Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Canadian Soldier Killed in Attack

Aired October 22, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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


UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, to phone 911 or to phone or e-mail us with any information that will assist in the investigation, but also, in general terms, we have been asking the community to remain vigilant over potential acts that we have seen overseas and in other countries.

That's something that we have always asked Canadians to be aware of and to be constantly vigilant and to report any suspicious activity that may identify any individual that may want to cause harm to fellow Canadians.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: So, at this stage and time, we know one soldier has been killed, shot dead as he and another soldier stood guard at Canada's war memorial this morning.

A witness saying he was killed by a high-powered rifle. I want you to hear what that particular witness saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a ceremonial honor guard of Canadian forces, troops who stand guard at the war memorial. And I was locking 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.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And how do you know this person was a soldier?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a ceremonial uniform they wear. It struck me as I ran up. I just saw the white gloves on his hands. And I knew who he was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And just incredible images coming in to us here at CNN. Take a look for yourself here. This is taken from inside of the halls of the Canadian Parliament building earlier today as dozens of gun shots rang out, absolutely chilling.

And, again, keep in mind, people in Parliament Hill still on lockdown as I speak, as this is still an active situation. I cannot stress that enough. Meantime, in the United States, the FBI is on alert listening to possible terrorist chatter as they have been, authorities increasing security at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, hallowed ground here in the United States, and also at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., purely for precautionary reasons.

So, first, let me go to Paula Newton. She joins me live. She knows Ottawa better than any of really here at CNN.

And so, Paula, let me begin with you, because I was I was listening closely to that Royal Canadian Mounted Police news conference hoping for more details and they are not thus far releasing the chronology and timing and the weapon information nor are they identifying this deceased soldier. Tell me, what do you know?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, in terms of what they were able to disclose, they obviously know more than they were able to disclose at this point, but one thing is clear.

As they kept saying, this is an ongoing situation. They're not clear themselves about exactly how much gunmen were involved and if as you say there is still one on the loose on Parliament Hill.

We're looking at those videos. Brooke, I know every corner and crevice of that building. When we talk about how small some of those offices are and how many closets they have, we have tunnels underneath those buildings, they are going room to room and the police chief told me on the phone that's what they were in the process of doing with the RCMP.

The RCMP is trying to clear every room and every corner. My husband is a diplomat. He remains in lockdown as well. He's been told he doesn't know how long this entire thing will take. He's not in the Parliament buildings. He's just in buildings close by.

Some takeaways here, Brooke. The first thing is, they are now looking at anyone in active duty with uniform as being a target when you combine the events in Quebec with the events here in Ottawa, and that obviously has trickled down to the United States as well.

So that is the first thing. The other thing is that the RCMP, Gilles Michaud, and I know him, he's briefed me before. He's a very blunt man that refuses to couch anything. He was clear. He said, look, it cost us by surprise. As he put quite clearly, had we known this was going to happen, we would have disrupted it.

It's clear that they are really still trying to catch up to events here. We hope that they have some more clarity in the next few hours. We can get to more information. They have identified the suspect. They are unwilling to tell us exactly obviously who it is. But they will continue to seek out more information about what might have motivated this -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: And just quickly, Paula, you are absolutely correct. Obviously, authorities have way more information than they are willing to divulge. And they shouldn't because this is an active situation.

But one more for you, since you have been in and out, in and out of these buildings. One thing that may surprise a lot of Americans, especially if you have been in and out of buildings on Capitol Hill, is that these security officers here on Parliamentary Hill, they are not armed.

NEWTON: There are some that are armed. It's just that not all of them are armed.

Definitely, some of those police officers would have been armed. I can't explain why when they saw someone charging those doors that somebody wouldn't have stopped them, but basically I can tell you that you are talking about 250 feet from that entrance over to where we hear those shots ringing out.

That obviously was not enough time for anyone who was armed to be able to get to the suspect. And the first person, quite an extraordinary story. We heard of it before. The sergeant at arms, this is the man who is in charge of all the security on Parliament Hill. He himself took out a weapon and shot the suspect. That truly is extraordinary.

It would be like a police chief running out of his office and shooting the suspect on his own. That's the point here, though, Brooke. There are armed officers there. They just were not in the proximity of where the suspect was.

I want to say that that entrance is not open to the public and so this person would have had to charge those doors and start running through the hallway, much the same as the incident we had in the White House a few weeks ago.

BALDWIN: Right. That's right, when the person jumped the fence and headed multiple rooms inside that White House before he was tackled and apprehended.

Paula Newton, thank you so much for us.

Paula mentioned her husband, a diplomat, he's on lockdown on Parliament Hill.

Let me bring someone else who is as well, Justin Ling. He's a freelance journalist in Ottawa.

Justin, let me just begin with are you OK? Are you safe? You are on lockdown, correct?

JUSTIN LING, JOURNALIST: Yes, we're in one of the buildings.

I'm not sure which floor we're on, but we're in Center Block, so the building where the building occurred. We're on a different floor than where the shooting occurred, but we're just a couple floors up. Police are just now doing the sweep of this floor.

We were here for about 2.5, almost three hours before that began. They are going room to room and kind of just collecting people who have barricaded themselves in their offices. They are putting them in a room where I am now. So, I'm here with a couple of M.P.s. We have some journalists and there are some staffers. We are basically just kind of just holding fort until they eventually evacuate us.

BALDWIN: I know briefing all of you all apparently has been a challenge just listening to multiple M.P.s on our air through the day. E-mail is just absolutely jammed. Can you tell me what you know as far as one of the biggest questions

is, are there more gunmen? We know one was taken out and he was killed. But are you hearing anything more about that specifically?

LING: What I can tell you is that just from my -- our personal perspective up here, when we were barricaded ourselves in this room, we were huddled in the back after security came in and told us there was still an active shooter in the room.

He told us this after the first shooter seemingly had been shot and killed. Now, of course, the fog and war in events like this, it's possible that they just had reports and had not confirmed them and were just treating it though there was still an active shooter. So, just the same, we went to the back of the room and kind of barricaded ourselves below a low wall.

When we were sitting there, there was kind of a fire door behind us that connects to a stairwell. At the bottom of that stairwell, we could hear a series of loud bangs and this stairwell connects to one of the exits, series of loud bangs in rapid succession, probably six or seven, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

It's not clear. That could have been anything, it's true. But given context, it's quite possible there were gunshots. We have no way of knowing. But if that is true, it definitely suggests there was a second shooter and we know police are treating it as such.

All that being said, initial reports that there was a second -- a third shooting location at the Rideau Center, which is nearby mall, turned out to be false so we know for a fact that at the very least, there's probably been no active shooting. Sometimes, since one location -- probably outside of Chateau Laurier, which is just next to Parliament, so given reports we have, they are certainly conflicting, but there are definitely strong indications there was a second shooter.

BALDWIN: That's exactly right. I think that's worth saying again just for our viewers in the United States and around the world. Initially, Ottawa police said, yes, there was shooting at the war memorial and there was a shooting in the building where you are, the Center Block building on Parliament Hill and also in this mall.

They are walking that back and just saying not the mall, but in the building on Parliament Hill and also at that war memorial.

Let me ask you something I was just talking to Paula Newton about, because this new -- part of the narrative here of this story, this hero is being really lauded on Twitter from a number of M.P.s there on Parliament Hill, and his name is Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers. We have a photo for him.

For people who are not familiar with the duties of a sergeant at arms, Justin, tell me what exactly he does.

LING: He's basically looking after security at the building, but more than that, he's also somewhat of a ceremonial role. This is a very, very old institution with some very old traditions. He fits into that. He's also looking out for the small processions of quasi- ceremony and military guard who make their way through Parliament every day.

He's doing other kind of daily functions, but he's also the head of security here and as someone who kind of works in this building every day, I can't necessarily say that I have spoken to him, but I have spoken to pretty much every security guard that works here I think and just said, hi, how are you, and these guys are kind of our first line of defense, but they're also just the installations of buildings.

I can tell you most of them in fact are armed. There are very few that are not. That does raise a question of exactly how he got in and how he got past that security. But those are questions that we will have to answer in the coming days.

BALDWIN: That's right.

We're getting a clearer picture, at least, of the situation there in the capital of Canada, in Ottawa, as far as who is armed and who is not and who protects these people on Parliament Hill. And that obviously includes the sergeant at arms, Kevin Vickers, hailed a hero right now.

We're digging into him, getting more information on him, spending nearly three decades as a Mountie, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, before becoming sergeant at arms in 2006.

Justin Ling, thank you so much. We're going to stay in close contact with you there in lockdown on the Hill.

Here in the United States, I'm getting some new information from the Department of Homeland Security. They are just releasing the statement.

For that, let's go to CNN's Rene Marsh in Washington.

Rene, what are they saying?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point, Brooke, they tell us that they are monitoring this situation along with law enforcement. Of course, under the Department of Homeland Security also is Customs and Border Protection. Of course, they would be in control of the border, the U.S./Canadian border.

At this point, they say there's no evidence that there's any threat to the United States, so the way they are categorizing what they're doing right now is essentially monitoring in their words the evolving situation in Ottawa, Canada.

They say in this statement, nevertheless, they will continue to provide relevant information to "our stakeholders and the broader public." What we have here at this point is they are very much plugged into what is happening here, not hearing of any changes in their actions, per se, but they do go on to say that they always have a security posture in which their measures are seen and unseen. If they are doing anything differently, they're certainly not laying

it out for us at this point, Brooke. But that's the latest from the Department of Homeland Security at this minute.

BALDWIN: I think it's worth just underscoring this one line from the DHS. There's no specific reporting to indicate that ongoing events in Canada pose a threat to the United States.

Rene Marsh, thank you so much.

And from Rene, we go to Drew, Drew Griffin, our CNN senior investigative correspondent. He's been researching how Canada has previously dealt with monitoring and tracking terrorists.

Drew Griffin, what have you been learning?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: This is why I think a lot of reporting that so far, Brooke, that this is not related to jihad or ISIS is so important.

Canada does a very, very good job of tracking its known suspected terrorist sympathizers, and it also tracks the people that it thinks, its Canadian citizens, that it thinks have traveled overseas and have fought for ISIS or other terrorist organizations and have come back.

The suspect that was shot and killed on Monday, Martin Rouleau, south of Montreal was in fact on that watch list. He was known to them. And the indications we have right now is that this person involved in this incident from what we know doesn't appear to be that.

The Canadian authorities currently are tracking about 90 of its citizens that they believe could be linked or sympathizing with terrorist groups. As I have said, they keep close tabs on that. The fact that they are reaching out now to the FBI and the fact they have a name and the fact that all indications to our Elise Labott, who is in touch with the U.S. State Department is that it is not involved with ISIS seems to indicate that this may be that kind of lone wolf scenario, but a lone wolf that we really don't know what the motivation is.

BALDWIN: Looking at my two guests to my right who we will talk to on the other side of the break, seeing sort of their reactions here, terror analysts, as far as what you're saying, could this be connected to a broader picture, given especially what we saw in Canada on Monday. Drew Griffin, thank you so much.

We have got to have a quick, quick commercial break. We're staying here on this continuous coverage here out of Ottawa, Canada. Two people dead, including a soldier, Canadian soldier, and one of the gunmen. I say one of. Are there more? We don't know.

Two people, according to a hospital, in stable condition at this hour. We will talk to more eyewitnesses who saw these shootings both at a war memorial and inside of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, talk to those terror experts and more on this hero who is emerging. Stay with me.

You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

Here's what's happening right now. We know that at least one gunman got out of a car this morning around 10:00 local time in Ottawa, Canada, and shot and ultimately killed a Canadian soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns, guarding this war memorial in Ottawa.

Whether it was that same gunman or a different individual, there was shooting outside and then inside of the main building on Parliament Hill. There had been previous reports there was a third shooting scene at a nearby mall. Ottawa police have since walked that back.

I can tell you two people are dead, that Canadian soldier and also at least one of the gunmen. Two people are being treated in a local hospital in stable condition, but so many questions remain.

Let me bring in two men who can help us fill in the blanks, Paul Cruickshank and David Katz (ph), beginning with -- gentlemen, welcome -- beg with, David, you, just with your previous experience, investigation, security.

We know that Canada knows the name of this gunman. We know that Canada passed that name onto U.S. federal officials because you say Canada doesn't know who this guy is.

DAVID KATZ, INVESTIGATOR: It's suggestive that they may not know who he is, because if they had a good handle on him, if he's been a known affiliate or a sympathizer, they may -- they would certainly alert the FBI and other international law enforcement agencies.

But the fact that they reach out, it's probably like this is the guy's name. Does he appear on any of your radar?

BALDWIN: What are they doing right now? Finding his home, finding his car?

KATZ: Oh, yes, there's no doubt. They're in his home. The first step is to identify the guy. How did he get there? Did he drive himself? Was he driven there? Where does he live? They will obviously do a search of his house. They're going to look at his passport and his travel documents.

If he has intact any electric device, a smartphone, a laptop, a home computer, that's -- forensics takes a little longer. But that's -- they are going to over that with a fine-tooth. They're going to look through his garbage. They're going to look through his underwear, every possible place that he frequented, his friends, who he speaks to and who knows him. That will take a little time. But they know who he is right now and somebody is in his house right now.

BALDWIN: Is this one gunman? Could this be multiple shooters? You were saying earlier this appears to be preplanned and this appears sophisticated. Do you still feel that way?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: If it was just one gunman, it's perhaps not so coordinated. If there's more than one gunman, much, more serious because there's a conspiracy there.

If it's just one guy, it might be someone with mental problems. If there is more than one guy, then it's likely some sort of conspiracy and this is a political act, more likely something like terrorism in that case.

BALDWIN: As you say terrorism, obviously, what's been happening, we have been covering it for months and months, this war overseas, Iraq, Syria, we're thinking ISIS. We know what happened on Monday, where this radicalized Islamist ran over these two Canadian soldiers, killing one of them.

I'm looking at you and thinking of that happening just 48 hours ago. How would one begin to connect the dots if this is connected to a much broader picture, a much broader plan?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, they will be looking at, does he have any connections to radical extremism, other radicals in the Canada area, looking at all those kind of things. ISIS itself has called for terrorist attacks by ISIS supporters in Canada and other Western countries.

Their spokesman a month ago called for those kind of attacks, shooting attacks, but also he called for supporters to ram people with cars in Canada. And just earlier this week, we saw an attack by someone who was consuming ISIS propaganda online follow through with this sort of attack.

BALDWIN: The hit-and-run attacks you were saying, calls for the hit- and-run attacks, be it running someone over or potentially shooting and killing someone at a war memorial.

Paul Cruickshank and David Katz, thank you both very much for your expertise. I really appreciate it.

We're getting some new information and getting more accounts here from eyewitnesses in Canada and Ottawa and also specifically how this affects people in the United States in vulnerable locations such as hallowed ground, Arlington National Cemetery.

Stay with me. You're watching CNN's special live coverage. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back to our continuous breaking news coverage out of Ottawa, Canada.

Matt Miller, I have Matt Miller with me on the phone. Let's just jump right to it. He's parliamentary bureau chief for "The Vancouver Observer."

Matthew, you with me?

MATTHEW MILLER, "THE VANCOUVER OBSERVER": I'm with you. Good evening.

BALDWIN: OK. Wonderful. Good evening to you.

Let's just begin with you were inside of this press gallery there in this main building when the shooting this morning started. Tell me what you saw and heard.

MILLER: That's correct.

Actually, I was in the hallway above the gunfire. In fact, the press gallery offices are located right between the Senate and the House of Commons, very close confines in the building. I had just walked across an overhead suspended walkway that you have seen from your footage from inside when the first shot went off.

I will say, at the time, it sounded not unlike a pallet falling on the ground. There's a lot of construction going on, but very quickly followed by several shouts and by my count about three dozen rounds of handgun fire, so immediately went to barricade in our offices there.

BALDWIN: Let me just fast forward several hours later. We still know that many M.P.s and members of the press, including one I just spoke with, are still being told to stay put exactly where they are, right? Members of the public in Ottawa told not to go downtown and people who are there, they are stuck right now. Where are you?

MILLER: That's correct.

Parliament Hill is still in lockdown. I'm still in lockdown in a secure location, but, again, just a stone's throw away from the Hill. I was able to escape our office with colleagues. We broke through a window on the third story.

I have to thank the construction workers who were able to put a scaffolding together for us, again, as I mentioned. The buildings are in a state of renewal. And with a police escort, we were able to leave our office.

But I just heard your report with Justin Ling. He is still in the building with others and they were only meters away in another office from us, again, just above and next to the location where the gunman was taking fire. And I will note that that is one of multiple locations where these incidents occurred today.

BALDWIN: I know ultimately you were able to break out of I guess an office area where you were and get out of that location.

But let me just pivot, Matthew, to this newer story that is emerging here, this man who is being hailed a hero, the sergeant at arms by the name of Kevin Vickers who has been at the post six 2006 and before that for years and years, something like 26, 27 years before as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Do you know him? Do you know who he is? MILLER: I do know Kevin.

And it's a privilege to know him. Kevin is the sergeant at arms, which essentially is the top cop on the Hill. Kevin runs the internal security, which of course has both unarmed security guards, security screeners and armed plainclothes police officers who responded immediately.

I will note that Kevin's office, mine being just above him, his was right at the center of where this happened. When you watch that video and you see the police advancing toward the library in the Hall of Honor, his office was just adjacent. And from what I understand, he pulled out his sidearm and neutralized the situation as well.

BALDWIN: That's exactly right. Just so many people on social media tweeting about Kevin, the top cop of whom you speak. One tweet, "I'm safe and profoundly grateful to Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers and our security forces for selfless act of keeping us safe."

Explain this to me, Matthew, because in order to enter these buildings, you obviously have to go through a screening process. Some of these security members and military are armed. Some of them are not. Obviously, Kevin, being this top cop, being the sergeant at arms is armed.

MILLER: That's correct. That's correct.

And there are armed security guards throughout the building. Their responsibility first and foremost is for the prime minister, members of Parliament, journalists, senators, anybody visiting their grounds. That is their first job.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they are also on the Hill. They have a permanent presence. Both security forces combined are prepared to deal with these sorts of situations. It is just through fate that it was able to be neutralized quickly.