Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin 201502

CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin February 24, 2015

Hes currently being questioned by police. Both the ntsb and federal Railroad Officials are en route to the scene. Paul what have you learned . Reporter well im here on the scene. As we look over this way, as you pointed out, some of these cars are lying on their side. And what happened here was this train hit a truck that was on the tracks carrying a trailer. The trailer and that truck charred and over here. Immediately, fire responded. You had four people with critical injuries. From what ventura fire tells me the worst of them went to the intensive care unit. You had nine people treated on scene with minor injuries. Thats fractures, broken bones, severe cuts, head trauma. Then you had 15 people with moderate injuries. In all, 20 transported to the hospital. As you pointed out, so far no fatalities in this crash. They say these are the modified metro link cars and that they did have the collision Absorption Technology that kept this from being worse and these cars from disintegrateing. As for the speed, they say it was about a mile and a half or two miles away from a stop. Ive ridden these trains. There are frequent stops in this particular area. That may have kept them from going at a top speed and making this a much worse of an accident. The driver of the truck fled the scene, according to officials, and he was basically detained by police and fire. Hes now being questioned and they say that he is cooperating. Hes a 54yearold man from yuma arizona. Theyre trying to determine why he was in this intersection on the train track. As you come back over this way, you can clearly see this is a Railroad Crossing with the cross guards. Its got the signs that tell you, do not stop on tracks. And they dont understand, you know, how he wound up here. This is not the first collision, of course involving metro link. But as they look back on what happened here they feel very fortunate that there was not more severe injuries. One of the things they did is they had to simultaneously fight a diesel fire that broke out here involving the truck and the train. They say theres a lot of diesel out here. They think perhaps the truck was carrying diesel as well. Then begin all of this emergency triage. They had this trailer that they set up. That had everything from back boards and collars for neck injuries and the rest of the bandages. If we catch a break here on live tv, i do see a metro link spokesman. If you can see me that gentleman in the orange jacket if you can pull him over here that would be great. He can give us a lot more clarification on how this train was able to survive this collision and basically avoid much more serious injury. We should also note that there were 23 other people who were brought off the train who were uninjured. All of them of course will be interviewed to try to determine why this happened in the Early Morning hours here in oxnard california. All right, paul. Well let you gather more details for us. Thanks for that update. Again, 51 people total on the train. 20plus injured but only four people with critical injuries and no deaths. Lets bring in a county supervisor in that district where this train crash happened. You were on scene there. Tell us what you saw, john. Yes, ana. Thank you. This morning myself and the fire chief and our ceo mike powers went over and got a text this morning from our chief. He said we have an incident. He text us immediately. We went over to the scene. Of course we found out that 51 people were injured, 28 transported to the vcmc which is Ventura County medical center. As i mentioned before when we were there, nine individuals were sent to the Trauma Center in Ventura County. Three or four were critically injured. Six had minor injuries. Again, i definitely want to thank our county and city First Responders our police Ventura County the oxnard a lot of people involved responding for sure. Thats great that they were able to get there and there werent more serious injuries. And that itself, as we look at these pictures is pretty amazing. Do you know if the passengers were preparing for an impact . Did they have a warning of sorts . Well apparently not because that train was pulling out of oxnard heading toward camarillo and los angeles. That happens every single morning. Theres numerous trains of course. But im not sure if the people were even expecting Something Like that. When i first saw the flames in the morning, i just could not believe the horrific accident and the derailed cars off the railroad. It was just absolutely horrible. Just very lucky. We mentioned earlier there were no fatalities. And one reason perhaps that the cars didnt crumple was because of this collision management technology. We know metro link invested in this technology after the 2008 crash that killed 25 people. That technology is meant to absorb the shock of the crash. Did it work like it was supposed to . Yes, absolutely right. The metro link we did that retro fit. I belong to vctc Ventura County transportation commission. Also we were part of funding that mechanism that really helped. That probably saved a lot of people lots of lives. Very very glad we had that and the metro link railroad. All right. And we are getting a little bit more information from the Fire Department saying the driver made a mistake and turned on to the tracks they believe, instead of going on to the highway and then got stuck on the tracks. Well continue to follow this story throughout the next couple of hours and bring new information as we get it. John again, our thanks to you. Thank you so much. The Justice Department has Just Announced there will not be federal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is the former neighborhood watchman in florida who was acquitted in the shooting death three years ago this week of 17yearold trayvon martin. This case setting off massive protests across the country. Pamela brown is joining us from washington. What have we learned . The Justice Department just released this statement, ana, saying its declining to bring civil rights charges against George Zimmerman for the killing of trayvon martin. So essentially, one year and a half after the jury acquitted George Zimmerman of seconddegree murder federal prosecutors have found theres not sufficient evidence to prove zimmerman intentionally violated martins civil rights. In other words, that he targeted him because of his race. Attorney general eric holder just said in a statement, through a comprehensive investigation, it found the High Standard for a federal hate crime prosecution cannot be met under the circumstances here. This young mans prepremature death necessitates that we continue the dialogue and be unafraid of confronting the issues and tensions his passing brought to the surface. This is really the culmination of a lengthy civil rights investigation thats taken place over the last three years since zimmerman shot and killed martin after that confrontation in 2012. As you pointed out, this was a case that sparked a lot of controversy and National Debate about race here in america. Sort of the first case. After that we had ferguson. Then we have eric garner. And we know the department of justice is also conducting civil rights investigations in both of those. We also know that the department of justices eric holder is saying he wants to wrap up these investigations before he leaves office. Any more details or updates on the status of the other ones . As we reported with ferguson its unlikely the department of justice will bring civil rights charges against Darren Wilson the officer who shot and killed brown. Theres also that other Ongoing Investigation into the Ferguson Police department. We reported last week that the Justice Department could sue the Police Department unless they make certain changes. So we are awaiting to find out the results of those cases, of course. As you point out, eric holder will be leaving soon sometime this spring. We expect to find out those findings once he leaves office or before then. All right. Pamela brown, our thanks to you. We are also following a developing story overseas. An American Woman working as a missionary in nigeria is now the victim of a brazen kidnapping. Her attackers demanding a ransom. Well have a live report from that region. Also ahead, under pressure. We are expecting the secretary of Veterans Affairs to soon address the media and the nation after admitting he embellished his military service. Well bring that to you live here on cnn. Plus a mystery in the sky over paris. What was spotted late at night over some of the citys most iconic landmarks . Stay with us. Your daughter has a brilliant idea for her science project. And you could make it happen. Right . Wrong. Because youre not you youre a Cancer Hospital and your daughter. Shes a team of leading researchers. And that brilliant idea is a breakthrough in patient treatment that could save thousands of lives. Which means you need a diverse team of advisors helping you. From Research Data analytics all the way to transformation of clinical care. So you call pwc. The right people to get the extraordinary done. Jacks heart attack didnt come with a warning. Today, his doctor has him on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. 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Last night the terror group isis stormed their homes in northern syria. This is according to a human rights group. While hundreds were able to run for their lives, dozens were captured. Among them women, children and the elderly. Lets talk more about this with Brigadier General anthony tata. He was the Deputy Commanding general of all Coalition Forces in afghanistan from 2006 to 2007. Hes also the author of foreign and domestic, a book that releases today, in fact about a Delta Force Team in afghanistan. Also with us the Senior International correspondent who is in erbil, iraq. Ben, i want to start with you. This terror group is referring to these christians as enemy crusaders of islam. This is the standard reference by isis to any christians. And what we understand is what happened is around 4 00 a. M. Local time isis fighters entered several syrian villages. They entered the homes and abducted according to the Syrian Human Rights Network, somewhere 2w50e7b 70 and 100 people. As you mentioned, women, children the elderly. According to the syrian observatory for human rights another organization that monitors the situation in syria, 90 syrian christians have been abducted by isis. Now, there are reports, for instance that isis in fact isis fighters were overheard on their radios talking about capturing what they called crusaders. Now, we understand from the Syrian Human Rights Network that around 700 families have fled that area. Theyve taken refuge in churches in the capital of that province. Its important to keep in mind that the kurdish fighters the group in syria, the ypg, have been pushing isis back since they retook the town of kobani right on the turkish border. And this appears to be some sort of counter move by isis to open a new front. Many of the syrian men who werent in that village have actually joined with the kurdish fighters to fight isis. What we may be seeing is a form of revenge. Ana . General, what do you make of this . It doesnt seem like that long ago we were talking about the yazidis, another Minority Religious Group that was threatened in iraq. Now it had kind of quieted down. Suddenly these innocent christians are under attack and not long after the egyptian christians were beheaded. Well, you know ana, theres about 800,000 syrian christians throughout iraq and turkey and syria. Theyre being persecuted by isis. Theres no doubt about it. They consider it a religious war, isis does. Theyre waging war on the west and as we tipped our hand that were coming to mosul, i can see that isis is strategically now trying to open up a Northern Front to diffuse the effort of the coalition. So isis is a very Strategic Thinking enemy. Theyre trying to do some things here in the homeland. Theyre recruiting in the homeland. Theyve now captured syrian christians in syria and the surrounding regions, and its really more fresh meat for their terror campaign. And they know that theyve got to defend against mosul. So theyre really trying to diffuse our military efforts and our strategic efforts to defeat them and push them out of mosul by fracturing the coalition and diffusing our efforts so we cannot concentrate in one area. When you talk about that timing it comes really just hours after isis released more propaganda videos. They showed more captives in cages, video of what appeared to be dozens of children being trained to become isis fighters. Is this just strategy or are they trying to really put out a bigger message through this onslaught of horror . Yeah isis is totally focused on the propaganda war, the information war. Ana, there are several elements of power that we can use that they can use as a burgeoning nation state. Theres information power. Theres economic power. Theres diplomatic power. And of course theres military power. What isis is doing is really leveraging the information domain to great effect. Theyre having recruits from great britain. Theyre having recruits come from america. Theyre training children. Images of nazi germany come to mind on that. So isis has taken the playbook from everybody whos been evil in history and trying to do it in one act here in the middle east and wage war on the west. The goals are to destroy our economy, to make us spend blood and treasure. So what we need to do is have a concerted effort, use our elements of power to leverage those in the middle east so that we can wage an Effective Campaign against isis. You know qatar plays into this. Theyre playing both ends against the middle here. Its been revealed that we have inside contacts with the qatar leadership. Frankly, weve got to leverage them to cowboy up and make sure that they are doing the right thing for our coalition. Weve got new zealand coming in and joining coalition. Thats a good thing. So this is a war against the west. This is not just an isolated thing happening in the middle east. This is serious business. And we need to take it very seriously. Im glad to see the administration finally coming to the table and general james terry out there in iraq is a great leader. We should all have good trust, faith, and confidence hes going to do the right thing for American Forces and Coalition Forces. Lets talk about whats happening on the ground there, ben. You are there. You can feel it. You can see whats going on. We know we have the peshmerga, the kurdish fighters in the north that have had somewhat of an impact on isis. We have the Iraqi Military thats sort of regrouping in baghdad under the guidance and training of this coalition. The u. S. Has talked about retaking mosul as early as this spring. Does this latest development, this mass kidnapping impact strategy in terms of the fight against isis . Really there are several fronts. I think what youre seeing with this instance the attack the abduction on the syrian christians is really the weak underbelly. Thats a weak front when it comes to the fight against isis. Those are isolated rural villages easily approached easily captured by isis. We were out on the front lines. We saw an isis flag about a kilometer away from where we were. We were with Kurdish Peshmerga forces. For most of the day, most of the fire was coming from the kurds, going in the direction of isis. So that front is fairly firm. Isis fired back a few mortars in the direction of the kurds, but really the front lines are pretty firm as far as the kurds are concerned, as far as the iraqis are concerned. Yes, the pentagon did put out that statement, or one official there, talking about the possibility of an offensive to retake mosul in late march or rather late april, early may. But most people in the know dont seem to think thats going to happen. Its much more likely given that the iraqi army simply isnt ready for the task

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