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American Morning

Toddler Shooting; '90-Second Pop'

Aired July 14, 2005 - 09:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. Just about 9:30 here in New York. Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, Hollywood is all abuzz over this year's Emmys. The nominees were named a short while ago, and we've got the early word right here. We've got a special Thursday edition of "90-Second Pop" ahead, looking at those who won and didn't win -- Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

Right now, we are looking at the situation here at the Kennedy Space Center as engineers kind of pour through the diagrams of the Space Shuttle Discovery, trying to pinpoint the location where that fault occurred, and that will tell us an awful lot about when Discovery might try for a launch again. Lots of open questions today, but we're watching it very closely for you.

Fredricka Whitfield joining us with a look at the headlines -- Fred.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello to you, Miles. Thanks so much. Two suspected high-ranging Al Qaeda leaders are now in custody in Iraq. A military spokesman says, they were among some 30 insurgents captured during recent raids. One of them is being linked to the recent kidnapping and murder of Egypt's envoy in Iraq.

Meanwhile, at least one person has been killed in a double suicide bombing. At a checkpoint to Baghdad's Green Zone, five people were wounded.

People in Britain pausing to remember the victims of the London terror attacks. French President Jacques Chirac and British troops overseas also honoring the more than 50 killed. It's the one-week anniversary of the bombings. Meantime, authorities are on the hunt for a possible fifth suspect. Police say four other suspects died in the explosions.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist is under observation in a Virginia hospital. The 80-year-old justice was brought in by ambulance Tuesday night after complaining of a fever. It's not clear if the condition is related to Rehnquist's ongoing battle with thyroid cancer.

And new warnings out for Hurricane Emily. The storm is on course to hit the northern coast of Venezuela. Emily is packing winds of about 90 miles per hour. It's still considered a minimal hurricane, but it is expected to gain strength.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about what's happening in Los Angeles today. LAPD officers under a tactical alert overnight, because demonstrators gathered on Wednesday to protest the death of a 19- month-old baby. The little girl died during a hostage crisis on Sunday. Protesters took to the streets after an autopsy report confirmed that the toddler was killed by a police bullet.

CNN's Peter Viles has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Suzie Lopez was not yet two when she died in a hail of gunfire in this small corner of her father's office. Now the coroner says the very same police who were trying to save her fired the fatal shot.

CHIEF WILLIAM BRATTON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: It is with great regret as it relates to the -- the death of this young child that it appears that our officers, while engaged in their lawful duties, may have in fact taken her life.

VILES: Authorities tell CNN the girl was killed by a single bullet to the head, fired from a police rifle. Police say ultimately Suzie's father, Raul Pena, is to blame. He's the one who held her hostage inside his garage, used her as a shield, police say, threatened to kill her, fired 40 rounds from a .9 millimeter handgun at police, even shot at his other daughter, a teenager, when she escaped.

After nearly three hours, S.W.A.T. officers decided to storm the garage to save the little girl. But in a shootout, they killed both the father and the toddler.

ASST. CHIEF GEORGE GASCON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: We have S.W.A.T. officers that are having tremendous emotional problems, that they are going through therapy. We have some people that we don't know whether they'll be able to come back, to be honest with you, because of the emotional distress.

VILES: The little girl's family has been critical of police tactics.

LUIS CARRILLO, LOPEZ FAMILY ATTORNEY: That is the real tragedy here. A little angel, an innocent baby, a good baby, was killed by police bullets.

VILES: L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, on the job less than two weeks now, is appealing for patience. But the emotional impact of this episode is already being felt by members of the LAPD. This is the first time in nearly 40 years and nearly 4,000 hostage standoffs that an LAPD S.W.A.T. team has ever shot and killed a hostage.

Peter Viles, for CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE) S. O'BRIEN: David Klinger is a former LAPD officer. He's also the author of a book on how police deal with violent situations. It's called "Into the Kill Zone," and he joins us from St. Louis, Missouri to talk about this shooting.

David, nice to see you.

Do you think police did right thing in the situation?

DAVID KLINGER, FMR. LAPD OFFICER: I think they didn't have any other choice. You have a situation where you've got what we call an active shooter, individual shooting up the neighborhood, threatening to kill a young child, already did try to kill his other daughter, and they have to do something. Sometimes people think you just want to talk to these people, and that's a recipe for disaster. We call it negotiate to failure, expecting that the individual is going to eventually give up. When you have somebody in this state, who's actively shooting all of the time, you've got to take proactive action if timing is appropriate to resolve the situation and save the hostage, and that's what they were trying to do.

S. O'BRIEN: You brought up a lot of different points, and we'll talk about negotiating in just a moment. But isn't the first priority in these situations to save the hostage?

KLINGER: Absolutely. And in fact, there's a prioritization to life, talk first about the life of the hostage, then other innocents in the area, then the life of the officers, then the life of the suspect. And sometimes the best thing to do is to be aggressive and try to take out the hostage taker. There are case after case after case across the country where SWAT teams have waited and suspects have killed hostages while SWAT officers are on the other side of the door, for example.

S. O'BRIEN: But know, as you raise that point, they waited and waited, the worst thing happened, the hostage got killed.

KLINGER: Right.

S. O'BRIEN: By opening fire, the worst thing happened, the hostage got killed. Why not wait longer? Why not negotiate not for 35 minutes after waiting out a couple of hours? Why not negotiate for six, 10 hours? Because the worst case, the baby's going to die in the end?

KLINGER: If negotiations are active and are effective, and it appears that negotiators are getting somewhere, that makes perfect sense. When you have a situation where an individual, as I said, has been actively shooting. He already tried to kill one of this children. He's threatening to kill the other child, if you talk, sometimes you talk a hostage to death. And this is one of those damned if you, do damned if you don't situations.

S. O'BRIEN: How about the amount of gunfire? I mean, you had 11 officers on the scene. The suspect fired some 40 shots. The officers answered back with nearly 90 shots. Why wouldn't you have a scenario -- it's almost like the within you see in TV movies, where there's a sniper who is brought in, and his job is with the one shot to injure or take out the suspect, not 11 officers, 90 bullets. I mean, obviously the child's going to get killed.

KLINGER: No, it's not obvious that the child is going to get killed. I take exception with that. If you think about it, there were a number of exchanges with gunfire prior to the final one, and the child made it through all of those. Yes there are some questions about how many shots were fired at what time, but as I understand it, there were three separate exchanges of gunfire.

S. O'BRIEN: That's correct. OK, but why not have one person open fire, or why is a rule not about, you know, what we're going to do, we're going to shoot him in the leg.

KLINGER: Well, let me handle that. That's really two questions. The first one is, sometimes, you don't have an opportunity for a sniper to take a shot. That would be the best resolution, as you point out, for one officer to take one shot and resolve the situation. But that's not always possible. I don't know if they had their sniper teams up. I don't know what the configuration of the location was, whether they could have seen the suspect and could have taken an appropriate shot. All these things will come out in the investigation. That's A.

B, you mentioned, shoot the suspect in the leg. If you shoot a suspect in a leg when he's holding a gun to a child's head, he can go ahead and kill that child. So what you have to do is you have to try to shoot to a position in the body, typically the brain housing the head, that will immediately incapacitate.

S. O'BRIEN: But -- and I understand your point. I mean, I'm following you. But when you say, you know, if you shoot at his leg, boy, he could kill that kid. If you shoot at his head, boy, there's a good chance you could hit the child who's being held like this.

KLINGER: These officers are exceptionally well-trained. These are among the best tactical officers in the country. And if they had a head shot, they -- I would count on them going ahead and taking that and shooting it accurately. The question is, was there an opportunity for a sniper to go ahead and take that single shot? We don't know that. We'll have to wait and see what the investigation discloses. But the bottom line is that this individual, over the course of more than two hours, was persistently threatening to kill his children, tried to kill one of them. I don't think it makes any sense to argue that the officers should have waited.

S. O'BRIEN: David Klinger is a former LAPD officer. Thanks for talking with us this morning. Thanks for your insight.

KLINGER: Thanks for having me.

S. O'BRIEN: My pleasure.

Much more AMERICAN MORNING coming to you this morning from New York, and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: You know you're tired when you're dancing to the "90 Second Pop" theme. Good morning! Some surprises to talk about in this morning's primetime Emmy award nominations that were announced. Among the networks, HBO, with fewer shows to submit this year, still lead the way with 93 nominations. CBS, right behind them, 59. NBC with 54. ABC with 51. And Fox, 49 nominations.

For expert analysis, let's get to our special edition of "90 Second Pop" with our friends. Sarah Bernard, she's from "New York" magazine. B.J. Sigesmund from "US Weekly." Jessica Shaw from "Entertainment Weekly." Good morning.

Let's get right to it. Best drama, let's go to the list here. "Deadwood," "The West Wing," "Lost," "24," "Six Feet Under." Who do you like?

SARAH BERNARD, "NEW YORK" MAGAZINE: Well, I really was surprised that "Six Feet Under" and "West Wing" got on this at wall. I think the consensus was that these shows were really past their prime. Obviously, they -- you know, "The West Wing" has been on it for years, but no one really thought it deserved it this year. So the fact that they're even on there was a huge surprise. "Deadwood," I think everyone is really behind. And there's no way they could have avoided "Lost." That was just -- we all knew that was going to be there.

S. O'BRIEN: That was definitely going to make the list. How about when you look at the best actress in a drama nominations? And we'll throw the list up so folks can see it. Mariska Hargitay, Glenn Close, Jennifer Garner, Patricia Arquette, Frances Conroy. Kind of an interesting list.

B. J. SIGESMUND, "US WEEKLY." Yes, the one major snub this year was Allison Janney did not get in there. And instead, we had the last two. I'm sorry.

S. O'BRIEN: Now you're sounding like me. It's been a long week, hasn't it?

SIGESMUND: Yes. Frances Conroy and Patricia Arquette. Right, they're on shows that are still -- well, Patricia Arquette's on "Medium," which is kind of still bubbling up. And Frances Conroy is on "Six Feet Under," which is on their way out. People didn't exactly see those coming.

S. O'BRIEN: Best actors in a drama. James Spader, Ian McShane -- he's from "Deadwood," for people who don't know his name -- Kiefer Sutherland from "24," Hugh Laurie from "House," Hank Azaria from "Huff." I was actually surprised to see Hank Azaria on there.

JESSICA SHAW, "ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY": I know, because I have yet to meet anyone who watches "Huff." But...

S. O'BRIEN: Just because it gets nominated doesn't mean...

SHAW: That's true, the Emmy voters do...

S. O'BRIEN: ... that anybody watches.

SHAW: The big snub, Matthew Fox from "Lost." He was a shoo-in.

S. O'BRIEN: No, he wasn't.

SHAW: Right, apparently not. In my house, on my TV set. But, yes, that was a real shock. But props for giving Hugh Laurie from "House" a nomination. That was a really good move.

S. O'BRIEN: I did -- I would agree with that, I totally agree. How about the Emmy nominations for best comedy? Let's go through this list again. "Desperate Housewives" -- no surprise there -- "Scrubs," "Arrested Development," "Will and Grace, "Everybody Loves Raymond." I was kind of surprised that "Will and Grace" made the list.

BERNARD: Exactly. It's the same kind of thing with the "Six Feet Under" making it on the other list. Everyone thought that that show was not really deserving of it this year. The big snub, "Entourage." We were really wondering why wasn't going to be on there. HB0, as we said, did get a lot of nominations, but that show is really picking up steam this year, and we're really surprised that it didn't actually factor in in a larger way. Although Jeremy Piven did get in a nomination...

S. O'BRIEN: "Entourage"...

BERNARD: ... for supporting actor.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, I love that. Let's go through the best actor and best actresses in the comedy thing. For actor, Jason Bateman from "Arrested Development," Zach Braff from "Scrubs," Ray Romano, "Everybody Loves Raymond," Tony Shaloub from "Monk," Eric McCormack, "Will and Grace." No surprise there. But best actress in a comedy. Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman -- yes...

SIGESMUND: You're almost there.

S. O'BRIEN: Where are they?

SIGESMUND: Big -- the big story of the morning is Eva Longoria dissed again.

(CROSSTALK)

S. O'BRIEN: Only four.

SIGESMUND: The other three "Desperate Housewives" were all nominated. The same thing happened with the Golden Globes. Teri Hatcher won that. We'll see if it happens again. Instead, Jane Kaczmarek and Patricia Heaton were both nominated. They're both past winners. Sorry, Eva.

BERNARD: I don't get it.

S. O'BRIEN: Bummer. I don't get it, either. I agree. You guys, thank you for your insight. We'll see who walks away with it all a little bit later. Thanks.

CNN LIVE TODAY is up next. Let's get right to Daryn Kagan. Good morning, Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. At the top of the hour, the first trial related to the use of the painkiller Vioxx is getting started in Texas. We're going to profile one victim and give you a background on the controversy.

And he holds the record for most major tournaments won by a professional golfer. We'll hear what Jack Nicklaus has to say as he begins the final major at this year's British Open. A lot of tears at Saint Andrew's. Very sentimental.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I bet it is. All right, Daryn, thanks, we'll be watching.

Coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING, Andy is "Minding Your Business." He'll tell us why critics says Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a conflict of interest. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Possible conflict of interest for Governor Schwarzenegger. A look at that with Andy and who's "Minding Your Business" this morning. Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning. Ah, the Governator.

Let's talk about the markets first of all, Soledad. Stocks trading higher as we begin the morning, 82 points. The upside, tame inflation reports, strong retail sales.

One stock moving to the upside bigtime is Apple, up 9 percent. We talked about how sales of the iPod continue to be brisk. The story out of California, critics of Governor Schwarzenegger howling this morning. New documents filed with Securities and Exchange Commission show that Governor Arnold is being paid by two muscle magazines to serve as a consultant. He's being paid by "Muscle and Fitness" and "Flex" magazines, as you can see here.

S. O'BRIEN: A lot of money, right?

SERWER: A lot of money, millions of dollars. He gets a percentage of advertising revenues. Here's the possible conflict of interest, Soledad. Those advertisers in those magazines, to a large degree, are nutritional supplement companies. He has come out very strongly against regulating these companies. In fact, he recently vetoed a bill that would have regulated nutritional supplements. Critics saying it's a blatant conflict of interest. It is legal in California for an official to have an outside job. This story, I guarantee you, has legs and we'll be talking about that.

S. O'BRIEN: I think so, and Californians are going to be talking about that.

All right, Andy, thanks a lot.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's head it right back out to Miles who's at the Kennedy Space Center this morning, and Discovery there, too.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad, yesterday as we were telling you all about the scrub on the Space Shuttle Discovery, and amid all of that, there was kind of an interesting little sideshow that we neglected to tell you about, and that was the arrival of a couple of congressional delegations, Senate and House members of Congress who hold the purse strings over NASA. They gathered here, members of the House Science Committee among them. And they gave a little briefing to reporters, and the subject was, the retirement of the shuttle imminent, and what their thoughts were possibly on another generation, a new-generation vehicle.

Let's listen to Sherwood Boehlert, who's chairman of the House Science Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R), NEW YORK: But what we do have is near unanimity on the committee in our support for a robust human space exploration program.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: All right, expressing support, but do the math on that for just a moment. 2010, retirement of the shuttle. 2020, trip to the moon. That gap is a key issue for members of Congress, and for that matter, NASA. For members of Congress it amounts to jobs in their district. Will have to be a scale-down of the workforce that is involved in the shuttle? And for NASA, it's an important point, because they have a lot of smart people involved in the shuttle program, and they need their expertise for the next generation of vehicle. If they have to lay off a bunch of them in this interim, they could have a problem.

So one of the key issues for Mike Griffin, new NASA administrator, is figuring a way to retire the shuttle as quickly and safely as possible, but also bringing up that next-generation vehicle that will go back to the moon, and maybe on to Mars one day as quickly as possible. That's a tough job, because what that amounts to is a lot of commitment and a lot of money -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles, thanks a lot.

We're going to show you pictures. I think we have them in now. These are pictures of a wall collapsing, a building almost looks like it's collapsed. The address that we're being told is around 100th and Broadway. You can see, obviously, the New York City firefighters are on the scene. And it looks like it is pretty incredible and intense damage to that building.

We're going to get more information on exactly what happened to cause the collapse of this building, and bring you more information as we get it. Apparently, word is, the building was under construction. Obviously something went horribly wrong. And now firefighters are on the scene.

At this point, we're getting word of four civilian injuries. And that might be why the firefighters, 100 of them, are now on the scene, maybe trying to pull out, if there's any more people, involved in this building collapse. Again, the address is around 100th Street and Broadway, on the far upper west side of Manhattan. Firefighters now on the scene, 100 of them working to try to remove any people who might be trapped inside the building. The building again under construction, we are told. And you can see it's sort of a better perspective shot there, that look likes it was actually in the very early stages of construction, because it looks like those are the first retaining walls that they've put up to sort of keep the public out and not much else there.

We're going to bring you more on this story as we continue to follow it and all of the day's news just ahead.

A short break, and we're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: We've been following this developing story here in New York City, on the upper west side. You can see here a building that appears to be in the early stage of construction has collapsed. We are told that there are and 100 firefighters now on the scene, and four people have been injured is what has been reported to us so far.

Miles will be back from Kennedy Space Center tomorrow. AMERICAN MORNING is out of time, but we hand you over to Daryn Kagan for the next couple of hours.

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