Photo credit: Courtesy of CNN
“The Hunt” will still have the same mission as America’s Most Wanted, but on CNN,” show host John Walsh told Hollywood on the Potomac. “I’m here because of Jeff Zucker. He and I have been friends for many, many years.” Zucker, of course, is the president of CNN Worldwide and former CEO of NBC Universal, brought in to revamp CNN’s programming line up. “The Hunt” – with the tag line ‘If you’re on the run, time is running out’ – will premiere on Sunday, July 13th at 9 PM.
“It’s the same mission as America’s Most Wanted which I did for 25 years. Great run. Loved working for Fox. We won the Emmy for Excellence in Television. We caught 1231 guys and recovered 61 missing children, so that was the mission,” he explained.
“We’ll have the tip lines with the guarantee that people can remain anonymous: Cops won’t answer the tip line. It’s going to be a very different looking show though because we teamed up with Zero Point Zero Productions that was nominated today for eight Emmys. I produced my own show before for all those years. Now that I’m working with this terrific production company we’re probably going to focus on, at most, two fugitives a show. The first, the premiere, is one horrible guy who is wanted in northern California, so there’s a big manhunt up there. This guy murdered his wife and shot his beautiful 5 year old and 8 year old daughters – murdered them.”
“I think it will be a lusher show. America’s Most Wanted was just the court of last resort, as you know. I would put ten guys on the show and four or five missing kids if there were that many that week and capture reports and prison escapes. It got pretty frantic in the last couple years. I think you’re going to see a very different, more introspective show that”ll show very much the collateral damage done by these guys. It will give the background and some intel about them that I just couldn’t do on AMW. I think the production values are going to be a lot better, frankly. This is a very different looking reality show than probably most of reality shows.”
We wondered what kind of toll this takes on him emotionally when you’re constantly looking at things that are quite horrifying. He took the year off, went back to work with a company called Great Call, in San Diego. “I said ‘I’ve paid my dues’ – I will still continue to testify before Congress and work on legislation, do it in every single state and every state multiple times. I’ll concentrate on raising money for the national Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I thought I’m going to get out of that world of murder and violence. But, I’ve got a new granddaughter. I just couldn’t stay away.”
The Center for Missing & Exploited Children was founded by Walsh and his wife Reve in 1981, after their 6-year-old son Adam Walsh was abducted from a Florida shopping mall and later found murdered. It became the subject of Adam, a 1983 movie about the murder. The U.S. Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act on July 25, 2006, and President Bush signed it into law on July 27, 2006.
Photo credit: Center for Missing & Exploited Children
“So many people – the FBI, the Marshals – said, ‘Where do we go. You caught 17 guys off the Ten Most Wanted, John.’ Marshals are my partners in hunting down sex offenders. They’re part of the Adam Walsh Act. Victims everywhere would stop me and say or write me or get a hold of somebody I knew and say, ‘Hey, my grandmother was murdered. It’s never been solved. Our child is missing. My daughter got raped and nobody ever caught the guy.’ My wife was a big part of this battle. She said, ‘You know, you got very good at it, John, and you have to remember who the real victim was and that was Adam.’
I had this opportunity and offer from Jeff. We’ve been talking for a better part of the year. I thought, you know what, as tough as it is, we weren’t the victims. Adam was the victim of that horrible kidnapping and murder, and maybe it’s time to saddle back up. So I’m going to saddle up. I’m a horse guy. That’s what I always say, “Saddle up.” So I’m going to saddle back up Sunday at 9:00, and see if people will watch CNN and help us catch these horrible guys.
When I look at little Eva (his granddaughter), I look at her and I say, ‘You know what, America’s become this incredibly violent place, with all these homicides in Chicago over July 4.’ We are the number one sex trafficking offender in the world of children. I went, God, you can’t sit on the sidelines in America. You have to saddle up if you know how to do it.”
Our conversation with John took us on the natural progression to gun control. We wanted to know what kind of control the NRA had over us.
“I think I can speak from real experience. I’m a rancher. I own a horse ranch. I let people raise cattle on that ranch. I have guns and I hunt and shoot quail. I am the guy that is the strongest advocate for reasonable gun control. In every other first world country on this planet you have to take some type of psychological test, and I’m talking first world, and you have to prove that you know how to use that gun, and you have to know about trigger locks, because so many children get killed every week in America, or injured, by gun accidents.
The NRA has terrorized us … They’re not a lobbyist, they’re a gun rep. They’re a manufacturers’ rep on Capital Hill. Most of their income comes from gun manufacturers. My point is that why would they oppose reasonable gun control? We’re a country of about 350 million plus people with a least 400 million guns, everywhere. The only people who buy guns at gun shows [are those] that shouldn’t have guns and who wouldn’t want a background check. If you’re a God-fearing, law abiding citizen, why oppose a background check? It has nothing to do with civil liberties. It has nothing to do with it. Anybody that was born in America has a credit card, is in somebody’s computer, and has a social security number. So that’s all literally bullshit.
I propose that the gun manufacturers put a GPS chip in every assault weapon, which is not violating civil liberties ……. nobody needs an AK-47 but a cop. When those guns get stolen and sold to gang bangers, you could track them through that $2 GPS chip, same one that’s in our computers and cell phones. If they embedded it in those AR-15s and the AK-47s, nobody would be able to take them out – you would be able to identify guns that go over the border, guns that wind up in the hands of cartels, and guns that are sold to gang bangers, but it makes too much sense. The NRA, their solution to Sandy Hook was to arm every 70 year old teacher who’s never had a gun in her hands, in grammar schools. That would make classrooms safer. That’s a bunch of BS.
That’s crazy. You know it, and I know it. Their solution to the horror and nightmare of Sandy Hook was to put more guns on the street. It was an insult to the parents of those children. I advised many of them about lobbying before Congress. The point I was going to make is that the NRA has such a strangle hold on the American Congress by threatening them to run someone against them that isn’t for gun control. When all the polls were taken, 90% of Americans, gun owners like myself, and people who don’t like guns, all agreed that should be some initial background check – a federal, national background check. You might have good gun laws in New York and Chicago, but you can drive five miles and go to a gun show in another state and buy anything you want.”
“Congress has not acted,” he emphasized. “90% of Americans have said, ‘I sent you to Congress. I don’t want you to be terrified of the gun manufacturers’ rep. I want you to come up with a federal solution to mandating federal background checks. Not regional. Not state. Not city to city.’ When I battled for the Adam Walsh Act, it was to make a national sex offender registry. So if a guy broke his parole and probation in New York, he was a Level 3 sex offender, you would know that he moved in next door, and he was going to try to do something or get in the school system, or do something to your beautiful granddaughter. That’s what the Adam Walsh Act was about, on a national level. There needs to be some type of national legislation, and Congress is just delaying it, just like the immigration bill. They just won’t put it on the table. It seems to be only about getting re-elected. It’s not about doing what their constituents are begging them to do.
The one great bond of trust I have with the worldwide viewers, because I did catch guys in 45 countries, was that if you had the desire to get involved I would guarantee your anonymity. So we would get tips … You can call if you’re an illegal. You can call if your cousin or your son is a horrible gang banger and never worry about retribution. Never worry that you’d be dragged into a case. So we always have guaranteed that. Nobody ever picks up the phone. No cops ever answer my hotline. Nobody ever looks at the web tips. I have my own webmasters. The only thing I can do is turn them over to law enforcement.
Every show, there’s an FBI agent there. A US Marshal. Whoever has a case on the show, and I have to trust that they will do the best job that they can. They’ll all say, ‘John, you’re the best tool. You put millions of eyes to a case.’ Every now and then they drop the ball, or every now and then we’ll pass over tips, and they’ll say, ‘No. These tips are more important than the ones you feel are legitimate.’ We’ve assisted … I mean, we have been given by law enforcement credit for 1231 direct captures.
Once I pass the tips off … I don’t believe in vigilantism. I pass them off immediately to law enforcement. If they do the right thing, and they catch the guy, it’s wonderful. If they drop the ball that’s just part of being a human being. It’s just human nature. I tell you what, cops have less resources than they had 20 years ago when I started AMW. All these cutbacks and all this violence in America, 505 murders in Chicago last year, the cops are really hitting the wall. Look what’s happening on the border. It’s a tough, tough job. Every now and then they drop the ball and make a mistake. Is it frustrating? Yeah, it is.
Be vigilant and be street smart. Be careful. 80% of crimes against children is somebody they trust, that’s somebody they know: That Catholic priest, that Rabbi, that soccer or football coach. So be that on-the-job parent or grandparent.”
Join “The Hunt”: Got a tip? Call 1-866-THE-HUNT.
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