Return to Transcripts main page
Early Start with Rahel Solomon
Families of Camp Mystic Flood Victim Testify; Protesters Speak Out Against New ICE Facility; Target Reacts to Target CEO Stepping Down; Child Saved from Car in River; Front End Loader Barrels Into Intersection; Police Force Uses A.I. for Reports; New Details in Sudden House Explosion; Teen Hit in Crosswalk Near School; Rabbits Shot With Blow Darts in Colorado; Construction Unearths Coors Ceramic Artifacts. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired August 22, 2025 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:17]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A vehicle was attempting to park here and then it drove slowly. Looks like an idle speed or just a little bit of accelerator. And then it just drove through here, missed the tree.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The building has been turned into a place of health abuse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi Daddy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm getting a heart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm getting a heart.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CICI STEWARD, CILE'S MOTHER: Our family lives in a torture chamber of uncertainty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Emotional testimony from 16 parents whose children died in Camp Mystic floods last month brought the entire committee room to tears Wednesday.
SEN. LOIS KOLKHORST (R-TX): Your words about being prepared. It's a really good reminder for all of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the morning of July 4th, 27 young girls and two counselors at Camp Mystic died in the rushing floodwaters that surged throughout central Texas. Cici Steward is the mother of Cile Steward, the only child from that tragedy still missing.
STEWARD: My daughter was stolen from us. Cile's life ended not because of an unavoidable act of nature, but because of preventable failures. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blake Bonner lost his nine-year-old daughter Lila in the floods. He and other families questioned why there weren't disaster preparation plans in place already.
BLAKE BONNER, LOST DAUGHTER IN TEXAS FLOOD: Why were our children sleeping in a known high-risk flood zone? Why was the stated evacuation plan to stay in place? Why were there no adequate warning systems in the cabins?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But change is on the way. Wednesday afternoon, the Texas Senate Disaster Preparedness and Flooding Committee unanimously passed Senate Bill 1. It'll invest $200 million into improving infrastructure and adding technology to better prepare Texas youth camps from future disasters.
SEN. PAUL BETTENCOURT (R-TX): The actions of what happened that night and what we've already heard through testimony are horrific and should never be repeated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This includes moving cabins out of floodplains, installing warning systems near rivers, and providing operating radios that provide weather alerts for incoming storms. Senator Paul Bettencourt assures the families that these changes will be made quickly.
BETTENCOURT: I expect the vast majority of this to be done by next camping season, if not all of it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOV. JIM PILLEN (R-NE): We're really, really proud to make the announcement today to be a part, to be a part of President Trump's team, Secretary Noem, to make sure that we keep our communities safe. I believe what's going on at our southern border has been an atrocity. I've seen it firsthand.
IAN MASON, LOCAL4 NEWS REPORTER: And with that, Governor Pillen announced that migrant detainees will be housed at a facility in McCook. The plan has been underway for a few weeks, with details being finalized Friday for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees to be housed at the McCook Work Ethic Camp.
Governor Pillen's saying that he wants the facility to help curb crime, recalling a story he heard when visiting with residents at the southern border.
PILLEN: This has been about terrorists and criminals coming across the river. They took a, killed a 600- or 800-pound steer, and they broke into our home and they took it and butchered it on our bed. That's what I call bad people.
MASON: The announcement of detainees in the state set off a firestorm of protests from Omaha and Lincoln to where the governor was speaking in McCook. Protesters like Hannah Clapper. HANNAH CLAPPER, PROTESTER: Some people do not have a voice. Some people cannot come out here today and speak what they believe in because their rights have been taken or they never had a chance at rights. Some people were brought here across the border by their parents and they had no option to come here. You know, so they're not able to be here and fight for what's right.
MASON: For others protesting, it was more about moral grounds. Concerned with ICE's alleged actions in other parts of the country and concern it could happen right here in Nebraska.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My whole family is immigrants so this means a lot to me and ICE terrifies my family and bringing this to the community just really terrifies me because I'm scared of losing my family. They're all legal but at the end of the day they're still taking legal Mexicans and taking them away from their families and that's not right. It's not OK and I want an end to it and that's why I'm here today to speak for those that can't.
[04:05:17]
MASON: I pressed Pillen about whether or not ICE was taking citizens and detaining them and if those people would be held in Nebraska. Here is what he said.
PILLEN: The fact is we are focused. As your governor, I am focused on keeping us safe. We are focused 100% on getting people that came here that are doing that came here illegally that are criminals and terrorists folks that's bad. These people are threats to our community and we need to have them removed. That that's what I say.
MASON: Reporting from McCook, Ian Mason, Local4 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Target is at a crossroads.
GEORGE JOHN, PROFESSOR, GENERAL MILLS-GEROT CHAIR IN MARKETING: You have to get that merchandise and mojo back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: George John is a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota.
JOHN: Clearly, whatever they've been doing over the last five years has not really worked in terms of improving sales.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Post-pandemic, John says the retailer has been in a sales slump. Quarterly sales have been down this year, but can a new CEO reinvigorate the company?
JOHN: I think a little bit of the surprise is who took over. It was really literally his right-hand guy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michael Fiddelke, the Chief Operating Officer, will replace Target's current CEO, who is stepping down next year.
JOHN: I think the big question is, will the new CEO, who is very much a numbers guy, a finance guy, an operations guy, can he deal with that creative aspect, which is really the key to their success? I think his challenge will be, "can I motivate and lead those creative merchandisers that really hold the keys to the kingdom here?"
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When Target rolled back its CEI initiatives, boycotts followed. But John doesn't think winning them back is key to long-term success.
JOHN: That's a small-time issue. In the big scheme of things, that'll pass. If they get the blocking and tackling right, that's what really matters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As the company works to get their mojo back, John says don't expect those prices to drop.
JOHN: That would be disastrous. If they do that, they're done for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARTURO VAZQUEZ (Searching Missing Uncle From Flood): The discomfort of not knowing where your loved one is, I think is the most painful part.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Arturo Vazquez and his family are distraught. No one has seen or heard from his uncle, 59-year-old Miguel Flores, in nine days.
VAZQUEZ: We're hoping, you know, obviously that he's alive, but the hope is, I guess, pretty far now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Vazquez says Flores lived under the Chase Avenue bridge on the Kinnickinnic River, homeless by choice. They're worried he was swept away by floodwaters.
VAZQUEZ: I was actually told and I actually talked to one person that confirmed that he was here with them and tried to wake them up, but the water was rising so quick that there was just no chance for them to even get out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Vazquez says he called the medical examiner's office asking if anyone was found in the water.
VAZQUEZ: They basically told me that they had identified the three bodies by fingerprints, but none of them seemed or was Miguel Flores.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Outreach volunteers think Flores is one of at least five people unaccounted for and believe at least two people at the ME's office were from his camp.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We wanted to do a search party on Saturday and try to get as many people as possible to search the land and the waters going all the way down the river. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Many who lived alongside Flores say he was like family. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As we've been talking to them, they've been crying and, you know, you could feel the loss.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Those looking for him want people to understand lives were lost in these floods and they mattered.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's such an urgency here to be family and to be the community to the people that live out here. You know, we need to be as one unit and we want to be able to grieve those that are gone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAVANNAH WOOD, WLUK (voice-over): Officers were dispatched to one center street, Menasha Marina. They received a call that a car had gone into the water. The driver was inside the car with her 18-month- old child, who was safely buckled in a car seat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The vehicle was attempting to park here and then it drove slowly, looks like an idle speed or just a little bit of accelerator and then it just drove through here, missed the tree, it missed the electrical connections right here.
WOOD (voice-over): Immediately, the mother sprang into action to free her baby from the sinking car and float to the surface. Quickly after, a pedestrian came to the rescue.
(On camera): Without hesitation, a nearby community member sprinted toward the Marina and jumped this fence.
(Voice-over): Then came two more, all working together to bring the mother and child to safety.
(On camera): It doesn't look like much damage at all, if any damage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, and that's why the individual was scaling the fence, the first one on the scene, because literally when the car drove under the fence, the fence just kind of collapsed back down. You can see where the fence cap was just knocked loose. The car, right underneath it, didn't even damage the poles and the concrete foundation.
[04:10:08]
WOOD: The car was removed Wednesday morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water is deep enough here, you could not see the top of the vehicle from -- from land. The water is also not very clear this time of year, so it was a task for the diver to locate a safe spot to connect the vehicle and get it out of the water. WOOD: We learned that while trying to park, the driver may have used the accelerator instead of the brake pedal, but it's still under investigation.
In Menasha, Savannah Wood, Fox 11 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DENA SIMMONS: I didn't really know what happened. I think I was a little bit in shock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's Dena Simmons' white SUV clipped by the runaway front-end loader as it careened down Fortune Boulevard, taking out a sign, barreling across the busy intersection at Cedar Street, and then slamming into a utility pole.
SIMMONS: It just kind of came out of nowhere. It just hit my passenger side mirror, and then I saw it after going through the intersection.
[04:15:01]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dena heard honking from a truck behind her Friday afternoon, but she thought an emergency vehicle might be approaching.
SIMMONS: I just heard the honking, and I didn't really know what the driver of the truck was trying to convey, so I tried to scooch over a little bit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That move put her right on the edge of the path of the nearly 60,000-pound machine. Police say a power failure caused the operator to lose most steering and braking control as it was coming from a job site.
SIMMONS: The bumper is off, the wheel, there's just a lot of damage to the front of the vehicle and the passenger side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dena's car was somehow the only casualty in the crash where mere seconds made all the difference.
SIMMONS: I'm really thankful. I'm thankful my kids weren't with me. It was hard. Yeah, it just could have been a lot worse.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLIE JENNERJAHN, DENVER7 REPORTER: Hi there.
ALAN HERNANDEZ, WHEAT RIDGE POLICE DEPARTMENT: How you doing?
JENNERJAHN: I'm OK, I'm just -- it's really hot today.
HERNANDEZ: Yeah, it is.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): Yes, that's me on a Wheat Ridge police officer's body camera.
HERNANDEZ: So, listen, I'm Officer Hernandez with the Wheat Ridge Police Department. I'm just protecting you because somebody called and they worry about you in the city.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): And this:
(On camera): Yeah, I'm OK. I have a friend coming.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): -- is a mock welfare check.
HERNANDEZ: Well, I'll hang out with you until then, so that way nothing happens to you.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): It was a brief interaction, but a police report still has to be made, and at the start of this month, Wheat Ridge police joined the list of police departments across the state using A.I. to get that done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't let the A.I. dictate everything. There has to be human oversight, and we've built that into our policy here at the department.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): Like prompting officers to put in their own details of what happened and generating nonsense sentences throughout the report, officers have to correct before they can move forward.
(On camera): Is there any fear that this will become comfortable where they're not going back and looking at that body cam and there is something wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end of the day, every single officer knows that they could be pulled up on a stand and have to testify to any single criminal case or call for service that they respond to.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): Some defense attorneys like Anna Trobee are skeptical.
ANNA TROBEE, ROBINSON & HENRY CRIMINAL DEFENSE SENIOR ASSOCIATE: When there's that level of disconnect and you don't have the direct human connection anymore. I think that that just creates a possibility for a whole a whole host of problems.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): She says police reports are the backbone of a case, and if artificial intelligence is helping to create them, she fears officers on the witness stand will use it to dodge a question.
TROBEE: Oh, that was the AI that wrote that. You know, I didn't quite, that wasn't my perspective.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): She says maybe she can use that to poke holes in the prosecution's case, but a commitment to accuracy has to come first. TROBEE: I think the A.I. is a great tool, but in this line of work, you're dealing with human beings and you're with people's lives. And if it's you and your rights being impacted, right? Do you want to be that last report that that officer is going through and just like typing in whatever they need to? JENNERJAHN (voice-over): That's why it took multiple attempts before officer Hernandez could submit his report.
(On camera): You guys have a huge responsibility that these are always right.
HERNANDEZ: Yes.
JENNERJAHN: Does this help you feel better about that?
HERNANDEZ: Yes.
JENNERJAHN (voice-over): It then goes to a supervisor for another look over.
(On camera): The system is paid for by taxpayers. Rose says it's costing the department about $100,000 a year for perspective. He says that's about 1% of their total budget.
In Wheat Ridge, Allie Jennerjahn, Denver7.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN EGGLESTON, CHIEF OF ALBEMARLE COUNTY FIRE RESCUE: We know this is a difficult time for the Glenmore community and we will stand with them every step of the way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cleaning crews parked alongside fire trucks Wednesday. There's a lot to be done. The Glenmore neighborhood that would have usually been filled with kids playing was yearly quiet.
The fallout from Tuesday night's massive home explosion still litter streets and backyards.
EGGLESTON: But this is a big event. We've seen damage as far away as about a half a mile.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now Albemarle fire investigators with the help of the ATF are working to piece together all those pieces to pinpoint what went wrong. It will probably be a while before they have the answers.
EGGLESTON: We suspect perhaps that it is the root of this situation was a gas explosion. This is a very difficult investigation just because of the widespread damage.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here's the map they're working with.
EGGLESTON: I mean, the debris field alone is about a mile in diameter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the center on Ferndown Lane is where that million-dollar home exploded.
EGGLESTON: Enormous expansion of air just causes this house to be pushed out. So, obviously there was a fire related to this because we heard from neighbors, but we're fortunate enough it wasn't sustained enough to continue burning because when seeing crews arrived on the scene, they did not see fire.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What they did see were victims, two of them, both neighbors.
EGGLESTON: The owners of the home were not present at the time of the explosion. However, an adult female who lived in the Glenmore neighborhood who was checking on their home at the time was present.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That woman, Eggleston says, smelled gas when she arrived and asked for the help of another neighbor to investigate.
Doorbell cam video caught the moment from a distance. Fire crews arrived four minutes later, finding the woman dead under debris and taking the man to UVA Health, then to VCU's Burn Center.
[04:20:12]
EGGLESTON: We intend to work closely with them to help the children deal with this with this traumatic event as well. So, I think this is a time for people to really step up and help each other out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eggleston says his department has two priorities moving forward.
EGGLESTON: First, to ensure the safety and stability of the affected homes. And second, to help the Glenmore community begin the process of recovery.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Lamar High School students used this crosswalk to navigate busy Westheimer Road at Eastside Street, a potentially treacherous task that left this 15-year-old with non-life- threatening injuries just yesterday. Video shared with us shows him waiting on traffic to stop before crossing when suddenly an SUV that does not stop strikes him. Houston police say the 85-year-old driver was cited for failure to yield a right of way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obviously Westheimer is one of the busiest roads we have in Houston and we've seen numerous near misses.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This neighbor who doesn't want to be identified lives near the school and feared someone might get hurt or killed since the fairly new crosswalk with limited signage and no signal was put in. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this crosswalk is totally unsafe. I think it should never have been installed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This photo, courtesy of council member Mary Nan Huffman's office, shows the crosswalk installation in early 2024 when a series of concerns were initially raised. But records suggest it was the result of a request by Lamar's principal which required no community notice since it's in a school zone.
MARY NAN HUFFMAN, COUNCIL MEMBER: The safety of our children should be our number one priority.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Huffman believes school administrators were well- intentioned but the current design doesn't cut it.
What can be done to remedy this?
HUFFMAN: Either the crosswalk needs to be removed or it needs -- we need safety upgrades, flashing lights, things to get people's attention.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This crossing at the intersection of nearby River Oaks Boulevard in front of Lamar is considered much safer.
(On camera): There's also this pedestrian only crosswalk with a traffic signal between the school and Kirby Drive. It would be much safer for the students just to be directed by someone from HISD to walk to those crosswalks and cross there.
(Voice-over): Students and others are encouraged to be extra cautious while HISD police plan to increase visibility during arrival and dismissal.
HUFFMAN: And for drivers, school is back in session so slow down not just in our school zones but in our neighborhoods too.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LUCAS BARR, ANIMAL CONTROL OFFICER: On all fronts, we're trying to find out who's doing this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An Aurora neighborhood is dealing with a concerning problem.
BARR: Everybody that calls in is kind of in disbelief on how -- how can somebody do this to an animal which -- which I completely understand. I don't understand it myself.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lucas Barr says the first call came in mid-July. The lead animal control protection officer for Aurora says they found a rabbit dead with blow darts in its body.
BARR: We just disposed of it assuming this was going to be a one-off situation but over the course of the next four to five weeks, we've now received a total of five calls regarding these rabbits with blow darts on them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right, blow darts.
BARR: It's something that is that is -- that is cruel and should not be done.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Darts that can go deep.
BARR: The needles are so small that they will not immediately kill the animal but over time they will they will -- they will penetrate the internal organs causing internal bleeding or also cause infection that can lead to a very painful death of these animals.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Barr says they get reports about an injured rabbit about once a week.
BARR: Most recent report came in yesterday actually and it was a gentleman who said there was a rabbit in his yard and he sent photos and sure enough it was a rabbit unfortunately had two blow darts in it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All from the area near East Glasgow Place and South White Crow Way in the Southlands area.
BARR: It's -- it's very unfortunate that somebody would do this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Only one rabbit has been killed that they know of. Injured rabbits able to hop off before animal control arrives.
BARR: These rabs that appear to have multiple darts in them you know they probably get hit, leave, maybe come back and then get hit again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even if you don't like rabbits in your yard, Barr says this is no reason to hurt them.
BARR: No, no absolutely not. There are other ways to try and get an animal off your -- off your property.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And like the children's book everybody poops but when these peacocks do it, it comes at the cost of the taxpayer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): There are signs of the future across several blocks of Downtown Golden. Construction on a new district called Clayworks to house businesses, restaurants, even housing. But underneath all this new. MELANIE KEERINS, COORS ARCHIVIST AND HISTORIAN: And when they dig up the dirt what happens is all these little pieces that have been left behind pop up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is the hidden history of the old.
KEERINS: So, you just walk through and you can just pick them up. So, this is a piece of labware. I can tell that for a variety of reasons but it also has our stamp Coors USA.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Melanie Keerins is an archivist and historian for Coors. An expert not just on the brewery story but also the other Coors business that calls Golden home. Making ceramics and pottery and more.
KEERINS: My part in this project is to come around and collect the pieces that they found, save them and then be able to tell the stories.
DARDEN COORS, SALAD COLLECTIVE CEO: Super historic. So, we're known for beer but we also have had the ceramic almost as long as our beer company.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Darden Coors. Yes a Coors descendant oversees this new project where soon CoorsTek will make its global headquarters.
COORS: It's been awesome to take the time to save it and then document it.
