Teen Suicide Linked to Sex Spying; Fisher-Price Recalling Millions of Toys. 30,000 McDonald's Workers Could Lose Health Benefits; Rocking Out with Rush
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: So nice to have you here.</s>JOHN ROBERTS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you in the NEWSROOM. Good morning. Yes.</s>PHILLIPS: And we all know why. You had a chance to catch up with some old buddies that you haven't seen in, what? Three decades?</s>ROBERTS: It's been a long time. It hasn't been three decades but it's been a long time.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, what was so special for me, not only to see how excited you were to team up with them, but how excited Rush was, Getty and Alex and Neil, to see you and when they said come up on stage and jam, we had to top off the show with this.</s>ROBERTS: I guess you could qualify that as geezer rock.</s>PHILLIPS: Now you -- in all honesty, you said that was, like, the highlight -- a highlight of your life.</s>ROBERTS: My musical life. I mean there are lots of other highlights in my life, of course.</s>PHILLIPS: I hope so.</s>ROBERTS: Yes. But in terms of this -- you know, a frustrated guitarist who's always sort of had that dream of being a rock n' roll star -- I know you always wanted to be a country singer. You know, to be able to exercise that Jones even for four minutes playing limelight with them on stage --</s>PHILLIPS: It is great.</s>ROBERTS: An awful lot of fun.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, we're going to catch up, talk more about that. And I loved when I look over at Getty and I said, how did he do? And he goes, he did great.</s>PHILLIPS: So we'll talk more about your interview.</s>ROBERTS: I think they were just being nice.</s>PHILLIPS: No. Well, they are incredible guys.</s>ROBERTS: They are. Yes.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. We'll talk a little bit. Thanks so much, John.</s>ROBERTS: All right. You bet.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. We've got that, of course. And also this hour, we're talking with Tom</s>ARTHUR CHEN, WPIX REPORTER: Authorities tonight may have recovered the body of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi. Witnesses spotted the freshman on the walkway of the George Washington Bridge last Wednesday. His car was discovered nearby with his wallet, I.D., cell phone and laptop inside. Just days earlier authorities say his roommate, Dharun Ravi, also a freshman, secretly taped Clementi's sexual encounter with another man.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He was Dharun's roommate --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roommate. So there was really nothing about it. So this is all surprising to all of us what was happening.</s>CHEN: Danielle Birbaum (ph) lives in the room next door in their Rutgers room. Amongst those astonished that the two fellow students have been arrested and charged with invading Clementi's privacy to play out over the Internet. Sources tell PIX 11 Ravi lined up his webcam and placed a Skype account on auto answer. On his twitter account he says, quote, "Roommate asked for the room until midnight. I went into Molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay." Molly Wei, Ravi's high school classmate's computer was allegedly used to access Ravi's webcam through Skype and his twitter account suggested a second attempt to peek into Clementi's life. Two days later this message, quote, "Anyone with iChat I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes, it's happening again," end quote. This followed days later by a Facebook status this time updated by Clementi saying plainly, quote, "Jumping off the GW Bridge. Sorry," end quote. The medical examiner's office now will conduct an autopsy. Sources say the parents of the accomplished violinist may have been unaware their son was gay.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You knew that Tyler was gay?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Because I live next door to him. It was just like obvious. He had the guy in his room. I saw that. Like --</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did the guy come in more than once? Or was it just that one time?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I only saw him once.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Was he a student or --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. He was a little bit older.</s>CHEN: If authorities are able to prove a connection between Clementi's death and the alleged invasion of his privacy, the 18-year- old will join a disturbing growing trend of young students across the country who are cyber bullied to the point of collapse. Some perhaps intentionally cruel, some perhaps carelessly.</s>PHILLIPS: Now the prosecutor's office says that the investigation is ongoing but it says it won't speculate on extra charges against Ravi and Molly Wei. Dharun Ravi, rather -- Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei. Parry Aftab is an Internet privacy lawyer and the executive director of Wiredsafety.org. She's joining me live from New York. Now you know what I've been hearing for the first time so many Internet attorneys and I don't know if you feel this way, Parry, at this point but they're coming forward and saying, what's it going to take to show people how dangerous the Internet has become?</s>PARRY AFTAB, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WIREDSAFETY.ORG: Well, I don't know that the Internet is so dangerous, but these kinds of actions are. So abuse of the technologies is what we're looking at. And I am very concerned about it. We have laws in place and then in this case I expect that either the federal prosecutor or the state prosecutors are going to start looking at civil rights violations as well.</s>PHILLIPS: Civil rights violations, because the gay rights group Garden State Equality actually released a statement, saying, quote, "We are sickened that anyone in our society such as the students allegedly responsible for making this surreptitious video might consider destroying others' lives as a sport." So do you think this could be considered a hate crime?</s>AFTAB: I think so. I mean hate crimes are a little tricky. They don't work the way people think they do. But it could be a civil rights case. And that was used in the Phoebe Prince case by the prosecutor. And I think that treating this as only a privacy violation is a sin. Tyler's life was worth far more than that and there are lot more laws that were broken here.</s>PHILLIPS: OK. Well, let's talk about the laws that were broken. And what could this man be held accountable for, Dharun, specifically, and then also, the young lady who allowed him to come into her room and actually call up Skype so this could be broadcast?</s>AFTAB: Well, I think we need to have the full facts but civil rights violations, wiretap laws, federal and state apply. And there are going to be a number of other things as far as harassment that may apply, as well. So once we start digging into this enough, I expect there are going to be a lot more crimes that are going to be charged with.</s>PHILLIPS: And so -- could this case, because of how brutal it is and what has happened, somehow trigger any type of legislation or changes when it comes to -- and I know it's a kind of broad question but it could it lead to anything to somehow put restrictions or changes on the Internet?</s>AFTAB: Well, I don't know that the Internet needs more restrictions and I think we have the laws. We just need to make sure the prosecutors understand them. What we need to do here is change behavior. And so I have teens who went to school, were in high school with Tyler and loved him in Ridgewood who happened to be my teen angels, my teen Internet safety experts, who across the country at their own universities are creating a program called "Step Up, Speak Out" to get college students to say, this is not going to happen again. Not on our campus or any campus. And if we can change behavior, we can make sure that this won't happen again.</s>PHILLIPS: It's just atrocious that this man and young lady would even think of doing what they did. It's heart-wrenching.</s>AFTAB: It is such a loss.</s>PHILLIPS: Yes.</s>AFTAB: Such a loss.</s>PHILLIPS: It is. Parry Aftab, thanks so much.</s>AFTAB: Thank you.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, Clementi's classmates say that he wasn't quiet and many people weren't exactly sure what his sexual orientation was, but nearly 9 out of 10 gay/lesbian/transgender and bisexual kids are harassed at school according to a recent school climate survey. And just this month we've learned of three gay school-aged children who committed suicide. In Indiana, 15-year-old Billy Lucas was made fun of for being different for being gay. His classmates reportedly told him he should kill himself and he did. Police say his body was found hanging in a barn. In Texas, 13-year-old Asher Brown shot himself with a pistol after he was bullied by classmates. A school district spokeswoman says that she never heard complaints but Asher's mom and stepdad told Anderson Cooper a very different story.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Why do you think, Amy, that the school district is now saying, well, look, we didn't know about it?</s>AMY TRUONG, SON COMMITTED SUICIDE: Because my son killed himself. And he's gone. And we can't bring him back and they realized what they did was wrong. They didn't take this seriously. And nothing's going to bring him back. And we have no reason to lie about the fact that we went to them for help. To make it stop.</s>PHILLIPS: And in California, a touching Internet tribute to a 13-year-old who died in the hospital days after he tried to hang himself from a tree. Seth Walsh had been in a coma since he was found unconscious in his backyard over a week ago. Officers talked to some teens who allegedly made fun of Seth for being gay but they say no charges will be filed. Bullying in our schools and now online. Why do kids even do it? And what can be done to put an end to it? An "AC 360" special report that you can't miss, it's beginning Monday night 10:00 Eastern. Well, Congress has completed its last piece of business before lawmakers return home to hit the campaign trail. The House voted early this morning to fund the federal government for the next two months. President Obama's expected to sign the bill before Friday when the new fiscal year begins. Now if the stop gap measure had failed, the government would have shut down. And before adjourning, the House also passed a bill providing free medical care for first responders to the 9/11 attacks. Many first responders blame illnesses on toxins that they say they were exposed to at Ground Zero. Most Republicans have complained the $7.4 billion plan is too costly. The Senate must still vote on that bill. Prosecutors are revealing details of their case against the failed Times Square bomber. The FBI recreated and detonated the bomb that Faisal Shahzad tried to use, and like the field testing blast in Pennsylvania, the Times Square bomb did not explode back on May 1st. Prosecutors say that if Shahzad had not been arrested he planned to detonate a second bomb in New York City two weeks later. The Army's largest base reeling from four apparent suicides in just one weekend. Soldiers taking their own lives. It's a disturbing trend. We're going to talk about the problem and what the Army is trying to do about it.