United Flight Diverted; Mom Shared Love of Guns
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Stay with CNN for that. In the meantime, thanks for watching. The news continues next on</s>CNN. PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Pamela Brown, in for Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being here with me. For the second day in a row, a flight diverted because of a medical emergency in the cockpit. This time the first officer on board a United flight became unconscious. Let's go live to Rene Marsh in D.C., and Mary Schiavo, former inspector general at the Department of Transportation. Rene, what can you tell us about this?</s>RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION & GOVT. CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, we know that this was United Flight 1614. It was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco. However, it had to divert to Albuquerque, New Mexico. And the airport there saying the reason for the diversion was because the co-pilot was unconscious. So they had to make that emergency landing. Once that plane landed, paramedics met the aircraft. They checked out and checked the vitals of this co-pilot. They did tell us that he was able to walk off the plane himself and he was then transported to the hospital. But as you point out, you know, this is coming just one day after an American Airlines flight captain died midair in the cockpit. And once that plane landed - once again, that plane had to be diverted. Once that plane landed, he was pronounced dead right there in the cockpit. So that's why so much attention is being focused on this incident today. We know that the FAA, Pam, you know that they - often times they will require a medical examination. If you're under 40 years old, you have to do that once a year. Over 40, it's twice a year. What happened in this case it's unclear, but it sounds like this person in this incident today will be OK.</s>BROWN: Well, that is good news, but just bizarre that these medical emergencies happened back to back like this. Mary, I'm curious, how unusual is this? And is the crew trained to deal with these types of medical emergencies?</s>MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, for the pilots, it's unusual. We were talking yesterday that there have been seven or eight deaths since 1994 of a pilot while flying the plane. But falling ill is actually more common than we might think. And worldwide there are probably, oh, 25 to 40,000 a year instances of pilots and passengers. But in the case of a pilot or co-pilot, the two professionals up there in the flight deck, they really do need to land right away. Whether or not the pilot is, you know, suspected of being, you know, gravely ill or not because the Federal Aviation regulations require two pilots in the cockpit, and that is partly why we have such a great safety record. The pilot and the co-pilot are equally capable of flying the plane. The difference between them is often the number of hours and the number of stripes on their sleeves. And so that's why we have two. And that makes sure we have a safe flight.</s>BROWN: Still pretty unnerving for those who don't like flying. People don't want to hear this. Thank you so much, Mary Schiavo, Rene Marsh. Really appreciate it.</s>SCHIAVO: Thank you.</s>BROWN: And turning now to another big story we're following. To the mother of the mass murder in Oregon. CNN has learned through tens of thousands of postings she put online that she shared a love of guns with her son, the 26-year-old man who killed nine people and then himself last Thursday. In one posting three years ago under the screen name Tweetybird (ph), his mother wrote, quote, "I keep two full mags in my Glock case and the ARs and AKs all have loaded mags. No one will be, quote, 'dropping by' my house uninvited without acknowledgment." Not only did this mother know of her son's guns, even taking pride in his gun expertise, but she also reportedly knew he had mental health issues. In fact, a friend told "The New York Times" that the mother, a nurse, revealed she had put her son in a psychiatric hospital. Quote, "she said that my son is a real big problem of mine. He has some psychological problems. Sometimes he takes his medication, sometimes he doesn't. And that's where the big problem is when he doesn't take his medication." I'm going to turn now to CNN's Evan Perez for more on this. Evan, what more are we learning about these online postings from the mother?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, on the - on these postings she also talked about her and apparently her sons suffering from - or being affected by Asperger's Syndrome. And we can put up on the screen one of her postings. It says, "Asperger's Syndrome is a high functioning form of autism. At last check, 10 to 12 in 10,000 will be diagnosed with some form of autism. And I'm very familiar with it. My son has Asperger's. He's no babbling idiot, nor is his life worthless. He's very intelligent, is making - or working on a career in film making. My 18 years' worth of experience with and knowledge about Asperger's Syndrome is paying off." So it's something that she wanted to discuss. You know it should be clear also, though, that, you know, a lot of people are also dealing with autism and they don't carry out things like this. So we should not be making any kind of link between those two things.</s>BROWN: There's no direct link between that and violence.</s>PEREZ: Right.</s>BROWN: And in the other cases we've seen, usually there's another underlying condition.</s>PEREZ: Right. Exactly.</s>BROWN: The mom, though, has - she's been pretty quiet after this shooting.</s>PEREZ: Right.</s>BROWN: Has she responded to these new details?</s>PEREZ: She - she has not. We've reached out and we've not heard back. We do know that she has talked with the investigators and has given them a full account of what she was dealing with, with her son. But she's yet to speak out publicly, unlike her - unlike her former husband.</s>BROWN: And there's a lot of questions about the mom allowing -</s>PEREZ: Absolutely.</s>BROWN: Her son to keep guns, if he had these other mental health issues that he was being treated for. A lot of unanswered questions.</s>PEREZ: Yes.</s>BROWN: Evan Perez, thank you so much. And I want to continue this discussion. A mother enjoys going to gun ranges with her son. He has Asperger's and turns out to be a mass killer. We have heard this before. The description also matches Adam Lanza, who gunned down 27 people in Newtown, Connecticut, three years ago. And to be clear, as we just said, there is no link between Asperger's and planned violence. There have been many studies done on this and nothing has found a direct link. In fact, people with autism, Asperger's, is on the autism spectrum, are no more likely to be violent than others. So, let's turn now to CNN contributor Casey Jordan, a criminologist, behavior analyst and attorney, and digital correspondent Kelly Wallace, who often writes about family and parenting issues. Thank you so much for being on with us.</s>CASEY JORDAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Great to be on.</s>KELLY WALLACE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Great to be with you.</s>BROWN: Casey, I want to start with you because Evan just talked about these online postings, when the mother talked about how she had Asperger's, her son has Asperger's. We've learned this detail from "The New York Times" that she actually took her son to a psychiatric hospital. We don't know exactly for what, though. And yet he had all these guns in the house. What do you make of that?</s>JORDAN: Well, it seemed she learned absolutely nothing from Nancy Lanza and the Newtown massacre because the parallels are uncanny. Nancy Lanza did the exact same thing. Her same had the same diagnosis. But what you end up with, very often parents who have these children, who are on the autism spectrum, is they get their parental blinders on. They think they know that child better than anyone. They don't want to listen to doctors. And in this case she's a nurse. And a little knowledge is perhaps a dangerous thing. She says that she suffers from some form of Asperger's.</s>WALLACE: Right.</s>JORDAN: So she, of course, is the expert based on her personal knowledge and no one can tell her anything about her son. Now, she said she didn't let her child out of that hospital until the doctors' orders to let him out, but the question is, how did he get the guns, why did she provide him with guns, and, more importantly, if she knows he doesn't take his medication, any common sense person, any mother should say, guns do not belong in this house.</s>BROWN: There really does seem a lot of parallels here between this and the Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter. Kelly, but the fact is, is this shooter, this - was 26 years old.</s>WALLACE: Yes.</s>BROWN: So how much responsibility does the mother have in this case, though?</s>WALLACE: Right. I know. We started a conversation really with parents now about how responsible should parents be, especially for what their adult children do. I think it's, one, it's making sure parents are looking at the warning signs all along. Again, we're talking about Asperger's. No link, we know, to violence. But was he angry? Was he alienated? Was he isolated? Was he disenfranchised? Was he showing -</s>BROWN: And based on the writings that he handed over, he was.</s>WALLACE: They found the writings. He was. Was he showing some rage? Was he putting some rage online? Was his mother aware of that? If she happened to be aware of that, then lightbulbs should have gone off to not surround her son with guns. She might think in her head, he wouldn't do anything, but maybe if she looks at that writing she might think differently and think, if he's so angry, could he end up hurting someone else or hurt himself? I think that's the conversation parents are starting to have.</s>BROWN: So that brings me, of course, to my next question, Casey, could she face lawsuits here?</s>JORDAN: I think that people are going to pity her based on the fact that she's lost her son. But I think what she does in the next few days is incredibly important. She needs to break her radio silence and get in touch with reality that she in some way enabled. Maybe it wasn't negligence. But as we love to say in law, the first bite's free. Once you see these things in the news over and over and over again, and especially since Newtown, then she has a warning. She knows her son fits that profile. She knows there are guns in the house and she is simply not going to be let off the hook. She would be tried in the court of public opinion even if there are no laws, and I don't think there are, which can hold her criminally responsible or even civilly responsible. But after this, parents are all on notice.</s>BROWN: I'm just quickly going to bring in Evan. How - at what point can someone like her be liable, Evan?</s>PEREZ: Well, you know, there is - there is - there is some precedent for doing things with people know about an attack. For instance, in the Dylann Roof case down in South Carolina -</s>BROWN: Uh-huh, that's right.</s>PEREZ: They are bringing charges against somebody who they - you know, the authorities - talked to authorities and apparently gave false statements. So misprision (ph) is something that the authorities would look at. But in this case, again, as you mentioned, you know, a mother, her - she lost her own son. It's really hard to see that any prosecutor would try to bring a case like that. But I do - I do degree, next few days, very key.</s>WALLACE: Yes, in is. You know, in the case of Sandy Hook, obviously some parents of the victims did file a lawsuit against the estate of Adam Lanza's mother.</s>PEREZ: Right.</s>WALLACE: And in that case they - they said that she was negligent for knowing that her son was mentally unstable, for some of his behaviors and for allowing him to have access to a rifle that was used in their shooting.</s>PEREZ: Right.</s>WALLACE: So, in that case, they did sort of follow the dots. But it remains to be seen.</s>JORDAN: But she's dead, so it's an estate.</s>BROWN: Yes.</s>WALLACE: It's - exactly. It's not</s>PEREZ: Right. Exactly.</s>BROWN: It certainly is.</s>PEREZ: Right.</s>BROWN: An