Transcripts For CNNW EarlyStart 20130904 : vimarsana.com

0 ran out of time, that s does it for us. thanks for watching, early start begins now. breaking news overnight. ariel castro the man who kidnapped and tortured three cleveland women for upwards of a decade found dead inside his prison cell. we are live with the latest. the crisis in syria. new developments, president obama picks up crucial support for military action in congress. but overnight, a fresh warning from the russian president. you ll want to hear it. and shot right through. how close was it your face? like this much. a few inches away. a close call for one driver, when a surfboard smashes through his windshield. look at that picture. not what you want to see. and he s smiling. we re going to hear more from him. good morning. welcome to early start everyone, i m john berman. and i m zoraida sambolin. it s wednesday, september 4th. it s 5:00 a.m. in the e. we re going to begin with shocking news out of ohio. ariel castro the man admitted holding three women in his home for years, he s dead. officials say he was hanged in his prison cell just weeks after learning he ll spend life in jail. michelle knight told cast tro in court i spent 11 years in hell, now your hell is just beginning. well, life behind bars turned out to be just weeks. how did this happen? scott taylor of cnn affiliate woio tv is in cleveland this morning. he joins us on the phone. scott, what do we know? right now, we know that prison officials checked on ariel castro around 9:00 o clock last night. then they discovered at 9:20 that he hanged himself. so we re not sure exactly what happened in those 20 minutes. a medical team rushed in, john, tried to work with him. they eventually took him by lifeflight, we believe, a helicopter to ohio state medical center, within an hour, he was pronounced dead. i think the big question now is how did a high profile inmate like ariel castro end up commit suing side when he s in protective custody, john, and they re checking on this guy every 30 minutes which is a lot different when he was here in cleveland in the county jail, they were checking on him every ten minutes. so i think some big questions are going to be sent to prison officials to try to figure out how in the world this happened. you a high profile. one would think the highest profile in the state there. you said there were procedures in place. they were checking at him every 30 minutes at staggered intervals. anything else they were supposed to be doing to make sure something like this didn t happen? the one thing you would think they were prying to prevent from happening. well, i think they would probably be checking on his emotional state when he was here in cleveland, in the jail, they brought teams of doctors in. he was under suicide precaution. they did not think he was going to hurt himself here. he was a high profile inmate. they wanted to make sure he was okay. you would think prison officials were doing that as well. they were sending in teams of doctors, checking on his emotional state. eventually, he would be put into general population. but as far as i know right now, he was locked up by himself. he didn t have access to any other inmates, he did receive mail, and he did receive phone calls but this is just really shocking the entire community. a lot of people here were reacting on twitter and facebook, basically saying that they re upset that prison officials allowed him to escape this life sentence. we have not yet heard anything from amanda berry, michelle knight, or gina dejesus. we do know that castro s family have been notified. and i also know that amanda berry, and gina dejesus, one of the two girls they wanted him to serve the rest of his life in prison. they did not want the death penalty for ariel castro. it looks like he might have taken the easy way out. a lot of questions this morning. what was in his cell, how did he get there. scott taylor of cnn affiliate woio in cleveland. scott, thanks a lot. also on the phone, maria castro-monties. i appreciate you taking the time to joins, you can tell us how you found out and how you felt when you heard the news? i found out through a text message from my younger brother at about 12:19 this morning. so obviously, i was sleeping. i got a text, and when i looked at it, it was just my brother saying did you hear that ariel killed himself? and i immediately, you know, sat up in the bed, turned on the tv to search for the news to see what had happened. and then, you know, we saw a local reporter in front of what used to be the house reporting on the incident. i spent a lot of time with you and your family, you know, when this case really received all of this media attention. you did. and i asked you this morning how you felt when you heard the news. right. you told me, you cried? i did. why? i cried for several reasons. initially, my first thought was, oh, my gosh, do the girls know? you know, does nancy know? when you say the girls, maria, i don t mean to interrupt you, what girls are you talking jab i m talking about the victims. obviously, gina, amanda and michelle. i was wondering had they heard, had someone notified them or would they just be sleeping soundly not knowing that this had happened. that this transpired. i immediately thought of them and did they know, and if so what was going through their minds, you know, as a mom, i was thinking about what nancy would be thinking right now. and then my thoughts just kind of went to, you know, the memories of the person i used to know. or that i thought i used to know. and just thinking about his mother. obviously, you know, that s still her son. she had been visiting him in the jail, along with her daughter. so, obviously, now this is just a whole other level of, you know, suffering for her. because regardless, he did some really horrible things, but she s still his mother and she still loved him. and now she s got to, you know, deal with all of this as well. so, yeah, i cried. it s tough. and at the same time, i just thought, i guess this is how it needed to be. i don t know. so, you know, it is what it is. it s unfortunate in so many ways. i know these girls wanted him to live out his sentence. i m glad he didn t get the death penalty because i didn t want them to have to testify and relive all of their horrible memories and thoughts. and everything they d gone through. but, you know, maybe this is for the best. maybe this is the only way that he will be out of the spotlight because i think he was just always going to be in the spotlight. it seemed like every day, some new news report was coming out. and i don t think they were ever going to find peace if he was still alive and in prison. we have very few details about what happened. we just talked to a reporter. what do you think happened? i don t know, you know, knowing that they have been watching him. knowing that he was supposedly on a suicide watch. one of my initial thoughts was, did he really do this to himself? or could possibly someone else have gotten to him? you know, obviously, it is a jail. there s a lot of criminals behind those bars. and even some of those criminals and some of the horrible things they may have done, obviously, probably were not as bad as some of the things he did. you know, people always have an eye out for someone that has done something as horrible as these things that he s done. so i really have to wonder. but, you know, i guess at this point, it doesn t really matter. but they say that suicide is a cowardly thing, and obviously, he took the coward s way out. but i still really find it hard to believe, that after everything that he did, he somehow mustered up the strength or the so-called courage to take his own life. somehow, i just find it hard to believe. and you knew him for years. i know we re just spectating here. i really appreciate your thoughts on this. i don t want to leave you without talking about the community there. you know, they suffered with all of this for years. they kept on looking for these girls when they thought they had found them. and the media attention and the scrutiny for the community. do you think this helps the community heal? do you think this will bring some level of closure? i don t know, you know, obviously, i haven t been out in the community. i haven t spoken to anyone to this yet, not even anyone in my family because the news did break so late. i ve heard on the news you know, about the twitter and facebook reactions, that kind of thing. obviously, there s mixed reaction. you know, this was a very difficult thing for our community. obviously now, it s going to and it has, started up a whole new media storm for the moment, hopefully, that dies down quickly. i think people just need to move on and, you know, focus so much on the fact that he, you know, escaped a life sentence. you know, we just need to take it for what it is and move on. and, you know, just close that chapter of our lives. like i said, previously, hopefully, these girls can heal and move on. you know, no matter what, i think at this point, justice has been served. it may not be our justice now that s served. you know, there s only one person of justice that s going to be served and that s his lord. he s got to meet him now. and he s got to do his explaining. and, you know, we obviously have to be satisfied with whatever. his life or his afterlife is going to be now. he s in the proper hands. that s the final judge and jury, and i think we just need to let it be, you know, that s what comes of it. maria, thank you again for joining us this morning. i appreciate the time. i know that this is a very difficult time for your family. our thoughts and prayers are with all of you as well. thank you for the time this morning. we certainly do appreciate her words there. she talked about justice. one thing is clear. this not what the justice system intended. right. this was not the than she was handed down and there are procedures in place to make sure this doesn t happen. yet, it did. very serious questions. and michelle knight, the victims didn t want michelle knight in particular. she said i will live on. you will die a little every day as you think about the 11 years and the atrocities you inflicted on us. not the end, the people who survived this terror or the justice called for. had intended. actually, it was one of the things that maria when i called her on the phone this morning. it was one of the first things that she talked about. it doesn t make any sense to me. the family, they were up all night talking about this, what actually happened in there. you heard her say she just doesn t believe he had the courage to do this. we ll find out more details as they became available. how can something like this happen. he had been on suicide watch. they knew there was a potential problem. how does this happen we ll find out. 12 minutes past the hour. now to the debate over syria and the latest surprising developments that could mean air strikes against the assad regime. two of president obama s biggest rivals, the top republican in the house, speaker john boehner and eric cantor now say they back the president s call for reaction. that as the senate committee prepares to vote on use of force. the language is carefully crafted and different than what the white house originally asked for. here s chief national security correspondent jim sciutto. reporter: the revised authorization limits strikes against syria to 60 days with an option for a further 30 days. it also explicitly bans u.s. troops on the ground, though, it would permit a rescue mission if needed. the bill comes after secretaries kerry and hagel and general dempsey, three veterans who know the immense cost of war, delivered an impassioned case to senators that military action is right and necessary. are you going to be comfortable if assad, as a result of the united states not doing anything, then gases his people yet again. and the world says, why didn t the united states act? reporter: attempting to thread a political needle, the administration had something for both supporters and skeptics of military action. who dubs strict limits on the scope and duration of any attack. many the hawks making sure the strategy also including strengthening, for syrian opposition. senator rand paul demanding that the president abide by the congressional vote, win or lose. if we do not say that the constitution applies, if we do not say explicitly that we will abide by this vote, you re making a joke of us. you re making us into feeder. senator, i assure you there s nothing meaningless and there s everything real. only if you hear what we vote on. honl if our vote makes a difference. reporter: from senator mccain, a long supporter of more vigorous involvement, builter criticism of the president s delay of action. we need to tell the enemy we re going to attack them they re obviously goes to disperse and try to make it harder. that was jim sciutto reporting. and i would like to welcome my friend jim to cnn. overnight, a fascinating twist to the story from russian president vladimir putin. he said he s not convinced that the assad regime was behind the attacks. he s told the associated press and state television there s still a plan that he believes that the rebels themselves committed the atrocity. he did say that russia could go along with the reaction if the united nations approves it. but he cautioned any unilateral strike against the syrian government could be considered an act of aggression. meantime, france s parliament is set to debate takes action against syria but no vote is scheduled but the president said he will not call for a vote until the u.s. congress makes its decision. as i said, the comments from vladimir putin were fascinating. the tone very different than we ve heard before. coming up in the next half hour, phil black will join us live from moscow to break down what the russian leader said and what it all means. meantime, president obama has arrived in stoke home this morning. there you see him departing air force one. he s there for meetings in st. petersburg. he was originally supposed to go to moscow first but the white house scrapped a meeting with president putin after russia granted temporary asylum to nsa leaker edward snowden. and coming up i just see this red thing coming up, it turns out it s a surfboard crashed into my windshield. you can imagine that? it stopped just inches from his face. a surfboard crashes through one driver s windshield. how did this happen? that s coming up next.