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California Shooting Rampage. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired December 03, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:29:32] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm reporting live from San Bernardino, California where they're searching for answers here in Southern California.

Today investigators are combing the scene where those two accused killers died in a shootout with police. This is new video in to CNN. You can see every scrap of evidence like dozens of bullets and shell casings are being numbered and examined.

Sources tell us that the couple -- the married couple at the center of this massacre were not on law enforcement radar. We've learned that neither -- local authority weren't aware of these people either. So why would Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik carry out the nation's worst mass murder since Sandy Hook?

Police say they both opened fire at the holiday party for his fellow county employees -- 14 people killed, 17 wounded. Was it workplace violence or terrorism? Before they both could be questioned, of course, they died in that gunfight with police.

Listen to the explosion of gunfire captured by a neighbor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Shots rang out. Oh, (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Oh, my gosh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guys, this is outside of my house right now. There's cops all over the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) yard. Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Well, we know very little about the motives of these two shooters. Police say it's too soon to rule anything out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JARROD BURGUAN, SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY POLICE CHIEF: I am really being careful because we all know that when these types of things happen, we've seen this happen time and time again, there's a lot of information that comes out in the first day in the first couple of days and that information changes significantly in the days that follow.

So until we know the motive or we really have a clear -- something clear, evidentiary-based on that motive, I just don't want to weigh in on that right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ruled out terrorism at this point? Is that still on the table.

BURGUAN: We have not ruled out terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Before I introduce my guest, I want to mention that President Obama is expected to make a statement shortly, when he does, of course, we'll bring that to you. We're also expecting a live news conference from one of the local hospitals where those 19 (SIC) people are recovering. We hope we'll take you live to the hospital when that happens, too.

Ok. So, let me introduce my guest. CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is here. Brian Levin is here -- he's from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State, San Bernardino. And Qasim Rashid is here, he's the spokesman for the Ahmadiyyah Muslim Community USA and a Harvard fellow. Welcome to all of you.

BRIAN LEVIN, CENTER FOR STUDY OF HATE AND EXTREMISM: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Jim -- I want to start with you. Because a lot of Americans have made up their mind that this was terrorism and somehow it was connected to ISIS. Some Americans aren't so sure. Maybe it was workplace violence and it was fueled by something else. What are authorities saying?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Here's what authorities say. Number one, fact is they don't know. They just don't know at this point. So, people have to keep an open mind because the investigators are keeping an open mind.

That said, they are leaving both possible explanations out there as credible at this point. It's possible that it was workplace violence or that it was some sort of domestic terrorism or international terrorism or, and this is interesting -- this would be interesting, Carol, some combination of the two.

Did one inspire the other? Was there both a grievance and some affinity to international extremism? That's possible as well. But the fact is at this point they don't know. What they do know is this because you look at all the signs here that there was clear preparation for this.

Was it a momentary crime of passion? Just seems very unlikely because, one, you had two people involved. The number of weapons you had involved -- two long rifles, two handguns, the ammunition, the explosive devices that would have had to be manufactured prior to this. That wouldn't happen in the time between this apparent altercation at this holiday party and then the shooter coming back and returning a short time later.

So, there was preparation here. Whatever inspired it, the attackers took time to be ready to carry out this rampage.

COSTELLO: All right.

Brian, I'm going to ask another question. I'm a little distracted because we understand the news conference at the Loma Linda Community Hospital is about to begin. We see officials there standing before the mikes. I don't think they officially started yet. But let's listen in to see.

KERRY HEINRICH, LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is Kerry, K-E-R-R-Y; Heinrich, H-E-I-N-R-I-C- H.

This morning, just by way of a briefing on the five patients that we have. We have two that are still in critical condition and three that are in fair condition. There were a lot of questions last night. I stood behind our press individual and watched the questions come in.

You guys do a wonderful job with what you do, but, please, understand our job is to preserve and protect the confidentiality and privacy of our patients. That is why, of course, we don't give more information as to the status of the patients or where they're at, at this point in time.

I want to take a moment to say a special thank you this morning to our staff. Yesterday was a very, very difficult day for them. In the midst of all the challenges of dealing with trauma patients, we had a called in bomb threat to the institution. That always is something we take seriously. You never know whether it's credible or not. So our practice and our policy is to always take those matters seriously.

[10:35:07] I took time to physically walk through the units and give a sense of encouragement to our staff. The remarkable thing is, they all were there. They were all hands on. None of them shied away from their responsibilities and I am incredibly grateful for the dedication of our staff through very difficult times.

It's also stressful to have officers with assault rifles going unit to unit looking for devices and that is just something that we train for. It's something that our staff understands, but it's never easy to go through when you're facing that in the midst of everything else that's going on. Especially during the period of time when there are still active shooters at large.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kerry, you guys area a level one trauma center.

HEINRICH: Correct.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many patients were you prepared to take in through your triage that was set up? HEINRICH: It's a good question. The answer is as a level one

we're prepared to deal with system-wide or county-wide emergencies. And so we bring in an event like this, all hands on deck. There's a call that goes out to all trauma surgeons, all support staff, all nursing staff and so we literally had out in front of the hospital a large group of our professionals that were prepared to take multiple casualties if that were the case.

Fortunately, through our triage system, they were able to distribute patients among a number of area hospitals. But we could have handled many more patients if that were necessary.

You then divide the line between optimal care and that which is absolutely essential just to stabilize the patients at that point in time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're such an intrinsic part of this community. There are 14 victims that were deceased that were not transported here. Can you just speak to the emotional nature of this community and how you guys are feeling based on this mass shooting that took place.

HEINRICH: Well, regrettably, the Inland Empire has had its struggles over the years with gun violence. Certainly we've struggled at times with gang violence. Earlier this year we had eight shootings, not more than a half a mile away from this institution.

So, our staff have trained, they've prepared. There's nothing that you can do, really, to prepare for an event like yesterday with the emotional trauma that comes along with that. Particularly in the context of you don't know what is coming next. You don't know what the next event will be. And it's as much as anything the uncertainty of try to react to that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kerry can I ask you -- I know that you guys have set up a special room for the family members who are coming to be with their loved ones. I know myself and my loved one is in the hospital (inaudible). Did you see that last night, some of these family members spending like an all-night vigil for their family members?

HEINRICH: Certainly. We try to be very sensitive to the families and set up a special place for them to get updates and information. They can't initially visit their loved ones at times because, in some cases, their loved ones would be in surgery. But there's an opportunity for our clinicians to then meet with them, to give them updates, to try to provide comfort and compassion during a very difficult time.

And we have done that before and, again, it's something that regrettably we have had to deal with on a number of different occasions through the years when there have been significant shooting events in this region.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I understand you can't give specific details about the nature of the injuries or the nature of their conditions, but realistically speaking, what are we looking at as far as recovery? Are you optimistic about recovery at this point?

HEINRICH: Well, honestly, the story for each of those patients is their story to tell. And we are very guarded about giving details other than to say the technical classification, which we have given between critical, stable and fair and beyond that, I will leave it for the patients themselves to tell their own stories.

Some of them already have communicated on Facebook. But that's their story to tell -- their time, their place, their way of communicating. We simply are focused on clinical care and preserving in every sense of the word their privacy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kerry, multiple sources in law enforcement have confirmed that the officer that was involved in the shooting with the SUV was transported here. But we had cameras here at the time. Can you elaborate on that or reconfirm what we already know.

HEINRICH: I will leave it to law enforcement to describe when and if and how their officers have been treated and where they have been treated. Again, for obvious reasons, we're being very careful about preserving and protecting the privacy of our patients.

You probably observed yesterday we put up sheets. Why did we do that? Because you have very, very sophisticated cameras and we try to be very careful about protecting facial identity. And the reason for that is for loved ones and spouses and others to see on the news their loved one when they weren't even yet aware that their loved one was in the hospital is a very traumatic event. And so we're being sensitive to that and that's why.

[10:40:10] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you shed a little light on the range of injuries that you're seeing? I know you're not able to compromise privacy.

HEINRICH: Well, you have the best characterization as multiple gunshot wound. All of the patients are gunshot wound victims and we have trauma surgeons that, as I said, regrettably, have had a lot of exposure and experience to gunshot victims. So, all of them suffered one version or another of gunshot wounds. I'll, of course, be careful not to describe the details of those injuries. Just, again, because it's the patient's story to tell.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will their family be available to speak? I don't know --

HEINRICH: We will inform the family and we have that the press would like to speak to them. It's their decision and we will protect them and their confidentiality and privacy as long as they choose that. When they choose to speak to the press, we, of course, will let them know the press would like to speak to them. But it's not our decision.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you spoken to any of the families? What has been communicated to you?

HEINRICH: I think you can see it all over the news and you guys have done a wonderful job reporting shock, trauma, stress -- all of the words you can think of. I can't think of anything worse than having a loved one in a room trapped with active shooters and there's no way out. And all of the family members, of course, are struggling in their own way and their own method of dealing with the very difficult circumstances they face.

Some of them have loved ones that have, as we've said, more manageable injuries because of nature of the classification. Some of the family members are dealing with loved ones that have very, very serious injuries. And that's why they were brought here because of the serious nature of their injuries.

So, people deal with things different ways. But there's no question that the shock and trauma and stress is evident all over the inland empire. It's evident in our staff and evident in people that have e-mailed me from literally around the world expressing condolences and support and appreciation for the care that we've been able to render during a very difficult, difficult time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kerry, security --

HEINRICH: Well, as you saw yesterday, we had significant security and police presence available. We were not advised by law enforcement to lock down the facility. So, we did not lock down the facility yesterday. That was because there was no information of an immediate threat to the institution. So because we are a level one trauma center, there are still automobile accidents that happen and strokes and heart attacks. We remained opened during that entire period of time to try to address other patients that may need immediate care.

We diverted nonessential away in accordance with Inland County regional system for managing events like this. But we still maintained our ability to treat other types of patients. That is why we did not go on lock down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you project them being released any time soon? What's next?

HEINRICH: Well, actually, even though I carry the title of chief executive officer of the institution, they actually don't let me practice medicine. So I can't answer the question of when they may be released. That will be a decision of the medical professionals as to when and how they will release the patients.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Might you be giving any updates when that time comes?

HEINRICH: We would be glad to do that and, certainly, we'll pass along to family members the desire of the press to speak with them and, again, it's their decision if they wish to speak. Any other questions I can answer? I'm sorry -- we have two in critical, three in fair. Any other questions I can answer for you?

I also want to take a moment to say a special word of thanks to law enforcement. They were here yesterday. Very engaged with us, conferring with us as to the status of the situation. As you all know, very fluid yesterday and we are incredibly grateful to the work of the San Bernardino police department, as well as the support agencies that provided additional support to them. They have been a remarkable organization to work with.

[10:44:54] I watched the police chief for San Bernardino last night on the news and just three days ago he and I were in a no-shave November event that the police department put on for the benefit of our cancer center and remarkable, wonderful people to work with and I'm deeply grateful for the service they give to this community. Thank you very much.

COSTELLO: All right. We're just going to breakaway from this live news conference. We're the Loma Linda university medical center. And as you've heard, very precious little information really being given out in this press conference. Many thanks to public officials, including police.

HEINRICH: Goes without saying, but our thoughts and prayers are with the family members. We have provided a variety of services to them. Our chaplain department has been actively engaged. And it certainly is part of our mission to provide for all of the needs of our patients and we have been actively engaged in meeting their needs on every level, including those that request thoughts and prayers. We have directly communicate would them about that. So, again, thank you for being here this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: All right. We're going to breakaway. He mentioned four patients that I could hear, two of them in critical condition. Two of them in fair condition. He's not giving out any more information about the patients inside that hospital. He says it's up to them to share their stories. Many of them, he said, have already shared their stories on Facebook, but, again, it's up to the individual patients and their families to share what happened to them yesterday. That terrible day.

All right, I want to bring back in my guest Brian Levin He's from the center for the study of height and extremism at Cal State San Bernardino and Qasim Rashid. He's the spokesman for the Ahmadiyyah Muslim Community. Welcome to both of you.

Brian, everybody is wondering why. Why did these people do this terrible thing yesterday. This married couple, they just had a baby -- six-month-old baby. The husband, who just attended a holiday party at his place of employment. He stayed there for a time, supposedly he argued with a fellow employee and then he left. Got his wife and police say then they returned armed to the hilt with their faces covered. What do you make of it?

LEVIN: You know, it's interesting. I was looking down because I was looking at my testimony before congress just a few weeks ago. What I said that active shooters are quite prevalent among extremists. And one of the things that I think is important to recognize is when we look at master symbolic violence we oftentimes focus on the ideological first.

And what I have is a typology which actually is more broad. We have the ideologically motivated. We also have the psychologically dangerous and then we have someone who's seeking personal benefit or revenge and you could have one that is primary and others that are secondary or tertiary.

And at this point, we simply don't know. But what I told congress just weeks ago was we have loners and small cells even, people who will sculpt their own brand of hatred. What I can tell you is these people feel aggrieved in some way. They feel there has been an injustice and they act out violently.

Unfortunately in the United States, our homicide rate is almost four times that of the U.K. More than four times that of Germany. And we have thousands of people killed every year with handguns. Interestingly, people have been killed annually with long rifles of the kind that we see here -- the subset -- that's actually declined over the last four, five years by almost 25 percent.

COSTELLO: It's just, all right, I hear you. So, Qasim, I'll ask you this question. Syed Farook -- he is the husband in this case. He had a good job. He was employed by the county, made $70,000 a year, he was born in Illinois, just got married and had a six-month-old baby girl. It's just hard to fathom that he had some terrible incident in his life and felt the need to do this.

QASIM RASHID, AHMADIYYAH MUSLIM COMMUNITY: Yes, it's mind- boggling. And this is my imitation -- the imitation of the Muslim community to all Americans. We have one of the largest mosques in San Bernardino County and we're going to holding a prayer vigil tonight at 6:00 p.m. And we want all of our fellow Americans to join us.

You know, the Ahmadiyyah Muslim Community (inaudible) to believe in the Messiah and (inaudible) has been at the forefront of serving humanity since day one. And what we find is that when these kinds of tragedies happen, the worst thing that we can do is cut ourselves off from one another. We need to find ways to come together, stand united against extremism.

And this is our olive branch that we want to maintain that all people of all faith or no faith come join us. Let's mourn together. Let's break bread together and let's find ways to maintain this dialogue.

[10:50:06] You know, right now a Pew Research report that's nearly 200 million Americans have never met a Muslim before.

And there is an ignorance gap that we want to try to fill together by working together, breaking bread together and serving humanity together. I hope we have an overwhelming turnout tonight at our prayer vigil. I think that is going to be the step forward to ensure peace, ensure understanding and to prevent future attacks from happening in any capacity.

COSTELLO: Qasim, if this couple was inspired by terrorism overseas, how will that affect your community?

RASHID: Well, the Ahmadiyyah Muslim Community has been very clear on our stance on terrorism. There is never an excuse for terrorism, whatsoever. In fact, in the coming days, you're going to see what we're call the true Islam campaign. A campaign where we will be asking our fellow Americans and our fellow Muslim Americans to join us on fundamental principles of freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, the equality of women, the condemnation of all forms of Terrorism.

The founder of our community, the Messiah 120 years ago wrote that the concept of jihad of the sword is dead. There is no place for violent jihad in Islam. The truest love that Prophet Muhammad is taught is the jihad of the pen, of intellectual discourse of dialogue, of service to all humanity.

So, if it is found by the authorities that these two people acted with some type of terrorism in mind, inspired by some radical group, it will reinforce the need for us to come together. It will reinforce the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community's motto of love for all hatred, of finding ways to educate one another from each other and, ultimately, with that education, with that service to humanity, truly conquer terrorism. That's the key to conquering terrorism.

COSTELLO: All right, I have to leave it there. Qasim Rashid, Brian Levin -- thanks to both of you. I'll be right back.

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[10:56:31] COSTELLO: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello, live in San Bernardino, California. Of course, after this tragic incident yesterday, more calls for gun control.

So, let's talk about that. I'm joined by Dan Gross. He's the president of the Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence. Welcome.

DAN GROSS, BRADY CAMPAIGN: Thanks -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Ok, we seem to have the same argument every time these incidents happen and nothing really changes. I wish I had more time to talk to you, but we only have a couple of minutes. So, give me your best answer -- Dan.

GROSS: First of all, things are changing. There's change sweeping across this country. State by state we're expanding Brady background checks to gun sales. It seems the last to wake up is almost always Congress and it's a question of the American public making its voice heard.

93 percent of the public supports expanding Brady background checks to all gun sales. This helps keeps guns out of the hands of only the people that we all agree shouldn't have them -- convicted violent criminals, domestic abusers and would-be terrorists.

The American public supports these solutions keeping guns out of the hands of people intent on doing harm. It seems that the only place where there isn't a significant percentage of support is in Congress. And we need to change that. We need to close this disgraceful disconnect that exists between what the American public wants, what is in our best interest in terms of our safety and what our elected leaders are doing about it.

And that voice is rising. You know, just in the last 12 hours plus, we've put more than 4,000 calls into the senate. You can text "Enough" to 877877 and we will connect you directly to the senate. This comes down to the American public making its voice heard and calling out these craven politicians who are putting the interests of the corporate gun lobby ahead of the interest of the American public.

COSTELLO: Ok, so, give me some pushback to the argument that, you know, had someone had a gun inside that county office building that 14 people wouldn't have died.

GROSS: It's nonsense. First of all, these people were heavily, they were wearing armor. That right there dismisses it. My brother was shot in a terrorist attack that was a mass shooting. Anybody on top of the Empire State Building, anybody who is close to that situation, anybody who has been close to the mass confusion associated with one of these tragedies knows that the addition of more untrained people carrying weapons only increases the possibility of somebody dying.

The big problem, though, is this is not the conversation that the American public wants to have. We don't believe that the only answer to violence is more violence, that the only answer to guns is more guns. We believe that this is about keeping guns out of the hands of people who were intent on doing harm and the bottom line is, we can do so much better in doing that.

93 percent of the American public, 90 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of gun owners, 70 percent of NRA members support this solution. This is the conversation that we need to have -- not kind of resorting back to this primal notion that our only answer to violence is more violence and our only answer to guns is more guns.

COSTELLO: All right. Dan Gross, thanks for joining me.

And thanks to all of you for joining me. I'm Carol Costello reporting live from San Bernardino, California.

"AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Hello everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: And I'm John Berman.

Our breaking news: The President about to deliver a statement from the Oval Office. We'll bring that to you the second it begins.

We also have some breaking news from California. Authorities there getting set to hold a news conference as well on the massacre in San Bernardino. We'll bring --