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Pakistani Woman Wins Nobel Peace Prize; Off-Duty Police Officer Shoots and Kills Black Teenager; Interview with U.S. Ambassador to Liberia; Ebola Screenings at Five Airports

Aired October 10, 2014 - 07:00   ET

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


MALALA YOUSAFZAI, NOBEL PRIZE WINNER: They cannot kill my cause.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So it's that kind of determination and poise that obviously got her to this Nobel Peace Prize. And it's a long and big, big message, obviously to the world, because as we sit here right now, what do we see? We see ISIS, Islamic extremists who are slaughtering, butchering, beheading, not just our fellow journalists and others but also girls and women just for trying to have the kind of rights that Malala has been standing up for and risked her life for.

And then of course on the other hand, Kailash Satyarthi, he is much, much older than Malala and has spent a lifetime trying to get children out of child labor. You know, according to the statistics that I'm reading, 140 million children in India alone in child labor, and about half of those in servitude and slavery.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And Christiane, It's Alisyn here, and as we've been talking, there's something poignant and powerful about the Nobel committee awarding it to India and Pakistan and their sort of beacons there.

AMANPOUR: Look, I think you're absolutely right. They were apparently a record number of entries and nominations, according to the statistics, some 278 this year. And they've been very careful and quite clever about who they've chosen. They have stood up for children, both in education and slave labor.

The peace part of the prize is really India and Pakistan, two countries which are very antagonistic, neighbors, nuclear-powered, fought three wars. People are always worried about what the next war might bring if the two prime ministers can't get together and work their problems out politically. So I think that is very important.

And also on the religious side as well. You have the Muslim, Malala and the Hindu, Kailash Satyarthi, and I think it's very important, these messages. The big, big test, of course, is whether Malala particularly can actually have an impact in her own country where, very sadly, she has not been able to return after being treated here. She's still here in England, and there is some backlash against what she stands for there. So still a huge amount of education to be done just to accept her campaign for education. CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: On the one hand, it is so good to recognize

the work of a gentleman that has a lifetime of work and showing that type of dedication. And then the other hand, I mean, you can't overstate how remarkable, Christiane help up get perspective on this. Not only is she young, not only was she very young when this happened, but to overcome the injury, and then the culture and all the restrictions on her and to have the voice, how unique an individual does it make her?

AMANPOUR: I think really unique, because even though Kailash Satyarthi is much older and he has devoted his life to his labor of love and human rights, she also has devoted her young life to that. She was very, very young when she started to speak out in Pakistan. In one of what used to be a wonderful part of Pakistan, the Swat Valley, which then was overrun by the Taliban and has had terrible impact because of that, there have been millions of refugees who poured out of that, millions of young girls, women and boys and men who have been oppressed and assaulted by the Taliban. And yet she kept speaking up at a very young age.

And she had at least the support of her parents, her father, the male of the family supported her. And she kept talking, and just one day two years ago she was on a bus coming home from school sitting with her girlfriends, her classmates on the bus, and somebody, a Taliban, stopped the bus, asked specifically which one is Malala. And her book was entitled "I am Malala." And for that, she was shot, and it was life-threatening, and they airlifted her here to England to a very highly specialized, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, and they saved her life. And it might have deterred a lesser spirit. But it has not deterred her, and it's really remarkable.

CAMEROTA: It sure is. Christiane, thanks so much for all of that background. She is a true inspiration. Malala is a transcendent figure for her time. She is so far beyond her years.

CUOMO: And Mr. Satyarthi makes the point that people literally dedicate their lives to causes for peace in a country that needs it very well, with 140 million kids in child labor, as Christiane just said.

CAMEROTA: He saved tens of thousands.

Meanwhile, we have other news to tell you about. Breaking overnight, a deadly shooting spurring violent clashes between protesters and police in St. Louis. The anger is fuelled by the fatal shooting of a black teenager by an off-duty police officer not far from where Michael Brown was killed. This comes just before a weekend of planned demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, against police practices that have come under intense scrutiny since the Brown shooting in August. CNN's Sara Sidner is live in Ferguson for us this morning. What is the scene in the town since this has happened?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's quiet. It's been raining and it is very early in the morning here. And so things are quiet now. But overnight there was quite a bit of unrest in St. Louis, which is about 10 to 12 miles from here. Police there saying that two people were arrested. One officer was injured when someone, according to police, threw a knife and hit an office in the shoulder. That officer OK, but dealing with small injuries there.

We can also tell you this was all sparked by another shooting involving a black teenager who is 18 years old, the same age as Michael Brown who was killed here two months ago. He was killed, Vonderrit Myers was killed by a white police officer who was off-duty but wearing his police uniform.

There are a lot of questions that protesters are asking and Myer's family. Protesters are saying he was unarmed. The person where he visited the last few minutes of his life, visiting a store. The store owner said he didn't see a gun on him. But police disputing that, saying that Vonderrit Myers did indeed shoot at a police officer. The police officer was off-duty, but he was, again, wearing his uniform. That officer saying he saw Myers and two other gentlemen running, and that's what made the officer turn around and pursue him.

There are questions tonight, from the protesters and family as to why exactly he was chasing Vonderrit Myers and his friends in the first place. But this all converged to make a very dangerous scene there on Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis. Again, two people arrested, one officer hurt.

CAMEROTA: Sara Sidner, thank you for the update from Ferguson. Let's go to Chris.

CUOMO: The facts are so important in a situation like this, because if you see it one way, you feel one thing about it. If you see it another way, you have a whole different set of feelings. So let's dig deeper with Neil Bruntrager. He's the general counsel for the St. Louis Police Officers Association. Mr. Bruntrager, it's very good to have you this morning. Let's go through what we know, and then we will discuss how an officer supposed to react under the circumstances once we understand them. Is it true that this police officer was off- duty?

NEIL BRUNTRAGER, GENERAL COUNSEL, ST. LOUIS POLICE OFFICER ASSOCIATION: Yes, and that's not an usual thing for us to have what we had in this situation where he's been hired by a neighborhood association effectively to provide some additional police patrolling activity. That's what he was doing.

CUOMO: He was in uniform, meaning he was in his normal police uniform?

BRUNTRAGER: That's correct. And that's what we call approved secondary. So, again, what he was doing that night would have been approved by the department.

CUOMO: What is your understanding of what happened when he approached the young man?

BRUNTRAGER: He was in an automobile which was provided by a security company who is the private company that would have contracted with the neighborhood. As I understand it, what he was doing was patrolling the streets, and he encountered them first having passed by them, saw them walking down the street, went down the street a distance, did a U-turn, came back the other way. And as he did that they started to run. My understand was that he then got out of his car and provided foot pursuit to the three that were running. The young man, Vonderrit Myers, who was running --

CUOMO: Let me stop you right there for a second, counsel.

BRUNTRAGER: Sure.

CUOMO: Why do you understand that he decided to give chase to kids who are running? As you know, kids run from the cops all the time. As you know, the law states it's not probable cause of a crime by itself. Do you know why he decided to do that?

BRUNTRAGER: Well, you have reasonable grounds to stop them or pursue at that point and investigate it further. So again, he got out because he perceived that there was something that was amiss.

And let's pay attention to what we think we want police officers to do. We want them to use their instincts. We want them -- there was a veteran officer, six years on the force, four years in the Marine Corps. So he sees something that has sparked his interest and he's reacting to it. That's what he's paid to do.

CUOMO: So he gets out. He chases. What happens?

BRUNTRAGER: As he gets out and chases them, my understanding was he runs. He's at the intersection of Clem and Shaw. The young man runs up a hill, and again you sort of have to see this, but the house that he runs towards is in an elevated position. And my guess is that he was running towards a gangway that existed between the buildings so that he could get away. As he got to the top of the hill, he fell. He turned, and apparently at that point produced a weapon and started firing at the officer.

CUOMO: The family says he had a sandwich in his hand and it was mistaken for a gun. Do you give any credence to that?

BRUNTRAGER: No, none whatsoever. And let's look at the physical evidence that we know was there. When the police got there, they get there right away, the first thing you do is secure the scene. You make sure that everything gets up so you can protect the area where this happened. They put up tape, they did all sorts of things make sure that that happened. They recovered a pistol from the young man that was jammed, so that he had fired the pistol. They knew it. There was a bullet that jammed in the pistol so it couldn't fire any more. There were shell casings around the body. There were bullets recovered from the ground by the police officer. What they didn't recover was a sandwich. So again, there's nothing that indicates that he was eating a sandwich. You know, again, I don't know where that came from, but people construct things, and that's the problem we have here.

CUOMO: What did the other two kids say? Were either of the other two kids detained? BRUNTRAGER: No. And my understanding was, again, as I've spoken to

them - or, excuse me, I've not spoken to them. As I've gotten information from the police officers I haven't heard anything that suggests they're offering any different details than what I'm describing to you.

CUOMO: Now, the chief involved in this situation is the same chief, I understand, who was involved when the officers shot and killed the man who was believed to be mentally disturbed who had the knife who kept coming at them outside the store. He was very open with the public. He gave them all the information they wanted and it helped. Shouldn't they be doing the same thing now and bringing out all these details so people aren't guessing at what happened?

BRUNTRAGER: Yes, he should. And he is. So again, what we have is in St. Louis, and you have to understand there's a big distinction between St. Louis and Ferguson not just in terms of distance, that's 10-12 miles apart. But we're a separate county unto ourselves. The police chief that you're talking about, Chief Dodson, has always had a policy of what we call transparency. In fact we have and began about six months ago a new officer-involved shooting policy that was implemented right at the time the Michael Brown shooting occurred. And the entire basis for that rule is transparency. And that's what he's doing now. And that's what he did with the shooting that you've described before, what we call the North Point shooting.

CUOMO: It's Different this time. Last time he was quicker about giving the information that the crowd was interested in. This time, hopefully it comes out, especially with the 17 shots. Not especially, all of this information is relevant. But the 17 shots, help us understand that, because to many people it sounds like that's a lot of shots in a situation like this.

BRUNTRAGER: Well, what we do, in a situation where an officer is faced with a threat of deadly harm, what we do is train an officer to deal with that threat by responding to it with deadly force, and responding to it until the threat is gone. So when an officer feels that he needs to use deadly force, he or she needs to use it, they're taught to use it until the threat has ended.

So again, I don't think people realize how quickly one can fire that many shots. And it can happen very, very quickly. But again, you're taught to do that until the threat has ended. So whether it's one shot or five shots or 12 shots or 17 shots, you fire until the threat has ended, and that's what happened here.

CUOMO: Counsel, I appreciate you being on with us very much this morning, because the facts are all-important. There's no question whether it's St. Louis or Ferguson, there's a culture of policing issue there. The community needs to have better relationships going on, needs more information, so we appreciate it.

BRUNTRAGER: And thank you. And I will tell you, it's not just here. It's transparency around the country. These are conversations that we have to have. And again, it's sad that this only now happens when we face these tragedies. But the more we can say, the more people understand what police do, the more confident they're going to be in what police do. And I thank you for the opportunity.

CUOMO: Neil Bruntrager, we're happy to afford it to you, and hopefully we'll talk again.

BRUNTRAGER: Thanks a lot.

CUOMO: Michaela, to you.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks so much, Chris. It's 12 minutes past the hour. We'll give a look at the headlines now.

Breaking this morning, North and South Korea reportedly exchanging artillery fire across the border. The clash coming as North Korea marks the 69th anniversary of its ruling party. We're not given any word on casualties. We'll keep an eye on that.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un is still MIA. The 31-year-old North Korean leader has not been seen in public in some 37 days. And overnight he missed a ceremonial palace visit to the remains of his father and grandfather. We'll have much more ahead for you in a live report from South Korea later in the hour.

Breaking news also out of Syria. Witnesses tell CNN ISIS militants are gaining ground towards Kobani city center right now. This as U.S.-led air strikes pound ISIS position there. The military group reportedly sending in reinforcements to battle Kurdish forces in their attempt to capture the city. U.S. officials are already on record saying they cannot stop Kobani from falling into ISIS hands. They instead are trying to get the Turkish government more involved in the fight against the extremists.

Hong Kong's government canceling talks with pro-democracy demonstrators are student protest leaders encouraged their supporters to continue occupying city streets. At the same time political rivals are calling for Hong Kong's leader Leung Chun-ying to resign over claims he expected millions of dollars in private payments while in office.

So this happened. A pony, a fugitive, an escapee, however you want to typify this, had the audacity to escape from a field in England. Apparently he wanted to turn himself in to British authorities. He walked right into a police station and then walked right out again. The guys at first seemed a little surprised. And they handled it well, I think. They didn't overreact. They didn't freak out. The one guy got a little bit like hey, I don't know - -

CUOMO: He didn't have the right to answer this store?

PEREIRA: It's a police station.

CUOMO: Oh, it is a police station?

PEREIRA: Generally, people frown when horses walk into buildings. Chris.

CUOMO: Maybe he had something important to report. Do you think they treated him the right way when he came in?

CAMEROTA: Chris wants to have a debate about it.

PEREIRA: Not a lot of words were exchanged.

CUOMO: I heard that the horse said, is this because I'm --

PEREIRA: Neigh a word was spoken.

CUOMO: Neigh a word was -- strong, neigh a word was spoken.

CAMEROTA: And then police officer said, why the long face?

CUOMO: Oh!

CAMEROTA: They write themselves.

PEREIRA: This is good stuff today. Early for you.

CUOMO: That is strong. Strong.

CAMEROTA: Speaking of jokes, he claims it was a joke, but no one was laughing when an American passenger on a U.S. Airways flight to the Dominican Republic sparked an all-out Ebola scare. We'll tell you what he said that brought medics in hazmat suits rushing onto that plane.

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CAMEROTA: Air travelers, we have complete coverage beginning with Alexandra Field, live from JFK Airport this morning. What's the latest there, Alexandra?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Alisyn, it took the CDC two hours to clear that plane after that prankster made his announcement, so you can only imagine how frustrated passengers must have been. But the whole episode does underscore the point that health officials are prepared to act immediately if they sense even a whiff of a problem. Now to that end, five airports in the U.S. have announced that they will add additional screening measures. They're going to be screening any passengers that arrive here from the Ebola-affected area.

That means that passengers will have to submit to having their temperatures taken, they'll also have to answer a series of health questions. The process will be pretty similar to what passengers have to do when they leave the hot zone. A CDC officer will be on site. That supervisor can then take over any case that raises concern. The goal here is to add an extra layer of security to contain the spread of this deadly virus. At the same time, though, Alisyn, health officials are admitting that certainly there will be passengers who will be checked out who could show potential symptoms. They don't want this to cause alarm. Just means they're going to have to investigate it fully.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Alexandra, thanks so much for the update. CUOMO: Alright, a Dallas hospital is defending its treatment of a

Liberian man who died of Ebola. The family of Thomas Eric Duncan says Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital did not provide him the same quality of care as three infected white people. They insist his nationality and lack of insurance are to blame. Let's get more on this. Let's go to Dallas and bring in Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth, what do we know?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Chris, good morning. You know, some family members of Mr. Duncan say that there may have been some racial reasons why he didn't survive and the white patients did. Or maybe it was because he was African, and he wasn't from the United States. So the hospital issued this statement yesterday -- Mr. Duncan was treated the way any other patient would have been treated, regardless of nationality or ability to pay for care. We have a long history of treating a multicultural community in this area.

Now, these are the particulars of what the family thinks was sort of inequitable care. First of all, Mr. Duncan never received a blood donation from an Ebola survivor. The World Health Organization says that such a donation can possibly help boost antibodies to help the person who is sick survive. Now the hospital said yesterday, that there was no donor, they couldn't find a donor who matched his, who matched Mr. Duncan's blood type. Also, Mr. Duncan received an experimental medication six days into his hospitalization here. Whereas, other patients in the United States received an experimental medication immediately upon hospitalization. Now, the hospital here in Texas says look, we gave it to him when his condition mandated it. I've been talking to doctors who treat Ebola, and they're not quite sure what they mean by that. Because the sooner you get medicine, the better. They don't know why you would want to wait six days. Chris?

CUOMO: There are legitimate questions, there's no question about that. Elizabeth, thank you very much. We'll keep digging to get some answers. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: And Chris, we do have an update. Six U.S. military planes have arrived in the Ebola hot zone in West Africa. 100 more marines are joining the 300 American troops already in Liberia to help. But is this enough to contain the outbreak? Let's ask Deborah Malac, the U.S. Ambassador to Liberia.

You are in Liberia this morning, so tell us what the scene is on the ground there.

DEBORAH MALAC, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO LIBERIA: Well, the good news is, is that we continue to build momentum every day. The pieces of the international response and the pieces of the U.S. government's whole of government response are all starting to come together. Now of course, we all have a lot more work to do and we need a lot more people and a lot more assistance to come in and help us get this done. But the trend is positive. But it will take us a while.

CAMEROTA: We understand that you were on hand yesterday to welcome six U.S. military planes, they arrived with help. And they have begun, I believe, constructing 17 treatment centers for patients. When might those be ready?

MALAC: Well that will be a scaled, scaled construction process. So one is already under way. Two are in the planning process. One starts, actually, groundbreaking is under way. A third one will be started on Monday. And the planning process for getting all of the various pieces that are needed in order to do those construction projects outside of Monrovia, are starting to flow in. But it will happen over a period of the next two to four weeks. Depending on the locations. Because some of them are quite remote and difficult to get to. So being able to stage equipment, stage the supplies, and get the people out to those areas will take some time. But it's prioritized based on what the government here has decided are the most important counties that need to go first.

CAMEROTA: As of this morning, we believe there are 8, 011 cases in West Africa of Ebola and that they doubled, those cases, are estimated to double every 15 to 20 days. Some politicians here in the U.S., as well as some African nation leaders, have said that we are woefully late getting started. Are you concerned that the U.S., while it's very helpful, has started this process too late?

MALAC: We are well into the fight. The U.S. government has been here since March, when the very first cases were discovered here in Liberia, and certainly before that in Guinea. We've had CDC on the ground almost continuously since then. Obviously, they have been beefing up their presence over the last couple of months. We now, of course, have the addition of our DART team, our Disaster Assistance Team, that came in in early August. They're been helping to galvanize and organize the U.S. government response. And the U.S. military's arrival just adds additional energy and heft to the effort that we already have ongoing. We work very well with our international partners here and with the government of Liberia in support of a plan that is moving us forward.

CAMEROTA: I want to ask you about a study that was done last year by Transparency International. They found that Liberia was the most corrupt country in the world. How can we know that all the international aid that's pouring in is actually going to patients and people affected?

MALAC: Well from what we can see here on the ground, the assistance that's been coming in, a lot of which is not money that's being handed over either to the government or to entities, a lot of it is assistance in kind, technical assistance, and supplies and other equipment. The government itself has set up its own trust fund to, to collect contributions from donors. In addition the government, the president Sirleaf has been quite vocal about the fact that she is requiring the various parts of the Liberian government to account for the money that they receive, either from within their own budget or money that comes from this trust fund. So we are doing everything that we can to bolster that, and certainly the partners are leaning on the government here, very hard to insure that there is that full transparency.

CAMEROTA: So Madam Ambassador, how long do you think it will take to contain the outbreak in Liberia? MALAC: I'm not an epidemiologist, Alisyn, it's very hard for me to

make a prediction. What I can predict is that we will get on top of it here. Every outbreak of Ebola around the world has always been eradicated. We know what needs to happen in order to make that happen. We need to get, we need to break the chain of transmission and reduce the number of people who are infected. So we will get there. The numbers are large. The scope is something beyond anything that anyone has seen. But we will get there. Our goal is to build momentum and build on every single intervention.

CAMEROTA: And how are you staying safe while you're there?

MALAC: It's difficult to catch this disease. You must have close contact with someone who is visibly ill. And unless you're a health care worker or someone who is dealing with dead bodies, preparing dead bodies, it's very difficult to catch this disease.

CAMEROTA: Ambassador Deborah Malac, good luck while you're there and thanks so much for taking time for us this morning.

MALAC: Thank you, Alisyn, it's been my pleasure.

CAMEROTA: Over to you, Chris.

CUOMO: Alright. It's good to hear what's going on at ground zero in the fight against Ebola.

Alright, we want to tell you this morning about a mystery that seems to be deepening. Kim Jong-Un. A no-show at a key political event. The move now, fueling more speculation about his whereabouts and his grip on power. We have a live report ahead.

And, Hillary Clinton kicks off her 2014 mid-term message. What does that mean? Is this a presidential campaign preview or what? John King will have more on "INSIDE POLITICS."

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