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Former Trooper Investigated for Uvalde School Massacre Response Fired from New Job After CNN Report; California Family Kidnapped at Gunpoint Found Dead; Airline Passengers Arriving from Uganda Will Be Routed to Select U.S. Airports for Ebola Screening; Closing Arguments Now Underway in Alex Jones Trial; Poll: 55 percent Think Children & Teens Can't Get Mental Health Help. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired October 06, 2022 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:32:35]
ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Just into CNN, we've learned an officer who was hired to protect students after being criticized for her actions, or lack of action, during the Uvalde Elementary massacre, has now been fired.
CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is here. And this firing comes after his reporting on this officer.
Shimon, you have been digging into what this officer was doing the day and during the shooting itself, and what you revealed is just stunning. And now she's fired.
SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Now she's fired. We're getting word from the school district that they have terminated her.
They say they terminated her after our report surfaced last night. We did a story about her last night on Anderson Cooper's show. And following that report, they say they have fired her.
It's interesting what they're using as the reason so far in this statement for why they're firing her.
But keep in mind, she was one of the first officers, law enforcement officials on scene on the day of the shooting. She's been criticized for not taking action. She's been criticized for not having the proper gear.
And so that is why she was under investigation.
But it is what our story last night that revealed to school officials, bodycam footage captured -- what the bodycam footage captured her saying they say is the reason in part why they fired her.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: My son's in daycare. He's not old enough.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: I saw you --
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Yes. No. No, if my son had been in there, I would not have been outside. I promise you that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PROKUPECZ: And so they say that information, certainly, the school says in a statement that they are distressed by the information, they are apologizing to the community, the families, which are so upset over this.
They say that that audio is not consistent certainly with any of what they're doing there at the school.
But I've also uncovered even more information. We're now getting records from the Department of Public Safety.
Which indicates that the school knew as early as August 1st -- this is several days after she was first placed under this investigation by the Department of Public Safety -- that the school was notified as early as August 1st that she was under investigation.
What happened was she applied for a job at the school to be a police officer. And as part of that process the background check, the lieutenant at the school who was doing this background check, Lieutenant Miguel Hernandez, he asked the DPS, provide us with some background on this.
[13:35:02]
And so DPS sent a letter. I have the letter.
CABRERA: Saying she's under investigation.
PROKUPECZ: It said she's under investigation. And they knew this on August 1st. She resigns from the Department of Public Safety around August 17th or so. She sends in her resignation letter.
On August 29th was her first day. We don't know exactly what day she started as part of the school police.
But what is significant now, we know that the school, at least according to these records that were released by the Department of Public Safety that they knew, that they knew before they hired her that she was under investigation.
CABRERA: And you would think they'd be extra, extra careful and meticulous about who they put in those positions of responsibility to protect children, especially after what happened in Uvalde.
PROKUPECZ: There's no excuse for this. We don't have an excuse anyway from the school as to why they still went ahead and hired her, knowing that she was under investigation.
We don't know what other due diligence they did here, what other vetting they did here.
But it seems --
(CROSSTALK)
CABRERA: You did the vetting. And it was available. The information was available.
PROKUPECZ: And this is just --
(CROSSTALK)
CABRERA: They wanted access to it.
PROKUPECZ: The other thing, Ana, is for the families to have to relive this every time some new development comes.
They've been asking these questions. They've been wanting to know who this officer was and the school has been refusing to release any information about her.
And now word today after our report, after we discovered certainly these disturbing comments and other information about her, she's been terminated from the school police.
CABRERA: Thank you for staying on this story. It's a service to that community and to all of us, of course.
Thank you.
All right. A tragic update now. A California family of four abducted at gunpoint in broad daylight, hands zip tied behind their backs, have all been found dead. And that includes the youngest victim, an 8- month-old girl.
The child, her parents and her uncle were found in an orchard by a farm worker.
CNN's Natasha Chen joins us now.
Natasha, authorities detained a suspect in this case yesterday. Have we learned anything yet about a possible motive?
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the sheriff says his investigators are still figuring out that motive.
It was a bit difficult to actually speak to the person in custody for a while because they had said that prior to law enforcement involvement that man had tried to take his own life and so he was initially sedated.
But it sounds like they are now able to speak to him. And what they're learning is angering the sheriff quite a bit. He said he is keeping those details close to the vest.
But here's the sheriff talking about his reaction to what they're learning in this case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VERN WARNKE, SHERIFF, MERCED COUNTY, CA, POLICE DEPARTMENT: There's no words right now to describe the anger I feel and the senselessness of this incident. I said it earlier, there's a special place in hell for this guy. And I mean it.
I'm just livid inside because this was completely, totally senseless. We have a whole family wiped out. And for what? We don't know yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHEN: Livid, he says, especially because we're talking about an 8- month-old baby girl who was killed in this family.
And he did say, too, that becomes one of the victims' ATM cards was used in a bank transaction, and because of the suspect's history, the sheriff does suspect that money could be playing a part in the motive here. Of course, all of that still developing.
I just want to point out, back to the surveillance video that you showed briefly at the top, because the surveillance that we saw just points to how intense those moments must have been.
If you see the man bringing out two of the victims there in the back. Now this woman with the baby. The two men were zip tied, hands behind the back.
There's the man there dropping a trash bag. And then later, as he's following up the ramp there, takes out what seems to be a firearm.
Right now, the sheriff has not shared how the four people died. But he said they were found relatively close together.
Family members spoke yesterday at a press conference, extremely emotional, pleading for help, saying that they were dying every minute, not getting any clues.
And of course, yesterday, early evening, they got their answer, and it is not the one they hoped for -- Ana?
CABRERA: OK. Thank you, Natasha Chen, for that report.
[13:39:20]
Just in, the U.S. is now diverting certain flights arriving from Africa to screen passengers for Ebola. Details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CABRERA: Just into CNN, starting tomorrow, all airline passengers arriving from Uganda here in the U.S. will be routed to select airports nationwide for enhanced screening in response to an Ebola outbreak.
CNN's Jacqueline Howard joins us now.
Jacqueline, remind our viewers what Ebola is. And explain why the U.S. is taking these extra precautions right now.
JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Ana, the U.S. is taking these extra precautions, but I will say the CDC just released a health advisory saying that there are no suspected, probable or confirmed Ebola cases here in the United States.
But they're watching this closely. And the reason why is the Ebola virus species causing the outbreak in Uganda is the Sudan species. And this is one where we don't have a vaccine and we don't have approved treatments.
[13:45:08]
But I will tell you that a representative with the World Health Organization just said earlier today that he's positive we can get this outbreak under control.
Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. YONAS TEGEGN WOLDEMARIAM, WHO REPRESENTATIVE TO UGANDA: More and more assets, systems being input, and I'm positive that we could control this in reasonably good time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD: So we heard there, Ana, that is reassuring to hear.
And what I will tell you about Ebola virus, when someone has Ebola disease, the symptoms include fever, sore throat. But the key symptom is unexplained bleeding. And that's a key sign of Ebola.
So I can tell you, Ana, this is something the CDC is monitoring very closely.
CABRERA: And again, just to emphasize, no cases of Ebola in the U.S. right now. They're taking these extra precautions.
Thank you very much, Jacqueline Howard.
Closing arguments are now under way in the Alex Jones trial. A judge has already ruled the right-wing conspiracy theorist is liable for peddling the lie that the slaughter of children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary was a hoax.
Now jurors will have to decide the damages and how much to award eight families who have described the cruel threats and harassment from followers of Jones and his "Info Wars" show.
CNN's Jean Casarez joins us now. What are jurors hearing in these closing arguments, Jean?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're in lunch right now. They're going to start up again 2:00 Eastern time.
But the plaintiffs' attorney was very organized structurally in his closing argument. He began with by saying, starting from the beginning, that Alex Jones was building an empire, that he admitted in a deposition, by the age of 24 years old, that he had millions of followers.
Also showing organizational charts. This was not a "fly by night" organization. This was a business model. It was a structure.
And the purpose, according to the plaintiffs' closing argument, was to show and get followers that a global tyrannical government purpose was to enslave and ultimately kill its people.
He said that, as the amount of people and the followers kept going -- and remember, he had his Web sites, he had his radio show, but there were feelers out to all these social media sites -- that Alex Jones, according to the plaintiffs' attorney, was ready to pounce.
And then when Sandy Hook happened in December 2012, within hours, he was on the air about Sandy Hook not being real.
And it showed that the page views in December 2012, just the page views, were 25 million. And by January, one month later, they went up to almost 36 million.
Plaintiffs' attorney brought it to last week, a radio show that Alex Jones had done. He showed the clip to the jury.
Alex Jones says, "I apologize for nothing. I am under attack because I exposed this."
Listen to the plaintiffs' summary of that clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS MATTEI, PLAINTIFFS' ATTORNEY: He's signaling to everybody he is going to do this again. He enjoys it.
Think about the callousness that's required, the cruelty that's required to say something like that. They've had the most intimate, private parts of their lives, explaining to you what they've been through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: And why would you do this? The plaintiffs' attorney says money, profit. Millions upon millions of dollars. At one point, $800,000 a day he was accumulating because of the sale of products, magazines and other entities.
The defense said to the jury, arguing, follow the law, equal justice under the law. You can't blame Alex Jones for everything these families went through, through other people. He's not responsible for everything.
CABRERA: But hearing from those families throughout the course of this trial, too.
CASAREZ: And they were right there in the gallery listening to every bit of the closing arguments. They're there now.
CABRERA: All right, Jean Casarez, thank you.
We'll bring you a verdict when that happens.
[13:49:26]
We'll be right back.
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CABRERA: Depression, self-harm, alcohol and drug abuse, all of these are the increasing parental concerns about the mental health of kids today, identified in a new CNN and Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
And perhaps even more concerning, more half of those polled, 55 percent, say kids can't get the help they need.
CNN senor medial correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, joins us now.
Elizabeth what else did the survey reveal?
DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, this survey revealed some real concerns about mental health for teens and children. Many of them sort of COVID-related.
But in this day and age, many are feeling worried about their children and other people's children, as well.
Let's look at the findings. So 17 percent of parents -- there were 500 parents in the survey -- 17 percent said COVID had a major negative impact on their children's mental health.
When you look at all 2,000 adults, some parents and some nonparents, half of them, said they were worried about teens and alcohol and drug abuse. More than 40 percent very worried about depression. About a third of them very worried for teens about self-harm.
[13:55:05]
So lots of concerns about mental health -- Ana?
CABRERA: Why can't people get help?
COHEN: Yes. That's really the problem, as you pointed out, was the first statistic.
When they asked parents, if you're concerned about your child and your wanted your child to get mental health services or medication, what stood in your way?
And 20 percent of them said what stood in the way was the cost. They couldn't afford it.
Another 20 percent say they were too busy or couldn't get time off work to get the care they needed. And about 20 percent said they were afraid or embarrassed to seek care.
That's a lot. All of those are such big chunks.
Obviously, things need to be done to take the stigma away from mental health and to make it affordable for everyone -- Ana?
CABRERA: Raising awareness is obviously the first step. But there needs to be some kind of resolution or solution to it.
Thank you, Elizabeth Cohen.
That does it for us today. I appreciate you being with us. See you back here tomorrow, same time and place. Until then, join me on Twitter, @AnaCabrera.
The news continues with Alisyn and Victor right after this.
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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.
President Biden is in Poughkeepsie, New York, at this hour, touring an IBM facility.
