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CNN Saturday Morning News

Shooting at Empire State Building; Isaac Watch; Kirstin Lobato Maintains Innocence in Murder Sentencing

Aired August 25, 2012 - 09:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye. It's 9:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 6:00 on the West Coast. Thanks for waking up with us.

This morning we are learning more about the office grudge that led to a deadly shooting near New York's Empire State Building, left two dead, including the gunman and nine others injured. The brother of the slain victim says Steven Ercolino was a loving person and the light of so many lives.

Now we're about to show you some video that is quite frankly very disturbing but we're showing it to you to help illustrate how the chaos unfolded. Here is Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE). The cops just shot someone.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN (voice-over): This is the aftermath of a gunman opening fire in one of the most crowded streets in America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They just shot him.

COOPER: Police say they fired at this man, identified at 58-year-old Jeffry Johnson, after he shot at them. At this point in the video, he still appears to be alive.

Just minutes before Johnson, dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase, navigated the crowds around the Empire State Building, found his target and pulled out a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol.

COMMISSIONER RAY KELLY, NEW YORK POLICE: At 9:03 this morning, in front of 10 West 33rd Street, a disgruntled former employee of a company at that address shot and killed a former co-worker, striking him three times.

COOPER: Police say Johnson had been laid off from his job as a woman's accessory designer last year. His victim, 41-year-old Steve Ercolino, was a vice president there. Police say Johnson and Ercolino had a long standing dispute over allegations of harassment and both men had filed prior complaints against one another.

A co-worker of Ercolino's was walking right next to him when they both saw Johnson lurking. She said, quote, "I saw him pull a gun out from his jacket and I thought to myself, oh my God, he's going to shoot him. Steve screamed, Jeff shot him, and I just turned and ran."

KELLY: Jeffrey Johnson then fled with a .45 caliber handgun secreted in a black bag that he had under his arm. A construction worker, who had followed Johnson from West 33rd Street, alerted two uniformed police officers.

COOPER: Chaos erupted as bystanders ran for cover and police pursued Johnson.

KELLY: As the two officers approached Johnson, he pulled his .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol from his bag and fired on the officers, who returned fire.

COOPER: Police fired 14 rounds. Some of which are believed to have hit eight innocent bystanders.

ANIKA BASU, WITNESS: I heard the gunshots and we looked towards the left and saw three or four people fall. The whole entire crosswalk emptied and people were running.

COOPER: Johnson went down immediately.

LISA SULLIVAN, WITNESS (voice-over): They rolled him over on his stomach and cuffed him, kicked the gun away from him.

COOPER: After one man was killed, eight people wounded and hundreds of people ran for their lives. Jeffrey Johnson died in the shadow of the Empire State Building.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Joining me now is CNN producer Rose Arce who was actually first on the scene yesterday. Rose, I'm curious about the relationship between the suspect Jeffrey Johnson and the victim, Steven Ercolino. What do you know about that?

ROSE ARCE, CNN PRODUCER: Well, let me give you the visual for just a second of these two men. You have Jeffrey Johnson who is 58. He's a slight guy. His neighbors say he's very quiet, he lived with his cat. He's a fashion designer, very fastidious. You know, just a small guy. He was known to wear the same suit to work every day, very much into routine. And he had begun working at (INAUDIBLE) a place that sells women accessories several years ago.

Then you have Steven Ercolino, who on his Myspace page is a strapping, muscular, laughing, smiling, kind of social looking guy. He is the vice president of Hasma. And these two men worked there together until about two years ago. Police said Ercolino laid off Johnson supposedly because he wasn't selling enough. So you can imagine how that went.

"The New York Times" quotes a co-worker of both of them, Irene Tinman, who is also on the LinkedIn page of Mr. Ercolino, talking about how the dispute between these two men was not a small one. There was really bad blood there. And police confirmed yesterday that the two men had filed harassment complaints against each other in April of 2011. All of this comes to a boil yesterday morning when witnesses told me they saw Mr. Johnson approaching Mr. Ercolino just outside the store on 33rd Street, just around from the entrance of the Empire State Building. Mr. Johnson has a gone by his side. They said he's lurking in the crowd, he's looking for somebody and they were stunned when he pulls out a gun, seems to find his target and just shoots him at point-blank range.

KAYE: And when you got to the scene, what was going on there at that point? I mean we spoke with Lou Palumbo earlier when we were talking about the police opening fire on Jeffrey Johnson.

ARCE: That's what witnesses told me is that after Mr. Johnson shoots Mr. Ercolino, he's chased by some people, people scream, people ran away. He goes and rounds the corner, he ends up right in front of the doors that say Observatory entrance to the Empire State Building. One of America's biggest tourist attractions, a place where hundreds of thousands line up every day for a chance to go in and see what used to be America's tallest building. So there's a lot of tourists around there. He rounds the corner, Johnson, and you can see from that videotape the police see him, he pulls a gun and gunfire erupts.

Police officers shot 16 rounds, nine people were injured. There's apparently pieces of shrapnel that were involved. There's some big potted plants, who in New York they are for security, very heavy, plants that are outside, they shattered, little pieces of that went around. And that led to a lot of people being injured and hospitalized.

KAYE: What a scene. Rose Arce, thank you so much for your reports.

ARCE: Thank you.

KAYE: And reports of significant rain and damage in Haiti from tropical storm, Tropical storm Isaac is expected to strengthen as it churns over the warm waters toward Cuba and Florida and the Gulf Coast could be next in its sight. Isaac's drenching rain and gale force winds swiped Haiti earlier today and there are fears the worse may not be over there yet. Isaac. We'll take you there live for the very latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back. Just about nine minutes past the hour.

CNN's Mark Savidge is in southern Haiti in an area called Jacmel.

Martin, good morning. What is the latest on the situation there. It's morning there now. Any significant damage that you've been able to see?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have seen some, Randi. Good morning to you.

The storm is still very strong here. It feels like it might have eased back a bit but we've been fooled before. It's the rain that continues to pour from the sky and it's, of course, the rain that has been the greatest concern to this country especially when you have so many people that are living in temporary shelters, if you can call a tent a temporary shelter, hundreds of thousands of people to be exact.

In the immediate area of Jacmel, we are located about 30 miles to the southeast of Port-au-Prince, right on the coast. And it was right over us that Isaac has been passing. Since 11:00 last night winds picked up. They have been very strong. We got tree limbs down. We got structural damage. Power is out in the area. Cell phone communication in the area is on again and off again. We haven't seen traffic on the streets but there are some people beginning to venture out and take a look.

Damage, as I say, is moderate to significant. And this is the structures that are fairly strong. So can you imagine if anybody was trying to spend the night in a tent or something like it, it would have been a very difficult night indeed. The better news is we've heard Port-au-Prince did not suffer as severely. But again, the truth is, the emergency responder service here in this country is pretty basic and it's pretty slow. So we would not know as yet just how bad this storm has impacted the local population. It was too dangerous and too dark last night to even try and go out. We will try to get out a little later from now. Randi.

KAYE: So you haven't had any word yet, Martin, on injuries or fatalities, I take it?

SAVIDGE: No. I'm trying to get through to the mayor of Jacmel. Jacmel is particularly vulnerable as is Port-au-Prince but Jacmel especially because it is surrounded by mountains. And the problem is the rains, substantial rains, maybe a foot or more, would hit them and come crashing down the mountain sides and then rushing into towns, you get that flash flooding which can be so dangerous. Dangerous for any community but especially one that's been weakened as a result of an earthquake and where so many people are living in what you could call barely minimal housing.

So you know that's the real problem. This city tends to flood and flood at the drop of a hat and we've already had a lot of rain. So we can't give you any specific numbers of injuries, hopefully no fatalities, really not a damage assessment we hope to get out. The only way you're going to know is to go and take a look and we will do that shortly.

KAYE: Yes. How about the shelters? Did anybody go to the shelters or did most of them stay in their tents or temporary homes?

SAVIDGE: Yes. There were some shelters. Again, keep in mind, Haiti has very rudimentary kind of shelters. There's also a mental attitude. You know, this nation has since 2010 been through so much devastation that people here you can say are in devastation overload. When they were told that another storm was coming, many of them didn't respond.

To be frank, a lot of them don't have money to go out and buy `the necessary things like food and water. But then on top of that, they really don't have any place to go. And so most of them decided that they were going to ride it out wherever they were. They would just simply see where they were when the sun came up. That's where we stand right now.

It's really hard to say. We hope - we hope that it's not been as bad as it seemed last night. Randi.

KAYE: Yes, certainly so. Martin Savidge, thank you very much. We'll be sure to check back with you a little bit later on this morning.

Ten years and counting in prison for a murder she may not have committed. Still to come the case of (INAUDIBLE).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: She placed her belief in the justice system and she ended up being convicted of a crime that she did not commit. Those words were spoken by a Las Vegas defense attorney about her client, a woman named Kirstin Lobato.

At the age of 19, Kirstin was convicted despite a lack of physical evidence in the brutal murder and sexual assault of a homeless man. Now after 10 years in jail, Kirstin is getting new support from thousands who have signed a petition calling for DNA testing at the change.org web site.

Joining me now is one of her supporters, Attorney Sean McDonald who specializes in wrongful convictions and is working with the Innocents Project in this case.

Sean, good morning. Let's start with the basics. Multiple witnesses said Kirstin was 170 miles away the day that this murder occurred. No DNA, no DNA at the scene connected her to the crime. So how was she settled on as the suspect in the first place?

SEAN MCDONALD, ATTORNEY: Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Randi. I appreciate you putting the spotlight on this case.

Kirstin was convicted because she was a victim herself of sexual assault two months before Mr. Bailey was found dead. She was in a parking lot at Budget Suites in Las Vegas and was attacked by a large African-American man in the early hours. And before he had a chance to consummate the rape, Kirstin managed to grab a knife she had in her pocket and she swung at the man's groin area. This happened two months before Mr. Bailey was found dead.

She told a number of people between the time of her attack and the time of Mr. Bailey's untimely demise that she was attacked. When she told people in Panaca, which is three hours away from Las Vegas, about her attack, word got to the Las Vegas homicide. They interviewed Kirstin. She told them about her attack. They took that as a confession to an unrelated event two months later.

Kirstin did not know Duran Bailey, she had never seen him. He had nothing to do with the rape or the attempted rape two months earlier. So that's been viewed as a confession for the better part of 12 years now. KAYE: But when you think about the DNA, I mean semen was found on the body of this victim along with a bloody male shoe footprint next to the body, both of those things seem to point away from a woman's involvement in the murder. But that DNA was never tested, right?

MCDONALD: There's never been any forensic evidence that links Kirstin to the scene. There's been no DNA tested. You're right there was semen found on the body. That's never been tested. There was a size nine men's bloody footprint next to the body. That's never been put in context. They seemed to be sticking with the confession to the earlier rape attempt. She would have had to have committed at 18 years old the perfect forensic murder to be the culprit in this particular case. There are significant problems, in my view.

KAYE: And you say the DNA is now actually refusing any request to test any of the DNA. What are your options or alternatives here?

MCDONALD: Well, the matter is being dealt with fairly artfully by a guy named Travis Barrett, who is a lawyer in Nevada. Right now it's before the courts and we're trying to - or Travis is trying to have the matter forced. The Innocence Project in New York is working with us here in the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted in Toronto.

The Innocence Project has agreed to test the DNA. So there's no cost to Nevada taxpayers, Las Vegas taxpayers. It's a matter of physically giving the exhibit to the lab and the Innocence Project will pay for the testing.

KAYE: But why won't they test it?

MCDONALD: They have nothing to lose. You'd have to ask them. In my view they have nothing to lose. This is either a case of an 18-year- old who committed the perfect forensic murder or an 18-year-old who was a rape victim, who when she told authorities of her attempted rape she was charged with first degree murder.

KAYE: And just very quickly, I know you're having make trouble with your earpiece there. Just very quickly, there is this other woman who has since died who also has a connection to the case. Right?

MCDONALD: That's right. A week before Mr. Bailey was found dead, there was a woman by the name of Diane Parker who reported to the Las Vegas Police that she was brutally sexually assaulted by Mr. Bailey less than 100 yards away from where his body was found. Mr. Bailey reportedly went back to Ms. Parker's house after he raped her. And there were a group of Mexican friends of Miss Parker who ran him away from the housing project.

I would ask if it's possible anybody watching this program that knows of a Daniel Martinez or an Alejandro Cruz, contact either change.org, Kirstin supporters or AIDWYC here in Toronto and the Web site is aidwyc.org. We think these gentlemen may know something about the murder.

KAYE: All right. We're not clear on that but thank you very much Attorney Sean McDonald. Appreciate that.

MCDONALD: Thank you very much, Randi.

KAYE: A college student told to die, his car vandalized. But now some good news for that bullying victim thanks to the college community.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: In (INAUDIBLE), Virginia, a handful of business owners got together to surprise a bullying victim. They were intent on righting a wrong no matter what the cost. We get the story from Elizabeth Harrington of CNN affiliate, WDBJ.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were glad to see he was pleased with it.

ELIZABETH HARRINGTON, REPORTER, WDBJ (voice-over): Jordan Addison barely said a word as he looked at his new and improved car. The people at Quality Auto Paint and Body in Roanoke spent more than 100 hours working on Addison's car for free.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at your wheels.

JORDAN ADDISON: Oh my god.

HARRINGTON: There are new tires, new paint job, tinted windows, new security system and stereo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then here you have a sound system, 1200 watt - 1100 watt, 12 inch subwoofer.

HARRINGTON: It all began two weeks when manager Richard Henegar, Jr., heard what happened?

RICHARD HENEGAR, JR., QUALITY AUTO PAINT AND BODY: Once I saw the vandalism that was done to it, I said that's uncalled for. We're going to fix your car. It's the least we can do.

HARRINGTON: Addison's car was vandalized four times between March and May of this year. Most of the crimes happened at Radford University. Addison believes he was targeted because he's gay.

JORDAN ADDISON, CAR OWNER: The first time there was homophobic slurs keyed into the side of it. Then the second time I had "die" keyed into it.

HARRINGTON: The auto shop wanted to make it clear they don't like bullies.

JORDAN GRIFFITTS, AUTO SHOP EMPLOYEE: Well, I think it's awesome. It tells people we're not going to back down.

HARRINGTON: Henegar said he asked about 10 other business to help and they said yes. HENEGAR: We can't afford to do this ourselves. We might have all the good intentions in the world but I can't finance something like this ourselves.

HARRINGTON: The total cost is well over $10,000 but the look on Addison's face was priceless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: That report once again from Elizabeth Harrington of CNN affiliate, WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia. Of all the extras, Jordan Addison's favorite is the custom alarm system. He says it already makes him feel a whole lot safer.

We now know an office grudge was near the Empire State Building. More details on the suspect in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: A shootout on the streets of New York City leaves two people dead, including the gunman who has been described as a disgruntled former apparel designer. Fifty eight-year-old Jeffrey Johnson shot and killed the former co-worker before engaging in a gun battle with police. Officers returned fire killing Johnson and injuring some bystanders who were hit by fragmented bullets. An investigation is under way.

Party time for Republicans now just two days away. The Republican National Convention starts Monday in Tampa, Florida. CNN will have full coverage starting Monday night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Mitt Romney and his VP choice, Paul Ryan, are in Ohio today, drumming up support ahead of that big event.

I'm Randi Kaye. I'll be back at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. "YOUR BOTTOM LINE" starts right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)