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Death Toll from the Astroworld Tragedy Stands at Nine; Vicious Beatings, Days Without Food as Poland-Belarus Crisis Deepens; Iowa Businesses Caught in the Middle of Vaccine Mandate Fight. Aired 9:30- 10a ET

Aired November 12, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:31:16]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: In just a few hours, civil rights attorney Ben Crump says that he will file more than 100 additional lawsuits. This in connection with the deadly Astroworld Music Festival. Those lawsuits on top of the dozens already filed in Harris County District Court.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: We are also learning new details this morning about a ninth victim who passed away from injuries she sustained at that concert.

CNN correspondent Rosa Flores is following all of these developments.

Rosa, Bharti Shahani, and it is, I have to say, listening to her parents, was nothing short of heartbreaking.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is absolutely heartbreaking. Bharti Shahani was 22 years old. She attended Texas A&M University. And that night she was there at the concert with her sister and her cousin. And her parents, her family described the desperation they felt that night, a week ago tonight, because they couldn't find their daughter. They couldn't find their loved one. And now they learned that they have lost what they call the glue that bonded their family together. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARISHMA SHAHANI, MOTHER OF ASTROWORLD VICTIM BHARTI SHAHANI: What happened to my (INAUDIBLE)? I want my baby back, you know. I won't be able to live without her. It's like -- it's impossible. You know what I'm saying? I'm empty here.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now this mom and her sister, her cousin, describe Shahani as selfless, that she thought about everybody else before thinking about herself and she also wanted to donate her organs, so her family is going to honor that as well.

Bharti Shahani is now the ninth victim in the Astroworld festival tragedy. There are so many others who were either injured or traumatized and then, of course, there is the little boy who is still fighting for his life. He's 9 years old, his family says that he goes by E.B. and according to his grandfather, he has damage to many of his organs and he's in a medically induced coma.

Now the boy's father spoke to CNN affiliate KTRK and his father explains that this was supposed to be a beautiful moment to bond with his son. They were going to this concert together, he says that at the beginning of the night everything was fine, the people around him helped him get E.B. on his shoulders so that they could watch and enjoy this concert but the dad describes that as soon as Travis Scott started playing, the mood changed.

He said that he couldn't breathe. He started screaming that he couldn't breathe and he says that he remembers people around him saying that they couldn't breathe.

Erica and Jim, we know what happened after, the dad passed out, the little boy fell and now he's still fighting for his life.

SCIUTTO: And when I see the parents, my heart breaks.

Rosa Flores, thanks so much for bringing us those stories.

So joining me now to talk about the investigation into all this is the Houston fire chief -- I said police chief earlier -- Fire Chief Samuel Pena.

Chief Pena, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

CHIEF SAMUEL PENA, HOUSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT: Jim, thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: So, first of all, the "Houston Chronicle" as you may know is reporting this morning that officials knew before the crowd turned deadly that there was a problem. Can you confirm this and do you know at what point that happened?

PENA: Well, Jim, look, today marks day seven since that tragic event. And the Houston Police Department, who is the lead agency investigating this incident is sifting through hundreds of documents and video and audio to try to verify information.

[09:35:07]

And I think that it's important for us to get to the bottom of this, and after we verify all the information, to figure out who knew what, who did what, and who said what and at what time. Because this is going to be investigated internally. I think the family demand accountability and answers. We demand accountability and answers. And we need to ensure that we give the process time to work itself out, to ensure we have the correct information, the correct timeline where we can verify and reconcile all the information that is being put out there in the media.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Understand. And I know it's early in the investigation. One key question is whether the severity of the situation was communicated to the performer Travis Scott, the promoter, as it was happening. Travis Scott's lawyer said this morning on ABC that his client absolutely did not get notified about the mass casualty declaration.

Do you know if that's true? Do you know when or if it was communicated to the performer and others, hey, stop the concert, something is going on here?

PENA: Right, well, so, again, we have to get down to the core and the bottom of this thing because we don't know when he was notified, if he was notified and to what degree. All of this is speculation at this point. Again, I think it would be inappropriate for us to say this is exactly what happened without the investigation being completed. But --

SCIUTTO: I understand that. And I don't want you to get ahead of where the investigation stands certainly but are there protocols to have that line of communication open, right, so that if something happens, you can get to the performer and the promoter quickly so that they can respond? I mean, is there a set way of doing this kind of thing?

PENA: Absolutely. Look, the emergency operation plan, which was developed by the producers of this program, they've been doing this a long time. This is not new to them. So the process is to establish -- they've outlined what's supposed to communicate at what point and to what level in that emergency operations plan. So, yes, you know, again, they have been putting on concerts for a long time. And so we have to determine whether the process that was established and was written was followed.

SCIUTTO: Yes. No question. According also to "the Houston Chronicle," at 9:30 p.m., a female officer was heard over the radio, we don't have the audio, but I do have a quote from the audio, saying, "I'm at the medical tent, there is a lot of people trampled and they're passed out at the front stage." The "Chronicle" reporting at least that her callout prompted the fire department to self-dispatch first responders.

I wonder if that officer's quick thinking might have saved lives given how quickly that warning came.

PENA: Right, well, look, we know that we had a presence there, the Houston Fire Department, that was outside the established emergency operations plans. We were leaning forward, we're monitoring communications. We had an operations center located in the footprint, away from the venue. And we were in constant communication with police department monitoring those communications.

Again, I think that the quick actions of everybody involved there, you know, once this issue became to the point where it was overwhelming the medical staff in the venue may have saved lives.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Final question, and again, to be fair, I know that there are still a lot of questions to be answered as the investigation continues. Have you as you look at this and other authorities learned something and said this is something we have to do better next time, so we don't see this happen again? PENA: Jim, absolutely. Look, this venue is unique in that it's a

county facility, it's a county sanctioned event, but it resides within the city of Houston. And in the past we have not -- depending on what the program is going to be, we haven't been involved, we the city of Houston and the Houston Fire Department, the police department, involved in the planning from the onset of these events.

That needs to change because we need to have a seat at the table, from the beginning, to understand what the plan is, and what our responsibilities will be in escalating in case things go wrong. But we cannot -- I mean, after the fact essentially fly with no situational awareness, into these large events. I'm just speaking in general. So that's the change and we also need to look -- to see if these open general admission, standing room only events are appropriate.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PENA: And how -- what we can do to make those safer.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It's a good -- as I was watching that, I was thinking, would it have been different, right, if there were seats, rows, et cetera.

Well, Fire Chief Pena, we know you've got a lot of broken hearts from mothers and fathers to handle here. We wish you best of luck as you investigate this.

PENA: Thank you, Jim.

[09:40:03]

HILL: Just ahead, tensions rising on the Poland-Belarus border as thousands of migrants are left stranded, hungry, in freezing temperatures. We're going to take you there live.

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HILL: Right now there is a catastrophic scene playing out at the border between Belarus and Poland. Thousands of people stranded there and they are now at the center of an intensifying geopolitical dispute with hopes of traveling into deeper parts of Europe.

[09:45:04]

SCIUTTO: Yes. There are a lot of politics behind this Russia, Belarus involved, not happening by accident. Officials say there have been at least 223 illegal attempts to cross the border. New details are emerging of inhumane conditions that immigrants are enduring while trying to move across that border including vicious beatings, going without food or water for days.

CNN's Matthew Chance, he's live, he's right on the border there.

Matthew, tell us what you're seeing and tell us crucially what's behind this. MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, I

mean, Jim, in terms of what I'm seeing, I mean, we've got some extraordinary scenes. And let me just stand up a moment, you can get a sense of the sort of -- the scope of the refugee camp, the migrant camp that sprung up here on the Belarusian border. 2,000 people here at least according to the Belarusian authorities. 200 of them children, 600 women, the rest of them men, mainly from my experience, speaking to them from Iraqi Kurdistan and from other regions of the Arab world and elsewhere as well.

It's right what you say, I mean the Polish border is right here behind me. There is some -- you might see behind the razor wire. You can see some Polish border forces up there, trying to prevent people from coming across and they are desperate to come across. Now the majority, well, the people who are here, you know, were essentially -- I'm going to sit down here. They're essentially encouraged around the campfire with a bunch of people from Iraqi Kurdistan.

They were encouraged by the Belarusian authorities to move into Belarus, to come to the capital Minsk. They were then -- and that's been happening over the past several weeks, thousands of migrants have been directed in that way by Belarus as an attempt to put pressure on the European Union, perhaps to punish the European Union for its sanctions against Belarus for its various crackdown on opposition figures.

There is concern about the action of the Poles as well. But I didn't want to put across any sense in which this is not something that is being driven by the Belarusian regime in its bid to punish the E.U. -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Matthew, good to have that context there. A pressure tactic and a brutal one particularly for the migrants involved and great to have Matthew right there on the border. Difficult conditions.

Still ahead this hour, if you are fired in Iowa for refusing to get the vaccine, you may not qualify for unemployment benefits. Why businesses are getting caught in the middle of this.

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[09:52:03]

SCIUTTO: A new law in Iowa puts businesses right in the middle of conflicting federal and state vaccination mandates. The governor, who you may remember previously criticized unemployment benefits during the pandemic, is now granting them to unvaccinated workers who have lost their jobs.

HILL: As CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich reports, businesses are growing increasingly weary since they are now the ones footing the bill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In rural Iowa, Spurgeon Manor is the only eldercare facility in Dallas center. Its existence and the staff that work here are critical for the town's aging population.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love being here. You know that.

YURKEVICH: But now two new rules, one federal and one state, are making this vital job more complicated.

MAUREEN CAHILL, ADMINISTRATOR, SPURGEON MANOR: We really are caught in the middle.

YURKEVICH: At health care facilities like this one, new federal guidelines require all staff to be fully vaccinated by January 4th except for those with approved medical or religious exemptions.

CAHILL: We're 83 percent vaccinated but there's still 18 of my employees who are not vaccinated and I cannot afford to lose one.

YURKEVICH (on-camera): If they don't get vaccinated by the deadline, are they fired?

CAHILL: Unless I can find an acceptable accommodation for them, then they can't work with the residents.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): And late last month, Governor Kim Reynolds, who supported ending pandemic unemployment benefits early, signed a new law, granting benefits to fired employees who choose not to get vaccinated. Normally, fired employees are not eligible.

(On-camera): What is the burden that it places on you?

CAHILL: It's higher fees for insurance, and so that makes our burden harder to provide cares for our residents.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): Businesses exclusively fund state unemployment through a payroll tax. With this new state law, they'll pay even more for fired employees.

DENISE HILL, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, EMPLOYMENT LAW, DRAKE UNIVERSITY: And they don't have a choice in the matter. The state has answered a mandate with another mandate that is only putting business owners in between.

YURKEVICH: The family-owned farm manufacturing company Sukup has 700 employees. About 50 percent are vaccinated in line with local county rates, the company said, navigating a federal rule and state law as one more hurdle in a challenging year.

(On-camera): Supply chain issues, labor shortages, and now this. What does that feel like?

CHARLES SUKUP, BOARD CHAIRMAN, SUKUP: Oh, it's just a one, two, three punch on things.

YURKEVICH (voice-over): Board chairman Charles Sukup says he wishes vaccine mandates were left to the companies themselves.

SUKUP: Every business is being put between a rock and a hard place, between a mandate that's one size fits all, and then you have state rules and regulations that are trying to protect individual rights as well, and businesses in general are getting caught in the squeeze.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[09:55:07]

YURKEVICH: Many businesses, including Sukup, that farming company who you just heard from there, can opt to test their employees weekly if they choose not to get vaccinated.

But the question is, Jim and Erica, who picks up that bill for the testing? Is it the federal government? Is it the state? Is it the businesses themselves? It's creating a lot of confusion, and it could place more financial burden on the businesses themselves -- guys.

HILL: Yes. And that is a major concern. Great reporting, Vanessa. Thank you.

Just ahead, newly released audio this morning of former President Trump defending the threats made by the January 6th Capitol insurrectionists to hang Mike Pence. We have live team coverage next.

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