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Pistorius Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison; CDC Issues New Ebola Guidelines; New Details on Michael Brown Shooting

Aired October 21, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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


ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He was taken away to the prison where he's no doubt being processed.

He told me a few weeks ago that he wasn't scared. He wasn't afraid. That he had somehow come to some sort of acceptance of his fate, the possibility of jail time.

Now that it's happened, I know and his Uncle Arnold also said he wants to contribute while in jail. He said to me he wanted to start a sports club or help people to learn to read. So, there's that aspect of things in terms of reactions.

His sister, also importantly said and paid acknowledgment to the Steenkamp because you can't forget that Reeva Steenkamp has lost her life. And the Pistorius family coming out and saying they know this journey will never be over for Reeva Steenkamp's family.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Robyn, it's interesting, we understand that the Steenkamp family said that justice has been done. It'll be a little bit of shock to the U.S. audience because five years relatively light sentence for what equates to manslaughter, but there, this sentence is being met with, if nothing else, just a sense of finality, I guess.

CURNOW: Absolutely, I think just remember that in the States, you have the death penalty. They don't have the death penalty here. There's sort of -- there's a higher level perhaps of punishment for crimes in the U.S., even a life sentence, if he had been given that is not life, it's 25 years here in South Africa.

So, I think just try to remember that this is a different justice system and the concept of punishment and the harshness of punishment is certainly not the same. In the context of previous and criminal cases, Kelly Phelps, our legal expert, says this kind of sits in the middle between harsh and lenient, and she feels like the judge pins a lot of time trying to explain also to the public here that they mustn't rely on indignant or righteous rage to cloud the judgment. They must understand that she is worked within the perimeters of South African criminal law, and this, and the judge's understanding of things, and I think to many legal experts who I've spoken to, this is a fair judgment.

CUOMO: And to be certain, the judge has been complimented throughout the process for her knowledge of the case and how seriously she was taking it. So, the system has spoken, and now we'll see how Oscar's life goes on from here.

Robyn Curnow, thank you very much for taking us through it from the beginning.

CURNOW: Yes.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Now to one of the other top stories: American health care workers finally have a new set of Ebola guidelines from the CDC. The new measures call for repeated training and practice with personal protective equipment that needs to cover workers from head to toe with no skin exposed.

Two Dallas nurses now battling Ebola and 120 other people being monitored for possible infection, critics say the CDC should have updated this Ebola protocol much sooner.

Let's bring in our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and former surgeon general, Dr. Richard Carmona.

Guys, thanks so much for being here. Great to see you.

I know you've brought your gear, Sanjay. Explain to us what is different today about the protocols than yesterday?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think there's three main things. One is that everyone who's going to take care of a patient with Ebola has to be fully trained and they've got to be able to prove that they're trained. They go through what's called competency testing.

Second of all, someone's going to be there to watch somebody put the garb on, the protective gear on and also to take it off, to make sure there's not mistakes made there. But I think the most important point, the one you mentioned as well, Alisyn -- no skin will be showing when you put this protective gear on. In the past, there was a concern that the skin around the neck was showing, it wasn't. It was inadequate.

And, by the way, the CDC sort of acknowledged that. They said even if Dallas followed our guidelines, which they did, it would have been inadequate to protect their health care workers.

CAMEROTA: So, now, they have a hood they'll be wearing.

GUPTA: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And you have this face mask.

GUPTA: You have the face mask as well. You have the hood that comes down over, and then covers the neck as well. You do have impermeable apron, there's other things standard, standard gear.

But I think the main thing again -- no skin is showing because that is how you contract this. Some infected bodily fluid gets on your skin.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Carmona, why didn't they do this a month ago? This is what Doctors Without Borders have been doing on the scene in Africa. Why didn't the CDC collaborate with them?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA, FORMER SURGEON GENERAL: Well, I can't tell you why, but it should have been done earlier. I mean, a lot of this stuff evolves. Sanjay covered us many years ago after 9/11 when we were ramping up for all hazards preparedness, and this is when some of the guideline first came out.

But we have a lull in activity, people feel complacent, they're not being challenged, they're not being educated, they're not practicing, as Sanjay alluded to, and having a buddy system where somebody's watching you put the equipment on, taking it off, and so on.

So, there was a lot of gaps than were apparent, I think it's because we went through this period where this wasn't much going on as far as intense emergency preparedness, and we can't afford to do that.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, is it fair to say to say that if these guideline were in place one month ago that the two nurses from Dallas Presbyterian who are currently battling Ebola wouldn't have gotten it?

GUPTA: I think there's a strong likelihood. You know, I mean, look at some of the data. If you look in Central Africa, they've been take care of thousands of patients over decades and two health care workers over that time total have ever become infected. In the United States, one patient infected, two health care workers that get sick as a result.

So, yes, I mean, they've done it really well there for a long time. I think we could have applied some of those practices here and probably been much more protected.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Carmona, earlier we spoke to Christy Feig. She is at the World Health Organization. There are now almost 10,000, I believe, cases of Ebola in West Africa. And her organization, the World Health Organization, has come under criticism for not getting their arms around it sooner.

Here is how she explained why they were sort of asleep at the switch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTY FEIG, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, WHO: There's a lot of reason why is it took everyone three months to figure out that this was actually Ebola, primarily because this part of the world had never seen Ebola before. I think everybody that looks back in hindsight says we could have done more sooner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was a surprise. That part of the world hadn't seen Ebola. West Africa hadn't seen Ebola before? She said they thought it was cholera or malaria.

CARMONA: Well, Ebola was first picked up in the mid'60s, late '70s excuse me, mid to late '70s. So, we've known about Ebola. In fact, when we were planning for terrorism, it was one of the select agents we identified as an agent that could be weaponized. So --

CAMEROTA: So, do you disagree with what she's saying?

CARMONA: Well, I agree we should have done something sooner. Why there wasn't a more concerted response, really problematic.

CAMEROTA: I mean, what she said again was they thought people were coming in with malaria or cholera. They weren't thinking of Ebola.

CARMONA: Well, malaria and cholera can be differentiated pretty quickly from Ebola. I mean, significant questions, if you're in an area that's endemic, there's blood tests are easily looked at. You see pair sites in the blood as well.

So, I'm not certain what she's addressing. I didn't have the conversation with her personally. But, clearly, I think what we learned from all of this is we can't be complacent. We have to stay on top of this, because if we don't, we miss cases and we see what happens now that we have almost 10,000 cases and we're struggling to curtail the increase in cases.

GUPTA: There was so much complacency. Let me just tell you, so, Christy Feig, who just heard there, she's a producer here at CNN. She was one of our producers as well. So, we have a lot of contact with them, even when I was there in April, I can tell you talking to people at World Health Organization, they thought this thing was coming to an end back in April.

CAMEROTA: Why did they think then?

GUPTA: Well, they looked at the trajectory, they look at previous outbreaks. And they said, you know what, this thing is going to come to an end, we've got this covered. As it started worse and worse, all of a sudden, people I think woke up and I think, look, the World Health Organization put themselves in that category as well as people do who did not recognize of the early signs of how bad they could get.

You had simultaneous outbreaks in three countries. None of the people were being traced. The contacts were not being traced. So, they were moving around and you had more and more of the mini outbreaks. You could have predicted this if you looked at what was happening there. And nobody, including the World Health Organization, really did that. Doctors Without Borders were saying it's getting out of control and everybody thought it was laughable at that time.

But in retrospect now, we know that the signs were probably. And so, when Christy says that, she's putting the World Health Organization in that category as well. They also missed some of the signs.

CARMONA: And I think Sanjay's point is really good, because you have outbreaks before. If you look from about mid-'70s to present, there's ban number of outbreaks, but they're all contained in the area. So, you get the sense of complacency. We can do this, it's not a problem, it won't leave here. But in fact they were wrong.

GUPTA: Yes. CAMEROTA: So, now that we have these new guidelines and you have this

new gear, is there anything, Sanjay, that is onerous about putting on all of these protective pieces that do you think doctors will cut corners in order for more speedier efficiency?

GUPTA: I don't think they're going to cut corners, especially in light of what has happened over the last couple of weeks. I mean, they've seen this real time. This is real. You know, for a long time Ebola was a Central African disease it's not going to affect us here. Now, it is real here.

So, I think people are going to be very, very reluctant to cut corners, and then you have the monitors, people enforcing this as well. So is it cumbersome? I don't know, you know, you could 00 there's a balance of you want to be able to do your job, but people have been using gear like this and taking care of patients for decades.

And, by the way, in tough spots with no air-conditioning, it's 130 degrees outside, we're talking about hospitals where you have tons of resources, even a little air circulation in your suit to keep you cool -- yes, I think that they can probably do this and still do their jobs.

CAMEROTA: That's good. These health care workers are on the front line and they're doing such a herculean effort. It's wonderful to see and how you represent them.

Sanjay, thank you. Dr. Carmona, always great to have you.

CARMONA: Thanks so much.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much.

All right. There's more news, let's check in with Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning everyone, once again. Here's a look at your headlines.

Turkey now says it'll allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to use its territory to cross into Syria and help defend Kobani against ISIS. The Turkish government previously refused to let fighters or weapons across that border.

In the meantime, ISIS militants launched 15 nearly simultaneous in Iraq. ISIS controls now more than a dozen cities in Iraq, despite relentless U.S.-led airstrikes.

Get your car fixed now. If it has been recalled for an air bag problem, that is the warning from the National Highway Safety Administration. It says inflaters can rupture Takata air bags, prompting metal fragments to fly out when the bags inflate in the crash. The recall covers close to 5 million vehicles dating back to 2002.

Oh those Pittsburgh Steelers. Proving to be unbeatable on Monday nights, they defeated the Houston Texans 30-23 last night, rallying from 13 point deficit behind. Ben Roethlisberger's two first half touchdown passes. It was the 16th consecutive Monday night win for the Steelers fan, oh to be a Pittsburgh fan, how about that?

So, Lay's potatoes chips asked fans to do us a flavor, now they're being rewarded with a new chip. They voted for their favorite among four new creations, cappuccino, mango salsa, cheddar bacon mac & cheese, and wasabi ginger chips. After about a million votes, Monaco Spagner McBeth's (ph) wasabi ginger chips won out.

That New Jersey mom of three children will get a million dollars, or a portion of the year end sales, whichever is greater.

And we here at NEW DAY thank you America for preserving the sanctity of the potato chip. Cappuccino potato chip?

CUOMO: How do even they make it to a vote?

PEREIRA: And look, Chris wants to be able to accidentally dunk his potato chips in his coffee, and not be a legal like sanctioned potato chip. Don't judge him.

CUOMO: I don't even know where that came room.

CAMEROTA: What do people have against bacon and cheddar?

PEREIRA: Nothing.

CAMEROTA: That sounds strong.

CUOMO: Certainly deserved a vote.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

CUOMO: I would have liked to seen a little buffalo chicken chip.

PEREIRA: Should those exist?

That seems natural, right?

CUOMO: Now, maybe that's our million dollar idea.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Baboom!

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: We're going to be thousand airs.

CUOMO: Making chips, buffalo, how do you make it? It's a long story.

PEREIRA: Blue cheese dip.

CUOMO: Oh, that's what I'm talking about.

PEREIRA: Work together. Carry on.

CAMEROTA: Feel free to weigh in with your vote.

Meanwhile, there are some new details we need to tell you about this morning about the Michael Brown shooting, evidence that may support the police officer's account of the fatal shooting. So, what happens in Ferguson if Officer Darren Wilson is not indicted?

CUOMO: Plus, some sad news we've learned overnight, Oscar de la Renta has died. How he revolutionized fashion. He was much more than that he made.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Tensions rising once again in Ferguson, Missouri, as new details emerge about the Michael Brown police shooting. Overnight, two people were detained including a Missouri state senator, while protesting outside the Ferguson Police Department.

Meantime, new forensic evidence should shed light on exactly what happened the night officer -- the day Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot the unarmed black teenager.

CNN's Pamela Brown has those details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The police shot this boy outside my apartment.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): CNN has learned new forensic evidence shows Michael Brown's blood was found on Officer Darren Wilson's gun, uniform, and inside the interior door panel of the officer's car.

RON HOSKO, FMR. ASST. DIR., FBI, CRIMINAL DIVISION: If in fact there's significant blood evidence inside the car, or gunshot residue inside the car, that tends to undergird the officer's assertion that Brown came in the car and they were fighting in the car and there was a struggle for his gun inside the car.

BROWN: Officer Wilson told investigators he feared for his life after struggling with Brown in his police car. Wilson says Brown tried to grab his gun.

But Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown at the time blames the officer was the aggressor.

DORIAN JOHNSON, MICHAEL BROWN'S FRIEND: The officer is pulling him inside the car and he's trying to pull away.

BROWN: And the attorney for Michael Brown's family says what matters most is what happened in the street when Officer Wilson fired the fatal shot at the unarmed Brown, not what happened inside the car. DARYL PARKS, BROWN FAMILY ATTORNEY: That's not when Michael died.

Michael died later as the officer got out of his car, as Michael was running away from him, and the officer decided to shoot him as he ran away.

BROWN: As anticipation mounts for the grand jury decision on whether Wilson should be tried for murder, questions remain about why the information about the new forensic evidence, first reported about "The New York Times", was leaked in the first place.

HOSKO: It could be really, in part, for a beneficial purpose, to start leading those community leaders and those leading the protests to believe that there won't be an indictment. And maybe over time, that will have a beneficial effect of no riots, no battles in the streets again.

CROWD: The whole damn system is guilty as hell.

BROWN: Two months since Wilson killed Brown and anger in Missouri still simmers. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Attorney General Eric Holder tried to temper expectations on whether there's going to be an indictment.

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: My hope would be that people will understand that, certainly with regard to the federal government, that we looked at the facts, looked at the law, had to deal with that high standard and came to an appropriate conclusion, when we -- when we do that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Our thanks to Pamela Brown.

So, what will this information mean to the case? What would it mean to keeping the peace in Ferguson?

Let's bring in now Chris King, he's the editorial director of "The St. Louis American". He knows the community very well. And Lizz Brown, a columnist for "The St. Louis American" and an attorney.

It is good to see you both again, I am sorry it is to once again take the temperature of a community on edge.

So, Lizz, let me start with you, how is this information about potential testimony or evidence in this potential case going forward, what's the reaction?

LIZZ BROWN, COLUMNIST, ST. LOUIS AMERICAN: Well, the reaction is that people want to talk about how this statement needs to be framed. If we're looking at the statement that's coming out of "The New York Times" now, we have to understand that the statement made by Darren Wilson was made four-plus weeks, after the fact was not that statement that was taken at the time of the incident, unlike the witnesses statement.

So what does that mean? That means that there's a possibility that Darren Wilson waited until there was all of the information, all of the statements, all of the comments made by those that would be potential witnesses, and framed his information accordingly. And secondly, the fact that there's blood in the car, the fact that someone is saying that there's blood in the car and blood on the gun and all of that, that's consistent with the statements made by the witness, the first witness, said that he was shot in the car by Darren Wilson.

So, again, the most important issue here, the most important question here is, why would a police officer shoot an unarmed person walking away, running away with their hands up? That's the question.

CUOMO: You know what the suggestion is about this testimony though, it would go to the fact that the officer believed strongly that Michael Brown was going for his gun. That's what the potential is here. But again, we can't know that right now. We don't know enough to know, and frankly the key question --

BROWN: Even --

CUOMO: Lizz, here's the thing. I know -- go ahead, make your point and we'll go from there.

BROWN: My point is, is that even if we considered the information in the best light of favorable to Darren Wilson, the issue is, why, if you struggle for a gun, that means he didn't think that Mike Brown had a gun, and why did you shoot him running away with his hands up?

CUOMO: Right, I understand, I understand.

BROWN: You're not afraid if you have a car, if you have the ability to call for back up, if you have the ability, you haven't been shot, the person is going away. The person is running away. And you shot him. Not once, not twice, but six times.

CUOMO: That's what I thought you were going to say. I get it, and that is a real question that remains. And we still have to know,

I think the key of the story will be how did the gun come out of the holster? Did Michael brown take it out or did the officer take it out?

However, again, this just goes to what could happen in a trial. The question is do we get to trial?

Chris, you said you think the police are preparing for there to be no indictment here. We do have to remember, this banding about of potential information, it's not what a grand jury does. A grand jury doesn't try facts, they say if there's probable cause to have a trial. But you think they're getting ready, Chris, for no indictment.

CHRIS KING, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, ST. LOUIS AMERICAN: Well, most people do think that. There's a lot of preparation on the ground here for that. The King Center came here from Atlanta, of course the civil right's division of the Department of Justice is here. There's ban lot of pacification techniques. Senior law enforcement officials in Missouri right now are trying to

persuade the Ferguson Police Department to disband, trying to get the municipal government to proactively disband their police department there in the middle of a pattern or practice probe from the civil right's division or the Department of Justice. That's certainly going to end in a consent degree will be too expensive for the city to continue with that police department.

So, if a year from now they're going to knock that police department flat, why not do it now? And if that were to happen before McCullough, their county prosecutor, comes back with the grand jury, that would be a major victory for the protesters and that could easily, easily prevent some what we're calling unrest politely.

CUOMO: Has any good come out of this in terms of community outreach and that the police were supposed to do better and understand their policing, the community they're policing more, Chris? Any sign of that?

KING: No. But understand, we're in an entrenched protest environment where the police, the police's behavior is being -- you know, the police are being confronted with their own worst behavior on a daily basis. It's not a good scenario for the police to behave differently, but they're not.

BROWN: And it's too early to really ask the question has any good come out of this because we haven't finished this. We haven't addressed this. These are problems that are systematic.

These are problem at are generation-old. These are hundreds of years old. We haven't begun to address them, and it's way too early to ask the question about any good coming out of this at this point in time.

CUOMO: Why is it too early? Why do you need to wait for an adjudication for this matter for the police to do something actively to change the relationship with the community?

BROWN: Because the relationship with the community is built on trust. And there is an absence of trust. And you can't build trust, fix trust overnight. You can't fix trust --

CUOMO: You can start. You can start, though, Lizz.

BROWN: You can start, absolutely -- but the start has to be determined, whether or not you started something, you have to wait and see six months from now if that was sincere or a clear start. It's too early.

CUOMO: Right, but I'm saying it's not too early for efforts to have been made and it's disappointing to hear that they have not been made.

Now, this being leaked out. This is not unusual. OK. You both know this is journalists, we don't believe it came from a grand juror, that would be more troubling, because they're not supposed to do that. But information comes out, it's come on out both sides from the beginning.

Does this do anything meaningful in terms of shaking, Chris, the integrity of this process for people in the community?

KING: Well, let's start with the quality of evidence "The New York Times" gave us. It's as follows, somebody told somebody who told me.

CUOMO: Right.

KING: The reporter said they spoke to a source who spoke to a government official who was briefed on the testimony. I think that's basically worthless evidence.

And to tell you -- the protesters, they feel like they're being set up. And they feel like it was a deliberately leak. Whether or not it was, it could be a reporter with good sources, or editors who are hungry clicks, I don't know. I think it's a terrible journalism by the "The New York Times". And it's shame that it happened the way it happened.

BROWN: And we're having police officers or police officials on local news suggesting that the reason that it was leaked was intentional, and intentional for the purpose of attempting to dampen down any reaction to the expected non-indictment.

CUOMO: Well --

KING: Also Chris, managing editor for "The St. Louis American" -- sorry.

CUOMO: Go ahead.

KING: I've been given evidence repeatedly by government officials, by police, people try to leak this story on me before. And I just declined. Let's let it come out in a systematic way.

CUOMO: I respect that.

Chris, thank you for doing the job the way you do it and letting us know what's going on in the community.

Lizz Brown, always a pleasure to get your perspective, thank you very much.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Yes, they made great points. Thanks, Chris.

Well, the man suspected in the disappearance of Hannah Graham indicted on an attack on another woman. Could Jesse Matthew be behind a series of crimes? We'll look at that.

Plus, he dressed prominent, people around the world. Now, the world of fashion is mourning the loss of Oscar de la Renta, and we look at some of the poignant moments in his life and some of his best dresses.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)