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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  June 26, 2012 7:00pm-8:00pm PDT

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$5. that's not the co-payment that's the total amount. you heard me. $5. dr. donor doesn't consider himself to be a hero, but i certainly do, because for him health care isn't about partisan bickering or billable hours. it's about healing, and that makes him a remarkable american. that's all for us tonight. "ac 360" starts now. >> thanks, piers. anderson cooper is off. i'm soledad o'brien. it's 10:00 p.m. on the east coast. we begin with breaking news out of colorado where a short time ago state officials announced 7,000 more people should evacuate immediately. it's one of a series of new threatens within the last 24 hours. seven large fires are now raging out of control and the situation is dire. in just a moment, we're going to speak with a family that's managed to make it out alive with their pony and their donkeys and all but the home they left is literally right on the fire's edge. first though he want to go to cnn's jim spellman on the front
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lines with the fire fighters who is battling the waldo canyon fire right near pike's peak. hey, jim. >> reporter: hi, soledad. yeah, this fire has really amped up in the last just couple of hours. a fire official told me less than an hour ago if he told me an acreage amount, it would be wrong in ten minutes. this fire is advancing at least at 2,000 feet every hour. the last four days this has been burning, they counted on the wind to at least burn it in towards the interior of the forest and away from populated areas. just within the last half hour, that has completely changed. the smoke is now coming towards us, towards the city of colorado springs. now, it doesn't seem at this moment there's any real danger to the city itself. but so far as of a couple hours ago, they miraculously i think not lost a single structure. i was in the interior of this fire and they had fire lines around individual houses and every single one them had held. this is going to make it a lot more difficult with this change in the wind direction. that's what prompted that additional evacuation of 7,000 people, soledad. >> plus, you now know several
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thousand more people have been evacuated, right? >> reporter: yeah, exactly, and there are already almost 5,000 people evacuated. now it's about a total of 12,000 people. this wind has become so erratic and the weather so extreme. 101 degrees here. that is an all-time record since they've been keeping records in colorado springs. this is the hottest day ever here. and with these high winds picking up, it's too dangerous to have people in the path of the fire, soledad. >> it's erratic, it's hot, and as you say hardly contained. what's the strategy on the part of fire fighters? >> well, they're trying to create fire lines. they feel good about it in the back of the fire. the way the downwind direction of the fire. but it's heading north towards where the u.s. air force academy is and towards more communities. so they're trying to create a fire line. they're using roads and an
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additional bulldozer lines and even hand dug lines to create a barrier between active fire and the fuel on the other side of it. that's their real trick, is to create that gap. when the fire gets to the fire line, it doesn't have any more fuel to propel itself forward, and they hope to hold it there. when the winds change directions, they have to change their plans and try to create new lines in those new directions. it's not easy. it takes a long time, and it's brutal work in these conditions. >> i was going to say, it looks from the pictures we're running side by side with you, jim, it looks like brutal work. thanks, appreciate it. as jim reported, the size of the fire has forced thousands of people to flee to safety, including becky shoreman and her husband who evacuated their home on sunday morning. becky joins us now by phone. becky, thanks for being with us. we appreciate it. i know this is a really tough time for you. your daughter is a volunteer fire fighter, an i believe that she's told you that the flames are now only about 20 feet away from your home. that's got to be just brutal to hear. >> yeah, that was -- that was this afternoon. since then, they've doused
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whatever came across the highway. i've got to say that our volunteer fire department has just been awesome. >> you still there? >> oh, yeah, yeah. >> okay, so they've been doing a good job for you. what's the latest update then? if the last one was 20 feet away, they've been able to hold off on the flames. how close is it getting to your home? >> well, right now, they've retarded what came across the highway. >> oh, good. >> where highway 24 split kind of cascade in half, and the side that we're on is the one that we hope doesn't, you know, ever jump the highway, but embers have, and they've just done a marvelous job of taking care of it. >> thank goodness. tell me about sunday morning. your husband woke up, woke you up, too, and said, listen, we got to go. walk me through what happened.
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>> well, he said, get up, we got to go. and it was my one morning to sleep in. anyway, first thing i did was just started grabbing things that i knew i had to get out of the bedroom. i started making a pile at the front door. we had neighbors and friends that came and helped us get, you know, things loaded up. and i believe you have pictures of my husband and my son-in-law and my daughter trying to get our little animals into the back of our trailer. >> yeah, not so little animals in some cases. i saw i think a pony and a donkey. where are you now? and where are you keeping your animals? >> actually, my daughter, bless her heart, we did a makeshift fence job, and they're living in her backyard. the -- the one -- my one donkey started to chew on their wagon out back, so we're gonna have to go find some more hay for him i
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think. and we -- we have a motor home, so we brought our motor home. and we're kind of living out of that at my daughter's house, and we brought our neighbors and i have a cousin and we all came up caravanning and parked ourselves here. i think -- i think my daughter said we finally got out at about 11:30. >> wow. wow. we have another photo i want to show everybody. it's a photo of your daughter and your son-in-law. and they're standing on the roof of your home right before you evacuated on sunday. >> right. >> i know you've been in colorado for 35 years. is this a first for you? have you ever seen anything like this before? >> well, other than the experience of the hamon fire. we did, you know, we did go through that. that was pretty awesome. and i guess saturday was the tenth anniversary of the hamon fire, and that's kind of when
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this fire started. >> what, becky, were you able to grab, and what did you have to leave behind? >> i left a lot behind. we had a fishing boat. it's still under my deck. and we had a couple of atvs. had to leave them behind. and i had antique dishes that came from my grandparents and my parents and -- same with my husband. basically, my china cabinet. and that's all still there. i had quite an antique doll collection, and most of that's still there. i think i retrieved one doll. and that was because she was the oldest. and we did -- we do have our two dogs with us. my son-in-law is actually a firefighter.
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he's at work now, taking care of fires. my daughter will be leaving to take care of cascade. >> when you look at some of these pictures, are you feeling hopeful you'll return to a home intact with all those things inside? >> i hope so. i keep telling myself it's going to be okay. like i said, our volunteer fire department is just awesome. and they've been there from the onset, from the get-go. periodically, they change shifts, and some people get to take a nap, but otherwise, they're scattered all over town, with apparatuses and stuff to, you know, protect people's homes. >> and really a massive job in front of them. becky schormann, thank you for talking with us. i know it is a really tough time for you. we certainly appreciate it. >> oh, sure, any time. >> let's get right to chad myers. he's got more on the weather conditions these fire fighters are facing right now. >> believe it or not, yesterday
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the fire fighters saw relative humidities right over the fire of 3%. 3. the number 3. that takes all the humidity out of any timber that's there. especially any dead timber. there's a lot of dead timber here. if you haven't been to utah, colorado, new mexico, arizona, in the past couple of years, you don't know about these rocky mountain pine beetles that have killed a lot of trees. so, therefore, you not only have live trees standing that are on fire, you have dead trees that are just waiting to go, and so all around this area today, where temperatures approached 98 degrees, relative humidity 3%. all of this was just an impossible fire to fight. hot all the way from canada all the way down to texas. the area around wichita even saw temperatures around 115 today. and that's in the shade. well, there's no shade in these fires. there's no shade around the heat and the flames that these fire fighters are seeing. the work that these men and women are doing is literally -- it's yeoman's work, it's tremendous work, and it's very, very dangerous. the winds weren't too bad today.
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only about 8 to 10 miles per hour. but it was the heat and the very low humidity. and later on tonight, we could even see a few dry thunderstorms. can you say -- what do you mean dry thunderstorms? thunderstorms have rain. not all thunderstorms have rain. especially in the mountains where the air is so dry, 3%. you can get a cloud to go up. a lightning strike to come down. but yet no rain falling out of the sky. those are called dry thunderstorms. that's how the first fire we talked about, the high park fire started, but now the high park fire, we lose some intensity on that because that started 15 miles west in the mountains west of ft. collins. this fire we're talking about right now did not start that far to the west. it started very, very close. within a few miles there of colorado springs, of the air force academy, of garden of the gods, of some very beautiful -- these are my memories of going into canyon city and floating down these streams in rubber rafts, doing class 4 rapids.
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these are beautiful places. now, soledad, they are on fire. >> looks absolutely brutal from these pictures, chad. thank you for the update. appreciate that. for everybody else, let us know what you think. we're on facebook. you can follow the program on twitter, @ac360. i'm also tweeting @soledad underscore o'brien. is mitt romney dodging questions even as fellow republicans are urging him to come up with better answers. we're keeping him honest. coming up. i'm not buying it. i mean, just look at him. and one more thing -- he has a spaceship. [ whirring ] the evidence doesn't lie. my dad's an alien. [ male announcer ] the highly advanced audi a6. named to car and driver's 10 best. ♪
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so try this on for size. when you're electing a president, it helps to know specifically what the candidate would do as president. it almost sounds too simple. broadly speaking, most people know what mr. obama and mr. romney stand for. big picture, they pretty much know what they're getting. nobody is exactly clamoring for white papers and 15 point plans. but details do matter. specifics do count. if you want to hear whether that big picture the candidate's selling actually adds up. keeping them honest tonight, is the romney campaign being too vague on the details? even some republicans say yes. >> it ain't easy. you know, i've been at it now for a while, and that's it for me. i want to hear him say some specifics. it's very difficult to put a positive spin when he's not addressing some of the key questions. >> that's gop strategist ana
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navarro on the program last night talking about the romney's campaign refusal to get specific about immigration. in this case, whether the candidate supports the part of arizona's emigration law that survived the supreme court challenge yesterday. you'll remember a spokesman was asked that question 16 times on board the romney campaign plane yesterday. instead, reciting a generic statement not quite referring to the law. the campaign took a lot of heat for not answering but not enough to change its tune as i found out this morning on "starting point." i was speaking with carlos gutierrez. he's the honorary co-chair of the romney campaign's hispanic steering committee. listen. let's talk about governor romney specifically. what exactly is his position on sb-1070? >> well, let me say this, soledad, and i -- look, i have been for immigration reform as long as i can remember. i have the battle scars to prove it.
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but i believe that as the governor does that every country in the world has the right and the obligation to secure its borders, to know who's coming in, to know who's leaving. it's a right. it's an obligation. every country does it. what is alarming here is that there appears to be a need to convince the president that part of his job is to secure the borders and part of his job is to ensure that we know who's coming in and who's going out. we shouldn't be arguing about this. >> but my question, sir, was not about president obama. my question was about mitt romney and specifically this one provision of sb-1070. does he support it as it now stands? >> as i mentioned, the governor supports the right of border states and the country at large to protect its border, to protect its integrity.
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it's not an anti-immigration issue. >> but, sir, i -- that is not the question -- >> it kind of went on like that and on and on. mr. gutierrez never answered a very specific yes or no question, nor did he say whether mr. romney would reverse president obama's executive action that would allow certain children of illegal immigrants to stay in the country. here's what happened when cbs' bob schieffer asked the candidate. >> would you repeal this order if you became president? >> well, let's step back and look at the issue. >> well, what would you do about it? >> well, as you know, he was president for the last 3 1/2 years, did nothing on immigration. >> but would you repeal this? >> didn't answer. as we mentioned, even some republicans are unhappy. congressman ben quayle says he wants mr. romney to be more aggressive on the issue. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says discussions are under way with the romney campaign about how to handle immigration. it's not just immigration where the campaign is big.
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it's also equal pay for women. listen. >> does governor romney support the lily ledbetter act? >> we'll get back to you on that. >> yeah, well, they didn't, ever. >> mr. romney later said he had no intention of changing the law if elected, but still wouldn't say whether he supported the legislation himself or not. then there's the tax cut plan which calls for big tax cuts offset by closing certain loopholes. mr. romney won't say which loopholes he would close. when asked again this month he said, quote, we'll go through that process with congress. i should mention that no candidate for any office, republican or democrat, ever wants to go into too much detail about anything. but it's a matter of degree and how much each campaign compares with past campaigns. we're grading on a constantly changing curve here. given that, where does mitt romney fall on the curve? does he fall short when it comes to giving voters what they need to decide? ana navarro is back tonight.
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she was national chairman for jon huntsman's campaign and fellow gop strategist mary matalin is with us tonight and so is chief national correspondent john king. nice to see all of you. ana, let's start with you. you sounded kind of frustrated about this very topic. do you think the governor is not being clear enough or just not taking a position you'd like to hear? >> i don't think he's -- i think i'm frustrated because of both things. i haven't heard a position from him. and he hasn't been clear enough. i would rather disagree with him than not know where he is standing. i think it's also -- the reason i'm so frustrated, soledad, because it's a lost opportunity. had you asked me six months ago, i would have told you immigration was going to be barack obama's biggest liability, not mitt romney. but mitt romney, unless he engages, unless he stops tiptoeing around this and walking on eggshells and confronting this head on, he's not going to be able to exploit what is, what should be obama's biggest liability with latinos.
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>> mary, the governor was specific in the primary. he was specific, you know, when he said i will veto the d.r.e.a.m. act. he talked about self-deportation. i know in these private meetings he has been specific and laid out some details. those are private. with people who have paid money to come see him. why the big resistance to laying it out very clearly with detail? >> i'm going to have to beg to differ with my friend ana, with you, soledad. he just gave a very extensive and specific speech to a latino community. of course, we think immigration issues and immigration problems are problems for all americans, not just the hispanic community. mitt romney early on was criticized for having a 59-point economic plan. now he does have a specific -- the broad sweep and specific instances in a white paper, which people don't want to read white papers, but it's right here. he has been specific privately and publicly on this, on regulatory reform, any number of
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issues. can i just go back to lily ledbetter? that's not an equal pay for women act. that's a super pay for trial lawyers act. i hope he comes out against it. but the bigger thing is he has been the nominee here for six weeks, eight weeks. we spoke of any number in specificity issues over the weekend. this is going to be a campaign or an organization ready to govern on day one in great depth. >> john, mitt romney could have a reason for vagueness, obviously, but i have to imagine that as a member of the press the press is just going to push harder and harder. mary talks about a white paper. where we really see i think a conflict is the right way to put it. when a specific question is asked, it's very clearly dodged. why? >> well, there's no question. president obama will find himself in the same box. every candidate does. there's no question, candidates sometimes don't want to talk about what we in the news media talk about. don't want to talk about what the other campaign wants them to talk about.
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this all reminds me, soledad, back in the 1992 campaign when a woman named gennifer flowers came forward to challenge then governor clinton, to raise questions about governor bill clinton. a guy name george stephanopoulos who worked for governor clinton at the time said specificity is the character issue in this campaign. bill clinton was saying he had the more detailed plan on the economy. if you go to romney's website on most issues he has more details than many of the candidates i have covered in presidential races for some time. now, clearly, this morning, he was ill served by secretary gutierrez, his press secretary, on the plane the other day, did not do a very good job representing the governor. if you don't want to answer the question, don't go back there. that's campaign 101. >> are they not doing a good job in terms of they're just not dodging well or there's no answer to give i guess is the question? >> on some issues, bob schieffer's questions are a great example. if he wants to be president, on day one, he wants to make a decision about that. he should say, i will leave the president's temporary order in place until i have a permanent replacement or i will revoke the president's order and then work on a permanent replacement.
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that is a question the candidate should answer. he actually gave a pretty detailed answer, maybe not as detailed as we would like and i don't think it's the position ana would like him to take but at a fund-raiser in phoenix he said he wished the supreme court gave states more latitude, not less latitude. he didn't go in every provision of sb-1070 but that is saying something quite significant. he thinks states should have the right to go as far as they want. the question i'd like to ask governor romney, do you personally agree with -- personally agree with those provisions? mary used to work for dick cheney. he disagreed with president bush on whether states should be allowed to approve same-sex marriage if they want. he didn't run around the country saying, hey, i disagree with the president. sometimes we learn these things when we ask them. guess what? sometimes, soledad, you've been in the business a while, just like me, candidates want -- mitt romney's case, he wants to talk about the economy, almost not
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anything else. >> how much, mary, is you don't want to put any ammo out there at this point? say as little as possible till the last moments because it gives you opportunities for gaffes and opportunities to lose your messaging? >> mitt romney is not gaffing. in addition to all the details offered by the policy paper he stood out over this weekend, he stood out without notes and a teleprompter for over an hour and in great specificity went through all of his broad themes and a lot of the specifics. on this case, i guess people just don't want to hear what he says when he does answer the question. me did say he agreed with marco rubio's legislation that was under way and garnering bipartisan support. these are the sweeteners in the d.r.e.a.m. act to give citizenship to those who served in the military and those who have graduated or have attended schools here. those are the sweet things. when you're doing difficult legislation, you trade those sweet things for the hard things. so what he said is that he supports those but that is a
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short-term fix that makes the longer-term, comprehensive fix more difficult. in addition to that, he said what john just said. but this is not what -- the election is not going to be about immigration. it's an important issue. but even among those who care about immigration, 30% of hispanic youth are unemployed. the unemployment rate among all hispanics is greater than the national average. i think hispanics, latinos, prioritize their jobs, the latinos that are here legally, their economy, their jobs, their families, their futures over this important issue, but it's not the dispositive one. >> we may have to get out the issue of immigration because it seems to be a little bit of a challenge to have a direct conversation about it. mary matalin, nice to see you. john king, of course, as well. ana navarro, thanks, i appreciate it. republican senators demand a special counsel be appointed to investigate the white house leaks scandal and they're naming names.
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who they're mentioning as a potential source of the leaks, that's coming up next. ♪ send a note stay informed catch a show. make your point make a memory
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coming up, the justice department sues two towns for religious discrimination. the towns are full of people who are loyal to the polygamist flds sect led by warren jeffs. the lawsuit is a new indication of how far his power reaches. the latest when "360" continues. why not make lunch more than just lunch? with two times the points on dining in restaurants, you may find yourself asking why not, a lot. chase sapphire preferred.
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raw politics tonight. republicans on capitol hill are demanding the appointment of a special counsel to investigate leaks of classified information reportedly from within the obama administration. in a letter to attorney general eric holder, a group of 31 senators calls reports of the national security leaks stunning and goes on to name the possible source of the leaks. we'll have more on that in just a moment. at a news conference today, senator john mccain led the charge, saying holder's decision to appoint two justice department prosecutors overseen by holder himself is, quote, offensive. mccain and the other senators are calling for a special counsel. chief white house correspondent jessica yellin joins us this evening. jessica, what's the very latest on this? >> reporter: hi, soledad. these 31 senator, all of whom are republicans, are essentially keeping up the pressure on the administration. in a congressional hearing, they
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already pressed attorney general holder to appoint a special prosecutor. they say it's intended to make sure the investigation is impartial. holder already declined, saying he has full faith in the two u.s. attorneys he appointed to look into the leaks. one of those u.s. attorneys is a bush appointee. both have the power to follow the trail wherever it takes them in the executive or legislative branches. bottom line, this has become a partisan battle in a political year. some democrats see this latest push as a campaign season tactic to taint the administration. and finally, soledad, i would point out that a number of these same republican senators are calling for a special prosecutor in this instance did not think a special prosecutor was necessary during the valerie plame scan l scandal. you'll recall that one during the bush years when he was outed as a cia agent. >> when you look at this letter, early on, they name names, at least one name specifically, the national security adviser, tom
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donilon. is he being accused of something? >> guilt by book review? in the letter tom donilon's name is mentioned from a quote from the review of david sanger's new book, about the president's national security policy. it's true that he is quote the, but that in itself is no crime. president bush's national security advisers, condoleezza rice and stephen hadley, often spoke to the press also. nsa directors do that. now it would seem by including donnell i don't know's name in the letter, the senators are trying to tie him to the leaks problems, but when senator mccain was speaking to the press today and asked point blank if he thinks that donilon was the problem, was the leaker, he declined to say. so you're going to have to ask the 31 senators who sent this letter why they put donilon in the letter. >> thanks, jessica, appreciate it.
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lots more happening this evening. let's get right to susan hendricks. she's got a "360" bulletin. >> tropical storm debby has been downgrade to a tropical depression. it made landfall this afternoon along florida's northwest coast dumping more rain on already flooded areas forces thousands of residents to evacuate. more than 20 inches of rain have fallen across northern florida, leaving roads like this under water. house democrats are bracing for defections in thursday's vote on whether to hold attorney general eric holder in contempt of congress. his failure to release documents related to the botched gun running operation fast and furious led to the contempt resolution. take a look at this. nothing really subtle about it. this fireworks safety demo on the national mall. it used mannequins and other props to make its point, fireworks can kill, to be safe this fourth of july. it sends the message home. which is certainly a good thing. >> yeah, but it scared my kids to death, i have to tell you. they were absolutely terrified
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by that. my daughter's like, what was that? they just blew up some little kids. oh, my goodness. mannequins, mannequins. susan, thank you. coming up, we're going to tell you why the justice department is suing a pair of towns that are dominated by members of warren jeffs' flds sect. that's ahead. our cloud is not soft and fluffy. our cloud is made of bedrock. concrete. and steel. our cloud is the smartest brains combating the latest security threats. it spans oceans, stretches continents. and is scalable as far as the mind can see. our cloud is the cloud other clouds look up to. welcome to the uppernet. verizon.
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i tell mike what i can spend. i do my best to make that work. we're driving safely. and sue saved money on brakes. now that's personal pricing. it was a bombshell from jerry sandusky's adopted son. the revelation that he, too, was a victim. now for the first time we're hearing what matt sandusky told police in his own words.
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that and much more when "360" continues.
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crime and punishment tonight. the federal government is suing a pair of western towns that are
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dominated by the fundamentalist, polygamist flds church and its jailed leader warren jeffs. sect members in colorado city, arizona, and hilldale, utah, have been forcing nonbelievers out. the feds call it discrimination. and they want it to stop. they say it's happening because flds members control everything that counts in these places, from town hall to tap water. gary tuchman recently visited colorado city where the word of warren jeffs is akin to the word of god and where his cult-like religion is the law. >> reporter: colorado city, arizona, is a very unusual place. the desert town is the religious seat of the flds church which promotes and practices polygamy and whose leader has been convicted of raping underaged girls. >> the police force in colorado city is, without a doubt, the most crooked police department in the country. >> reporter: sam brower is a private investigator when has dug into flds allegations for most of the last decade.
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he says the cops make the community increaingly unstable. >> i've never seen the tension so high. >> reporter: so we wanted to ask the police about their support pet file polygamist warren jeffs. but they didn't want to talk. >> can i ask you a question, officer? >> reporter: movavi county is where it is located. tom sheehan is the sheriff. he says his deputies can't trust the legal police. >> they're doing only what their leaders tell them to do. >> reporter: so your belief is their religion and their prophet is far more important than the laws in the state of arizona? >> that we know for sure. >> reporter: the legislature took up a bill to dissolve the office and leave enforcement up to the sheriff. under the law any police department in which more than half of the officers were decertified by the state for corruption or crime in an eight-year period would be dissolved. >> if you have more than 50% of your officers decertified, do
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you have any business having a law enforcement agency? >> reporter: colorado city currently has six cops. six other cops have been kicked often with the past eight years. the state says each of those cops was decertified for different reasons such as felony sexual conduct with a minor. bigamy, refusal to testify and answer questions in a grand jury in a deposition and seeking advice from a fugitive, that fugitive being warren jeffs when he was on the fbi ten most wanted list. a letter recovered when jeffs was arrested written by the former chief declared, i am praying for you to be protected. and yearn to be with you again. the state senate passed the bill. then something surprising happened in the house. two representatives, non-flds members who represent colorado city in the legislature, took up the church's cause to keep the police department intact. with their leadership, the bill died in a close vote. mcclane and gooddale say the bill is unconstitutional because they claim the city is being singled out. they also acknowledge they want
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top support their flds constituents who will cast ballots for them on election day. another part of their argument, listen to this -- >> things are changing up there and it just doesn't seem fair to go backwards in time when things are finally opening up. >> reporter: but that directly contradicts what gary angle sees. he's the primary investigator of the flds for the county prosecutor's office. do you think things are getting better in colorado city? >> no, things are getting mump much worse up there. it's getting worse by the day. it's getting more fanatical. >> reporter: where's representative mcclane getting her information? we asked her. >> there's more commerce there. they're more willing to talk to other people that come into the community that are not members of the community. i get e-mails from the community. so i see that as opening up. >> reporter: i see, when i go there, is that people come to me and say they're scared, there's no one to talk to, they want to get out, they're trapped, their children are being taken away from them, the cops are doing nothing. have you ever heard anything like that before? >> no. >> reporter: have you? >> no one has said that to me, any of the times i've been up there.
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>> reporter: but it does happen, repeatedly. this past february, i covered the story of this man, david biceline. warren jeffs had kicked him and many other men out of the church for not being faithful enough. in the middle of the night, his wife and his seven children were told to leave him and they left the house with the local police standing by. >> just about killed me. i just closed my eyes. felt like my soul is just out there floating around somewhere. >> reporter: when warren jeffs kicks people out of the church, their families are taken away from them. the cops helped take their families away from them. >> that was five years ago. >> reporter: that was a few months ago because i covered a story about it. >> we never heard about it. >> reporter: representative gooddale testified to the legislature that this is a very open community. one of her quotes was, when we come here, we go to the baseball games, the little league games. we can tell you from talking to people in the church there's never been a little league here in colorado city. one woman in the church currently says she doesn't even know what the term little league
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means. as far as the baseball games this was the main baseball field in colorado city. this was the first base line. years ago, kids did run down from home plate to first base. played baseball. now it's a garden. because several years ago warren jeffs made the decree that kids should not be playing sports or playing games, and they got rid of the baseball field. i've been here at least 15 times to colorado city. i've never seen baseball being played. this, the main basketball courts. three abuseful courts or once beautiful courts. now the courts are used to house mountains of recycled rubble. we wanted to get the colorado city police chief's reaction to the criticism in the story. anybody in the police station? we did see movement in the office, but as usual we got no response. >> earlier tonight, i spoke with gary tuchman as well as michael wadkiss, an investigative reporter for our phoenix affiliate ktvk.
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he joined us by phone. so, gary, let's start with you. the way you describe it, it's almost as if a religious sect is actually running these towns. describe what it's like when you talk to the residents. >> well, that's right, soledad. many of the people i talked to in these towns remind me of people i've talked to in afghanistan and iraq. religion is more important to them than anything. if their prophet warren jeffs who is now in jail tells them to do something, they do it. including in the past when he's told 13-year-old or 14-year-old girls they have to marry men in their 60s, 70s or 80s. they do it. their families make everything move to make it happen. so it's the kind of situation we go there and try to talk to the people who were r members of the flds. they run away from us because they're scared to be seen with us. they could get in trouble if they talk to an outsider like myself. >> i know you interviewed a couple who say they were discriminated against. what story did they tell you? >> they got a home -- a young man, classic case. he worked as a young man working on work crews when he was about 8 years old. he left the community. was never compensated. finally, he was given a home when they started taking over
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the land trust. he was badly disabled on a work-related site down in phoenix, so he's disabled. he was never compensated for his work as a child. he and his family were given a home. they're non-flds. the flds community didn't want them there. they refused to turn on their water and power. they've had this home for nearly four years and they still don't have water. they have to haul water to their home. this while flds families can go in and get their water hooked up in a matter of hours. the community has started bottling water and selling it as a commodity while they tell this family they don't have water to give them to their homes. it is the most egregious. people who don't understand this or haven't followed this think oh, this, you know, is this community run by a religion? it's absolutely run by a religion. people who are not of that religion are persecuted from sunup to sundown. >> gary, we saw you trying to
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get the attention of the police chief who didn't seem to be coming to the door. what's your experience with the police departments in these towns? >> well, in years of going there, soledad, i've tried to talk to the police and to government officials. they have never, ever consented to an interview except one time, the mayor of hilldale, utah, talked to me and a few months later he was kicked out of the church. i will tell you, it's very, very different than any other place in the united states. one encounter i had with one of the police officers there. i was trying to interview one of the residents in a post office in a public stop. the officer said, stop interviewing people. i said, no, this is a public street. he said, i will arrest you and take you in if you don't stop trying to do an interview. i don't know where he would take me if he arrested me, but that put an end to that. that is not something a cop would normally say when you're doing interviews in a public street but in the flds land, that's what they say. >> mike, i'll give you the last question. warren jeffs, he's behind bars, but it seems like you're saying he is not out of commission.
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>> gary can attest to this because he's done stories for your network. he has been kicking families, people, out just in the most brutal -- the disruption of families that he continues to orchestrate. he's thrown hundreds of people out. just torn families apart. and i think this shows you the power that he yields. he's behind bars. and he continues to rip families apart. they were screaming about the abuse of the texas rangers when they went and raided that compound in texas. i would argue that mr. jeffs has done more damage to the family -- his own families in his own community than 30 raids on the compound could have done. you know, this is a brutal man. it is a misogynistic culture at its core. the cops are corrupt. every layer of government is corrupt. the feds should have done this a long time ago. >> mike watkiss and gary tuchman this evening, thanks, gentlemen, appreciate it.
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it was a bombshell. gary sandusky's adopted son, matt, claiming he, too, was a victim of sandusky's molestation. now for the first time we're hearing what matt sandusky told police in his own words, up next. introducing the all-new rx f sport. this is the pursuit of perfection.
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with two times the points on dining in restaurants, you may find yourself asking why not, a lot. chase sapphire preferred.
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i knew it'd be tough on our retirement savings, especially in this economy. but with three kids, being home more really helped.
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man: so we went to fidelity. we talked about where we were and what we could do. we changed our plan and did something about our economy. now we know where to go for help if things change again. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get free one-on-one help from america's retirement leader. i'm susan hendricks with a "360" news bulletin. screenwriter nora effron has died after a battle with leukemia. effron was known for her romantic comedies including
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"when harry met sally" and sleepless in seattle." she was 72. on a newly released recording jerry sandusky's adopted son matt tells police jeffy sandusky molested him between the ages of 8 and 15. on the audiotape obtained by nbc news, matt sandusky says he tried to escape the home and once attempted suicide. >> with, like, the showering, the hugging, the rubbing, the talking to me, the way he spoke. if you were pretending you were asleep and you were touched or rubbed in some way you could just act like you were rolling over in your sleep so you could change positions. i know that i really wanted to die at that point in time. >> late in the trial that convicted jerry sandusky of 45 sexual abuse charges, matt sandusky said he wanted to cooperate with prosecutors, but he was not called to testify. we're talking gas prices now as they continue to fall. here's something we have not seen in a while. south carolina has become the first state in about a year and
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a half to hit an average of less than $3 a gallon. the national average is down to about $3.40 a gallon. stay with us. we'll be right back. have to s. with better car replacement, if your car is totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. liberty mutual auto insurance. the radical new macbook pro with retina display. ♪ innovation...in every dimension.
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♪ you know what's exciting? graduation. when i look up into my students faces, i see pride. you know, i have done something worthwhile. when i earned my doctorate through university of phoenix, that pride, that was on my face. i am jocelyn taylor. i'm committed to making a difference in people's lives, and i am a phoenix. visit phoenix.edu to find the program that's right for you. enroll now.
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the year is about half over so this week we're counting down the top five ridiculists of the year so far.
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> time now for the riduculist. tonight we're adding group of people we're calling newsroom extras. they're kind of like extras in movies except they don't always know they're on camera and they're not really being paid for it. take, for instance, the case of a certain live news broadcast from the university of florida. i encourage you to keep your eye on the background. >> students can register for the lottery starting tomorrow and registration is open till friday. the uaa will notify the winners of the lotter by november 15th. vouchers can be picked up from thursday through thursday. students with more than 90 credit hours have the best chance of getting tickets. everyone is welcome to sign up. live from the newsroom, kara minelli, wuft news. >> so that was posted online. the young journalist in the background making the copies seems to have a great sense of humor about it. on the blog chris step writes she had been working for hours in a dark editing room, went to the printer to pick up some papers, and didn't realize at first the bright lights she was
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staring at was perched on top of a camera. she calls it one of her most awkward minutes. we think it's, frankly, ado adorable. i love just how frozen you are. and then you disappear. you can take heart in knowing it could have been a lot worse. a whole lot worse, as a matter of fact. take a look. >> it is also important that you try to keep the bedbugs out of your home. the best way when you stay at a hotel, you might want to use a plastic bag like this one. >> oh. see, the thing about working in the news, you have to pick your stories very carefully and you also have to pick your battles. [ speaking foreign language ] >> i love his response. he just leaves. the real fun starts when you leave the newsroom and go out
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for live shots. that's when every tom, dick and drunk harry shows up sometimes dressed like chickens. >> we have much more coming up. there's a lot of people -- in houston, a couple bars still open. >> i was actually pretty lucky with that one. at least the guy had some clothes on. >> we've been out a couple of hours. >> it's cold out here, whoo. >> some people are just out of their minds. what are you going to do? it's nuts. >> now, it's one thing when the story's kind of light hearted. what happens when you take the focus on a serious story like, say, kim kardashian's wedding. >> as for the wedding, a lot of the details have been kept under wraps. kim will be wearing vera wang. she's marrying kris humphries. kim also spoke out yesterday to ryan seacrest. he produces their reality show on e! "keeping up with the kardashians." while she didn't reveal