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Paula Zahn Now
Storm Over Stem Cells Rages; Bringing Street Justice to New York
Aired May 24, 2005 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. We have for you a dramatic survival story from a big city cop who brought his own form of street justice to a notorious New York neighborhood.
And another battle in the culture wars, the line between scientific breakthrough and the taking of human life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: The storm over stem cells, with the potential to mend broken bodies and injured minds. While parents turn to Congress for help...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No parent should ever have to look at their child and tell them, there are no more options. There is no more hope.
ZAHN: Where do you draw the ethical line?
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We should not use public money to support the further destruction of human life.
ZAHN: Tonight, the promise and the politics of stem cells.
And street survivor, a dedicated rookie cop.
ROBERT CEA, FORMER NYPD POLICE OFFICER: I was going into a job where you do anything that you could, even right up to dying for it.
ZAHN: Who became as mean as the streets he walked.
CEA: I was suicidal. I had a gun in my mouth. And I climbed out of the darkest hole you could possibly be in.
ZAHN: And the case that nearly killed him.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: We begin tonight with the latest battle in our nation's culture war, an issue so divisive that late this afternoon, in the House of Representatives, 50 Republicans defied a veto threat from President Bush. They joined in a 238-194 vote to expand government- funded research involving human embryonic stem cells. It is an issue where cutting edge science collides with ethical questions as old as the Bible. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN (voice-over): When a fertilized egg begins dividing, you get embryonic stem cells, which, if the embryo is carried to term, would become a baby. But if the stem cells are harvested before they develop, which begins to happen after a week, scientists think they can turn them into any type of cell needed to treat patients, a process that is still years away -- for example, spinal cord tissue. It is a long way for humans, but scientists have seen some success in animals. Paralyzed mice whose spinal cords were injected with embryonic stem cells were able to walk again. Other scientists think stem cells could be used to treat debilitating injuries or diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's and some forms of cancer.
The possibilities are exciting and the research is showing enough promise that scientists want government money to help. But there is an ethical dilemma. In order to use embryonic stem cells, the embryo itself is destroyed. Some people call that killing a human being. But others say fertility clinics constantly dispose of unwanted embryos or keep them frozen indefinitely.
In 2001, President Bush tried to strike a compromise, allowing federal tax dollars to fund research on stem cells already created. The embryos they came from had already been destroyed. But scientists say all of these lines are now contaminated, useful for basic research, but not for actual therapies. Without the federal dollars available for research on newly created stem cells, scientists say the research will stall. So, Congress has taken up the issue. The president says no.
BUSH: We should not use public money to support the further destruction of human life.
ZAHN: Today, the president met with women who volunteered to have children from the unwanted embryos.
BUSH: The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo.
ZAHN: The president says there are other ways to derive stem cells for science, ways that don't involve the destruction of embryos.
But scientists say cells derived from umbilical cords or adult tissue don't hold the same promise as embryonic stem cells. And without federal funding, they worry other countries are taking the lead in stem cell research, which could slow down the progress and hamper Americans' access to possible cures.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And, in a few minutes, we'll meet one of those families who today stood with the president. But, first, one of the most passionate voices in favor of stem cell research was the man the world knew as Superman. Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down in a horse- riding accident in 1995. Doctors said he would never be able to move again. Well, after years of intensive physical therapy, he proved them wrong, managing to move a finger and his legs.
But Christopher Reeve never did achieve his goal of walking again. I spoke with him in November of 2003.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER REEVE, ACTOR: I think we're about five years behind where we could have been in this country because of controversy over kinds of research, particularly stem cell research. So, it is going to depend on politics, on money, on popular support, on our willingness to take reasonable risks. Hard to put a date on it. But I think that, you know, in the next three to five years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Christopher Reeve died last year. But his wife, Dana, as chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, continues his fight for stem cell research.
And, earlier, I asked Dana Reeve what she would say to the president's argument against destroying a life to save a life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA REEVE, CHAIR, CHRISTOPHER REEVE PARALYSIS FOUNDATION: I think the most forcible argument, certainly the one that we try to highlight as frequently as possible, is that in vitro clinics are destroying embryos every day when they're left over.
If a couple goes in for in vitro fertilization, they can either freeze the leftover embryos. They can implant them. They can take research. That research is fertility research only at the moment. But during the process of fertility research, you are doing research on an embryo. Other than that, they get thrown way. They're in the dumpster. They are getting destroyed.
And so, there is a central hypocrisy here. If they are getting destroyed, why not potentially save the life of a child with juvenile diabetes, help solve some of the heartbreaking problems of stroke, Alzheimer's, possibly? Really, there is a number of things. Heart disease has great potential with stem cell research. I mean, really, there is not an ailment you can name where a specialist wouldn't say there is a possibility here.
ZAHN: But that's the key word here, possibility, that there is this great potential. But the fact is, there is no certainty that this embryonic stem cell research will deliver the kind of cares you're talking about.
D. REEVE: And I would say to that, there was no certainty that mold in a petri dish was going to turn into a polio vaccine. But the fact is, you need unfettered scientific research. And we as a country have always been on the forefront of that, pushing the boundaries, pushing ahead in completely ethical ways. Strict guidelines is what we do. So, you need to explore the potential.
ZAHN: As this debate unfolds, the president is encouraging Americans to adopt these embryos, so they're not destroyed. And we know polls show us about 10 percent of those are being adopted today. Are you at all sensitive to the argument that, in fact, any kind of experimentation on these embryos will result in their destruction?
D. REEVE: I think 10 percent is a number that indicates probably the number of people who, for religious reasons or other reasons, say that in vitro fertilization is also unethical, and that I certainly wouldn't oppose the adoption of embryos.
But I feel that then you have the remaining percentage getting destroyed. And why destroy them? Why not use them?
ZAHN: But you do respect that point of view, if it is on religious grounds alone?
D. REEVE: Of course. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think I really would applaud anyone who stands by their convictions. What I find troubling is when, in congressional hearings, senators will avoid the question. If you don't oppose in vitro clinics, which are big moneymakers in this country, then why do you oppose stem cell research? Because you have to point to that central argument.
But, absolutely. In terms of -- that's what makes this country great, is that -- democracy. There are people who stand by their religious convictions and are permitted to do so.
ZAHN: As I sit across from you, I can't help but think of your husband, Chris.
D. REEVE: Yes.
ZAHN: And how he so passionately fought for this kind of research.
D. REEVE: Yes.
ZAHN: Particularly when he believed that it could yield great results for paralysis victims. But even he conceded to me he wasn't sure the embryonic cell experimentation would help him at all.
D. REEVE: He did say -- towards -- certainly, towards what turned out to be the end of his life, he wasn't sure it would help him personally. But he believed so strongly in it for the potential to cure a host of other ailments and diseases that it is just a matter of doing the right thing.
There are people on both sides of the political fence here, Democrats, as well as Republicans, who support stem cell research. And Chris certainly was fighting for other people. He wasn't only fighting for himself. And it would be a great victory if we could continue working on the stem cell research and in a positive way.
ZAHN: In one of my last conversations with Chris, he talked about how much joy he derived from tweaking people.
D. REEVE: Yes.
ZAHN: Angering people in the paralysis community, because they often accused him of trying to build false hope, and, at the same time, pricking at the scientists as well.
D. REEVE: Yes.
ZAHN: How would he view today's debate in Washington?
D. REEVE: Well, today's debate in Washington is particularly an emotional day for me, because I think, I wish Chris were here to see it. And I think that he would feel very positive.
There is tremendous momentum and there is -- overall, certainly, in the people that we have talked to, there is a feeling that a good thing is going to come out of this. I think it is a red-letter day. And I think he brought us to this point, not single-handedly, but I certainly think that he highlighted the need for this kind of research.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: My conversation with Dana Reeve, who should be happy with this evening's vote in the House to expand funding for embryonic stem cell research.
If you want to know more about Reeve's foundation, please to go to Web site, ChristopherReeveFoundation.com.
Now, people on the other side of this debate feel just as deeply that they are doing the right thing, saving human lives by saving embryos.
White House correspondent Dana Bash has that part of the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Maura and John Daniel call 19- month-old Katherine their miracle baby. After five wrenching years of in vitro fertilization, finally, Maura got pregnant. She was in New York for treatment on 9/11. The trauma took a toll.
MAURA DANIEL, MOTHER: After that, we did get pregnant, and I was pregnant for seven weeks, and then we lost the baby.
BASH: Maura and John decided to adopt. Then Maura saw a story about something she'd never heard of, embryo adoption. DANIEL: And I called John into the living room to look at it on television, and, you know, we were thinking that this could be the way we have a family.
BASH: The Daniels contacted Nightlight, a Christian fertility clinic in California that offers up for adoption other families' unused embryos.
DANIEL: We handpicked them, and they handpicked us.
JOHN DANIEL, FATHER: And they're a beautiful family, that we've met. And met their children and to us it's the most wonderful gift that anyone could ever give, right? And, you know, we have a beautiful daughter. We have twins on the way.
M. DANIEL: Can you have more bite of egg? Nope.
BASH: Katherine is called a snowflake baby, one of about only 80 children in the country born from an adopted frozen embryo. Her parents have come to Washington to tell Congressmen to take a look at Katherine before allowing more frozen embryos to be used in federally funded stem cell research.
M. DANIEL: All we want to do is just raise their awareness and show them Wren's beautiful face and them know that, you know, when they're going to sign off on a bill or not, to think twice.
BASH: The Daniels were invited to the White House. They stood right behind the president. He called them an affirming alternative to using embryos for science.
BUSH: The children here today are reminders that every human life is a precious gift of matchless value.
BASH: Like the president, the Daniels say they support current limits on stem cell research. John's father just died from Parkinson's disease.
J. DANIEL: ...continued research, stem cell research, we would be hypocrites to think it was wrong.
BASH: The president calls stem cell research a culture of life issue like abortion. Not the Daniels.
M. DANIEL: We are pro-choice, we are pro-science, so we're kind of unique I think in this situation, but we definitely are for these legislators making very informed decisions.
BASH: But the fact remains, very few of the estimated 400,000 frozen embryos in the U.S. ever become viable fetuses. Four were transferred into Maura; only Katherine survived. Maura says she understands why some people would want to give their embryos up for science, but that the gift of motherhood after so long pulled her into the political fray.
M. DANIEL: She's definitely going to know her story and the way -- the beautiful way she came into this world. And it's just -- it's overwhelming how much we love her.
BASH: Uh-oh.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Uh-oh, Cheerios on the floor. Dana Bash with the other side of that pointed argument tonight. Coming up next, the power of words. They can define or completely diminish who we are.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHADOYIA JONES, STUDENT: I just feel like all my achievements, everything that I've been working so hard for, just went down the drain, basically.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Coming up next, how two words, just two little words, devastated an honor student and brought dishonor to her school.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: There is outrage in Texas tonight, outrage over something that is one of two things, either insensitive and stupid or just plain vicious. Either way, it takes your breath away. And it all starts with a high school yearbook.
Here's Ed Lavandera.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONES: I was disappointed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shadoyia Jones couldn't wait to open her senior yearbook. Four years of hard work as an honors student at Waxahachie High School in Texas would be captured forever in these pages.
JONES: This yearbook is one that I really, really wanted to buy, because it is my senior year. I have my senior picture in there.
LAVANDERA: But when Jones opened the book and flipped to the National Honors Society page, she was stunned to find her name wasn't in the caption. Instead, the only African-American student in the picture was labeled as black girl.
JONES: I just felt like all my achievements, everything that I've been working so hard for, it just went down the drain, basically.
LAVANDERA: School officials say it was a terrible mistake and have apologized to the student and her family. They say a student editor had written in the words black girl as a placeholder until they could verify Jones' name. The name was never added. CANDACE AHLFINGER, WAXAHACHIE SCHOOL DISTRICT: There were no racial issues involved. It was purely a mistake. It was an unfortunate mistake. And it was a pure choice. But it was one where someone didn't think.
LAVANDERA: Katherine Camp is a yearbook staff member. She says the caption was not written in a malicious way.
KATHERINE CAMP, YEARBOOK STAFF: We all apologized to her. And we are very sorry that it happened. But it wasn't meant to happen.
LAVANDERA (on camera): The Waxahachie School District says it has already taken steps to make sure this never happens again. Currently, three people edit each page of the yearbook. But starting next year, there will be two additional editors, including a faculty committee that will be required to proofread each page before it gets published.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks for stopping.
LAVANDERA (on camera): But the apologies aren't enough for some students.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no excuse to put -- to label somebody as that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel that it is very offensive and wrong and it is racist.
LAVANDERA: The school has ordered corrected pages and are asking students to bring their yearbooks back to get the offensive page replaced. But, for Shadoyia Jones, ripping out this page won't erase the humiliation two words have left behind.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Well, no matter what the motivation, it certainly was unfortunate. Ed Lavandera reporting for us tonight.
This week, we're bringing you "Survivor" stories. And in just a minute, a former policeman remembers how he lost all hope and was nearly killed patrolling the mean streets of the city. And later, a teenage surfer's incredible comeback from a shark attack.
First, though, just about 21 minutes past the hour. Erica Hill at HEADLINE NEWS joins us now to update the top stories. Not on a surfboard tonight.
Hi, Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, not surfing tonight. I'm going to leave that to her. She's much better than I am.
We'll start off with the news, though, President Bush standing proudly today next to his judicial nominee, Judge Priscilla Owen. The Senate finally broke an impasse and will vote tomorrow on her nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yesterday's bipartisan filibuster agreement cleared the way for the vote.
On the CNN "Security Watch" tonight, the FBI is asking for more power in the war on terror, including the right to seize records on travel without a judge's permission. Critics say it threatens the right to privacy.
Michael Jackson won't be taking the stand in his trial. The defense says it will rest its case tomorrow. Today, Jay Leno told the jury Jackson's young accuser called him and sounded as though he might ask for money, but he never actually did, something that had been expected.
Northwest Airlines plans to lay off half the mechanics who service its planes. Their union says the airline wants to slash nearly 3,000 jobs and cut base pay, the savings, $166 million.
And a big Wall Street investment bank is a divided -- or a house divided, rather. Valerie Morris has tonight's "Market Movers".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VALERIE MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There is a management mess at Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley. Eight former executives of the bank are trying to oust Chairman and CEO Phil Purcell. They blame him for what they call mediocre performance and a lagging stock price.
The dissident shareholders want the company to split into two divisions, one focused on selling financial services to individual investors and another to institutions. But Morgan Stanley's board supports Purcell and doesn't want to break up the company. The turmoil has led a number of senior executives, bankers and traders to leave the firm in recent weeks. Shares of Morgan Stanley have fallen more than 10 percent since late March, prompting takeover speculation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: And, Paula, those are the headlines at this hour. I'll turn it back over to you.
ZAHN: Thanks so much. See you in about a half-hour or so. Appreciate it.
Time now to vote for our person of the day. Your choices tonight, New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, for finding out that Medicaid was paying for Viagra for convicted sex offenders, yes, Viagra; or John McCain for helping to end the Senate showdown over the filibuster; or the voice of Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft, who died just over the weekend, for building an entire career on one word, "Great." Well, no one can do it like he did it. Vote at CNN.com/Paula. I'll let you know wins later on in the hour.
Coming up next, a survivor story. A cop who actually wanted to work in New York's most crime-infested neighborhoods.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CEA: It's a life-and-death situation. You feel like Superman. So, you start to change then, where you feel invincible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: How a New York cop learned the hard way that he wasn't Superman and almost fell prey to the folks he was trying to arrest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: This week, our spotlight is on survivors, people who have persevered through the most trying challenges.
Well, tonight, the rise and fall of a cop who patrolled some of the toughest streets in the nation's biggest city, until all that evil nearly consumed him. It is tonight's "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profile.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CEA: I was suicidal. I had a gun in my mouth. And I climbed out of the darkest hole you could possibly be in. And I wanted to be the best that I could as a cop and try to help people and stop crime before it happened, before it occurred, you know, be out there and sort of be the savior. That's all I wanted to do. And it slowly changed.
ZAHN: Robert Cea was a cop in Brooklyn, where he grew up. He had always dreamed of being a cop, fascinated by movie cops like Serpico, Seven-Ups, Bullit. Cea enrolled in the New York Police Academy at 16.
CEA: The first day of the scademy, there was an NYPD flag." Fidelis Ad Mortem" is the letters on the flag, which means faithful until death. That meant so much to me, that I was going into a job where you would do anything that you could, even right up to dying for it.
In the academy, they teach you how to do everything by the book.
ZAHN: When Robert Cea graduated from the police academy in the early 1980s, he went back to his native Brooklyn. Life on the street was a lot different from the movies and from what he had learned at the academy.
CEA: Once you get out in the street, you realize you have to throw all that out the window, because it doesn't work that way. It is never structured when you're in the street.
And this is East Flatbush is where I first began my career, here.
So, it -- everything changed. I ended up in the 67, which is in East Flatbush. Now, I lived in Brooklyn, which was one precinct south of the 67, which was the 63. It was like a totally different world. I didn't even know it existed. It was like being in a Third World country. It was one of the most horrific experiences on the job that I ever seen.
ZAHN: His beat included the neighborhood called the Badlands.
CEA: And what he did was, he put gun under his head and he blew his head off right in front of us.
It was a very, very busy precinct. And it ran the gamut, from robberies to delivering babies to shootings, to murders, to rapes. Church Street Avenue, I think it's about six miles long. There are hair extension stores, there are rowdy restaurants, there are jerk chicken restaurants, there are Jamaican nightclubs. There are stores that sell bongs, intricate carved pipes, it is just rife with color. Music is jury rigged to all of the stores. Bob Marley and the Walers are play on one block, Jimmy Clifford is playing on another block. But every corner was a weed spot, where they sold weed. There is nothing more exciting to me, I don't think, there's a moment that passes when they make you as a cop and you make them as a bad guy, you know, that split second and then it is the chase. And...
ZAHN: His sharpened street senses warned him about the danger all around him.
CEA: I was dating a girl at the time. She told me immediately, you know that you're starting to talk differently. You're acting differently. You know, you become more defensive. You become more paranoid. You become more suspect of everything around you. That literally happens in a week. You start to change then when you feel invincible, and it is an incredible feeling. And it's not because you can lock somebody up or put somebody away, it's the life and death situation that you feel every single day. It is adrenaline 24/7. You can't turn it off.
ZAHN: Soon after, Cea put in for a transfer from the Badlands to another Brooklyn district, the 76 in Red Hook. Another tough neighborhood that Cea thought he could help clean up. Guys who wanted to take as many guns off the street as they could, this was the place to be. The big difference from the Badlands was that in Red Hook, almost all the criminal activity was in the projects, where slinging or selling heroin was a major business.
CEA: At night, it is like a tunnel here. Trust me. This is -- everybody is -- you know, nobody is slinging now. They start slinging about 3:00 in the afternoon. This place is a supermarket or at least it was in the day.
ZAHN: Even today this place is so dangerous that our camera crew needed a uniformed police escort.
CEA: It's a little scary, you know. But I still feel excitement because I did so much work here. I mean, this is where I did most of my work. Trust me, we are being watched now probably by 100 people.
ZAHN: To succeed here, Cea needed an informant. CEA: Shot King (ph) was one of the biggest drug dealers in the city. He sold heroin, and he was as dirty as they came and he was very bad guy. His number one drug dealer was a guy named Chilledo (ph). I like him so much, he was my informant. But again, he was slinging drugs, you know. He was the best at what he did.
ZAHN: Now Cea had to find a way to turn Chilledo.
CEA: The way you cultivate informants, you got to sort of -- you've got to make them feel like you understand them, you're a part of them. But as I was cultivating him, I was developing, like, a kinship with him, a friendship with him because I liked the guy so much. So, I turned him and what he would do is he would give me incredible information on guys who were wanted.
ZAHN: The murky informant cop relationship worked both ways. Chilledo insulated himself from persecution by giving information to Cea. And in turn, Cea was setting gun collar records in Red Hook. But within months, Chilledo was murdered, shot between the eyes on a tenement roof. And because Cea and his partner dealt so closely with the drug dealer, possibly too closely, the NYPD considered him a prime suspect.
CEA: I felt betrayed by the job. I certainly knew that I -- we didn't commit the murder. And I liked the guy. I mean, it broke my heart when he was killed.
ZAHN: Heartbroken and angry, Cea's emotions clouded his ability to do his job.
CEA: At one point, we saw a guy tighten up on the street. So, I got the guy in the back seat of the car and I asked him who -- did you know anything about the Chilledo murder. He said no. I just snapped. I jumped over the seat, and I got on top of him in the back of the seat. I took my five shot out and I dumped all the bullets out, took one bullet put it back in, pulled the trigger and closed it. I put it to his head. And I clipped the trigger.
ZAHN: No bullet. Cea pulled the trigger a second time, but again, no bullet.
CEA: I realized when I -- that I had become the monster. My whole career was being the hunter, now I'm the hunted.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And in a minute, Rob Cea's bid for redemption ends in a fight for his life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CEA: The next thing I heard was -- were sort of two gunshots and the next thing I know is I woke up in a hospital.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: "Survivor" stories continue when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Suspected of murder, Rob Cea looked like he had hit rock bottom. But that was only the beginning. This New York City cop was about to face a criminal who would nearly kill him. Here is more of tonight's "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profile.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CEA: I was incredibly paranoid. My wife was three months pregnant with our baby. And I couldn't enjoy -- I couldn't feel the joy of that, because I was going to jail. You know, as my paranoia got worse and worse and my home life got worse and worse, I had become the monster that I was chasing.
ZAHN (voice-over): It was the low point of his life. Cea's wife moved out, and had an abortion without telling him.
CEA: I sat in the car and I pulled my five shot revolver out and I put it in my mouth.
ZAHN: But at the last minute, Cea thought of his brother who would have to identify his body.
CEA: And I just dropped the gun on the car and on the floor and I took off. And I never looked back.
ZAHN: As he struggled under a cloud of suspicion and tried to escape his personal demons, just collaring average perps no longer satisfied Cea. He focused on snaring a criminal no one seemed able to catch, the "Flat Bush Rapist."
CEA: It was a serial rapist, that had done five or six women at the time. And my objective was find him and end it with this guy. And that's exactly how it happened. And I saw him going, make his way to a -- to the flagpole which is where they used to deal. I got out of the car, and I chased him into the atrium and we got lost in the building. So, he was going to the roof of the building. What he didn't realize was there are -- there are no fire escapes. We wrestle to the ground and he was still trying to go off the roof, but I was holding on to him. And then I cuffed his wrist to my wrist. Now he can't go anywhere. So, now we're fused together at the wrist. That's it now. So, now I got him. We both got each other. So, he can't throw me off the roof or if he does throw me off the roof, he's coming with me.
So, at that point, he's now trying to rip the cuff off my wrist and I hear my bones cracking. He broke my wrist, just trying to rip it and tear it off. Then he just went insane on me and just started to whale on me and just beat me and beat me and beat me, and he came down and he bit the top piece of my nose off, and what I was doing at that point was breathing in blood. So I was coughing and breathing in blood and spitting in his face, the blood -- I saw it coming out and gurgling. But he kept hitting me. And then I just started to fade. And then the next thing I heard was -- were sort of two gunshots, and the next thing I know is, I woke up in a hospital. ZAHN: Cea spent 10 days in a hospital bed. He had cuts over his entire body. His nose was partially torn from his face. His wrist and three ribs were broken. An eye socket was fractured.
CEA: Two of my partners were there and they had told me that he was in fact the rapist and I caught him, and that the murderer of Chilledo, was also caught.
ZAHN: Chilledo was murdered by a hit man, which cleared Cea of any wrongdoing.
CEA: I just laid there and I just remembered just feeling, so what? Everything I did, for them to come and tell me, you're exonerated. I lost my baby. I lost my wife. You know, I lost my soul.
He runs down this block...
ZAHN: After 12 years with the NYPD, Rob Cea left the policeforce and became a writer.
CEA: I don't go into Red Hook. It gives me a feeling of discontent. But then, the flip side of it is, I say to myself, well, as I pass it, I say to myself, well, look where I am now. That was what made me who I am today.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: One man's incredible story of despair and redemption.
Still ahead tonight, the story of another survivor, an incredible tale of a 15-year-old surfer who lost her arm to a shark and still competes nationally in surfing, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: And, we're back. Time for another look at the top stories with Erica Hill of HEADLINE NEWS.
HILL: Thanks, Paula.
A second bloody day for American forces fighting in Iraq. In Baghdad, an IED (ph) blew up a Humvee in a convoy, killing four Americans. Four more died with Marines fighting south of Baghdad. In the last two days, nine American troops have been killed.
Home sales and prices took a big leap in April. Existing home sales were up 4.5 percent. That's the biggest annual gain in 25 years. Meantime, the national median price of a home topped it $206,000, 15 percent higher than just a year ago.
Bad news for some men tonight. Senators are moving to ban Medicare and Medicaid spending on Viagra and similar drugs. Now, last year Medicaid spent about $38 million on anti-impotence drugs for men.
And, we all know about spam and viruses, right? Well, the latest threat to your computer, "ransom wear." A sneak attack locks up your computer files so you can't open them without paying a $200 ransom. This one's a first. The FBI is looking into it.
That's the latest from HEADLINE NEWS at this hour. Paula, back to you.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Erica.
Coming up next, a "Survivor" story you'll never forget -- a near fatal shark attack and a young surfer's courageous comeback.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Fewer than 100 people a year all over the world are attacked by sharks, but knowing that doesn't really make it any less frightening to think about that possibility. So, imagine how much courage it would take to get back into the water after being attacked by a shark. Well, you're about to meet a teenage survivor who did just that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Bethany Hamilton is a surfer through and through. She grew up on these waves off the island of Kauai. At 13, she was competing in national surfing events.
Before sunrise every day, Bethany hits the beach in search of the perfect wave.
But on October 31, 2003, her life changed forever.
(on camera): Take us back to that Halloween morning, when you were attacked. What do you remember leading up to the shark actually taking your arm?
BETHANY HAMILTON, SURFER: I was just surfing with my friends. I knew right away what happened. And they all pulled me in. And soon I was in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
ZAHN (voice-over): Bethany was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark while she lay on her board in the surf. It tore off her left arm, and with it a huge chunk of her surfboard.
Tiger sharks often swim in the shallow waters off Hawaii. They're considered one of the most dangerous of the 32 species known to attack humans.
Bethany tried to paddle ashore on her mangled board. She was losing blood fast.
(on camera): How did you get back to shore?
HAMILTON: My friend Alana, her dad and her brother pulled me to shore.
ZAHN: If it weren't for your friend Alana's father, you might not be alive, right?
HAMILTON: Yeah, definitely.
ZAHN: So he had the wisdom to make you a tourniquet. He saw you were in trouble, and he knew he had to stop the loss of blood?
HAMILTON: Yes. He just got a surfboard leash, which is like a thin plastic rubber. So it was kind of like the perfect thing. And I guess the doctor said that was one thing that definitely saved me.
ZAHN (voice-over): Bethany was rushed into surgery, where doctors performed a traumatic amputation to close the large wound with a flap of her skin. She was lucky to be alive.
She had lost an arm, but not her spirit. (on camera): I think it is absolutely amazing that three weeks after almost losing your life, you went back into the water. What made you do that?
HAMILTON: I guess all I can say is my love for surfing just -- is what brought me back out there. And I love being in the ocean and the beach. And it was just one thing I want -- had to do, wanted to do. Fall off a horse, get back on.
ZAHN: And what was it like to be on the water for first time after you were so severely attacked?
HAMILTON: I was just happy, nervous, scared, all at the same time. And by the time I caught my first wave, I just had tears of joy. And I rode it all the way to the beach. And I was just so happy, just to be in the water, just to be surfing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Guess we shouldn't be too surprised Bethany has used her publicity to help others, and she raised thousands of dollars for tsunami victims.
Coming at the top of the hour, that's exactly where we find the king of television, Larry King standing by. How are you doing tonight, Lar?
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": The king of television?
ZAHN: That was very clever, wasn't it? I took your last name and kind of like put it in a sentence.
KING: I like it. You're like my queen, Paula.
ZAHN: Oh, this is getting good, Larry.
KING: Yeah.
ZAHN: So who are you talking to tonight? KING: Mindy McCready, the country music star who's had her share of problems. She was arrested for DUI, she was beaten up by her boyfriend, she's in between recording companies, and she's on probation for an incident involving prescription fraud. Other than that, things are going terrific.
And then we have a major discussion with our panel in London over the report today in "The British Express" that there are stories in Great Britain and in Paris that Princess Di, that incident may not have been an accident. All that at the top of the hour.
ZAHN: I guess Dodi Al-Fayed's father, Mohammed Al-Fayed, must be feeling pretty good about that. He has long argued that there was something quite wrong about what happened that day, and beyond what he always said what appeared to be an accident, was something much deeper than that. KING: Wouldn't it be amazing if it were more than that?
ZAHN: Yeah, it would be.
KING: Unbelievable.
ZAHN: A lot of people would be in a lot of trouble there, Lar. See you at the top of the hour. Thanks so much.
Coming up next, the person of the day. Will it be New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi for discovering that sex offenders were using Medicaid to get Viagra? Senator John McCain, who helped defuse Capitol Hill's showdown over judges? Or the late Thurl Ravenscroft? He was the voice of Tony the Tiger and the man who sang "The Ballad of Davey Crockett."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Now to our person of the day. Is it New York's comptroller for finding out that Medicaid was paying for convicted sex offenders' Viagra prescriptions? Senator John McCain, for leading the way in the Senate's filibuster deal, to prevent the nuclear option? Or the voice of Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft, who died on Sunday, for making a whole career out of one word -- Grrreat? Oh, man, I'm so glad he did it the way he did it.
The winner with 62 percent of the vote, the voice of Tony the Tiger.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THURL RAVENSCROFT, VOICE OF TONY THE TIGER: Hi. I'm Tony the Tiger.
ZAHN (voice-over): Thurl Ravenscroft gave life to Tony, the ceral-eating Tiger, back in 1952.
RAVENSCROFT: Frosted flakes are great!
ZAHN: For more than 50 years, Ravenscroft was the famous voice behind the friendly cat pitching Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.
When Kellogg's first dreamed up the idea of a tiger with a sweet tooth, they sent Ravenscroft a caricature of the big cat. What he came up with was, well...
RAVENSCROFT: Grrreat!
ZAHN: Tony the Tiger became one of America's most recognized cultural icons, immortalized on the Advertising Walk of Fame. His image and voice exported around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I never had the cereal. I just like Tony.
ZAHN: His looks may have changed over the years, but his voice remained the same. And the Tiger Ravenscroft helped create sold billions of boxes of Frosted Flakes.
But Tony the Tiger wasn't Thurl Ravenscroft's only claim to fame. Perhaps you heard him singing in the 1966 version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
Ravenscroft even gave our network his seal of approval.
RAVENSCROFT: Just to be interviewed by CNN, Tony says it's really Grrreeat!
ZAHN: For building a great career on just one word, you've made Thurl Ravenscroft the person of the day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Thanks for joining us tonight. "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
END
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired May 24, 2005 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. We have for you a dramatic survival story from a big city cop who brought his own form of street justice to a notorious New York neighborhood.
And another battle in the culture wars, the line between scientific breakthrough and the taking of human life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: The storm over stem cells, with the potential to mend broken bodies and injured minds. While parents turn to Congress for help...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No parent should ever have to look at their child and tell them, there are no more options. There is no more hope.
ZAHN: Where do you draw the ethical line?
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We should not use public money to support the further destruction of human life.
ZAHN: Tonight, the promise and the politics of stem cells.
And street survivor, a dedicated rookie cop.
ROBERT CEA, FORMER NYPD POLICE OFFICER: I was going into a job where you do anything that you could, even right up to dying for it.
ZAHN: Who became as mean as the streets he walked.
CEA: I was suicidal. I had a gun in my mouth. And I climbed out of the darkest hole you could possibly be in.
ZAHN: And the case that nearly killed him.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: We begin tonight with the latest battle in our nation's culture war, an issue so divisive that late this afternoon, in the House of Representatives, 50 Republicans defied a veto threat from President Bush. They joined in a 238-194 vote to expand government- funded research involving human embryonic stem cells. It is an issue where cutting edge science collides with ethical questions as old as the Bible. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN (voice-over): When a fertilized egg begins dividing, you get embryonic stem cells, which, if the embryo is carried to term, would become a baby. But if the stem cells are harvested before they develop, which begins to happen after a week, scientists think they can turn them into any type of cell needed to treat patients, a process that is still years away -- for example, spinal cord tissue. It is a long way for humans, but scientists have seen some success in animals. Paralyzed mice whose spinal cords were injected with embryonic stem cells were able to walk again. Other scientists think stem cells could be used to treat debilitating injuries or diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's and some forms of cancer.
The possibilities are exciting and the research is showing enough promise that scientists want government money to help. But there is an ethical dilemma. In order to use embryonic stem cells, the embryo itself is destroyed. Some people call that killing a human being. But others say fertility clinics constantly dispose of unwanted embryos or keep them frozen indefinitely.
In 2001, President Bush tried to strike a compromise, allowing federal tax dollars to fund research on stem cells already created. The embryos they came from had already been destroyed. But scientists say all of these lines are now contaminated, useful for basic research, but not for actual therapies. Without the federal dollars available for research on newly created stem cells, scientists say the research will stall. So, Congress has taken up the issue. The president says no.
BUSH: We should not use public money to support the further destruction of human life.
ZAHN: Today, the president met with women who volunteered to have children from the unwanted embryos.
BUSH: The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo.
ZAHN: The president says there are other ways to derive stem cells for science, ways that don't involve the destruction of embryos.
But scientists say cells derived from umbilical cords or adult tissue don't hold the same promise as embryonic stem cells. And without federal funding, they worry other countries are taking the lead in stem cell research, which could slow down the progress and hamper Americans' access to possible cures.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And, in a few minutes, we'll meet one of those families who today stood with the president. But, first, one of the most passionate voices in favor of stem cell research was the man the world knew as Superman. Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down in a horse- riding accident in 1995. Doctors said he would never be able to move again. Well, after years of intensive physical therapy, he proved them wrong, managing to move a finger and his legs.
But Christopher Reeve never did achieve his goal of walking again. I spoke with him in November of 2003.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER REEVE, ACTOR: I think we're about five years behind where we could have been in this country because of controversy over kinds of research, particularly stem cell research. So, it is going to depend on politics, on money, on popular support, on our willingness to take reasonable risks. Hard to put a date on it. But I think that, you know, in the next three to five years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Christopher Reeve died last year. But his wife, Dana, as chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, continues his fight for stem cell research.
And, earlier, I asked Dana Reeve what she would say to the president's argument against destroying a life to save a life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA REEVE, CHAIR, CHRISTOPHER REEVE PARALYSIS FOUNDATION: I think the most forcible argument, certainly the one that we try to highlight as frequently as possible, is that in vitro clinics are destroying embryos every day when they're left over.
If a couple goes in for in vitro fertilization, they can either freeze the leftover embryos. They can implant them. They can take research. That research is fertility research only at the moment. But during the process of fertility research, you are doing research on an embryo. Other than that, they get thrown way. They're in the dumpster. They are getting destroyed.
And so, there is a central hypocrisy here. If they are getting destroyed, why not potentially save the life of a child with juvenile diabetes, help solve some of the heartbreaking problems of stroke, Alzheimer's, possibly? Really, there is a number of things. Heart disease has great potential with stem cell research. I mean, really, there is not an ailment you can name where a specialist wouldn't say there is a possibility here.
ZAHN: But that's the key word here, possibility, that there is this great potential. But the fact is, there is no certainty that this embryonic stem cell research will deliver the kind of cares you're talking about.
D. REEVE: And I would say to that, there was no certainty that mold in a petri dish was going to turn into a polio vaccine. But the fact is, you need unfettered scientific research. And we as a country have always been on the forefront of that, pushing the boundaries, pushing ahead in completely ethical ways. Strict guidelines is what we do. So, you need to explore the potential.
ZAHN: As this debate unfolds, the president is encouraging Americans to adopt these embryos, so they're not destroyed. And we know polls show us about 10 percent of those are being adopted today. Are you at all sensitive to the argument that, in fact, any kind of experimentation on these embryos will result in their destruction?
D. REEVE: I think 10 percent is a number that indicates probably the number of people who, for religious reasons or other reasons, say that in vitro fertilization is also unethical, and that I certainly wouldn't oppose the adoption of embryos.
But I feel that then you have the remaining percentage getting destroyed. And why destroy them? Why not use them?
ZAHN: But you do respect that point of view, if it is on religious grounds alone?
D. REEVE: Of course. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think I really would applaud anyone who stands by their convictions. What I find troubling is when, in congressional hearings, senators will avoid the question. If you don't oppose in vitro clinics, which are big moneymakers in this country, then why do you oppose stem cell research? Because you have to point to that central argument.
But, absolutely. In terms of -- that's what makes this country great, is that -- democracy. There are people who stand by their religious convictions and are permitted to do so.
ZAHN: As I sit across from you, I can't help but think of your husband, Chris.
D. REEVE: Yes.
ZAHN: And how he so passionately fought for this kind of research.
D. REEVE: Yes.
ZAHN: Particularly when he believed that it could yield great results for paralysis victims. But even he conceded to me he wasn't sure the embryonic cell experimentation would help him at all.
D. REEVE: He did say -- towards -- certainly, towards what turned out to be the end of his life, he wasn't sure it would help him personally. But he believed so strongly in it for the potential to cure a host of other ailments and diseases that it is just a matter of doing the right thing.
There are people on both sides of the political fence here, Democrats, as well as Republicans, who support stem cell research. And Chris certainly was fighting for other people. He wasn't only fighting for himself. And it would be a great victory if we could continue working on the stem cell research and in a positive way.
ZAHN: In one of my last conversations with Chris, he talked about how much joy he derived from tweaking people.
D. REEVE: Yes.
ZAHN: Angering people in the paralysis community, because they often accused him of trying to build false hope, and, at the same time, pricking at the scientists as well.
D. REEVE: Yes.
ZAHN: How would he view today's debate in Washington?
D. REEVE: Well, today's debate in Washington is particularly an emotional day for me, because I think, I wish Chris were here to see it. And I think that he would feel very positive.
There is tremendous momentum and there is -- overall, certainly, in the people that we have talked to, there is a feeling that a good thing is going to come out of this. I think it is a red-letter day. And I think he brought us to this point, not single-handedly, but I certainly think that he highlighted the need for this kind of research.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: My conversation with Dana Reeve, who should be happy with this evening's vote in the House to expand funding for embryonic stem cell research.
If you want to know more about Reeve's foundation, please to go to Web site, ChristopherReeveFoundation.com.
Now, people on the other side of this debate feel just as deeply that they are doing the right thing, saving human lives by saving embryos.
White House correspondent Dana Bash has that part of the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Maura and John Daniel call 19- month-old Katherine their miracle baby. After five wrenching years of in vitro fertilization, finally, Maura got pregnant. She was in New York for treatment on 9/11. The trauma took a toll.
MAURA DANIEL, MOTHER: After that, we did get pregnant, and I was pregnant for seven weeks, and then we lost the baby.
BASH: Maura and John decided to adopt. Then Maura saw a story about something she'd never heard of, embryo adoption. DANIEL: And I called John into the living room to look at it on television, and, you know, we were thinking that this could be the way we have a family.
BASH: The Daniels contacted Nightlight, a Christian fertility clinic in California that offers up for adoption other families' unused embryos.
DANIEL: We handpicked them, and they handpicked us.
JOHN DANIEL, FATHER: And they're a beautiful family, that we've met. And met their children and to us it's the most wonderful gift that anyone could ever give, right? And, you know, we have a beautiful daughter. We have twins on the way.
M. DANIEL: Can you have more bite of egg? Nope.
BASH: Katherine is called a snowflake baby, one of about only 80 children in the country born from an adopted frozen embryo. Her parents have come to Washington to tell Congressmen to take a look at Katherine before allowing more frozen embryos to be used in federally funded stem cell research.
M. DANIEL: All we want to do is just raise their awareness and show them Wren's beautiful face and them know that, you know, when they're going to sign off on a bill or not, to think twice.
BASH: The Daniels were invited to the White House. They stood right behind the president. He called them an affirming alternative to using embryos for science.
BUSH: The children here today are reminders that every human life is a precious gift of matchless value.
BASH: Like the president, the Daniels say they support current limits on stem cell research. John's father just died from Parkinson's disease.
J. DANIEL: ...continued research, stem cell research, we would be hypocrites to think it was wrong.
BASH: The president calls stem cell research a culture of life issue like abortion. Not the Daniels.
M. DANIEL: We are pro-choice, we are pro-science, so we're kind of unique I think in this situation, but we definitely are for these legislators making very informed decisions.
BASH: But the fact remains, very few of the estimated 400,000 frozen embryos in the U.S. ever become viable fetuses. Four were transferred into Maura; only Katherine survived. Maura says she understands why some people would want to give their embryos up for science, but that the gift of motherhood after so long pulled her into the political fray.
M. DANIEL: She's definitely going to know her story and the way -- the beautiful way she came into this world. And it's just -- it's overwhelming how much we love her.
BASH: Uh-oh.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Uh-oh, Cheerios on the floor. Dana Bash with the other side of that pointed argument tonight. Coming up next, the power of words. They can define or completely diminish who we are.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHADOYIA JONES, STUDENT: I just feel like all my achievements, everything that I've been working so hard for, just went down the drain, basically.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Coming up next, how two words, just two little words, devastated an honor student and brought dishonor to her school.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: There is outrage in Texas tonight, outrage over something that is one of two things, either insensitive and stupid or just plain vicious. Either way, it takes your breath away. And it all starts with a high school yearbook.
Here's Ed Lavandera.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONES: I was disappointed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shadoyia Jones couldn't wait to open her senior yearbook. Four years of hard work as an honors student at Waxahachie High School in Texas would be captured forever in these pages.
JONES: This yearbook is one that I really, really wanted to buy, because it is my senior year. I have my senior picture in there.
LAVANDERA: But when Jones opened the book and flipped to the National Honors Society page, she was stunned to find her name wasn't in the caption. Instead, the only African-American student in the picture was labeled as black girl.
JONES: I just felt like all my achievements, everything that I've been working so hard for, it just went down the drain, basically.
LAVANDERA: School officials say it was a terrible mistake and have apologized to the student and her family. They say a student editor had written in the words black girl as a placeholder until they could verify Jones' name. The name was never added. CANDACE AHLFINGER, WAXAHACHIE SCHOOL DISTRICT: There were no racial issues involved. It was purely a mistake. It was an unfortunate mistake. And it was a pure choice. But it was one where someone didn't think.
LAVANDERA: Katherine Camp is a yearbook staff member. She says the caption was not written in a malicious way.
KATHERINE CAMP, YEARBOOK STAFF: We all apologized to her. And we are very sorry that it happened. But it wasn't meant to happen.
LAVANDERA (on camera): The Waxahachie School District says it has already taken steps to make sure this never happens again. Currently, three people edit each page of the yearbook. But starting next year, there will be two additional editors, including a faculty committee that will be required to proofread each page before it gets published.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks for stopping.
LAVANDERA (on camera): But the apologies aren't enough for some students.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no excuse to put -- to label somebody as that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel that it is very offensive and wrong and it is racist.
LAVANDERA: The school has ordered corrected pages and are asking students to bring their yearbooks back to get the offensive page replaced. But, for Shadoyia Jones, ripping out this page won't erase the humiliation two words have left behind.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Well, no matter what the motivation, it certainly was unfortunate. Ed Lavandera reporting for us tonight.
This week, we're bringing you "Survivor" stories. And in just a minute, a former policeman remembers how he lost all hope and was nearly killed patrolling the mean streets of the city. And later, a teenage surfer's incredible comeback from a shark attack.
First, though, just about 21 minutes past the hour. Erica Hill at HEADLINE NEWS joins us now to update the top stories. Not on a surfboard tonight.
Hi, Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, not surfing tonight. I'm going to leave that to her. She's much better than I am.
We'll start off with the news, though, President Bush standing proudly today next to his judicial nominee, Judge Priscilla Owen. The Senate finally broke an impasse and will vote tomorrow on her nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yesterday's bipartisan filibuster agreement cleared the way for the vote.
On the CNN "Security Watch" tonight, the FBI is asking for more power in the war on terror, including the right to seize records on travel without a judge's permission. Critics say it threatens the right to privacy.
Michael Jackson won't be taking the stand in his trial. The defense says it will rest its case tomorrow. Today, Jay Leno told the jury Jackson's young accuser called him and sounded as though he might ask for money, but he never actually did, something that had been expected.
Northwest Airlines plans to lay off half the mechanics who service its planes. Their union says the airline wants to slash nearly 3,000 jobs and cut base pay, the savings, $166 million.
And a big Wall Street investment bank is a divided -- or a house divided, rather. Valerie Morris has tonight's "Market Movers".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VALERIE MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There is a management mess at Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley. Eight former executives of the bank are trying to oust Chairman and CEO Phil Purcell. They blame him for what they call mediocre performance and a lagging stock price.
The dissident shareholders want the company to split into two divisions, one focused on selling financial services to individual investors and another to institutions. But Morgan Stanley's board supports Purcell and doesn't want to break up the company. The turmoil has led a number of senior executives, bankers and traders to leave the firm in recent weeks. Shares of Morgan Stanley have fallen more than 10 percent since late March, prompting takeover speculation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: And, Paula, those are the headlines at this hour. I'll turn it back over to you.
ZAHN: Thanks so much. See you in about a half-hour or so. Appreciate it.
Time now to vote for our person of the day. Your choices tonight, New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, for finding out that Medicaid was paying for Viagra for convicted sex offenders, yes, Viagra; or John McCain for helping to end the Senate showdown over the filibuster; or the voice of Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft, who died just over the weekend, for building an entire career on one word, "Great." Well, no one can do it like he did it. Vote at CNN.com/Paula. I'll let you know wins later on in the hour.
Coming up next, a survivor story. A cop who actually wanted to work in New York's most crime-infested neighborhoods.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CEA: It's a life-and-death situation. You feel like Superman. So, you start to change then, where you feel invincible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: How a New York cop learned the hard way that he wasn't Superman and almost fell prey to the folks he was trying to arrest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: This week, our spotlight is on survivors, people who have persevered through the most trying challenges.
Well, tonight, the rise and fall of a cop who patrolled some of the toughest streets in the nation's biggest city, until all that evil nearly consumed him. It is tonight's "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profile.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CEA: I was suicidal. I had a gun in my mouth. And I climbed out of the darkest hole you could possibly be in. And I wanted to be the best that I could as a cop and try to help people and stop crime before it happened, before it occurred, you know, be out there and sort of be the savior. That's all I wanted to do. And it slowly changed.
ZAHN: Robert Cea was a cop in Brooklyn, where he grew up. He had always dreamed of being a cop, fascinated by movie cops like Serpico, Seven-Ups, Bullit. Cea enrolled in the New York Police Academy at 16.
CEA: The first day of the scademy, there was an NYPD flag." Fidelis Ad Mortem" is the letters on the flag, which means faithful until death. That meant so much to me, that I was going into a job where you would do anything that you could, even right up to dying for it.
In the academy, they teach you how to do everything by the book.
ZAHN: When Robert Cea graduated from the police academy in the early 1980s, he went back to his native Brooklyn. Life on the street was a lot different from the movies and from what he had learned at the academy.
CEA: Once you get out in the street, you realize you have to throw all that out the window, because it doesn't work that way. It is never structured when you're in the street.
And this is East Flatbush is where I first began my career, here.
So, it -- everything changed. I ended up in the 67, which is in East Flatbush. Now, I lived in Brooklyn, which was one precinct south of the 67, which was the 63. It was like a totally different world. I didn't even know it existed. It was like being in a Third World country. It was one of the most horrific experiences on the job that I ever seen.
ZAHN: His beat included the neighborhood called the Badlands.
CEA: And what he did was, he put gun under his head and he blew his head off right in front of us.
It was a very, very busy precinct. And it ran the gamut, from robberies to delivering babies to shootings, to murders, to rapes. Church Street Avenue, I think it's about six miles long. There are hair extension stores, there are rowdy restaurants, there are jerk chicken restaurants, there are Jamaican nightclubs. There are stores that sell bongs, intricate carved pipes, it is just rife with color. Music is jury rigged to all of the stores. Bob Marley and the Walers are play on one block, Jimmy Clifford is playing on another block. But every corner was a weed spot, where they sold weed. There is nothing more exciting to me, I don't think, there's a moment that passes when they make you as a cop and you make them as a bad guy, you know, that split second and then it is the chase. And...
ZAHN: His sharpened street senses warned him about the danger all around him.
CEA: I was dating a girl at the time. She told me immediately, you know that you're starting to talk differently. You're acting differently. You know, you become more defensive. You become more paranoid. You become more suspect of everything around you. That literally happens in a week. You start to change then when you feel invincible, and it is an incredible feeling. And it's not because you can lock somebody up or put somebody away, it's the life and death situation that you feel every single day. It is adrenaline 24/7. You can't turn it off.
ZAHN: Soon after, Cea put in for a transfer from the Badlands to another Brooklyn district, the 76 in Red Hook. Another tough neighborhood that Cea thought he could help clean up. Guys who wanted to take as many guns off the street as they could, this was the place to be. The big difference from the Badlands was that in Red Hook, almost all the criminal activity was in the projects, where slinging or selling heroin was a major business.
CEA: At night, it is like a tunnel here. Trust me. This is -- everybody is -- you know, nobody is slinging now. They start slinging about 3:00 in the afternoon. This place is a supermarket or at least it was in the day.
ZAHN: Even today this place is so dangerous that our camera crew needed a uniformed police escort.
CEA: It's a little scary, you know. But I still feel excitement because I did so much work here. I mean, this is where I did most of my work. Trust me, we are being watched now probably by 100 people.
ZAHN: To succeed here, Cea needed an informant. CEA: Shot King (ph) was one of the biggest drug dealers in the city. He sold heroin, and he was as dirty as they came and he was very bad guy. His number one drug dealer was a guy named Chilledo (ph). I like him so much, he was my informant. But again, he was slinging drugs, you know. He was the best at what he did.
ZAHN: Now Cea had to find a way to turn Chilledo.
CEA: The way you cultivate informants, you got to sort of -- you've got to make them feel like you understand them, you're a part of them. But as I was cultivating him, I was developing, like, a kinship with him, a friendship with him because I liked the guy so much. So, I turned him and what he would do is he would give me incredible information on guys who were wanted.
ZAHN: The murky informant cop relationship worked both ways. Chilledo insulated himself from persecution by giving information to Cea. And in turn, Cea was setting gun collar records in Red Hook. But within months, Chilledo was murdered, shot between the eyes on a tenement roof. And because Cea and his partner dealt so closely with the drug dealer, possibly too closely, the NYPD considered him a prime suspect.
CEA: I felt betrayed by the job. I certainly knew that I -- we didn't commit the murder. And I liked the guy. I mean, it broke my heart when he was killed.
ZAHN: Heartbroken and angry, Cea's emotions clouded his ability to do his job.
CEA: At one point, we saw a guy tighten up on the street. So, I got the guy in the back seat of the car and I asked him who -- did you know anything about the Chilledo murder. He said no. I just snapped. I jumped over the seat, and I got on top of him in the back of the seat. I took my five shot out and I dumped all the bullets out, took one bullet put it back in, pulled the trigger and closed it. I put it to his head. And I clipped the trigger.
ZAHN: No bullet. Cea pulled the trigger a second time, but again, no bullet.
CEA: I realized when I -- that I had become the monster. My whole career was being the hunter, now I'm the hunted.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And in a minute, Rob Cea's bid for redemption ends in a fight for his life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CEA: The next thing I heard was -- were sort of two gunshots and the next thing I know is I woke up in a hospital.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: "Survivor" stories continue when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Suspected of murder, Rob Cea looked like he had hit rock bottom. But that was only the beginning. This New York City cop was about to face a criminal who would nearly kill him. Here is more of tonight's "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profile.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CEA: I was incredibly paranoid. My wife was three months pregnant with our baby. And I couldn't enjoy -- I couldn't feel the joy of that, because I was going to jail. You know, as my paranoia got worse and worse and my home life got worse and worse, I had become the monster that I was chasing.
ZAHN (voice-over): It was the low point of his life. Cea's wife moved out, and had an abortion without telling him.
CEA: I sat in the car and I pulled my five shot revolver out and I put it in my mouth.
ZAHN: But at the last minute, Cea thought of his brother who would have to identify his body.
CEA: And I just dropped the gun on the car and on the floor and I took off. And I never looked back.
ZAHN: As he struggled under a cloud of suspicion and tried to escape his personal demons, just collaring average perps no longer satisfied Cea. He focused on snaring a criminal no one seemed able to catch, the "Flat Bush Rapist."
CEA: It was a serial rapist, that had done five or six women at the time. And my objective was find him and end it with this guy. And that's exactly how it happened. And I saw him going, make his way to a -- to the flagpole which is where they used to deal. I got out of the car, and I chased him into the atrium and we got lost in the building. So, he was going to the roof of the building. What he didn't realize was there are -- there are no fire escapes. We wrestle to the ground and he was still trying to go off the roof, but I was holding on to him. And then I cuffed his wrist to my wrist. Now he can't go anywhere. So, now we're fused together at the wrist. That's it now. So, now I got him. We both got each other. So, he can't throw me off the roof or if he does throw me off the roof, he's coming with me.
So, at that point, he's now trying to rip the cuff off my wrist and I hear my bones cracking. He broke my wrist, just trying to rip it and tear it off. Then he just went insane on me and just started to whale on me and just beat me and beat me and beat me, and he came down and he bit the top piece of my nose off, and what I was doing at that point was breathing in blood. So I was coughing and breathing in blood and spitting in his face, the blood -- I saw it coming out and gurgling. But he kept hitting me. And then I just started to fade. And then the next thing I heard was -- were sort of two gunshots, and the next thing I know is, I woke up in a hospital. ZAHN: Cea spent 10 days in a hospital bed. He had cuts over his entire body. His nose was partially torn from his face. His wrist and three ribs were broken. An eye socket was fractured.
CEA: Two of my partners were there and they had told me that he was in fact the rapist and I caught him, and that the murderer of Chilledo, was also caught.
ZAHN: Chilledo was murdered by a hit man, which cleared Cea of any wrongdoing.
CEA: I just laid there and I just remembered just feeling, so what? Everything I did, for them to come and tell me, you're exonerated. I lost my baby. I lost my wife. You know, I lost my soul.
He runs down this block...
ZAHN: After 12 years with the NYPD, Rob Cea left the policeforce and became a writer.
CEA: I don't go into Red Hook. It gives me a feeling of discontent. But then, the flip side of it is, I say to myself, well, as I pass it, I say to myself, well, look where I am now. That was what made me who I am today.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: One man's incredible story of despair and redemption.
Still ahead tonight, the story of another survivor, an incredible tale of a 15-year-old surfer who lost her arm to a shark and still competes nationally in surfing, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: And, we're back. Time for another look at the top stories with Erica Hill of HEADLINE NEWS.
HILL: Thanks, Paula.
A second bloody day for American forces fighting in Iraq. In Baghdad, an IED (ph) blew up a Humvee in a convoy, killing four Americans. Four more died with Marines fighting south of Baghdad. In the last two days, nine American troops have been killed.
Home sales and prices took a big leap in April. Existing home sales were up 4.5 percent. That's the biggest annual gain in 25 years. Meantime, the national median price of a home topped it $206,000, 15 percent higher than just a year ago.
Bad news for some men tonight. Senators are moving to ban Medicare and Medicaid spending on Viagra and similar drugs. Now, last year Medicaid spent about $38 million on anti-impotence drugs for men.
And, we all know about spam and viruses, right? Well, the latest threat to your computer, "ransom wear." A sneak attack locks up your computer files so you can't open them without paying a $200 ransom. This one's a first. The FBI is looking into it.
That's the latest from HEADLINE NEWS at this hour. Paula, back to you.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Erica.
Coming up next, a "Survivor" story you'll never forget -- a near fatal shark attack and a young surfer's courageous comeback.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Fewer than 100 people a year all over the world are attacked by sharks, but knowing that doesn't really make it any less frightening to think about that possibility. So, imagine how much courage it would take to get back into the water after being attacked by a shark. Well, you're about to meet a teenage survivor who did just that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Bethany Hamilton is a surfer through and through. She grew up on these waves off the island of Kauai. At 13, she was competing in national surfing events.
Before sunrise every day, Bethany hits the beach in search of the perfect wave.
But on October 31, 2003, her life changed forever.
(on camera): Take us back to that Halloween morning, when you were attacked. What do you remember leading up to the shark actually taking your arm?
BETHANY HAMILTON, SURFER: I was just surfing with my friends. I knew right away what happened. And they all pulled me in. And soon I was in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
ZAHN (voice-over): Bethany was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark while she lay on her board in the surf. It tore off her left arm, and with it a huge chunk of her surfboard.
Tiger sharks often swim in the shallow waters off Hawaii. They're considered one of the most dangerous of the 32 species known to attack humans.
Bethany tried to paddle ashore on her mangled board. She was losing blood fast.
(on camera): How did you get back to shore?
HAMILTON: My friend Alana, her dad and her brother pulled me to shore.
ZAHN: If it weren't for your friend Alana's father, you might not be alive, right?
HAMILTON: Yeah, definitely.
ZAHN: So he had the wisdom to make you a tourniquet. He saw you were in trouble, and he knew he had to stop the loss of blood?
HAMILTON: Yes. He just got a surfboard leash, which is like a thin plastic rubber. So it was kind of like the perfect thing. And I guess the doctor said that was one thing that definitely saved me.
ZAHN (voice-over): Bethany was rushed into surgery, where doctors performed a traumatic amputation to close the large wound with a flap of her skin. She was lucky to be alive.
She had lost an arm, but not her spirit. (on camera): I think it is absolutely amazing that three weeks after almost losing your life, you went back into the water. What made you do that?
HAMILTON: I guess all I can say is my love for surfing just -- is what brought me back out there. And I love being in the ocean and the beach. And it was just one thing I want -- had to do, wanted to do. Fall off a horse, get back on.
ZAHN: And what was it like to be on the water for first time after you were so severely attacked?
HAMILTON: I was just happy, nervous, scared, all at the same time. And by the time I caught my first wave, I just had tears of joy. And I rode it all the way to the beach. And I was just so happy, just to be in the water, just to be surfing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Guess we shouldn't be too surprised Bethany has used her publicity to help others, and she raised thousands of dollars for tsunami victims.
Coming at the top of the hour, that's exactly where we find the king of television, Larry King standing by. How are you doing tonight, Lar?
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": The king of television?
ZAHN: That was very clever, wasn't it? I took your last name and kind of like put it in a sentence.
KING: I like it. You're like my queen, Paula.
ZAHN: Oh, this is getting good, Larry.
KING: Yeah.
ZAHN: So who are you talking to tonight? KING: Mindy McCready, the country music star who's had her share of problems. She was arrested for DUI, she was beaten up by her boyfriend, she's in between recording companies, and she's on probation for an incident involving prescription fraud. Other than that, things are going terrific.
And then we have a major discussion with our panel in London over the report today in "The British Express" that there are stories in Great Britain and in Paris that Princess Di, that incident may not have been an accident. All that at the top of the hour.
ZAHN: I guess Dodi Al-Fayed's father, Mohammed Al-Fayed, must be feeling pretty good about that. He has long argued that there was something quite wrong about what happened that day, and beyond what he always said what appeared to be an accident, was something much deeper than that. KING: Wouldn't it be amazing if it were more than that?
ZAHN: Yeah, it would be.
KING: Unbelievable.
ZAHN: A lot of people would be in a lot of trouble there, Lar. See you at the top of the hour. Thanks so much.
Coming up next, the person of the day. Will it be New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi for discovering that sex offenders were using Medicaid to get Viagra? Senator John McCain, who helped defuse Capitol Hill's showdown over judges? Or the late Thurl Ravenscroft? He was the voice of Tony the Tiger and the man who sang "The Ballad of Davey Crockett."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Now to our person of the day. Is it New York's comptroller for finding out that Medicaid was paying for convicted sex offenders' Viagra prescriptions? Senator John McCain, for leading the way in the Senate's filibuster deal, to prevent the nuclear option? Or the voice of Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft, who died on Sunday, for making a whole career out of one word -- Grrreat? Oh, man, I'm so glad he did it the way he did it.
The winner with 62 percent of the vote, the voice of Tony the Tiger.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THURL RAVENSCROFT, VOICE OF TONY THE TIGER: Hi. I'm Tony the Tiger.
ZAHN (voice-over): Thurl Ravenscroft gave life to Tony, the ceral-eating Tiger, back in 1952.
RAVENSCROFT: Frosted flakes are great!
ZAHN: For more than 50 years, Ravenscroft was the famous voice behind the friendly cat pitching Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.
When Kellogg's first dreamed up the idea of a tiger with a sweet tooth, they sent Ravenscroft a caricature of the big cat. What he came up with was, well...
RAVENSCROFT: Grrreat!
ZAHN: Tony the Tiger became one of America's most recognized cultural icons, immortalized on the Advertising Walk of Fame. His image and voice exported around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I never had the cereal. I just like Tony.
ZAHN: His looks may have changed over the years, but his voice remained the same. And the Tiger Ravenscroft helped create sold billions of boxes of Frosted Flakes.
But Tony the Tiger wasn't Thurl Ravenscroft's only claim to fame. Perhaps you heard him singing in the 1966 version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
Ravenscroft even gave our network his seal of approval.
RAVENSCROFT: Just to be interviewed by CNN, Tony says it's really Grrreeat!
ZAHN: For building a great career on just one word, you've made Thurl Ravenscroft the person of the day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Thanks for joining us tonight. "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
END
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