and Adam Ward; Remembering Adam Ward and Alison Parker; Trump Goes After Clinton's Top Aide; Chris Christie on Illegal Immigrants: "Let's Track Them"; Press Conference on Arrest in Killing of Texas Deputy; Mother, Sons Alive Thanks to Volunteers During Katrina. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired August 29, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:29:42] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. And we begin this hour with breaking news. We are just getting word that police in Texas have arrested a man they believe shot and killed a sheriff's deputy near Houston last night. This is the man they have been hunting and asking the public's help in identifying. Seen here captured on a gas station surveillance camera walking up behind Deputy Darren Goforth and shooting him multiple times. We are expecting a news conference from Harris County at the bottom of the hour, 5:30 p.m. Eastern here, we will carry that for you live as soon as it begins. Stay with us. More information on this tragedy straight ahead this hour.

I want to turn now to Roanoke, Virginia and a story that is continuing to capture the country's attention. The shooting death on live television of a reporter and her photographer. Alison Parker and Adam Ward. Their names emblazoned in the headlines, their faces, their smiles etched in our minds forever. And as we come on the air today, we are learning new details from police and investigators and hearing new calls for gun control. Before that, though, I want to pause and remember the most important thing in all of this, the two victims at the center of this story. Alison and Adam.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALISON PARKER, WDBJ-TV: I am a Virginia girl.

HARLOW (voice-over): She was a shining star.

PARKER: I wanted to go through a sleep study to see if my job impacts how I snooze. Adam and I work the same early morning shift but have completely different sleep schedules.

HARLOW: A 24-year-old reporter, colleagues say she never shied away from a story. Unfailingly positive, relentlessly hardworking.

ADAM WARD, WDBJ CAMERAMAN: Adam Ward, News 7 Sports.

HARLOW: And her 27-year-old photographer, Adam Ward.

PARKER: I have to bring him out. Adam, come out in front of the camera. He is the ugly stepmother and just looking absolutely gorgeous.

HARLOW: The pair beginning as interns at WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia.

PARKER: Hey, everyone, I'm Alison Parker, photojournalist Adam Ward and I are putting the final touches on our special report.

HARLOW: Parker was in a relationship with Chris Hurst, an anchor at the station.

CHRIS HURST, WDBJ ANCHOR: I lost the love of my life. And it was not slow but it was incredibly painful and it was immediate.

HARLOW: Ward was engaged to the morning show producer Melissa Ott. Wednesday was supposed to be her last day at work before moving to a new station. Instead, she watched her future husband get shot and killed.

SETH KOVAR, FORMER COLLEAGUE, CNN EMPLOYEE: The most horrific thing about this all is that she was in the control room and watched it happen live.

HARLOW: Enter Andy Parker.

ANDY PARKER, FATHER OF ALISON PARKER: I'm not saying let's take away guns. I'm just saying let's make it harder for people with mental issues.

HARLOW: Alison's father and a new call.

ANDY PARKER: There has to be a way to force politicians that are cowards and in the pockets of the NRA to come to grips and make sense -- have sensible laws so that crazy people can't get guns.

HARLOW: A murder captured on live television. A snapshot in time on social media that took our breath away. An evolution playing out before cameras and the country.

ANDY PARKER: It's been gut-wrenching for me to try and get through anything without breaking down in tears.

HARLOW: Of a father now trying to remember his daughter and her co- worker.

ANDY PARKER: Alison was a force of nature. And I think that her life is going to have meaning not just as a journalist but if we can affect meaningful changes in our gun laws here, you know, this senseless act, this senseless murder, will not go in vain. This stuff can't go away. You cannot let this die.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: We are also told that shooting victim Vicki Gardner is in good condition today, showing amazing strength, that is according to her family. Doctors say a few centimeters meant the difference for that bullet between life and death. Photojournalist Adam Ward touched so many lives. I was able to speak with one of his closest friends last hour, Andy May.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY MAY, FRIEND OF ADAM WARD: Well, Adam and I interned together in the sports department. It was just that smile and booming voice. We were both sort of wide-eyed and didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into. We both love sports and we wanted to be part of it and just from meeting him, you could just tell that he loved what he was doing. He loved sports. He loved Virginia tech. And he just wanted to enjoy his job and be able to do that.

HARLOW: What drove him? What did he love most?

MAY: I would say Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech and Virginia Tech. He was such a big hokie fan. We went to the media day as interns and both of us are just amazed, we're meeting the head coaches and at one point we had to look over and tell Adam you might want to pick your chin up off the floor there because he's just staring at all of them just in amazement.

HARLOW: You know, when I see pictures of him started coming out obviously on Wednesday, in every single one I think what struck me so much is this magnetic smile. Every single picture. In one of them he's like, he has a huge piece of pizza coming into his mouth with this big camera. What was it about him that was so magnetic?

[17:05:12] MAY: I think it was just his love and he was a happy person. Like you always hear about, you see these people that they're the nicest people you have ever met, the happiest --

HARLOW: Right.

MAY: -- and he showed that every single day. You would hear him and he had that booming voice and he would make jokes, he would check on you and every time anybody who came into the station, he wanted to know how you were doing. He wanted to say oh, how are you doing, Andy, did you have a good night last night, how's work going. He was just one of those people that was so concerned with everybody else's well-being that it was just good to have him around.

HARLOW: He was engaged to Marry Melissa Ott, the morning show producer there. They were, as I understand it, deeply in love. Can you tell me a little bit about the two of them?

MAY: He's just, seeing them was just happy. Like I have never really seen people that are that happy together. They just enjoyed each other's company. And that's the way he talked about her. I saw when they got engaged, and just seeing like the faces in the engagement picture, he had his goofy smile as he was down on one knee and her face was just like pure joy seeing that. It's just so happy seeing somebody like to be able to share that happy moment together.

HARLOW: I don't know if you can answer this but I'll ask. What do you think he would say to everyone today? What would he want people to hear from him? MAY: I think he just wants -- he would just want everybody to be

proud and keep doing what we're doing, and to just enjoy life and bring everybody the news and bring everybody sports and not worry about him. He's good. He's in a good place. And for us, we need to just honor him and just continue doing our work and show the passion that he had.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Absolutely. My thanks to Andy for joining me.

Coming up next, another man who knew Adam Ward very well from a very young age. His eighth grade teacher joins me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:10:15] HARLOW: We have learned a lot about Alison Parker from her family and friends this past few days. She was ambitious, loved life, touched every person she encountered. Her close friend and photographer, Adam Ward, is someone who people say was truly happy and made others incredibly happy. He was 27 years old when he was shot and killed this week. He was newly engaged.

Forest Jones joins me now, he was Adam's eighth grade geography teacher. Thank you for being with me.

FOREST JONES, ADAM WARD'S HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: What do you remember about him most?

JONES: I remember that smile. I remember that gregarious fun-loving personality he had. I remember him being the person that everybody wanted to talk to. He was the one that lit up a room and he was one of those kids that you just don't forget. I tell people all the time, I was lucky to have Adam as a student. He wasn't lucky to have me. I was lucky to have him in my class. And I was lucky enough to be taught by Adam's father, Buddy Ward, in seventh grade. It just kind of came full circle when I taught Adam in eighth grade. It was pretty neat.

HARLOW: What is it that made him so special? Because the way his friend, you know, spoke of him in the last hour with me is that he was, you know, you say everyone's happy and makes other people happy, but he truly embodied that. What made him so special?

JONES: You know, I believe it came from his family. I think he was the epitome of a southern gentleman. I believe that he followed the ethics and values that his parents taught him and he lived those. He lived those in middle school. He lived those in high school, college and on to his job at the news station. I think that's why you see so many people just really sad about his, you know, not being here anymore, because he was just that type of person.

HARLOW: He was engaged to be married to the morning show producer at the station, Melissa Ott. I mean, there's this amazing picture of him proposing to her and her, look at her, just lit up completely. The beginning of another chapter in their lives together. Did you know them at all as a couple?

JONES: I did not know them as a couple, Poppy, but I did know that from his dad that Adam was extremely excited to get engaged. His dad was a substitute at our school this past year so I would talk to his dad, you know, quite frequently. And he always told me that Adam was so excited for his engagement with the young lady and that it's just a shame that, you know, what has happened because I know that he was really, really looking forward to that. His dad was so proud of that.

HARLOW: You knew him so well, you knew his family so well. His father, you spoke to often, it sounds like. What do you think the family, what do you think Adam would want people to carry on in his memory, in his legacy?

JONES: You know, two things. I sent Mr. Ward a text Wednesday night just telling him hey, I'm thinking about you. The family's going through a rough time. And that's to be expected. And they value their privacy. They are so thankful I think for, you know, thoughts and prayers going in their direction and in terms of Adam, you know, I think he wants to be remembered for his dedication, his hard work. One of the things our school's doing, we are doing an Adam Ward photojournalism award starting next year because we want to keep his memory alive. We want to keep his name out there and we are never going to forget Adam. We will going to make sure that we remember him in the right way.

HARLOW: And Forest, how can people help? Are there ways people can make donations towards that? Anything that people can do in his name?

JONES: It is not -- it's going to be picked by our photojournalism teacher and it's going to be, you know, looking at students who show the characteristics Adam had. Hard work, dedication, being good to people and just being a good person. Adam was all about relationships. He was one of those people that loved being around people and loved helping people.

HARLOW: Yes. And that unparalleled smile of his that will forever --

JONES: Yes. That smile. Yes.

HARLOW: -- imprinted in our memories.

JONES: Definitely. No doubt.

HARLOW: Forest Jones, thank you very much for sharing this with us.

JONES: Thank you, Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. Quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:18:34] HARLOW: Tributes are pouring in for the two young journalists gunned down on live television this week. Just outside the gates of WDBJ-Television, a memorial to Alison Parker and Adam Ward is growing by the day. CNN's Polo Sandoval takes us there.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Really, the last three days we've seen people come and go, so many of them strangers that didn't even know these two young journalists show up to walk over this line of bushes. In fact, these flowers just placed here only seconds ago. And they are able to come here and show their support. And now what we're seeing here is a virtual sea of it. What stands out are the Mylar balloons, the flowers, letters that are specifically addressed to Adam and Alison. One of the most recent additions though which I thought was something to show you here, this picture. It's a photograph of Alison and Adam, you see them there in a sports car, both of them thumbs up.

Obviously a sign of their personalities. And I think that this tells a lot of the story here. Working in the news business we often spend more time with the people that we work with as opposed to our families. And so clearly, these two young journalists that led very short but very accomplished lives had a very strong professional bond and that's very evident here. I'll tell you what. Because mostly all of these letters, the notes on the balloons are addressed not just to Alison, not just to Adam but to both of them because they worked as a team for a long time. And I think that that's what we're seeing.

One of the reasons why this has hit so hard in this community too is because we often get our local news from out of towners. This is a very transient business. People come and go from different television regions, different markets. What's different here is that Alison and Adam are from here. They have deep roots here. They are from this community. They planned to marry here. And this isn't the only memorial. You see one off in the distance just beyond the police patrol unit that's been here, a constant reminder of that security concern and there is also one that is now set up in place about 45 minutes from here which is the site of that terrible shooting.

HARLOW: Polo Sandoval, thank you very much. We are hoping to keep their memory alive. I do want to let you know. We are waiting a news conference out of Texas. Police near Houston now say they have a man in custody, a man that they believe is responsible for the brutal execution style killing of a sheriff's deputy last night. We will bring you that live as soon as it begins.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:24:04] HARLOW: Donald Trump is changing the way campaigns are run and he is also changing the way that candidates talk. Last night, he went after Hillary Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin and her former husband -- and her husband, former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner who resigned over that sexting scandal. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Who is Huma married to? One of the great sleazebags of our time. Anthony Weiner. Did you know that? She's married to Anthony Weiner. You know the little bing, bing, bing. I love you very much. So, think of it. So Huma is getting classified secrets, she's married to Anthony Weiner, who is a perv. No, he is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Former republican Congressional Candidate Lenny McAllister and democratic strategist Chris Kofinis are with me. Thank you both for being here. I do want to note guys that the Clinton campaign quickly disputed Trump's claims, right? About Huma Abedin that she might ever misuse classified information. They came out, they tweeted this. There is no place for patently false personal attacks against a staff member. He should be ashamed of himself. So some people say they can't believe things Trump says but he keeps climbing in the polls and now other candidates are starting to take off their filters. I want you to take a listen to Senator Lindsey Graham earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Come to South Carolina and I will beat his brains out. I know my state. This is a silly season in politics. He is shallow, he is ill-prepared to be commander-in-chief. He doesn't know what he's talking about in terms of how our laws work. He says the worst things possible about immigrants and women and he is a complete idiot when it comes to Mideast policy. So I think over time, common sense will prevail. He's a showman. He's really good at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Lenny, to you first, you are a republican. These kind of words, Lindsey Graham saying, I will beat his brains out, is this what you want to hear from your party's contenders?

LENNY MCALLISTER, RADIO HOST, "GET RIGHT WITH LENNY MCALLISTER": No. I think America needs statesmanship. America needs somebody that's going to be level-headed and it's going to be inspiring. One of the things that we have seen in politics over the last several years is the fact that we oftentimes find a way to elect the loudest person with the largest amount of money. And that's not necessarily leadership. That allows you to be in the top of the polls, it allows you to have accessibility but America needs results and inspiring leadership right now. And as long as it's silly season, we don't have to worry about that. We better hope that this fades away and we get that inspiration, we get that leadership moxie before it's too late for 2016.

HARLOW: Chris, let's talk about your fellow democrat, Hillary Clinton. This week she compared some Republicans to terrorists on the abortion issue. Got some folks up at arms. I want to read you the quote. Here's the quote. "Now extreme views about women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups, we expect that from people who don't want to live in the modern world but it's a little hard to take that from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States. Yet they espouse out of date, out of touch policies. They are dead wrong for 21st Century America." Is she taking a page from Trump rhetoric or is it overblown? CHRIS KOFINIS, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, JOHN EDWARDS 2008: I

think it's a little overblown. I don't think you can compare what Lindsey Graham says or Hillary Clinton says. I mean, Donald Trump is a prize in and of himself. I mean, he is purposely going out there trying to tap this angry chord within the Republican Party and he's done it pretty well. The danger, I think, for the Republican Party is he doesn't seem to be going away. In fact, every time he says something more outrageous he seems to gain support. And at some point, you know, when we're talking about this in August, that's one thing.

But we're talking about this in January, then there's a real problem. Because the republican primary system is different than the democratic system. He can win. I know this is crazy it sounds to some people, he can win the nomination and at that point, I think all bets are off for the Republican Party. I don't see how he is a serious contender because listen, at the end of the day the American people will stomach a lot. They will not stomach an angry, unstable candidate. They are not going to do that.

HARLOW: Right. Let me ask you both about this, something that Chris Christie said today, touching on the topic of illegal immigration in a town hall in New Hampshire. Here's his solution. He compares tracking immigrants to tracking FedEx packages. Listen.

I can't hear anything.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- at any moment FedEx can tell you where that package is. It's on the truck. It's at the station. It's on the airplane. It's back in another station. It's back at the truck. It's at our doorstep. She just signs for it. Yet we let people come to this country with visas and the minute they come in, we lose track of them.

So, here's what I'm going to do as president. I will ask Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, come work for the government for three months. Just come for three months, immigration and customs enforcement, and show these people because guess what, the 11 million people who are here illegally, 40 percent of them didn't come in over the southern border. Forty percent of them came in legally with a visa and overstayed their visa. We need to have a system that tracks you from the moment you come in and then when your time is up, whether it's three months or six months or nine months or 12 months, however long your visa is, then we go get you and tap you on the shoulder and say excuse me, thanks for coming, time to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:29:56] HARLOW: To you both. Lenny, first, your reaction to that?

MCALLISTER: He has a valid point with that optics. And unfortunately, Republicans, we do this way too often. We may have a valid point that we're trying to articulate but when you start comparing people to packages, you start comparing people looking for a better way of life to something that you may have ordered on Stub Hub, that becomes problematic from an optics standpoint.

Now, Governor Christie does have a point. We have to be able to track people when we go and put them through the visa system. We have to be able to know how long they're here, where they are, and move forward from there, especially when it comes to national sovereignty issues, when you start looking at the threat of ISIS and al Qaeda, people coming from overseas, coming back to the West and trying to stay here and cause us harm. In that regard, he has an extremely valid point, but the comparison to Fed Ex packages, bad optics.

HARLOW: Chris, do you agree?

CHRIS KOFINIS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, what do you say? Chris Christie's clearly, this is what's happening. Trump is gaining all this momentum and now the Republicans are struggling to try to outdo Trump in the most outrageous, ridiculous rhetoric.

What Chris Christie is saying is not only Orwellian, it's idiotic. The notion that somehow you will track people who come here, you couldn't imagine something worse for business or tourism. It's not going to happen. This is, I think, the problem. The American people right now want people who are going to propose real solutions to solve serious problems. If we are going to be silly, if we are going to propose ridiculous ideas, that's fine, maybe, to win the nomination, but I'm not sure how that will help Republicans win the general election.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: When people keep saying "silly time." Is there really any silly time when you are talking about running for leading the free world?

KOFINIS: I think it is. Here's what's happened.

(CROSSTALK)

KOFINIS: Wait a second. What's happened here, you have Donald Trump setting the tone, setting the tone for the Republican primary. When you have someone who literally has come out of nowhere to get 30-plus percent in some of these polls, and you have all the supposed front- runners crumbling, it is going to ratchet up the rhetoric and extreme solutions. It's not acceptable. I don't agree with it. But it's a reflection of the politics dominating the Republican Party.

MCALLISTER: Hold on, Chris. Let's pivot back to what we were talking about --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Guys --

MCALLISTER: -- with what Governor Christie said. Let's be honest, we have to be able to track people that come into this country --

(CROSSTALK) HARLOW: I'm very sorry to interrupt. I'm very sorry to interrupt. I have to get to this live press conference about the sheriff's deputy murdered last night. I apologize.

Lenny McAllister, Chris, thank you both very much.

KOFINIS: Thank you.

HARLOW: In this hour's breaking news, police near Houston, Texas, now have a man in custody, a man they believe is responsible for the execution style-murder of a sheriff's deputy.

I want to listen in.

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: The authorities looking, we're looking for this man, the man they believe they now have in custody. The image of him was captured on surveillance video last night as he walked up to Deputy Darren Goforth and shot him multiple times and then fled the scene in a red Ford pickup truck. That's the image caught on surveillance tape. Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth was 47 years old. He is survived by his wife and two children.

As we await the beginning of this press conference -- actually it's beginning now. Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: I will be reading a brief statement and then members of -- you can ask a few questions. There's a lot of things that, at this time, are still fluid and dynamic. Some questions we'll be able to answer, others we will not be able to answer. We ask that you bear that in mind when you ask your questions.

Sheriff Ron Hickman.

RON HICKMAN, SHERIFF, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Sorry to keep calling you back here, but I felt it's important to keep you apprised of an ongoing investigation.

I would first like to thank the deputies and investigators who have worked diligently through the night to seek justice on behalf of Deputy Goforth. Their efforts are evidence of their professionalism and diligence exhibited every day by the dedicated professionals of the Harris County Sheriff's Office. I would also like to thank the collective law enforcement and greater Harris County community for their support.

With encouragement, cooperation and prayers behind us, we have identified the suspect responsible for the senseless and cowardly act. We continue to evaluate the mountain of evidence collected by investigators and are actively interviewing witnesses that may have additional knowledge of the incident.

I'm proud of the men and women who worked swiftly to apprehend the responsible person who posed a significant threat to both the law enforcement and community at large. Our deputies returned to the streets tonight to hold a delicate peace that was shattered last evening. Likewise, I ask you to hold the members of the Harris County Sheriff's Office, our brothers and sisters-in-law enforcement, and Deputy Goforth's family in your thoughts and prayers this evening.

Today, the district attorney's office has accepted capital murder charges on Shannon J. Miles, a black male, 9-15-84. I would like to extend my personal thanks to the District Attorney Devin Anderson and her staff who never left our side throughout the course of this investigation. Miles is in the custody of the Harris County Sheriff's Office. He does have a previous criminal history that includes charges for resisting arrest, trespass, evading detention and disorderly conduct with a firearm.

Questions?

[17:35:37] UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Spell the name for us?

HICKMAN: Shannon, S-H-A-N-N-O-N, middle initial "J," last name Miles.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HICKMAN: We have not been able to extract any details as far regarding a motive so far. As afar as we know, Deputy Goforth had no previous contact with the suspect. It appears at the outset to be clearly unprovoked.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is this the man who was in your custody at 2:30 this morning?

HICKMAN: He is the man who has been with us all night.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: All right. Then why were you asking for the public's help if you had this man in custody? It sounded this morning like you needed the public's help because you had nobody in custody.

(CROSSTALK)

HICKMAN: We always want to make sure we have left no stone unturned because people who were at the scene, we had not talked to yet can have additional details to help solidify our case.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I want to go back to motive. Are you still, investigators and prosecutors, still going through this with the assumption the fact the deputy is simply a deputy?

HICKMAN: At this moment, as of this morning, our assumption is he was a target because he wore a uniform. At this moment, we found no other motive or indication that it was anything other than that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Have the two ever interacted before?

HICKMAN: Not that we are aware of.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HICKMAN: I really couldn't tell you. The investigators continue to talk with him.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Was he turned in by his mother? Did you find out about him from his mother?

HICKMAN: No. No. Through routine research methods, we located the vehicle and the residents close in proximity to the location where the incident occurred.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is his mother giving you an alibi? This, Mr. Miles, is his mother saying that he could not have done this because he was with her last night?

HICKMAN: I have seen statements such as that made in the news, but I wasn't the one that talked to her so I couldn't speculate what her conversation was.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HICKMAN: Not that I'm aware of. Of course, I'm sure other people have greater details. As you can imagine, at the top our responsibility is making sure we manage the overall investigation, apply proper resources. There are people that deal with much greater detail.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Has the suspect mentioned any of these other high-profile shootings?

HICKMAN: Not that I'm aware of.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you talk about what led to the suspect?

HICKMAN: As I mentioned, our routine research, looking for that particular vehicle type by area, and we follow license plates to addresses, check the addresses and so forth. Just routine research.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HICKMAN: Yes, just routine research.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is this the same gentleman (INAUDIBLE)?

HICKMAN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What does this arrest mean to your deputies?

HICKMAN: Well, and not just to our deputies but the community as a whole. All of the family members of the Harris County Sheriff's Office, our local law enforcement partners, as well as our state and federal, came together and were proud that we were able to resolve this in a timely manner, to answer the questions about an ongoing threat to the community and to the law enforcement community. So I think it gives us some peace knowing that this individual's no longer at large and that he wasn't somebody that would be targeting the rest of the community.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is there anything at all that you can tell us --

(CROSSTALK)

HICKMAN: I really can't. I've not had any dialogue with the investigators who are talking to him.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Has the gun been recovered?

HICKMAN: The weapon was recovered. Ballistics test indicate it was a match.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What kind of gun?

HICKMAN: A big gun.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A hand gun?

HICKMAN: Hand gun.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Was there somebody over the scene, over Deputy Goforth at the time he was shot, indicating that she knew him? There was a witness report that says there was a woman who said yes, I know him, he has two children?

HICKMAN: I don't know anything about a conversation regarding that individual. The video does show a woman who reacted immediately and was near his body. But there was no sound so I don't have any indication of what conversation took place.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did he live right near the area? Was this woman who might have known him maybe a neighbor?

[17:40:00] HICKMAN: I don't think he lived near the area. But he was a frequent -- attendance at that facility there. It's a gas location, guys get coffee there. He hung out there.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The D.A. said earlier today, you indicated (INAUDIBLE) over some previous police shootings nationally had something to do with this, may have played into this?

HICKMAN: Well, I think that's something we have to keep an eye on. The temper, the general climate of the kind of rhetoric can be influential on people that do things like this. We are still searching to find out if that's actually a motive. We will continue to research that in the days going forward. Certainly as we collapse around our family and make sure that the Goforth family is properly supported, they will get most of our attention in the coming days.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION) --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Has he confessed? Has he confessed? UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: On

Monday, we will try to put out more information about the suspect -- the defendant, excuse me, not suspect now. Mug shot, current mug shot, again, information that wasn't released as far as the arraignment, when that will be. You will have all that on Monday.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He is being held?

UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: He is in the Harris County jail.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you think he acted alone --

UNIDENTIFIED OFFICER, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Once again, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- or with anybody else?

HICKMAN: Please remember, this is less than 24 hours old. So a lot of the questions that you're asking will be answered in the days to come.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You are not looking for anybody else?

HICKMAN: Not at this time.

All right. Thank you.

HARLOW: All right. You just heard a press conference wrapping up there held by Sheriff Ron Hickman of Harris County, Texas, the department that lost their sheriff's deputy last night, murdered in cold blood, execution style at a gas station.

Just to recap for you some of what we know. We have learned the name of the suspect now in custody on capital murder charges. Shannon J. Miles is his name. Police have not been able to identify a motive at this time. They are not searching for anyone else potentially connected. You see the suspect there, who has been detained by authorities there, a close-up picture of him. Again, Shannon J. Miles. They were able to track him by his vehicle, a red truck. They found it located close to the murder scene. They are not aware -- they were asked by the press, they are not aware of the suspect mentioning any other high-profile police shootings as a potential motive. Again, no motive yet but an absolute tragedy.

Joining me on the phone, Cedric Alexander, CNN law enforcement analyst, is with me.

Talk to me about these capital murder charges.

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (voice-over): Well, in this state of Texas, obviously, they have capital murder. This was just an outright assassination, Poppy. Our hearts and prayers go out to that deputy's family and his policing community in which he served. This was reckless, it was cowardly, it should not have happened, and our police officers, such as this deputy and those across this country, are out doing a tremendous job protecting us all, and the attack on him was an attack actually on every citizen in that community. So capital murder is probably going to be very appropriate. Obviously, that's the thoughts of the D.A. at this time. And we are just going to continue to support the police officers in that community and across this country, because his loss of life is just very sad for all of us.

HARLOW: It absolutely is.

His name, Officer Goforth, survived -- only 47 years old, survived by his wife and two children. As you heard the sheriff there saying his officers back on patrol tonight bringing delicate peace that was shattered last night.

Deputy Darren Goforth, we will remember you. Thank you for your service.

I'm going to take a quick break. On the other side, an extraordinary story. 10 years to the day Hurricane Katrina, a city flooded, but a people resilient. Next, you will hear the amazing story of a mother and her twin sons, alive thanks to the resilience of volunteers.

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[17:47:25] HARLOW: Tonight, in New Orleans, a celebration of resilience will mark the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastating landfall. Former President Bill Clinton will be among the dignitaries celebrating the city's rise from rubble.

Katrina unleashed a staggering loss of life. More than 1800 people died as a direct result of the storm. Thousands of residents escaped with their lives but they lost everything else.

The hurricane also gave new life to perhaps the most vulnerable embryos which were stuck in a flooded fertility clinic. Emergency workers sprung into action, changing the lives of this grateful family.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREA WILL, MOTHER: Gosh. Those seven years that we -- man, it was bad. We cried and prayed and cried and I was angry and I didn't know why. Why. They said nothing's wrong with you guys. There's no reason why you can't have babies.

HARLOW (voice-over): Andrea Will and her husband tried everything to get pregnant but nothing worked, nothing until an experimental in vitro fertilization process that yielded two boys. Another two embryos were still frozen in a fertility clinic in New Orleans. Then, Katrina struck.

WILL: When the hurricane came through, we lost all power, we lost phone. I had no clue what was happening anywhere else except where we were. It just hit me. Oh, my gosh, my babies. They are in the same predicament as all these people sitting at the superdome that we're seeing on TV. HARLOW: Andrea frantically called the clinic. No one answered. But

before the storm, the canisters containing her embryos and 1200 others were moved to the second floor. Now the building was flooding and without power. But a rescue mission was under way.

LT. CARL LEWIS, ILLINOIS CONSERVATION POLICE: I was a sergeant with the Illinois Conservation Police. We put together a task force and offered services to Louisiana for whatever they were in need of. They told us that we have doctors and a couple nurses that we need to transport out there to get into the flooded hospital and we need to try and recover these canisters that had frozen embryos in them.

The amount of liquid nitrogen that was keeping them frozen is quickly depleting in the heat and we need to get them to a facility and get them back into cold storage.

When we got to the hospital, we got to the canisters, the doctors basically looked down and said OK, they haven't been breached, they're secure. So we carried them down the stairs, out through the flood waters, loaded them in our boats.

And it starts to hit you, we just didn't come up here and pick up canisters. We came here and picked up lives. This is 1200 potential children.

In our tour of being down there, we'd seen a lot of destruction. Now we've given back. We've given now life, new hope to those families that thought their hope was deteriorated when Katrina hit.

[17:50:37] HARLOW: The rescue was on September 11, 2005. In December of the following year, Andrea Will had twin boys, Ben and Sam, the first of the recovered embryos brought to full term.

WILL: I just thank the people that rescued our children. I would introduce them as Sam and Ben and I would tell them, thank you for believing that these embryos were people, because I know not everybody believes that but they are. Those are babies. I would say, look what you did. My children are alive today because you did that. I would hug their neck and I'd probably cry. I would just thank them.

LOUIS FOGLIA, CNN MONEY PRODUCER: I would just thank them and tell them they are the heroes most definitely for doing that. Do you have a reaction to that?

LEWIS: Yeah. Excuse me. That makes it -- it's amazing to think how much we impacted them.

FOGLIA: Sam and Ben.

LEWIS: That is awesome. That is fantastic.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: It is incredible stories like this that you rarely hear after a tragedy like Katrina.

CNN Money producer, Louis Foglia, spent a lot of time in New Orleans and Mississippi to tell this story.

Thank you for being with me.

Absolutely.

HARLOW: It is remarkable reporting and brings tears to all of our eyes. You shot that. Tell me about tracking down this family.

FOGLIA: So, there were some media reports about the embryo rescue and the first children brought to term were these twins but they weren't identified by name. They were just identified as children of John and Andrea from Petal, Mississippi.

HARLOW: That's it?

FOGLIA: That's it.

HARLOW: That's all you had to go on?

FOGLIA: Yeah. I got out the phone book. There's a lot of Johns in Petal, Mississippi. There were fewer Andreas. I went to the first Andrea's house. It wasn't her. She thought I was crazy. I was walking back to my car and she called me back, and she was the president of the PTA and she was the nurse, so she had a lot of connections with the media. So she started making phone calls on me behalf. And about an hour and 45 minutes later, she connected with the grandmother of the twins who put me in touch with the right Andrea.

HARLOW: It's amazing to see them in that tank, rescued in that boat, and then to see them there. It's truly miraculous.

The time you spent down there was on a special project with a legendary photographer, Mary Ellen Mark. I'm going to pull up some of these photographs while we talk so people can see the images she captured while there. This is photographer who lost her life a month after you returned from this project. But she's able to capture the human spirit unlike anyone else. What was that like for you?

FOGLIA: She's a legend, and was a very intense photojournalist, had a high standard for herself, and held us to a high standard as well. Just the way she saw the world and connected with her subjects, I think you can see the empathy she developed with them in this photograph. She died in the middle of the project. We were intended to go back to do another two weeks of photography but in between those travel periods, she passed away.

HARLOW: What are the images telling us? What does she want to leave us with about the people of New Orleans 10 years later, because, yes, they are resilient and recovered from the storm, but there's many problems plaguing the people of New Orleans still?

FOGLIA: Absolutely. One of the photos we saw was of a special-needs child. Education in New Orleans has come back very strongly. It's very improved since before Katrina. But a lot of parents of special- needs children feel they have been left behind. These we see images from the Lower Ninth Ward, which is still without the majority of its pre-Katrina population. There's a lot of success stories but there's a lot of people still struggling. I think Mary Ellen was just concerned about the honesty of each photograph.

[17:55:21] HARLOW: To you, Louis, returning from your personal journey, what touched you most?

FOGLIA: Mary Ellen was 75 years old when she was down there with us. She was working from 6:00 a.m. until 9:00 at night every night. She was completely focused and just cared about the work, and she died four weeks later. I think, just as a journalist, sort of leading by example of how much she cared in doing what she loved to the very end, in difficult circumstances. And to do it in this environment, it was really emotional.

HARLOW: That last photo, that's a picture of Mary Ellen Mark with her husband.

FOGLIA: Martin Bell. Martin Bell was on the trip with us. They've been collaborators since they were married in the '80s. He's a documentary film maker, a very well respected one. He was really her artistic confidant.

(CROSSTALK)

FOGLIA: Yeah, absolutely. And --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Louis, thank you. Amazing work. Amazing work.

Much more of that at CNN money.com/Katrina. Don't miss that.

Thank you so much for being with me tonight. That will do it for me. Don't miss the CNN special, "Katrina: The Storm that Never Stopped." That's 7:00 p.m. eastern right here on CNN.

I'm Poppy Harlow.

"Smerconish" begins after a quick break.

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