American Morning
LAPD gears up for a "well behaved crowd" at the Staples Center
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/06/intv.mcdonnell.art.jpg caption="The first assistant chief of the LAPD urges people to watch the Michael Jackson memorial at home if they do not have a ticket."]
Michael Jackson’s public memorial will take place Tuesday July 7th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The LAPD says if you don't have a ticket, don't come. Hundreds of thousands of fans could line the streets of downtown Los Angeles. How will police keep the situation under control?
First assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, Jim McDonnell spoke with CNN’s Kiran Chetry Monday.
Kiran Chetry: I know the police force is used to dealing with crowds of epic proportions for various reasons. There are expectations of perhaps 100,000 people or more coming out there even though everyone has said if you don’t have a ticket, don't come out. What are you expecting and how are you looking to handle the situation?
Jim McDonnell: I guess the crowd estimate is the $64,000 question that everybody is wondering about and we are as well. We had the Lincoln parade about two weeks ago, we had about 250,000 people turn out for that. It was an overall, a very orderly crowd. A few incidents we dealt with quickly. I anticipate the crowd here will be well behaved. It will be a crowd that gathers for the right reasons and keeps the reason they’re there in mind. But as far as putting a number on it, we have reached out a number of times, every chance we get, actually, asking people to stay home if they don't have tickets enjoy it from the comfort of their own home with friends rather than coming out standing out on hot sun on the city street two or three blocks from the venue.
Chetry: How are you guys communicating with organizers of the event? How are you all coordinating to make sure you know what's going on and they’ve made their decisions final as we get closer and closer to this happening.
McDonnell: We have point of contact with the family. We’re working very closely with AEG, the company that is putting on the event at Staples, the people who own the Staples Center. We've had contact from the beginning so we’re working through all the complexities of this. I think it's running as smoothly as possible given the circumstances.
Chetry: Speaking of the Staples Center, so that is a venue that holds 20,000. There are many other venues in Los Angeles that would hold many more. Was this intentional to keep this to a smaller group of people actually invited to this event or did that have to do with some of the connections with AEG and Michael Jackson?
Two Michael Jackson fans beat the 1-in-182 odds
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/06/intv.mj.tix.winners.montanya.maousos.art.jpg caption="Montanya (left) couldn't believe her luck after winning the coveted Michael Jackson memorial tickets."]
More than a million people signed up online to say good-bye to the king of pop. One-point-six million fans thought they hey had no shot. Late last night close to 9,000 die hard Michael Jackson fans got the e-mail they were hoping for, saying they'd won two tickets to the star-studded tribute at the Staples Center in Los Angeles tomorrow.
Two fans who beat the one-in-182 odds, Deka Montanya and Nick Manousos spoke with CNN’s Alina Cho and Kiran Chetry Monday.
Alina Cho: I should mention, Deka that you are the lucky winner and Nick is the boyfriend of the lucky winner so you get to go Nick. I just want to say, Deka I read your twitter post here, OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG I got tickets to the Michael Jackson memorial service. Does that pretty much sum up how you feel about this?
Deka Montanya: Yeah, I didn't quite know what to think. I opened the e-mail, I showed it to Nick and I was like is this real? We just stared at it for a minute. And then Nick’s like oh my gosh. I twittered it because I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what else to say. Just oh m gosh oh my gosh I got it. It wasn't expected. It was completely unexpected.
Chetry: So now you guys have to kick it into high gear, make your plans, figure out how to get down there. You're in San Francisco; you've got to get down to LA. I’m sure flights aren’t easy t o come by. There's going to be a lot of people flying into LAX. How are you planning on get there?
Blogger calls Joe Jackson "shameless"
Three days after Michael Jackson’s death, Joe Jackson talked up his record label on the red carpet at the B.E.T. Awards. Some people have quietly questioned the actions of Michael Jackson’s father during the grieving process.
Journalist and blogger Jimi Izrael is questioning his behavior loudly on theroot.com, calling Joe Jackson “shameless.” He spoke to Kiran Chetry Thursday on CNN’s “American Morning.”
Kiran Chetry: You have some pretty harsh words about Joe Jackson. Why do you feel he did not necessarily look like the father in mourning after the death of Michael?
Jimi Izrael: Well, look, you know, when somebody dies – like when Nipsey Russell died for instance I was looking to his family as I was mourning to get some idea what the tone was. And the way it goes when people die, you look to the family members to get some idea of how to react. The sister's all broken up, the mom is in pieces and the dad's off in the corner trying to sell bootleg T-shirts and CD’s. I got to say it’s a bad look. Joe Jackson just hit the wrong note.
Chetry: You were especially critical of that red carpet appearance. He spoke to our Don Lemon saying he owned a record company called Ranch Records distributed by Blu-ray technology and that's the next step. You say he was pitching his music label. How did other people react to that when you spoke to them?
Jackson's will answers questions, raises more
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) - The will and the wake.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/02/jackson.will2.art.jpg caption="Michael Jackson's will, made public Wednesday, placed his entire estate in a family trust."]
Amid the frenzy of confusing and conflicting information that has followed the death of Michael Jackson, Wednesday began with clarity on two fronts. The day ended, however, with more questions than answers.
A federal law enforcement official said Wednesday night that the Drug Enforcement Administration had joined Jackson's death investigation, once again fanning speculation that drugs may have been involved in the pop icon's passing.
Earlier in the day, the Jackson family said they would not hold a public or private viewing of his body at Neverland Ranch, as had been reported. They didn't indicate where else or when such a ceremony would be held.
And though Jackson's will, made public Wednesday, placed his entire estate in a family trust, the document that described the trust was not filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
"He was such an enigma in life, why would we expect him to be anything different in death?" said Antoni Devon, a Jackson fan who huddled with other music lovers at a makeshift memorial for the singer outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
Nutritionist: Jackson begged for sedatives for insomnia
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) - Michael Jackson suffered from severe bouts of insomnia and pleaded for a powerful sedative despite knowing its harmful effects, a nutritionist who worked with the singer said Tuesday.
Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse and nurse practitioner who first met Jackson in January to treat his children for a common cold, said she rejected his requests for Diprivan and informed him of the side effects.
"I told him this medication is not safe," Lee said. "He said, 'I just want to get some sleep. You don't understand. I just want to be able to be knocked out and go to sleep.'"
"I told him - and it is so painful that I actually felt it in my whole spirit - 'If you take this you might not wake up.'"
According to the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, nurse practitioners "provide high-quality health care services similar to those of a doctor." They can also prescribe medications, according to the academy's Web site.
CNN could not independently verify whether Lee worked with Jackson.
Doctors and celebrities – Money over ethics?
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/06/30/jackson.rehearsal.art.jpg caption="Michael Jackson rehearses at the Staples Center on June 23, 2009."]
Most of us will never feel the healing hand of a concierge doctor.
A what?
A CONCIERGE doctor. They’re the ones who devote all or most of their time to a single, very wealthy client. Think Michael Jackson.
On June 15, Dr. Conrad Murray wrote a letter to his patients saying he would “cease practice of medicine indefinitely” due to a “once in a lifetime opportunity.” The sound of opportunity knocking was no less than the "King of Pop," Michael Jackson.
Murray had turned to practicing concierge medicine.
It was Murray who as Jackson’s personal doctor was at his side during the moments when the pop star’s life started to slip away last week. And it is Murray who was questioned by police and who is the subject of much unproven speculation about the role of prescription drugs in the death.
Murray’s lawyer, Edward Chernoff, has vigorously denied that his client prescribed the painkillers Dermerol and Oxycontin to Jackson. He described all of that as “rumors”.
Medical ethicists, while not commenting specifically about Murray, take a very cautionary view towards any doctor who devotes all or most of his time to a single patient.
“It can be intoxicating,” says the University of Pennsylvania’s Art Caplan. “When you’re going to hire yourself out as a solo physician, you’re really tempted to say this is really going to be glamour and this is going to be big money. However the problem is it also means a very demanding patient.”
In other words, it’s hard to say no to that kind of patient.
Caplan: “It’s difficult to be a concierge doctor in the sense in which the temptations to try and please your patient are too great. And I think the temptation is not to listen to your peers and not to have someone looking over your shoulder, which I think is the essential check and balance of good medicine. It’s tempting to be out there on your own egotistically saying, I can handle everything. I think that leads to danger.”
Besides the seduction of being near a celebrity, there’s the challenge of not getting to close to the patient.
Referencing a common saying among doctors, NYU Langone School of Medicine Psychiatrist Vatsal Thakkar told CNN, “We should not treat friends, family, or ourselves...It goes back to setting up situations where we might deviate from the type of care that we provide. And you know, if there is a dual relationship, hypothetically in a situation, that could be a complicating factor.”
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