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Oregon Mall Shooting Leaves Three Dead; North Korea Launches Long-Range Rocket; American Detained In North Korea; Branson On Getting High; Suspect Wore Ammo Vest, Hockey Mask; Oregon Mall Shooting Press Conference

Aired December 12, 2012 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: But up first, the latest on the terror that happened in an Oregon mall that was packed with holiday shoppers. We're waiting for an update from police on the shooting that left three people dead, including the gunman. A news conference scheduled to begin any minute now. We're going to bring it to you live.

Now, police evacuated these terrified shoppers from the mall. This is after a man opened fire. Witnesses say he fired at least 20 shots as he worked his way across the mall. We talked with a Macy's employee who actually saw this gunman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AUSTIN PATTY: So, I was like, oh, my gosh. And at that point, I was kind of -- I was in such shock where I kind of just stood there. And then as I stood there in shock, like, time slowed down and everything -- everything just got slow. And after that, all I heard was I am the shooter, and then shots rang out, five, six shots. By that time, I hit the floor and I just ran out and told -- started telling everyone and anyone I saw, there's a shooting going on. Don't go in there. Pack your kids, your family, and let's get out of here, you know. I don't know what could happen. It was -- it was scary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Dan Simon, he is live outside that mall near Portland. Dan, what do we expect to hear from this news conference just minutes away?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're expecting authorities to publicly identify the shooter for the very first time. All we know, at this point, is he is in his early 20s. We don't have a motive. We know that the shooting was apparently random. He didn't target anyone in particular. He came in yesterday 3:30 in the afternoon into the Macy's store on the second floor of the mall, sprinted towards the food court area, and that's where the shots rang out. There was pandemonium inside the mall, as you might expect, 10,000 shoppers at the time. We can tell you that the mall is closed today. Obviously, not ideal during the middle of this holiday shopping season but something that obviously needs to occur.

We also understand that authorities will release the names of the two people who died during the attack. Both adults, one male, one female. And that news conference coming up in just a few minutes.

In terms of the details of what happened, --

MALVEAUX: Yes.

SIMON: -- there was a mall Santa who was here. He ducked to the floor. He was taking pictures with children at the time. And I want you to listen now to one witness in the mall who described the scene this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People started hiding behind counters and eventually everybody went to the middle of Sears and -- on top of the escalators where -- you know, away from all the entrances and everybody could get together and sit there. And we actually were watching the news as it was happening on the T.V. inside the entertainment center.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: You know, Suzanne, I told you about the mall being closed today. I want to show you something that's kind of interesting. You see all the cars in the parking lot.

MALVEAUX: Yes.

SIMON: It's not because these folks are here. It's because when this happened, people dropped their belongings and ran. So, there are purses, their bags, their car keys inside that mall. And at some point, perhaps during this news conference, they'll explain the process for shoppers to come back and retrieve their belongings -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: And, Dan, I understand, not only two victims were killed, there was also a woman who was wounded. Do we know anything about her or her condition today?

SIMON: Right. Well, her name has been released on social media. We're relate -- we're waiting for authorities to publicly release her name. She is a 15-year-old girl. She took a shot in the chest. Apparently, she had some surgery but is in stable condition, so she is expected to survive. So, that's one good piece -- one good piece of news -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right. Dan, give us the details when the press conference happens and the new information that you learn as soon as you get it. Appreciate it.

The U.S. is now reacting to an extremely provocative move by North Korea. Today, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket defying the U.S. and other nations that called on North Korea to cancel the launch. This is animation of how the rocket looks soaring into space. And a U.S. official confirming that the object North Korea launched is in orbit. North Korea says it is a scientific satellite, but the U.S. believes that the launch is a cover for testing ballistic missile technology. I want to bring in our Chris Lawrence from the Pentagon to talk about what does this mean here? What is the significance of this launch?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Suzanne, basically, it puts North Korea one step closer to developing a long-range missile that could one day carry a nuclear warhead. They have missiles that conceivably have a range to hit Alaska or even U.S. bases in Hawaii. But U.S. officials I've been speaking with say there is still a gap in order to try to marry their nuclear program with the missile, even though it was successful in this particular test, because they would still have to try to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to go on top of the missile. They've had no real success with testing a heat shield to get it back into the atmosphere once it leaves and also working on accuracy issues to be sure that they could actually hit what they were aiming at.

MALVEAUX: I hear that the secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, is talking about the concern about this launch. What are the options here that he is suggesting in response to this?

LAWRENCE: Well, this is going beyond secretary Panetta. This is going to go all the way up to the White House. It somewhat calls into question the warnings and the sanctions that the Obama administration has already put out there on North Korea. It calls into question just how effective they have been. A U.S. official said they had planned to go to the United Nations which met today to try to get strong wording on condemning this launch. But even the threat of additional sanctions on North Korea, it really remains to be seen, you know, how much more you could sanction the country which is already very isolated, especially if you don't have the full backing of a country like China or Russia.

MALVEAUX: All right. Chris, thank you, appreciate it.

We learned today that there's an American citizen who's been detained in North Korea for more than a month now. He's being identified as tour operator Kenneth Bay. South Korean newspapers, they say Bay was detained after crossing into the country with a small group of tourists. Now, one of the tourists reportedly had sensitive information on a computer hard drive, so a U.S. official tells CNN they do not believe that Bay is being mistreated by the North Koreans. Still a lot of questions on that story.

Sir Richard Branson, he doesn't sit on ideas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(on camera): Are you still intent on going to space and leading space tourism? When is that happening?

RICHARD BRANSON: I just -- I just said I wanted to get high, hadn't I?

MALVEAUX: You want to get high, real high.

BRANSON: I want to get real high. Yes, I mean, we're very, very close.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: I talk with Branson about his latest mission, plus he's weighing in on the war on drugs and politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: We're going to go to a press conference. This is more information, updated information, on the Oregon mall shooting that took place yesterday. We are listening to Craig Roberts of Clackamas County. He is the sheriff there. Let's listen in.

CRAIG ROBERTS, SHERIFF, CLACKAMAS COUNTY, OREGON: Next, I want to describe to you how this event unfolded. At this time, we're prepared to release identities of the two individuals killed in the attack and they are Cindy Ann Yule, she's 54 years of age from northeast Portland, and Steven Matthew Forsyth, age 45 of Westland. We're listening to Craig Roberts, the sheriff here. The third victim who is now listed at serious condition at OHSU is a juvenile female named Kristina Shevchenko. In addition, we're now able to share the identity of the suspect in this case, and his name is Jacob Tyler Roberts. He was born March 16, 1990.

Based on all the evidence that we've gathered so far, it appears that he did die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. We're also prepared to release additional information about the suspect. During this attack, he was armed with an A.R. 15 semi-automatic rifle. The rifle was stolen yesterday from a person known to the suspect. At the time of the attack, he was wearing a load-bearing vest, not a bulletproof vest, that was earlier reported by some outlets. He was also wearing a hockey-style face mask, and we've not yet been able to establish how many shots were fired during the attack, although we believe he was carrying several fully loaded magazines.

At this time, we do not understand the motive of this attack, except to say there's no apparent relationship he between the suspect and his victims. After we identified the suspect, we executed a search warrant at his home which is located at 7324 Southeast 84th Avenue in Portland. We also conducted a search warrant of his vehicle which was a 1996 Volkswagen Jetta found at the Clackamas town center parking lot. Now, to protect the integrity of the investigation, we're not going to release the results of the search warrant at this particular time.

Next, I want to describe to you how this event unfolded. At 3:29 p.m. we received multiple 911 calls reporting that we had an active shooter at the mall. Our first unit arrived one minute later at 3:30 p.m. Now, once on scene, officers initiate an active shooter protocol. Now, that's a technique that's developed to deal with precisely this type of threat. Law enforcement has learned from past tragedies throughout this country that we can't wait for a SWAT teams and teams need to deploy immediately. So, we trained and equipped each of our individual officers to form up in teams as they arrive and move immediately into engaging the threat wherever it might be. Now, this involves officers from different agencies being thrown together on a short notice, but everyone did an absolutely amazing job. I want to say that we were also well prepared for this incident, because we had practice in active shooter techniques at the Clackamas town center this past year, practiced just this -- for this type of situation.

And now, what I want to do is show you how we believe the suspect moved throughout during this incident. So, from the information that we have at this time, the suspect pulled his vehicle in front of Macy's, parked his car, exited, and moved in a rapid manner toward the food court. A lot of folks reported that he was running, moving quickly, left his car, opened fire in this general area. He ended up striking two victims that both died of their injuries. There were some medical staff and other people that rendered aid.

Following this, the individual fled down this -- along this corridor out, down a back hallway down to some stairs which is actually on the upper level. He came down the stairs to the lower level. In fact, in this corner is where he shot himself. Now, one of the things that -- we located a victim that the -- was transported to OHSU, this is her. We believe she was up in this area but was able to come out through the front Macy's, work her way down to near REI. That's where law enforcement officers met with her and she was subsequently transported.

Over the past 18 hours, many people have asked me, you know, why were there so few victims during this incident? Well, first of all, just to make this really clear, with two people killed and a third critically injured, all of us have to recognize that this was a heart-breaking tragedy by any standard. And many, many people will be affected by this terrible act of violence every day for the rest of their lives, and we should keep them in our thoughts and prayers.

On the other hand, I think we all need to be very thankful that this incident wasn't much worse. And I believe it's a combination of factors -- several factors that led to this outcome. And I want to quickly go over those.

One, based on the evidence we obtained, it appears that the suspect's rifle did jam while he was attacking individuals in the food court. However, he was able to get the gun working again. Clackamas Town Center had a lockdown procedure for this type of incident, and they did a great job in moving (ph) in that program. Three, a large number of police officers arrived on the scene very rapidly, curtailing the suspect's ability to move around the mall. And, fourth, 10,000 people in the mall, at one time, kept a level head, they got themselves out of the mall, they helped others get out and there are just a number of heroes that took the time to help people get out, whether it's in a wheelchair, a child. They helped a lot of people get out of that, and it was really about a whole group of people coming together to make a difference. So taking together these four factors limited the suspect's access to potential victims and gave him less time to harm others.

I'd like to close by thanking all of our local, state and federal law enforcement partners for their extraordinary efforts. Several neighboring jurisdictions said, as you might have heard, they said, send everybody. And they were talking about all the patrol officers for their small city. Just send them out here to help.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: You're listening to the details unfolding at this mall shooting. We have learned about the victims. A 54-year-old woman, a 45-year-old man who had been killed in this mall shooting. A 15-year-old girl who is in stable condition who was wounded.

We have the identity of the alleged shooter as well, Jacob Tyler Roberts of Portland, Oregon, 22 years old, who the sheriff says shot himself. It's described that he entered the mall with an A-15 rifle. That it was loaded. That he was wearing an ammo vest, as well as a kind of hockey-style face mask. That he entered -- he went from Macy's and through the food court. He went shooting, on a shooting rampage. We understand that the only reason why more people were not killed was that his rifle jammed during the attack. There were a lot of police officers that were on the scene immediately. And as the sheriff said, there were 10,000 people who were in that mall at the time of the shooting who managed to get out safely and peacefully and kept a cool head as this shooting occurred.

But we now have the identification of the shooter, as well as the victims, and we have learned that the shooter had shot himself and that there were several factors and reasons why it was that this was not even more tragic and more dire in this mall shooting that happened in Oregon yesterday.

We're going to continue to follow this story as we get more developments throughout the morning and throughout the day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was inside applying for a job and the next thing I know, I see a few people running into Sears and away from the middle of the mall saying that they heard shots and that there's a shooting going on. I wasn't sure if it was for real at first but -- until I seen the reactions on their faces that they were serious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Billionaire businessman Richard Branson thrilled he's got a new partner in the skies. Delta Airlines buying a 49 percent stake in Branson's Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Now, Singapore Airlines owned the stake before. The $360 million deal will give Delta a bigger share of the New York-to-London flights. It's an extremely busy and profitable route. Branson tweeted the partnership will allow Virgin Atlantic to give British Airways and American Airlines a real run for their money.

Richard Branson not afraid to take on the completion or a controversial issue, including the legalization of drugs, which he supports. Well, I asked him about the recent votes in Colorado and Washington, states that legalized marijuana use. Here's how he weighed in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: You made some news about two states that are legalizing marijuana. You believe that this eventually is inevitable, that it's going to happen. Tell me why.

RICHARD BRANSON, FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN, VIRGIN GROUP: Well, I'm part of Global Commission of Drugs. We spent two years examining the war on drugs. It's been absolutely apparent to us that in the 50 years since the United Nations got together to try to, you know, create this war that it's failed. And so what the commission is saying is, you know, please try different approaches. And the -- and on an immediate basis, please stop locking up our children, our brothers and sisters. That's not the way to help them. If they have a drug problem, put them, you know, put them through drug rehabilitation, get them well again. And countries that are doing that are having tremendous success in reducing the problem.

MALVEAUX: But you have a new president in Mexico now who is saying he's willing to look at different solutions here. And there's a lot of bloodshed, the cartels. It's a very bloody business. Legalization, you believe, is the answer? That that's going to turn the violence into something that's not as chaotic, not as violent?

BRANSON: Well, let's switch the clock back to prohibition of alcohol. When alcohol was prohibited in America, Al Capone and the gangsters existed. And all that money went into the underworld. People were being arrested for drinking alcohol. They were being put in prison. And the United States realized that that was not a sensible option. And the moment they legalized it, they -- the taxes went into health, into education. You know, people stopped getting arrested and put in prison. The underworld went away.

And, you know, I think the Global Drug Commission believes that if you take the same approach to say something like marijuana, it's likely to work. And what they're saying is that, you know, let certain states experiment with it. Let's see what happens. But we don't believe that, you know, that the health issues of the public will be any worse than they currently are because, you know, people can readily get marijuana anyway -- almost anywhere.

MALVEAUX: Let's talk about your expertise in space. What is your next big adventure? Are you still intent on going to space and leading space tourism? When is that happening?

BRANSON: (INAUDIBLE) want to get high, haven't I?

MALVEAUX: You want to get high. Real high.

BRANSON: I want to get real high. Yes, I mean, we're very, very close now. So --

MALVEAUX: How close? What do you mean by real close?

BRANSON: I would be disappointed if we don't go to space next year. So we're that close. And we're in the, you know, the spaceships are finished now. The motherships are finished. The space board in New Mexico is beautiful, all finished, ready to go. So we're just finishing our rocket tests. And, you know, we -- you know, obviously we've got to do lots of rocket tests before we send people up there. But I would say by the end of next year we should be ready to go.

MALVEAUX: And where is the goal? Where is the mission? Will it take you to the moon? Is that the idea?

BRANSON: Well, there's no limit to the sky, and we're going to start with sub orbital flights. Then we'll go to orbital flights. Then we'll go to deep exploration flights. I'm sure we'll drop by the moon on the way. And --

MALVEAUX: You're very optimistic.

BRANSON: Well, if you don't dream, you don't achieve anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: For more of my interview, visit cnn.com/suzanne.

I also got a chance to sit down with CNN founder Ted Turner. We talked about everything from nuclear Iran to the fiscal cliff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: You're a successful person. You have many different ventures. Do you think you should pay more as a wealthy American? Do you think you should pay more taxes?

TED TURNER, FOUNDER, CNN: Yes.

MALVEAUX: How much?

TURNER: You know, whatever's reasonable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: That interview airing this time tomorrow right here on CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)