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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Shooting at Colorado's Arapahoe High School

Aired December 13, 2013 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go right now to Ana Cabrera. She's a CNN reporter in Colorado.

Ana, the police making several announcements in that press conference. Sum it up for us, if you would.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, the most important information right now, the suspect, Jake, in this case is deceased.

Sheriff Grayson Robinson is saying that they believe that he is dead from a self-inflicted wound of some sort. There were two other students who have been transported to the hospital, one with a gunshot wound and, as he describes, transported in serious condition to the hospital, and a second student who they found as they were trying to get the school all cleared who had a minor wound, as he described it. He could not specify if that was a gunshot wound.

Here's what we know led up to this situation. It sounds like there was a teacher inside the school, again, according to Sheriff Grayson Robinson, that entered the school, had identified a specific teacher that he was looking for who he was targeting. And that teacher was able to exit the school safely.

There was another student, the sheriff says, who confronted the student who had entered with a gun, again, targeting a teacher, and that student who confronted the armed suspect was shot. Again, we do not know any details on his condition, other than -- his or her condition, I should say -- other than that student was transported to the hospital in believed to be serious condition at this time.

Immediately, the police responded to what they call an active shooter situation. So, they have trained particularly for this type of situation following the Columbine shooting, of course, in Littleton back in 1999.

There was the Platte Canyon High School shooting also in Colorado, in Bailey, Colorado, in 2006. And so the local law enforcement and state law enforcement have trained very, very diligently since those two incidents to make sure that they are able to respond to a situation like this. And so they immediately put all the students on sort of a lockdown procedure, made sure they were safe inside the classrooms, and they quickly went in and worked to clear the school.

That's when they found the suspect, believed to be the shooter in this case, and believed to be the only suspect at this time, and he was already deceased. We do not have the identities yet of either the suspect or the students who were injured in this case. At this point, they're working, it sounds like, to notify family members first. So we will work to get that information here shortly, hopefully.

We have confirmed all the students involved, including the suspect and the two who were injured, are students at Arapahoe High School. Of course, Arapahoe High School is in Littleton. It is part of the Littleton Public School District, as opposed to the school district in which Columbine High School was involved in.

But, of course, the community of Littleton has been through this before, a very scary situation and still an active situation, as the investigation is just now really getting under way -- Jake.

TAPPER: Ana Cabrera, tell us what you would -- in addition to Arapahoe High School being roughly eight miles away from Columbine, the site of the tragic shooting 14 years ago, tell us what you can about Arapahoe High School, about Littleton County.

CABRERA: Well, Arapahoe High School is one of three high schools within the Littleton Public School District.

Littleton's a fairly large community, a large area, a couple thousand students at Arapahoe High School. And, again, Columbine High School, while it's in Littleton, is actually part of the Jefferson County School District. So there is separation by geography, as well as separation by school district.

Again, this is a suburb of Denver. Littleton, everybody knows because of the Columbine shooting, but it's typically a very peaceful, kind of typical suburban community. It's not a place known to have a lot of crime. Certainly, Columbine has risen everybody's awareness to these types of situations, being able to have them happen absolutely anywhere, and so certainly unexpected in this type of an area, to say the very least.

TAPPER: All right, Ana Cabrera on her way to the site of the shooting in Arapahoe High School, we will come check back with you in a bit.

Let's dip in right now to local coverage with CNN affiliate KCNC.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... panicked state just wanting to reunite with their child. And you can understand exactly why, being a parent yourself, Alan.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's Karen now here in the newsroom with you right now.

And looking at all the families out there and seeing how difficult this is, it's great to see these families now getting together with their students, and they get to see them and hold them and touch them and know that their students are OK. And we are definitely going to stay on top of the one student that we know was taken to the hospital with critical injuries. We are going to hear more on that coming up.

TAPPER: Let's bring in our guests right now, CNN's own Tom Foreman.

And also, we have Chris Voss, former lead international kidnapping negotiator with the FBI and CEO of the Black Swan Group.

I want to start with you, Chris.

One of the interesting things that we heard the sheriff say, Sheriff Grayson Robinson, is that they are not going to rule out that there are other suspects until there is no chance left, and we saw what are -- can only be described as haunting and sad images of all of these kids, lines of teenagers, walking out of the school with their hands in the air, hands in the air, being instructed by law enforcement, put your hands in the air, and then being patted down so they could be eliminated as potential suspects.

This is the new normal.

CHRIS VOSS, FORMER FBI HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: Right. Unfortunately, that's exactly it. It's a new normal.

We have gotten to the point where they understand how to deal with this kind of threat both quickly and then methodically following right on. They have the active shooter protocols to go in and neutralize the threat as quickly as they possibly can. And then in the event there was somebody with the shooter that maybe got cold feet at the last moment, somehow supported him in some way and intermingled in with the rest of the student population, they will check everyone until they make sure that everyone is safe.

TAPPER: And what kind of neighborhood is this, Tom? You lived in Colorado for several years. Tell us about the area of Arapahoe High School, of Littleton County.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the kind of place where people move when they want to have a peaceful, lovely life. It is a beautiful, beautiful place. You can see the Rocky Mountains nearby. It's full of soccer games on Saturday mornings and swim meets and it's just a lovely, lovely place for people to live.

We lived I would guess probably 10 miles from Arapahoe High School, four miles from Columbine High School. And I will say, speaking to what you said a minute ago, when we talk about active shooter situations these days, because of what happened at Columbine, because -- and we had friends in Columbine High School when it happened, because of the overall difficulty of dealing with that and the realization, what you have now is a whole suite of steps that go into place.

It's not just a matter of dealing with the shooter. You watch the parents reuniting with kids. There are protocols for making that happen, to end the chaos. There are protocols for going through the school, which will take a long time, because think about how big a high school is. At Columbine High School, one of the things the officers told me afterward which was riveting to hear, naturally, people hear gunshots, they panic and hide.

Officers would think they had cleared a hallway, they would go down the hallway and suddenly behind them, out of lockers, out of closets, out of ceilings, students started emerging who had hidden. And that was terrifying for officers because they are trying to spot a gunman and suddenly saying they're we're in a very fluid environment. They have practiced these protocols a great deal. And that's what we're seeing right now.

TAPPER: And speaking of protocols, one of the other things I saw, a "Denver Post" reporter who was on the ground at the time, Chris, snapping photographs of teachers writing down the names of students who were outside, taking attendance, making sure that they knew who was outside the school.

One of the other interesting lessons -- and I'm not sure if it's post- Columbine or more recent than that -- is the idea that law enforcement no longer hangs outside and waits when it comes to these shooting situations. The protocol now for law enforcement, go in. Explain.

VOSS: Right.

Well, the surrounding and call-out method changed as soon as they found out that the threat was ongoing and that they needed to get inside and neutralize it. There has always been an old saying in law enforcement that you don't negotiate a gunfight.

So, if it's still a gunfight and they need a lethal response, deadly force, they know now that they need to get inside and deal with it.

TAPPER: When did that change? Was that post-Columbine that they decided they couldn't just wait outside and talk to the suspects and negotiate with them, because more people would likely be killed?

VOSS: Well, Columbine was part of it. There have been a number of international terrorist incidents in some places, a school, and terrorism as well where they found out they needed to get inside and eliminate the threat as early as they possibly could. So it's been a changing tactical dynamic in a lot of different parts of the world.

TAPPER: When you heard the description from Ana Cabrera about what happened, about a student walking into the school, seeking a teacher, he had a gun, he or she had a gun -- actually, I'm going to interrupt myself because we're going to go back to KCNC. They are talking to witnesses right now.

Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she said that there was a shooting at Arapahoe High School and that I needed to find out if he was OK, and so I basically hung up on her and began texting my son to see if I could get any communication. And shortly thereafter, he did text back and say that he was OK.

REPORTER: And what did he tell you about what he knows of what happened inside there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just said that -- he said that there was a gunman and that they were shooting and that they were on lockdown right at that time, and -- but he said that he was OK at that moment. REPORTER: As a parent, they don't give you a manual, a handbook, on how to handle something like this, right? What do you say to your child? What do you say to your son? What it's going to be like when you reunite with him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to hug him like crazy.

REPORTER: Makes you think about probably all the things you still want to do with your son and how blessed you are right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It very much brings it to the forefront, yes.

REPORTER: And now I'm standing also with another parent who says thankfully her son got suspended yesterday and was not inside the school. Sometimes, it's not a good thing, but in this case you're probably thankful he wasn't inside.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not mad anymore that he was suspended. So, yes. My other son doesn't go to this school, but he came to check on his friends and first thing I did was hug him, because no matter how much you fight and argue with your teenage son, you love them more than anything and all I want to do right now is hug these boys and hug the girls that I know that are in that school and give the parents support until they find their kids.

REPORTER: We hear so much about -- obviously, this is -- this opens up a wound for us here in Colorado because of Columbine, because of Chuck E. Cheese. And there's been so many other shootings across the country. For you as parents, this is really personal for you now. This is your child's high school.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.

My husband was a freshman at Columbine, so he's freaking out right now. It's bringing back memories of that. And, yes, it's just way too close to home. It's not -- this is not fun at all.

REPORTER: And what does the conversation look like tonight with your child? What does it sound like?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm just going to tell them how much I love them and how much I treasure them and nothing in this world could be this bad for something this horrible to happen, ever.

REPORTER: Thank you, ladies, for your time. I know this is a tough day. And you are going to hopefully see your kids soon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

REPORTER: Well, you heard it right there.

This is just again one of those things you never -- you never know how to prepare as a parent for a situation like this. You never know how to prepare as a student for a situation like this. But, unfortunately, here in Colorado, it seems like our police force, our officers know how to deal with this incredibly well because of the amount of times that we have had to deal with it, all the way going back to -- you remember the sheriff talking about the active shooter method.

That was actually born out of Columbine and the different circumstances that happened with officers waiting to go into the school, but really is something that now is employed across the country in every single police department when situations like this happen.

We have some of the best out here, some of the best SWAT officers, some of the best in the business who know how to handle these situations, and clearly they did today by going in there and securing the school the way that they did -- Karen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, Jennifer, they didn't waste any time. You heard the sheriff talking earlier that within 15 minutes of the call of the shooting coming out, they were inside that school making sure that all their students were on their way out and they had already -- within 15 minutes, the sheriff said, they had come in contact with the shooter who had shot himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So they quickly were able to get the situation on hand.

Taking a live picture now from Copter 4. You can see all the students that have been evacuated from Arapahoe High School walking along on the track. They are now going to load them up, move them off of that area and take them over to the Shepherd of the Hills Church. It's on University, where they can be reunited with their parents.

You just heard Jennifer talking with a couple parents. We know many of you out there rushed to the scene, of course, to be with your students, to be with your children, to make sure they are OK. You want to get there as soon as you can to make sure that no harm is being done to your loved one or to your friends as well.

Taking a look at those kids as they walk through. Earlier, each of those students were patted down making sure that none of them had any weapons on them. The sheriff believes they have the shooter. The shooter took his own life. They believe that is the only person, but they are not taking any chances. They are going to continue to scour the perimeter of the school, inside the school, around the school, everything they can in that area, and to talk with the victims, the shooting person, the shooting suspect.

They are going to talk with that shooter's parents, find out who that person's friends are, talk to them as well, continue this communication, and make sure they have a better idea of how this unfolded, possibly maybe why this unfolded. We do know that the shooter...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we were just following procedure.

REPORTER: OK. And tell me, procedure -- firstly, how did you know it was a gunshot? I know that's kind of a strange question. How did you know it was a gunshot? And what was the procedure that you all did?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just -- we didn't really know it was a gunshot, but we heard the repetition so we just thought we might as well take a procedure, and we turned off the lights and locked the door, so they can't get in, and then we make sure that if we hear anything or do anything, we won't go out until the SWAT team comes and opens the door.

REPORTER: How many students were you with when you locked the door and turned the lights off?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About like 26, 27.

REPORTER: Can you tell me about that moment with all those students? You're trying to be quiet. Are people talking? What's the sense?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our teacher was trying to calm us down and a couple people were crying. And we were just all in the moment. We couldn't really think at all.

REPORTER: What goes through your mind as you're living this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just, am I going to get out? If I do, what will happen afterwards?

REPORTER: And, Mrs. Powers, talk about what you heard, what you saw when you first heard from your son.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was on a conference call. And I actually got texted by one of my co-workers that said there was a shooting. And they immediately said two people had been shot, but I literally dropped all my devices, grabbed my keys and got in the car and drove here. I live in Cherry Creek.

And I was bawling the whole way here. I didn't actually get any communication from the school on my phone, which made me more nervous. And then I kept texting my son, but he didn't respond. So you keep thinking the worst. And then he finally was able to ping me on instant message and let me know that he was OK.

So, I frantically drove here, parked the car, ran to the yellow tape to get him.

REPORTER: Our Deb Takahara back at the studio has a question for you.

Go ahead, Deb.

DEBORAH TAKAHARA, KWGN ANCHOR: Yes, Justin, I just wanted you to ask him what the security measures are like there at Arapahoe High School when they go in every morning.

REPORTER: OK.

Can you talk about what you see on a daily basis in terms of the security here at Arapahoe High School?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's cameras around the school but -- and there's usually some security guards that walk around the lunch room and that's usually it. But there's probably other people -- REPORTER: Once you all locked down, what happened next? Because I know you guys said you turned the lights off, you were all sitting there, your teacher was trying to calm you. When did you get the green light that it was OK to leave?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The SWAT team knocked on our door and they had a key. They opened it and told us just to run down the hall or walk down the hallway and get out the door as quick as possible.

REPORTER: Did you see anything as you were running down the hallway?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. I didn't have a chance to see anything.

REPORTER: Supposedly the shooting happened near the library. Where was that in vicinity to where you were?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was about two hallways down. It was pretty close.

REPORTER: At this point we're hearing this may -- the motive may have been he was trying to go after a teacher. Are you hearing anything like that among your circle?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Mr. Murphy, the librarian, I heard, was the person he was going after.

REPORTER: And again, at this point, that's unconfirmed. We don't want to give too much information out until we get that from the sheriff.

How are you doing, I mean, having lived through this today?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm just glad to be here still with my mom.

REPORTER: Mom, how are you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm OK. Thank you. Hard to see this happening again. It's like you don't want us on the national news again for this kind of activity.

REPORTER: What's it like as a mom?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Frantic. It's horrible. You're super nervous. You're trying to get down here as fast as you can. So, he's OK. So --

REPORTER: What was it like to see him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was super happy. Yes. I saw all his classmates so I knew they were OK. It's a terrifying experience as a parent. I mean, it's the last thing you ever want to go through, especially here.

The one thing all of his classmates said to me was they had just talked about it being Friday the 13th, and then this happened like, what, two minutes after. It's just terrible to think this could happen in our city.

REPORTER: And one other question. I see you're visibly shaking. As you walk up the sidewalk you see parent after parent that are visibly shaken on the phone. They have not communicated with their son. What is that like?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, fortunately for communication, we can text and call each other. So, I called most of Colton's friends' parents and asked if I could pick them up at different locations. There are some kids at good shepherd and others at another local school.

So, for whatever reason his class was stuck at Burger King so they were the closest to the school which makes you even more nervous because they are still right here. But I think all the parents are doing the best they can obviously to get to their kids.

REPORTER: We appreciate both of your time help telling the story about what happened out here today. So, take care. Nice to meet you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

REPORTER: And, again, David, obviously a very, very difficult day for students like Colton and his parents. And again, a number of parents that are just ten feet --

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: I want to cut away from local coverage and bring in a witness, ninth grader Whitney Riley. We should note that Whitney's parents have given us permission to talk to her. Whitney, tell us what you saw and what you heard.

WHITNEY RILEY, NINTH GRADER (via telephone): So I was getting ready to grab my computer from my locker and then I had walked back, all the way back to a room called the study center where I do my homework and we were having fun and laughing, and then all of a sudden, we heard a really loud bang, and my teacher asked what it was. Then we heard two more and we all just got up and screamed and ran in a sprinkler system room.

TAPPER: So you heard three shots. Where were they coming from?

RILEY: It sounded like it was coming from the hall that was near us. Kind of like a B hall and S hall for south and central.

TAPPER: And did you stay in that sprinkler system area with your teacher and other students?

RILEY: Yes, we had like five students in one room with two other teachers and we were shaking, crying, we were freaking out. I had a girl biting my arm.

TAPPER: That must have been terrifying. What happened next?

RILEY: We stayed quiet and we heard a whole bunch of sounds. We heard people yelling. We heard walkie-talkies and we were hearing like police asked the shooter to drop the gun and put the gun down and hold his arms up. TAPPER: Did you hear another gunshot after that? Because we're told by the sheriff that they found the shooter -- they found him dead with what they described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Did you hear another gunshot?

RILEY: We did not hear another gunshot. They could have moved because the sound kept getting further away and sometimes they'd come closer. But after all that happened, we ended up evacuating as soon as we heard police yelling that, it was like we needed to get out.

TAPPER: How old are you? What grade are you in?

RILEY: I am in ninth grade. I just turned 15.

TAPPER: God. I'm so sorry you had to deal with this. Have you practiced for a situation like this before? Does the school have drills for situations like this?

RILEY: Yes. The school has drills for situations like this. I have never been in a situation like this but I have always like put myself in that situation, like when we were learning about the Vietnam War, I kind of put myself in a situation where I would see how it would feel to be shot and I didn't want to know how it felt because it scared me.

TAPPER: It scares everybody. What happened next? When did you leave the sprinkler room?

RILEY: It was about like 15, 20 minutes after. We kind of sat in there for a really long time and we were hesitant about our teacher opening the door, because we didn't know if they were yelling for us to get like out of the school or if it was the shooter who was like in the room. Because there was no window so we had no idea. But as soon as we started hearing screaming from other kids and we heard teachers say go that way, then we knew we need to get out.

TAPPER: So the teacher that was with you, it sounds like she did a good job keeping you guys safe and trying to keep you guys calm.

RILEY: Yes. They both did. One of them, you could tell he was scared, but he definitely smiled and told us that everything was OK.

TAPPER: We have seen images of your fellow students in line with your hands above your heads. Tell us about that. I assume that you're in some of those images.

RILEY: I have no idea what that's about, actually. I haven't seen any hands above heads or anything.

TAPPER: OK. Well, then how did you get out of the school? What happened next?

RILEY: So we opened the door to the study center again and we saw a whole bunch of kids running out of the door from the study center to outside. We started running down the stairs and I saw a kid being held up by a few other adults, and I figured that maybe he was injured. There was an ambulance right next to us and we were just running like crazy. They told us to run and don't stop. So we ran all the way to King Soopers.

TAPPER: We're told two of your fellow students, not including the shooter, were injured. Have you heard anything about these kids?

RILEY: Not really. I saw one of them that was injured, like I said, as I walked out, but I didn't see the other one. I didn't know two of them had gotten injured until I saw one of them, and then when I got to King Soopers, heard that two kids were shot and I just started crying. I couldn't -- I couldn't deal with it.

TAPPER: No, it's nothing you should ever have to deal with.

Your parents gave us permission to talk to you. Tell us about when you saw them again. Tell us about being reunited with them. Did that happen in the school parking lot? Did it happen at the local church, the Shepherd of the Hills Church? Where did you see them again?

RILEY: I was at the church. I was like running around like trying to keep calm, and then I had seen my dad and I was like having a panic attack, almost. Like I couldn't speak, I couldn't cry, and I was breathing really funny.

When I saw my dad, he dropped everything and screamed my name and hugged me. He just held me really tight and just like I was secure, I felt secure again.

TAPPER: It's a -- it must have been quite a hug.

RILEY: Um-hum.

TAPPER: Are your friends OK?

RILEY: Currently, yes. I've seen a lot of my friends and they seem OK. I'm still trying to find more of them. But they all seem okay.

TAPPER: So, you're 15. So you were 1 when Columbine happened.

RILEY: Yes.

TAPPER: But that's something that I know in many ways haunts your -- the area, that people talk about, the police train for it, schools are ready to make sure it doesn't happen again.

RILEY: Yes. I've been through that many times, because I also went to middle school at Deer Creek, so they used to train us for shootings like Columbine.

TAPPER: Whitney, thank you so much for talking to us. We are so grateful and glad that you're okay and you are a very, very brave young woman. Thank you so much.

RILEY: Thank you.

TAPPER: I'd like to go to a school security expert, Ken Trump. He's president of the National School Safety and Security Services.

Ken, what do you make of today's news?

KEN TRUMP, NATIONAL SCHOOL SAFETY AND SECURITY SERVICES (via telephone): Jake, I have been following along with you there at this breaking news. What we see are some very familiar things. The sheriff pointed out that the school, students locked down as directed. They didn't self-evacuate.

We know from looking at the Sandy Hook report that was released just a week or so ago that when the police from Newtown arrived on scene there were some questions as to why it took six minutes for them to get in. One of those issues was people self-evacuating throughout the area, putting themselves between the police and the school.

So, the schools follow the best practices in Colorado with lockdowns. Lockdowns work. They have been marginalized after Sandy Hook by some who have been advocating, giving real questionable advice about self- evacuating, teaching children and students to throw things at and attack heavily armed gunmen but it looks like as this unfolds, we will obviously find more in the coming hours, that they followed the procedures that were practiced and encouraged from Columbine just miles away from where they're at.

The challenges that you get are that you discovered in some of the recent interviews, with texting, social media, you get an onslaught of parents, understandably, as a parent myself, very emotional so schools need to have crisis communication plans. One parent mentioned that she did not get any information from the school. We do have schools with mass notification systems. There could be many reasons the school may have put it out and they just didn't get it but the parent concerns, how do you have staging areas.

You saw that when they did evacuate, they evacuated very controlled manner as you're showing the video of, with patting down, checking, verifying that each person coming out is not potentially another participant, another suspect, in this.

So, there are a lot of things --

TAPPER: Ken, I wanted to ask you about that. That's protocol now, to make sure that exiting children -- I understand it, I'm not being critical of it, but it is a rather stunning image to see all these kids who are terrified walking out with their hands up and then being patted down. That is now just protocol?

TRUMP: I'm with you, Jake. I'm a father of two young kids and as I watch that myself, I get the vision in my eyes of my kid possibly being in that position. It's dramatic but it is a safety issue for the children, for the officers, for the majority of kids that are going out.

The police coming in do not know who's involved. They don't know if they have one person or three or four. They are assessing this and they're trying to make sure they don't unintentionally let out someone who is part of a broader plan that they know nothing about and could cause more harm.

We know from Columbine that there were plans with explosives in the car outside of Columbine high school that fortunately, some of which did not detonate but it was part of the killers' plan at that time to cause additional harm. So, officers have a whole lot of dynamics to consider. Where are we evacuating kids to, are we checking each person, are we putting them anywhere close to vehicles that could contain explosives, who else is involved, are we being viewed from afar by other participants?

The reality is without being overly dramatic about this, is that the shooters in these incidents cannot be underestimated in terms of their sophistication, their advanced planning, and we have to be very cautious from a law enforcement end going in. The good news, Jake, is that it sounds like the school had plans.

The other thing is the sheriff mentioned, we talk a lot about the school resource officer on duty apparently was there, moved immediately in to neutralize the situation and having an officer on campus today, day-to-day basis, those police officers provide a preventive proactive wall and building relationships with kids. The majority of them will never deal with an active shooter but by gosh, when one happens, you're sure glad you had that police officer on campus.

TAPPER: All right. Kenneth Trump, thank you so much for your expertise -- an expert on school safety. We appreciate it.

We're going to take a very quick break. When we come back, we'll have more on this breaking story out of Arapahoe County, Colorado.

Thank so much you for being with us. This is CNN.

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