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Erin Burnett Outfront
Deadly Storm Threatens Holiday Travel; Sandy Hook Gunman Obsessed With Mass Murder; Sandy Hook Gunman's Serious Mental Health Issues; Fluke Accidents at NFL Stadiums?; Can the U.S. Trust Iran?
Aired November 25, 2013 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST (voice-over): OUTFRONT next:
Breaking news, a deadly winter storm. At least 12 people dead, 400 flights grounded.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if it gets really bad, we're going to encourage folks to stay home.
BURNETT: What will it mean for Thanksgiving?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All units, we're continuing to hear what police --
BURNETT: Nearly a year after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook, the first full report on what really happened and the shooter's obsession with children.
And President Obama praises the agreement between Iran and the United States.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For the first time in a decade, we've halted the progress on Iran's nuclear program.
BURNETT: Or did they?
The truth.
Let's go OUTFRONT.
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Good evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, we begin with the breaking news, a deadly storm threatening to derail holiday plans for millions and millions of Americans as the nation begins the busiest travel week of the year. At least 12 people killed after a wintry mix of snow and sleet blanketed parts of Texas, California, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona, all of that now moving east. More than 400 flights already canceled today.
Some of the worst weather still to come over the next two days. And that is going to blanket almost all of the country. Nearly 43 million Americans will be hitting the skies and roads. This was shot by a storm chaser in Oklahoma. Watch that SUV there for a second. That was in front of him, the car just skidding in front of him.
I want to make sure you know no one was hurt in that car. But this is a sense of how bad things are. At least 15 more states will be affected by the storm. It's going to move up the east coast. We'll have more on the storm's path in a couple moments. The next 72 hours are going to be so crucial. First we begin in Texas where three people have already been killed. OUTFRONT tonight, Nick Valencia in Dallas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The holiday travel season got off to a deadly start. Coast-to-coast, the country feeling the impacts of an earlier than expected winter weather system, ice, wind, and freezing rain battered parts of Texas. The wintry mix moving its way east through Oklahoma. Its path set on the northeast.
Scores of car crashes and at least a dozen deaths were blamed on the weather. In Texas flight cancellations created chaos for travelers. At least 480 planes grounded at Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport unleashing a domino effect that impacted thousands across the United States preparing to travel for the holiday season.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had to call and get back on, and luckily we got on the 9:20.
VALENCIA (on camera): So are you happy with the communications between the airlines? You feel like they are giving you enough of a heads up?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We did. We at least 24 hours so it was good, plenty of time to reschedule.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know why American canceled all those flights. They canceled at 9:00 in the morning. And there wasn't a flake of snow or anything to be seen. So we're pretty upset with American, that's for sure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have worked to be at and we're out $400 that we didn't expect. And American's not even helping. So it's very disappointing.
VALENCIA: Right now the weather impacts are being felt in Arizona, New Mexico and parts of the Great Plains. Many people it coping with treacherous ice covered roads and bridges. Now in the days ahead, more than 40 million Americans are expected to hit the roads and millions of others to fly the skies. They can expect dangerous ice sleet snow and rain to be their travel companion.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VALENCIA: So far American is the airline with the most cancellations. Erin, some good news for travelers, Delta says they do not expect. BURNETT: All right, thanks very much to you, Nick. And obviously that's going to affect people across the country. I want to bring in Chad Myers. You just heard nick say tomorrow may be OK for some. But then things could get worse again. Where is the storm going? Those images we just saw out of Oklahoma, that SUV spinning several times, where are we going to see that?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That is pretty much gone. But it's coming back tomorrow because the rain and the moisture from down here in the Deep South move up into the cold air. That cold air that's come down from Canada the past couple days is already in place. It's going to rain, and it's going to be 31 degrees.
You can say how can it do that? Because aloft, 5,000, 3,000 feet up, it's 35 degrees. It's going to rain down to a 31 degree where we are atmosphere and it's going to freeze on contact. Now this is not snow- mageddon for the big cities of the north east. This is a rain event.
If you're traveling, you're going from rain to sleet to ice to snow. Now those interstates are going to be affected one after the other. And even though New York may only get rain, D.C., Baltimore, the problem is it will be raining with a wind at around 30 to 40. So planes are still going to be delayed. Cars are going to be okay. Planes are going to be a mess.
Here it is 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. A little bit of light ice across parts of Georgia. The snow begins, snow back Buffalo to Ohio. This rain is right what I was talking about. It's going to be raining and below 32 in that band. And that's where the weather will be the worst for tomorrow night.
And it doesn't get better for Wednesday as the wind blows. We'll have lake-effect snow. I'm concerned whether the Thanksgiving parade will have all those balloons up or not because if the winds are too high they can't hang onto those things. And they have to cancel Snoopy. I don't want them to cancel Snoopy.
BURNETT: As you said, with so many planes delayed, for a lot of people watching, that's horrible news. You could miss the day with your family. When is this supposed to clear out? We've heard how frigid and cold it might be this year.
MYERS: The problem is when you cancel one plane, now all of a sudden you have 150 people looking for seats. Every plane is essentially full. You have three, five, six seats available on a plane. So it takes 20 planes to get that one plane in business again. It finally gets better for Thursday.
Everyone will be able to get where they want to go on Thursday, but hopefully that's not too late for where you're trying to get or maybe that's on your way back home. It clears up. It's just going to be cold.
BURNETT: All right, well, Chad, thank you very much, colder and a lot earlier than usual. People say we're coming into winter, sure, we are, but I think we've all gotten a little spoiled on Thanksgiving. Still to come, today authorities release a 44-page report about the massacre at Sandy Hook. It's full of new details of what happened that day. Some of them are hard to imagine, you wonder if they could have found out about this before.
Plus, just a week after a man fell from the upper deck of an NFL stadium, another person plummets up to 50 feet at a game. So we started looking at this. Are they isolated or part of a disturbing trend.
And President Obama heckled during a speech in San Francisco today. What made a member of the audience shout this?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Our second story OUTFRONT are the new details we've just learned tonight about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Connecticut officials have released a new report on the Sandy Hook shooting, you see it there. I've been reading through it today.
There's a lot of new information in here, also incredibly disturbing. Details about Adam Lanza what it is full of, the 20-year-old who killed 20 first graders and six adults last December. Investigators say Lanza was obsessed with mass murders. He collected newspaper clippings about school shootings, in fact, collecting them back to 1891.
The evidence shows Lanza planned his actions, but what's amazing when you read through this is still how unclear police are about the motive or why he targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School particularly.
We begin our coverage with Susan Candiotti OUTFRONT tonight. Susan obviously has been covering this since the beginning and I know over the past months Susan broken a lot of the news that's in this report. You're now getting some new pictures from the investigation, things that Adam Lanza had in the home. What are you learning?
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the first thing I want to say is we want everyone to know that the families have been fully briefed, the victims' families about what was in this report before it was released to the public, Erin. And yes, we're seeing pictures for the very first time about what it looked like when Adam Lanza made his entry in the Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Remember the front door was locked and so he shot his way in through a window to the side of the entrance, firing at least a half-dozen times. So there you see that shattered glass before he went into the hallway and claimed 20 lives of children and six adults as well.
And then for the first time we're seeing pictures inside his house. In particular, his bedroom, the house that he shared with his mother. Look. It just shows kind of the bizarre behavior he had. The windows to his bedroom covered with black plastic bags to block out the light. He couldn't see out. No one could see in.
Signs, they suggest, of obsessive compulsive behaviour in part lots of pictures of that bedroom. And then you mentioned articles about mass shootings. Some of these we've heard about before, but this one very unusual. This one that you're seeing now is dating back to 1891, a "New York Times" article in upstate New York, a Catholic school where someone came and shot children inexplicably.
They said at the time that the person who did it was demented in that article. And lots of pictures of video games ranging from Super Mario Brother to many violent games, for example, one called call to duty, another one called school shooting, lots of them.
And then on the opposite side of the spectrum, Dance, Dance Revolution and they said that he would play it for up to 10 hours a day, couldn't get enough of it, not only at home, but also at a theatre that he would go to down the street up until about a month before the shooting.
We're seeing a lot more information in this report, but it's not over yet, because we expect to hear much more from the Connecticut state police. They're expected to release their report that's said to be thousands of pages long, and it might suggest a possible motive.
BURNETT: Which obviously is crucial and also goes to the question of why so much information is still withheld, you are saying this one's 44 pages, that one might be thousands. You mentioned a game called "School Shooting." I read that today and frankly couldn't believe it.
We live in a country where we believe in free speech. I can't believe a game like that's allowed. I find that to be sick and bizarre. I can't imagine that it is possible. There was also evidence that he was watching videos of children being shot. Should someone have seen these signs? Was this preventable?
CANDIOTTI: Well, you know, this is part of the reason that we're talking about this, isn't it, Erin? We want to hear more information about this. Some of it of course very disturbing, but because we're looking for signs of why no one said something. We know that he was being seen by mental health professionals, according to the same report.
They said that he was not taking any medications. They didn't find anything in the toxicology report and the autopsy report, that he refused to take any drugs and didn't use alcohol. But was there an attempt to get him help? Apparently to some degree, yes, but then he spent so much time in the house. Did his -- could his mother have done more? These are all the unanswered questions that we still have.
BURNETT: So many of them.
All right. Well, Susan Candiotti, thank you very much.
And now I want to bring in criminologist Casey Jordan who's here with me on set.
Some of what Susan is talking about this obsessions with mass murderers back in 1891.
CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST: Right.
BURNETT: Playing a game about school shooting. There are also bizarrely a lot of searches they found on pedophilia, about pedophiles, you know, being exonerated for their crimes or getting off for their crimes.
JORDAN: Right.
BURNETT: As opposed to actually looking at pedophile images themselves.
JORDAN: Right. Exactly.
BURNETT: But -- and images of children being shot. How could that not have raised a red flag?
JORDAN: Because nobody knew about it. It can't be a red flag if nobody sees it. And really the biggest thing that we see here, I mean, those images Susan showed of his bedroom with the black plastic bags taped over the windows.
BURNETT: Right.
JORDAN: He was so enormously isolated. His mother was not allowed in his room. No one was. So this was a -- this didn't happen overnight. This was years of him slowly withdrawing. And we have that history going back to 5th grade, 6th grade. The thing is the mother was overwhelmed. Did not know what to do with him. And did allow him to isolate. Tried to bring him out with the one activity they had in common, which was going to the shooting range. So the introduction of guns in the house.
It was really a trifecta between mental illness, the presence and access of guns, and that obsessive compulsive disorder which resulted in an obsession with mass murder as well as an addiction to video games.
BURNETT: And the mother has said he had no emotions and obsessive habits. He would arrange his food just so on the plate, he wouldn't allow anyone to touch doorknobs. He wouldn't allow her, as you point out, into his room. He wouldn't allow Christmas trees in the house.
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: And she allowed this to happen.
BURNETT: Yes.
JORDAN: And she allowed this to happen.
BURNETT: Yes. So let's talk about her role in aiding and abetting, I mean, you know, yes, he killed her.
JORDAN: Yes.
(CROSSTALK) BURNETT: It's a horrible thing, but could she have done anything?
JORDAN: I think she tried within her limits. But you have to understand, we have a society that shames mental illness. So when she knows she has an odd son and she becomes odder. And she tried. She worked with the school but she didn't want to admit something was wrong with her son. That was half of the problem.
And took her son out of school when he was 16 and put him in college classes because he was too smart. So it was combination of events.
BURNETT: Right.
JORDAN: But the isolation is what allowed this combination to --
BURNETT: And interesting, they said on some tests he showed he was smart. On some tests below average intelligence.
JORDAN: Right.
BURNETT: And he had been -- had been diagnosed with Asperger's in 2005.
JORDAN: Right.
BURNETT: Which of course we reported extensively on. But what about his hard drive? Because -- as you point out.
JORDAN: Right.
BURNETT: They didn't do anything because they didn't know. His hard drive was smashed by him.
JORDAN: Yes.
BURNETT: So that nobody can find anything. What I'm confused about is the NSA can snoop in on calls to -- the chancellor of Germany.
JORDAN: Right.
BURNETT: And yet they can't figure out what was on his hard drive?
JORDAN: We don't have the manpower, the capability to actually get into people's hard drive's when they're active. And once it was destroyed --
BURNETT: But even now it's destroyed there's no way to find out --
JORDAN: Well, of course -- he destroyed it on purpose because he doesn't even -- I don't even think we have an idea of the inner dark workings of Adam Lanza's brain. And that is why he destroyed his hard drive. I think there was evidence on there that would even blow our minds more.
But no, if there are ways, and he would have been smart enough, he got nothing but great grades in his computer science classes at my university. And he would have known exactly how to destroy a hard drive so that it was irretrievable. And the report concludes they don't think they'll ever get that off. I think that would answer the question as to motive if we could get that.
BURNETT: Absolutely.
All right. Well, thank you very much, Casey, and of course to our Susan Candiotti for her reporting. And as we await for what Susan said, maybe thousands of pages that may give us more of a sense of motive. Something that it seems everyone in this country deserves and that those families must get.
Well, still to come, more on the Sandy Hook shooting. We're going to tell you about a new idea that could help police respond to mass shootings faster than ever before. In the report today, four minutes from the first call to when a policeman was there at that elementary school. Faster than that and could save a lot of lives.
Plus, a woman charged with running a prostitution ring out of her Zumba fitness center. She catered to countless lawyers and local television personality in one of the wealthiest towns in the United States. There is a new development in the case tonight.
And a week after a man fell from the upper deck at a Buffalo Bills game, a women falls more than 40 feet at a Raiders game in Oakland. An isolated event or part of a broader problem in America?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Our third story OUTFRONT. Death from above. Right now two people recovering after a 61-year-old veteran broke the 40 to 50 foot fall of a woman who jumped from the upper deck of the Oakland Raiders stadium. Sunday's incident actually came only one week after another fan fell 30 feet from the stand at a Buffalo Bills game.
But the question is, are these fluke accidents or part of a trend?
Stephanie Elam is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It seems to be happening all over the country.
MIKE FREEMAN, BLEACHER REPORT, NFL NATIONAL COLUMNIST: I'm shocked this hasn't happened more.
ELAM: Sports fans falling from super high places at stadiums. On Sunday, a woman reportedly jumped from the stands at the coliseum in Oakland only to be saved by a 61-year-old Marine vet who intentionally broke her fall. In August, a 30-year-old man fell 85 feet over a fourth level railing during a baseball at Turner Field in Atlanta. His death was later ruled as suicide.
That same month at Sports Authority Field in Denver a man was injured after falling from an escalator during the fourth quarter of a Broncos game. And then in September, right after kickoff at a 49ers game, a man died after falling from an elevated walkway at Candle Stick Park.
But are more people falling now than ever? Or are we just paying more attention?
FREEMAN: I think we're just paying attention more. I haven't seen really any statistical data that shows that people are jumping off stadiums now in 2013 or 2010 than they were in 1960 or 1970.
ELAM: At Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo earlier this month, watch as this one fan was caught on video sliding down the railing in the upper deck before he flips off the side, falling some 30 feet, injuring himself and the person he fell on. The Buffalo Bills later banned the man from attending any of their home games for life.
FREEMAN: The NFL is acutely aware of its image and they monitor this stuff really closely. I've been in every NFL stadium. They're all the same. Steep inclines, really high up. Lots of people, lots of crowds, lots of pushing and shoving, there are fights, and a lot of it is fueled by alcohol. So as long as you have that alcohol in stadiums, you're going to see that issues like.
ELAM: But don't expect sporting events to go dry anytime soon since alcohol sales is a huge money-maker and these incidents aren't all that common.
FREEMAN: When you think about it, how many people going through an NFL stadium, just in one week, and just in one sport, even though we have a spade of them, these things are still mostly kind of rare.
ELAM: Stephanie Elam, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: And still to come, President Obama tonight praising this weekend's nuclear deal between Iran and the United States. But it may all come down to one thing, whether Iran keeps its promises when it comes to inspections.
So is the United States really going to be able to inspect? Or is that a big fat lie?
Plus a country music singer shot and killed at a bar by the owner. The shooter says it was self-defense, another person says the singer was shot in the back of the head.
And a San Antonio police officer accused of raping a very young woman he called over. The officer says the charges are false but this is not the first time he's faced these accusations. That story OUTFRONT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Welcome back to the second half of OUTFRONT. At San Jose State University today, the NAACP called on the district attorney to increase charges in the case of three students accused of racially bullying a black student. The NAACP wants misdemeanors increased to felony and false imprisonment charges added. Hours earlier the university's president took responsibility for failing to recognize the abuse which could be a significant step. Writing a letter, quote, "By failing to recognize the meaning of the Confederate flag, intervene earlier to stop the abuse or impose sanctions as soon as the gravity of the behavior became clear, we failed him. I failed him."
The university task force will soon be named to examine the incident.
Well, sort of like a scene out of a movie, a country music singer Wayne Mills was shot and killed in a bar brawl over the weekend. What you hear Mills, if you knew him, he was singing "Last Honky Tonk".
(MUSIC)
BURNETT: The shooter, the owner of Nashville's Pit and Barrel Bar and police are investigating his claim that he it was self defense. And one of the important factors could be whether Mills was shot in the back of the head. That's what his manager claims. Police would not comment on that crucial detail at this point.
Meanwhile, fellow country singers Blake Shelton and Tailor Hicks tweeted their condolences. According to a report, they opened for Mills band earlier in their careers as well.
And the Zumba, which is a Latin dance instructor who was the busted for running a prostitution ring out of her fitness studio and secretly filming her sexual encounters has been released from jail early on good behavior. This is Alexis Wright (ph) being picked up by her husband after serving six of a 10 month sentence. She had no comment.
Her client list, though, included accountants, lawyers, and a local television personal. The scandal became the talk of a sleepy New England town of Kennebunk, which is part of the summer playground for some of the wealthiest American families, which family obviously lives nearby Kennebunkport. Got to say, you always have to wonder if you publish the list of Johns, maybe these problems would go away.
Our fourth story OUTFRONT is nuclear celebrations. Today, President Obama celebrating the deal reached this weekend between Iran and world powers over Iran's nuclear program.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For the first time in a decade, we've halted the progress on Iran's nuclear program. Key parts of the program will be rolled back.
(APPLAUSE)
International inspectors will have unprecedented access to Iran's nuclear facilities. So this will help Iran from building a nuclear weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: The deal eases sanctions in exchange for temporary restraint on Iran's nuclear program, including a halt of highly enriched uranium production.
The deal also, though, seen as a huge win in Iran. This is what happened in Tehran last night. Iranians celebrating the deal. Why? Well, in part because it allows them to keep enriching uranium, which is something all deals prior had not had on the table.
So, is the deal a giant fail for America or a big win? This comes down to one huge thing, the word the president used, unprecedented access to nuclear sites. Can the United States guarantee Iran is keeping its end of the bargain? That would mean real, unfettered inspections to anyplace at any site, at any time inspectors want.
Barbara Starr is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Perhaps the major reason for a nuclear agreement with Iran, the latest U.S. intelligence assessment. Within nine months, Iran could have enough weapons grade fuel to make a bomb.
LEON PANETTA, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: We used to have a timeline of about a year, year and a half to actual development and deployment. I think that's probably been tightened up as a result of the amount of enriched fuel that they have now.
STARR: Enrichment facilities and other site will now be inspected, including a reactor being built at Arak which could be used to make weapons grade plutonium.
But even with U.N. inspectors in Iran everyday for the next six months, there are worries.
DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: The big question is will Iran have secret nuclear sites? I mean, everyone is worried that Iran could build a secret centrifuge plant, make centrifuges in secret, and then deploy them and even start enriching using secret stocks of uranium.
STARR: Espionage against Iran is tough. The U.S. relies on drones, electronic eavesdropping and spies for information about the current nuclear effort. When an unmanned U.S. drone went down over Iran nearly two years ago, speculation was the high-tech spy plane was caught gathering nuclear intelligence. Iran believes Israel was behind assassination of several of its scientists, and that the West infected its program with Stuxnet, a computer virus.
BOB BAIER, FORMER CIA OFFICER: You can't do this remotely. You can't sit in the Persian Gulf and listen to telephones and expect to figure out what the Iranians are doing. You need human assets on the ground. You have to get into their computer systems. You need Iranian nuclear scientists to tell what's really going on. STARR: Those inspectors will be a big help. But so far, no good answer on how to know everything about what the Iranians don't want the U.S. to see.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI), CHAIRMAN, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: I love the slogan "trust but verify". I never understood it. Because I think the right slogan is don't trust. I don't trust the Iranians.
(APPLAUSE)
But, let me, and by the way, they don't trust us.
STARR (on camera): And what about gathering intelligence on Israel? Well, the U.S. of course wants to know if and when Israel becomes so worried it decides to strike Iran's nuclear facilities -- Erin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Barbara, thank you very much.
And OUTFRONT tonight, let's bring in Michael Medved, conservative radio host, and Rosa Brooks, former Pentagon official in the Obama administration.
Rosa, let me start with you because critics obviously are saying this deal was done to divert Americas' eyes from Obamacare, from promises on Syrian chemical weapons that have not been kept, from poll numbers that according to CNN today show very little faith in president's managerial abilities, 60 percent say the president cannot manage the government of the United States effectively.
So, critics say the president needed a win, so he did this deal to get that box checked. I know you're not going to agree with that analysis.
Why do you think he did the deal?
ROSA BROOKS, FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIAL: I think he did the deal for exactly the right reasons, we have a crisis in the Middle East. I think this is a real breakthrough. He's been trying to do this throughout his administration. He's finally succeeded in doing it.
I frankly think that the idea that the Iranians were going to just cooperate when President Obama wanted to distract everybody from domestic problems is just nuts. I think that this deal happened when it happened for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with President Obama's domestic woes.
BURNETT: And I know, Michael, a lot of people are saying, well, look, this deal, there are critics say this deal doesn't make sense. We don't have access, inspectors to all the sites we need.
But let me just play something John Kerry said to George Stephanopoulos yesterday on ABC that I thought was pretty important. Here's Secretary Kerry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: In 2003, Iran made an offer to the Bush administration that they would, in fact, do major things with respect to their program. They had 164 centrifuges. Nobody, nothing has happened. Therefore, here we are in 2013. They have 19,000 centrifuges and they're closer to a weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Doesn't that make the case, Michael, a deal is better than no deal? Because after all, no deal means they keep spinning and spinning away with the centrifuges?
MICHAEL MEDVED, RADIO HOST: Well, what that means is it's the old administration reflex, is blame Bush. It's Bush's fault because he didn't make a deal in 2003.
Look, President Obama has been president for five years. We have put on the table that Iran is not allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. That is a point of U.S. policy. It has been bipartisan.
The problem here is that this sanction, this deal sanctions Iran, basically, as a nuclear power. What my question for Rosa would be, what was the all-fired hurry? I mean, the sanctions were working. Iran was increasingly desperate.
Now, all of a sudden, the pressure is off Iran, and yet, their commitment is not only not verifiable, but it's not even a commitment to give everything that the U.N. resolutions demanded. And that's a huge problem.
BURNETT: Rosa, I mean, I'm curious on that point because, you know, I was in Iran for the elections this summer. There's no question the sanctions were working. I mean, they were certainly working on regular Iranians, which wasn't the point, right? But prices for food, for example, had doubled.
But, you know, it's always been clear to me a lot of countries want to circumvent the sanctions. I was in Iran a few years ago, I thought Germans in that country very often about doing business. We've done stories about American companies circumventing sanctions in doing business in Iran.
So, you know, you tell them it's totally verboten to do that. And now, you opened the door and you say, well, it's OK a little bit. It takes years to get those things in place. And in six months we're going to put them back in place.
It doesn't seem that easy to me.
BROOKS: It's not going to be that easy and there's no guarantee that the deal is going to work. But here's where I disagree with Michael. Sanctions did bring Iran to the negotiating table. The sanctions bit hard enough. It brought them to the table. We've been able to get a temporary deal to see what we can get in the next six months.
It may not work. If it doesn't work we ratchet the sanctions back up again, which is very, very doable. But --
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: Let me just interrupt you for a second there, Rosa -- why do you think that's that do-able? When I know about all these people who are, again, once you open a little sliver of the door, they're going to fly through and want to do business. I mean, this is a country that has a lot of oil. In places like China, they want that oil and natural gas.
BROOKS: Yes. And here's the thing. I think you put your finger on it a second ago, that sanctions can increase the pressure, but sanctions by themselves will not make Iran turned around and reverse what it's doing. It's a delicate mixture of, you know, the old carrots and sticks situation.
But, right now, we've got them negotiating. We've bought some time for a real deal. We've put a lot of pressure on them.
We've got some hardliners both in Iran and Israel and unfortunately in the Congress who may determine to sabotage the deal. I sure hope that they won't do that.
The truth is this -- the truth is that if Iran is absolutely determined to build a nuclear weapon, probably the only way to prevent that would be all-out war which would be a disaster for everybody concerned. Right now, we have a glimmer of hope. I'm not going to lie and say, oh, everybody is going to be, you know, rainbows and unicorn in a few months.
But we have a glimmer of hope. We have to try and see if we can make this work. We've got to keep our end of the bargain. We've got to make sure that the Iranians keep their end of the bargain. And let's see how we do.
You know, in second months, we've got a opportunity to revisit this.
BURNETT: Michael?
MEDVED: My biggest problem with what Rosa is saying is when she says that the patriotic American, Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate and in the Congress generally, who disagree with this agreement, would be sabotaging the agreement, that they would be doing so for political reasons.
One of the problems here has been the lack of bipartisanship on the part of the administration leading up to these negotiations. In other words, Congress has been totally shut out of this process. And the sanctions have the force of law. They were passed by the Congress of the United States before the president got into these wide ranging negotiations.
For goodness sake, reach across the aisle. Involve some other people, including Democrats like Chuck Schumer who are deeply concerned about the position that has been taken with these negotiations. BURNETT: All right. Thanks very much to both of you. And we're going to be speaking to the State Department on this show about this deal tomorrow.
Our fifth story is a Texas cop -- excuse me -- accused of rape. Authorities say that Jackie Neal, a San Antonio police officer, handcuffed, groped and raped a woman that he pulled over for a traffic violation.
Neal tells CNN the allegations are false, but this is not the first time that he has faced assault claims.
Ed Lavandera is OUTFRONT tonight with that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The 19 year old sexual assault victim has asked that her identity be hidden. But she says moments after San Antonio police officer Jackie Neal in full uniform raped her during a traffic stop early Friday morning. She says he told her not to say anything about it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He warned me. He told me that if I did tell anybody, he would look for me, because he has my address.
LAVANDERA: The young woman then says, Friday night, a man named Jack came to her home looking for her. The victim says the ordeal is a nightmare.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have to deal with this every day.
LAVANDERA: San Antonio police arrested and charged one of its own with assault, 40-year-old Jackie Neal, an 11-year veteran of the police force.
In a brief telephone conversation, Neal told CNN the "allegations are false".
Neal was released from jail on a $20,000 bond.
(on camera): According to the arrest warrant affidavit, the victim told investigators that the police officer had been following her for several blocks until she pulled over here in the middle of this residential neighborhood and right underneath a street lamp. The affidavit also says that the tracking system in the police officer's car shows that he had been parked here for 18 minutes.
(voice-over): San Antonio police say the onboard camera in officer Neal's car was not working. But according to the arrest warrant affidavit, the victim told police that the officer handcuffed her and pushed her against the back of the police car and that's where the sexual assault took place. The victim says she believes the attack lasted about 10 minutes.
CHIEF WILLIAM MCMAUS, SAN ANTONIO POLICE DEPARTMENT: It's a punch in the eye to the police department. LAVANDERA: San Antonio police says if there are other victims, he wants them to speak out to investigators.
MCMAUS: Obviously we don't tolerate it, and I'm outraged by it. I'm stunned by it.
LAVANDERA: Officer Neal was recently disciplined for dating a 18- year-old woman participating in the San Antonio Police Department's Explorer's program, a program designed to introduce young people to careers in law enforcement.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: And, Erin, the police chief here in San Antonio says that a similar sexual assault accusation was made against this same officer two years ago but that charges weren't filed because the victim refused to cooperate with investigators. The police chief says he's asked his officers to go back to that woman to re-look at that case and see if she would change her mind. And as you heard the police chief say, he's asking if anyone's had similar instances with this police officer to please come forward -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Ed, thank you very much. Disturbing story.
Still to come, President Obama heckled during a speech today in San Francisco. So, how did he handle this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HECKLERS: Stop deportation! Stop deportation!
OBAMA: Thank you. All right. What I'd like to do --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Our sixth story OUTFRONT, President Obama gets heckled.
The president was speaking about immigration reform this afternoon in California. His speech was suddenly interrupted by a heckler who was part of a previously friendly audience in San Francisco.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Most importantly, we will live up to our character as a nation --
HECKLER: You have the power to stop deportation for all them --
OBAMA: Actually I don't. And that is why we're here.
HECKLER: I need your help.
HECKLERS: Stop deportation! Stop deportation!
OBAMA: Thank you. All right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Now, the president has engaged with the protesters before.
And OUTFRONT now is John Avlon, executive editor of "The Daily Beast."
So, first, let's just start off with why this happened today. I mean, why do you think this happened today? This has happened a lot to him.
JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The president getting heckled in San Francisco? You know things are bad.
Now, I mean, this is one of these cases where people just can't resist projecting their own politics in events like this. People on the right say see, the president's poll numbers are kicking. This is evidence that people, he's just he's talking his popularity, in even in San Francisco, he gets nailed.
People on the left say the other factors are at work, and it's a set- up. And, you know, or people say he's not far left enough. I mean, that's one of the ironies of this president, people on the far left don't think he's far left enough. People on the far right think he is a socialist.
So where are you going to go with that?
BURNETT: Right. But as I mentioned, this has happened before, and it's happened recently. I want to play it a few times. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
OBAMA: Health care --
(HECKLING)
OBAMA: OK.
HECKLER: There are 102 people on a hunger strike, they are desperate people.
(INAUDIBLE)
HECKLER: You are our commander-in-chief. You can close Guantanamo today. You can release those 86 prisoners.
OBAMA: There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
REP. JOE WILSON (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: You lie!
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
BURNETT: There are people who say that is because there is more disrespect for this president, that there are people angry at him because he is the first African-American president. He is treated differently. Especially if you look at that Joe Wilson moment in Congress that this wouldn't happen to another president, disrespectful.
AVLON: There has been or had been incivility in Washington, there's no question. President Bush was disrespected by many folks on the far left. That's an important context.
But, I mean, there you see the president being yelled at by Joe Wilson in South Carolina, and being heckled by Code Pink, I mean, people on the far, far left.
BURNETT: Which is far left, yes.
AVLON: You know, but there's no question here, the larger picture here is the persistent disrespect not only of the presidency, but of this president. It boils over. It's part of what we live with this democracy, and you handle it best you can, it's one of the things that comes with free speech.
BURNETT: And he does handle it graciously when he interacts with them, and to a certain point. Then he draws the line. So, you've got to give him a lot of credit for that.
But as you mentioned, George W. Bush was also heckled. Here is one example.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, THEN-PRESIDENT: I am thrilled to be here at Monticello. I have never been here before.
(HECKLING)
BUSH: To my fellow citizens to be, we believe in free speech in the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So again, he was graciously responding. But did it happen to him anywhere near as often as it happens with President Obama?
AVLON: You know, there is a sense that with the rise of social media, everyone can record it. Obviously, cameras wherever a president is.
I think we're seeing a snowballing of disrespect towards the president of both parties. Ands the problem is, you know, politics follows the lines of psychics. Every action gets an equal and opposite reaction. So, it's probably not going to stop with this president. There are particular animas that have followed this president around, because of our history with race and politics.
But this I don't think is about race as much as much as a bad economy and this rising tone in incivility. The more gets encouraged for partisans reason, the more you're going to see it, the more people think they're going to get on TV when they do it, the more you're going to see it.
BURNETT: And, of course, things like this happen and they see it.
AVLON: Yes.
BURNETT: John Avlon, thank you very much.
This rising tide of incivility, horrific things that so Americans are frustrated by. Maybe those who are frustrated should stop doing it.
And it was 50 years ago today, that President John F. Kennedy was laid to rest three days after he was assassinated in Dallas. We all remember this iconic view of a young Caroline Kennedy, and her brother JFK Jr. saluting his father's casket as it was carried from St. Matthews Cathedral in Washington, to the Arlington National Cemetery. JFK Jr. turned 3 years old on that very day.
And you can watch the complete story of President Kennedy's murder right here tonight on CNN, "The Assassination of JFK" is at 10:00 Eastern Standard.
OUTFRONT next, an "I.D.E.A." that could help police respond faster to school shootings. One minute can mean a lot of lives. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: A report released today on the Sandy Hook's shooting revealed police were on scene fewer than four minutes after the 911 call. But it wasn't fast enough to save all those lives.
Tonight, an "I.D.E.A." that could help police save those lives.
Dan Simon is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(GUNSHOTS)
DISPATCHER: 911, what's your emergency?
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The sound of gunfire, these people are listening for it 24/7 in this small room near San Francisco.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you can actually tell from the visual signature that you're dealing with a quickly fired weapon.
SIMON: Listening for gunfire on the streets and now, they develop technology to listen for it in schools. It's called "ShotSpotter." and right now, it is currently used by law enforcement in dozens of cities around the country.
RALPH CLARK, CEO, SHOTSPOTTER: Sadly, the narrative around gun violence is shots are fired and a full 80 percent to 90 percent of the time people don't call 911. SIMON: ShotSpotter doesn't even need 911. Within seconds, the information is pushed directly to police dispatcher centers and patrol vehicles.
(on camera): We've agreed not to show what the audio sensors look like so people won't know to look for or tamper with them. But here in high crime cities like Oakland, police say they made a tremendous difference getting officers to respond more quickly to active shooting scenes.
Are there shots fired here every day in Oakland?
CAPTAIN ERSIE JOYNER, OAKLAND POLICE: Absolutely, we're looking at probably anywhere close to 4,500 ShotSpotter activations so far this year to day.
SIMON: That's a lot of gunfire.
JOYNER: Yes, a lot of gunfire.
TUFF: I'm in the front office. He just went outside and started shooting.
SIMON (voice-over): The ShotSpotter technology is now being offered to schools, just a handful of undisclosed schools nationwide at the outset are expected to have the sensors installed. These, we can show you. They'll be placed in every classroom of each school that signs up. Up front cost, $25,000, then 10,000 each year thereafter.
The fact that such technology might be needed is remarkable.
CLARK: It is a sad commentary, but you can choose to do one of two things. You can choose to ignore it or do something about it. We think it's important that folks do something about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All units, the individual I have on the phone is continuing to hear what he believes to be gunfire.
SIMON: Horrific shootings like what happened at Sandy Hook have stirred a national conversation on what can be done. Some have called for arming teachers. Others want better access to mental health care.
Now, ShotSpotter hopes to be a part of that conversation.
Dan Simon, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: And thanks for watching.
Anderson starts now.
