Bush Wraps Up Four-Nation Tour; Florida Forces Man to Sell Land
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. Just exactly half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Coming up this morning, did police in California make a huge mistake when they opened fire on an unarmed man in an SUV? More than 90 bullets were fired in this one incident. Was there a good reason, though? We're going to talk with the sheriff of Los Angeles County about that.</s>BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Also in a moment here, the real CSI Miami, compliments of our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He's been following the work of crime scene investigators all week long, and what he discovered in Miami shows a side of his job that would never make it into the real TV drama, so stay tuned for Sanjay.</s>O'BRIEN: I would imagine that so much of it is like slow, painstaking, boring work that...</s>HEMMER: Tough on the microscope?</s>O'BRIEN: Which -- no one wants to watch six hours of that. That's just not gonna work. But we'll see. Let's get to the headlines with Carol Costello. Good morning.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to both of you. Good morning. "Now in the News," President Bush is on his way back to Washington after a four-nation tour of Europe. Earlier this morning, he was in the former Soviet republic of Georgia touting democracy there. Here's CNN's John King.</s>JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in Tbilisi was the grand finale of a trip designed both to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis in World War II and to celebrate young democracies in what was once the Soviet Union. A crowd the government said numbered more than 100,000 crammed into Liberty Square, site of the Rose Revolution here just 18 months ago, to hear the president say the reformers who toppled that corrupt government are now an inspiration around the world, not only, he said in former Soviet republics but also as far away as Iraq and Lebanon.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now across the caucuses in central Asia and the broader Middle East we see this same desire for liberty burning in the hearts of young people. They are demanding their freedom and they will have it.</s>KING: Mr. Bush did not mention that regime change in Iraq came at the hands of U.S. and other coalition troops, not in a peaceful revolution like here in Georgia. Nor did Mr. Bush weigh too deeply into still-festering disputes between Georgia and Russia, though he did say he expected Moscow eventually to keep a promise to shut down two Soviet aeromilitary bases it still maintains here in Georgia.</s>BUSH: The territorial and sovereignty of Georgia must be respected by all nations.</s>KING: A president who often sees protest when he travels was clearly thrilled at the warm welcome. Georgia's president called Mr. Bush a freedom fighter and said the huge crowds were a demonstration of how grateful people here are at the steady U.S. support, despite frequent complaints from Russia that Mr. Bush is meddling in its backyard.</s>MIKHAIL SAAKASHIVILI, GEORGIAN PRESIDENT: This is not North Korea here. You cannot tell people to go out unless they don't feel like this.</s>KING: The White House believes the powerful images here go hand in hand with Mr. Bush's second term focus on promoting freedom and democracy and perhaps might help convince Russia's Putin that the spread of democracy in his neighborhood is irreversible and that he should embrace it, not resist it. John King, CNN, Tbilisi, Georgia.</s>COSTELLO: Atlanta courthouse shooting suspect Brian Nichols will be back in court today. He's expected to hear the charges against him. An arraignment could follow. Prosecutors are also expected to announce their intentions to seek the death penalty. Nichols is accused in a shooting rampage that left a judge and three others dead. Sources tell CNN actor Macaulay Culkin could testify as early as tomorrow in the Michael Jackson trial. Culkin is expected to refute claims anything inappropriate happened between him and the entertainer. The manager on Jackson's ranch is set to testify when proceedings get underway in the next two hours. And a firefighter in Phoenix almost missed out on winning more than $860,000 in this year's Kentucky Derby. Listen to this. The man bought the winning ticket in a block of 100 and then he lost it, lost them all. He spent hours searching through the trash. But the next day, the woman who sold the tickets found the missing winning ticket behind her cash register, and she was an honest person. She handed it over to him.</s>HEMMER: Come on.</s>COSTELLO: She did.</s>HEMMER: Come on. She found it behind her cash register?</s>COSTELLO: Yes. And she handed it over to him, and he's going to keep all the $860,000, which is $600,000 after taxes. No word on if she gets a cut, but maybe she should. Let's talk to that firefighter.</s>O'BRIEN: Well, we first brought you a shocking videotape of a barrage of police gunfire on Monday. It started in Compton, a Los Angeles neighborhood, with reports that shots had been fired. Sheriff's deputies chased an SUV for 12 minutes, cornered it and then opened fire with at least 90 gunshots. Today investigators are trying to find out how a car chase ended with the unarmed suspect shot at least four times and a deputy sheriff slightly wounded. I spoke with L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca about the many unanswered questions.</s>SHERIFF LEE BACA, L.A. COUNTY: The explanation that I'm receiving preliminarily is that the vehicle was moving backward toward the deputies, and that the vehicle had been attempting earlier, prior to that stopped position shown, to get out of that containment that it was in.</s>O'BRIEN: How many shots were fired? We heard some reports of 95 shots. Is that about right?</s>BACA: No, I think it's more in the area of about 120 shots. It's interesting to note that, even as the video shows, there are simultaneous shots being fired independently, meaning the noise that you were hearing implies there might be even less, but the reality is it's around 120.</s>O'BRIEN: Yesterday, when you were briefing reporters, you talked a little bit about the conditions under which deputies are trained to shoot, and you said, obviously, in self-defense and in the protection of citizens. Do you feel now -- and I know there's an investigation under way, obviously -- do you feel right now, though, that those conditions were met to open fire in an urban neighborhood?</s>BACA: Well, I have to say this, that we have an extensive evaluation process. The district attorney's office is looking at this, our Office of Independent Review. We have a training component regarding tactics. Clearly, there's questions that need to be answered. I'll say this, though. In our system, in Los Angeles County, we have one-person cars. Once a person is contained, and in this case this vehicle was not fully contained, the communications questions have to be answered. How do people who work in one-person cars coordinate with each other verbally in an ongoing scenario that has high intensity? That's the biggest question that I want to get the answer to.</s>O'BRIEN: As we mentioned...</s>BACA: I don't think it's very easy, is what I'm saying.</s>O'BRIEN: As we mentioned, deputy injured. The suspect injured. Homeowners were showing off bullet holes in their homes. Nobody was killed. Pretty remarkable, you have to say.</s>BACA: Very remarkable, and thank God for that. And I'm glad that the suspect is not seriously injured, and his wounds appear to be minor.</s>O'BRIEN: The suspect, 44-year-old Winston Hayes (ph), is said to be, in fact, in stable condition at a hospital. Sheriff Baca said Hayes has a record of arrests for drugs and assaults, but it is not certain what he will be charged with, if anything, in connection with this incident -- Bill.</s>HEMMER: Well, want to open a story now we talked about yesterday. Convicted Atlanta murderer Wayne Williams -- this story goes back about 23 years now -- speaking out in an interview at a Chicago radio station. All this now, that word that police want to reopen his case. Williams insists that he is innocent, but does admit that he made mistakes over how he handled himself back in the early 1980s.</s>WAYNE WILLIAMS, CONVICTED MURDERER: My picture's in "The New York Times," labeled, "Atlanta Monster Seized." And what I did was a lot of 23-year-old young black men would have done at the time. I tried to lash out at the system. That's why I went on this so-called police chase to Maynard Jackson's (ph) house, because I knew Maynard. I said, Maynard, why are you letting this happen to me? You know better than this. I went to Reggie Eaves' (ph) house. I said, look, put an end to this thing. And what I didn't realize was that people took that the wrong way and said I was mocking the authorities and mocking police -- no, I wasn't. I knew these people on a first name basis.</s>HEMMER: Williams was convicted in 1983, given two life sentences for murdering two men. Police said afterward that he was responsible for more than 20 other murders. He was never charged in those cases -- Soledad.</s>O'BRIEN: A man in Florida has 160 acres of swampland in Florida that he doesn't want to sell you, but the state wants the land and they're paying him nearly $5 million to get it, whether he wants it or not. John Zarrella has the story.</s>JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Down this winding gravel road, past the pine trees and palms, out here in the middle of nowhere, lives a man worth millions, a 69-year-old man named Jesse James Hardy, who doesn't want the money.</s>JESSE JAMES HARDY, FORCED TO SELL LAND: I don't want the damn money. Please, please take the money back.</s>ZARRELLA: Thirty-two years ago, Hardy paid $60,000 for 160 acres of rock, scrub brush and mosquitoes, nestled in southwest Florida, not too far from Naples. (on camera): Did you build on this by yourself?</s>HARDY: Yes, I did. It ain't much. I went to Miami and I got that tin for the roof.</s>ZARRELLA (voice-over): But by the end of November, Hardy has to move. The state of Florida wants his land. They call it the hole in the doughnut of the massive $8 billion Everglades Restoration Project.</s>HARDY: Please, don't b.s. me. I didn't fall off that turnip truck yesterday, you know?</s>ZARRELLA: Hardy doesn't believe his land will ever be used for restoration. But after years of fighting, Hardy agreed last month to take $4.95 million from the state. Under its eminent-domain authority, he ultimately had no choice but to sell. Now he's rich, but miserable. (on camera): The one thing, obviously, when people see, they're going to say, people are going to say, Jesse, what do you want to be out here for?</s>HARDY: Oh, I love it.</s>ZARRELLA: You have a great place.</s>HARDY: For what? You tell me what do you do? What do you do, sit around and watch TV?</s>ZARRELLA (voice-over): Jesse James Hardy would give anything to get out of the deal. He just wants too stay here. No electricity service, never had any. A generator runs the</s>A/C. HARDY: There's the motor. That's a nice</s>ZARRELLA: His first phone was a cell phone.</s>HARDY: Technology -- technology put me in touch with the whole world.</s>ZARRELLA: Hardy has no idea where he's going to live, but one thing is for sure, he's not leaving one minute before he has to.</s>HARDY: Thirty-two years shot to hell, 32 years shot to hell, you know?</s>ZARRELLA: And all he's got to show for it is about $5 million. John Zarrella, CNN, Collier County, Florida.</s>O'BRIEN: John Hardy has until November 30th to leave.</s>HEMMER: From Philadelphia now, actually northwest of Philly, about 15 miles, small town called Conchihawken (ph) -- I hope I got that right -- there's a two-alarm fire at a church there in suburban Philly. It's the First Baptist Church, Montgomery County. Firefighters, you can see from the videotape here, a live picture, using tower trucks to pour water on that blaze. Luckily no injuries reported. Just want to bring you that picture now. Pretty smoke there northwest of Philly. In a moment here, parrot heads find a home on satellite radio. Andy explains that. "Minding Your Business" in a moment here.</s>O'BRIEN: And in our "House Call" this morning, how does Hollywood's version of "CSI" compare to the real thing? Dr. Gupta finds out from a professional crime-scene investigator, up next on AMERICAN MORNING.