NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Monday, September 16, 2024

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

New video shows arrest of Trump apparent assassination attempt suspect; Secret Service under scrutiny over latest Trump apparent assassination attempt; Texas pipeline fire forces evacuations; and more on tonight’s broadcast.

Tonight, the chilly new details of the apparent second assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the suspect now federally charged. The new body cam the suspect arrested after fleeing the area of Mr. Trump's West Palm Beach golf course. Cell phone records indicating he'd been lying in wait for nearly 12 hours. A Secret Service agent spotting the rifle in the bushes and opening fire. The agency now saying the suspect never got off a shot, what he allegedly left behind, a semi-automatic rifle with a scope, a digital camera and backpack.

The investigation tonight, the suspect's criminal history and the questions, how did this happen again? Also, tonight, the massive pipeline explosion near Houston, a pillar of fire and smoke forcing evacuations. The storm battering the Carolina coast, light threatening, flash flooding and strong winds. We're tracking it. Our NBC News investigation, the family who didn't know their loved one had died, only to learn he had been deemed unclaimed. His body parts sold to science, the medical school that's built a thriving business off people like him. The first image of a Titan submersible wreckage on the ocean

floor after it imploded and one of the final messages from on board. This is NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. Good evening and welcome everyone. The acting head of the U.S. Secret Service said today that the security plan in place yesterday to protect former President Trump during a golf outing worked, saying the gunman who was flushed from a concealed spot by a Secret Service agent did not have line of sight of Mr. Trump. In a press briefing late this afternoon, federal law enforcement officials revealing cell phone data shows the suspect, Ryan Wesley Ruth, appears to have remained hidden for 12 hours before he was discovered hiding in a tree line, fired at by an agent and leaving an assault rifle

and other gear behind before being apprehended peacefully following a traffic stop. It was the second such attempt on the former president's life since July. That attempt prompting beefed up security for Mr. Trump. Today, the suspect appeared in federal court in West Palm Beach. Garrett Haik leads us off tonight from Florida. Keep walking! Tonight, newly released body camera video showing the suspect in the apparent assassination attempt of former President Trump as he was arrested Sunday in Florida.

What's your name, Austin? Ryan. He was just driving with the flow of traffic. Yeah, I think that he may have thought he got away with it. It was probably the highest profile stop this sheriff's office has ever made. All of it just two months after the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, with new questions tonight about how another armed suspect was able to get close to the Republican nominee. The suspect in Sunday's incident, Ryan Wesley Ruth, charged today in federal court

with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, with more charges likely to follow. Our FBI agents then attempted to interview him, and he invoked his right to an attorney. According to court documents, Ruth's phone signal suggests he had been hiding in the bushes by the fence of Trump's golf course for nearly 12 hours,

from 1.59 a.m. until 1.31 p.m. That's when, according to the documents, while Trump was golfing, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle poking out of the tree line. The agent opened fire in the direction of the rifle, and the suspect fled. This photo showing what he left behind, including the semi-automatic rifle with scope, a GoPro camera, and backpack with ceramic tiles as potential body armor. A witness saw a man fleeing, giving information to authorities critical to his arrest. Tonight, the acting Secret Service director saying he's talked to Trump. Have you briefed former President Trump on your findings so far?

And has his campaign asked for any changes in his security going forward after yesterday? So I've had a conversation with the former president. The president is aware that he has highest levels of protection that the Secret Service is providing him. And tonight, we're learning more about the suspect's background. His North Carolina home was searched by authorities overnight. Court records show a lengthy criminal history, including a conviction for possession of a machine gun. He had some problems with beds and stuff. I would never thought he'd be trying to kill for possession of a machine gun. Ruth was an outspoken supporter of Ukraine, who visited the country in 2022. On social media, the suspect called Trump his, quote, choice in 2016, who had since become a disappointment. Ruth contributed to Democrats in 2019 and voted in

a Democratic primary in 2020. He also criticized Trump, writing in April, quote, democracy is on the ballot and we cannot lose. Today, Trump arguing the suspect, quote, believe the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it. Comments echoing last week's debate. I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy. I'm a threat to democracy. Trump has also used incendiary language against Democrats, and authorities have not yet revealed a motive in either incident. Vice President Harris condemned political violence, writing, quote, I am thankful that former President Trump is safe. And this today from President Biden. In America, we resolve our difference peacefully,

the ballot box, not the end of a gun. And Garrett, we just heard the suspect is not talking, but it sounds like authorities are finding a lot of information rather quickly and starting to piece things together. Yeah, that's right, Lester. Authorities say this suspect never had a direct line of sight on former President Trump and never fired a shot thanks to the fast action of that agent. Officials believe this person acted alone, but they still don't know if or how he knew that the former president would be here yesterday. Lester.

All right, Garrett Haig, thanks very much. The Secret Service already under scrutiny from the first attempt on Mr. Trump's life, now facing new questions, including how an armed suspect was attempt on Mr. Trump's life now facing new questions, including how an armed suspect was able to hide along Trump's golf course for nearly 12 hours. Kelly O'Donnell is at the White House. A dire challenge for the Secret Service tonight, doing more amid real dangers and heightened threats. Keep walking! We cannot have failures. And in order to do that, we're going to have some hard conversations with Congress.

While the agent who spotted and fired on the suspect is getting praise, the agency is also facing questions, including why the Secret Service had not searched the bushes where the alleged assailant hid for nearly 12 hours. The acting director says that kind of advanced search is not part of an unscheduled stop. This was an off-the-record movement. It wasn't a site that was on his scheduled. It wasn't part of his schedule. So there was no posting up of it because he wasn't supposed to have gone there. Earlier today, President Biden said more funding is necessary. The service needs more help, and I think the Congress should respond to their

needs. The scope of the agency's duty has grown larger with more protectees. Now more than 40 individuals, current and former officials, candidates and families under protection. House Speaker Johnson says Mr. Trump's security must get more. We are demanding in the House that he have every asset available and we will make more available if necessary. In July, President Biden ordered an increase of the security force around former President Trump and Vice President Harris. Today, the acting director said those changes are in effect. The Secret Service moved to sustain increases in assets and the level of protection sought.

And those things were in place yesterday. Kelly, there's a lot of talk about the difference in Secret Service protection between a sitting president and a candidate like former President Trump. What is it? Well, Esther, the sitting president has extensive military support and sophisticated communications required to carry out the duties of the office. That remained different. But Mr. Trump and Vice President Harris are getting more assets like drones and a greater number of agents. Lester. All right, Kelly, thank you. We'll turn out of the massive inferno forcing evacuations

in Texas, a pipeline explosion sending a massive pillar of flames and smoke into the sky that could be seen for miles. Our Priscilla Thompson is there for us. Priscilla, good evening. Lester, good evening. That fire is still shooting flames up into the air and you can feel the heat on the ground here as firefighters are preparing to possibly work through the night. An explosion of flames consumed the skies in Deer Park, Texas after officials say a natural gas pipeline erupted. What do you remember about this morning? The boom. I mean, it was a loud explosion. It was a big fiery ball that went up to above those trees. Behind Rosemarie Allen's home, flames and billowing black smoke.

At least one firefighter has been injured, officials say. No word on how many structures may be damaged or destroyed. A lot of the house structures that are adjacent to that are still catching on fire. It keeps getting bigger. Homes, schools, and several businesses ordered to evacuate. This video showing just how close the flames were to shopping centers. Students at nearby San Jacinto College forced to shelter in place. It was just scary because I was like, mate, what if it explodes again?

The cause of the inferno remains under investigation, officials say. The owner of the pipeline energy transfer saying in a statement an unknown car may have hit a pipeline valve. Officials say they've turned the pipeline off, but tonight the community still on edge. It will be hours if not into tonight or tomorrow. It'll be a while before it goes out. Priscilla Thompson, NBC News, Deer Park, Texas. In the southeast tonight, an unnamed storm unleashing life-threatening flash floods and strong winds on the coast of the Carolinas. Roads washed out, vehicles submerged, and multiple rescues as more than 15 inches fell in some areas. A critical day for TikTok, the popular video app, the company in court challenging a law that could force its Chinese owner to sell the platform or face a ban

in the U.S. Here's Savannah Sellers. TikTok in court today. Say TikTok! Getting its first chance to fight back against a law passed in April that could essentially ban the app in a matter of months. The government's concern that its Chinese-owned parent company could secretly influence Americans by manipulating what content is seen and exploiting user data. The problem is that that same data is extremely valuable to a foreign adversary trying to compromise the security of the United States. In heavily redacted court documents, the Justice Department and a senior U.S. intelligence official say they don't have direct evidence that China has used TikTok for propaganda in the U.S., but they say there is significant risk that could happen. TikTok arguing that's not enough.

They don't claim anything has happened yet. They claim there's future Chinese control and therefore we can burden in a very significant way the speech of a U.S. entity and its users. The judge is appearing sympathetic to claims from TikTok and a group of content creators that the law violates the First Amendment, but they pushed lawyers on why those protections should apply to a foreign-owned company. Right now, the app, used by 170 million Americans, is on the clock. If TikTok loses in court, it would have to sell to an American company by January, or it would face that effective ban. Now, the judges are expected to rule by December, and the losing side of this case is likely to request the U.S. Supreme Court to step in, meaning any potential ban could still be years away. Lester.

OK, Savannah, thank you. In just 60 seconds, the dramatic new image, the wreckage of the Titan submersible on the ocean floor. Next. We're back now with an update about the Titan submersible disaster with new details about what went wrong as we see the first image of the vessel on the ocean floor. Tom Costello joins us. Tom, some pretty disturbing insights today. Yeah, absolutely. And the Coast Guard today released animation of Titan submersible's fatal dive back in June of 23 and revealed that one of the last messages from the five people on board was simply all good here. And then a short time later, they sent a code that they were dropping weights, possibly to surface, before Titan suddenly imploded.

A new photo shows Titan's tail cone resting on the ocean floor, not far from the wreck of the Titanic. Ocean Gates, former engineering director, said he was fired for refusing to pilot Titan and warning the CEO, Stockton Rush, that the carbon fiber hull would not withstand crushing ocean depths. Others issued similar warnings, but Rush insisted, and Rush was among those who died in the accident. Lester. All right, Tom Costello, thank you. We're back in a moment with our 10-month investigation.

When one veteran died, his corpse went unclaimed, and parts of his body were sold for medical research. Tonight, the dramatic step officials took when they learned about our report. It is a disturbing story out of Texas, a medical school that's been studying and leasing out the body parts of unclaimed people without the consent of any survivors. After an NBC News investigation exposed its findings, the center suspended the program despite months of defending its practices. Here's Liz Kreutz. Victor Carl Honey was a U.S. military veteran who served in the Army for nearly a decade.

He was very friendly. He was outgoing, a nice dresser. After being honorably discharged, he began struggling with mental illness and homelessness. Then in 2022, he died of an apparent heart attack while living alone on the streets of Dallas. Honey was entitled to a burial with military honors, but instead, something else happened. I think they think homeless black man, you know, he ain't got no family. They don't care about him. You were wrong about this one. An NBC News investigation has found that Honey was among more than 2,300 people who died in the Dallas-Fort Worth region and were given to a state medical school that used and made money off their body parts, at times as their own family searched for

them. For Honey, within a month of his death, the Dallas Medical Examiner's Office deemed him unclaimed, reporting phones for family members they tried were disconnected. And yet, he did have relatives, some living right there in Dallas. His ex-wife Kimberly and their two adult children say they had even visited Honey in a hospital months prior to his death. To hear that your ex-husband has been deemed an unclaimed person. What's your reaction to that? That's crazy. We're here. We've always been here. His son has his same name. How could he be unclaimed? This is where Victor Honey's body was then taken, the University of North Texas Health Science Center, where according to government documents, his body was then frozen, cut into pieces, and sent out to different medical groups across the country,

all without his prior consent or his family's knowledge. Those documents show Honey's severed right leg sent to a Swedish medical device maker for $341. His torso shipped to a medical education company in Pittsburgh, which paid $900. And for $210, a pair of bones from his skull went to the U.S. Army for military medical training. His right leg was sold. Yes, ma'am. His temporal bone, his torso. Yes, ma'am. Do you think he would have wanted this?

No, he never wanted to be, the 10 years we were married, he never wanted to be an organ donor. We talked about it. And Honey is not alone. NBC News reviewed thousands of pages of government records and data which reveal repeated failures to reach family members before declaring a body unclaimed. Our team has identified 12 cases in which families learned months or years later that a loved one had been provided to the medical school. Five of those families found out what happened from NBC News, including Honeys, a year and a half after his death. I don't believe they tried to find us. I don't believe they did.

You can find people. NBC found me in a day. You can find people. Why do you think they did it? For money. They did it to him, a decorated military veteran. They'll do it to anybody, and that's not okay. For five years, the University of North Texas Health Science Center has had agreements with Dallas and Tarrant counties to take their unclaimed bodies for free, saving them a combined million dollars a year in cremation and burial costs. It also helped the school, making it about $2.5 million a year by leasing body parts to outside groups,

according to financial records. Somebody needs to answer, or somebody's, for what they did, what they're doing. For 10 months, our team has been seeking answers from both counties and the Health Science Center. All three declined our repeated requests for interviews, but in statements, the counties told us they would be reviewing their contracts. The Health Science Center at first defended its program, arguing using unclaimed bodies is critical in the training of future doctors. But just days before this story was set to air, it made a stunning reversal, telling NBC News it was suspending the program and firing the top officials who led it. Writing in a statement, as a result of the information brought to light through your inquiries,

it has become clear that failures existed. They're hiring a consulting firm to investigate the program's operations. My kids want answers. They want justice for their dad. Honey's family recently received ashes that the county told them were his. We don't believe those are his ashes, but we gave him and did what he deserved as a decorated military veteran. And so this summer, nearly two years after he died, the family finally laid honey to rest. You would think in this day's time, this doesn't happen here in America. But yeah, it does. It did. Liz, is this a common practice?

Well, Lester, it's actually legal in nearly every single state nationwide, but there's no national data that tracks it, which is why we conducted our own survey. We reached out to 51 major U.S. medical centers to try to get a sense of how pervasive this actually is. We will bring the results of that survey in a story coming up soon here on Nightly News. Very troubling and disturbing. Liz, thanks very much. And that is Nightly News for this Monday. Thank you for watching. I'm Lester Holt. Please take care of yourself and each other. Good night.