[Sambolin:] Welcome back to EARLY START. It is 43 minutes past the hour. A rape case in a city of Ohio played out on social media. It involves two high school football players, a 16-year-old girl they allegedly assaulted, and a 12-minute video. CNN national correspondent Susan Candiotti is covering the case for us. What can you tell us, Susan?
[Susan Candiotti, Cnn National Correspondent:] Well, Zoraida, the charges are simply horrific. A 16-year-old girl allegedly raped by two high school football players during end of the summer parties in a small eastern Ohio town of Steubenville. There are reports the girl was drunk and possibly unconscious, and now, two special prosecutors appointed by Ohio's attorney general, Mike DeWine, are just over a month away from trying two teens on rape charges. But what makes this case stand out even more is talk about the alleged attack last August has been playing itself out through social media. Even Ohio's chief law enforcement officer says this case might never have come together a decade ago. That's because police in part found out about the alleged rape by piecing together outrageous tweets, a cell phone video that claims to show the girl at the center of the alleged attack being carried, seemingly limp, by her arms and legs, and at least one online video that shows young people callously laughing about it.
[Unidentified Male:] What if that was your daughter? But it isn't. If it was. If that was my daughter, I wouldn't care. I just let her be dead. Listen to yourself. I'm listening to myself fine. In about ten years, I'm going come back to this video. In ten years, my daughter's going to be raped and dead in ten years.
[Candiotti:] And that continues for about 12 minutes. He goes on to make offensive one-line comments about rape and talks about the girl as if she was dead, which, Zoraida, she is not.
[Sambolin:] No, but she appeared to be in those photos. I went in and took a really close look at this. What are the charges, so far?
[Candiotti:] Here's how it comes out. Two 16-year-old boys are charged with rape. One of the two is also charged with illegal use of a minor in nude material. The attorney general's office says they will be tried by a juvenile court judge without a jury in open court next month. They've been publicly identified by authorities. However, CNN is not yet revealing their names. And because CNN's policy is not to release the name of alleged rape victims, we are also not reporting the name of the girl.
[Sambolin:] And when you do take a look at that tape, there are a lot of voices in the background. There are a lot of faces. Are there any other charges, do you think, that will come out of this?
[Candiotti:] We don't know yet. That's a simple answer. Ohio's attorney general tells me the investigation is not over. Authorities are still conducting interviews. He also says he's well aware of the online video and the photo and postings. Some are online months ago were taken down and some of them are back online again now.
[Sambolin:] We certainly expect that you're going to be following this for us because there will be much more to come. Susan Candiotti, thank you for that. Appreciate it.
[Candiotti:] You're welcome.
[Romans:] All right. Some new numbers in and they are staggering. The number of Americans trying to buy a gun hits a record high, and boy, the rush for all those background checks keeping the FBI quite busy. That's next.