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The Situation Room
Recovery Operation in Joplin Continues; Mysteries of Deadly Plane Crash Revealed
Aired May 27, 2011 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN ANCHOR: You have seen the terror-filled moments when the tornado struck Joplin, Missouri. But now there is an extraordinary video showing what happened next, as residents emerge from shelter and get their first look at the twister's horrifying aftermath and call out for their missing loved ones.
Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aaron, look at this. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh, Aaron. Oh, my gosh.
AARON COX, TORNADO SURVIVOR: It went right through here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know where...
A. COX: I don't know where we are.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't even know (INAUDIBLE) I don't know where to go.
A. COX: We have got to keep going this way. Don't step on any of this. Come on. We got to keep going this way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know, but I feel like I need to help if someone's hurt.
A. COX: Well, we will keep asking. Look at this house. It's gone. Come on.
You guys OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh.
A. COX: Oh, my gosh. Look at these houses, babe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You guys OK?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Thank you.
A. COX: What street is this? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is -- I don't know. Illinois (INAUDIBLE)
A. COX: Oh, babe, look.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What? Oh, no. It's the hospital.
A. COX: Sarah! Mike! Sarah! Mike!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sarah! Mike! Mike! Sarah!
A. COX: All right, I'm going to check the basement.
A. COX: Sarah? Mike?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mike? Sarah?
A. COX: You guys down here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mike?
A. COX: Sis?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kirby (ph).
A. COX: Sarah?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mike?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're not in the bedroom.
A. COX: They must have left.
A. COX: I think they're gone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kirby. Kirby.
A. COX: Kirby Jean (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're just going to hope that they (INAUDIBLE) they took Kirby with them, OK? All right, come on. They're not in the basement?
A. COX: No, I don't think so.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. OK.
A. COX: Sarah! Mike!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're not down there. You went down there?
A. COX: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
A. COX: You can't really see anything, though.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's OK, baby. That just means they're not here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: That couple, Brooke McKenzie Watson (ph) and Aaron Cox, were searching for Aaron's sister, and eventually they did find Sarah and Mike, who had made it safely to their parents' house. And the cat, Kirby, also fine.
There has been a dramatic drop in the number of missing in Joplin, where emergency management crews are working around the clock on the recovery effort. There are now 156 people unaccounted for, down from 232 a day earlier.
But the number of confirmed dead is rising, up to 132 now. Many families are still waiting to learn the fate of loved ones.
That grisly task is in the hands of coroners and, in some cases, the 200-mile-per-hour fury of that tornado will make the job extremely difficult.
Our Brian Todd is in Joplin -- Brian.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Candy, the process of finding those missing, I.D.ing the bodies and getting them back to their families is picking up, but there are still some serious kinks. And the families are dealing with them the best they can.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TODD (voice-over): They file into the church to pay tribute to a man who is not there. The family and friends of Ray Donald Miller III, also known as Tripp, are determined to memorialize him regardless of what authorities do with his body.
Tripp, seen here in a local paper's obituary, is one of several people killed in the tornado whose bodies couldn't be immediately released to their families. We couldn't get an answer on why Tripp Miller's body was held, even though the family know he is deceased. Officials here are trying to streamline the process of locating those missing and I.D.ing the bodies. But they're still not letting the families help with that part.
ANDREA SPILLARS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: And they go through a very specific process to identify the bodies, using medical records, using fingerprinting. So, it is not necessary for family members to actually go out to the morgue to identify their loved ones.
TODD: It certainly is not possible for them to.
The morgue for tornado victims is in an undisclosed location, but we found it. (on camera): Outside Joplin, this is a temporary morgue where forensic specialists are identifying and examining bodies working out of refrigerated trucks and a small warehouse. It is supposed to be secret. And there's heavy security here.
(voice-over): When another CNN team tried to take pictures of the place, they were hassled by security personnel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys got any cameras or anything?
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. They need to be secured in the back of your vehicle.
TODD: The clampdown has to do with false identifications right after the tornado, according to Newton County coroner Mark Bridges. He has been working with local and federal mortuary teams in this process. Bridges says these teams now have to treat every case as unidentified, until they go through DNA and fingerprint matching and other forensics.
MARK BRIDGES, NEWTON COUNTY, MISSOURI CORONER: I have had individuals look at a body and say, that's my son, that's my brother, that's my daughter. And they get into the morgue, get into a prep area for their prep. They come back and they look at them. And they say, wow, I was wrong.
TODD (on camera): How can they get it wrong? What -- is the -- are the bodies in such a condition...
BRIDGES: Sometimes, it is the condition of the bodies. But usually it is just pure shock.
TODD (voice-over): Inside a local morgue that handled some tornado cases in the early going, Bridges described what a tornado can do to the body.
BRIDGES: The average condition of a body is going to be what we call viewable. But it is probably going to involve restorative arts. You get to the worst-case scenarios that we see, decapitations, things of this sort, that's going to take DNA.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TODD: It will take DNA, Bridges says, unless there are some good, very definitive markings on the body, like intricate tattoos and piercings. He says, these days, there are a lot of those. So, if family members can tell these forensic teams about them, they might be able to get their loved ones back maybe a little bit sooner -- Candy.
CROWLEY: Brian, how many of the bodies in the temporary morgue are not identifiable?
TODD: Bridges estimates that about half of them are not identifiable because of their condition. But he says some good restorative technicians can make them identifiable, can bring them back so that families can at least get a good look at them and make sure that that's their person.
He says that takes a few hours for each body. That may be what's holding up the process here a little bit.
CROWLEY: Brian Todd in Joplin, Missouri, thanks so much.
For some tornado survivors, the recovery process is well under way.
CNN's Jacqui Jeras has that for us from Joplin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Candy, the help is pouring in here in Joplin, Missouri. Insurance agents have been going door-to- door helping people who have been left homeless from the tornado.
This is the Kerr (ph) family. And already their company has issued them checks for living expenses and for the home itself. So they bought a new home and relocating to a different part of the house. They have decided they are going to bulldoze their home that they lived here for years and years. And they are going to build a duplex and make it into a rental property. So that's the good news out of this, but not the story for everyone.
The people next door, while they have received a check to help them with living expenses, they are still waiting to hear how much money they might get to cover the house. So, some people are relocating, some people still waiting for that help, which continues to pour in to this devastated city -- Candy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: As much of the country reels from natural disasters, federal agencies are still focused on the recovery mission in Alabama a month after that state was hit by deadly tornadoes. FEMA announced today that almost 77,000 individuals and households have registered for help in Alabama and more than $60 million in federal aid has gone to tornado survivors there.
Mysteries of a deadly plane crash revealed, including a horrifying three-minute plunge into the Atlantic Ocean -- new clues into what happened to Air France Flight 447.
Also, newly released video of a police raid that left a young Iraq war veteran dead, and his family wants answers.
Plus, the machine that can sign bills into law, it has some people saying, isn't that the president's job?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: The case of a Saudi woman who dared to drive a car has become a cause championed by people around the world. CNN's Hala Gorani is here.
You know, I guess I should be surprised, except for we are not surprised knowing Saudi Arabia.
HALA GORANI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, it's a longstanding ban on female drivers.
But this woman, Manal Al-Sharif, committed really a small act of defiance, but one that caused outrage around the world because of the context in the Arab world, the uprisings, the revolutions. This woman is a really one-woman army who is calling on other women to take to the streets in another act of defiance, but she was arrested by Saudi authorities for getting behind the wheel. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI (voice-over): Manal Al-Sharif is in jail for driving a car, defying a ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia. Arrested last Sunday, her detention in Dammam prison was extended another 10 days on Thursday; 32-year-old Al-Sharif has become an icon of sorts, an activist.
For several years now, she's uploaded videos of herself in her car. Even before her arrest, Al-Sharif said there is still a long road ahead.
MANAL AL-SHARIF, WOMEN 2 DRIVE: We say a saying in Arabic. The rain starts with a drop. So, this thing is really a symbolic thing for us women, driving, very basically, very insignificant (INAUDIBLE) for us.
GORANI: Insignificant, but not here. There is no law against female drivers in Saudi Arabia. But, culturally, the ban is accepted, enforced. Women caught driving are usually held a few hours and then released.
But Manal Al-Sharif was punished more harshly. Some are saying the kingdom is concerned that Arab uprising and revolutions will turn a small act of dissent into something bigger. Around the world, Al- Sharif's case has caused outrage.
There are Facebook pages and petitions calling for her release. But a woman who wants nothing more than to be behind the wheel is spending at least the next 10 days behind bars.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: All right, well, Manal had a Facebook page that was deactivated in which she called for this mass movement on June 17, calling on female drivers across Saudi Arabia to take to the streets. We will see if they respond to her call.
CROWLEY: I just -- you can't help but think of Rosa Parks here in the United States when she moved from the back of the bus to the front of the bus and the uprising that caused. What -- I'm curious what the United States government is say about this.
(CROSSTALK)
GORANI: Well, one of the things that caught the attention of many around the world in President Obama's Middle East speech is the country he did not mention. And that is Saudi Arabia, an important U.S. ally, an important strategic ally in the region as well.
So, we asked the State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, today for a reaction to this story. And here is the response, not the most enthusiastic condemnation ever: "There is an ongoing social debate within Saudi Arabia," he said, "and there are voices that need to be respected and heard on a variety of issues."
So, that's the response we have gotten from the U.S. right now so far in this story.
CROWLEY: Well, like the president has said many times, it needs to come from the countries, and it sounds like it kind of is. So, we will check back in with you on this story. It's a great one. Thanks, Hala.
The secret deal Osama bin Laden considered making with Pakistan. We are learning what he was offering and what he wanted in exchange.
Plus, the chilling end to a transatlantic flight -- new details of the final moments of Air France Flight 447 and its fatal plunge to the sea.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: It is the pet project spending that many lawmakers love to hate while happily filling themselves with the old pork barrel. Now those so-called earmarks are banned, but we found a loophole. And apparently so have some members of Congress.
And leave it to our senior congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, to find the loophole.
What is it?
DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the defense bill that passed the House this week really is the first test about how Congress handles itself in the post-earmark ban world.
And what we saw is that tens of millions of dollars that may not be earmarks by definition could certainly be pork.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): Redstone arsenal in Northern Alabama, home of Army rocket and missile programs, it could get $2.5 million added to a defense bill to develop unmanned vehicle technology, thanks to Congressman Mo Brooks, who represents the district.
(on camera): So, that is probably going to go to your district and help your constituents.
REP. MO BROOKS (R), ALABAMA: I can't say that it is going to go to the Fifth Congressional District, but I will say this. If that's a service that we can offer to America, I will be tickled pink.
BASH (voice-over): In this press release, Brooks boasted about getting more jobs for his district.
(on camera): That sounds like an earmark, which the House banned this year. So what's this all about? Watchdog groups worry it is a backdoor way around the ban.
(voice-over): The House Armed Services chairman cut hundreds of millions of dollars from a variety of defense programs and put the money in a newly created pot dubbed the Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund. Lawmakers are using it to pay for projects and policy proposals.
To some, it is a pet project slush fund.
TOM SCHATZ, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE: This money has never been in this bill before. It is certainly suspicious that it has occurred for the first time after earmarks have been placed under a moratorium. And it looks like a work-around.
BASH (on camera): But it's another form of pork?
BROOKS: No, I disagree. I don't think that it is pork because you are not able to allocate where it goes.
BASH (voice-over): That is a big difference. With traditional earmarks, lawmakers guaranteed funding for projects back home. Here, the Defense Department has final say over the money.
But in some cases, there appears to be little doubt lawmakers' districts would benefit. Betty Sutton secured more than $30 million for a defense corrosion prevention program and projects. It so happens the University of Akron in her Ohio district has the first corrosive engineering program in the country. Sutton declined a CNN interview request.
Then there's the Tea Party-backed freshman Steve Palazzo. He scored $19.9 million for Navy ship design and feasibility studies and sent out this press release promising much of it will directly benefit South Mississippi shipbuilding.
He also declined to talk to CNN. And aides said the Navy would ultimately decide how the money is spent.
Senator Claire McCaskill, a longtime earmark opponent, says she knows the way things work and does not buy it.
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: Somebody is going to call the Defense Department and say this is what it represents. This is what I want it for. If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. It is an earmark. BASH: Other lawmakers in both parties secured millions that could benefit their districts and rejected CNN's requests for interviews to explain.
Most said through spokesmen the Pentagon will make it a competitive process.
The congressman who did talk to us said, if he can still help his district in this post-earmark world, no apologies.
BROOKS: None whatsoever.
BASH (on camera): Thank you.
BROOKS: I'm doing my job.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: Until the pentagon ultimately decides, we won't know for sure if some lawmakers successfully steered pork to their districts.
Regardless, some deficit hawks say members of the House Armed Services Committee should have used the hundreds of millions of money that they found in Pentagon savings to help pay down the sky-high deficit, Candy, and not for even more government spending.
CROWLEY: It turns out the budget is like Whac-A-Mole. You hit it here and it pops up someplace else, apparently.
BASH: Go figure.
CROWLEY: Yes, exactly. Thanks so much, Dana Bash.
BASH: Thank you.
CROWLEY: Appreciate it.
(NEWS BREAK)
CROWLEY: A doomed airliner plunges 38,000 feet in three-and-a- half minutes, and what we are learning about the last moments of an Air France flight which went down in the Atlantic.
Plus, is it constitutional for President Obama to have a machine sign the Patriot Act extension when he's abroad?
And Memorial Day is Monday, but country music duo Montgomery Gentry supports American troops every day. They have traveled to Germany, Kuwait and Iraq on USO tours and entertained soldiers in the states in this "Impact Your World."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
EDDIE MONTGOMERY AND TROY GENTRY, COUNTRY MUSIC DUO: Hey, we're Montgomery Gentry...
GENTRY: ... and we can make an impact for our troops.
MONTGOMERY: We love to entertain our -- our heroes and let them know how much we do love them and miss them when they're overseas. This is the greatest country in the world where we can say and be and dream as big as we want to in this great country and, you know, we don't give it up enough for all our American heroes.
GENTRY: Join the movement, "Impact Your World," CNN.com/impact.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: We are learning horrifying new details of the final moments of Air France Flight 447, including a death plunge of 38,000 feet in just three-and-a-half minutes.
CNN's Richest Quest is in London with more on what the doomed jet's black boxes are revealing -- Richest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Candy, the information and facts that we are learning from the French investigators give us a very good idea of what happened in those few terrifying moments as the plane fell out of the sky.
Ever since the pitot tubes became clogged, we believe, with ice, the speed sensors failed and the plane began to stall. The pilots, we know, were aware that they had lost certain crucial indicators. But it is their reaction to that that is now starting to raise some eyebrows.
Initially, the pilot raised the nose and then to try -- brought it forward again to try and prevent the stall. But just after that, they called the captain back from his rest where he was behind the cockpit and the more serious and fatal and final stall hit the aircraft. And this lasted for three minutes and 30 seconds.
And usually, normally the pilots push the stick forward and the plane would go nose down. But for some reason this continued with the nose lifting higher. And what happened, of course, was the wind really did stall. The air over the wing -- the speed was simply not sufficient to keep the lift, and the inevitable took place.
But the pilot for some reason continued to keep the nose in the up position. Even the horizontal stabilizer was kept in the trimmed- up, so the plane remained in that altitude. And we know that the angle of attack of the wing to the air was 40 degrees. The pitch altitude of the nose remained 16 degrees. That is almost takeoff direction.
The inevitable: the plane continued to fall out of the sky. And as it did so, well, it was at a terrifying rate of speed. Ten thousand, 11,000 feet per minute is how fast this plane fell. And that's the altitude just about upon which it went into the water. There are many questions that have been answered by the findings from the flight data recorder. But the core question, which the final report may never really get to, is why the cockpit crew continued to keep the nose of the aircraft pointed up when every conventional wisdom, from Cessna fliers to jumbo jets, say when you're in a stall, you need to lose height to gain speed to save the plane.
Richard Quest, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: Let's get more now with our former CNN colleague, Miles O'Brien, pilot, an aviation analyst. So -- you need to get speed, because the plane stalls. To get speed you've got to go down. Why wouldn't you put the nose of the plane down?
MILES O'BRIEN, AVIATION ANALYST: Well, there's something, you know, counterintuitive about it. You get taught in flying that you pull back, the nose goes up and you go higher. And so if you're in a situation where you're in panic, for example, you might pull up when really the thing to do is to go down. You see yourself falling. You don't want to push down even further. But that is what they train you to do. That is the proper stall recovery.
The big question, though, Candy, is on the Airbus, it is a computer-controlled airplane. The pilots are system managers. Who was really controlling that plane as it went down? That's a big question we don't know yet.
CROWLEY: And we'd heard that the pilot had gotten up. I'm not sure how we know that. Maybe from the black boxes. So we're not sure. He was in control in those final moments.
O'BRIEN: Well, the captain came in in the final play -- moments. But he did not -- you know, sit down himself.
It turns out one of his -- his senior first officer actually had more experience on that particular aircraft than he did. So to say that, because the captain was out, is what caused this. Maybe not so. They had a senior first officer and then a very junior second officer, if you will.
CROWLEY: The sensors on the plain that detect air speed may have iced over.
O'BRIEN: Yes. We think...
CROWLEY: Is that what happened? And is that what caused it?
O'BRIEN: You have to back up. They flew into a terrible thunderstorm in the middle of the Atlantic, where some of the worst thunderstorms in the world occur. Icing does occur in that situation. It turns out those -- those tubes that measure the air speed, which are critical, were faulty. Needed to be replaced. There was not an emergency air worthiness directive issued for it. So they had conflicting... CROWLEY: They did afterwards.
O'BRIEN: Yes, they did. Conflicting bad information about air speed. The computer, which normally flies the airplane, finally just said, "I give up. It's your airplane." You know, raised the white flag. And this is in a very confusing situation with lots of alarm bells going off. Suddenly, it's in the hands of the crew. And it appears that the wrong inputs went into the controls, either by the crew or did the computer set the nose to go up too high? We're not sure yet.
CROWLEY: And then they couldn't have counteracted the computer?
O'BRIEN: They could have. They could have. There were two previous incidents in 2008 involving Air Korea (ph) flights, Martinique to Paris. Similar situations. Icing on the pitot tubes. And both of those crews were able to get out of it and survive.
CROWLEY: So bottom line, could something have been done from what you know?
O'BRIEN: Well, you know, it's tough to second-guess this.
CROWLEY: Right.
O'BRIEN: And we want to know a little bit more, but it's always better to put that nose down. They went down in a nose-high attitude, and that's exactly what they tell you not to do from almost day one in flying.
CROWLEY: And I -- you know, just as a passenger and not knowing much, and I know you would answer this sensitively. In that three minutes, as they are going down at a very fast speed, would passengers -- you know, would they be knocked out in some way? Or were they aware that whole time?
O'BRIEN: It would have been a very wild ride. I don't think they would have had any perception that it was 10,000 per fee, per se, but it would have been obvious that something was very wrong with that aircraft.
CROWLEY: You would have had the falling feeling?
O'BRIEN: Yes.
CROWLEY: And nothing would have caused them to lose consciousness?
O'BRIEN: Not necessarily.
CROWLEY: An awful thing. An awful thing. Miles O'Brien, nobody knows it like you. Thank you so much for coming in.
O'BRIEN: Good to be here.
CROWLEY: A writing machine raises some serious constitutional questions. Is a law still a law if the president himself doesn't sign it?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: As if the Patriot Act wasn't controversial enough, the president may have touched off a whole new debate by ordering that a machine be used to sign extensions of several key provisions, because he's overseas.
Joining me now, constitutional expert and George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley.
Listen, for people who have forgotten this particular thing from their constitutional class, I just want to for our viewers read this part of the Constitution. Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution says, "Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the president of the United States. If he approves, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall return it."
So doesn't say specifically he's got to be there. Now, we're -- we've got some video of these auto pens which mimic a person's signature.
JONATHAN TURLEY, PROFESSOR, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: Well, obviously, the framers could not have foreseen an auto pen.
But actually, the issue of people being able to sign for you goes back before the creation of our republic one of the earliest case is the Lord Lovelace case -- it's less racy than it sounds -- in 1632.
The -- you can -- starting with those cases, the courts have allowed other people to sign for clients or other attorneys. And that is done routinely. I have colleagues that have signed briefs for me if I'm out town.
For the president, it's obviously more problematic. The assumption of the framers was that the president would physically sign, and in fact, that's best -- best practice. This is, in fact, a worrisome trend. You know, there's a sort of Max Headroom effect of the presidency, of having presidents that speak off teleprompters and now sign bills virtually. There's a danger of being too detached and perhaps less accountable.
The greatest danger is if a president has lost some capacity, as were the suggestions with Ronald Reagan at the end of his last term. There's a concern that you could have staffers who are directing signatures and the president becoming too detached from his official conduct.
CROWLEY: Sure, but if a president becomes incapacitated, there's a constitutional way to hand over power. So it's sort of not the same thing. You mean if someone wanted to sort of pretend that the president was still in power, they could be signing things?
TURLEY: Well, not just that, but I mean, if the president is losing capacity, if you have staffers that have the ability just to get his assent and sign bill after bill after bill, there's a certain danger to that. The best practice that the president actually signed the bill in front of them, to be connected, to understand what he is doing. But that's obviously a remote danger, particularly today when presidents are subject to such transparency.
So the answer is that a court would probably uphold the use of an auto pen, even if most judges would not look at it favorably. It is not a good practice.
CROWLEY: Well, this was an important act that was about to expire, and they saw the necessity to do this. Did he give his opponents -- is it -- is it enough of an opening for his opponents to go to court?
TURLEY: I don't think so. And I wouldn't expect to see the auto pen brought in front of a committee and asked, you know, "What did you know and when did you know it?" This is not going to be a very good dog to have in the fight if you're trying to attack the president. For civil libertarians upset about the Patriot Act, it was an all too telling moment, you know. This bill was...
CROWLEY: More perception than any actual constitutional problems.
TURLEY: I think constitutionally, it is better than it is politically.
CROWLEY: Thank you so much. Appreciate your expertise.
The NAACP's involvement in an education lawsuit is sparking controversy in New York. Our Mary Snow has that story -- Mary.
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Candy, the head of the NAACP's New York chapter says the organization has taken up this fight just like others in the past to secure equal access to education. But it's coming under fire by African-American parents.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SNOW (voice-over): Children wearing T-shirts reading "Future NAACP Members" as their parents rallied in Harlem against the civil rights organization in a fight over education.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody's skin has a color! Yes? So to the NAACP, don't divide us; unite us.
SNOW: The division is over a lawsuit involving the NAACP's New York chapter and the city's teachers' union. The suit seeks to stop the closure of some public schools that the city deems as failing, while at the same time preventing some charter schools from opening or expanding.
Educator Jeffrey Canada joined parents who were demanding the civil rights organization drop the lawsuit, saying these charters schools are the best chance these kids have at a good education. AISHA MOORE, CHARTER SCHOOL PARENT: The NAACP has always backed minorities and African-Americans. So it's just very surprising that they're going against us now. So it's like moving backwards when we're supposed to be pushing forward.
SNOW: Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP's New York chapter, says the group is fighting for equal education for all, much like the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education. Dukes also wants to end the practice of charter and public schools being housed in the same building.
HAZEL DUKES, PRESIDENT, NAACP'S NEW YORK CHAPTER: The facilities should be in good condition on both sides. There should not be a 10 a.m. lunch hour and a 12 p.m. lunch hour. There should be a 12 p.m. lunch hour.
SNOW: The charter school parents Like Keona Moore worry that this fight will shut a door on her daughter's future.
KEONA MOORE, CHARTER SCHOOL PARENT: I'm a single parent. I'm on a limited income. If they close her school, I have to return to put her in Catholic school. I have to do whatever I have to do to put her in Catholic school, but I'm not going put her in a public failing school.
SNOW: Zakiyah Ansari is a mother of eight who is part of the lawsuit and sides with the NAACP's stance. She says charter school parents aren't seeing the big picture.
ZAKIYAH ANSARI, ALLIANCE FOR QUALITY EDUCATION: Kind of saw the writing on the wall of this day in 2011 where now we're engaging parents and having them come out in busloads to fight against other parents for the same thing: the right to a quality education. We're not asking for more.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SNOW: Candy, to put it in perspective, currently 4 percent of the city's roughly 1.1 million students attend charter schools. About 50,000 students are currently on waiting lists.
CROWLEY: Wow. To me this is an amazing story. And charter schools always have sort of invoked such passion on both sides of the issue. So I suspect this one will continue.
SNOW: Absolutely. And, you know, parents feel so passionately. They say that -- you know, each side said this is all about equality, but they see that issue very differently on either side of this fight.
CROWLEY: Sure. When it comes down to your child and what you want for your child. It's a hugely different issue how you look at things.
Thanks so much, Mary Snow. Appreciate it.
SNOW: Sure. CROWLEY: Newly-released video of a police raid. It left a young Iraq War veteran dead, and now his family is demanding answers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: An investigation is under way into a police raid that left a young Iraq War veteran dead. Now for the first time we're seeing video of the incident. CNN's Kara Finnstrom shows us how it all played out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is it, right here on our left.
KARA FINNSTROM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It began the morning of May 5 with a raid of four houses near Tucson, Arizona, where investigators suspected a violent drug smuggling operation was being run.
Within minutes, it ended with a SWAT team killing now sparking community outrage. Twenty-six-year-old Iraqi War veteran Jose Guerena, who investigators now say grabbed but never fired his semiautomatic rifle, was shot 22 times, the paramedics kept away while police say they secured the home.
Also inside, his young son and wife, who called 911.
VANESSA GUERENA, WIFE OF JOSE (via phone): I don't know what happen. He's bleeding.
FINNSTROM: Questions since mounted about whether deadly force was justified and whether the Guerenas understood it was police, not invaders storming their home.
GUERENA: I saw this guy like pointing at me at the window. So I got scared. And I got like, "Please don't shoot. I have a baby."
FINNSTROM: Now the sheriff's department has released this video of the crucial minutes when they say warnings were sounded.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
FINNSTROM: The general counsel for the police unit, Mike Storie, describes what SWAT team members say happened next.
MIKE STORIE, SWAT ATTORNEY: Guerena makes eye contact with these officers who are in gear that says "Police." The shield says, "Police." Their helmets say, "Police." They have -- they have patches that say, "Police." He makes eye contact with them, raises his weapon, and points it right at these officers.
FINNSTROM: Also just released, hundreds of pages of investigation documents which detail what officers say they ultimately found inside the home: body armor and a large number of weapons, but no huge cache of drugs or money. The Guerena family attorney, Chris Scileppi released this statement in response, saying, "We just learned that the sheriff's department has released voluminous amounts of information in regard to this incident. We will review the documents and CDs and will make ourselves available for comment in the near future."
Guerena's wife says he was not involved with drug dealing. Scileppi says the sheriff's department has tried to defame Guerena. It paints a different picture, of a man with no criminal record, who had worked for a mining company since leaving the Marine Corps five years ago, and was a husband and a father of two.
(on camera) Sheriff officials say their internal investigation of those chaotic minutes that led to Guerena's death continues. Supporters of his family have been critical of the department have announced plans for a march to the scene of the shooting on Memorial Day.
Kara Finnstrom, for CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: As Memorial Day approaches, there's a growing crisis among U.S. veterans. They have many needs. Some say they're not being met. I talked about this with the Army's vice chief of staff, General Peter Chiarelli.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: When you look at some of the statistics that deal with veterans these days -- a higher rate of suicide, particularly in the young people group; homelessness about 20 percent; a higher rate of dependency on alcohol or drugs; and a high rate of joblessness, again, particularly in that younger group -- what does that say about the U.S. commitment to its veterans?
GENERAL PETER CHIARELLI, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF, U.S. Army: Well, we need to reach out. We need to reach out and first identify those veterans. What I worry about is they blend back into the community and don't get, really, the three things that they're looking for. They're looking for education. They're looking for access to health care. And they're looking for fulfilling and secure unemployment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: You can see my full interview with General Chiarelli this Sunday morning on "STATE OF THE UNION" at 9 a.m. Eastern.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates today choked up as he delivered his final commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GATES, DEFENSE SECRETARY: As I look out upon you this morning, I am reminded of what so struck and moved me when I went from being a university president to U.S. secretary of defense in a time of war.
At Texas A&M, I would walk the campus, and I would see thousands of students age 18 to 25, typically wearing T-shirts, and shorts, and back packs. The day after I became secretary of defense in December, 2006, I made my first visit to the war theater. And there I encountered other young men and women, also 18 to 25, except they were wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles, putting their lives at risk for all Americans.
And I knew that some of them would not make it home whole, and that some would not make it home at all. I knew then that, soon, all those in harm's way would be there because I sent them.
Ever since, I have come to work every day with a sense of personal responsibility for each and every young American in uniform, as if you were my own sons and daughters. My only prayer is that you serve with honor and come home safely.
I personally thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service. Serving and leading you has been the greatest honor of my life. May you have fair winds and calm seas. Congratulations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CROWLEY: This week's presidential trip to Europe is winding down, so we thought we'd take a moment to review some of the moments when things got hairy. Here's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): First lady Michelle Obama kicked off her European trip with a new hairstyle, wind swept. As she hugged, her hair flew, no matter how many times she tried to subdue her up-do.
British papers compared her look to an Irish pop duo known as the Jedward Twins.
And the winds that swept this Irish airport followed the Obamas to Buckingham Palace, where the bearskin hats of the Scots Guards blew, and the hair of Prince Charles stood at attention, or at least half mast, while Mrs. Obama dealt with the double whammy of blowing hair and blowing dress. And the queen, she clutched her hat and beat a fast retreat. After all, it's one thing for a weatherman to lose his hat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, there's o much for that hat.
MOOS: Or a guy at the Daytona 500 to have his cap decapitated, or a soldier to have his beret blasted off by a twitchy trigger finger from the row behind him. But what happens on the queen's head stays on the queen's head. (on camera) Certain hats are really susceptible to a stiff breeze. Not this one.
(voice-over) We're talking about this one. The pope is always losing his hat. This guy on YouTube worships the moment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God, his hat blew off. It looks like a cereal bowl. I could eat Special K out of that.
MOOS: But you couldn't eat Special K out of this. Larry King landed on a Web site called Bad Friggin' Hair. To avoid that fate, Hillary Clinton had this solution.
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: This is going to be a short speech.
MOOS: Perhaps to avoid what befell Michelle Obama, the queen wore a bow-trimmed hair net to the Chelsea Flower Show. The queen's hair net caused a fashion stir, but not the scorn reserved for the head piece worn by Princess Beatrice to the royal wedding, just auctioned off on eBay for $131,000 for charity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was in love with this hat.
MOOS: Now on eBay there's a paper version of the infamous hat, brainchild of Minnesota artist Dan Lacey.
(on camera) Nine ninety-nine on eBay.
(voice-over) At least with the ribbon, it's relatively wind proof. Right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a good catch.
MOOS: Well, that hat's a catch, all right. God save the queen's hat.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: I'm Candy Crowley in THE SITUATION ROOM. I'll be back Sunday at 9 a.m. Eastern for "STATE OF THE UNION."
But "JOHN KING USA" starts right now.
