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Jane Velez-Mitchell
911 Tape Released in Attempted Minivan Murder-Suicide
Aired March 06, 2014 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: Tonight, fast-breaking developments. We have just gotten the 911 call in the case of that pregnant mom accused of driving her minivan packed with her three precious young children straight into the ocean. Tonight, we will play the shocking 911 call for you. It reveals she was ranting about demons and Jesus just hours before she tried to kill herself and her children.
Good evening. I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mom took her vehicle and accelerated towards the water. She put her family and herself in danger.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via phone): I need a wellness check.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via phone): She thinks there`s demons in the house?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via phone): The two in the backseat was crying with their arms out, saying, "Our mommy is trying to kill us. Please help."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, brand-new information. The sister of the pregnant woman called 911 just hours before the mom drove herself and her children into the ocean.
Listen to the just-released 911 call. The sister asked cops to check on the pregnant mom because she was acting crazy, and she was scared for the kids. The woman had checked herself out of hospital and was ranting about demons and Jesus. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via phone): I need a wellness check. My sister was getting abused by her husband. I tried to take her to the hospital yesterday, and she signed herself out today. She`s getting a little bit better, but her -- she`s still not all there. But she`s trying to drive, and I`m trying to stop her. And she has her kids so I took her keys.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via phone): What is she doing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s talking about Jesus and that there`s demons in my house and that I`m trying to control her, but I`m trying to keep them safe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She thinks there`s demons in the house?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let me get this straight. Even though the hospital, the cops and her own family were aware of this woman`s delusions, they could not stop her from her apparent murder/suicide mission.
What do you think? I want to hear what you think. Call me: 1-877- JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297.
My Lion`s Den panel ready to debate tonight, but first, I want to go out to my very special guest, a hero tonight, Tim Tesseneer.
Tim, you were the one, one of the brave strangers we see right there. You were vacationing in Daytona, Florida. You jumped in to save these three children. Were it not for do you and some of the other strangers, they`d be dead right now. So we`re going to highlight you in yellow. You`re there in the neon.
You see that gentleman wearing the neon. You`re going to see him throughout. You`re saving the lives of these children. Tell us what happened and what you did, sir.
TIM TESSENEER, HELPED RESCUE CHILDREN: I saw this van on the shore and it shouldn`t have been there. So we run down to the -- well, I heard kids say "help," I thought. At first we thought they were just playing around. But then I heard a different tone in her voice. It was a different kind of help.
So I put my vehicle in park, and I just ran as hard as I could to get to this van. When I go there, the kids were crying. And another guy, Stacy Robinson, had gotten there immediately after I did. And she started talking to the mother. This is unsafe. You`ve got to get away from the water.
We hear sirens, so the police had already been notified. They was on the way. We kept trying to talk to her, and the kids was screaming, "Please help us. Please help us. Our mom is trying to kill us."
And the mother finally looked back at us and said just a few words. "We`re going to be OK. We`re fine." And then she turned hard left and drove straight into the water. And we knew then, you know, we had to get the kids out. You know, it was a bad situation and about to get really worse.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, this is new information, sir. Because it was our understanding that this was just spotted after she had driven into the water. But you`re essentially saying now that you spoke to her before she drove into the water and the kids were saying, "Help me. Help me, my mom is going to kill me." Or "Our mom`s going to kill us."
And you talked to her, and she says, "We`re going to be OK," and then she drives into the water. That`s -- that`s wild. In other words, she had an opportunity for reflection there to say, "Hmm. You know, maybe this isn`t a good idea, because a rational person is telling me, `Hey, what are you doing"`" And despite all that, she just drives right into the water.
Now, what about when you`re in the water pulling these kids out? First of all, two of them are in the backseat. One is sitting on her lap. And what we heard was that the two kids who were rescued from the backseat are the ones who tell you rescuers, "Hey, there`s another -- there`s a baby inside."
The mother does not reveal. She manages to slip out, and she does not reveal that there`s a -- her own baby, her own flesh and blood is trapped inside that car. She doesn`t tell you. Tell us about that, sir.
TESSENEER: Stacey was able to get two kids out. And at the time we thought that`s all there was, was just the two. The mother dives out the driver`s window. And at this point, I had -- I tried to go through the rear of the minivan. And a couple of lifeguards had got to her finally.
And the mother, the lifeguard, the two kids with Stacy were hollering over their back, over his back that there`s a baby. Stacy said, "There`s a baby." And I relay the message to the lifeguard. And he goes back to the driver`s door, and the mother actually tried to stop him. There`s one part of the -- I don`t know if it`s that (ph) video or another video that shows that. The mother tries to stop the lifeguard from getting back into the vehicle for the baby that was still strapped in the child seat.
It was -- I don`t know what was wrong with her.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. So that -- to me that crosses the line from deluded to evil. I don`t care how deluded you are. She tries to stop the rescuers from saving her youngest child. Now, people describe her as having this blank, sort of crazy stare in her eyes. Did you see her expression?
TESSENEER: That was before we -- she was still driving parallel to the water. But me and Stacy had -- we had our hands on, walking besides her high. We were talking to her, and her eyes were real big. And, you know, the look was just so disturbing. And she just turned. She tells us we`re OK. We`re going to be fine. She turns back around, and she just drives straight into the water.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, I want to go to reporter Robert Alonzo, News 1150. When we last checked with police, they said they were evaluating. They hadn`t charged her yet. Has that changed? Because as far as I`m concerned, if you drive your kids into the ocean, and then you try to stop people from saving your youngest child, that`s premeditated murder, in my book. I can`t say that for sure, because I`m not the power embodied to make that charge. But I certainly think the time for evaluation has probably ended. And now we`ve got to find out what is this woman going to face in terms of justice, Robert?
ROBERT ALONZO, NEWS 1150 (via phone): Well, that`s certainly a good point you make there, Jane. And as of right now, they have not officially charged her with anything.
The Volusia County Sheriff`s Office is still investigating this as potentially a Baker Act issue or potentially for criminal charges. They`ve really not said at this point one way or another how they are leaning.
And my guess is we`re going to be seeing some action on that fairly soon. Because they`ve already been in charge of this case for around 24 hours. I know that they still have to interview some of the people that were involved in this case. I believe they were still trying to locate the father of the children. And they wanted to talk to him, as well.
As you heard in the 911 call, there was allegations of abuse made by the sister. And the woman herself, Ebony Wilkerson, she also told police that she left South Carolina because of potential abuse, basically because her husband was abusing her. That`s what she claims.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, let me ask you, Steve Greenberg, defense attorney, if you`re a mom and somebody`s trying to save your child and you try to block them and stop them from saving your child, does that cross over from one crime into another?
STEVE GREENBERG, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It crosses over if you`re of sound mind and body, so to speak. But if you`re delusional, like people say, in those reports in the days leading up and she was acting irrationally, she doesn`t understand right for wrong, she may think she`s trying to save her children, and by driving them into the ocean she`s saving them from some life or some life of abuse.
So they have to evaluate that. It`s very tough when you`re dealing with people that have serious mental-health issues.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I don`t know. Bryan Silber, there`s being crazy and then there`s knowing right from wrong. And those are two very separate things. You can be very mentally ill, look at Jodi Arias, bipolar and who knows what else, but yet she knew what she was doing when she slit Travis Alexander throat`s was wrong, and she was still convicted of murder. So how do we know this woman doesn`t know right from wrong?
BRIAN SILBER, ATTORNEY: Well, that`s something that a psychologist is going to have to determine. And frankly, it`s a question of is she psychotic?
You know, there`s a lot of cases where officers will try to Baker Act somebody who absolutely is completely bonkers nuts, and they fight the police; they resist it, the help for themselves.
So I`m not surprised, and I don`t think it`s unusual at all that this woman tried to resist help for her children. And I wouldn`t base your judgment strictly on that one fact alone. An expert has to evaluate her and really determine where is her mind at, because that`s what will make the difference when it comes to criminal charges. If she is psychotic, she`s not going to get charged. Plain and simple.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Unbelievable. Or she could be tried and then found guilty but mentally ill sometimes or not guilty by reason of insanity. We`re just getting started on the legal issues.
But first, let`s go out to the phone lines. Johnna, West Virginia, what do you have to say about this travesty? Johnna, West Virginia.
CALLER: Yes, Jane, first of all, thank you so much for all you do for the voices of the animals of this world. And I really appreciate that. I do all I can, too.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So glad.
CALLER: Yes, ma`am. What I`d like to say is I don`t understand why people or why society can`t get together, you know, with the computers and everything that we have at our availability.
When you call 911 for help for your sister and you tell them straight up that you believe her mental state is not correct, and you believe that there are issues, and then being able to dispatch police or an ambulance or a fire truck, why can`t they get them in touch directly and immediately with someone for mental-health issues? Why isn`t that type of help available?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I say this all the time. And we`re going to debate it on the other side. Cops interviewed this woman hours before she drove her three kids into the ocean. And were it not for heroes like Tim Tesseneer, they would have died.
And they were talking to her. And they knew that she had been in the hospital. They knew that her family was concerned and tried to grab her keys from her. They knew she was talking about demons and ranting. And yet, they say they did not have the legal authority to stop her or to take her to a hospital? We`re going to debate on the other side whether that`s true. What is the criteria? Why couldn`t they stop her? Stay right there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via phone): I need a wellness check. My sister was getting abused by her husband.
TESSENEER: I seen the van driving in the water. And we knew that was a red flag right off the bat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I tried to take her to the hospital yesterday, and she signed herself out today. She`s getting a little bit better, but her -- she`s still not all here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STACY ROBINSON, HELPED RESCUE CHILDREN: The van actually started to float. It was up to my chest, and I`m 6`6". (END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: In a crazy twist, cops stopped and interview this mother of three just hours before she drove her kids into the ocean in Daytona Beach, Florida. Cops say her family called and claim the woman fled an abusive situation in South Carolina, retreating to Daytona Beach, where she had relatives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via phone): I need a wellness check. My sister was getting abused by her husband. I tried to take her to a hospital yesterday, and she signed herself out today. She`s getting a little bit better, but her -- she`s still not all here. But she`s trying to drive, and I`m trying to stop her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Her sister said she was talking about demons, and she tried to take her car keys away but couldn`t. Cops say there was nothing they could not do, even though they talked to her. Since she did not appear homicidal or suicidal, they had to let her go free.
Straight out to the Lion`s Den. Simone Bienne, obviously, she was apparently homicidal and suicidal. So do you agree with the cops` assessment that "nothing to see her, nothing we can do"?
SIMONE BIENNE, RELATIONSHIP EXPERT: No, absolutely not. Jane, I said, what are we going to do, watch more children get killed? This is absolutely absurd. The law needs to change. Something needs to be done. Because there were obvious signs there. There needs to be either some way that the police have some psychological assistance. Because they`re not equipped to deal with this.
And Jane, you and I both know, if her sister had called up, saying she`s drunk driving, the cops would have followed the car. They would have followed the license plate. They would have seen that they needed to do something. And this is what is happening on your screen wouldn`t have happened.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Lisa Bloom, legal analyst for Avvo.com and author of "Suspicion Nation," incredible book, you can stop somebody for having a broken taillight, but if they`re talking about demons and they`re acting crazy with three kids in the car, you say, "There`s nothing I can do"?
LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST, AVVO.COM: Well, here`s the problem. The mentally ill have civil rights, too. And a lot of people talk about demons and have religious babblings, but they`re not harmful to somebody else.
Are we going to lock up all the mentally ill people in the country? The standard is they have to be a danger to themselves or others. It`s easy for us now, with 20/20 hindsight, to say clearly she was. My God, this is a horrible tragedy. But did the cops know that before this incident? I don`t see evidence of that.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, witnesses say this mom walked away from her SUV. And actually blocked people trying to save youngest child. Her oldest kids were the ones yelling, "A baby is still inside trapped." Here`s a witness.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had this look on her face. I can`t describe it. It was just an awful blank look, like spaced-out look.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dr. Tiff, Andrea Yates is the most infamous case of a mother killing her kids. Andrea killed her five kids in the tub and was ultimately found not guilty by insanity and put in a mental institution. It`s believed she suffered from postpartum psychosis and was hearing hallucination commands from the devil.
So this woman talked about demons. Is this just another Andrea Yates case where the voices in their heads are telling them to do something awful?
DR. TIFFANIE DAVIS-HENRY, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: It could be, Jane. And I think it`s closer to Andrea Yates than it is Susan Smith. I`ve heard a lot of people compare this to Susan Smith from back in the day, the South Carolina woman that drowned her children. The difference here is this young lady seems to be very disconnected, very detached. Even as people are talking to her, she doesn`t seem to be connected at all to reality. I do have to agree with...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: By the way, this is Susan Smith. Go ahead.
DAVIS-HENRY: Yes. I have to agree with Lisa Bloom that, if she is questioned by authorities and she does not pose an imminent risk to harm herself or others, they really have no legal action. For anyone out there that has something like this in their family or friends...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Can I jump in here?
DAVIS-HENRY: Yes.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What is the criteria? How crazy -- how looney do you have to be?
DAVIS-HENRY: How crazy do you have to be?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes.
DAVIS-HENRY: Well, I think -- I think she probably would have fit this criteria had she been in the right situation. When the cops presented themselves to her and asked her some questions, she would have had to say, "Yes, I want to kill my child. I want to drive them into the ocean." If she did not say that, if she didn`t allude to that, they don`t have evidence of that and they can`t hold her.
What has to happen with families is usually you have to go before a probate judge in the county, and it has to be two people. It can`t just be one person saying, "I saw this behavior." More than one person had to go forward to a judge and say, "I witnessed this behavior," and that can get them involuntarily committed.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I remember when Britney Spears, right?
DAVIS-HENRY: Yes.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Her dad got an involuntary hold on her. And...
DAVIS-HENRY: You can do it, but it had to be more than one person. And the fact that she was discharged from the hospital, it sounds like she voluntarily checked herself in and then she said, "You know what? I`m ready to leave."
They didn`t see enough evidence when she was in the hospital to even hold her there. It may be that she just wasn`t honest with people when they asked her those questions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s a good point.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: March Starling, reporter/anchor, News 96.5, you have new information. We care about these kids. These kids were taken into protective custody. What do you know?
MARK STARLING, REPORTER/ANCHOR, NEWS 96.5 (via phone): Jane, I talked with DCF today, and essentially, DCF is doing an extremely thorough investigation as to who these children could be placed with as far as relatives go.
They basically are going through every little line item of anything that could be a red flag of mental illness, of abuse, of anything along those lines before they place these children with any of the relatives.
And so as we`ve heard there`s still been no sign of the father. The reports of abuse, this mother was being abused by the father. The father has not been seen. There`s been no sign of him, hide nor hair. But again, DCF even investigating the relatives here in Florida in Daytona Beach to make sure that, if they`re going to place those children there, that they can expect to be safe.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And you know what we`re going to ask on the other side is, if you are in an abusive situation, you`ve got three kids, another on the way, is that enough to make you crack? And is, really, that the root of the problem? Would she be hearing voices and talking about demons if she wasn`t in an allegedly abusive situation at the same time she`s trying to take care of three kids with a fourth on the way?
All right. We`ve also -- we`re going to have more on this. We`ve got calls lighting up. What do you think? And also, is it really OK for peeping toms to take pictures and videos under a woman`s skirt? Is that legal?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s definitely unreasonable behavior and really needs a rewrite from the legislature. I would like to know that someone isn`t going to take a picture up my skirt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via phone): I need a wellness check. My sister was getting abused by her husband. I tried to take her to the hospital yesterday. She signed herself out today. She`s getting a little bit better, but at least still not all here. So she`s trying to drive, and I`m trying to stop her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Those poor children. This mother ultimately did drive and drove her three kids and herself into the ocean. It was only thanks to the heroes, one of whom we have on the phone with us tonight, that those kids did not drown. Because strangers rushed in and grabbed the kids out.
And in fact, she tried to block some of them from saving her youngest child. Thankfully they pushed past her and saved all three kids.
And Tim Tesseneer, you are from North Carolina. You were vacationing in Daytona. You`re joining us via Skype. What were the kids like after you pulled them out of there? Describe to us what their expressions were.
TESSENEER: I finally got to see them once we got them on the beach. They were asking, the biggest question was why. Why was their mother trying to kill them? You know, I had no answer for that. And of course, they were freezing cold.
I did end up hugging one at the end. And my wife was getting clothes out of our suitcases for them to change into to be dry. And one of them just hugged me and, you know, it was, I don`t know how to describe it. You know, that made it all worthwhile right there, just hugging that child and knowing that they`re going to be OK. And I made a promise to them. I said, "I promise you`re going to be fine." So, you know, I hope wherever they end up, they`re going to be well taken care of.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Did you see fear in their eyes?
TESSENEER: Fear, scared, confusion. You know, it was a lot of turmoil. They didn`t really know what was going on. But they knew they was in danger. They were old enough to know they`re in danger. You could hear that the way they were talking. They talked a lot older than they was.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Do you have -- do you have kids of your own? And what was that like emotionally for you to save their lives, with the others?
TESSENEER: I just -- year, I have kids of my own, 13 and 10. And I don`t know. I would hate to think it was my kids in that water. That`s my kids. You know, it`s pretty rough. We didn`t really talk much all the way. I drove eight and a half hours to get home after that. It was a pretty quiet ride all the way home.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I see your little cat walking in the background, or is that your little dog there? You`re a family man, and you`re a good kind person. And I think we all applaud you for what you did, sir.
It makes me happy that there are people like you in this world, because these stories are very depressing. And it really upsets me quite often. And I go home and I`m like, you know, what kind of world do we live in?
Dr. Tiff, thinking about these three kids, and they`re going to have to go for the rest of their lives thinking, "My Mommy tried to kill me. Why?"
DAVIS-HENRY: Yes, and hopefully, she gets the help that she needs and the clarity that she needs to understand why she did this. And that`s the question we`re all actually wanting to know why. The truth of the matter is whatever was going on with her, she was not based in reality at the time. And...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, but I`m sorry. My sympathies do not lie with her. Am I crazy? Am I being cold-blooded? Right now I`m filled with anger. Lisa Bloom.
DAVIS-HENRY: I understand it.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: My sympathies don`t lie with "I hope she`s OK."
BLOOM: Well, it`s not about sympathy, Jane. It`s about understanding mental illness. I mean, clearly, this was a mentally ill woman. We don`t have to feel sorry for her. Of course, our sympathies are with the children. But this woman obviously was suffering from some terrible mental illness.
The good part of the story is thank God these heroes were there. We need more people to jump in. And by the way, at great danger to themselves. Look at this railing (ph) water. You see the van almost tipping over at one point. And they could really have been harmed or killed themselves. But they jumped in any way.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Madison, Nevada, you`re been waiting so long. Madison, what do you have to say?
CALLER: First, God bless you, Jane. I appreciate everything you do for this country. I wanted to make a comment and almost a warning. There`s a huge flaw in the mental care system these days and how the mentally ill get treated. Thank God there were people to rescue them. If they paid more attention to the state of children whose mother heard demons right before this and let her kids go, you remember that?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, yes.
CALLER: We could have saved the children whose mother heard demons right before this and slit her kids throat. Do you remember that?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. Yes. Yes, I agree with you.
CALLER: Pay more attention.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We can track a package coast to coast and no know where it is down to the last second, but when somebody is on the verge of going off the edge and we`ve got hospitals, and we`ve got cops, and we`ve got relatives and we`ve got everybody looking at them, there`s got to be a way to intervene within the law to prevent horrors like this without taking away the rights of everybody to be a little different.
The next story has my blood boiling. A legal victory for peeping toms? Are you kidding me? Is it really OK in some places for a man to photograph women under their skirts or dresses? Breaking news on this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is video camera lead right here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I watched him watch looking up my wife`s skirt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had his foot underneath my skirt and he was clicking pictures and using his cell phone to watch what he was doing. He had a mirror on his shoe with a camera lens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They call it private parts for a reason.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The victim of something called upskirting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s a creepy dude out there taking a picture up your skirt without you knowing it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Caught in the act in a sting operation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unless the person being photographed was nude or partially nude, it`s not a crime.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you`re wearing underwear it`s ok. That`s disgusting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s a free man. He will not be charged. He will not be judged. He will not be jailed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it`s scary and horrifying that somebody can legally do this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, a legal victory for creepy perverts everywhere. I cannot think of any other group who could possibly be happy about this other than perverts.
A Boston man who admits to upskirting or secretly recording videos or pictures up unsuspecting women`s skirts has the law on his side.
After several complaints about 32-year-old Michael Robertson, police set up a sting operation. They sent a female cop, a decoy, on to the Boston Trolley and this guy took the bait. He was busted for trying to snap pictures up the police decoy`s skirt.
Ok. So this man Robertson was arrested and charged with two counts of attempting to secretly photograph a partially nude person. But wait, the woman was fully clothed. Of course she was. Upskirting typically happens in public.
So the state Supreme Court ruled -- are you sitting down -- upskirting is not against the law in Massachusetts. It does not protect people who are fully clothed even if they are wearing little bitty shorts like that.
Does that mean if Robertson had chosen a woman who was -- well maybe gone commando, i.e., wearing no underwear, he would have gone to jail? Here is his female attorney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Section 105 doesn`t prohibit that kind of conduct.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was holding a cell phone down here, I guess and that`s how he was doing it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Lisa Bloom, legal analyst for avo.com, I love your tweet about this today. Quote, "If the law doesn`t recognize women`s rights not to be photographed up our skirts, the law is an (EXPLETIVE DELETED)."
Well said, Lisa. Take it away.
LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST FOR AVO.COM: Well, thank you. You know, this decision about upskirting makes me want to upchuck, Jane. This is outrageous. And the reason that court reached this decision, they said women don`t have a reasonable expectation of privacy having a photograph up their skirt. Are you kidding me? Why aren`t we just walking around in our underwear? We do expect to have privacy underneath our skirts.
I mean there`s a reason why we wear skirts in the first place. What an intimate violation. Look at this. Is there anybody who is not repulsed by this? This is absolutely disgusting and this court is in lala-land if they don`t understand women`s interests in protecting ourself.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Does anybody on this panel dare to defend this law, stand forward and make your case so you can be pulverized? Anybody?
STEVE GREENBERG, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I`ll defend the ruling. I can defend the ruling, Jane.
BRIAN SILBER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Oh please, come on. Boo. Boo.
GREENBERG: I didn`t write the law.
SILBER: If you`re going to defend this, you need to take your clothes off first.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. Well, I don`t know if we want to see that frankly. M1: I`m not defending the result but the law said partially nude. Partially nude, the law says partially nude. Partially nude does not mean someone who is fully clothed. They should have rewritten this law a long time ago or done something with it.
BLOOM: What if she`s wearing a G-string?
GREENBERG: But they didn`t. And you have to look at the law. The law prohibited partially nude -- that phrase has to mean something.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know what, most women are partially nude in the summer time. You`re not partially nude when you`re walking around the East Coast in the middle of a freeze which we are right now in New York. But if you check out any city in the summertime women are partially clothed. I mean if you`re wearing short shorts --
GREENBERG: Well, we are a nation of laws -- Jane.
BLOOM: What about a G-string when your buttocks are exposed?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes.
GREENBERG: I don`t know how far they want to take it. If they went commando -- you said commando. Commando is a guilty in my book. If he had photographed someone who`s commando, he`s guilty.
SIMONE BIENNE, RELATIONSHIP EXPERT: Oh, go to hell. Sorry.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Thank you Simone. Take it away.
BIENNE: You`re going to tell -- I know, I`m sorry. But you are going to tell us --
GREENBERG: You said try. I tried.
BIENNE: -- us women, what we have to wear to please you as a man. No thank you. We have the same rights as you are.
GREENBERG: I`m not saying you have to wear -- I`m saying what the law is. Were there women in that --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let me tell you something.
BIENNE: The law needs to be changed.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: This is a very serious situation. I want to give you a case study and then we`re going to talk. Surveillance cameras were rolling when a peeping tom upskirted a woman at a gas station in Houston where this is illegal. Check this out. The woman said at first she wasn`t ready to check out but this man insisted, "I`m very gallant. You go first, lady. Then the creep reaches out and -- see where he puts his phone right up her dress. Ok.
Little did he know that there was a surveillance camera recording the whole thing which means he`s a moron because he should have known since there`s always surveillance cameras in every convenience store in the world.
But my point being -- and this is a hypothetical -- it`s not related to that man. So let`s get rid of that man for a second. But the point is that this can be a precursor to something far more serious. If you allow this and this arouses somebody to the point where they might want to take it to the next level, are we actually encouraging considering that there is a war on women and there`s a lot of violence against women and there`s a lot of rape cases against women. Are we encouraging essentially people who might have very, very violent tendencies by saying that this kind of behavior is ok?
And I`ll throw that to Simone Bienne.
BIENNE: I think we are, absolutely. Because this kind of behavior with peeping toms is voyeurism, it does tend to be obsessive. It does tend to escalate. What happens just like when you watch porn, once you get used to a certain amount you need more and more stimulation. So if you need more and more stimulation and the law isn`t protecting you and these people, by the way, they don`t feel guilty because they know there`s no eye contact between the man and the woman. They don`t think that the woman is going to notice. So if the law is protecting them and they don`t feel guilty, what is to stop them from doing it again and again?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`ve got breaking news. I`ve got breaking news. And this is a good thing. The senate has just passed a bill in Massachusetts ok to update the law to make it illegal for a photo or video to be taken under a person`s clothing without their knowledge.
DR. TIFFANIE DAVIS-HENRY, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Thank you.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So we have to make sure that this is call to action. The governor of Massachusetts has to sign this new law. You know what it says to me Dr. Tiff --
BLOOM: And every other state.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. What it says to me, Dr. Tiff, is you know politicians, don`t mess with women. We`re at least half the electorate and when we get mad about something, we tell you. So here`s what to do. Go to mass.gov and tell the Governor Deval Patrick that it`s time to stand up for women. I`m going to give you the last word Dr. Tiff on this one.
DAVIS-HENRY: Anyone who is a woman, anyone who loves a woman or has a woman in their life needs to go to this Web site and sign this petition. It is war against women and anyone who doesn`t sign it isn`t standing up for women. Right now go there right now and sign up on this petition.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let me point out that the guy in question still gets away with it because this is not a grandfathered law. It`s not retroactive. I have an op-ed on this on hlntv.com. Check it out.
Women united, we`ll never be divided -- right. We can make change and that law that just passed the House and Senate in Massachusetts is an example of how women`s voices united can make a difference.
Stay right there. We`ve got another gut wrenching story that you have to see. But first, here is what you`re saying about this outrage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A judge pretty much said that we are not entitled to how much of our bodies we`re ok with exposing. It`s something I can`t wrap my mind around. We need to feel protected by our system.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is it even an issue or a question if it should be legal or illegal for somebody to take a picture up a woman`s skirt? It`s -- to me it`s common sense that you don`t do that. It`s actually disgusting.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fenger High School principal Liz Dozier is on a mission to give her kids a shot at a better future.
LIZ DOZIER, PRINCIPAL, FENGER HIGH SCHOOL: There`s a larger ongoing gang conflict within the community. And like the school, we sit like in the middle of this.
Gentlemen, gentlemen. Not going to happen. Not today. Not today. Keep it moving. Get out of the street. I`m not going to say it again. Get out of the street.
He`s headed southbound on 112th and Emerald. Principal down. Principal down. I broke my shoe. Can you send someone on 112th and Emerald. I broke my shoe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, dive deep into the middle of a big American city`s battle. It`s CNN`s new original docu-series "CHICAGOLAND". It is so compelling. You have to watch this tonight at 10:00 tonight on CNN.
This real life drama follows real people, fighting gangs, fighting crime in Chicago. Among Chicago`s biggest problems: the public school system riddled with debt and gang violence. One of the most compelling characters is Principal Liz Dozier. Dozier took over the deeply troubled Fenger High School five years ago and she really turned it around.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOZIER: The climate in the school was just absolutely abysmal. Like massive gang fights in the hallways -- 300 arrests that first year. We had to have literally two districts worth of police in the building for us to be able to change classes one day. It was a scary time in terms of like what`s happened to our children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Liz, you have done an incredible job. I want to tell you you`re getting kudos for changing this school. Let`s start by asking you what exactly did you do to turn things around?
DOZIER: I think three main things. I think like Michelle Obama said a few months ago resources matter. We had a $1.6 million grant for the first four years of our kind of tenure at Fenger. We have an amazing staff of teachers who just have been -- just constantly are trying to think of other ways to get students involved and to get them doing the right thing. And I think, last but not the least, great partnerships with organizations like SGA and great Chicagoans like Billy Deck (ph) who set up Crowd Rise page for us, crowdrise.com/helpfenger to raise money and raise resources for kids.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Look at you there riding this whole thing and just exerting your will. I love it. Although Fenger High has improved a lot since you took over as principal, it is still located in a very rough area on the south side of Chicago so a lot of challenges remain. Check this out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOZIER: There`s a shooting a couple of blocks from the school, but we got a call, couple calls saying a lot of our kids are up there.
They`re my kids. I feel like, you know, worried, panicked. Like, you know, who is it? I`ve lost kids before. I think (inaudible) and it was because like something that we did or didn`t do or something, I would just die.
The work is not between like the hours of 8:00 and 3:30. To me it extends beyond that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know what infuriates Liz? The government puts all this money into catching criminals, building prisons. Wouldn`t we be better off if we took those billions and put into early childhood education, precisely targeting these pockets of poverty and crime. Wouldn`t that do more?
DOZIER: That would be so amazing. One of the things that we do at Fenger High School is restorative justice. We just believe and -- I mean there`s clearly a lot of research on the connection between high schools to prison and so really making sure we`re teaching kids skills and how to resolve conflict and just really investing our dollars within them to help them be essentially better citizens.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I just wish we could clone you and put you all over the country because you`re doing what needs to be done. It`s all about education.
DOZIER: Yes.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know, you can`t take credit for a crime that`s not committed. That`s part of the problem is people wait for the problem to occur and then they feel like the solution is locking up somebody that if that person that got the advantages of early childhood education and a principal like you they would never be in that situation to begin with.
It`s tonight 10:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN, "CHICAGOLAND". You have got to see it. And watch Liz in action -- exerting her will on this school.
Thank you Liz, so much.
DOZIER: Thanks. Thank you so much.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I`m shocked about what happened, because, you know, I didn`t think my son would do some things like that. No way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight nationwide outrage after a shockingly disturbing video posted on Facebook shows a middle school boy throwing a six-month-old puppy over his head and slamming her to the ground, then punching her. We warn you this is extremely disturbing. All caught on camera by another young boy laughing and cheering him on.
The boys posted it on Facebook. (inaudible) cops used social media to track the teens down and arrest them for animal abuse. This precious little puppy, Honor, was removed from the home. She`s ok, we`re happy to say and will soon be up for adoption.
(FACEBOOK VIDEO)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: This is just terrible. Animal advocate Jane Garrison, there is a sign.org petition do you think these boys should get the harshest penalty which is one year in juvenile jail?
JANE GARRISON, ANIMAL ADVOCATE: Absolutely without a question, Jane. They need to get one year in juvenile detention. They also need to have serious counseling. The problem is not only that poor puppy, but there has been a link between animal cruelty and other criminal activities. Most serial killers, murderers, school shooters, they all start out with animal cruelty.
So this is a major problem. This is a big warning sign for these boys and something has to be done. They have to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and they need to go through major counseling and I hope their parents realize that this is a very big wake-up call.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`re certainly not suggesting that that will happen to these kids, but I think it is great this was caught on tape. Ten seconds, Lisa Bloom, animal lover?
BLOOM: I would also like to know where the parents were, what they taught these children about how to respect an animal. I think they bear some responsibility here. This is so hard to watch, Jane, but I`m glad you are drawing attention to it. Children need to be taught to respect animals.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: They really need to be taught to respect animals and that means all of us need to respect animals and not just dogs and cats, all animals. Most animals in America -- farm animals -- we need to respect them too.
END
