[David Mattingly, Cnn Correspondent:] These are the two survivors of this shooting. A third Assistant Principal Ken Bruce was killed, as a student a 15-year old student open fired with a handgun near the school offices. That happened a little after 2:00 o'clock today. And as you might be able to see, behind me with all the flashing blue lights, the investigation still underway. We have also learned that at this hour investigators have questioned others as to where this young man was able to get a gun and how he was able to get it into the school, questioning others to find out if others might have been somehow connected to this case. But at this point, most of the investigation is going on inside the building, collecting every possible piece of evidence that they can. The suspect is in custody at a juvenile detention facility. He was taken there after being treated for what looked like a gunshot wound to his hand. Investigators are being very careful about how they say this all came about. They are not willing at this point to put any sort of a A, B and C sequence together. There are some people who knew this young man, who say that he was trouble, but authorities will not confirm what was going through his mind or what was happening as this shooting occurred Anderson.
[Anderson Cooper, Cnn:] David, we spoke in the last hour to a young man who knows this young man who is now in custody, who said that he had been suspended previously for a year for stabbing an assistant principal with a pen or a pencil. Do you know anything more about that?
[Mattingly:] Authorities will not talk about that tonight. We're hoping that they will shed more light on that tomorrow. But we are hearing that story from multiple students. We're not sure if it's all part of the rumors that go around after these type of incidents do occur, but there seems to be some certain credibility in the widespread belief that this student did have problems the year prior and had problems as he came back to this high school.
[Cooper:] And David, we're looking at pictures now of the suspect being put into a police car. I don't know if you've seen the pictures. Is that blood on his shirt?
[Mattingly:] That is blood on his shirt. Again, he was treated for what looked like a gunshot wound to his hand, suggesting that he might have been wounded himself during whatever struggle that occurred after these shootings. Authorities tell us that he had been subdued by the time the first responders arrived here, so that he was subdued by staff here at the school. After all that happened, the school was in lockdown. The students were locked in their classes for about two hours. They were released to some very anxious parents here outside the school grounds. The school is going to be closed for the rest of the week, Anderson. There will be counseling here going on for anyone who needs it, and that goes for not just the students, but the staff here as well.
[Cooper:] All right, David. Thanks for reporting. As David said, it is an active investigation. A crime scene, as you can see, very much still an active crime scene. If we had to pick a single thing to underscore how completely life has changed in this country since 911, it might be the fact that there are now arguments, serious ones. Not only against, but also for torture. There never was a debate about this subject before, now there certainly is. CNN's Tom Foreman has been investigating.
[Tom Foreman:] If you could save the life of a soldier, rescue the hostage children; stop the next terrorist bomb by torturing a prisoner for information, would you do it?
[James "spider" Marks, Major General, U.s. Army:] I'd stick a knife in somebody's thigh in a heartbeat.
[Foreman:] Retired General "Spider" Marks, a CNN consultant, worked for U.S. Army Intelligence, teaching interrogation
[Marks:] The kinds of enemies we're fighting have no sense of right or wrong. They will go to any depths to achieve their ends.
[Foreman:] Do we have to go with them?
[Marks:] We don't need to go with them. We need to preclude them from going there. And that might include some use of torture in order to prevent it.
[Foreman:] Polls have shown that more than 60 percent of Americans think torture can sometimes be justified. But here is the catch. Experts, including General Marks, are convinced with the vast majority of prisoners, it just doesn't work.
[Mark Jacobsen, Former Official, Department Of Defense:] It does not give you credible, accurate, timely and actionable intelligence.
[Foreman:] Mark Jacobsen, a former Defense Department official, outlines the troubles. You need to know a prisoner has critical information. The prisoner must be susceptible to torture. And, oh by the way,
[Jacobsen:] When people are tortured, when people endure physical pain, they're going to seek to stop that as quickly as possible. [voice-over]: If I torture you, you're going to tell me exactly what I expect to hear.
[Foreman:] The White House, under fire over reports of secret CIA prisons overseas, says torture is not allowed. But,
[Scott Mcclellan, Press Secretary, White House:] We are going to do what is necessary to protect the American people. We are also going to do so in a way that adheres to our laws and to our values. We have made that very clear.
[Foreman:] The definition of torture is: Infliction of severe physical as a means of punishment or coercion. Legal authorities around the world are arguing over what that means. Some insist the abuses at that Iraqi prison easily qualify, along with sleep deprivation, humiliation, extreme fear. Others say those things don't even come close. The global jury is still out. And even experts are pondering a paradox. [on camera]: So in your experience and in your view, torture as a policy should be against the law?
[Marks:] True.
[Foreman:] And yet, we might still have to use it.
[Marks:] True.
[Foreman:] And wondering which truth about torture will stand in a dangerous world. Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
[Cooper:] What's interesting, President Bush has said categorically, we don't torture. He also says we'll do whatever is necessary. So what exactly does that mean? We asked a couple of law professors earlier this evening to discuss the issue with us. John Yoo of University of California, Berkeley, who served in the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003, is also a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Also joining us, Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard, the author of a great many books, including, "The Case for Peace, How the Arab Israeli Conflict can be Resolved." Also involved in discussion was Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Here's some of the conversation Professor Dershowitz, under what circumstances do you think torture is justified?
[Alan Dershowitz, Author:] Torture is never justified and I hope we never have to use it in the United States. But if we ever had a ticking bomb terrorist who could under torture reveal the location of a bomb that would destroy hundreds of thousands of people, I guarantee you we would use it. That's an empirical judgment, not a normative one. And if we would use it, then we have to use it only with accountability. And that means that the president of the United States or the vice-president or the secretary of Defense, or the chief justice has to specifically authorize precisely the kind of extreme measures that are permitted to be used. No extreme measures without accountability. That has to be the rule.
[Cooper:] Bill Goodman, you believe that's a slippery slope?
[Bill Goodman, Center For Constitutional Rights:] I think it's a very slippery slope. I think once you start to say, well under these circumstances, empirically, you're going to and you have to provide these kinds of measures if you do it, then you're basically agreeing that under circumstances it can happen, it should happen, and then it's going to happen under more than those exceptional circumstances. It's going to start becoming the regular, rather than the unusual.
[Cooper:] Professor Yoo, let me bring you in here. What do you think about Professor Dershowitz's argument, that torture under any circumstances is wrong and that he supports the McCain Amendment, but at the president's direction under extraordinary circumstances?
[John Yoo, Law Professor, University Of California-berkeley:] I agree with much of what Alan says. I do think torture is wrong. It's illegal. What the McCain Amendment does is just repeating the Geneva Convention standard that already applies in Iraq. What the problem with the McCain Amendment is that it prevents the CIA to use interrogation methods would not be torture, but would fall under this vaguer term, cruel and humane degrading treatment
[Cooper:] But what is your definition of torture? I mean, I understand you were one of the lawyers in the Justice Department early on who helped craft documents outlining, you know, what some call the before 911 approach and after 911 approach. And the definition of torture that I understand from what I've read, that you were advocating was a very narrow one.
[Yoo:] I think look, we can all have an argument where exactly that line is. And I think it means severe pain and suffering, either physical or mental, cannot be imposed. That would be torture
[Dershowitz:] See, I would have a broader definition of torture. I would define it very broadly, then prohibit it, but then if it is felt necessary to use any of these measures, short of torture, or bordering extreme psychological measures. If the president of the United States is prepared to put his credibility on the line and say the future of the nation is at stake. We must violate the law in this instance, like we would if we had to shoot down a civilian airliner, let the president take accountability. And that would broaden the definition of torture. It wouldn't have any of these escape valves that we now have and would place accountability squarely where it belongs not on the shoulders of Sergeant Englund or some other low- ranking
[Goodman:] Right now you're just being an apologist for torture.
[Dershowitz:] Oh come on, stop the stop throwing around words like that. I mean, that's just insulting to the intelligence of the audience, you know that?
[Goodman:] Let me let me please finish. Look, let me finish, let me talk and then you can answer. Okay? You know better than that.
[Cooper:] Just what's your point?
[Goodman:] My point is this. That torture is new in the American discourse in many ways. We have not seen the prevalence. We have not seen outcropping in torture. Notwithstanding all of the wars in which we've engaged, until this current administration, and to say
[Dershowitz:] Totally false.
[Goodman:] And to say
[Dershowitz:] Totally false
[Goodman:] And to say
[Dershowitz:] Totally false. It was rampant in the second world war
[Goodman:] And to say please
[Cooper:] But isn't it true that there has always been torture?
[Goodman:] There always has, but not in the degree, not in the level
[Dershowitz:] Much worse, much worse
[Goodman:] not in the amount that we have seen and the fact is that by saying that we are going to allow certain circumstances
[Dershowitz:] Much worse, much worse than the second world war.
[Goodman:] We will apologize for torture.
[Dershowitz:] Much worse in the Vietnam War, much worse in the Korean War.
[Goodman:] I can't talk with him interrupting me.
[Cooper:] Okay, you're saying it's been much worse
[Dershowitz:] Much worse.
[Cooper:] Professor Yoo, President Bush says the U.S. does not torture. Do you believe that's true?
[Yoo:] Yes, I believe it's not true that if there is abuses like Abu Ghraib occurring, they're just illegal and ought to be punished.
[Cooper:] Mr. Dershowitz, does the U.S. torture?
[Dershowitz:] Of course it does and it does with a wink and a nod from the president of the United States, from the secretary of Defense, from the vice-president. Just the message he gave yesterday. We don't approve torture, but we approve doing whatever is necessary to stop terrorism. And that sends a mixed message.
[Cooper:] Bill, let me tell you something that Senator Roberts has said about the McCain Amendment. He said that basically and I'm paraphrasing basically, the element of surprise, where the enemy does not know about what we're going to do to them is a very powerful tool and so you don't want to specify, you don't want to write out exactly what can and cannot be done.
[Goodman:] That is truly apologism for torture. That's saying that torture does work, can work. And it's never been proven to work.
[Cooper:] Bill Goodman, Professor Yoo, Professor Dershowitz, thanks very much.
[Yoo:] Thank you.
[Cooper:] Still ahead on 360, they may be off-year elections, but they're being closely watched. The latest results and what they say about the future. Also, the crisis unfolding in France, what the riots and the rage behind them have revealed. And why Maureen Dowd thinks women of her generation were sold a bill of goods.
[Marueen Dowd:] All the things we did that we thought would make us more fascinating, like high-powered careers, and we wanted that snappy Hepburn-Tracy dialogue but actually a lot of guys find that draining.
[Cooper:] We'll talk to her about that and a whole lot more. We'll be right back.