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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  April 14, 2013 1:00am-2:00am PDT

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shannon's search really is. i'm anderson cooper. thanks for watching. sex in silicon valley. >> i've made close to $1 million. >> prostitution on the rise in california as tech execs hand over the power to someone else. and she's dressed in leather. we'll take you inside the dominatrix dungeon to meet the valley's other entrepreneurs. ♪ a song meant to unite has the critics divided. ♪ >> is the song titled "accidental racist" accidentally racist? they are known as the central park five, teens wrongfully convicted in one of new york city's most notorious
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crimes, simply because of their race. >> the verdicts have been set aside in their entirety. but after two decades, their case is still unresolved. filmmaker ken burns is on a crusade to change that. >> this is really about human beings not admitting a mistake. those stories that you're talking about in just a moment. first, want to give you the headlines. i'm don lemon. incredible video showing a plane with a huge crack floating right in the ocean. amazingly, everyone on board survived. the 737 carrying more than 130 people overshot a runway near bali, indonesia, today. rescue crews helped get everyone out of the plane. doug was in the airport when the crash happened. >> what we're told here at the airport is shortly after 3:30 local time, this incoming plane overshot the runway while it was landing, landed off the indian ocean and split in half.
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amazingly, they got people out of the plane. shades of the miracle on the hudson, people jumping out of the plane. we saw a lot of fire engines. ambulances were called. there were some minor injuries. but we're told everyone surprised. everyone got off safely. no one killed, at least in the impact on the landing. >> the plane was landing at bali's airport when it crashed. lion air says the plane is new and the pilot was fit to fly. the cause of the crash, under investigation. a 63-year-old man set on fire inside his suv in long beach, california. police say a man walked up, tossed a flammable liquid through the suv's window last night. witnesses helped get the man out of the car. he's in critical condition with serious burns. a suspect was captured and booked on attempted murder charges. police say the two men did not
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know each other. what did i say about the next question you ask me? do you remember? get the [ bleep ] off the bus! [ bleep ]. >> i didn't ask you a question. >> this video is truly shocking. it's out of lincoln, nebraska. it's a bus driver attacking a passenger. the driver becomes irate at being asked a question. he pummels a man and then dragged the man off the bus. he was charged with misdemeanor assault and fired from his job. a police sergeant has lost his job for bringing targets shaped like trayvon martin to a shooting range.
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to north korea now, several weeks of escalating threats and aggression has finally produced something besides fear and uncertainty. look at this. it is a fresh partnership between the united states and china with the common goal of putting the brakes on north korea. secretary of state john kerry is about to leave beijing and head for japan. but the emergency on the korean peninsula, nowhere near over. one career expert i talked with this evening is 100% convinced that the north koreans will test launch a ballistic missile within a few hours. straight out to cnn's kyung lah. it's not usual that you can report the u.s. and china are in agreement on something. >> reporter: and it's an important move because china is the key here, don. the united states has long believed, as had the allies in the region, that there can not be peace on the peninsula, that you cannot control north korea
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from saying these escalating threats and all of this propaganda that's been directed at the united states without having china on board. that's why secretary kerry being there, that's why this new partnership being formed is so important. here's what secretary kerry said. >> we both joined in stating that the united states and china remain fully committed to the september 2005 joint statement of the six-party talks and to its core goal. and that core goal is the verifiable denuclearization of the korean peninsula in a peaceful manner. >> reporter: and returning to those critical six-party talks, those talks seen as the durable solution to this region. don, if those six-party talks continue, it will certainly be a very good sign for peace on the peninsula, at least the way it has been for many years. >> yeah.
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kyung, what's happening inside north korea today? any new threats or provocation, military activity, anything? >> reporter: well, the reports we've been getting for the last couple of days has been that it's a festive atmosphere inside north korea. i want you to take a look at what we saw and what we're still seeing on north korean state-run media. there's only one channel. this is like a variety show, singing, dancing. all of this is celebrations for april 15th, monday in asia. it is the most important holiday in north korea, the most important day of the year. it is the 101st anniversary of the birth of kim il-sung, the grandfather of kim jong-un. the sense is that there won't be any sort of missile launch until after april 15th if there is one at all. a small american plane
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crashed into a home in guyana. the piper aircraft reportedly crashed a few minutes after take-off from an airport near georgetown. the plane was reportedly hired by guyana's government to do surveillance work in a jungle area of south america. prostitutes and geeks, our tech expert went to silicon
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prostitutes and geeks, our tech expert went to silicon valley where sex workers have
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embraced the geek culture. the world's oldest profession meets one of the world's newest. laurie segall, cnn money tech expert, you recently visited silicon valley, the quick wealth that some of these guys experience there, the app developers, entrepreneurs, the programmers. it's kind of led to a sort of cottage sex industry. >> sure. the last thing you think of when you think of silicon valley and these nerds and programmers are the sex industry. but we spoke -- we did a behind-the-scenes look and spoke to women who are capitalizing on a lot of the new money there and are using very interesting marketing techniques. take a look. prostitution arrests are up in 35% of the value. >> according to the females we've had contact, both males and females, they indicate that they can make more money in san jose and they can charge more for their services based on what individuals in our area make. >> people in the area make a lot. average wages over the last year of over $96,000.
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>> the majority of them are really sweet. >> karen is a sex worker based in silicon valley. she charges $400 to $500 an hour. how much do you think you've made? >> i've made close to $1 million. >> $1 million? >> close to $1 million. >> she says her clients come from a number of major tech companies in the area, places where the tech money has been flowing. >> these are young guys working in the high-tech industry and they have the money. >> have you seen an uptick in prostitution? >> i think we continue to see an uptick because we see technology being utilized. i think here in the bay area, there's always been a tendency to be very accepting new technology as it arrives. >> one example, accepting credit cards for sex. via smartphone. >> the way that it would typically work is i would bill before the session. >> just one of the tricks of the trade for prostitutes in silicon valley. the square credit card readers aimed at helping small businesses accept payments.
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>> i file it under a different business name. as far as the square knows, it's a consulting business. >> she's an early adapter taking advantage of the technology created in her own back yard and she's part of a group of sex workers who call themselves silicon valley's other entrepreneurs. >> our listeners are kind of nerdy. >> suzy "q" is one of them. >> i have a tumblr, a twitter, a facebook, i have two websites, i have google voice -- >> that's a lot. >> hashtag. >> she hosts a podcast where she talks about life in the industry. >> we're talking about, you know, tech industry and geeky stuff. >> another sex worker, we'll call her josephine, markets to the tech crowd by wearing geeky clothes. >> business reflects the ebb and flow of the start-up world, a sector known for booms and busts. >> a start-up will be doing well.
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then you see a bunch of people from that start-up. then they falter. >> they all say geeks make great clients. >> young guys in their 20s ask me, how do i get a girlfriend? what should i do? how do i -- one guy asked me if he should get a puppy as he pulled up in a ferrari? >> we've taken measures to conceal the identities of the sex workers we spoke with in this story. they say in an area known for geeks and not for game, there's no shortage of eager customers. and, don, i should say, a lot of these activities, some borderline legal, most of them illegal. you can see we obviously changed the voice of one of the women in there. but you can see a lot of these women say this business has been recession-proof for them and they want the money and this is what they want to do. >> we're hearing about mobile payments, targeted advertising. they sound more like small businesses, some of these
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ladies. >> every single one we spoke to said that they viewed themselves as a bit of an entrepreneur. you look at -- they're using square to accept mobile payments. this woman wears this stuff in her ads to market to geeks. you see there, it says the winter is coming. one woman we spoke to is using a podcast to get people on board. and she uses hashtags. there's a woman who has an amazon wishlist where her clients will go there and they'll go and get her stuff. on there, she puts star trek dvds that she wants her clients to buy. they are very much catering to the geeks who they say have the money right now. >> so some of the workers you spoke to said that these guys, their clients are different than regular johns. what did they mean by that? >> you think regular johns. i don't know what you think. but you definitely do not think guys in hoodies, programmers. but these women say that these guys are geeks are little game.
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and they market themselves as coaches. listen to this, don. >> a lot of them are guys that probably didn't get a lot of women in high school. and they want tips on how to get the hot girls that they didn't get prior to having the millions that they have now. >> if you explain it to them in a way that's like, it's a formula. and if you know the secret to the formula, then you can fulfill that formula. then they say, oh, math. it's math. >> you speak geek. >> i speak geek. >> essentially many of these women are getting paid to show these guys how to interact with women which apparently they say is something that they're not that good at. >> but they have the money. >> but they've got the money. >> laurie is going to stay with us for part two where things get even stranger. i want you to take a look at this. do you see that? do you want to know what that is? we're going to go into the geek dungeon next.
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sex in the silicon valley, laurie segall is back with her look at how the world's oldest profession meets one of the world's newest. you said you saw a bay area dominatrix dungeon. the woman who runs it says many of her clients work in technology. tell us about this facility. >> not every day you end up in this kind of thing. but it's in a building, you would have no idea it's there in the bay area. you go up some stairs. you get in there and you're looking at what's in the -- you look at what's in there now. certainly this dominatrix worked at a start-up back in the day and decided to build her own business. and most of her clients are tech-focused. a lot of the contraptions in there have a lot to do with technology. you look right there on the screen, that has ipod earbuds in it. i kid you not. there's a crane in there that could hold up to 900 pounds. one thing i want to show you, the jail cell in there. this is a little bit shocking. essentially it's a jail cell constructed in perfect proportion to the jail cells at alcatraz by an m.i.t. engineer that was a client of the
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dominatrix. she obviously would not go on camera and talk about this. but she says some of this activity borders legal and illegal. there are also laws in california, they're getting stricter and stricter on this kind of activity, especially as more and more people are getting into the trade, don. >> these geeks are freaks, man. >> not all of them. >> come on. really, let's just be honest. so what are the real dangers of this technology -- i guess technology-enhanced industry? >> sure. we make light of some of this. but many of the people we spoke with, they consider themselves entrepreneurs. but the growing sex industry is also really dangerous. we spoke to fbi officials who said pimps are using tablets and smartphones to conduct business and recruit victims into social networks.
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this is important to mention, this is not consensual. the women we mentioned, they're doing this by choice. there is a dark side to this technology. for more on how technology is enabling the growing sex trade, check out cnn money, we have an in-depth look. don? >> i have to say that's one of the more interesting stories i've ever covered in my 20-something of odd years in the news. thank you, laurie. interesting. coming up -- ♪ a song meant to unite has the critics divided. ♪ >> is the song titled "accidental racist" accidentally racist? you know who you are. you can part a crowd, without saying a word... if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts... well muddlers, muddle no more. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour one
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a lot of my friends are talking about this story this week. brad paisley teams up with legendary rapper ll cool j to perform a song about race. intriguing? yes. original? definitely. the fact that some people are offended, not a big surprise. but should they be? the lyrics cover everything from confederate flags to do-rags. here's one part of "accidental racist," that's the name of it. it's getting a lot of attention. ♪ i'm just a white man ♪ comin' to you from the southland ♪ ♪ tryin' to understand what it's like not to be ♪ ♪ i'm proud of where i'm from ♪ but not everything we've done ♪
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♪ it ain't like you and me can rewrite history ♪ >> so let's talk a little history, music and race. cnn contributor lz granderson is also a senior writer for espn. joining us from nashville, music city, tim wise and country music singer and songwriter and producer peter cooper. good to see all of you. so these guys obviously aren't racist, i don't think that they are. their intentions were good. is this just a clumsy attempt to start dialogue? to you first, tim. >> well, it is clumsy. but the history of the way we talk about race in this country is pretty clumsy and oftentimes misguided. is it any worse than the way we teach history in our schools? no. here in the south, we've had seven generations of white folks who have been taught the civil war was a war of northern aggression and had nothing to do with slavery. it doesn't surprise me that seven generations later in spite of the history that says
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secession was about that, we have people who wave confederate flags and put them on their trucks and say it means something. we have to do better at understanding that history, whether we're a songwriter or teacher in high school. >> peter cooper, you're a songwriter. you're a performer, also senior music writer for "the tennessean." you said, paisley walked it into more than a million rooms when he wore a t-shirt with the alabama band logo on a nationally televised show. someone on twitter called him a racist and it made him think a little bit about who he was and what he was doing and why he was doing it. that's who "accidental racist" is about, a fellow thinking about who he was, what he was doing, why he was doing it and what someone else might think about it. are these radical things to ponder in real life? not at all. i take it that the idea of the song, that you can see why some
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people were offended by this, i'm sure? >> i can. but i'm surprised sometimes by what it is that offends people. with this flag controversy, the last country song i remember mentioning the flag said that if you've got a problem with this confederate flag flying from my pick-up truck, you can kiss my country ass. and that's not offensive. we've had toby keith with the song about, we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the american way. here, we have a song that's elicited such controversy. and he's saying, here's the shirt i wore, what do you think about it? he's trying to open a dialogue. it's been a clumsy opening, i suppose, judging by what the conversation has been.
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but how cool that we're having a national conversation about this five days after people first heard the song and that some 11-year-old kid might think twice tomorrow before wearing their lynyrd skynyrd t-shirt to the mall. >> didn't they denounce that t-shirt? i thought they did. lz, you wrote on cnn.com, you said, the questions that "accidental" raised are worth asking. paisley just did it so awkwardly. part of the problem is addressing racism is white people are so afraid of saying or in paisley's case, singing the wrong thing. but if we're going to usher in the next wave of tolerance allowing for these mistakes is important. do you think that white people are really afraid to reveal their true feelings on race? >> i think everyone is, really. i think everyone is walking on eggshells. that's one of the lines in this song. we walk on eggshells for so long. but we go back in our own cubbies and voice how we really feel. the other side doesn't get to
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hear the truth in a respectful manner. my biggest problem with this song is that i think it's just an awful song. it doesn't really matter what the lyrics were. in terms of its actual putting together, i think it's just a really bad song. the lyrics are clumsy. i find ll's rap to be the most offensive part. i can understand where brad is coming from. but it's disingenuous. he's from west virginia. he should have some understanding of the true meaning of the confederate and he adopted nashville once he moved to go to college. i think there's some disingenuous attitude to the song. but even with that, i don't think it came from a mean or malicious place. >> that's what was interesting to me, that anyone in this day and age, that's brad paisley's age, ll cool j's age or anyone of us here on the set, to start the song off by saying, hey, i'm wearing this t-shirt, i didn't
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realize it was going to offend you, to me seems disingenuous. most people should be more aware of that, especially in their 30s, 40s and 50s. >> we ought to be well more aware of what that flag means, certainly with the controversies at the south carolina statehouse in the last decade. if you haven't heard this flag offends black folks, it really does fall into question where you've been. if you've got multiple generations of white folks who have been lied to about the benignity of the symbol, the idea it wasn't about slavery, even though every state that gave causes for secession says that's what it was about, it doesn't surprise me that maybe you have missed that conversation. i think those of us in the south
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have got to insist on an accurate history, an honest history of our region and of our country and let's also remember -- i think lz makes a good point. brad paisley's from west virginia. there were some white folks, mountain folk in west virginia who broke away from virginia because they didn't want to secede. there were folks in georgia who had to steal that secession to get out of the -- you had to -- >> tim wise, i'm going to ask you then -- i'm going to play devil's advocate here. some people may be proud of that. why can't they be proud of that and wear their rebel flag? >> you can be proud of it. but when you say that it's about southern heritage, what you've just done is reduced the south to a four-year period of the region's history and not only is that a slap in the face to black folks, it's a slap in the face to those white folks who did not want to join the union and who did not support the system of enslavement going all the way back to the colonial period. if you want to be proud of four years and say that's what the south is, that's pathetic. but there's a lot more in the south to be proud of than that.
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>> i want to find out from you guys, is it possible to be an accidental racist or are most of us racist and not even thinking about it?
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let's listen to brad paisley, ll cool j explain the record "accidental racist." >> what we're talking about on this song is forgiveness and compassion. i'm not advising anyone to truly forget slavery. but what i am saying is, forget the slavery mentality, forget the bitterness. don't get bitter. get better. >> but in the end, i felt like what we had on tape was something that people needed to hear. let's not be victims of things that happened so long ago. >> let's respect it. but then after we respect it, let's also open our hearts up so that we can move forward. >> my panel's back. peter cooper, tim wise, lz granderson. lz, are they serious? >> yes, yes, they are.
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i don't think this song came from a bad place. i don't think the intentions were really, really good. i just think it's -- i hate to keep ripping on ll. i grew up on ll. his music is not known to be that intellectually in-depth. he's not known as an artist to be that really introspective. i think he took a nice, big swing and he missed in trying to communicate the perspective a lot of african-americans have today in regards to the topics that they're talking about. >> tim, why not just say, listen, we kind of just screwed up? >> artists are not known for necessarily cutting on their own work a week or so after a song's come out. that's neither here nor there. what i think the reason issue is that -- those last clips you played are more troubling to me in a way than the song. >> that's what i was going to say. to think from the lyrics of the song, comparing a do-rag to a confederate flag, comparing handcuffs or shackles of
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slavery -- >> i agree. those clips were more troubling because it seemed like what brad was saying there -- again, i don't think his intention is bad. but when you say, let's not be locked into something that happened so long ago, let's remember the legacy of this system of enslavement and segregation is still in place. it's the result of a long legacy. when you've still got the klan and skinhead groups who wave that flag, even if that flag had a historical or noble meaning, there comes a point when charlatans and criminals from hijacked it. and you've got to let it go. i think those last comments in those clips were a bit more disingenuous than the song. the song was introspective. that seems really dismissive to me.
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>> it certainly did. to compare fashion choices to certain symbols of slavery was offensive to a lot of people. this song is getting plenty of ridicule. pat oswalt wrote on twitter, i can't wait for brad paisley and ll cool j's next single, whoopsy daisy, holocaust, my bad. are people overreacting. >> i understand if you don't like a song. but if we do specials every time there's a song that we don't think is very well-written, we'll have to start a new network. yeah, i think people are overreacting. and your question a moment ago, is there such a thing as an accidental racist? i think that's what brad was attempting to write about in this song. and i think, sure, people's
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world view in 2013 should be such that they understand that that flag has symbolism -- it means a million things to a million different people. >> i don't think people are overreacting. i think it's actually very dangerous for people not to understand that all of those things don't -- you cannot compare all of those things. if someone actually think that is they're equal, then we are in major trouble as a society. if someone, white or black or whatever you are, thinks that a rebel flag is equal to a do-rag, we have really big issues in this country, bigger than i thought about. and if they want to start that song at an honest level, at an honest place, it would be like, hey, i was in the starbucks and i'm wearing this rebel flag and all of a sudden i realize, maybe i shouldn't be doing this because i'm standing next to a guy who it offends, not that i didn't know it would offend you. i just think that's ridiculous, tim.
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and my question was, can you be an accidental racist? >> the character in the song is a character. and if you're writing about this issue, probably not the way to write about it is to say if you have anything to do with this flag, you're a racist. i grew up with it on the statehouse. they moved it as a hey, we're sorry deal. but it's something that people in the south grow up with. i think the way to get that 11-year-old kid to think twice before putting the shirt on is not to say, you little 11-year-old racist. >> why can't you say you little 11-year-old racist? people think that being racist means walking around calling people the "n" word and not liking someone outwardly. that's not necessarily what racism is, especially in this day and age. it's what you think is important, who you take comfort
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being around, whose advice to you take? it's all sorts of things. it's not necessarily something that's as targeted as going, i don't like black white, i don't like white people. that's what racism is. >> that's true, don. but i work with young kids a lot. i speak at a lot of schools from middle school up. from a pedagogical, strategical perspective, if you're talking to someone who's operating out of ignorance as opposed to over racism, who is not necessarily who we're trying to reach with this song right now, you're not going to probably be as effective if you say it the way that maybe brad in his heart actually feels it. maybe he gets it more than the
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song does. but the character is supposed to be this ridiculously clueless person. again, it's clumsy. i don't like the song. i don't think it succeeds. but i do think that if it were a lot more demonstrative and in your face -- i'm just saying this as an anti-racism educator and activist who works on this stuff with young people, my guess is you would not reach the people you're trying to reach because the worse thing right now that people are so afraid of being called racist, unless we say, it isn't about whether you're a bad person and i'm a good person, it's about whether that symbol or jokes are offensive, let's talk about the behavior. i think the song clumsily does that. >> i have negative time here, lz. what if someone was in a starbucks with a shirt with a swastika on it? would there be any question about, hey, i don't mean to offend you with that shirt. people would be like, that shirt's offensive, take it off. >> i don't think anyone would be saying, whoopsy daisy, or whatever the tweet that said earlier. i just want to point out that country music just avoids racism talk, period. i'm a huge country music fan. >> i am, too. >> i'm a big country music fan.
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the one thing i know about country music, it doesn't like to ruffle feathers. and race especially it tries to avoid. i remember kenny chesney has a song called "some people change." in his version of the song, he talked about the guy being racist. montgomery gentry remade the song but they took that line out because they knew that line would not work on radio. time and again, as one that listens to music, they avoid talking about race head-on. there's a governor right now in georgia who refuses to denounce a segregated prom. talking about you, georgia. talking about you. country music doesn't talk about it right now. that's a big problem with it. i'm glad that brad paisley at least has country music talking about race. for so long, it just avoids this. >> thanks to all of you. we appreciate it. >> thank you.
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coming up -- they are known as the central park five, teens wrongfully convicted in one of new york city's most notorious crimes, simply because of their race. >> the verdicts have been set aside in their entirety. >> but after two decades, their case is still unresolved. filmmaker ken burns is on a crusade to change that. >> this is really about human beings not admitting a mistake. dentity and turn your life upside down. >> hi. >> hi. you know, i can save you 15% today if you open up a charge card account with us. >> you just read my mind. >> announcer: just one little piece of information and they can open bogus accounts, stealing your credit, your money and ruining your reputation. that's why you need lifelock to relentlessly protect what matters most... [beeping...] helping stop crooks before your identity is attacked. and now you can have the most comprehensive identity theft protection available today...
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it's one of the most notorious crimes in new york city history. although it happened more than 20 years ago, the case is still unresolved. new york in 1989, crime was rampant. race relations, raw. and the murder rate near its all-time high. >> new york's now the capital of racial violence. >> this is the backdrop of one of the city's most notorious crimes. a 28-year-old white woman was found raped, brutally beaten and near death in central park. after six weeks in the hospital, she could not identify her attackers. >> five youths were arrested at 96th street. >> police arrested five black and latino teens, antron mccray, kevin richardson, raymond santana, kharey wise and yusef salaam. they became known as the central park five. they confessed to the attack and
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were sent to prison. there were even calls for their execution. then in 2002, a serial rapist and murderer, matias reyes, confessed to the crime and a re-examining of the dna put him at the scene. the conviction of the central park five was overturned. >> the verdicts have been set aside in their entirety. >> they filed a $250 million lawsuit against police and the city. but a decade later, the five wrongfully convicted men are still waiting for their day in court. award-winning filmmake ken burns found out about their case from his daughter, sarah. and they released a documentary titled "the central park five." i spoke with them earlier today about the film and his own battle with new york police. >> we had two questions -- how could a travesty like this take place and who was the five? back in 1989, if you were a member of the central park five, you were among the lowest, worst human beings on earth.
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it turns out, they're not only innocent but they exhibit a kind of wisdom and forbearance and lack of bitterness that is amazing. and that comes through in the film as they describe this harrowing descent into an inner ring of hell that the new york city police and prosecutors aided and abetted, i have to say, by a media more interested in what bleeds to lead than what is actually the truth and the skepticalness that we would apply to something like this. >> in a city as diverse as new york city, what's behind this? do you believe it was racism? >> it was as mayor ed koch said, the crime of the century. these kids were in the park that night. they assumed they did it. even there were contradictions between their confessions, no dna evidence, none of the boys' from the crime scene. they had not followed through two days before the central park jogger assault on another
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assault which would have nabbed the guy who ended up murdering and raping other women that summer. it's one of the travesties. it was 13 years later this very same rapist in jail for life confesses his dna matches and these kids are suddenly, oh, okay, sorry. no, actually, no sorry ever take place. >> still hassen taken place. >> and it's ten years. usually these things get settled within a month or a year. they haven't even completed discovery or completed the depositions for a potential trial. and the city is saying, we aren't going to settle. we're going to take this to trial. they're hoping to outlast the five.
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>> why did they confess so readily? were they coerced? >> yes, they were definitely coerced. these were 14, 15 and 16-year-old kids. good kids who had never been in the system before. didn't know how to lawyer up. they were trying to satisfy the cops. the cops had them without their parents, no food, no lawyer, no drink. they're saying things like, we know you didn't do it. you're a good kid. but if you say that ken did it, we'll let you go home. even when they coached them on what to say, there were phenomenal contradictions in their confessions. at some point, we have to just say, stop, put an end to this long run-on sentence of injustice but we have to say, how does this happen? >> this film was put together not without controversy. the city of new york tried to subpoena some of your footage. so talk about that and talk about what happens again when it's released on pbs. >> we spent years making this film. and we pleaded with the city, the cops and the prosecutors to be interviewed for our film. and they, i think in a cowardly fashion, hid behind the ongoing
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civil suit and said, oh, no, we can't comment. i think they couldn't answer any of the questions we would have asked them about what went on in this travesty of judgment. they then subpoena all of our outtakes and notes in a fishing expeditions to find inconsistencies. don, you said you entered the park at 9:00. you told someone else you entered at 9:05. do you always lie? the city accused of us being a one-sided advocacy film when we were just telling the facts as not only we generally know it in public but as the prosecutors themselves in the course of agreeing with the defense and asking a judge to vacate the convictions. the kids were out of jail, so a lot of good it did them. but a judge in a nanosecond agreed with the defense but the prosecution, the district attorney's office to vacate the
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convictions. i don't know what they're up to other than just a cynical delaying tactic. >> it's a fascinating documentary. and beginning this tuesday, this tuesday you can see ken burns' film "the central park five" on pbs. make sure you tune in. we'll be right back.
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time now to catch up on one of our own heroes. let's meet a chef who's been serving up generosity to struggling families in california since 2005. now he's going further. giving families a shot at a better life. >> who liked the pasta? >> every night, chef bruno serves free meals to 300 kids in anaheim, california. it's work that he was honored for in 2011 as a top ten cnn hero. >> it was the most amazing moment of my life. after the cnn show, a lot of people called me, what can we do for you? >> but bruno wanted to do more to help families living in area hotels. >> i know where they go back. >> you guys can all share those markers. >> it's a hard life to escape, just ask the gutierrez family who lived in a motel with their five children for more than a
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year. >> this is our living room/bedrooms. me and my husband sleep right here. the rest of them sleep on this sardine-style bed. he got laid off a month ago. it's hard for us to save up and get into an actual home. >> i came over and said, let's pay the first and last month. >> by providing rent and a deposit, bruno helps families leave the motel life behind for good. working with a local non-profit, 29 families have now gotten a fresh start in a home of their own. >> what do you think? >> i love it. >> the kids just went around, explored, found their rooms. >> this is yours? >> thank you. >> my heart is very full of joy. we're putting back people to their homes. >> bruno hopes to move 70 more families by the end of the year, a cnn hero with a new recipe for helping others.
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from the cnn world headquarters in atlanta, i'm don lemon. thanks for joining us. i'll see you back here tomorrow night. good night.
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