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At This Hour

Shooting at Canadian War Memorial, Parliament.

Aired October 22, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: So you're not seeing people out there on the streets so it look like to you, from your advantage point, that people are listening to the warnings given out by police to stay away as they apprehend two or three of the gunman who are believed to be involved in all of this?

STEVEN CHASE, JOURNALIST, GLOBE AND MAIL (voice-over): The way it works is Parliament Hill backs into a river. The other side is blocks and blocks of office buildings and police patrolling streets now ordering people inside. They're basically shouting at people and telling them to again inside.

WALKER: Indeed, people are listening. Have you heard from any witnesses on what exactly transpired this morning? This all happening before 10:00 and we are hearing that there were now numerous gunmen at the Canadian war memorial where at least one person was shot, according to witnesses, by a rifle. What are you hearing about what sparked this and how this transpired?

CHASE: I can tell you what happened after the war memorial. The war memorial is about a kilometer or so from Parliament Hill and after -- at about 9:50 in the morning, I talked to political staffers who'd come out centre block, the main block of Parliament Hill about a kilometer away from the war memorial, and at about 9:50 police came outside and ordered everyone to take cover. And this staffer works for the Democratic Party and said he saw a figure in his peripheral vision running into center block and the police chasing after him. He said what ensued about after that was maybe 30 shots. And following that, people were ordered off the Hill. And this took place on the Hill which happened at about 9:15 in the morning eastern time.

WALKER: So by most accounts we've been hearing throughout the program is dozens of shots heard outside and inside the building, cumulatively speaking.

I guess what's shocking about this, Steven, speaking with Josh Wingrove who's a journalist there on the ground who is currently on lockdown inside the main parliament building. He hasn't had any updates. They're being told to stay away from windows. He says there are more than a dozen people inside the room with him and he told me from the witnesses you talked to they say that at least one of the gunmen entered through the main door of the main parliament building, which is reserved for members of parliament. They typically have a badge to get through, however, there is no metal detector. But as we've been stressing throughout the past few minutes, the terror threat level in Canada was recently raised from low to medium. What did this terror -- what was the terror threat level supposed to do, because clearly the gunmen were able to get through a parliament building and begin shooting indiscriminately?

CHASE: Well, you've raised two separate issues. The threat level was raised from low to medium on Friday last week. This was before even the attack south of Montreal the other day. This threat level was raised last Friday. The threat level insisted it was not based on any specific threat, but on a general rise in background chatter among terrorist groups with al Qaeda and al Shabaab. They insisted there was not a direct threat.

In the case of Parliament Hill, there is metal detectors but members of parliament are allowed to do this directly. You can essentially make it inside if you rushed it the metal detectors are reserved for tourists.

WALKER: I want to stress again, the new information we were getting is there were numerous gunmen this morning at that war memorial where one person was shot and hit. Witnesses say that this person doesn't look very good. There are reports that this person may be a Canadian soldier. Are you hearing anything about how many gunmen were truly there at this war memorial and if this victim that we've confirmed, just one victim thus far, was targeted?

CHASE: I have not, no.

WALKER: OK. OK.

CHASE: There's now -- I see SWAT teams patrolling as well, people dressed in sort of tactical gear.

WALKER: That's what you're seeing right now?

CHASE: Yes.

WALKER: SWAT team dressed in tactical gear. You can see the live pictures here on the air as well. Lots of police swarming the area. This is obviously a frightening security situation, especially for the people who are on lockdown inside these parliament buildings and for people who are living and working near the downtown Ottawa area.

Steve Chase, appreciate your insight into what you've seen and what you've been hearing.

I want to bring back journalist Josh Wingrove. He is inside the parliament building. He was there when the first round of shooting took place, when the second round of shooting took place.

What's happening now and what are the people around you doing and saying?

WALKER: Josh Wingrove, can you hear me?

OK, looks like we lost Josh Wingrove. He is a journalist who is inside the main parliament building and he's been giving us a clear play by play of what's happening throughout the day. Let's recap what we know thus far and we've been getting a lot of new

information in. This all began just before 10:00 Wednesday morning from the reports that we're getting at the Canadian war memorial. The reports that we're hearing is that there were numerous gunmen -- this is from Ottawa police. Numerous gunmen, so more than one gunman at this war memorial. Witnesses say they saw a short man with long dark hair. We don't have a description on what the other quote/unquote, "gunman" looked like. But at least one of them, according to witnesses, there on the ground was holding a rifle and they say they heard four shots fired at this war memorial and that this victim was injured, this victim was hit.

By the way, I've -- this is new video inside the main parliament building. You can hear the gunshots being fired. Very dramatic video there. This video was just posted on YouTube. This is from earlier when these gunmen reportedly ran from the Canadian war memorial after shooting down at least one person and then ran into this main parliament building you see there.

And as we heard there Josh Wingrove, he heard a first round of shots going off. According to his reports, at least one of the gunmen entered through the main entrance of the main parliament building. And this is all happening on a Wednesday when the caucus meetings are taking place, so this is when a lot of members of parliament, or most of them, are present. Steven Harper, the Canadian prime minister, we understand has left the building safely. But what might be shocking to a lot of people is that this gunman was able to walk right in through the main entrance, which is typically reserved for the members of parliament, and just to start shooting indiscriminately. And we heard from Josh Wingrove that he did see one person on the ground slumped over and presumably deceased from what he was able to see.

We do have a witness on the line with us.

I'm sorry, Peter, tell me your name and what you saw.

PETER HENDERSON, WITNESS & BUSINESS JOURNALIST (voice-over): Hi. My name is Peter Henderson and I was right at the scene of one of the shootings this morning.

WALKER: OK, what scene were you at and what did you see?

HENDERSON: Well, right beside in downtown Ottawa right beside the parliament buildings there's a war memorial and I was locking my bike up right beside the war memorial when I heard four shots. We have a ceremonial honor guard of Canadian forces, troops who stand guard at the war memorial and I was looking my bike up. I heard four shots. From that direction I turned around and ran and I saw one of those soldiers laying on the ground.

WALKER: How do you know this person was a soldier?

HENDERSON: There's a ceremonial uniform they wear --

WALKER: Got it.

HENDERSON: -- and it struck me as I ran up, I just saw the white gloves on his hands and I knew who he was.

WALKER: That is just horrible. How many people, Peter, were at the war memorial? When you turned around and saw what happened, how many people would you estimate were there when the gunshots rang out?

HENDERSON: It would have been less than a dozen. It's sort of a -- it's a pretty high traffic area but it was about 5:00 to 10:00 in the morning so most people were inside their offices. And as soon as the shots rang out people ducked for cover. I quickly scanned to make sure if there was any shooter but --

(CROSSTALK)

HENDERSON: Yeah. It was just a few.

WALKER: So you say there are about a dozen soldiers who were there for the ceremony, is that right?

HENDERSON: No, there was only -- there was only two soldiers standing guard at the war memorial. Apparently, there were some soldiers nearby doing drills. One thing that I noticed as I ran up to the scene, I saw several members of the Canadian forces running to the fallen soldier as well.

WALKER: Now, this fallen soldier, was he one of the people that was standing guard or doing drills nearby?

HENDERSON: He was one of the people standing guard. I believe it's the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that we have there.

WALKER: So there were -- if there were two soldiers standing guard, what happened to the second person?

HENDERSON: I believe he ran. Our soldiers -- to the best of my knowledge they do not -- they hold guns but their guns are unloaded. I believe it's meant to be symbolic at the wall memorial and he ran for cover after the shots, which I heard and sounded like they came from a very high-powered rifle.

WALKER: Sounds like it came from a very high-powered gun, you say. From what I understand, according to a journalist we've been speaking with on the phone, Peter, on the ground, he says that the victims saw suspect, at least one of the gunmen, and they describe him to be a short man with long, dark hair and that he was wielding a rifle. Did you get any glimpse of the gunmen or the gunman?

HENDERSON: No, I do not. Actually, I'm a journalist, too, but I usually cover business in the telecom market, pretty far removed from this. But I instantly began speaking to zombie standers and they all said pretty much same thing. I saw one man who said that he was long hair, wearing a hoodie, and he just came around the corner of actually prime minister's office right beside the war memorial and this witness said the man just came around the corner of the prime minister's office, put the gun on his shoulder and fired four shots into the back of this soldier.

WALKER: So it looks like from what you're hearing from the people there that this soldier may have been targeted?

HENDERSON: Yeah. It was clearly a target.

WALKER: OK. Wow. And what about the people in the area? How many people were near or at the war memorial or other soldiers doing the drills, Peter?

HENDERSON: Like I said, just a few. No more than maybe in the one- become radius around there. Just a few dozen out. People getting their morning coffees, rolling into work a little late. As I was returning to my office after -- you know, I did the best I could to tweet out the information. I'm not a doctor. There were trained people on the scene assisting the soldier so I decided to try and get whatever information I could out. As I was returning to my office, I saw maybe two dozen people standing on the street. My office is just 20 yards away.

(CROSSTALK)

WALKER: Peter Henderson? Peter Henderson?

(CROSSTALK)

WALKER: Got it.

And let me ask you what the victim looks like in terms of age and where this person was shot?

HENDERSON: To the best of my knowledge, it was -- it looked to be a young man in his early 20s. Just -- just a soldier. I didn't get a good look at his face but it appeared he was laying down on his back. It appeared as though he'd been hit in the back several times and had fallen backwards, as people were attempting CPR on him.

WALKER: OK, Peter Henderson, really appreciate your descriptions there. I can't imagine what must have gone through your mind as you were locking up your bike and see a victim there shot four times, you say, near the chest area.

I want to bring in Senator Percy Downe on the line.

Can you hear me?

PERCY DOWNE, CANADIAN SENATOR (voice-over): I can.

WALKER: OK. What do you know about what transpired and where are you?

DOWNE: I'm in my office on Parliament Hill. The building is in lockdown, as Parliament Hill is in lockdown. I was on the phone with someone on Prince Edward Island after I heard the police arrive on Parliament Hill in full force. After the telephone call, I looked out the window and saw the police opening up the trunk of their vehicles and taking out their bullet-proof vests and their machine guns. I turned on the news and found out one of our Canadian forces members had been shot at the war memorial, which is close to Parliament Hill. The allegation was the shooter or shooters then ran towards Parliament Hill and Parliament Hill was locked down.

WALKER: Senator, what else can you tell us about this Canadian force member? You were confirming this Canadian force member was shot. Who is this person? Does it concern you it looks like he was targeted?

DOWNE: Well, I cannot. I'm reporting to you what I heard from the Canadian media that he was shot at the war memorial, which is adjacent to our Parliament Hill, and that the shooter or shooters then ran on to Parliament Hill. It appears that he was, indeed, targeted. As you know, Canadians are participating in the fight against terrorism around the world and terrorists have obviously attacked in Canada this week. Two days ago, we had a member of the Canadian forces who was killed intentionally and -- by an extremist, hit by a car and killed, and now we have the shooting today.

WALKER: I want to ask you about what one of the reporters has been reporting to us. He is inside the main parliament building. He has been on lockdown as you are in your office, Senator, and he told me, from all accounts, that he has been hearing that the gunman was able to walk right in the front door, the main entrance that's typically reserved for the members of parliament. Is that concerning to you?

DOWNE: Well, again, these are rumors. The only fact we seem to know for sure is that a Canadian forces member was shot at the war memorial. There will be many, many rumors over the next few hours, I'm sure, but always, until I hear exactly what happened, how many gun people -- you mentioned a gunman. I've heard now there's two or three. We don't know. We just need to deal with the facts at this stage and we'll wait until we hear more.

WALKER: We are hearing though, from these journalists, that they've heard dozens of gunshots and they're in a frightening situation. Isn't this a country on edge after this incident you mentioned about a soldier being killed a few days ago when he was run over by a suspected Islamic jihadist? How concerned should the citizens of Canada be?

DOWNE: Well, our intelligence services do a very good job of tracking extremists. It's impossible for them to track everyone. They keep a very close eye. And I might add, as you know, Canada is a very multicultural society. We've had many particularly young people who may be falling under the sway of extremists. Reporting those people to our intelligence service, that has been extremely helpful. Unfortunately, the world we live it, it's impossible to catch everyone and it appears that, this week, some of these people are stepped forward either individually or an organized group and committed the attacks they committed.

WALKER: The terror threat alert level in Canada, as a result, was raised from low to medium after this deadly incident involving that soldier. What exactly does it mean when the terror threat level is raised? Does that mean that we are seeing increased security in sensitive areas like the parliament buildings?

DOWNE: I would assume that it would be the case. The security people would be better able to tell you what steps they take at each level. But, you know, there's a heightened concern throughout the world as to these terrorist threats. But Canadians have always fought hard for Western values and we understand sometime there's a price to be paid for that. Our thoughts are with the force member who was wounded today and other two who were wounded, and one unfortunately killed, with their family members. But, you know, threats are part of the world we live in but this doesn't mean Canadians in any way, shape, or form will back down from fighting terrorists around the world.

WALKER: You are taking a live look at these pictures. You can see police officers with their guns drawn taking cover behind pillars and walls as they are trying to address this active threat. Ottawa police believe they are dealing with two or three gunmen.

I have Senator Percy Downe on the line with me, who is also on lockdown in his office on Parliament Hill.

And, Senator, I just want to ask you, since we want to talk about the facts here, what is the security like at the main entrance that is used by the members of parliament there?

DOWNE: Well, there's security, you know. There's a balance where, you know, a free and democratic society so citizens come on to the lawn, the parliament, they're allowed to do yoga there or protest there. That's part of our open and free democracy. But when you get to the doors of parliament, obviously there's guards. There's passes, a security screening system. If you're a visitor to Parliament Hill, you go security system like you do at any airport, backpacks searched and electronic surveillance as well, cameras everywhere and so on. So there's the balance between protection and allowing parliament to be open and available for all Canadians and visitors to visit their parliament building.

WALKER: We can see these live pictures as the situation is ongoing. You can see on the left side of your screen, just dozens of police officers walking around a building -- the secured buildings on Parliament Hill.

I have Senator Percy Downe on the phone, who is also in lockdown.

I see members of parliament being escorted out. They were wearing suits and holding briefcases so I assume they were either staff members of parliament who were being escorted out. Senator, is that what is happening? Do you expect to be escorted out any time soon?

DOWNE: No. We've been told to stay in our office and that's what we are doing.

WALKER: OK. Senator Percy Downe, appreciate your time. Stay safe. Thank you so much for giving us that perspective of what has been happening.

We want to go to Peter Brookes on the ground.

Peter, tell me where you are. OK, you are in Washington. What's the perspective from there? PETER BROOKES, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Obviously, very concerned.

And the first priority is obviously to mitigate the risk to the people on Parliament Hill and in Ottawa there. But then, of course, we have to figure out what happened, whether this is related to what happened in Canada on Monday, whether this is related to events in the Middle East, whether there may be additional terror attacks in North America. So obviously, without jumping to conclusions, we're obviously down here in Washington and we're obviously very concerned about our neighbors to the north.

WALKER: It was quite astounding to hear from one of the journalists on the ground there and he said one of the witnesses he spoke with said one of the gunmen entered through the main entrance and they saw a body slump over. He presumes this person might be dead. The terror threat level in Canada was recently raised from low to medium. And are you concerned that it sounds like the gunman was able to just walk right in?

BROOKES: We have had incidents at our own capitol and we're lucky to have individuals brave enough to put themselves in harm's way. Sometimes people are able to breach that security because there are also the people's houses. And we do have visitors that come and obviously we've made some changes down here where a capitol visitor center, people have to be screened. But obviously, there's issues out there about what is going on in the world and Canadian intelligence obviously had some sort of issues that made them raise their threat level to the level that they decided to do that, perhaps based on intelligence, perhaps based on individuals in Canada that talked about this. And of course, I would think it's probably related to what happened on Monday with the killing of that Canadian soldier. So we're in difficult times here and obviously on unchartered waters. We're going to have to put together, international cooperation between the United States and Canada and our friends over seas. It's going to be critical to dealing with the potential that this was another terror attack.

WALKER: You can't ignore those striking similarities that you mentioned, Peter, with the incident a few days ago when a Quebec soldier was run over by a suspected Islamic soldier and now an apparent soldier who was targeted, according to witnesses on the ground. They said that they saw a man show up with a rifle and fire four shots at this Canadian soldier.

Peter Brookes, appreciate your insight.

I want to bring in CNN's analyst, Tom Fuentes.

What is your take, especially with the security, at the parliament building, tom?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think it's going to be the same issue there as we have here at the White House. How does somebody get through the front door and, in this case, somebody armed with a rifle? I think it's pretty clear that the soldier that was shot targeted on purpose. But then you have the secondary entry by one or more people into the parliament building unopposed at the door and that's extremely problematic.

At this point, it's too soon to know if it was, you know, an attack by more than one person, what the background is of the person. Do we have a deranged shooter, a jihadist? What that situation is, we'll learn that in the next hours or days. But for the moment, it's very problematic. And the fact that it's still an ongoing shooting situation is indicative of the lack of security at the front door.

WALKER: Right. And it's quite frightening, as we see those images, police officers pointing their rifles, their guns at the top of a building there. We were just hearing from Ottawa police earlier that they believed that there was at least one or more shooters on the roof of the parliament building. They are taking cover, drawing their weapons. As we just saw a few minutes ago, drawing them and pointing it towards the sky, presumably, towards the roof of one of the parliament buildings there on the Hill.

Tom, you know, practically speaking here -- because we were just mentioning with Peter Brookes that the terror threat level in Canada was just raised a few days ago after this deadly incident with a suspected Islamic jihadist being involved in all of this. What does it mean, you know, in the U.S./Canada, practically speaking, when you raise a terror threat alert level? What is being done when that happens?

FUENTES: Well, what it's supposed to be, especially at targets that are supposed to be hard in the first place, like the parliament building or the U.S. capitol building or the White House, there should be not only additional security but a heightened sense of security as to a potential attack. And so there's going to be a lot of questions in this case of how somebody with a rifle can get through the front door unopposed. So that's going to be a critical issue. We're going to have to find out exactly.

But at the end of the day, for the person who is just deranged, whether he's a copycat or a jihadist, any of the above motives are not relevant to the point of how do you get through the front door with weaponry. As far as witnesses saying there's people with guns on the roof and other people running around, this makes it very difficult for the police to sort out sightings of law enforcement officers with guns running around or law enforcement on the roof, as opposed to other, you know, bad guys. And this was something that always comes up in every type of shooting like this where additional suspects are identified by witnesses who have, at the end of the day, are not really suspects, but could be law enforcement themselves, plain clothes, security officers in the area. In this case, we have the ceremonial soldiers whose guns are probably empty and cannot really help, but at least the law enforcement, uniform and non-uniform, would have to be running obviously to the scene and covering all angles of this and can be misidentified by the public.

WALKER: I would imagine this is quite a challenging time for law enforcement officers as they are not sure how many gunmen they are looking for at this point.

But we are seeing these live pictures right now. It looks like people are inside one of the parliament buildings being escorted out now by the police. Quite a frightening situation as police are looking for at least one or more gunmen involved in this shooting earlier in the morning in Ottawa.

For those of you who are just joining us, I want to recap what we have been seeing and hearing. This all just happened at 10:00 local time. Witnesses on the scene say one gunmen -- the Ottawa police say numerous gunmen showed up at the memorial and one person, a Canadian soldier -- that's according to the local report --, was shot several times.

Witnesses say that the gunman was holding a rifle, fired four shots at this Canadian soldier who was wearing his uniform and then ran towards the direction of Parliament Hill where all of the parliament buildings are. Journalists on the ground tell me this is a very busy day, Wednesday, when they are having caucus meetings, so many of the members of parliament were there when the shooter or shooters began running towards the parliament building. We understand at least one of them may have made entrance into that building, began shooting indiscriminately.

All right. That is the very latest from Ottawa, what's been happening there with this active shooting incident.

I'm Amara Walker. CNN's continuing coverage continues now with Ashleigh Banfield.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And we begin with this breaking news.