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Angel Who Cares

If you seek an angel with an open heart, you shall
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Transcript is from Wednesday, August 12th and is transcribed from ABC7's RAW 13:22 minute Interview titled "Louis Ross speaks to ABC7."

*( ......... ) denotes area's in which LR starts to say something, changes his mind, or changes the subject mid sentence or mid-word. This was my first transcript. I suck at it and it took me forEVER! I made every effort possible to include every last spoken word minus "ummm." I'll get the next one up asap. I'm going to tackle the 16 minute raw interview next to get it out of the way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reporter: Okay so walk me through the day that Hasanni disappeared.

LR: Basically, every Monday and Wednesday I have a class in the evening. Jennifer does not drive. My class starts at 6:00(pm). She gets...her store closes at 6 so there's a window in between there that I have to be at class and no one's here with the kids so therefore I take them to Jennifer's work, leave them there, she brings them home with her while I'm in school. On this particular day I'd arranged to be somewhere else an hour earlier for another appointment so I had to leave a little bit earlier than normal. So basically, I went to Rockridge to as I normally do, I parked where I always park, I mean I always park in the back when I drop the kids off because they always enter through the back door. I bring both kids, after it's unlocked, through the back door. Most occasions I'm able to call Jennifer before I arrive at the store,"I'll be there in two minutes, open up the back door" and she'll meet me at the backdoor and I hand off the children.
On this particular day, I didn't call because I was rushing, I was running behind and I'm driving, I didn't have time to stop, dial and let her know what was going on. But when I did get to the store.....this has happened a couple of times before, Hasanni can take of his own child safety belt...seat.. get out of his own car seat. So I parked the car, he knows the routine, he knows where we are, he knows what's going to happen, he knows his auntie works there. So he... I stopped the car and took the key out the car, unlock all the doors and I proceeded to go behind the car to open his door. The car in question is very large with very heavy doors. He can't open it and even closing it is difficult. So I walk around to open up his door and as I'm walking around he's already taken off his seat belt...car seat as I'd gotten to the door. He's beginning to step out as I then open up the door to take his sister Aaliyah out of her car seat and I tell Hasanni "go wait by the back door." I then pop the trunk because that's where her stroller is, and I left the trunk open, with the stroller there. Hasanni...thinking he's going to the back door of the store, I walk around the corner to the front of the store. I see Jennifer without me having to walk in the store. I never set foot in the store this time. She's at the register so she see's me from the sidewalk, I say "open up the back door." She knows why I'm there. I then proceed to go around the back. Jennifer at this time is already not only at the back door, she's walking toward the car. She says "where's Hasanni?" At which point in time, I look over to the side and he's not there...(I) said what do you mean? I look, he's not there. I automatically know we have a problem because Hasanni does not walk away. She runs back in the store and I believe at the time I was thinking to ask Julian, the person she was working with, did he open up the door for Hasanni. I put Aaliyah in her stroller. I then rolled her in the back door down the little ramp into the stockroom, and I said "can you watch her" to Julian and he said "yeah sure, don't worry about it" and I took (off) out the back door to go look for my son....well I actually went to the car to get my phone to call police and that's the way the situation was.

REPORTER: Why didn't he just walk around the front with you?

LR: Because we don't take them through the store because it's normal operating hours. They stay in the back stockroom so I'm not going to roll a child in a stroller through the store...cut through the store in the middle of her work to put her job in jeopardy and then walk out the store. It's about mutual respect, I've never done that. And all her coworkers know this. Every last one of them knows if I drop the kids off, even if.... for her to have lunch with them because I have a lunch appointment, she can sit with them....watch them while I can do something at lunch. I always bring them through the back door. I've never once brought them and left them with her through the front door.

REPORTER: So from the time you left Hasanni waiting at the back door, and you walked around to the front to get him, how many minutes?

LR: Maximum five minutes.

REPORTER: Takes five minutes?

LR: I estimate maximum five minutes. (snaps fingers) In the blink of an eye. And when I didn't see him there, I was like, he doesn't walk away.

REPORTER: What do you think happened?

LR: As a parent, you don't want to entertain that idea, but I know my son didn't walk away. One of the things I...we...allowed your station to come here..... because we want to clear up a few things. First and foremost, we are seeking help from the general public in helping us find our son and those who are out there searching we are very grateful. We've not spoken to the media up until this point not because we were shying away or hiding. We were with police and FBI, giving them all the information. The first day alone we were with police for seventeen hours straight. Twelve at the station, twelve hours straight. Prior to that the search was about five hours, after 4 til 9 whenever they called it off. We were with the police, and after that we went back to the station for twelve hours. So it wasn't a situation where we were avoiding media, because we've kinda been watching the news, and that's the story that's been floated " yeah, we haven't heard from them" and the other thing is that "they've hired a lawyer." We've not hired any lawyer, we've nothing to hide. "They haven't been cooperating" that's what we've been doing all this time. We've been cooperating with police, from all of the departments as well as the FBI, both at this point, and we will continue to cooperate. But the most important thing we want to get out to the media is our son does not wear leg braces, and this is the frustrating part because we all know we have a small window of time. But the description that's been circulating through the media is that he wears leg braces and they're metal and they're on the outside of his clothes. Our son wears orthotics, which are more or less, think of a Dr. Scholl's foot pad that you insert in your shoe. But think of one that's hard plastic that wraps around the instep of your foot. That is what he wears, and they're there to shape his feet because he has severely flat feet. Does he need them to walk? No. They're to help his feet develop in a better way. So, that story being put out there, let's think about the time we lost. People could have been looking at our son and not realized it was him because what the key descriminator was metal leg braces, walks with a noticable limp. He cannot run. He cannot jump, but he can walk. He's a bit more focused in his footing as he steps than most kids but you're not going to see a kid limping so obvious so it's kind of disconcerting to see, you understand, what is disconcerting is you see some of the comments "how can this happen, we don't believe that, there's no way a kid could be out there looking like that and not go unnoticed." You're right, but that's not our son that they're describing. So we're asking, and we've had what, two hours of sleep since this incident, maximum two or three hours sleep since this incident happened on Monday. But we're inviting you to our home so you can get the right information out to the general public.

REPORTER: Absolutely. You've spoken to the police seventeen hours seventeen hours the first day, twelve hours yesterday?

LR: On Monday it was a total of seventeen hours during the five hours they were doing the initial search in Rockridge. Then after that we went to the Oakland police station and we were there for twelve hours.

REPORTER: Okay

LR: Then there was a stint that we were with the FBI...

REPORTER: At any point did you say "Hey, look we gotta be out there looking for our son?"

LR: That was our only concern.

REPORTER: What did they say?

LR: They allowed me to run up and down the block. They allowed me to drive around. They did allow me to do that initially but then at a certain point they said we need you to stay here, and it's very frustrating what they're saying. What was more frustrating was sitting in the police station for twelve hours. Twleve hours.

REPORTER: Alright

LR: If some....if the person who....if someone took our son, or didn't take him, if he just wandered somewhere and you took him in, return him. Drop him off somewhere no questions asked. He probably won't remember you. Just don't hurt him.

REPORTER: The FBI came here yesterday..

LR: Yes

REPORTER: Your response to their search here and what did they take?

LR: Our response to how this whole process was, coming from people who've never been involved in this before so obviously when a lot of the focus was initially on us "how can this happen." Kidnappings, I'm not going to name names, but I was told "black kids don't get kidnapped. These things don't happen in Rockridge. This a safe neighborhood." If I'm not mistaken, wasn't it Rockridge a few months back where people were going to stores in broad daylight robbing establishments in Rockridge, along College, in that area?

REPORTER: What did they take from here?

LR: The news story...they took a few things, what for I don't know, but they did not take any computers. That's what was propagated over the news story. We know that that left, leaves a distaste in the public's mouth "oh God, what was going on was there were there's child *advertiser censored*, things like that going that they saw on the...." There were no computers taken from our home. I want to clarify that up, right now.

REPORTER: How did you guys get custody of Hasanni?


LR: It's a situation where the mother at this time, for whatever reasons, can't take care of them. That's not to say she doesn't love them. That's not to say she doesn't want them, but at this time she can't...take care of them, so as time went on we had a decision in front of us. Would we take them in? And we did. Since the children been here everyone who knows those children have said they've made drastic improvement.

JC: That they're thriving

LR: Everyone said that they're thriving. We are a family. Do I feel responsible for this? Yeah. There's parents out there, you take it for granted "oh that'll never happen to me. It's only a few minutes, a quick second." You turn your back, they're gone. It's not worth it.

REPORTER: They contacted every sexual offender in that area. Have you taken a polygraph test? I understand that you've agreed to that.

LR: We agreed to that. I want to...I won't speak a lot about that but I want to say this. They've said that we're reluctant to cooperate. That's all we've been doing up until this point. That's all we've been doing.

REPORTER: And have you already taken the polygraph?

LR: I've....I've agr (agreed?)... I'll just leave it as we're cooperating because I don't want...it's not that I'm being evasive, it's just I don't know what I'm allowed to say right now because of the investigation. The spotlight is still on us as well as everybody else so, basically, we are cooperating 100%. So that kinda leaves......

REPORTER: So can you say if you've taken it or not?

LR: I don't know. They've not told me what I can or cannot say so I kinda....I don't want to be the cause of creating problems in their investigation, but I will say this. We're cooperating 100% so you can take that.....

REPORTER: Are you comfortable taking a polygraph test?

LR: I have no problem with it. None whatsoever.

REPORTER: Okay.

End of interview.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=6962712
 

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