Cornell’s ‘Defining Moment’

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Visit AvocadoGreenMetress.com to find a store near you. That's AvocadoGreenMetress.com. AvocadoGreenMetress.com It's Monday, October 5. Can you have the last word on charges if there are still words you haven't seen yet? We start here. A memo from Cornell claims prosecutors declined to bring charges and then declined to review new information. We know that those at the highest level of New York's government have raised questions about this saying who knew what when. But with a new investigation underway, things are moving very quickly. We'll catch you up. If only there have been warning signs about a pilot allegedly bent on crashing a plane away, he had already been kept off the runway before. He was actually suspended as a trainee co-pilot for possessing extremist materials. New questions for fly to buy and for Israeli security forces and getting sick at work is annoying. But what if you work at a lab that studies the plague? Local officials there described it as a particularly dangerous infection. The new concerns emanating from deep within Russia. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milky. This current generation of college students has been called by some "the post-Me II generation." And yet, one of the most disturbing things about recent allegations at Cornell University is how familiar it all sounds. A young woman claiming she was gang-raped by seven men at a frat house. A text chain in which young men seem to be giddly describing the prospect of an incapacitated woman. An investigation by the school that resulted in disciplinary actions, including expulsions, but no criminal charges from campus police or the local district attorney. And student after student saying, "While they're taken aback by the attention the investigation is receiving, they're not all that surprised by the allegations themselves." Which is why this weekend, the university president described this as one of the most critical moments in the 160-year history of the school. ABC's investigative reporter Olivia Rubin is here with us, Olivia. First off, I'm still trying to figure out which authorities knew what when they knew it because if the school took action a couple years ago, the frat took action. The DA, though, seemed to decide pretty clearly there was no crime committed here. So it's a pretty stark disparity that I think a lot of people are having trouble wrapping their minds around. What did we learn this weekend? Right, it's confusing, Brad. And even Jando's own attorney has said he doesn't even know exactly how this investigation went down. But what we do know is that Jando says that she first went to campus police. That's Cornell Police to report this alleged assault back in November 2024. And then what happened was I actually interviewed the DA in this case last weekend and what he told me was that Cornell Police sent him a six-page summary of what Jando's allegations were. And he said that based on that six-page summary in his opinion, it didn't amount to a crime. And he passed on charges. And allegedly, what happened was that her explicit allegation of rape was not included in that six-page summary of what was sent to the DA. None of those things were alleged in the November of 2024 statement. But those things are alleged at least implied in the lawsuit. But then ABC reviewed this new memo that showed that weeks later after the DA had already passed on bringing criminal charges here, an investigator from Cornell PD said that the DA's office had actually declined to review more evidence that they had been gathering. But still, a lot of questions that they're trying to parse through. But what we do know is that there were no criminal charges ever filed. But the DA says Cornell Police didn't give them all the material. So this is the thing, Olivia, because there were student expulsions, right? Like there was student discipline. And the question I've had since the beginning of this is, what did the school find so egregious that they would reprimand these students? What was the punishment? Does that tell us anything more here? So this has been another huge question about this and until now we didn't actually know what the school did with those seven accused fraternity members. Cornell initially saying that because of privacy laws, they couldn't disclose specific punishments. But now there was this new reporting from the New York Times were learning for the first time the punishments that Cornell handed down after the university had its own private internal investigation. So now bear with me here. I'll break it down. So according to the New York Times, the school expelled the two fraternity members who first invited Jane Doe to that flat house and sent those Snapchat messages in the Snapchat group chat. That was the two expulsions. And then according to the Times for two others who Jane Doe had accused of forcing her to perform sex acts without her consent. They were each suspended one for two years. The other for three semesters and get this Brad. They each were ordered to write reflection papers. Now to keep going down the line. Another student had graduated by the time these proceedings were going on. He was accused of forcibly kissing Jane Doe. He was barred from campus and for those remaining two men Brad. Because remember the total is seven. They were accused of entering the room where the alleged assault occurred. They were ordered in part to study sexual harassment. And again, write those reflection papers Brad. Well, that's interesting Olivia because at the beginning of all this, there was chatter on campus about like these kids were told they just had to write an essay. And they were left backing to the school. Cornell came out rather forcefully at the time and said, "No, that's not all that happened. We can't tell you what we did do." But it does sound like essays were part of at least the punishment doled out here. These reflection papers were part of the punishments. It seems that when Cornell came out earlier to say, you know, no, that wasn't what happened. They were trying to say that wasn't the only punishment. That was in addition to other punishments that were given. Again, some of them having to study sexual harassment, temporary suspensions, expulsions, it sort of was a range of options. But certainly according to this reporting, those papers were written. Right. And all seven of these young men have denied the allegations. The school said everything they did was in line with their policies. But I mean, whatever their policies were, that clearly hasn't been satisfactory to all these people calling for changes. So how is the university now dealing with the reaction at school? And nationwide? Well, Brad, it's now been weeks since Jando filed this lawsuit. And remember, she's filed it in part against Cornell. She claims that the university failed to protect her from this alleged drugging and assault. So now we have heard from Cornell's president, Michael Kotlakov, posted a video where he says that as an administration and as a community, they must do better. We must do everything we can to prevent what happened to Jando. And everyone before her and anyone after her from ever happening again. And you hinted at this, Brad, he said that this will be a defining moment in Cornell's history. You know, he said it raises questions about sexual assault, about party culture on campus, about alcohol and drug use. And he also said that he was answering the governor's call for that outside investigation. He said that the board of Cornell will be announcing this week, which outside law firm is going to conduct that investigation, but you're right, Brad. This has gone far beyond Cornell. There's sort of this social media campaign that has popped up online. Women that seems to be from around the country, posting social media videos, standing with Jando, writing, "I am Jando." It's this new sort of social media campaign where they are sharing their own stories of sexual assault, their own stories of sexual harassment, showing sort of in this way that many of them are Jando. It just happened elsewhere. In last question, Olivia, you mentioned sort of an independent investigation. The governor of New York, Kathy Holkill had promised one of these two. Cornell agreed and now Holkill has pointed her own attorney general as the lead. How does that work? Exactly. She has promised it and she is following through the governor of New York has appointed the state's attorney general. I have every confidence in our attorney general to do what she has always done. Look at the facts, examine the record and draw the proper conclusions. That's exactly what's going to happen in this case. Remember, the DA who initially declined to prosecute when I interviewed him last week and he came back out and said, "I'm actually going to reopen the investigation because of this lawsuit." But the governor is saying, "No, you're off the investigation." She's bringing in someone outside saying she had lost confidence in him to be able to carry out this probe. Hocal had also raised questions about Cornell and then allegedly sending over that partial report to the DA. This woman, this young woman, had already endured something that is utterly unspeakable. [Music] And then at every turn, she was failed by people and institutions, with an obligation to protect her. So the state attorney general is on the case now, in addition to what I mentioned earlier, which is that outside independent investigation for a court. Now, again, the president of Cornell saying that they will announce what law firm is going to do that probe. All right. Olivia Rubin, reporting on all the sensitive beginning. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up on start here, Israel get lists of pilots entering their airspace, meaning they could have conceivably seen this guy coming or back in a bit. The two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest, nothing bonds a family together quite like Mort or Japanese, streaming October 14th, only on Disney Plus. This show is sponsored by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet, you find yourself wearing on a repeat, like the sweater that goes with everything, or that favorite t-shirt you wear so often is actually surprising. It's in good condition. Well, these are the pieces Quince is known for. 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For every answer that comes out of the near crash involving a fly-to-by flight last week, there seem to be more questions. The jet plummeted more than 14,000 feet in a minute and a half. Pilots say that's more than enough to make anything not strap down, go flying about the cabin. So how on earth did no one get seriously harmed? Israel has a policy of not allowing anyone to fly a plane into Israel, either from a country that doesn't have diplomatic relations with Israel. Well guess what? The co-pilot who allegedly attacked the captain was from Oman, which does not recognize Israel. So how did this guy get this gig in the first place? This weekend, we did start getting some more answers, but that doesn't make them any less troublesome. So let's take you to Tel Aviv this morning, ABC's foreign correspondent Tom Sufi Burj is standing by Tom. First off, we're hearing now from the pilot in his own words, the captain who got attacked. How is he describing all of this? Yes, Smith Masha talking on the phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, fascinating details about the moments just before he was attacked. He said it was a normal flight. And then he said, his co-pilot, Hamam al-Khamami said he wanted to go and pray. And suddenly, after I think I would say about four or five minutes, there was a big blow to the back of my head. Initially, he thought that something had actually hit the aircraft, but only when there were repeated blows, did he realize that his co-pilot was attacking him? I did try to stop him, but because of his initial blows, my vision was almost like nothing. And then we learned that he actually, he tried to open the cockpit door one time, and the attacker, Al-Khamami, just closed it again. I felt the aircraft and the washing sound and people screaming. He then was lying on the floor, badly injured. But at that point, he says he just felt within himself, that he had to make one final push. He felt the plane plummeting down. And he says he just found the energy within himself to get towards the door. I call it personal or call it for people, but let's say I did it, that if I don't do it, I'm going to die. And that's when I pushed against everything I gave, everything that I had. And all experts say, opening the door on the 737 from inside is pretty straightforward. You just have to turn the handle. And he says, thankfully, waiting on the other side with the passengers who stormed in and were able to disarm Al-Khamami and take him down. And then level off the plane and avert the disaster. And so then let's turn our attention to the alleged attacker. What did we learn about him? Yeah, from senior intelligence and law enforcement sources, Brad, we now know the name of the alleged attacker. He is 29-year-old, Khamam Al-Khamami, an Amani national, although there is some reporting out there questioning whether he might have had dual nationality. I think that's relevant. We haven't confirmed that at this point in time. But the critical thing to note here is that Al-Khamami used to work at Oman Air. We know that from sources. We know he was a trainee co-pilot at that state-run airline in Oman. And we know that in 2024, he was actually suspended as a trainee co-pilot for possessing extremist materials. He was put into an administrative role after that. And that raises major questions about Al-Khamami as a security risk at another airline. And how this information wasn't passed on. And how he came to be employed at Fly Dubai and ended up on that flight to Israel. Yeah. Well, according to these sources, the national airline of your own country is like, I don't know if you should be flying planes, a foreign air carrier does hire him and lets him fly into Israel. Do we know how that happens? Well, look, we've had a statement over the weekend from Fly Dubai. They say, look, they recognize as many questions at the moment about this, clearly. But they say, because there's an ongoing investigation, they're not in a position to comment further. And look, we've also been hearing from Israel's Transportation Ministry this weekend. They are saying that they did receive the flight manifest for that flight. So they knew the crew, they knew the names of the crew that were inbound to Israel. And the reason that's, but let me stop you there, Tom, because the reason that's important that Israel's mentioning this is, you think it, part of this is on Israel to vet. If they don't want any foreign nationals coming in from countries they don't trust, it's on them to vet who's coming into their country, right? Who's flying in? There were questions about like, well, did they get the manor, did they know that this guy was from Oman, that he was planning on flying in? Israel's admitting here, yeah, we did. So how did they okay that? Well, look, the Israeli government has now announced a complete review on security of all international flights into Israel. So clearly something went wrong somewhere, right? Fly Dubai has some questions to answer. Maybe Oman Air also has questions to answer. Maybe they should have flagged more clearly that this guy had been suspended as a pilot for possessing extremist materials. And of course, it's ready officials too in terms of the processes, whether or not security officials should have also better checked the names and backgrounds of the crew on this particular flight. I woke up, I saw people running to the front and shouting that the coal pilot attacked the captain. We've been speaking to a passenger, Ofer Dubrovsky, he was sat in row eight alongside his wife and his daughter. They had a pretty good view as the chaos started playing out as a woman ran away from the cockpit saying that the captain had been stabbed. He unlatched the door, they pulled the door open and they saw that the whole cockpit is full of blood. And she started screaming like crazy. He says that lessons need to be learned that the checks on pilots worldwide need to be revisited. To me, this is like a huge security flaw. For me, it was very worrisome. On the other hand, I think now that it's exposed as the act, I'm sure there's going to be new procedures all over the world to prevent this. And also, there's that question about the weapon used because we've also learned from investigators in the United Arab Emirates where al-Hamami is currently being detained, that the actual weapon used by him wasn't a knife as we previously thought, but actually was a crash axe. These axes are stored as emergency equipment in an airplane in the event of an emergency pilot supposed to use them potentially to get out of wreckage. And it was only because of the heroic actions of the captain and the passengers who got into the cockpit that this disaster was averted. It's so interesting that, of course, the one person you want to have access to a weapon like that would be the captain or a co-pilot, these people who've been vetted and vetted. And yet, if one person in that chain has malintent, then you've just given them effectively a deadly weapon, all right? Tom Sufiburge, Intellavi, thank you so much. Thanks, Brad. Next up on Start here, if I got a cough after working all day in a coal mine, you might have an idea of what happened. If someone gets sick after working at the lab devoted to the plague, well, that can't be good. One last thing is next. Welcome to the greatest sauna. No streaming on Hulu. It was one thing for there to be a single clown sighting. And then there was a second one. Hundreds of students watched a late night man hunt. How many more of these are we going to have on October 12th? The rumors started to spread around town that there were killer clowns. The clowns are coming. They were clowns seen in different rural areas. We even tried to form a killer clown process. What's the new Hulu original documentary? Clown Tanac on October 12th. Streaming with Hulu and Hulu and Disney Plus for a bundle of subscribers. Terms apply. And one last thing. Medical experts say this week might be the perfect time to get vaccinated against some of this year's flu and COVID variants. Overall, flu activity around the country is low. But some doctors have been surprised over the last few weeks, particularly on the West Coast, to see flu cases climbing earlier than usual. And Seattle, the Washington Post reported there about 10 flu cases landing children in the hospital this time last year. Cut to this year. There have already been 150 positivity rates have gone up in California as well. And viruses like flu and COVID slightly mutate every year. Will compare that to what Russia might be dealing with at the moment with a disease that hasn't changed much in centuries. A few days ago, Russian authorities launched anti epidemic measures in a certain region of the country. Yesterday, a health official came forward with a statement saying an employee of a lab has come down with the case of quote, pneumonia with an unknown ideology. That means they don't exactly know the cause. But it's worth noting this lab specializes in studying the plague. Yuri, is the plague still around? Because when I hear about plague, I think of like old European cobblestones and like doctors with a creepy old face masks with like beaks. Well, Brad, it actually is the same disease that caused that pandemic that killed the, you know, up to 50 million people across Europe in the 1300s. It never really disappeared. This is Yuri Benajoud from ABC's medical unit. And he says, yes, there are not only still labs studying the bacteria that cause the plague, but that it also still infects people to this day. So there's a couple of different types of plague. Actually, there's three different types. There's bupmonic, septicemic and pneumonic. They come with a couple of different symptoms. But mainly it often starts similar to like a bad flu. These Russian officials identified an employee at the anti plague research center in the city of Chelikov right near the border with China and said they had fallen ill. They wouldn't say exactly what this person had fallen ill with though. They were diagnosed with an unknown type of pneumonia. And it seems like a number of people now that were in contact with that person have been placed under monitoring. Luckily, Brad, there haven't been any other infections reported. So it doesn't appear like there's evidence of an outbreak there. Officials have said that the situation is stable here at home. The CDC and the State Department said they're both closely monitoring the situation. It's certainly something how the authorities are going to keep a close on. Plus, Yuri says, let's assume the worst for a second, right? Let's assume that not only did this employee get the plague, let's say this person then interacted with dozens and dozens of different people. Well, in that case, you still got to remember this is not a virus. It's bacterial bacteria that generally is carried by fleas on rats. Which is why back in the day, port cities always seem to be hit so hard. Rats would come off a new ship, fleas would find a new host. And soon, scores of people were dying. That doesn't happen much anymore. We have a lot more tools now that we did hundreds of years ago to treat this. It can be treated with a simple routine course of antibiotics. We also haven't really seen a lot of person to person spread in the United States. We haven't really seen person to person spread in almost over a century. Most modern cases are almost always from an animal or a fleet to a human. So luckily, there doesn't appear to be a lot of evidence that this is going to become a growing outbreak or even an epidemic. The other big key he says is modern sanitation methods, sewers underground, basic stuff, but stuff some of the poorest populations on earth still don't have access to. That's why these research labs exist even now. I always hear people using the phrase "during COVID." Like, oh, back during COVID, I was working from home. Well, remember, not only is COVID still sending people to hospitals, so are flu and plague. Hundreds and hundreds of years later. Unless we're vigilant, we don't always get to the side when these diseases are done with us. Now I'm trying to imagine the reaction of people who live near this institute. Like some people don't like living near prisons. Imagine being like, yeah, I live next to the plague institute. Oh, wait, someone's sick. Oh, no. Hey, remember, if you're enjoying the show, hit us up with a five-star rating and review. It really does help us out. Recently, one listener called the hen pen said, whichever staffer titled the episode, that's what she said about President Xi Jinping deserves a bag of doughnut holes and whatever mocha choco latte they choose. All right, that was David Peterkin, who always claims to be so buttoned up. And he brings that to the show. I guess I'll have to get your order from you at some point today, David. I'm Brad Milky. I'll see you tomorrow. On October 19th, 2025, the Louvre became the backdrop of something straight out of a heist movie. In this series, I'll take you inside the events of that day through the eyes of the people who live them. Then I'll join the international hunt for the Louvre Jules. Heist at the Louvre, a new series from ABC Audio. 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