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Active Shooter Situation in Colorado. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 27, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:02]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And this is all important because police are responding to an active shooting situation. The call came in just a little while ago.

And we don't know a lot. Let me just be totally transparent. We don't know a lot right now. We're showing you pictures because we want to be really careful of what we're showing you and what we're not, as this is an active situation, but this is all from moments ago.

And you can see the police presence, the SWAT teams who have arrived, ATF on the scene here, all responding to an area, as described by Colorado Springs police, as near the Planned Parenthood center.

But, again, it is -- it's important that I point out that it's, you know, Black Friday. So there's been a lot of traffic in the area. They have had to barricade this stretch of the 3400 block of Centennial Boulevard. There's been a shelter in place for a lot of the stores, the grocery store, the banks, the businesses in this area, just to make sure people don't get caught in any potential crosshairs during the situation as police are really swooping in.

So, let me begin this hour with our correspondent Kyung Lah, who has been in touch with the mayor there in Colorado Springs. She has a little bit more background as far as this specific Planned Parenthood center.

As we are at the top of the hour, Kyung, can you just bring us all up to speed as far as what you have learned?

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the original tweet that first came out which got the public very concerned about this came from the police department.

And the police department used the address of the Planned Parenthood center, saying that there is an active shooter, an active shooting situation happening at this particular address. It happened to be the address of the Planned Parenthood center in this town.

So there were a number of police cars. You can see some of these first images as officers are responding to this two-story brown building. And then the language changed, that the active shooting situation was near the Planned Parenthood center.

We don't know exactly what's happening. The latest information we have gotten from the police department is that this is an ongoing situation. They are still trying to determine, according to the police department, if any officers have been hurt. They cannot confirm if any have.

We have spoken to a couple of different businesses in that area. You had an eyewitness on earlier. We have spoken to a grocery store that is directly to the south of the Planned Parenthood building. The grocery store says they're not being allowed near the front. The manager came on the loudspeaker and said, everyone, remain inside. No one is being let out. No one is being allowed in.

There are about a dozen employees in there. They're being kept at the back of the business, away from the windows. We spoke to an eye care clinic. The eye care clinic says that they are fine. They're also not being allowed to leave. As you can see from the images, a lot of police cars, quite a bit of response.

We have not found any major Internet traffic about this particular clinic. The last protest there was at the end of August, when there were a lot of protests around this country because of some of those Planned Parenthood videos, the videos which have been allegedly edited, that the content, though, did create an outcry on social media and led to hundreds of protests around the country.

There were 300 protesters there, Brooke. That very last one, we found that major one, but that was entirely peaceful, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Kyung Lah, all incredibly helpful information here as we're trying to put some of these pieces together with regard to this active shooting situation near this Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado. So stand by, Kyung.

I have Jonathan Gilliam just seated next to me, who -- with your years in law enforcement and you see the presence. We have been talking ATF, police there on the scene. You see massive SUVs rolling up. I saw the command center, you know, rolling up as well.

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER U.S. NAVY SEAL: Sure.

BALDWIN: What's happening on the ground?

GILLIAM: Well, so it appears that they're -- from what we're hearing, that there's an active shooter situation.

This response that you're getting with this many people tells me that, first off, this is something that they're taking very, very seriously. You know, a lot of times, when they have an active shooter call and they roll up, if there's nothing going on, they're not going to have time necessarily to pull out all that you see here, command center.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: They have pulled out a lot. Read between the lines.

GILLIAM: So, I'm going to have to read between the lines here and say that there must be something serious going on here because of the fact that the response kept coming.

Now, if there is an active shooter and they end up killing this guy or whoever this possibly could be, you will see this start to downgrade quickly.

BALDWIN: So, obviously, the response changes dependent upon whether there are hostages, and that's one of the unknowns here. If there are -- and, again, you know, as somebody had pointed out earlier, it's lunchtime. There's a lot of traffic in the area. There very well could be hostages.

If there are, how are these officers there trying to communicate with the shooter to try to determine how many? How are they?

[15:05:00]

GILLIAM: Right.

Depending on where they are and the eyewitness accounts, you can almost guarantee that they're going to assume that there's hostages as they move into this.

BALDWIN: You assume until you know otherwise?

GILLIAM: That's correct.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GILLIAM: You were just over in Paris.

BALDWIN: Yes.

GILLIAM: So, you know that when an active shooter starts shooting, you have to continue to move towards and in through that target until you are able to eliminate that threat, or if they start talking and -- you confront them and they start talking about hostage to the point where you can get into a conversation.

But, even then, if they still have reasonable suspicion that they're continuing to shoot, they're going to continue to move forward, because you can't negotiate with somebody who's continuing to shoot because that's -- that is -- people are still going to be dying, potentially.

BALDWIN: Let's back up five steps. How do you even, as law enforcement, trying to communicate with this individual, how do you even establish that communication?

GILLIAM: Well, there's different ways.

If the person's held up in an office building and they pull somebody out, they may be able to get a phone number to call in there. Of course, they're going to have -- depending on the proximity, how deep they are in the building, they will have the ability to talk with them, if they have a tactical vehicle up there or just yelling. Sometimes, with active shooters, you're literally around a wall from

them or just down the hallway, so you can yell at them. They also have different technologies where you can throw -- they have phones that you literally can throw in that are portable phones that people can pick up.

And -- but as long as -- the attempt here, what they're trying to do when they move in on an active shooter is get to the source of the shooting and either stop that threat as quickly as possible or get there, and if they're not shooting and they have hostages, establish communication.

But in this day and age, that is the difficult thing to determine, because as we see when it comes to terrorism and a lot of people these days, they are not there to take hostages. They're there to shoot and kill.

BALDWIN: Jonathan Gilliam, stay with me.

GILLIAM: Sure.

BALDWIN: I now have another voice I want to add to this conversation, Eric Singer, local reporter, "Colorado Springs Gazette."

Eric, I understand you are near the scene on the phone with me right now. Tell me what you know.

ERIC SINGER, "COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE": Well, thank you very much Brooke.

We're here in the Albertsons parking lot, which has become the new staging area. And, earlier, we were at about a half-a-mile away from the Planned Parenthood. I had shot numerous Vines. The staging area here is controlled chaos. We have the El Paso County Sheriff's Department. We also have the mobile SWAT units here. Fountain police and Colorado Springs police are all here staged.

Earlier, within the last five minutes, officers were gearing up, suiting up, getting their weapons ready to go to -- they were loaded for bear as they were headed to go to the Planned Parenthood center, which is probably about a half-a-mile to three-quarters-of-a-mile north -- excuse me -- south of us.

BALDWIN: OK. So let me -- I have so many questions for you. When we're hearing the language from Colorado Springs P.D., they're saying that this active shooting situation is happening near the Planned Parenthood, can you confirm it is happening within the Planned Parenthood?

SINGER: I can't confirm that, because, as close as I got was about within, say, a half-a-mile of the Planned Parenthood building, which is at the crest of the hill in Northwest Colorado Springs.

I did see at least 10 to 12 police units there, and we were cordoned off further north of that location to make sure for our safety and for the officers' safety, because their guns were drawn. All I know at this moment is, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department information officer and tweets from our reporters, the "Gazette" reporters out in the field, it's believed to have been at the Planned Parenthood center in Colorado Springs.

BALDWIN: Are you, Eric, hearing any reports of shootings coming from the woods in this area?

SINGER: At this point, I have not heard of any reports.

Colorado Springs Police Department continues to tweet out information. The last tweet that I saw from the Colorado Springs Police Department was at least one officer was hurt. Don't know the extent of that officer's injuries. Of course, the situation continues to evolve.

And as soon as we know more here in the staging area, because we were asked to come back for our safety and for the officers' safety, so we're in the staging area. Earlier, I had shot numerous Vines and was going live on Periscope for "The Gazette," so that way people could get a feel and a seat for the whole situation in the scene itself, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Before I ask you about the area, Eric, do you know if there are any hostages?

SINGER: I do not know the situation on site itself.

All I know is, this area is cordoned off probably for at least a two- to three-mile radius for the safety of the officers, the safety of the people inside of that building or that location and around this area.

[15:10:05]

BALDWIN: OK, Eric.

As we're looking at some of these pictures, police vehicles, snow, parking lots, strip mall, tell me about the area.

SINGER: Well, the area itself is a pretty densely populated residential area.

This is the Albertsons shopping center. There are numerous stores. This is a busy area of Northwest Colorado Springs located in that Northwest corridor of Garden of the Gods and Centennial, a very well- traveled area.

If you were going, for example, on Garden of the Gods, which runs east and west, if you're going further west, you would be running into the Garden of the Gods Park, which is a huge park traveled by -- traveled and hiked by tens of thousands of people every year from all around the world.

So, this is a densely populated area. There are a lot of hills. There are a lot of homes. And there are potentially -- probably officers already know this if this is an active shooter investigation -- potential places for someone to hide.

BALDWIN: Eric Singer, excellent information, reporting from "The Colorado Springs Gazette." Do me a favor, Eric, and stay with me.

I want to get some new information from Tom Fuentes, one of our law enforcement analysts.

Tom, what do you know?

TOM FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Brooke, I have just been told by a source that the police heard shots fired coming from inside that premises, and therefore they made the decision to go ahead and enter by breaking down the front door, injecting smoke.

Some of the people have been running out of there. So, they're attempting right now a tactical rescue of the people that are inside that because they believe that the shots fired were against the hostages.

BALDWIN: So, then, with the information you're breaking here on CNN, then this is the first we're hearing that there are, in fact, individuals inside this center? Hostages?

FUENTES: Apparently, if that's the exact location. I didn't hear the exact building they were in, but the premises where the hostages were being held, the police heard shots fired from outside, and therefore no longer had the option to negotiate or try to talk to whoever was doing this into surrendering peacefully.

They decided to go ahead and attempt the rescue by going through the front door and entering the premises.

BALDWIN: And can you explain to me, just as former law enforcement, that -- that sort of split-second decision to then determine we have got to go in and get these people?

FUENTES: Yes, I have run these situations before as the on-scene commander. And what decision you have to make as the commander is, if you have the option to be able to negotiate with whoever's holding hostages and extend this out, find out what they want, see if you can talk them into a peaceful surrender, you try to do that.

But at the point where you believe that the hostages are in danger, and certainly if you hear shots from inside the building, that would indicate that hostages may be in the process of being killed, then you order the rescue attempt immediate.

It's not the best circumstances, but you're not going to sit back and listen to shots fired from the outside and not attempt to rescue the hostages.

BALDWIN: Jonathan Gilliam, do you want to add to that?

GILLIAM: No, that's exactly what I was saying before. And I think Tom said it perfectly.

It appears as though, as we were saying before, when you come up to an active shooter scene, if you continue to hear shots fired, you have to assume that they're still killing people, which, at that point, they're not really hostages as much as they are targets that this person is going after on the inside, and that's completely different. You're now trying to get in to confront where this aggression is coming from, where the shooter is vs. trying to establish a dialogue if there's no shooting going on to get him to release these hostages.

There's clear evidence now that they have enough intel to believe that shooting was still going on inside, and it was an immediate, imminent threat, and they had to enter into that building.

BALDWIN: I was just getting reports in my ear from my producer. Local media is, in fact, reporting -- and this is jibing with what Eric Singer was telling us from the newspaper -- that officers have, in fact, been injured. Officers have been injured here as part of this active shooting situation here in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Tom, what's the next move? Once they hear the shots and they break down this front door and they send the smoke bombs in, what's next?

FUENTES: Well, next is try to take care of all of the innocent hostages that were in there. If hostages are wounded, get them the medical care you can as quickly as possible. The ones that can be evacuated, you get them out of there, and then neutralize whoever was doing the shooting and putting them in danger.

And in this situation, if they're shooting at hostages, then the police are going to shoot them. And then once they have determined that there's no other active shooter, then they can secure the premises, and they will want to do that as quickly as possible, especially if they have wounded people inside that can't be moved, that they need to get the paramedics in there to properly attempt to treat them and save their lives.

[15:15:07]

Then they're definitely going to want to stop having the threat. They're going to neutralize whoever was causing the threat in the first place by whatever means are necessary in order to save the lives of the hostages.

BALDWIN: So, in your own past experiences, even if the shooter -- and, again, we don't know if that's plural, shooters -- are unknown, locations are unknown within this area, you're telling me that police will absolutely continue in and locate those hostages?

FUENTES: Oh, absolutely. The main concern here is going to be -- from the beginning, is going to be the rescue and safe recovery of all of the hostages that are in there, and if any need medical treatment, to get that to them as quickly as possible, as well as if officers are wounded and need immediate medical care, to get that care to them also.

Then they have the task of going through all parts of that building to ensure -- if they have encountered one shooter and neutralized that person, they have to make sure there's no others, that the person didn't have others. And they will be able to determine that pretty quickly from the hostages that made it out the door. The ones that were able to run out during the confusion will be able to tell the police right away who they were dealing with, how many people were in there, what kind of guns, what kind of location.

So, they would be providing that intel directly to the police right now as we're talking. That would be going on.

BALDWIN: And, Jonathan Gilliam, I have to imagine, as this is all unfolding now, time is of the essence, getting inside.

GILLIAM: Absolutely.

You know, this is very interesting having Tom on here with myself. Tom has been the commander. He's been the guy who's in charge of a scene like this. And you are going to have to triage this very quickly. And then you're going to have tactical guys like myself that are going to go in there.

And what's going to happen is, you're going to have to determine, can we get these people out, or do we have to continue to fight whatever this threat is? Because if you don't eliminate the threat, people will continue to die. And then as you try to rescue people, you may get killed yourself.

So this is where the difficulty for an on-scene commander comes in, because you're having to weigh all these issues. You're having to triage the situation. And when it is truly an active shooter -- and that's what it stands for, somebody who is actively shooting -- you have to try to penetrate into that building deep enough towards that shooter to eliminate them, at the same time preparing people to come in and pull these injured people out.

And then you're going to have to look at who's injured and who's injured worse, so that you can triage that situation.

(CROSSTALK)

GILLIAM: All this is going down at the same time that potentially bullets are flying. That's why you have to eliminate that threat as quickly as possible.

You may have to actually step over people who have been shot in order to go after that shooter, where you're bypassing -- an officer in front of you gets shot, you may have to pull him out of the way, or you may have to step around him and continue to engage that shooter depending on the ramifications.

And I will tell you, if this is where it's happening, in a Planned Parenthood, these officers know that location. They know that there's threats against places like that. So they're not showing up thinking, oh, we have got to figure this out. I'm sure that they know about that facility.

BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

If you are just joining us here, we have been covering this active shooting situation really for the better part of the last hour here. The call came into police around lunchtime there. As you can see, it's a cold, snowy day on this Black Friday in Colorado Springs, Colorado. About 400,000 people live in this city, in this part of the country.

And it's still very much a fluid situation as we have been trying to get some pieces of this puzzle, this story we have been covering together, but a lot of unknowns. It was a huge piece that we just got from Tom Fuentes, former assistant director of the FBI, telling us specifically from one of his sources that they have, in fact, heard some shots fired from within this -- within a building.

I want to be precise in my language because police are saying that this was an active shooting situation near the Planned Parenthood, and also near the Planned Parenthood, you have a grocery store and banks and businesses. So we still don't have a specific location as far as where this is happening. But because of the shooting inside, according to Tom and his sources, they have sent police.

And, by the way, we know ATF -- we saw the command center. We saw the massive vehicle rolling up. We know several different local police jurisdictions are responding here as well to try to get presumably any hostages out to safety, and, as Jonathan was pointing out, to make sure the triage is set up, the prioritization of any victims set up immediately, but all a lot of unknowns.

I'm looking over at Harry Houck. He's just been seated with us, former NYPD, as a first voice in all of this here as we have been watching this unfold.

I mean, what a horrendous situation that -- you know, of unknowns for police walking into something like this.

[15:20:04]

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Right. Exactly.

And I think -- I think I'm hearing an officer was hurt or shot?

BALDWIN: We were hearing a report of at least potentially one officer injured.

HOUCK: Right.

I'm trying to think. If they have a potential hostage situation going down right now, I'm wondering if they have contacted the shooter through a hostage negotiation team. It seems to me by what I was watching earlier when I -- before I got here, is they have surrounded an area here.

Usually, the typical protocol for active shooters is to go right in and eliminate the shooter. But since now the fact that it looks like there's hostages there, they're going to have to try and speak to that shooter. Now, we don't know the location. It's near Planned Parenthood.

As soon as I heard Planned Parenthood, I thought, wow, maybe some anti-abortion person went crazy and hit the location, but we don't know yet. This is after a holiday, so why would that place have that many employees, if hardly any, at a location?

Now, so looking at this as an attack, it looks like some kind of a personal attack to me. If it is the Planned Parenthood, it's probably, like I said, an anti-abortion person or the fact that somebody personally has got something against somebody in that location, because we don't see somebody just going in and shooting the place up and then taking their own life or escaping here.

So there's a lot more to this than we're looking at right now.

BALDWIN: Yes.

As you well know, we don't know motivation. Those are maybe possibilities, but way too early to tell.

HOUCK: But we can tell by looking, the way things are going right now.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Sure. Massive -- I think also to Jonathan's point, tremendous police presence. This isn't one or two patrol cars. We have seen -- I saw in another shot multiple fire trucks, police, ATF, several police jurisdictions.

You can see the command center they have set up. So they're prepared potentially to go for hours. Again, this is all what we're learning right now.

HOUCK: I'm kind of wondering why ATF is there right now. Is there a chance that this guy put explosives down somewhere?

That's definitely a possibility, because this isn't something ATF would just show up. Probably law enforcement, maybe FBI, but the ATF? Unless later on, when they want to track the weapons or something like that.

GILLIAM: We also don't know if the federal building, how close the federal building may be to this, where other agencies may be located, and that would increase the response.

But I will tell you from the live shots that I have been watching here, action has started to speed up a little bit since we have been -- I have been seeing officers -- typically, when you have a command post, people are standing around and then they move their vehicles. They have to move.

I have seen several people starting to move faster. I saw a tactical vehicle, an armored tactical vehicle depart that area. When you add that to what Tom Fuentes was saying, that they deployed smoke inside of a building and moved in, you're looking at a tactical entry here, and you're looking at something that is -- it appears to me, is ongoing and escalating.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: OK. Actually, hang on. I have got -- thank you, Eric. Talking to the control room. Just let me interject some new information.

Four people have been injured.

Eric, do we know specifically officers or just individuals? We don't know. OK. So I have four injured, Penrose Hospital, three patients, Memorial Hospital, one patient, and that patient specifically gunshot wound to the arm.

GILLIAM: Well, we definitely know -- they knew that there were gunshots before, but now we know that people are actually being targeted by these gunshots.

And now -- right now, to be honest with you, and you know this, motivation, when it's an active shooter, is less of a concern until they get to that. As long as the shooting and they continue to hear that shooting, the motivation of this person is probably less of a concern for the tactical groups entering than anything else.

BALDWIN: Here's a quick update from an officer of Colorado Springs, Colorado, police. Here you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I don't know. At least three officers have been injured. And I don't know how many civilians right now.

QUESTION: Any fatalities?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know yet. I don't know -- I don't know that much because we haven't been able to get into the scene yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK. So there you go. Short and sweet. But that sort of answers some of our questions when we were reporting some of the injured. He was saying three officers specifically injured.

So perhaps those were officers who were trying to breach the location, the facility.

HOUCK: No doubt they probably responded right away and the active shooter protocol for police now is to respond quickly to the location and put the shooter out.

Now, apparently, Jonathan just saw some tactical movement here. If that shooter keeps on shooting when they're in there, they're going to have to just take that location, go in there and take that shooter out and breach the location.

BALDWIN: I was just told that that same officer said that they are still in the process of trying to eliminate the threat. GILLIAM: That means that this person, for one, it's ongoing and he's

still -- this individual is still a threat, and most likely still shooting, because if they're -- that language tells me that they are not setting up for communications. They're setting up for movement and penetration into that building.

[15:25:00]

BALDWIN: Eric, do we still have Tom Fuentes?

Tom Fuentes, do we still have you? No, no Tom Fuentes.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Tom, did I hear you?

FUENTES: Yes, I hear you.

BALDWIN: Just quickly, before we go to break, I want you to reiterate the piece of news that your source told you as far as shots fired from within the building?

FUENTES: What I have been told is that the police outside the premises heard shots being fired inside, believed that hostages were being shot or endangered and decided to go ahead and perform the rescue, went through the front door, breached the front door, injected smoke, flash bangs, and made the entry, and that some of the hostages were able to run out the door or out the back of it.

And they were inside attempting to rescue and attempting to locate and neutralize all shooters that were involved in this.

BALDWIN: OK. All right. So that's what you're getting from a source. We are trying to confirm that here at CNN. I appreciate it, Tom.

We're going to take a quick break, but, again, active shooter situation still unfolding here, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 3400 block Centennial Boulevard.

We're back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: All right, we're back with the breaking news here on CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

If you're just joining us, let me just -- let me catch you up. So, for the better part of the last hour-and-a-half, we have been covering this active shooting situation, which, by the way, is still ongoing, in the Colorado Springs, Colorado, area of the country, specifically the 3400 block of Centennial Boulevard.

This is an area -- this is a main drag within the city of about 400,000 people. We're talking banks and grocery stores and businesses and homes back behind this area and also significant here near a Planned Parenthood.

Very precise in the language from Colorado Springs police that this active shooting situation happening near the Planned Parenthood center. You can see the flashing lights here, tremendous police presence, several local jurisdictions and the ATF as well, FBI not there, but offering up their assistance if, in fact, needed.

Just coming out from local police, three officers have been injured, the extent of the injuries unknown. Are there hostages? We have not been able to confirm that either. And we haven't been able to confirm whether or not it's more than one shooter.

But we have heard that there are two separate hospitals. Three people who have been injured have been taken to one. The other hospital, Memorial Hospital, they have received one patient with a gunshot wound to his or her arm. That's what we know right now. Still a fluid situation.

I have these two still sitting next to me providing incredible insight from law enforcement perspectives, Harry Houck, Jonathan Gilliam, as far as what could be happening right now.

So, Harry, in addition to knowing that three officers have been injured, we know that they, being police, still in the process of trying to eliminate the threat. So that tells you that...

HOUCK: They're engaged.

BALDWIN: They're engaged.

HOUCK: With the shooter, correct.

But it looks like -- this looks like a really well-planned attack, based on what we're talking about here.

BALDWIN: Why?

HOUCK: He was able to shoot three police officers entering that location.

And they're still trying to find him or get to the location where he's at now.