The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Susan Dentzer tells the story of the stent, the little metal object used to treat Vice President Cheney's arteries. Gwen Ifill has some second-day views of the school shooting tragedy near San Diego. And Ray Suarez gets the latest from the Navy's submarine collision court of inquiry in Hawaii. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Vice President Cheney was released from a Washington hospital today. He said he felt good a day after a procedure to clear a partially blocked artery. Doctors said he did not have a heart attack. He has had four in the past, as well as a quadruple bypass surgical operation. He was expected to return to work later this week. President Bush said today he saw no reason for the Vice President to slow down. He spoke during a trip to Chicago.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: He's the kind of man who listens carefully to his body, and he is not going to put himself in a position where he gets very sick. Any time there's any doubt as to whether or not he needs to see a doctor, he'll see a doctor. And he's plenty strong and plenty capable of carrying the workload that he's been working in the past. Keep in mind, I'm not his doctor. It's going to be up to his doctor and his wife and his family to make decisions, but, you know, I don't think he needs to cut back.

JIM LEHRER: His doctors said the blockage in Cheney's artery built up after a wire mesh tube, called a stent, was inserted last November to keep the artery open. We'll have more on the use of stents right after this News Summary. The school shooting outside San Diego, California, could have been much worse. That was the word today from local authorities. The 15-year-old suspect, Charles Andy Williams, allegedly killed two students and wounded 13 people Monday before two officers arrested him. Investigators said he used his father's .22-caliber revolver, and reloaded several times.

LIEUTENANT JERRY LEWIS: When our detectives recovered the weapon, the weapon was fully loaded with eight rounds, and the hammer was cocked. Based on that information, it is our belief that the quick response and the quick actions of the deputy sheriffs and the off-duty San Diego police officer, which their quick actions and response, they were able to prevent further individuals from being shot.

JIM LEHRER: Police said the boy appeared to fire at random. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. In economic news today, the Commerce Department reported orders to U.S. factories fell 3.8% in January to the lowest level in 14 months; the decline was led by sharp drops in demand for airplanes, cars, and other transportation equipment. And the Labor Department said productivity rose 2.2% in the fourth quarter of 2000. That was slightly better than some analysts expected. A federal grand jury in Texas today indicted an Austin woman in the Bush debate tape case. Juanita Lozano allegedly copied documents and a videotape of debate preparations, and sent them to the Gore campaign. At the time, she worked for a media company handling ads for the Bush campaign. She's charged with mail fraud, making false statements to the FBI, and perjury. The initial count from the 2000 census will stand. Commerce Secretary Don Evans made that announcement today. Some Democrats and some civil rights groups wanted the tally adjusted, based on sampling. They said it would make up for the estimated 3.3 million people missed by census takers, but Evans rejected that argument.

DONALD EVANS: The Bureau looked at the ability to use statistics for a more accurate count. They have concluded at this point in time they cannot recommend to me that we would have a more accurate count using statistics. But I like to again reemphasize that this is the most accurate census we've had in the history of this great land. The undercount was slightly more than 1%, which is a remarkable achievement.

JIM LEHRER: The census numbers will be used for congressional redistricting, and to allocate more than $185 billion in federal funding to the states. President Bush today nominated John Negroponte to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He served as ambassador to Mexico and Honduras during the Reagan and first Bush administrations. In all, he spent 37 years with the U.S. Foreign Service before leaving government for private industry in 1997. China today denied helping Iraq improve its air defenses. U.S. Officials had said Chinese workers were installing fiber optic cable at Iraqi military sites before allied jets attacked the sites last month. That assistance would violate UN sanctions. But China's foreign minister said today an investigation found no such aid to Iraq, either from China's government or private companies. There's been a further development in the federal case against Napster. A federal judge late yesterday laid out new rules for how the online music-swapping service must protect copyrighted songs. The judge in San Francisco said Napster will receive lists of titles from record labels. Upon receipt, it will have three business days to block free access to the music. Napster has already tried to restrict some titles, but with mixed results. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to stents in the arteries; the San Diego school shooting; and the submarine tragedy investigation.

FOCUS - HEART STENTS

JIM LEHRER: Vice President Cheney's ongoing heart problems-- the latest being a procedure yesterday-- have brought fresh attention to a device called the stent. We have a perspective report on stents by Susan Dentzer of our health unit, a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: Before his most recent bout of chest pain, Vice President Cheney last underwent heart treatment in November. That's when he suffered a mild heart attack, his fourth in 22 years. When he arrived at George Washington University Hospital in November, doctors performed a so-called "cardiac catheterization" to probe for blockages in his coronary arteries. When they found one, they took action.

DR. JONATHAN REINER: We deployed what we call a stent in Mr. Cheney's diagonal artery. A stent is a stainless steel mesh. It's crimped onto a balloon, and when the balloon is expanded, the stainless steel mesh is also expanded, and is essentially embedded into the wall of the artery, and it acts like a tiny stainless steel scaffold to sort of buttress the wall of the artery and keep the artery open.

SUSAN DENTZER: That might have been the first time many had heard of stents, devices that look a bit like the spring of a ballpoint pen. Over the past decade, stents have prompted big changes in the way patients like Cheney are treated. Now they're even edging out cardiac bypasses as the treatment of choice for many. In the U.S. alone, roughly 400,000 people a year are treated with stents, while sales of the devices are approaching $3.5 billion a year. Marvin Woodall helped to develop some of the earliest stents at Johnson & Johnson Company in the 1980s.

MARVIN WOODALL: I thought that possibly stents could be used in as high as 25% or 30% of patients, but today it seems to be like it's in 85% to 95% of patients.

SUSAN DENTZER: From his first heart attack in 1978 to his new stent, Cheney's years of heart treatment encapsulate the many rapid advances in cardiac care. He's long suffered from coronary heart disease, in which cholesterol and fat in the blood build up in clumps known as plaque on the inside walls of arteries. The plaque can so restrict the flow of blood, oxygen, and nutrients that it leads to a heart attack, when part of the heart muscle starved for oxygen begins to die. Cheney suffered one such attack when he was in his late 30s, and two more when he was in his 40s. After the third heart attack in 1988, Cheney had a quadruple bypass operation. Pieces of another blood vessel in his body were grafted onto four blocked arteries to create new channels for blood flow. These bypasses are major operations that, among other things, require cutting through the breastbone, or cracking the chest, as it's called, to operate on the arteries. To avoid that invasive surgery, doctors developed a new procedure called balloon angioplasty. Dr. Kenneth Kent, a heart specialist at Georgetown University Hospital, describes the breakthrough.

DR. KENNETH KENT:A very aggressive pioneer found that he could relieve some of the obstructions of the coronary arteries by putting a balloon in the coronary arteries, dilating it, pushing the plaque out of the way, and allowing blood flow to the heart.

SUSAN DENTZER: The procedure quickly became popular but angioplasties also had serious drawbacks. Sometimes during the procedure blood vessels would be damaged and would shut down. That meant surgeons had to be called in to perform emergency bypasses. And even with angioplasties that appeared successful at first, problems could follow months later for patients.

DR. KENNETH KENT: They would have recurrent chest pain. They would come back, we would take another angiogram, and the narrowing... the vessel would have renarrowed to exactly the same degree, or sometimes even worse than they had the first time.

SUSAN DENTZER: Doctors discovered that blood vessels sometimes shrank in response to minute injuries from the balloons. That's when doctors devised stents, to be used in conjunction with angioplasties to make sure that arteries, once unblocked, would stay open. Brian Firth of Cordis, the Johnson & Johnson division that makes stents, says that at first the idea seemed strange.

BRIAN FIRTH: The concept of stenting was on the one hand very controversial, because many people thought that putting a piece of metal into an artery and leaving it there long term might be a bad idea. These things might break; they might get infected.

SUSAN DENTZER: But clinical trials to test the devices on patients showed otherwise.

BRIAN FIRTH: There was a much lower rate of renarrowing of the vessel, and a much lower rate of repeat intervention in these patients who had stents as opposed to angioplasty. These were simple, elegantly designed little tubes that are put into patients that worked. They didn't break. They lasted. They provided very good scaffolding for the vessel.

SUSAN DENTZER: The Federal Food and Drug Administration approved stents for treating patients in 1993. Since then, stent design and production has changed dramatically. Although stents were once made by soldering wires together around a pencil, today they're made from steel tubes etched by computer-controlled lasers. At the same time, the ranks of so-called interventional cardiologists, like Dr. Kent of Georgetown, have swelled. Recently Kent performed an angioplasty and stenting procedure on 41-year-old Mark Hyson of Oakland, Maryland. A smoker with high cholesterol, hyson suffered a bad heart attack last December. He was given a clot-busting drug that broke up blockages in his arteries. But later, his chest pain recurred, a fact that Kent says made him a prime candidate for an angioplasty and stent. With Hyson sedated but awake, the procedure began with insertion of a catheter, or long tube, into a blood vessel at the top of his leg.

DR. KENNETH KENT: The guide catheter then goes up through the major artery, the aorta, and then we thread this small 1/14,000 guide wire through that guide catheter, through the blockage, and place the guide wire further down the artery.

SUSAN DENTZER: With the aid of ultrasound, Kent and his assistants identified two blockages in Hyson's artery.

SPOKESMAN: What we see now is the plaque mass here is increasing and the channel is getting smaller.

DR. KENNETH KENT: So we put two stents-- one very short stent farther down the vessel and then the much larger and somewhat longer stent in the proximal portion of the vessel, and that was plaque that caused the original heart attack.

SPOKESMAN: Mr. Hyson everything went fine. We're all through. Everything looks great.

SUSAN DENTZER: The procedure took about 40 minutes - similar to Cheney, who spent just two nights in the hospital before resuming much of his normal activity, Hyson expected to go home the next day.

MARK HYSON: I think they'll keep me tonight and check me out; keep an eye on me, but I think I'll go home tomorrow.

SUSAN DENTZER: Hyson's follow-up regimen is to quit smoking and take prescription drugs similar to those given Cheney. These represent still more major innovations in cardiac care; they include powerful statin drugs to lower cholesterol and a so- called ACE inhibitor to help mend Hyson's damaged heart muscle.

DR. KENNETH KENT: If we can control his risk factors, we can get his cholesterol down with statin drugs, then he should have an excellent prognosis.

SUSAN DENTZER: Despite the advantages of stents, they're not a perfect solution, as Vice President Cheney discovered this week. His cardiologist, Jonathan Reiner, explained yesterday what might have happened.

DR. JONATHAN REINER: You know, what we know is that when an artery is stented, you know, the stent is a foreign body, and the stent itself initiates a series of events, normal events-- response-to- injury events which in about 20% of patients results in renarrowing.

SUSAN DENTZER: To treat Cheney yesterday, doctors cleared out the artery and reopened the stent with a balloon. And they said they'd continue to monitor his chronic condition.

DR. JONATHAN REINER: The Vice President clearly has chronic coronary artery disease, and he has probably had it for many decades, although it was first discovered when he had his first heart attack in the 1970s. And this is what coronary artery disease has become. It's become a chronic disease. I wish I could predict the future. I think there's a very high likelihood that he can finish out his term in his extremely vigorous, vigorous capacity.

SUSAN DENTZER: His doctors also said yesterday that they were evaluating other treatment options.

DR. JONATHAN REINER: If the narrowing were to come back, you know, there are evolving technologies which are really only now becoming available to further prevent that, and that would include things like delivering inter coronary radiation therapy to the stent.

SUSAN DENTZER: That therapy is designed to inhibit further scarring. And still other new advances may reduce the chances of arteries renarrowing in the future. One is stents specially coated with medications that provide an extra measure of protection to keep arteries open. Johnson & Johnson has begun selling one stent coated with the blood-thinning drug Heparin, which deters formation of blood clots. The company is also testing other types of drug-coated stents on patients. As a result, some experts predict the use of stents will continue to grow.

BRIAN FIRTH: Bypass surgery is likely to go down much more quickly than it has, and interventional procedures are likely to grow more rapidly than they have.

SUSAN DENTZER: And it's all just a part of an ongoing revolution in cardiac care, one that may yet help to prevent still more of the suffering of patients.

FOCUS - SCHOOL SHOOTING

JIM LEHRER: A San Diego school shooting follow-up. Tom Bearden begins.

TOM BEARDEN: It's an all-too familiar scene: Students and parents placing flowers and saying prayers at a makeshift memorial in the wake of a student shooting rampage.

STUDENT: I came today, and they had the poster of his face. It just kind of - just - it kind of made me realize that he is gone.

TOM BEARDEN: Yesterday's shooting at Santana high school in Santee, California, just outside San Diego, left two students dead and 13 others injured. A 15-year-old suspect, freshman Charles Andrew Williams, will be arraigned tomorrow. Under California law, he will be charged as an adult with murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and gun possession. Authorities say he's given statements, but no reason for the attack. Police and the FBI searched the apartment where the boy lived with his father. They removed seven rifles, a computer, and other evidence. Friends of the teen said he talked about his plans over the weekend.

JOHS STEVENS: The whole weekend he was talking about it, and me and my friends were like, "you're not serious, right?" And he says, "I'm just joking." And then he asked us if we wanted to do it with him. And we're all, "you said you were joking." And he goes, "I am, I'm just messing around."

TOM BEARDEN: One adult said he attempted to warn the boy's father.

CHRIS REYNOLDS: I tried calling his house. The phone would just ring. The answering machine didn't even come on. I was just going to have a talk with his dad that, you know, I don't know if anything of this is true or not, but, you know, if you do have any weapons in the house and stuff, you know, please remove them and take them to a safe place, until Andy could be talked to by somebody or something could be done to make sure that nothing like this was really going to happen.

TOM BEARDEN: Williams was described by acquaintances and classmates as skinny, and the subject of constant harassment. But they also said he was a normal teenager.

DAVE CUNNINGHAM: He was always a good kid. He played sports, baseball, football. We just always rode around and did everything normal kids did.

CHRISTINE PFLUGHAUPT: Like I said, Andy is a good kid. I don't know why he did this, but all's I can say is that I still love him.

TOM BEARDEN: But one parent said the boy was disruptive.

STEVE CRANE: All right, the guy that did the shooting evidently is quite the troublemaker around here. My daughter knows him well, and she tries to avoid him as much as possible.

TOM BEARDEN: The boy's mother, who is divorced from the father, spoke to reporters this afternoon.

LINDA WELLS: My heart goes out to them. They've lost their babies, their hopes, their dreams for their futures.

REPORTER: Can you say something about Andy?

LINDA WELLS: He's lost.

REPORTER: He's lost?

LINDA WELLS: His future is gone.

TOM BEARDEN: City officials in Santee held a news conference this afternoon. They provided more details about the alleged shooter.

LIEUTENANT JERRY LEWIS: From victims and witnesses at the scene, they all said he was mad at something. They don't know if he was mad at the school, at students, at life, mad at home. He was an angry young man.

DIANNE JACOB: We can have all of the programs-- we know we can, and we have them in this county-- but it is not the programs that are going to make the difference. It's one individual taking the interest in a life of a child that is ultimately going to make that difference. So I'd put a call out today: Take the hand of a child and show them the way. It may be a child who is troubled, that needs that hand more than another; but I can tell you, all children need us as adults.

TOM BEARDEN: The school superintendent was asked about whether the people who apparently knew about Williams' intentions were culpable.

GRANGER WARD: If, in fact, they did know this and did not respond or did not contact, I certainly have concerns, any parent would have concerns, and I believe it is imperative that we as a district address that. I cannot give you the exact action we will take at this point.

TOM BEARDEN: Law enforcement officers said the district attorney would examine that issue in the days ahead. School officials have said Santana High will reopen tomorrow morning.

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill takes it from there.

GWEN IFILL: Joining me now to discuss the shootings are PaulPfingst, district attorney for San Diego county; Marc Norman, a clinical psychologist for the Red Cross, who is there helping to counsel students and families; and Dr. Joan Kinlan, child and adolescent psychiatrist and former head of the psychiatry unit for incarcerated children in Washington, DC.

Mr. Pfingst, are we any closer today to knowing more about how this came about than we were yesterday?

PAUL PFINGST: The answer is no. I think all of us, all parents, everybody in San Diego and your viewers, would like to have a simple explanation that explains this: A cause and effect -- something caused this shooter to shoot. I don't think it's going to come out that way. I don't think there's going to be a simple answer. I don't think there's going to be a single cause. As the case develops over time and people hear the evidence in the case, they may be no closer to an answer six months from now than we are today.

GWEN IFILL: Charles Andrew Williams is 15 years old but is being charged as an adult in this case under a special proposition that was passed in California last year. Can you explain that for us.

PAUL PFINGST: Yes, last year the voters of California passed Proposition 21. It was to reform the juvenile justice system and essentially provided that there were three ways for juveniles to be tried as adults in California. One is a mandatory requirement for certain types of the most serious crimes. The second is an election by a district attorney, and the third is a judge and a district attorney. This falls into the first category. It is required under California law that this case go directly to adult court.

GWEN IFILL: There had been also an anti-violence program, safe schools program in California schools.

PAUL PFINGST: Yes.

GWEN IFILL: Was this in place at Santana High School?

PAUL PFINGST: Indeed it was. Santana High School took the safety very seriously. There were school counselors on site. And they had a very active school safety program. So this was not a case-- and this may not be comforting to people who are watching this-- but this was not a case where school safety was overlooked. And it was not a case where the administration was indifferent to it. What we've been able to learn so far is that it was an aggressive program to try to make sure that the children who were dropped off at school everyday were safe. That's good and it's bad because one wonders if there was an aggressive program here how many other schools have aggressive programs where they feel a sense of safety that may not be justified by the events in San Diego and Santee yesterday.

GWEN IFILL: Marc Norman you spent your day today talking to students and their families. What are they telling you? What are you hearing?

MARC NORMAN: Well, there's a wide range of emotions that people are experiencing at this time. Right now there's still a lot of shock that this event is very surreal to many people at this point. And other feelings that are coming out are a tremendous amount of anger for some people. That's a very prevalent emotion that's coming out right now. Another issue that's coming out right now is confusion. To put sense and to put meaning on why this happened. So there's a variety of different kinds of experiences that people are experiencing at this time -- both the kids and the adults that have been involved with this situation.

GWEN IFILL: One of the great puzzles in this is that so many students said, as you heard in the earlier taped piece, that they had heard Charles Andrew Williams make these threats but had not thought to report them. Is that a special case of concern?

MARC NORMAN: It's not unusual. There's often times where adolescents will say something in a joking way or not serious about something, but we all need to be very concerned when we hear intentions or thoughts of individuals wanting to harm themselves or harm other people. And there's certainly some types of behavior patterns that we especially want to be concerned about and I'm sure will be investigated in a case like this where there has been prior acts of harm toward other people or to property, those types of things. So we do want to be concerned and we do want to address these types of issues when we do hear about them to school authorities or to community services, to religious leaders, to those who are very active in trying to identify adolescents or even adults that are having problems.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. Kinlan, is that not unusual that students would hear these sorts of threats from their peers and not pass it on?

JOAN KINLAN: Gwen, at this point in time, many students tend to pass them on because we have had a plethora in the last few years of these violent incidents. As has been reported, there are a number of threats that need to be reported, whether there's a threat to hurt others, a threat to hurt yourself, a threat to run away or to hurt property. It's critical that parents be called, come to the principal's office and discuss it with the kid. Sometimes it's just attention. But they all need to be taken seriously. If the student does not respond positively or won't talk or seems to be belligerent, it would be critical then to refer the child to a trained mental health professional to further understand why is this youth making this threat?

GWEN IFILL: What are the warning signs for this kind of behavior -- or are there any reliable warning signs?

JOAN KINLAN: Well, one of the things is certainly is the threats. But, Gwen, this is such a rare incident that it's really very difficult to predict. We certainly know also if kids have learning problems, if they've diagnosed neurological difficulties, if they've been in trouble before, if they've been depressed that they are certainly at a higher risk of following through on some of these threats.

GWEN IFILL: When we hear about these kinds of episodes, obviously it rivets our attention. How does that square with the statistics that show that school violence or youth violence is at its lowest point in a couple decades?

JOAN KINLAN: It's at its lowest point. However, Gwen, in our country, the United States, we have the highest degree of violence any place in the civilized world. And of all of the crimes that we have, 10% are committed by youth under 18. And so we have to be especially concerned that it could be happening and it's a danger.

GWEN IFILL: These shootings were apparently random. Should that be reassuring or should that be even scarier?

JOAN KINLAN: In some ways it's always scary when it happens. We do have to remember it's a rare random event but still one of great concern. What is of even greater concern is the prevalence of violence within our society, the use of guns and the need for parents to really be there for their kids, to tell their child every day that they love them, for schools to be there -- to really be there with small classes to identify kids who have problems early on. We need to have programs like the bully proofing programs that are going on throughout the country.

GWEN IFILL: Bully proofing?

JOAN KINLAN: Bully proofing. That started in Massachusetts. Now it's in Miami/Dade and it'srunning throughout the country. You start at early ages and you teach kids not to be bullies. You help kids relate to each other in a caring, considerate fashion. As kids move on to high school, it's critical that we challenge them; we challenge them academically; we challenge them spiritually; we challenge them socially; we challenge them to do their best in everything. We challenge them to help others. That will be useful.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Pfingst, does the apparently random nature of these shootings make your job harder?

PAUL PFINGST: No, it doesn't. I don't think it really affects the job. It's always more difficult to prove a motive with random acts rather than dedicated acts. This is not a case where our job is harder or easier. There's a complication to this case that you pointed out so far that makes it troubling that we're pursuing now. And that involves the extent to which peers knew and some adults knew that this young man was... the shooter was discussing this act before it happened. We'll be following that for the next couple of weeks because I'm a parent, I have two daughters in elementary school, and I know parents watching this will want to know, could this have been avoided? Should a prompt report have been made? Could an intervention have been accomplished? And that's part of the investigation we're doing now.

GWEN IFILL: Isn't that part... doesn't the fact that these students who knew of these threats that they didn't pass on this information, doesn't that make you think that maybe these anti-violence programs have not been working as effectively as you thought?

PAUL PFINGST: Not necessarily. The number one cause of death among teenagers in the United States is automobile accidents. The number two surprisingly enough is suicide. Homicide is number three. And for homicides, if we take a look at the statistics, which give us scant comfort today, one is safer in school than in the home, in a car, at a beach, at a park. And that's just a statistic today. I said it doesn't comfort us, but it gives a sense of perspective. Schools across the country are safe generally. A day like this in Santee makes all of us in San Diego and those people watching wonder, is there more that we can do? Anti-violence programs are a part of it. We have those in San Diego. And there are other parts of it too about campus security, safety and we'll be re-evaluating those -- as we go forward with the investigation, the sheriff and I are working very closely to make sure that our school campuses are safe. And if I can tell you the school staff have responded in a positive way about this, and we have our superintendents and our principals across the county trying to learn from this experience to see if there's something that they can do. And I think that's happening nationally again.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Norman as you talk to these families and talk to these students, do you sense there's greater concern about the notion, (a), that the information was not passed on about the threats, and (b), that it was random than it would be if, as we heard in Columbine, where the students kept it to themselves and went in with a focused idea of who they were going to get?

MARC NORMAN: Certainly there's some concern about that. I have heard some concern with parents. Could this have been avoided? And certainly there's not enough information at this time -- or at least it hasn't been released at this time about how much information was known and how we can prevent such things from happening. It's certainly something that we want to address and want to be able to address and provide education. What are some of the signs? What are some of the concerns that we should have when we see certain types of behaviors or when we hear certain types of things? And so education at this point is also a very key concern that we want to be able to share with people.

GWEN IFILL: What about weapons screening? There were no metal detectors at this school? That's for you, Mr. Norman.

MARC NORMAN: With weapons it's actually... I'm part of the American Red Cross. So we're dealing with disasters and those types of policy types of issues really need to come from people like Mr. Pfingst with the school boards themselves. As part of the Red Cross we don't necessarily intervene with those types of issues.

GWEN IFILL: Well, let me turn the question then to Mr. Pfingst. The American Bar Association said that zero tolerance programs aren't necessarily the best way to address this. How about weapons screening programs; how about zero tolerance?

PAUL PFINGST: I was speaking with a group of parents out at Santana this morning and I was discussing that with them trying to get some feedback as to how they would feel about weapons screening. One of the parents' observation was, well, if they can't get a weapon in here, what stops them from going to a McDonald's or to a park or some other place if someone is intent upon killing? It's a complex system. Right now I think the first thing we have to do is hold the shooter accountable. There has to be a predictability to people who contemplate this in the country that if you think about doing something this the consequences will be severe and it's not something that won't be taken seriously. Clearly I intend to do that. Beyond that, I think it's going to require the contribution of experts and child psychology and so to make recommendations to our school boards and superintendents and principals.

GWEN IFILL: You're talking about death penalty or life penalty when you talk about taking this seriously?

PAUL PFINGST: We don't have a death penalty for juveniles in California, and for 14- and 15-year-olds there's no sentence of life without parole. But, nonetheless, the sentences are severe. Youngsters do appreciate the fact and expect that there are consequences to serious acts and that people are held accountable for serious acts. We are going to do that; we're going to aggressively prosecute this case. There's two paths to follow: One is to make sure that justice is done for the victims in this case who have suffered an enormous tragedy. The other path is to learn.

GWEN IFILL: And, Dr. Kinlan, what exactly do you think can be done? Is this a question of - I don't know -- metal detectors or is there something greater underlying all of this?

JOAN KINLAN: I think that the alienation of youth; the problem of parents not being as involved with their children; we have over one million kids who come home to an empty house each day; I think that greater involvement with your child, with the community is really critical. I think that these are key issues.

GWEN IFILL: Okay. Thank you all for joining us very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the submarine collision court of inquiry.

FOCUS - COURT OF INQUIRY

JIM LEHRER: The Navy investigates the "Greenville" submarine tragedy. Ray Suarez has the story.

RAY SUAREZ: The Navy's court of inquiry opened yesterday at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Named as parties to the inquiry are the commander and two other officers on the submarine that rammed into a Japanese trawler, killing nine. Following the proceedings for us is Jay Fidell, a Hawaii lawyer who served as a United States coast guard legal officer and investigator. Welcome to the program.

JAY FIDELL: Thank you, Ray. Nice to be here.

RAY SUAREZ: What testimony has the board of admirals heard that may advance the story beyond what we've heard in the press and heard from eyewitnesses to the event?

JAY FIDELL: The only substantive testimony to this moment is the testimony of Admiral Griffiths, Charles Henry Griffiths, who is the preliminary investigator. He took over from Commodore Bias perhaps one or two days after the event. And he did an expedited report for the benefit of the convening authority-- that is Admiral Fargo-- between the 12th and the 14th of February. He testified about that report, and it was unusual in the sense that it was detailed. Although the written report apparently was redacted-- that is, opinions and recommendations were excluded from the consideration of the members of the court-- he testified about opinions yesterday, and it was quite an interesting testimony. I think he told us all things we did not know before, and he made opinions that bear heavily on the future of these proceedings, opinions regarding the level of care and the precise details of what Commander Waddle did and did not do as the commanding officer of this vessel.

RAY SUAREZ: What were some of the things that Admiral Griffiths was able to bring out in his testimony that gave you a feeling of what the situation was like at the moment the accident, and the moments leading up to the accident?

JAY FIDELL: Well, he did a synopsis of the entire day, that entire day plan, so to speak, and he talked about problems that arose. For example, the first problem that arose was the failure of the sonar repeater, which is a repeater of the waterfall display that shows in the sonar room is present in the control room so that the officer of the deck can see it. He said it was a vital piece of equipment. Shortly after they left Pearl Harbor that morning, it was determined that it was broken. Now, the captain made a judgment call not to turn around, not to have it repaired, but to go forward with the plan of the day and to take the civilians, the distinguished visitors, as it were, on his rounds.

RAY SUAREZ: This broken piece of sonar equipment that you mentioned - did this render a ship inoperable? Does it normally mean you go back? Can a ship operate safely without it?

JAY FIDELL: It is only a display, Ray. It is a sonar repeater. There's one in the sonar room and the repeater is in the control room. The repeater only shows the OOD, that is the officer of the deck and the captain and the executive officer, what is being shown in the sonar room. According to Admiral Griffiths yesterday, however, it is a vital piece of equipment, and he himself said that if it wasn't working, he would be more careful than ordinarily and he would layer additional levels of defensive safety measures for the lack of that particular piece of equipment. It is a vital piece of equipment, and he said he, as commanding officer, would want it working.

RAY SUAREZ: Now, Admiral Griffiths described the resetting of some equipment for its sort of field of vision, field of vision... its range of vision. Maybe you could explain that a little bit to me.

JAY FIDELL: Oh, yeah. I think in a week or two, everyone in the world will know about target motion analysis, TMA, and there was a target control technician, fire control technician -FTCOW - of the watch who is responsible for plotting all contacts. What happened here is he had acontact, that is, another vessel, at approximately 2,000 yards, give or take. And that's roughly a nautical mile and very close at a speed of 11 knots, which is the speed that "Ehime Maru" was making. He did not advise the captain that he had that contact. Furthermore-- and this is the most interesting thing that came out yesterday-- he reset the contact to 9,000 yards without telling the captain that he had done so. The result is it was off the chart and no one was tracking it. So the captain did not know, (a), that it was there at the time they were coming up to periscope depth and, (b), that it had been reset. This is a very important part of the case, part of the investigation.

RAY SUAREZ: When you say reset, he stated it at a different distance?

JAY FIDELL: That's right. He put it at a different distance. He did that himself without talking to anyone else. The issue that came out yesterday - which is very provocative -- is when he did that because one of the witnesses that Admiral Griffiths talked to indicated that he had done it before they surfaced, prior to the dive. Another witness indicated that he had done it after the collision. And that is very provocative that he might have reset the contact to 9,000 yards after the collision rather than before the collision.

RAY SUAREZ: Was there any testimony given that would indicate that the presence of the civilians on board interrupted or at least made more difficult the operation of the ship in its maneuvers?

JAY FIDELL: Well, the testimony of the... The testimony of the preliminary investigator, Admiral Griffiths, was to the effect that he did not feel the presence of the civilians affected the accident. And I would add that in the voir dire, in the questioning of the members of the court that took place yesterday morning, each of them also indicated that they felt that the Navy's program of civilian embarkation, of distinguished visitors, was important. So what you have is the senior Navy admirals involved in this matter all feel, (a)" that the program is important, and, (b), according to Admiral Griffiths yesterday, that the presence of civilians did not contribute to the accident. But that issue is yet to be resolved. There will be other testimony, I am sure, on that issue.

RAY SUAREZ: That is one of the main areas of inquiry, isn't it?

JAY FIDELL: Yes. In fact, Admiral Fargo, the convening authority, ordered this court to look into that, to look into the policy itself-- that is, of allowing civilian embarkation-- and of the implementation of the policy. They are required to provide him any suggestions on improving the policy or the implementation of the policy in the report they are required to file. But let me go on and tell you more about what happened, if I may.

RAY SUAREZ: Sure.

JAY FIDELL: He testified also that when they were doing their maneuvers for the benefit of the civilians-- that is, the entire trip was ostensibly for the benefit of the civilians -- they came up in preparation for the main ballast flow. They came up to 150 feet, which was in preparation for going to periscope depth. And there was testimony from Admiral Griffiths that they did not spend enough time at 150 feet to do what he thought was appropriate -- namely, two full sonar sweeps at that depth. This was critical testimony, and does not help Commander Waddle at all. It runs against him because he only spent five minutes when Admiral Griffiths felt that ten minutes was necessary at that depth to determine the presence of other vessels. Furthermore, when they did arrive at periscope depth, he had a reconstructed timeline, Admiral Griffiths. It was impressive. It determined that there were only 80 seconds spent at periscope depth, and that, he said, was not enough. It required, in his view, at least three and a half minutes of periscope sweep to determine whether there were other vessels there. So what he portrayed was a submarine, which was hurrying, a submarine which was concerned about making its appointed rendezvous with a tugboat at 1400 hours, and which was late because there had been some additional discussion in the mess deck following lunch that perhaps ate into their time plan. And this resulted in too little time being spent finding the presence of other vessels.

RAY SUAREZ: Maybe you could tell us a little bit about a court of inquiry itself. Is it like a trial?

JAY FIDELL: No, it's an investigation. But it is the most... it's the highest-level investigation that is possible in the military service. It is the most formal level of investigation in the military service. It has lawyers for parties, lawyers for the members of the court. It has experts assigned to it. It is quite a tribunal, and this one is quite a tribunal. This is... this is one that we will remember for many years. It's a very high-level investigation.

RAY SUAREZ: So testimony is taken under oath, a report is generated, and then some action recommended by this board?

JAY FIDELL: Exactly. Testimony is taken under oath. The proceedings are public unless there's a good reason not to have them public. This morning they're not public because the court is viewing the submarine and looking at a chamber, which will reconstruct what happened. They are going to go back in session this afternoon. It will be public again. The rules of evidence do not apply, and lots of information will come in, which is good. At the end of their taking of testimony and consideration of documents and charts that are being produced, they will make findings of fact, opinions, and recommendations. Among the recommendations will be whether the fault that they may find on the part of the commanding officer and other parties should result in court martial.

RAY SUAREZ: Jay Fidell joining us from Pearl Harbor, thanks a lot.

JAY FIDELL: Thank you, Ray.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major stories of this Tuesday. Vice President Cheney was released from a Washington hospital. He said he felt good a day after a procedure to clear a partially blocked artery. And authorities in Santee, California, said the school shooting there Monday could have been much worse. A 15-year-old boy is accused of killing two people and wounding 13. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.