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Gunmen Open Fire on Montreal College Campus
Aired September 13, 2006 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it is the top of the hour. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. And the next hour, well, that next hour starts right now.
We have two developing stories, but right now one critical. In Montreal, a shooting, hostage situation at a college there.
Fredricka Whitfield with more developments.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, Carol.
Right now investigators believe they may be looking for a second or possibly third possible shooter who carried out the shooting attack at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada. You're looking at live pictures right now of a number of people assembling outside because earlier we saw dozens of students streaming out of the college campus after police had made their way, presumably, inside.
Police also, according to The Associated Press, are now saying that one shooter, one suspected shooter, may have shot himself.
But now we have on the line with us from Montreal Police, Sergeant Boccardi, who perhaps can answer a number of other questions for us.
And Sergeant Boccardi, first of all, is it the case that you all are looking for a possibly second or third shooter?
SGT. GIUSEPPE BOCCARDI, MONTREAL POLICE: Well, right now we're at the preliminary investigation mode. And from all -- what we have is there might be multiple shooters, but we're not really sure -- we can't really confirm that for now.
WHITFIELD: What's your understanding as to what took place? We have lots of eyewitness accounts from the students who say they heard 20 shots fired, and in other cases some students are saying they saw at least four people shot by these shooters.
Bring us up to date.
BOCCARDI: Well, I'm sorry -- you know, this is my afternoon shift. I'm just beginning. And from all accounts right now, I'm just gathering all this information which I'm looking at, at the screen.
So you probably have more information than I can really give at this moment. The confirmation, however, is, you know, we're getting multiple versions of facts, of information coming from everywhere. And we can't really confirm most of the stories.
What we need to do right now, we have a perimeter established around the college. A lot of -- you know, a lot of information coming in from potential eyewitnesses to what they saw. We're trying to confirm, trying to get the most out of people's information upon the shooters.
WHITFIELD: Well, Sergeant Boccardi, let me ask you this: as you try to secure the perimeter, I understand this is a 12-acre site, a very large building that obviously has a lot of entrances and exits. Do you feel pretty confident that you all have secured all the natural entrances and exits for that building? And that if there are other shooters, you do believe that they are still inside?
BOCCARDI: Well, my understanding at this moment is that most of the students have exited the college grounds. I believe they're doing probably a floor to maybe a room search.
We have K-9 squads there presently. We are right now in the process of filtering the building and making sure that we don't have other victims somewhere, you know, that need to be attended to.
WHITFIELD: Can you give me an idea of how many alleged victims you believe you have?
BOCCARDI: I'm sorry, right now I -- you know, I can't give you a right number.
WHITFIELD: Would you say it's safe to say somewhere between the two and four? Because we're hearing reportedly everything from two to at least four.
BOCCARDI: Well, from -- according to some eyewitnesses at the moment, a few people did see some individuals covered in blood. And, you know, whether they're actually victims of gunfire or they were probably just assisting someone that had been shot, we can't confirm. So, therefore, you know, I can't really confirm to you if it's two or four.
WHITFIELD: Yes. And Sergeant, are any of those students who -- believed to be witnesses of the shooting, do any of them say that these alleged shooters were recognizable? Did they appear to be students or strangers?
BOCCARDI: Again, I'm sorry. I can't adventure (ph) myself right now to speculate upon if these were just strangers just coming into the campus or if they're students of the campus. We have a description of a possible shooter, a trench coat, long hair, dark, rifle, but that's about it right now. We don't know if, you know, he's been with someone else or if he's a loner.
WHITFIELD: Right. And one -- one student says that he or she believed to see a man dressed in military fatigues who stormed into the cafeteria. Would that be one in the same person that you described in the trench coat, or could that possibly indicate a second suspected shooter? BOCCARDI: Confirmation upon that hasn't been made yet. I mean, whether or not he was wearing a trench coat we can't confirm. So whether it's maybe multiple individuals or it could be the same one, I can't confirm right now.
WHITFIELD: All right. Sergeant, can you tell me anything about the police apparatus that you have there? If you have a combination of different kinds of tactical units to address this, or is this primarily Montreal City Police?
BOCCARDI: Right now it's in our -- it's on our jurisdiction, with much of our police force that's handling the investigation. We have the S.W.A.T. unit cornering and surrounding the building. We have the K-9s. We have our -- our chief as well.
This is primarily, right now, as we speak, a Montreal operation.
WHITFIELD: OK. And before I let you go, Sergeant, can you tell me a little bit more about the geography, the location of this downtown college and generally how it is able to, I guess, kind of blend in with the rest of downtown, or if it's pretty obvious that it's a secured, you know, site, this 12-acre site?
BOCCARDI: No, it's a secure site. It's -- it's primarily in the downtown court. But it's -- I would say if you want to locate it in the downtown court of Montreal, it's approximately the northwest side of the city court.
So, you know, it's an area where it's quite secure in that sense. We don't have any underground, like metro systems, actually on the campus. We have to exit the campus to gain entrance to a metro system.
So right now we have the perimeter established. If the shooter's in the building, hopefully he'll -- he'll be taken out sooner than later.
WHITFIELD: OK. Sergeant Giuseppe Boccardi, thanks so much for taking the time out. We know you've got a lot to do on that end as the investigation is still unfolding -- Carol.
LIN: Fred, from that interview we have drawn what? There may still be another shooter inside of the building?
WHITFIELD: Sure.
LIN: Because the initial report with The Associated Press is that a person who opened fire has been shot or shot himself.
WHITFIELD: That's right. And Sergeant Boccardi is indicating they are still doing a room-to-room search, combing through that entire campus building there to make sure that they haven't overlooked any injured victims, or perhaps to seek out any suspected shooters, maybe a suspected second or third shooter, according to various news reports, eyewitness accounts. But Sergeant Boccardi is saying it's difficult for them to make any definitive conclusions on exactly what they have here because it is still a working crime scene here. And they're still trying to, you know, connect all the dots and make sure that if there's anyone they can retrieve to safety, that's the top priority. And then, of course, they are also trying to weed out anyone who might bring any other potential danger.
LIN: OK. All right, Fred.
With us right now is Mike Brooks. He is a security analyst. He's worked with the FBI. He's helped us a lot on these kinds of stories. Mike's joining me on the telephone right now.
Mike, as we're looking at these pictures of Dawson College in Montreal, we want to let people know -- our viewers know that it's a combination of live pictures, but also tape.
We don't want to reveal the tactical positions of these -- of these early responders here, but give me an idea of how you secure a campus. How do you secure a building as large as this one?
MIKE BROOKS, SECURITY ANALYST: It's very hard to do, Carol, when you have limited manpower in the initial stabilization control phase of a situation like this. But the Montreal Police look like they have quite a bit of manpower on the scene now.
They are -- they have the reputation as being an excellent team, excellent police department. Mostly on the investigative side. And they also have a highly trained S.W.A.T. team, a tactical team that is there on the scene right now.
And, you know, the first and foremost thing is to secure the building, secure the perimeter, even from the corners. And we saw some earlier tape of officers behind trees. It looked like, you know, on the perimeter, and making sure that all of the students are evacuated safely so there are no more victims.
And then they will go in and do a floor-by-floor search as they get a clear one floor, come down to the next, making sure there are no other victims. You know, and the question is, Carol, is this just one shooter, or is there some -- is there a number of shooters?
LIN: They don't know.
BROOKS: They don't know.
LIN: They don't know. And in taking a look at this video just coming in to the CNN Center, when you take a look at the live shot and you see that it's, like, a quad area surrounded by at least three or four large buildings, the campus right in the middle of downtown Montreal, and he was saying that there was a subway stop also connected to that complex, you know, there's a chance that this shooter or the other shooters may have gotten away.
BROOKS: There's the possibility. You know, there's reports also that the shooter had shot himself or herself. They're still unable to confirm that. My sources still are unable to confirm that.
And -- but one of the problems is, when you have a situation like this, when shooting breaks out, and you try to get together the witnesses, the investigative unit will go ahead and try get together the witnesses. You may come up with about three or four different descriptions of what they saw.
Someone may have gone in with one piece of clothing on, take it -- took that piece of clothing on as -- as they were moving through. So it can be one and -- it may be only one shooter. But...
LIN: Well, look at all the people running out of the building right now...
BROOKS: Exactly.
LIN: ... on this piece of tape that we got into the CNN Center about 15, 20 minutes ago. The shooter could be among them.
BROOKS: Absolutely. And, you know, that's always -- that's always a concern. And that's one of the things that law enforcement will try to do.
As they run out, they'll try to funnel them in to one area and make sure they have enough officers there to interview everyone. And they will sometimes treat some of these people who are running out as -- as possible perps, you know.
LIN: Does this look organized to you, though? I mean, it doesn't look like anybody's guiding them out or...
BROOKS: I saw one officer push them in one direction. And you see they're all kind of flowing in one direction. And I see officers along the way there, you know, and they're running between -- past some of the officers.
So hopefully, you know, they're there. But I'll tell you, again, during the initial stabilization and control phase of one of these situations it's very, very hectic.
LIN: And I would not want to be one of those officers on the ground going door to door, not knowing when you open a classroom door what you're going to find on the other side.
BROOKS: No, Carol. I've been there myself, and I can tell you, they're very well trained, but it's still something that, you know, you train, you train, you train, and it's still not something that you look forward to. That's for sure.
LIN: All right. So I'm watching as four officers went inside that door very cautiously, determined that it was at least safe to enter that hallway or that entryway.
What do they do next?
BROOKS: Well, one of the things I want to point out, Carol, it looks like there's a security camera right at that door, right there as they were going in. So one of the things that they'll be doing, the campus police, they'll be going through these security cameras. And if there's someone on the outside, I can guarantee there are cameras on the inside.
And they'll be going through those, looking for the initial time when someone may have entered there. And, you know, and look at the descriptions they're getting from some of the witnesses to see if they can match it up with any people who went into the building during this time frame and try to find out exactly whether or not it is one or more shooters that went into the school.
LIN: Do you think they're able to do that right now in the heat of the moment as they're doing door-to-door classroom searches?
BROOKS: That's -- absolutely, because, you know, there's somebody back in the control center that's still monitoring these things. I guarantee you that the campus police, along with the Montreal investigators, that's one of the first things they want to find, because that's going to become some of the most crucial information in the initial stages of this -- of this situation, to find out exactly how many people went in, did they see them coming in with guns, was there one, was there more? And also to make sure -- it's also a great investigative tool and also a great emergency management tool, make sure everyone is out of the building safely.
LIN: Mike, stay there. Want to do a recap for people who are just joining us.
There has been a shooting at Dawson College in Montreal. Early reports from The Associated Press say that the shooter shot himself, but Fredricka Whitfield, who's working the breaking news desk right now, just spoke with a representative from the Montreal Police who said that it's still a door-to-door search situation. They don't know if there's another suspect, they don't know whether one of four people who were shot actually may be a suspect.
I'm talking with Mike Brooks, who's a security analyst, who's watching these pictures with me that are just coming into the CNN Center.
Mike, you were saying that any one of these people running out of the building could be the shooter disguising him or herself as one of the students, perhaps one of the victims.
BROOKS: That's a possibility. And you see law enforcement officers there. And you see these students coming out with their hands up, as from the orders of the police officers who are guiding them along the way, hopefully getting them to an area where other investigators can go ahead and interview them on what they heard, what they saw, what they smelled, anything at all that can help them in determining whether or not there's more than one shooter inside this building.
LIN: Right. Mike, also noticing that there was a security camera in one of those shots, that authorities may actually be able to go through that videotape to see, by golly, if there was a shooter on camera, a shot of that person so that they can identify this person, they know who they're looking for. But Mike, a dangerous situation on the ground right now as these officers going door to door in a very large building, not knowing if there's another shooter or how many shooters there may be in that college campus.
Mike, I'm going to ask you to stay with us. We're going to take a quick break as we get some more elements together. And we want to continue this conversation with you. So valuable to tap into your experience here as we're watching this -- this hostage situation unfold in Montreal, Canada.
We'll be right back from the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Carol Lin.
And we're working a developing story out of Montreal, Canada, on Dawson College, where shots rang out, four people have been shot. Early reports say a gunman opened fire and that gunman has shot himself. But this is according to early witness reports.
We've also talked with the Montreal Police Department, who is working this story right now as you're looking at live pictures of the response. He says that they don't know whether they actually have the shooter, whether there is another shooter, or how many people may be involved in this -- this -- what appeared to be a shooting on the college campus.
Mike Brooks, a security analyst, is joining me on the telephone as we're looking at a combination of both live pictures, as well as tape that's coming in to the CNN Center from a variety of sources.
Mike, I want to go over with you what is being reported on the Canadian wires. This according to eyewitnesses who obviously were very frantic. Early reports of a gunman shooting himself.
One student who was running told a wire service reporter that it was a man dressed in military fatigues who stormed into the cafeteria of that college today. Another student saying that he heard something like 20 different shots.
How reliable are these eyewitness accounts?
BROOKS: Well, sometimes they can be extremely reliable, Carol. And, you know -- but when someone is confronted as such a situation as this, you know, you're going to get from different people, you're going to get different information. You might get different descriptions.
But the investigators there can piece together the different statements from the people and come up with a good description and actually find out whether or not there were one or more people. But again, in the early stages of a situation like this, you know, it's very, very frantic, very hectic. And everybody sees something different.
You know, as a former investigator, I can tell that you that, you know, when you go to a scene and you're investigating someone, you know, a hostage situation, they will give different -- five people will give five different descriptions of the person who was involved in the hostage-taking. And just as an investigator, you have to interview the other -- the other five to 10 other people and see what best -- best description you can come up with to put together, you know, something that you can actually work with.
LIN: All right. Mike, stay right there.
We're going to go to Fredricka Whitfield, standing by at the breaking news desk with more details -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: Well, apparently, a television network there is reporting that two gunmen in this incident are dead, that one of the gunmen appeared to have committed suicide, and the other was shot by police. This is according to a television network in Canada there. We have not confirmed this with Montreal Police.
You did hear earlier the Montreal Police sergeant who was with us made it very clear that there are lots of different sources of information that are coming from lots of different directions, and the numbers are varying quite a bit. Everything from ambulance services saying that at least four people were shot, to now emergency hospital officials who are saying six people were shot.
So the information that we're getting on this latest bit about these two gunmen reportedly being dead has not been confirmed by Montreal Police, but that's the kind of information that we are getting from our affiliates and from other television network reporting, as well as eyewitness accounts -- Carol.
LIN: All right. Fred, one Canadian report here. Also, Mike Brooks, one of our security analysts we turn to often in these kinds of situations, one report, the same student who said that he heard about 20 shots says that at least three people were armed.
Mike, three people potentially. It could be the reason why Montreal Police are not able to say definitively what the situation is on the ground, if, for example, this Canadian network is right, one committed suicide, one shot by police, but the search continues.
BROOKS: You know, and again, this is a very, very fluid situation. And our viewers have to understand that, that, you know, in early situations of a situation like this, it's very fluid, and information comes in in dribbles and drabs. But -- a lot of speculation.
But I don't like to speculate too much. But I can tell you, one of the things the investigators are doing, they're going up to the -- if they do have one person that did shoot himself or herself, they're going to get the information from that, develop a profile of that person, friends, relatives, associates, go out to the homes, find out -- you know, get a search warrant, go through that persons' home, computer, and everything else to find out exactly who the friends and associates are and then try to -- try to track it down from there.
Very, very many investigative leads to go through as this whole case develops.
LIN: All right. This door-to-door search that's going on the college campus right now, Mike, how long is that likely to take before they can clear it?
BROOKS: It's going to take some time in a building of that size. It depends on how many tactical teams you can get together.
You know, we saw quite a few officers there. But you have to have officers who know how to -- and are trained in close quarters, CQB, if you will, and that's like, you know, S.W.A.T. training. Because you don't want to train -- send untrained officers into situations like this.
You can get some of the regular officers to go ahead and hold the perimeter, but you want trained teams to go door to door to make sure that they -- that they find all the crawl spaces, find everything else, do a thorough search of this building to make sure that all the people are out safely, because I'm sure, as they go through there, some people who heard the shots and were just going ahead and hunkering down in their rooms and a crawl space, some place like that, afraid to come out.
And these are some people that they may also encounter inside the building. And, you know, they wanted to make sure that they go over this building with a fine-tooth comb, because the other thing, too, Carol, as with the number of shots that we've heard from witnesses, this is also going to be an extremely large crime scene.
LIN: You bet. Twenty shots according to this one eyewitness telling the Canadian wire services.
Mike Brooks, I'm going to ask you to stand by because we're in continuing coverage on this developing story out of Montreal, Canada.
A school shooting on a college campus, Dawson campus. Four people have been shot, and Canadian networks now reporting that two gunmen dead, but one eyewitness reports that there were three armed gunmen on campus.
Much more straight ahead. Stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: New video coming in from Montreal, Canada. You're looking at ground-level shots of students as they're running for their lives out of the Dawson College campus where at least one gunman, two gunmen, maybe, opened fire. Police are inside a building right now doing a door-to-door search. They don't know how many gunmen there were, but at least one eyewitness has said that he saw three armed men who apparently opened fire inside a cafeteria at that school.
Fredricka Whitfield also working the story from the breaking news desk here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Fred, this is the first time that we've actually seen up-close- and-personal shots of these students who are running. Some students even heard as many as 20 shots going off inside that building.
WHITFIELD: Right. And also now seeing pictures up close from ground level of any others who may have been injured.
That one young lady who was being taken into the emergency vehicle, we don't know if she is considered one of the six that emergency services officials are now saying they believe were injured in this attack, three of whom critically injured. But the numbers, you know, have varied. Everything from, earlier, just hearing that there may have been one gunman, to now the Canada radio station is -- Radio Canada, as it's called, is saying that two gunmen were killed.
However, recall, Carol, when we talked to the police sergeant earlier, he said that they're going to continue to make sure that they have canvassed that entire building, floor to floor, room to room, to see if there may have been a third suspected shooter from this incident.
LIN: Mike Brooks, our security analyst that is obviously very familiar to all of us here at CNN, on the telephone.
Mike, you broke away to try to get a hold of some of your sources. Did you get any fresh information?
BROOKS: No new information. They still can't confirm the exact number of shooters that were inside. And they're waiting to hear back some more. But, yes, it's still -- right now, they're still trying to piece together all the pieces of this puzzle to find out exactly what happened.
And the other thing we have to consider is, you know, what was the motive of this? Are these students? Are these outsiders?
So it's very difficult also, Carol, to have, you know, secure campuses like this, especially an urban campus that's also in a downtown business area. It's very difficult to do that. And, you know -- you know, student access inside and out of the building and the public's access in and out of the building, someone bursts into a building like this, you know, with weapons and goes right by the initial guards, it's very difficult to control something like that.
LIN: Mike, I've got to ask you, in taking a look at this video -- and I know you can see it, too, on our air -- how do police find a gunman in this chaos?
BROOKS: It's difficult, but, you know, there is some control in this chaos, if you can believe it or not. All of these -- all of these schools, even in an urban setting like this, do have an emergency response plan. They do have an evacuation plan. And we see the police line tape and the officers directing these people to certain areas. And, you know, we saw the large number of officers there. They're going to attempt to round these people up, break them into little groups, and then talk to them because these are all potential witnesses. You know there -- hopefully, if people do slip by, they will go home and say oh, my god, I think I saw something, and call police back. Because all the information, even if the gunmen are captured or are shot, you know, all the information is still crucial or developing what -- why this happened, what was the motive, and how things like this can be prevented in the future?
LIN: Fred, you said that Canadian radio is reporting that two of the gunmen, one committed suicide, and one was shot by police? Is that right?
WHITFIELD: Well, the Canadian radio station is simply reporting that two gunmen killed. A television network out of Canada has been reporting that one committed suicide, and the other one may have been shot by police. You know, we've got to be careful about, you know, the kind of details that we want to commit to because we haven't heard it specifically from those investigative units. But, you know, the reporting is pretty varied, depending on the television network or the radio station you're dealing with.
LIN: Mike, this is a situation where you're saying authorities on the ground have to ferret out who are the eyewitnesses, who are just bystanders who maybe heard something, didn't see something, and who potentially could even be involved in this crime, and they're trying to blend in with the crowd. If, in fact, that's the case, what's the line of questioning that reveals that? How do police determine that?
BROOKS: Well, some of the ones who are probably the closest to the scene are going to be the ones who have been wounded. And we saw some of those people. Some of them were ambulatory. They were able to walk out. We saw some on stretchers. We see this gentleman here, you know. And hopefully these people aren't injured too seriously.
But I can tell you that investigators will be with them in those medic units on the way to the hospital to find out -- they're going to ask the who, what, when, where, why and how. You know, there -- those are things that investigators want to find out. Where were you when it happened? What did you hear? What did you see? Did -- was anything said? You know, was the person with the gun -- what kind of -- what did they look like, what were they armed with? And you'd be surprised. Right initially, you might not be able to remember too much, but then you start thinking about it, and a lot of things start to come back to people after an hour or after the initial chaos.
LIN: Right.
BROOKS: Because...
LIN: Just once the shock wears off, right.
BROOKS: Absolutely. Your adrenaline is pumping so much then, and your mind is just in a state that sometimes you can't focus and you can't -- you'll get tunnel vision, you know. And even law enforcement officers who are involved in situations and shootings, you know, they'll give you some time to -- by yourself after a shooting. And because a lot of times in a situation like this, you get tunnel vision, and your hearing starts -- is impaired, if you will. And, you know, different things happen because of the stress hormones inside people in situations like this.
LIN: Right, well, that's your survival instinct.
BROOKS: Absolutely.
LIN: Fredricka, you said that there are about 10,000 students on this campus?
WHITFIELD: Right. And this campus constitutes an entire city block. So, you know, just envision this entire city block is one big building connected by a number of different wings, all spanning a 12- acre site. And you saw from the aerial view earlier that there's a bit of green space there, as well. It's a campus of about 10,000. But we saw earlier reports that indicated that today, at least during the time of this alleged shooting, there were about 3,000 people on campus.
LIN: So Mike, how do police secure a situation like that? Let's say whatever the equivalent of 911 goes in, there's been a shooting at the Dawson College campus, what do they do immediately? How much firepower, manpower, whatever it takes, can they get out there and do they have enough information about this very large campus to be able to secure all the necessary exit sites where a suspect might be able to get away?
BROOKS: Well, knowing Montreal police and knowing the professionalism of their department and their tactical teams there in Montreal, as here in the United States, each of these colleges and the campus police for this -- for Dawson -- has an emergency response plan. They have gotten together -- you know, I hope they have, because I know here in the United States, it's done on a regular basis with -- especially with particularly large cities like Montreal.
They get together, and they go through the emergency management plan, the emergency response plan, and they practice the plan. You know, they look at staging areas for emergency medical services. They look at staging for the first arriving officers, for any other assets, emergency assets that may be needed for something like this. But they're going to treat this like a mass casualty incident. Because initially, in the initial stages, they don't know. And part of that also is setting up the perimeter, closing down entrances, you know, securing that building so they make sure they -- that no one can escape from the building should something like this happen.
Hopefully that plan was put into effect when this happened today because the more you practice it, the better you get at it. It's like I always say, you practice like you play. If you play -- when you've gone through emergency plan like this and you're in this for real, the more you practice it, the better it is. And the other thing that I was noticing in this particular picture -- and I'll mention it again, Carol -- is going to play a crucial role in the early stages of this, in finding out exactly what happened, are those security cameras. You see that one little camera that we saw right there. And it looks like a fairly modern campus. So that is going to help a great deal in the early investigative stages on who went into the building, who left the building during this particular timeframe that the shooting was occurring. And if there's cameras on the inside, I can guarantee you that there's probably cameras on the outside and inside. And this is going to help a great deal in this investigation on finding out exactly what happened.
LIN: And is there a control room of sorts, one-stop shopping for authorities to be able to go to view those cameras, to make those selections?
BROOKS: Absolutely. And then right now, most modern systems such as this are digital. And they can go through and go frame by frame and enhance it. And it's fairly clear, a lot better than when the old tapes that people used to have as part of their video surveillance systems. And there is a control room, you know, for these things. And because there's usually somebody watching these cameras 24/7. And they can also go back on the disc a certain amount of time and replay it should something happen.
And I guarantee that they're going -- that investigators, along with the campus police -- are going through that right now, trying to develop a timeline of exactly what happened, when it happened, when did it start? How did the people enter this building? And did these people leave? And was it only one, was it only two?
LIN: All right, well, right now, their greatest concern is whether there's another shooter or how many shooters were involved in this, whether there's another shooter still hiding on that campus somewhere.
Fredricka Whitfield over there at the breaking news desk, you've got something more?
WHITFIELD: That's right, I'm monitoring wire services. And as I mentioned earlier, the numbers have been fluctuating in terms of people shot, injured, et cetera. Well, now Reuters is reporting that four people from this shooting have been killed, 16 as a whole injured. All of this taking place on this Dawson College campus. But it's unclear whether the four people reportedly killed will include the two reportedly killed gunmen that we saw on some of the other wire services early -- earlier.
So the numbers are fluctuating, and that's bound to happen in a situation like this, as we continue to try to work our sources, particularly at Montreal police, to try to give us a better, more accurate account of the numbers that we're dealing with. But right now, Reuters reporting four killed, 16 injured.
LIN: You bet. All right, thanks very much, Fred. We're also trying to establish contact with a reporter on the scene. Stay right there. Breaking news out of Montreal, Canada, as gunmen open fire on a college campus.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: All right. We're giving you the latest on the shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada, as police right now are going door to door in a very large campus building, looking to see if they can find any more gunmen. Early reports from Canadian networks say that two gunmen are dead. One committed suicide, one shot by police.
But let's get the situation on the ground from our reporter Genevieve Beauchemin. She is a correspondent with the CTV local affiliate CFCF. Can you give us the situation there? What is going on? How many gunmen do you know, and are they all in custody or dead?
GENEVIEVE BEAUCHEMIN, CFCF REPORTER: Well, what we know of are those two gunmen, but police are saying that they don't know whether the danger is still there. They don't know whether there are any more gunmen. And what we've being seeing over the last few minutes are police officers here who have been hiding behind cars here in this area trying to make sure that they're safe as they look for more gunmen.
They think that there may be more. There are reports there could have been three, four. All kinds of things have been circulating, all kinds of rumors, so they're not taking any chances. But what we do know for sure, what's been confirmed, is that there were at least two gunmen involved.
Now, what we're seeing at the scene here is a lot of panic. A lot of the students who streamed out of the building have come out. Their eyes are red. They've been crying. They were in a state of shock. Some of them said they were hiding under desks for several minutes, not knowing what was happening in the building.
And a lot of them are calling home, calling their parents, telling them that they're safe. A lot of them are also crying and they're also telling their friends about exactly what happened. A lot of them did see the gunmen. They say there were several, several shots that were fired, and so they're wondering how safe their friends are and the rumors are still circulating. People are still trying to get some news.
LIN: Genevieve, did they say -- the students that you spoke to, did they say that the gunmen, before opening fire, did they say anything?
BEAUCHEMIN: No, the students heard nothing. They said that they didn't know that -- exactly what happened. Some of the students are describing the gunmen. Some of them say that some of them were dressed in black, one of them at least was dressed in black, that he had a mohawk but, of course, they don't know.
I haven't heard any student describing any information, anything that might have been said before they opened fire, just that there were several, several shots and that it didn't seem to be aimed at anyone in particular, that it was quite a random shooting that was happening.
LIN: And where did it take place? Because some Canadian wires that we're reading, it said the cafeteria.
BEAUCHEMIN: It's the cafeteria. The building here is quite large. It takes about an entire city block. It's an old convent here. And there was the cafeteria, and overlooking the cafeteria is an atrium and so students could look down.
And one of the students I spoke to said she looked down from that atrium and saw the gunmen there and she also the police were around at that time, so -- and there was still more shooting when the police were inside, according to some of those students.
LIN: And how many people would you say might be in that cafeteria at that time?
BEAUCHEMIN: It's hard to say. It was around 1:00, so that would have been around sometime where people were having their lunch. So at the time some people were saying that there were several hundred students. This is quite a large college. As I say, 10,000 students attend this school so a lot of them would have been in that cafeteria, but it's hard to say exactly how many.
A lot of people say that when they rushed out of the cafeteria, when the shooting began, they just ran out, that there was, as they described it, a stampede to get out and that once they got outside, there was more stampede because there was some rumors that one of the gunmen, at least, had gotten out, and they were trying to get away from him. People were literally running for their lives.
LIN: OK. Genevieve Beauchemin, thank you very much, reporting from the scene of Montreal affiliate CFCF.
On the telephone with me right now, still, Mike Brooks, a security analyst, very familiar with situations like this. He's worked in law enforcement all of his life.
Mike, in hearing what Genevieve has said from the scene, it sounds like it happened in the cafeteria. It happened in the lunch hour. OK, the lunchtime, the lunch period, where it would be crowded. She described a scene of utter chaos as even students who were the in the atrium above the cafeteria looked down and saw these gunmen open fire.
Mike, how quick do you think the police response was to a situation like this? As soon as they got the call? Because it's in an urban area here.
BROOKS: Absolutely, and they were probably there very quickly, and we heard the one witness talk about the one witness account that the girl looked down from the atrium. She saw the gunmen and she saw the police and heard more shots. So that kind of coincides with what we're hearing about one report that the police did shoot one of the gunmen. So -- but again, that's just one witness's account.
But the police should have gotten there fairly quickly, and it sounds like they have. And, you know, law enforcement officers, no matter where you are -- in Montreal, here in the United States -- as soon as they hear of shots fired on any kind of campus, whether it be a middle school, high school or college, they are going to step it up a little bit, you know, especially after Columbine.
Everybody knows, you know, and especially they're aware of what time it was. And these officers responding there, you know, knew what they could be confronted with.
And many departments have had special training since Columbine on responding to situations like this where they'll actually have a response training where they will try to go in with at least three officers to cover at least three of their flanks when they're going in, because if you're heading into a school, Carol, and there's a lot of hallways, a lot of, you know, atriums, those kind of things. And you kind of want to try to cover 360 degrees, especially when you know that there have been shots fired and you're going into such a volatile situation.
LIN: Mike, one of our editorial producers, who is Canadian, sent me this note reminding me of the -- what they call the Montreal Massacre. It was a school shooting December 6th, 1989, one of the biggest mass murders in Canadian history where a gunman opened fire on female engineering students. He targeted all women and was angry because he didn't get accepted into that school of engineering.
You know, you've got to ask, when you see a situation like this, when you hear of three or four people opening fire on a crowd of innocent students, why? Why would somebody do this?
BROOKS: You know, that remains to be seen. And I'm sure that after all this unravels, that we will have an answer. You know, they had the description of one, dressed all in black with the mohawk, you know, if that's an accurate description.
You know, the criminal mind, Carol -- you know, people have studied the criminal mind for years, and what motivates people to do this. Sometimes it's simple -- you know, not really simple, I don't mean to downplay it -- as being rejected from a school like the massacre in 1989 in Montreal, and it could be someone just thinking, where is a large concentration of students going to be?
Did they go to this school? What was their beef? Was somebody picked on? We saw that -- we've seen that in a number -- in some of the high school shootings here in the United States. Just yesterday, I believe it was, in California at high school where there was a lockdown where they found an assault weapon in a knapsack full of guns.
You know, we find this early, sometimes early on in the school year. And, you know, why it happens, we never know. But I'm sure that after all this unravels, they'll be able to find out what the motive was of these gunmen or single person or multiple gunmen going into this school and opening fire on innocent people like this.
LIN: All right. We're talking with Mike Brooks, who's a security analyst, has been in similar situations here, worked for law enforcement his whole life. As we watch these pictures come into the CNN Center, breaking news out of Montreal, Canada, as gunmen open fire on the Dawson College campus.
Right now there is a door to door search in a very large campus building as police are trying to secure that campus, trying to find out if there are any more gunmen on the loose.
More details coming back to the CNN NEWSROOM. Stay right there. We're going to be right back.
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LIN: Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM. We have got a breaking story out of Montreal, Canada, as a shooting went down at the Dawson College in downtown Montreal. Police right now doing a door to door search for any more gunmen. Canadian reports say that two gunmen have been killed. One committed suicide -- actually one shot by police. And a search is underway for any more suspects.
As you see, students fleeing that building. This is an ongoing investigation, and those eyewitnesses are going to be critical to this investigation. Just a short time ago, I spoke with a CFCF local Montreal affiliate reporter who spoke with a first-year student about what he saw.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GENEVIEVE BEAUCHEMIN, CFCF REPORTER: Well, a lot of them are still very, very shaken up. And I was talking to -- just listening to a student here who was telling me the story of how she was in a classroom right nearby. Tell me about that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were just sitting in class and we were listening to the teacher, and we heard guns going off. And then we looked outside, and everyone was screaming and crying. And there were people that got shot that were running away. And then our teacher left, and he came back, and he said that the gunmen were inside, and we had to leave. And we all had to run. And then we just -- we ran outside. We just have to stand out here.
BEAUCHEMIN: You said that you saw some people who had been shot?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. One person was shot in the leg and was running across the street, and somebody was helping him run across the street. Somebody was shot in the stomach and was sitting on the sidewalk. Somebody -- some girl was shot and she was lying down, and she moved her head up to look, and she lied back down again. And she'd look up again and lie back down, and then we all had to leave.
BEAUCHEMIN: Tell me about how people were feeling, what people were saying. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we didn't believe it. We just -- everyone was on their cell phone calling, saying somebody got shot! Somebody got shot! And everyone was just trying to run away, and we couldn't leave because it was blocked in the hall.
BEAUCHEMIN: And how did your teacher react? What did he tell you? He told you to leave?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He left, and then when he came back, he said that the gunmen were inside, and we had to leave right away. We had no choice. We had to run.
BEAUCHEMIN: Tell me about sort of -- did you call home? Tell me about what happened after.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't have a cell phone, so I couldn't find anyone that I knew. So I just asked random people if I could borrow their cell phone, and I couldn't get ahold of anyone because everyone was on their cell phone trying to catch somebody to tell them what happened.
BEAUCHEMIN: What year are you in at the college?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my first year.
BEAUCHEMIN: So you've started just a few weeks ago.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Four weeks ago.
BEAUCHEMIN: So what do you think of this whole situation? What are your feelings here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honestly, I'm terrified. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. You don't expect it. It was so unexpected. It's something you don't think would happen. But when it does, you have no idea how to react. Your animal instinct is to run, and that's what everyone did.
BEAUCHEMIN: Did you see anybody who got hurt as people were trying to run away? Were people sort of crushed? Describe the scene a little more.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were -- when I was -- I think we were -- we were on the third floor. And so we were -- because we were right outside, we were one of the first people, I think, to know. And so in the staircase, everyone was just trying to get out as fast as possible. So there was a lot of pushing and a lot of kicking, but I think most of the people got out OK.
BEAUCHEMIN: I tell you, we were hearing reports that there would have been four people who were killed and 16 people injured. Does that seem like it's a likely number to you, with the number of gunshots you heard?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I was -- when we were in class, just outside, we heard seven. And that was just outside. And then they came inside, so it's more than likely that a lot of people were hurt.
BEAUCHEMIN: I also have another student here ...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: These eyewitnesses accounts are going to be critical to the police investigation. We're seeing several of those eyewitness accounts out of the wire services in Canada. Students saying that they heard something like 20 gunshots, that they saw four gunmen, eyewitness accounts telling Genevieve Beauchemin, the reporter that you just saw there, that one of the gunmen was dressed in black, had a mohawk.
But a lot of things being said in the heat of the moment, so we're trying to nail down those details as police right now on that college campus going door to door in each and every classroom around that school cafeteria where this shooting apparently took place, trying to see if there are any more gunmen on the loose. So far Canadian networks reporting two that gunmen have been killed.
We've got much more straight ahead, including the international perspective right here at CNN. Several Canadians on staff, Ali Velshi one of them. He's going to be joining me with his perspective on that college campus.
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