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Nelia Rodriquez is Interviewed about Eunice Dwumfour's Death; Appeals Court Ruling on Restraining Orders and Guns; Tracking Counterfeit Fentanyl-Laced Pills; Missing Dallas Zoo Monkeys Found. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 03, 2023 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:32:12]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: A New Jersey community is mourning the loss of a city councilwoman who was shot and killed in her car near her home. Thirty-year-old Republican Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour was killed Wednesday night. Authorities have not named any suspects or released a motive. But New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy says this does appear to be politically motivated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): I almost hesitate to say this because I don't know this, but there's no evidence that it was accidental. It feels very specific.

It does not appear to be related to her position as an elected councilwoman in Sayreville. Again, please, God, it doesn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: And there you heard the governor say that he doesn't believe that it is politically motivated.

Right now I'm joined by Nelia Rodriguez, who served on the Sayreville, New Jersey, Human Relations Commission with Eunice.

Thank you so much for joining us, Nelia. We are so sorry for your loss.

How long have you known Eunice?

NELIA RODRIGUEZ, FRIEND OF EUNICE DWUMFOUR, THE NEW JERSEY COUNCILWOMAN WHO WAS SHOT TO DEATH IN HER CAR: I've been knowing Eunice since 2017. She joined the HRC because her sister Faith brought her in and she was in right after her sister. And I've been knowing her since 2017.

GOLODRYGA: Can you tell us a little bit more about her. One of her colleagues described her as the embodiment of the American dream, with roots in Ghana. She ultimately served her first term on the Sayreville borough council. Tell us more about her. RODRIGUEZ: She was a beautiful person. I -- this is why it's so

devastating to know what happened to her. She was very motivated, very positive. A woman that you will want to have her around your children and talk to them because everything to her was nothing negative. A very strong woman of faith and very caring, loving person where her smile was contagious. She always told you to drive and just be strong and never give up.

And that's the kind of woman that you want to have around everybody because she gives you that motivation. Even when you felt down, she was still motivating you to just keep going.

GOLODRYGA: And just at the peak of her life. She was the mother of a young girl and just recently married a few months ago.

I know that you saw her earlier in the day that she was ultimately killed. You saw her at the grocery store. Do you have any reason to believe that she was under threat by anybody, that anyone would want to harm her?

RODRIGUEZ: She didn't seem, when I saw her, under any threat at that moment. I mean, she was very happy, very bubbly. She came to me. She spoke to me. And the last words I remember her saying was, you know, God bless you, pastor. And I said to her, I'll see you at the HRC meeting tomorrow. God bless you. She gave me a hug and.

GOLODRYGA: And that was it. That was the last time you saw your friend.

[09:35:01]

Have you heard anything more?

RODRIGUEZ: (INAUDIBLE).

GOLODRYGA: I know this is a really difficult -

RODRIGUEZ: I haven't heard anything more. I haven't heard anything more. I just hope that justice be served for her because she didn't deserve to die the way she did.

GOLODRYGA: And you've spoken with investigators I would imagine as well having seen her that day.

RODRIGUEZ: No, I haven't spoken to any investigators. My husband happens to be a detective for Sayreville. So, I try not to get into the middle of that just because of conflict of interest.

GOLODRYGA: And so where do things stand now in terms of the investigation to your knowledge?

RODRIGUEZ: All they're doing is just trying to find leads to find the killer. They're still trying to search cameras and try to search the area and see if they could find something that could lead them to her killer.

GOLODRYGA: How is her daughter doing right now? How's her husband doing?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, her husband is not in the United States. He is in Nigeria. She got married in November. And she was trying to bring him here. So, we're not sure how he's doing. We haven't spoken to him or anything like that. I'm sure he's devastated that he just got married and now he's no longer with his wife.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

RODRIGUEZ: His (ph) daughter, I can only imagine, she has to be devastated. And that's her mom and she's only, I believe, 11 years old. Her father, I know he's devastated. I've seen how he's reacting. But everybody's devastated about the whole situation, how horrific it was for this to happen.

GOLODRYGA: Well, it's a tragic loss for the community, I know for you as well with your friend. And she sounded like an incredible woman. We are so sorry, Neila Rodriguez, for your loss. Thank you so much for joining us.

RODRIGUEZ: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: An appeals court has ruled the federal law preventing people who pose a domestic violence threat from having guns is unconstitutional. It is just the latest decision to dismantle gun restrictions in the United States. The Justice Department has signaled that it plans to appeal which could set up another showdown over gun rights at the Supreme Court.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Estimates from the Brady campaign show that a woman is killed every 16 hours by an intimate partner with a firearm.

CNN's Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue joins us now with more.

Ariane, I wonder if you could tell us about the Justice Department's response, and I'm curious what happens to this as it goes to the Supreme Court, if it does.

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Yes. Well, this was, in fact, a very conservative federal appeals court that was made more conservative by President Donald Trump's nominees. And as you said, it validated this law that blocked a person who's under a restraining order for domestic violence from possessing a firearm.

But here's what's critical is that this appeals court decision was rooted in a Supreme Court decision from last spring, a landmark decision, where the Supreme Court changed the framework that lower courts are going to use going forward when they look at laws. The Supreme Court said in that big opinion that from now on judges have to look at whether the law fit into what the Supreme Court called a historical tradition in the U.S. And so this appeals court looked at this law and it said that the government hadn't convinced the court that this law fit into that tradition. So, they invalidated it.

And Attorney General Merrick Garland was really quick last night to release a statement, a lengthy statement. He said he'd appeal. But he also said this, nearly 30 years ago, Congress determined that a person who was subject to a court order that restrains him or her from threatening an intimate partner or child cannot lawfully possess a firearm. Whether analyzed through the lens of the Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional.

So now Garland has said he's going to appeal. He can go back to the Fifth Circuit, to a larger panel of judges, but that court is so conservative he might have better luck going straight back to the Supreme Court.

And of course this all comes, as you said, as numbers for domestic violence and gun violence in general are skyrocketing and it puts the Supreme Court in a little bit of a quandary because usually when they issue a landmark opinion, they want it to percolate for a few years so that the lower courts can really digest it. But that particular opinion has caused so much confusion in the lower courts in this case and others that it just might force the justices' hands to step in again sooner than they thought they would have to.

SCIUTTO: So, wait, just so I understand this, they're saying -- the court is saying, because the founders did not have domestic violence on their radar screen as it relates to firearms, you can't pass a law today that addresses that issue?

DE VOGUE: Yes, they said, look, this might be terrific policy, but it does not fit into this new framework that the Supreme Court set out.

[09:40:04]

So, that's where they are right now. And they're going to have to take it up again most likely.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Real questions about what this means about red flag laws, right, which have become all the rage.

Ariane de Vogue, thanks so much.

DE VOGUE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, CNN is getting rare access inside a secret DEA lab as that agency tries to stay ahead of the opioid crisis, made even worse by the rise of the incredibly potent and often deadly fentanyl.

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DEENA LOUDON, SON MATTHEW DIED FROM FENTANYL: I don't say he overdosed. I say he died from fentanyl poisoning. Truthfully, like, at the end of the day, to me, he was murdered.

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[09:45:01] GOLODRYGA: One pill can kill. That's the Drug Enforcement Agency's warning as the number of counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl skyrockets.

SCIUTTO: They are so deadly. The DEA took CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta inside a secret forensics lab whose mission is to fight the opioid threat as that epidemic is made even worse, even more deadly by a shockingly small dose of fentanyl.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I like looking at pictures, even if they're not my own family. They tell the story.

DEENA LOUDON, SON MATTHEW DIED FROM FENTANYL: He was such a happy baby. Oh, my God, he was so happy all the time.

GUPTA: Is it hard to talk about him?

LOUDON: No, I love talking about him. I talk about him to anybody that will listen.

I loved seeing him on the hockey rink. And I think that was really, really his happy place, you know, where he could just sort of be free.

His friends packed up immediately from schools, wherever they were, and came over. And the family started showing up. And I was just in shock. You know, we tried. We were doing CPR. And not a chance. He was long gone.

I don't say he overdosed. I say he died from fentanyl poisoning. Truthfully, like at the end of the day, to me he was murdered because he asked for one thing, they gave him something different, and it took his life.

GUPTA (voice over): On a single sad night, November 2nd, Deena's son Matthew Loudon became one of the nearly 92,000 fatal overdoses in 2020 alone, much of it driven by fentanyl.

GUPTA (on camera): The problem is there's so many of these drugs that are now on the street that the DEA had to set up a secret forensics lab just to try and keep up. We're making our way there now.

GUPTA (voice over): Scott Oulton is deputy assistant administrator of the DEA's office of forensic sciences.

GUPTA (on camera): You're getting more pills and more of those pills are coming back positive for fentanyl.

SCOTT OULTON, DEA OFFICE OF FORENSIC SCIENCES: We almost - yes, almost every one of them comes back positive.

GUPTA (voice over): In 2019, the DEA seized roughly 2.2 million pills. In 2022, 50.6 million pills. At the beginning of the opioid epidemic, many of the pills were authentic. The majority of the pills being seized today at the borders, on the streets, even in schools -- OULTON: Over 99 percent of what we see are fake. They contain

fentanyl.

GUPTA (on camera): Ninety-nine percent. That's just - that's - that's mind numbing.

GUPTA (voice over): And look closely at how sophisticated the counterfeiters have become.

OULTON: And just for an example, these are some of the ones that we will seize that have the same "m" and has more (ph) the 30 on the other side.

GUPTA (on camera): If you look at what is real here and the rainbow fentanyl, they're not even really trying anymore to disguise this. This is clearly fake. But also, if you look at this, 800 grams of fentanyl, that turns into 400,000 to 500,000 potentially lethal pills. Think about that, one bag gives you 400,000 to 500,000 lethal doses.

GUPTA (voice over): It's the message the DEA wants out there, one pill can kill. The days of experimentation are over. And so this sophisticated lab has to keep up, trying to analyze these pills down to their molecular structure, using the equivalent of an MRI machine.

OULTON: We have seen hundreds and hundreds of unique combinations. So we'll see one with -- contains fentanyl, one with fentanyl and Xylazine, one with fentanyl and caffeine, one with fentanyl and acetaminophen. And you don't know what you're getting.

GUPTA (on camera): How hard is it to keep up with how much counterfeit stuff there is out there?

OULTON: The market is constantly changing. So we are trying to do everything we can from a science base to keep up with that. One pill can kill. Don't take the chance. It's not worth your life.

GUPTA (voice over): It's a message Deena wishes Matthew could have heard. So, instead, she has made it her mission to be his voice.

LOUDON: As soon as you can start having these conversations with your children at an age where they can really, really comprehend it, I think it just needs to be talked about. It's Russian roulette, you never know what you're going to get.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: It is hard to believe there are hundreds of millions of these pills that are out there. They are fake. So many of them, 60 percent at least, have a lethal dose of fentanyl in them. It's frightening stuff.

I will say this, I pushed the DEA on the question of bricks and mortar pharmacies, you know, the CVS', the Walgreens, things like that, and they say that they're very confident those are safe supplies. It's everything else on the streets, mail order and stuff like that, that they're worried about. So, you know, even one pill can kill. That's the message they wanted to get across.

SCIUTTO: And it really is becoming increasingly hard to find a community that has not been touched by this.

GUPTA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: We've seen it here in Washington. It is frightening.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for making that clear.

GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Just in to CNN, we have learned that police have made an arrest in a story we covered earlier this week, the theft of two monkeys from the Dallas Zoo.

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We're going to have details coming up.

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GOLODRYGA: Just in to CNN, police have made an arrest in connection with the two monkeys stolen from the Dallas Zoo. The two emperor tamarin monkeys were found in a closet of an abandoned home but they - and they were healthy and not hurt, thankfully.

SCIUTTO: The great Marty Savidge is following this for us. So, who's behind all this?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, who knew what was going on at the zoo, but we can say that they have finally cracked the case of the missing monkeys from the Dallas Zoo. And the good news is that they have someone in custody. A 24-year-old man by the named of Davion Irvin. He was taken into custody last night. The missing monkeys had a lot of human help, all along the way. This story that has actually captured a lot of attention across the nation.

So, these two monkeys were apparently escaped or allowed to escape, taken from their enclosure. Then, as you say, they were found safe and sound thanks to a tip from a person who said, well, you might find some monkeys in a closet in a home in Texas.

[09:55:06]

So, they searched and they found the monkeys earlier in the week. And again, thanks to surveillance video, and, again, putting it out into the public, there was the suspect that was identified and now been taken into custody and charged with six counts of animal cruelty. So, it actually is nothing to laugh at when it comes to the charge.

But the good news is, the monkeys are safe and now the culprit has been nabbed.

Jim and Bianna.

SCIUTTO: And to be clear, Marty and I are going to be growing mustaches just like those going forward.

SAVIDGE: Call Dr. Seuss. They look very familiar.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Emperor anchors here, yes.

SAVIDGE: Goodness.

SCIUTTO: Martin Savidge, always good to see you.

SAVIDGE: Thank you. Thank you both.

SCIUTTO: Well, still to come this morning, as U.S. officials continue to monitor a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over Montana and other parts of the U.S. The former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, will join us to discuss the threat, what's behind this, also the impact it could have on Secretary of State Blinken's upcoming trip to Beijing. More coming up.

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