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Oklahoma Passes Strictest Abortion Bill; Azovstal Troops Ordered to Stop; First Funeral in Buffalo Massacre; Deputy Charged in Gas Station Explosion. Aired 9:30-10a

Aired May 20, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Restrictive abortion bill, even more than others you've heard.

The bill would ban abortions not at six weeks or 15 weeks but from the moment of fertilization.

CNN's Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue is with me for more on this.

I mean we have a flood of these now, right, of laws and sort of getting more and more restrictive. I mean does this pass Supreme Court muster?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Well, several months ago you would think not, right?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

DE VOGUE: We've seen six weeks, 12 weeks, 15 weeks. This is the near total ban. And there are exceptions for rape or incest, but only if those incidents had been reported to law enforcement, right? So, on the face of it you would think that this is unconstitutional. But two things go in its favor, right? Texas had a law written very much -- or has a law written very much like that. And they're unusual laws because they allow anybody to bring a civil suit against anyone who's helping someone get an abortion. The Supreme Court allowed that law to go into effect. In Texas, abortion is a near standstill, right. And now Oklahoma copied it but made it much more strict.

And, on top of that, Jim, you know we have that draft Roe v. Wade opinion that came out, where you saw Justice Alito saying he's got five justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. If that opinion becomes the final opinion, if it holds, then by early summer, Roe v. Wade would be overturned and you'd see laws like this, of course, multiple.

SCIUTTO: Because the logic would be, leave it to the states.

Does this have the same feature that the Texas law had? In other words, it's not the state.

DE VOGUE: Yes. SCIUTTO: So it's individuals who would then sue, right?

DE VOGUE: Yes. And not only that, but Oklahoma has other laws in the works too, to really go at it, as do states because about half the states have laws in effect or would pass them very quickly that would ban abortions. So that's the state of play and that's why this is the most strict one going forward.

SCIUTTO: It's an enormous change that may be coming to this country.

DE VOGUE: Big change.

SCIUTTO: Ariane de Vogue, thanks so much.

Well, Oklahoma lawmakers are also sending legislation to the governor's desk today that would require students at public schools and public charter schools to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match the sex listed on their birth certificates. Transgender students who refuse would have to use a single occupancy restroom or changing room provided by the school. And school districts that fail to comply would have a portion of their state funding cut, could be sued by parents. The ACLU says the bill targets transgender people for discrimination.

Still ahead, a Ukrainian commander now ordering soldiers trapped in Mariupol to stop defending the city and leave. Some are staying. We're live in the region coming up.

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[09:37:21]

SCIUTTO: This morning, the commander of the Azov regimen, which has been holed up in tunnels and bunkers for weeks below the Azovstal steel plant, now says the top Ukrainian military leadership has ordered his troops to stop defending the plant and the city of Mariupol. It comes as Russia is claiming that now nearly 2,000 soldiers have surrendered at that plant with an uncertain fate.

CNN's Melissa Bell is live in Kyiv.

And we're hearing -- well, let's start with what we're hearing behind you, Melissa. Tell us what's going on there.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, these sirens go off fairly regularly. And when we hear them here in the center of Kyiv, it covers a fairly wide region. We don't know exactly what part is being hit, but they have been extremely regular and perhaps more frequent over the course of the last few days because we've seen an intensity -- a growing intensity of some parts of the country coming under shelling.

So (INAUDIBLE) down by the Russian border, an hour and a half from here, Dezna (ph), for instance, was the site of several missile strikes. Just a couple of nights ago, many civilians were killed there. Even though it's in a big military base, there were also -- we're understanding in a nearby village -- some casualties as well. But there has been this increase in the shelling of some parts of the

country, and specifically, Jim, those parts that are really the focus of Russian firepower, manpower, the concentration of what it is that they're trying to take at this stage. And I'm speaking here of that front line that is to the west and north of Luhansk, that is to the north of Donetsk, essentially suggesting that Russian forces are trying to push their way into the totality of those regions from what is -- what are their strongholds at the moment.

And, of course, that is important because of what's been happening in Mariupol.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BELL: Essentially, this is a city that has now, as you mentioned a moment ago, fallen to Russian forces, officially, since we've been hearing from inside that Azovstal steel plant where the last bastion of resistance was holding out, and specifically the commander of the last fighters inside Azovstal saying that they were announcing a full surrender and urging their men to give themselves up. It's been an extraordinary story.

And just to add a word on the families that have been waiting to hear about the fate of their loved ones, it is now 2,000 soldiers that have been evacuated. In and of itself, that is a larger figure than anything we've known about Azovstal I think until we started to get the figures of the evacuees from the Russian side. That is a lot of them already.

We know now also and, again, from that message from the commander that there were many more fighters still left inside.

[09:40:04]

We understand that there are also many casualties. None of the families of these Ukrainian soldiers that have been fighting in that last readout of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol know whether their loved ones are amongst the evacuees and now prisoners of war in the hands of the Russian, among the dead, Jim, or indeed amongst those who will try and stay inside or will be evacuated -- or have been inside and will now be evacuated.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BELL: Just very briefly. One of the last ones to go, the man who's been bringing us these extraordinarily poignant images from inside the Azovstal steel plant. He now, too, announcing that he's surrendering.

SCIUTTO: So, what's their future?

BELL: For now what we know is that they're in the hands of Russian forces. The understanding had been here in Kyiv, as they were evacuated, that a fairly straightforward exchange of prisoners of war would happen. That does not appear to be the case at this stage.

What we have been hearing on the contrary is that they are being held, the ones evacuated so far, in a pretrial detention center. And what we're hearing from the Russian side is that some of these men will be facing interrogation, possible trials, to try and figure out whether they are, again, in the words of the Russian officials holding them, guilty of any crimes against the Ukrainian Russian-speaking people of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BELL: So -- an straightforward exchange of prisoners is still the subject of a negotiation, but it is looking at this stage, Jim, far from certain.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And it seems like the Ukrainians and the Russians were on different pages in terms of what had been agreed to.

Melissa Bell in Kyiv, thanks so much.

CNN has now learned that President Biden will sign the $40 billion aid package for Ukraine while he is on his visit to South Korea. The Senate passed the bill yesterday. Now a printed copy will be flown to President Biden. Eleven Republican senators voted against the package. All Democrats voted in favor, along with several Republicans.

Still ahead, a Florida deputy is facing charges after firing a Taser that set a suspect on fire. You're going to see the alarming video coming up.

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[09:46:36]

SCIUTTO: A 911 dispatcher in Buffalo, New York, is now on administrative leave following what's being described as completely inappropriate response to an emergency call placed right in the middle of that racist shooting that left ten people dead at a grocery store.

Listen to that that caller told CNN's Don Lemon last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LATISHA ROGERS, CALLED 911 WHITE TRAPPED IN BUFFALO STORE DURING MASSACRE: I said, ma'am, please send help. I gave her the address. And I said, please send help, there's a person in the store shooting. And she proceeded to say to me, what, I can't hear you. Why are you whispering? You don't have to whisper. They can't hear you. So I said, ma'am, he's still in the store, he's still shooting. And around this time he's literally still shooting in the background. And I can hear him, like, you can hear the shooting coming back to the front. So, out of nervousness, I dropped my phone, but it was in front of me. So, the phone never hung up, and -- because I didn't have it to my ear, I couldn't hear what she was saying. And she said something and then she hung up the phone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Remarkable. Right in the middle of the shooting. CNN's Brian Todd joins us now live from Buffalo.

Brian, today is the first funeral of ten of the victims. Tell us -- tell us what happens now in this community as it just struggles with such a tragedy.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, they're really just trying to get their minds around this still. You know, people here dealing with loss. We talked to a lot of relatives, we've talked to friends of these victims. And, you know, they just -- they still just can't wrap their minds around this.

I recently spoke to a lady named Geneva Smith-Johnson. She runs a fashion and tailor shop not far from here. She's a really kind of integral member of the community. She knew five of the ten victims who died. Three of them were her customers. One she went to church with and one she used to work with.

I spoke to her about her sense of loss of those five people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENEVA SMITH-JOHNSON, KNEW FIVE VICTIMS OF BUFFALO SHOOTING: I was at a celebration for one of the members of our church. She had turned 100 years old. And we were having a dinner party for her. And that's when the names start coming in as to who the victims was.

It's like a nightmare and you hope you're going to wake up and it's not true.

They were kind -- kind people. They were loving people. Active in the community, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And the funeral for one of her friends, Deacon Hayward Patterson, he was the deacon of a local church here, that funeral is scheduled to take place in just a couple of hours, Jim. That's the first funeral of the 10 victims. The others will start again tomorrow.

Also, just quickly, we've learned that -- some disturbing new details about this gunman's attack plans. We do know now that at least 15 people joined this private chat that he set up on the app Discord starting 30 minutes before the attack. He invited a select few people to view what he posted in that chat room, which were his attack plans, essentially. And we now know from a source with knowledge of the Discord investigation that at least 15 people joined that chat and viewed his attack plans, which included everything that he had planned for the past six months, including his surveillance of this store. And that -- in that chat, they also were offered a link to that horrible live stream that he did as he was conducting this massacre.

[09:50:01]

So, some disturbing new detail, and it just keeps coming seemingly with every day. SCIUTTO: I mean there's a legal question there. Did they have a legal

duty to report that then given they seem to have advanced knowledge of what was going to happen.

Brian Todd in Buffalo, thanks so much.

Now to Florida where a suspect was burned on more than 75 percent of his body after an arrest. It happened earlier this year when deputies tried to arrest 26-year-old Jean Barreto at a gas station after a police chase. Investigators say the deputy his taser near some spilled gas, which then ignited an explosion. Now, both that deputy and the suspect are facing charges.

CNN's Carlos Suarez joins us now.

Carlos, the suspect's defense team is saying police had the wrong man to begin with. So, what happens now?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is part of their defense.

So, Jim, good morning.

These charges come nearly three months after that encounter at a gas station outside of Orlando. And this morning, a state attorney will determine just what happens next.

The surveillance video was released by the Osceola County Sheriff's Office and it shows the moment that that 26-year-old caught fire during an arrest.

Now, according to authorities out there, this was all the result of that deputy that used his Taser after knocking over the 26-year-old, along with the dirt bike that he was filling up at that gas station. It's a move that the sheriff out there said was, quote, egregious.

Now, that 26-year-old has been identified as Jean Barretto. He remains in a hospital after undergoing surgery for burns to nearly most of his body. He was wanted for riding his dirt bike recklessly. And because he matched a description of a rider that was with another group that had brandished a weapon, it is important to note here that the sheriff said a weapon was never found on him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK NEJAME, JEAN BARRETO'S ATTORNEY: Who flees and illudes and stops for gas along the way, particularly when they're only one mile away from their residence? It was clear he went to get gas before he went home. That's what's logical. That's what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SUAREZ: All right. So, the deputy has been identified as David Crawford. He is being charged with a misdemeanor, culpable negligence. Barretto is also facing a number of charged, including trying to resist an officer without violence.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Carlos Suarez, thanks so much.

Title 42 just days from ending. That's prompting concerns among already overwhelmed border towns. We're going to take you to one bracing for the end of that pandemic-era policy coming up.

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[09:57:10]

SCIUTTO: Officials are now preparing for a potential surge of migrants at the southern border next week when a pandemic-era restriction ends. At 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Title 42 is set to be lifted. This ends the policy that allowed authorities to turn away migrants due to the pandemic here. Officials worry a massive influx will put extra strain on an already overwhelmed authorities in border towns.

CNN reporter Priscilla Alvarez is near the U.S./Mexico border in Texas.

Priscilla, just how are they preparing for Monday? I mean do they have enough resources there?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN REPORTER: Well, Jim, as you know, border communities have seen the ebbs and flows of migration for years, but there's added urgency and concern because of the lifting of this Trump-era pandemic restriction known as Title 42. And I spoke with Mayor Javier Villalobos about how his city is preparing. And he said that he is nervous that they will be overwhelmed and a strain on their city resources and he warned about the preparations that the Biden administration is taking and whether that's going to be enough.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JAVIER VILLALOBOS (R), MCALLEN, TEXAS: I have confidence in the preparations. I don't think it will succeed. I think we really need a -- and we always talk about it, a comprehensive immigration policies. They need to sit down in Washington. And I'm saying this now, I don't even want them here any more to come take pictures. I don't care about the president being here or a photo-op with the vice president or anybody. I want them to be in Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now, the mayor has taken preparations here in the city of McAllen. They are prepared should there be an influx of migrants when this lifts.

But as he mentioned, there is also discord in Washington, D.C., among Republicans and Democrats who have criticized the administration for wanting to end this authority. Remember, in April, the CDC said that this authority was no longer necessary given access to vaccines and treatments for Covid-19. But they gave DHS until May 23rd. And that day is just around the corner. Now, we are waiting for a judge to rule on whether the administration can continue with its plans or whether he is going to block the administration from ending this authority. The Justice Department, this week, asking the judge to rule sooner rather than later so that they can prepare.

SCIUTTO: Just quickly, does the DHS have enough officers, resources down there for this?

ALVAREZ: I asked that to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week. He said for months they have been preparing with capacity, personnel, working with other agencies and local authorities. But it all depends on what they see when this ends.

SCIUTTO: Priscilla Alvarez at the border. We know you'll be watching next week closely as well.

A very good Friday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

[10:00:00]

This hour, President Biden is in South Korea beginning the first leg of his first Asia trip as president.