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tv   CBS Evening News With Scott Pelley  CBS  May 21, 2015 5:30pm-6:01pm PDT

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captions by: caption colorado comments@captioncolorado.com >> pelley: after murder in the mansion, a surprise break in the case. >> n.p.d. has identified a suspect. 34-year-old daron dylon wint. >> pelley: also tonight, justice for an american soldier killed in iraq. a police officer is killed in the line of duty. survivors include her newborn baby. and jon sutherland's incredible feet. >> it's not human. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: this is our western edition. tonight, there is a manhunt on in the murders of a family and their housekeeper, four victims, some beaten and stabbed, discovered in a burned out mansion in washington, d.c.
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the police identified the suspect today as daron dylon wint. who came to the united states from guyana 15 years ago. wyatt andrews says surprising evidence revealed today came from an unexpected source. >> reporter: the break in this case came from a pizza delivered to the house as the savopoulus family and a housekeeper wereto held captive wednesday night a week ago. investigators took d.n.a. from skin cells left on the pizza crust. the a.t.f. then matched that d.n.a. to the suspect, 34-year- old daron dylon wint. >> we do believe that there is a connection. >> reporter: d.c. police chief cathy lanier says wint worked at a business owned by the family he's accused of terrorizing, american iron works, a steel company headed by sawas savopoulus. savopoulus, his wife amy, their ten-year-old son philip were found dead last thursday after a fire at the house.
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three of the bodies showed signs of blunt force trauma or stab wounds. >> right now, it does not appear that this was just a random crime. >> reporter: investigators believe the crime began with the family held and possibly abused for around 12 hours in an extortion plot that ended last thursday. the couple sawa and amy tried to send text warnings to a second housekeeper telling her to stay away from work. one of the assistants brought then $40,000 in cash and left it on the porch. late on thursday after the murder, police say wint is the man seen in this surveillance video. this spot is near where the family's stolen porsche was left in a church parking lot and torched and near the suspect's home in maryland. a neighbor devera zainal said wint came from a loving family. >> i know he was raised properly. i know they taught him what was right from wrong. >> reporter: analysts were able
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to match wint's d.n.a. because of his long arrest record in maryland, including five different charges for second degree assault. maryland collects the d.n.a. of almost everyone arrested. on wint's facebook page his photos alternate between smiles and pride in his muscular shape. his caption for this picture "this is what black jesus looked like." for most of today, the manhunt focused in brooklyn, new york, where investigators thought that wint would be visiting a girlfriend. that went nowhere. scott, at the moment, police are hopeful that they can make an arrest but they don't know exactly where wint is. >> pelley: wyatt andrews at the scene of the crime for us tonight. wyatt, thank you. late today, a grand jury in baltimore handed up indictments against the six police officers arrested in the death last month of freddie gray. the charges are similar to those announced earlier by the prosecutor, and they include a murder charge against the officer who was driving the police van in which gray
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allegedly suffered his fatal spine injury. cleanup crews are fighting 100,000 gallons of oil, some of it browning the beaches near santa barbara, california. they're digging up a pipe line today to see why it ruptured and danielle nottingham has the latest. >> reporter: 18 boats skim nine square miles of oil-stained waters today along california's central coast. more than 7,700 gallons of theix oily mixture have been scooped up since the pipeline leaked as much as 105,000 gallons of crude. sean hastings is with the federal agency noaa. >> oil and water don't mix, and so any oil in the water becomes very problematic for protecting wildlife, protecting the public. >> reporter: more than 300 workers in protective suits raked and shoveled black sludge off the beaches. the cleanup is now a 24-hourea operation. plains all american runs the pipeline. in 2010, the company agreed to pay $41 million to repair and
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upgrade 10,000 miles of pipeline. plains senior safety director patrick hodgkins. >> we continually look at safety as being our primary focus and the operation of our equipment. >> reporter: officials say the spill is not moving south, and that it could take weeks to clean up the oil. danielle nottingham, cbs news, los angeles. >> pelley: today, justice finally came for an american soldier killed in iraq eight years ago. a london cab driver was convicted of his murder. turns out the suspect left crucial evidence on one of his bombs. elizabeth palmer is on this story. >> reporter: i.e.d.s-- homemade bombs-- turned iraq's roads into lethal minefields for u.s. soldiers in iraq. one of them killed 34-year-old sergeant randy johnson when it went off under his armored vehicle in 2007. fast forward eight long years, and there's justice for sergeant
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johnson. careful police work, forensic science, and a little bit of luck convicted sardar of murder. justice, too, for specialist joe bacano, who was wounded trying to recover a bomb sardar helped to build. >> i could feel like the sun beating on me, and, like, my blood, my own blood feeling hotter than that sun. and i could feel like i was losing a lot of blood. >> reporter: british police flagged sardar when he came home from the war in iraq in 2007 not in connection with these incidents. in 2012 they even raided his home and found a bomb making manual but it wasn't enough to charge him. the evidence for that came a year later. i.e.d.s intact and in pieces had been collected in iraq and shipped halfway across the world to the f.b.i.'s terrorism explosives lab in virginia. in 2014, bingo. sardar's prints were lifted from a piece of tape on two bombs
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that had been planted on the roads west of baghdad. british police finally had what they needed to go to court. >> sardar has reinvented himself carefully in london since returning as a black cab driver. the reality is he is a bomb maker, he's a terrorist and he's been convicted of murder this afternoon. >> reporter: anis abid sardar will be back in court tomorrow morning, scott, for sentencing. he's facing a mandatory life in prison for murder. >> pelley: elizabeth palmer reporting from our london newsroom tonight. liz, thanks. 60,000 refugees are pouring out of the famed city of palmyra syria, according to the u.n. overnight, the islamic extremist group isis took control of the city and its priceless 2,000- year-old roman colonnades, temples, and artifacts. now, this much territory is controlled by isis. nearly half of syria. and a third of iraq. syrian government forces and the
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iraqi army are both in retreat. palmyra fell days after isis chased the iraqi army out of ramadi, a city of 500,000. isis is on the offense. its momentum is unbroken by the u.s.-led campaign of air strikes. ramadi is the capital of anbar province where 1,300 americans lost their lives. david martin spoke with a former officer who is watching all he fought for lost to an iraqi army in disarray. >> reporter: when v.j. tedesco led a task force of 1,000 men and women into ramadi in the spring of 2006, it was probably iraq's most dangerous city. >> there was nothing but al qaeda in iraq. they had created a very dense and very sophisticated defense in depth, using massive amounts of i.e.d.s and everything else. >> >> reporter: now retired, tedesco says his task force lost 14 tanks, but tanks can be replaced.
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>> in nine months in ramadi we lost 17 soldiers, marines, and sailors operating in my task force or in the areas i controlled, and we had more than 100 wounded. >> reporter: sergeant terry lisk was killed by a mortar round sergeant nicholas gibbs by a sniper. after nine months of fighting they had something to show for their sacrifice. >> when we left in february 2007, there were areas of the city that you could move freely about that were unimaginable nine months before that. >> reporter: a year later there was even a ramadi soccer tournament. now those hard-won gains have been wiped away by the inability of iraqi troops, backed by american air strikes, to stand up to isis, the successor to al qaeda in iraq. when you talk to soldiers in your battalion who were wounded, what do they say now? >> there's a lot of bitterness and pain. >> reporter: tedesco himself feels a tangle of emotion-- sadness, resignation, and anger. >> just legitimate anger. >> reporter: anger at?
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>> this is going to sound terrible, but frankly, the politicians, both here and in iraq. >> reporter: on memorial day tedesco is going to arlington national cemetery to stand at the grave of andrew daul. >> i will run into the mothers of other men and women, many who died in ramadi and anbar, and about the same time are buried around him and it will be hard this year. >> reporter: tedesco lost 17 in his task force. a total of 83 americans were killed in ramadi during the time he was there. david martin, cbs news, the pentagon. >> pelley: today, sweden scrambled fighter jets to intercept two russian military planes that flew too close to swedish air space. with russia flexing its military three of its baltic neighbors-- lithuania, estonia, and latvia-- have asked nato to station troops there as a deterrent. part of this test of wills is playing out in the air as holly
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williams found. >> reporter: on europe's eastern frontier, nato f-16s and euro fighters drill for something they're doing more and more-- intercepting russian military aircraft flying too close for comfort to european air space. this cockpit video shows nato jets shadowing russian planes which often try to stay invisible by turning off their transponders. we watched the nato pilots practice from a military transport plane, but last year in the baltic states, they did this for real more than 150 times, and nearly four-fold increase on 2013. if the nato fighter jets don't intercept and identify the russian military aircraft, the fear is they could cause a crash with a commercial airliner. with its dangerous tactics russia seems to be probing
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nato's air defenses and testing how the west will react. general philip breedlove is nato's supreme commander in europe. >> let's put it this way-- it's certainly not the kind of behavior you would see between two partners. >> reporter: and nor is this. in ukraine last year, russia seized crimea and gave its military backing to armed rebels in the east of the country. the u.s. accuses them of shooting down a malaysian airliner in july. lithuanian captain leva gulbiniene told us many here fear their former soviet overlords. >> reporter: if russia did what it's done in ukraine to a nato ally in eastern europe, how would nato respond? >> nato is committed to defending the allies. >> reporter: you would go to war with russia.
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>> we will defend any nato nation that is attacked by any nation. >> reporter: if nato approves the permanent deployment of ground troops to the baltic states, it will undoubtedly anger russia, and, scott, that's because moscow already accuses the west of encroaching on russian interests. >> pelley: holly williams in brussels tonight, home of nato headquarters. holly, thank you very much. the u.s. senate is expected to vote tomorrow on a two-month extension of most of the provisions of the patriot act, the antiterrorism surveillance law that's due to expire june 1. republican rand paul has been trying to block the extension on civil liberties grounds. he filibustered yesterday for nearly 11 hours before finally calling it quits just before midnight. the most controversial part of the patriot act allows the national security agency to collect and store the phone records of americans.
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"cbs this morning's" norah o'donnell asked attorney general loretta lynch why she considers that so important. >> reporter: but if that law expires on june 1 and you don't have the ability to collect that metadata information on every phone call in the united states, what's your biggest fear? >> well, our biggest fear with the expiration of not just that part of it but also our ability to track the electronic communications of terrorists, as well as to obtain the records of terrorists, is that we will lose important eyes on people who have made it clear that their mission is to harm american people here and abroad. >> pelley: this is loretta lynch's first interview since becoming attorney general anding you can see it tomorrow morning on "cbs this morning." a major reversal may be coming for an american institution. today, the president of the boy scouts of america called for ending the scouts' blanket ban on gay adult leaders.
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robert gates, the former defense secretary, said the ban is no longer sustainable and keeping it would be "the end of us as a national movement." a police officer is gunned down a day before her premature daughter was due to leave the hospital. and a sing-along takes a sudden turn when the cbs evening news continues. allergies can distract you. so when your symptoms start, doctors recommend taking non-drowsy claritin every day of your allergy season. with claritin, you get powerful, non-drowsy relief 24 hours a day, day after day. which is important because with fewer symptoms to distract you you can focus on the
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year-old police officer in an omaha hospital yesterday was especially tragic. because she recently gave birth to a daughter. and here's michele miller. >> reporter: officer kerrie orozco was looking forward to bringing her daughter, olivia, home today from the hospital; born prematurely in february. but the seven-year police veteran was killed in a shoot- out yesterday with 26-year-old marcus wheeler, a known gang member wanted in connection with another shooting. wheeler was also killed. omaha police chief todd schmaderer: >> she was a friend, a popular officer, a top-notch person, and i just can't imagine that this is even happened. and the city of omaha owes her a debt of gratitude. >> reporter: officer orozco had worked in the gang unit for three years but was best known in the community as coach k. where she ran a youth's baseball team for the omaha's boys and girls club. in a video put out by the police
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department, she talked about how much she loved coaching. >> when i see kids in the neighborhood playing out in the streets and i tell them, "hey, how old are you? hey, you're nine? cool, you can join our baseball team." a lot of it is changing the mind of these kids that what they see as cool wasn't as cool as being responsible. >> reporter: and the omaha police department says officer orozco is the first officer killed in the line of duty since 2003, scott, and the first female ever killed on this force. >> pelley: michele, thank you very much. fighting a raging river to save a life when we come back.
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>> pelley: u.s. government forecasters said today there's close to a 100% chance that we'll experience el nino conditions through next winter. el nino is a warming of the pacific ocean and usually brings a lot of rain to the west coast, which could certainly use it. four people driving from miami to l.a. learned that driving singing, and selfie sticks don't mix. especially when you blow a tire. >> pelley: everybody was okay. they were shaken up, but not seriously hurt. in colombia, the police could only watch as a dog was swept away by a fast-moving river. finally, when the current wasn't quite so strong, an officer
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your energy... immunity... and metabolism like never before. centrum multigummies. see gummies in a whole new light. >> pelley: see jon run-- run run, run. ben tracy picks up the story there. >> reporter: jon sutherland went for a run today. that doesn't sound remarkable, until you know this-- >> well, the last time i didn't run was may 25, 1969. >> reporter: jon has run every day for 16,797 days in a row. he averages 11 miles each day in the hills near los angeles. that barely seems to stretch the limits of his 64-year-old frame. >> the first thing i think about every morning when i wake up is
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where am i going to run today? what am i going to do today? that's my first thought every morning. >> reporter: his legs operate like a pair of pistons and jon has put 192,000 miles on them. that's nearly eight times around the earth, but what has made him a running legend is this list, the united states running streak association tracks more than 500 people who have run at least one mile every day for more than a year. jon is number one. his streak began when he was 18. his teammates on the track team inspired him to run every day for one year. jon just never stopped. and in 46 years, that's not just a lot of running. it's running through a lot. i assume you've had the flu. >> a bunch of times. >> reporter: i assume you've had days where a loved one died? >> how about my father, the best friend of my life. >> reporter: he's also had 10 broken bones, including a broken hip during a half marathon. >> the next day i could barely lift my leg off the ground. >> reporter: you ran every day
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on a broken hip. >> yeah. let's go. >> reporter: jon coaches track at notre dame high school. enzo wright doesn't quite know what to make of his coach. >> he's not human in my opinion but he really gives us something to live up to. >> reporter: what would it take for you not to run? >> death. it's not what i do. it's who i am. i am a runner. runners run. >> reporter: and that's why jon sutherland hasn't taken a day off since 1969. ben tracy, cbs news, los angeles. >> pelley: and we'll continue our streak tomorrow night. for all of us at cbs news all around the world, good night. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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tonight, this man is locked up accused of trying to snatch a little girl just steps from her own home. the traffic infraction that got him noticed and led to his arrest. good evening, i'm ken bastida. >> i'm veronica de la cruz. campbell police say if it weren't for the brave victim and her sharp memory the suspect may still be on the street. kpix 5's maria medina joins us now live from campbell. it was a community effort to catch this guy. maria. >> reporter: and yes, it was. campbell police say this little girl is pretty amazing. she was able to tell police exactly what her attacker looked like and you can see just how close she got. police say it's because of her and because of neighbors they
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were able to track this guy down. steve had no idea llance cameras would one day help catch a suspected predator. >> he just sits there waiting for something to happen. >> reporter: on saturday, his cameras caught the driver of this silver honda making a u- turn in front of his home then allegedly waiting for the girl he had spotted walking her dog to make his move. >> this was just a crime of opportunity. he happened to be driving by and saw somebody. >> reporter: police say roberto felipe-velasco asked the girl for directions. then got out of his car and grabbed her. >> the girl did what she was supposed to. screamed, fought, she yelled out. >> reporter: her screams heard by her father and neighbors caused velasco to let her go and take off, police say. >> one of our officers drove by and spotted it. >> reporter: today an alert officer spotted the honda in the surveillance video at this storage facility. velasco was sleeping in his car just minutes from where he allegedly tried to kidnap the girl. >> serene and suddenly we were rocked to the core with this. >> reporter: word spread quickly about the arrest in the quiet campbe