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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Hospital: All Three Patients Shot In Head

Aired October 24, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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


UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not sure what the first responders' protocols are. Our protocols for our staff are a lot of support for our staff. They mobilize quickly. They perform very well, once that mobilization has de-escalated somewhat, they need a lot of support as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know if any of the staff on the trauma teams have children who are students of Marysville?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. I don't know. It's really too early for me to say. This has been, what, less than three hours ago really.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said that -- just to be clear. Four had head wounds --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, three had head wounds and were kept here. One had lesser wounds, I believe, to the jaw is my understanding.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What goes into making a decision about whether to transfer people down to Harborview?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When patients who are critically ill, they are taken to the closest major trauma center. We're a level 2 trauma center. Their survival chances are best when they're brought to the center that can manage their head injuries the quickest. We had three neurosurgeons mobilized and ready to go. We needed, frankly, two of them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm sorry. One more time, you believe all the injuries were gun wounds, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that we will be back with another update at around 2:15. We'll plan on that. So if you would do us a favor and please make sure that Julie knows who you are. We're trying to make sure that everybody has information. If you could sign in, please, that would be great, thank you very much.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: If you're just joining us, two students are dead, including the shooter at a high school shooting in Washington State. Three others critically wounded with primary head wounds. We're getting new details on the shooter and the victims. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to our viewers around the country and around the world. I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD. We are covering this story out of Marysville, Washington, where two are dead, four others injured, three critically.

Two now in surgery at Providence Medical Center in Everett, Washington, after a school shooting at a high school in Washington State. We can now report the name of the shooter, freshman, Jalen Fryburg has been identified as the shooter at Marysvill-Pillchuck High School by fellow students including eyewitness.

Fryberg was announced as the high school freshman class' homecoming king on October 17th according to YouTube video of the ceremony and accounts from students to CNN.

Fryberg's multiple social media accounts depict him frequently hunting and using rifles. His social media account says he was part of the Native American Tulalip tribe. Eyewitnesses have identified the student gunman again as Jaylen Fryberg.

We also just spoke with an eyewitness, Jordan Leuton, according to Leuton, Fryberg was popular. He was a freshman. He was homecoming prince. He played on the football team. He's Native American.

Let's talk about this with Evan Perez and bring in Tom Fuentes, a former FBI assistant director and a law enforcement analyst for CNN. Gentlemen, as we discuss, we don't want to give this kid's name too much attention. We've identified him now.

I guess, we should generally try to refer to him as the shooter now. Tom, what is the FBI doing there as they help the local law enforcement? What is the purpose, to eliminate the idea that there might be other shooters?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, that, too. But the big part of what they do in a situation like this. The local police are in charge of it and the other agencies that respond are in general for mutual aid.

There's going to be hundreds of interviews that need to be done. So that will take a number of officers and agents. The faster they can do that, the better, the quicker to put together the picture of why this happened.

But there might be specialized investigative assistance needed. The crime scene investigation, tracing of the weapon that ATF would be doing along with the FBI. Really, they just need as much help as they can get in a situation like this.

If you have a suburban or small town, independent town that's not part of Seattle, they're not going to have that many officers. There are 100 or more interviews, not to mention finishing clearing the area and accounting for all the missing students and where are they, are they with their parents?

There's a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done and not enough officers and agents to do it quickly.

TAPPER: Evan, what else are your law enforcement sources telling you about this young man who's been identified as the shooter?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: They're going through some of his social media postings. A lot of things we've taken a look at including his Twitter accounts. It seems to portray that he was upset about certain things in the last few days. We've heard he was upset about a break-up. It's not clear if that's the trigger point.

But from the social media, you can see in the last few days, something certainly was triggering some emotions on his part. And if you listen to the witness you take to on air here, it clearly seems he was disturbed today.

He sat there silently and stood up and started shooting. Something clearly triggered him to do this today. That's going to be part of what the FBI is going to be doing there. They have a lot of work being done, behavioral analysis.

To try to understand what happened here and how they can prevent this. It's very hard to prevent. How to train police and schools to respond to these things because often these people shoot themselves before police can get there, as this kid did today.

TAPPER: And we've been covering these school shootings, I've been at CNN for a year and a half and I've covered more than I care to remember they often end --

PEREZ: A 160 between 2000 and 2013 in a study the FBI just released.

TAPPER: School shootings?

PEREZ: Well, active shootings, a lot of them schools, but you know, workplace -- 160 incidents they've taken a look at.

TAPPER: Horrific. We'll take another quick break. We'll be right back with more on this horrific school shooting outside Seattle.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to our viewers around the country and around the world. I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD. The shooter who sprayed the Marysville-Pilchuck High School cafeteria with bullets and then went outside and fired more and then took his own life, he's been identified as Jaylen Fryberg by eyewitnesses and students.

Fryberg's multiple social media accounts depict him frequently hunting using rifles. His social media accounts say he was part of the Native American Tulalip tribe. He was a freshman. He was popular, we're told.

We're now going to go to Ryan Dalberg, who I believe is with the police and we're going to listen to him. He's on the phone, I'm sorry. Can you hear me, sir?

SGT. RYAN DALBERG, EVERETT POLICE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): Yes, I can.

TAPPER: What can you tell us about what happened?

DALBERG: Basically earlier today, a suspect entered Marysville- Pilchuck High School and opened fire. We have several victims at this point. We don't have an exact count. But we can confirm that the suspect is deceased as well as one other victim. We still are trying to piece together exactly how many people are injured at this point.

TAPPER: Can you tell us the genders of the four students who were taken to the hospital?

DALBERG: I don't have that information at this time. Sorry.

TAPPER: We spoke with a witness who was in the cafeteria when the shooter who has been identified as Jaylen Fryberg, took out his gun from his backpack. We believe it was a handgun, is that right, sir?

DALBERG: I don't know. We're still trying to piece it all together from an investigative standpoint. So I don't have knowledge of exactly what type of weapon was used.

TAPPER: Were all the victims from that one cafeteria table where he began shooting?

DALBERG: I don't know.

TAPPER: OK, we are hearing from affiliates in the area that the family of the shooter has arrived at the school. Is that accurate?

DALBERG: I am not at the school. I am at the communications center. So I don't have any information on who is at the school at this point.

TAPPER: Are students still being kept in the school? I know that there was an intense effort by law enforcement to make sure the entire campus was free of any shooters and going door to door and not letting anybody leave until the room had been cleared. Are there any students still being kept at the school or is everyone at the church --

DALBERG: You're correct with your information as far as our slow and deliberate search keeping everyone safe. Right now, everybody's in the process of being transferred to a relocation center to be reunited with family.

TAPPER: All right. Sergeant Ryan Dalberg with the Everett Police Department, thank you so much. We appreciate your time. We're going to take a very quick break. We'll come back and have more on this shooting outside Seattle. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. We are continuing to follow the fast-breaking developments north of Seattle where a student became a gunman and turned his classmates' day upside down. Witnesses and students have identified Marysville-Pilchuck

freshman, Jaylen Fryberg, as the gunman. What we know right now paints a picture of a student who had some popularity. He won homecoming prince and played on the football team.

Fryberg's multiple social media accounts depict him frequently hunting using rifles. Let's go now to David Cullen, he is the author of the book "Columbine" and something of an expert of school shootings. Dave, thank you so much for joining us.

DAVE CULLEN, AUTHOR, "COLUMBINE": Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: Before we came back from break, you took not issue, but you wanted to talk about the notion that this shooter was popular. And I think that it's -- there's no justification for anything like this.

But we tend to -- not understand it more, but certainly when somebody is picked on or bullied, it seems to be more of a participating event. When someone is a homecoming king freshman, that's hard to understand.

CULLEN: It's all about the perspective of person. Objectively he may seem popular to us. But the person, especially a kid in high school, doesn't see it that way. With the shooter from Columbine, it was hard to read his journal once it was released to see him talking about how -- going on and on time after time how nobody loves me, I have no friends, no one cares about me.

My family doesn't love me. When you would look at his daytimer that was also released and it's full of engagements. He had a wide circle of friends. Lots of people did love him. Clearly from all the people that we were able to talk to, he did have a very loving, supportive -- extremely supportive, loving family and circle of friends.

He couldn't see it that way. He was never seeing it that way. He had a terrible vision of himself. So this kid today, we know that he was elected homecoming prince or king. He was on the football team, apparently. What we don't know is how he saw all that and was all that, yes, they elected me, but -- we don't know.

Frequently in these cases, the person has a much, much bleaker version going on in their own head. And we have to keep in mind that as we learn more and more, we're seeing it from our point of view. I also heard one of the local reporters just as the tape coming in saying, perhaps as we learn a motive.

I'd really like to caution the idea of a motive. The idea that we're going to get to some answer, in capital letters, which you can say in a sentence, this is why he did it, is fairly unlikely. It's much more likely to be a complicated cluster of things going on in his life. It's probably not going to be a simple motive.

TAPPER: We're going to show an image right now from Instagram of the shooter, Jaylen Fryberg. This is his Instagram picture. Probably the best birthday present ever. I just love my parents. I just love my new 17-inch -- this is not the gun he used because he brought a small gun able to be concealed in a backpack. That's just more social media information we're getting.

CULLEN: How long ago was that, Jake? That posting there?

TAPPER: Three months ago, it says. Dave, I want to ask you also something, something for the other students who are watching out there, other high school students or junior high students, when reading the social media accounts of Jaylen Fryberg and you're seeing the things he's going through.

And the things that he's suffering through, which are -- I don't mean to belittle them. But they're fairly commonplace. High school can be a very miserable time for lots of people. It was certainly not my favorite four years.

And I guess what I wonder is, is the difference mental illness? Is the problem -- I don't want to stigmatize mental illness because most mentally ill people aren't violent.

But is the difference between this student getting a gun and shooting people and another miserable student not doing that that there is obviously an issue that he's having, mental problems and there isn't the safety network that needs to be there to help him?

CULLEN: It often is. Obviously we don't know in this case, but in most of the cases, it is someone dealing with severe depression. The secret service did an overwhelmingly comprehensive report and found that most of them were deeply depressed.

I didn't have time to check the numbers before. But something like two-thirds or three-quarters of them has actually either attempted or talked about committing suicide prior.

TAPPER: Dave, let me interrupt you right there. Stick around, please stay with us. Joining us on the phone right now is Frankie Pena, a friend of the shooter.

Frankie was not in the school at the time of the shooting, but we're told they grew up together. We have permission of his parents to talk to him. Frankie, this must be a horrific day for you. What can you tell us?

FRANKIE PENA (via telephone): Just I don't know. It just came out of nowhere. I honestly wouldn't expect it. We used to be very good friends. We kind of drifted away a little bit. And now this happened, like over the years, we stopped being as close friends and then, I don't know, just one day, I hear this happened. I don't know.

TAPPER: You're in the freshman class as well?

PENA: No, I'm a junior.

TAPPER: Was Jaylen a violent person?

PENA: No. I honestly wouldn't say that. TAPPER: Do you know of anything -- obviously you said that you drifted. Do you know of anything that you were going through -- I'm sorry, that he was going through, that might have set this off?

PENA: I heard that like his girlfriend broke up with him. The tweets that everyone's been re-tweeting throughout the past couple of days of their conversations have been pretty brutal, honestly. So that could have been affecting it.

TAPPER: What do you mean by brutal?

PENA: Just like, I don't know, his tweets are like bad, I don't know, kind of scary.

TAPPER: Yes, especially in retrospect.

PENA: Tweeting about hurting himself and stuff like that.

TAPPER: Frankie Pena, thank you so much. We appreciate your time. We're glad you're OK. I want to thank Dave Cullen, the author of "Columbine" as well.

That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I turn you over now to Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM."