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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

California Shooting. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 03, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Agencies also helping out here, which gives us a little insight into the different angles that are being pursued.

So, what do we know about the people specifically involved, the suspects, the man and woman who shot up a holiday party, again, killing 14 people? The context is important. That's the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since Newtown.

Now, there had been conjecture early on by investigators that we may not know exactly what drove them to murder ever. That's probably not going to be the worst case scenario. We do have some answers. We have new information that's coming in. Here's what we know right now.

We know their names, Syed Farouk, Tashfeen Malik, 28 and 27 years old, known to be husband and wife. The marriage came under some curious circumstances. It may have involved travel abroad. That there are reports out there about that, that are still being chased down by investigators.

Now, what happened at the party? Well, we know that the male suspect was there because he worked for the county health agency. He was at the party. Something happened at the party. He left. It is described by witnesses at the scene as being somewhat of a hostile situation. What happened next is for sure, he returned. He returned with his wife and they were heavily armed in a way that suggests planning. That even if something happened at that party, the eventual attack was not simply spontaneous. Military wear, tactical military garb on them as well.

We're going to start seeing officials pulling up now. This isn't something urgent. This is about not security, it's about the upcoming presser, so don't worry about that.

They had long guns. They had handguns. They had a potential explosive device. Again, that goes to the spontaneity versus the planning of this. They had passed off their six-month-old child to the grandmother, saying they had a doctor's appointment that day, which was obviously not true. So all of these factors go into the investigation of what's going on.

President Obama has been speaking about this. He did it during an interview with CBS and he just did it again recently. Here's what he had to say as a point of focus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At this stage, we do not yet know why this terrible event occurred. We do know that the two individuals who were killed were equipped with weapons and appeared to have access to additional weaponry at their homes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right, there's no question that President Obama focuses very heavily on the fact that guns were here, that this is another mass shooting. There were two yesterday. There have been 355 this year alone. And to the president, that speaks to a pattern that is not replicated by any other developed country. However, the investigators are looking far beyond the means to the motives here.

Let's bring in Chief Jim Bueermann. He's the former head of the police in Redlands, California.

Good to have him.

Also, let's bring in CNN's Victor Blackwell. He's anchoring for us from a different part of the location, where the home was that started the entire chase.

Victor, let's pick up with you first, just to get a sense of, that's where it all changed. They went from being on the search to being in the hunt. What happened there?

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly, when officials, we're told by the San Bernardino police chief, Jarrod Burguan, got some information, a lead, and not being specific about that yet, that this address was connected to Syed Farouk. Officers traveled here. They noticed a black SUV with Utah tags slow down, kind of pass them at a really slow pace and then race off and then the chase was on. It didn't last very long. They didn't go very far, about a quarter mile. And that's where everything ended with that shootout with about 20 police officers. Syed Farouk, 27 years old, and Tashfeen Malik, 28 years old, both died in that vehicle.

There was something that was thrown out of the vehicle. At the time, it was thought that it was a pipe bomb. Later determined to be fake.

But let me give you an idea of what's been happening here since. There was a search overnight for explosives. Inside this town home, in a vehicle outside, no explosives found that we've been told of by officials. But we have seen the FBI here all morning inside, outside the home, starting the search for evidence, to get answers to the question why. Just in the last few moments we've seen members of the regional computers forensic lab leave here, of course looking through any laptops, any desktops, any hard drives or thumb drives or cell phones that could lead to the larger question, why. And are there other people supporting these two, because it took a lot of time and a lot of preparation to get that tactical gear, the weapons, the ammunition, and to plan the massacre that they carried out yesterday. They're not using the term premeditated, but it is quite difficult to believe. I'm sure you're hearing from lots of law enforcement officials, that this was perpetrated or - or the catalyst of it was simply an argument at a holiday party. He went home, got his wife, shot 31 people, killing 14 of them.

CUOMO: Right. Right. I mean from the beginning, that has looked to be just an improbable situation, Victor. You're right to speculate on it that way because the information and the reporting is confirming that.

[12:05:11] If we can bring in justice correspondent Evan Perez.

We're getting new information now that authorities, after looking in that house, as Victor was suggesting, not just perfunctory but probative, they were getting in there, finding information that leads to a different picture of this, that takes us far away from the idea of anything random in this and to what specifically the intentions of this man and his wife were. What have we just learned?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, I think it's really more a complicated picture is kind of what the president said just about an hour ago. We do know that law enforcement officials do believe that there are indications that Syed Farouk was radicalized. Now, they believe that that could be at least part of the motivation for why this shooting took place yesterday in San Bernardino. That doesn't explain everything, however. They still believe that there might be some indication of a workplace motive, some kind of workplace beef, that at least may have triggered or played a role in what happened yesterday. So some kind of hybrid explanation of what happened yesterday.

We do know that officials have found indications that he was in touch with and had communications with one - at least one terrorism suspect. Somebody who was being looked at by the FBI and that the FBI was already investigating and that there were some communications over the phone, by social media, that are now being analyzed simply to try to figure out whether or not that also played a role in this radicalization and in what might have - what occurred yesterday.

We also know that they are looking at some overseas communications. Now, we don't know whether that indicates that anybody was ordering what happened yesterday to occur. Again, there's no indication of that yet. We do not know of any international terrorism links. But again, that's something that the FBI is trying to chase down and make sure that they understand exactly how that fits in.

CUOMO: Right.

PEREZ: Again, the thing that the FBI is trying to make sure they do is not foreclose any of these possibilities. We know that they found, for instance, some kind of homemade bomb lab. It's - you know, we know that they found a backpack at the scene of the first shooting, Chris. And apparently he would - this is where he made these bombs. This is something that he had rigged together with a remote control car -

CUOMO: Right.

PEREZ: And was intended to detonate yesterday and did not happen. We don't know exactly why that did not happen.

So again, these are all the pieces that the FBI is putting together. CUOMO: Right.

PEREZ: Indications of radicalization, however, is what has moved the FBI and the president to make this an FBI investigation because there are all indications that this is where this is going.

CUOMO: Right. FBI, ATF, JTTF, the Joint Terrorism Task Force. We hear about multiple agencies and assets being involved. And it's making more and more sense why.

Evan, thank you very much. Let us know what else you hear on that.

Let's bring in former chief, Jim Bueermann, here.

Chief, thank you again for being with us this morning.

CHIEF JIM BUEERMANN (RET.), REDLANDS, CALIFORNIA POLICE: A pleasure.

CUOMO: You didn't want to betray the trust of what you had known and been told, but now that we're reporting it, we can get some better context on this. If there's evidence that this guy was radicalized, that goes to why the authorities are looking at who else knew and how did he learn to do what he did with that bomb. Was he a lone wolf, self-radicalized? We know that online hate magazines generated by bad guy groups often teach you how to do things, like how to use toys and cell phones as detonators. Maybe that's why it didn't work, because he was teaching himself, but that's certainly the ambit of perspective. You're saying you know from the guys looking, that they were looking in that house for a reason and they found things.

BUEERMANN: Well, the investigators have been working all night long, right, so they know a lot more today than they did yesterday about what their motive was, who these people were and who they may have had contact with. So I think we're going to hear in the press conference coming up here some very specific things that will tell us more about what the motive was and, as tragic as this incident was, and it was horrific, it looks to me like the police intervention probably forced all much more tragic outcomes.

CUOMO: And, look, there's - there's objective reason to believe that. Why? Well, look how they scrambled.

BUEERMANN: Right.

CUOMO: What usually happens, if this is radicalization, if this is that kind of that typical, hateful, if hollow, terrorist attack, they usually stay there, try to do as much bad as they can and then take themselves out when they are outgunned and try to blow themselves up sometimes. Here, they fled. Now what does that speak to? Not having what it takes to fulfill their mission or that they weren't really prepped by anybody and maybe this was a lone wolf?

Let's put the information we have to some better minds. We have CNN's Jim Sciutto. We have former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam. We also have former CIA operative Bob Baer and former ATF explosive expert Tony May. We could not have a better panel assembled for this. Jimmy, let me start with you.

We've been looking at this overnight together. From the beginning, we have been hearing whispers that this was about where else this extends to. Now that we're hearing they believe he was radicalized, the question becomes how and perhaps by whom, right?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No question. Listen, the sad fact is, it's very easy to become radicalized today. It's interesting, you know the Paris attacks, I was told by French investigators, that the radicalization process today, typically in the past, their experience had been, it would take months. Now it can happen in two or three weeks. The - you know, it's happening so quickly it's hard for them to keep up. We don't know how long it took here, but it just speaks to the difficulty in tracking this kind of thing as it happens.

[12:10:21] And we know that groups such as ISIS and others have a very powerful social media presence that has been fantastic at magnetically attracting recruits to this extremist cause. That's one thing. I mean you heard the president say just a short time ago this possibility that it was terrorism. You don't have the president saying that from the Oval Office often unless there was something to back that up, and we're seeing now one reason why that may be, that this evidence of radicalization.

But again, as Evan Perez was reporting there, law enforcement, counterterror officials, still see the possibility of some possible mix of those two motives, a workplace grievance, perhaps joined with extremist motivation. It would be rare, it would be odd, but there are a lot of rare and odd things about this case, namely that you had a husband and wife carry out this bloodshed. So we're learning a lot from this and sadly what we're learning is it's fairly alarming.

CUOMO: All right, Jimmy, thank you very much.

Let's go from that piece of the puzzle that you put together. Bob, let me bring you in, Bob Baer here, because then this becomes about, well, how effectively can you be self-radicalized? What are we seeing in what happened here that speaks to how well or not well these people did what they wanted to do? What do you see?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I - you know, I've got the impression, you know, so far with the facts that have come out, that these people were trained or - I mean, you can't self- train your something - yourself in, you know, confronting the police in a gunfight. You almost have to do that in a training camp. That's what disturbs me. And the fact that they were aware - the police reaction time and they get - they got in, committed the violence and got away. They used homemade devices - at least fake homemade devices to break contact with the police. You know, I can't tell you what they were going to do. If they were going to go back and maybe try to detonate that explosive, that remote controlled - you know. But now that the signs of radicalization are out there and their technique, this has all the hallmarks of a preplanned terrorist attack. I'm sorry, it just does. I mean, you know, whether they were inspired or directed -

CUOMO: Well, don't be sorry.

BAER: Yes, well, I mean, I hate - you know, I'm out on a limb on this, but I'd say it's international terrorism. And does it really matter whether they're inspired or directed.

CUOMO: Well, look, I mean - let's just go - let's go where the evidence finds us. No need for apologies. This is what you do for a living. But let me bring the chief back in here for a second, Jim Bueermann.

When we're looking at what they did, these guys ran out of this situation.

BUEERMANN: Right.

CUOMO: And then they stuck close to the area. That does not speak to an intelligent plan, does it?

BUEERMANN: Well, either that or it speaks to a change in tactics. I mean I think we should be very concerned about what these folks did. And it has significant implication for policing in the United States.

CUOMO: How so?

BUEERMANN: Well, so we've got this discussion going on about the difference between a guardian and a warrior mentality, right? Yesterday, you saw police officers acting clearly in that warrior mind-set. They were taking rounds and they're going to give it right back. But we live in a democratic society. We want democratic policing. We want to build trust and confidence in the police across our communities and doing that in a way that doesn't offend people while, at the same time that we're trying to protect the community from incidents like this is going to be very complicated, especially if the self - if this turns out to be an incident of self-radicalized terrorism and those people have changed their tactics where they're not going in and blowing themselves up, but they're going to hit and run, like they did here, I think this creates huge problems for the police and change in tactics and training.

CUOMO: Certainly big concerns. Another point of potential, potential sophistication, John Gilliam, is the weapons. We know that this guy, who's now dead, he bought a couple of the handguns himself several years ago. That time frame is probably going to wind up being relevant. Secondly, the long guns were bought legally, we're told, and I'm holding up quote fingers for a reason. He didn't buy them. And there's probably good reason why he didn't. I don't think you can buy those AR-15s in California. The law has gotten more and more sophisticated over time. But they'd have to be grandfathered in around 2001, 2006. The former chief, Jim Bueermann, is shaking his head. I don't think they couldn't have been bought here in California. And if they were, they wouldn't have been able to be registered here. So the question is, where did they get them? The authorities, Gilliam, are saying they know who bought them. They don't believe he's connected. But then how did they get their hands on his weapons? JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER POLICE OFFICER: Right. Well, you know, that's

a good question. And that's going to be something that is another piece of this puzzle. And I'm going to go, you know, straight - and go ahead and say this. I'm going to agree with Bob Baer. I think that we have enough evidence now, having just left two and a half years ago from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, I'm going to say this is terrorism, based on the information that we have now, that you can clearly see that this is a group that is organized and that takes the ideology from fundamental Islamic jihadism and they're using the tactics that they've used in the Middle East, now employing women in their attacks.

[12:15:14] So what we have to look at now as we further this investigation is these links that they'll find. Where did these guns come from? You know, a lot of the times when these sales work, they're not necessarily advertising to the people that they know. And if they acquire guns from them, they may or may not know that the person that they got them from may not know that they were going to use these in a nefarious way.

The other thing that desperately needs to be looked at now, did they belong to a mosque? If that mosque is - is being investigated for anything, and if there's any sources inside that mosque so they can see if radicalization is going on inside there. This is the movements that we have to start taking now.

And let me just - I just want to say this one thing. This country was settled, it was not conquered. So what we have is a mind-set in - that does not fit correctly in the - with the mentality of these warriors that are going to come over here and try to attack us. We need to adjust that. And as the chief was just talking there a minute ago, as we adjust our mindset to realize that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily live like we do, we'll then be able to set up good tactics for law enforcement and people will realize that they have to come up with their own tactics when something like this happens. And they expect law enforcement to come in, know that they're going to have to put their hands up, know how they're going to be treated. If businesses just cast this stuff aside, they're going to be the next victim quite possibly.

CUOMO: You know, it's always a tricky conversation. You don't want to scare people. So much of being American, of being free, is living the way you want, and you never want to put in someone's head that while you're going to have to do certain things a certain way but, you know what, the realities are what they are and the risk is real. We keep seeing these in different context. At some point, it does become part of the new normal.

Now, Anthony May, let me come to you on this, Tony. The idea of a man and a woman being involved. Multiple shooters already, that takes us all the way back to Columbine in terms of our history of experience with it here. But the idea of women becoming more involved in the actual violence and assaults of this Islamist extremism, what do you think of this and the reports that this guy may have gone somewhere else and been married to this woman and then brought back for this? ANTHONY MAY, RETIRED ATF EXPLOSIVES EXPERT: Well, you know, I'm not

going to disagree with this panel. But let's put it all in perspective here. The - and let's - I'll use the term circumstantial evidence at this point because we're 24 hours into this. The FBI, the ATF, local law enforcement, San Bernardino County, they're - they've got a lot of work still to do. But just looking at the circumstantial evidence, this individual bought these weapons legally, according to the ATF, two to three years ago. Several years ago the - al Qaeda was looking for people with clean backgrounds, clean records, so they could freely travel when they were targeting the aviation industry. I talked with America West, to their pilots, we talked about this routinely. So this kind of fits the picture. A guy has a clean background, able to purchase firearms legally.

Let's move a couple years ahead. This event yesterday at the holiday event, I believe, was just a catalyst. This individual was planning this event, had pre-stocked weapons, had built bombs. And let's talk about the bombs that he built particularly. These were crude devices. Nothing dramatic. But they did use a tactic right out of the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula "Inspire" magazine, their number 12 issue in March of 2014, where it talks about using toy car remotes as its initiator. The same article also talked about targeting events with large gatherings of people, not the buildings.

So we've got all of this happening. We've got the event. He goes to a holiday party. Reportedly leaves mad. Comes back with his wife, I believe this being the catalyst, they had some other target, some other plan in mind. They shoot up the event. They leave a package behind with a remote control device.

CUOMO: Yes.

MAY: Now, our technique for active shooters situations is to hunker down in place, barricade in place, and that works well. Until we see this evolution in the process of a device where they have - now have the means to leave the event and initiate it remotely. Now, the device didn't work. I'm being told that - because of some design flaws. But they leave. They go back to the house, probably to resupply. So they had some bigger plan in mind. And this has been in the works for a while.

Now, I'm not saying they're -

CUOMO: Yes.

[12:20:00] MAY: Associated or affiliated with al Qaeda, but we've seen a lot of -

CUOMO: (INAUDIBLE) -

MAY: Self-radicalization, and with the Boston Marathon bomber used this whole technique, the "Inspire" magazine. So this is - this - this is all circumstantial evidence that we have right now. Workplace violence, terrorism - I would not lean towards workplace violence other than the catalyst. CUOMO: Well, it seems we've moved past that. As you say, it may have

been an incendiary moment for the guy, but obviously there was planning in the works and maybe even some deeper and darker thought before that, that led him to the planning.

Let's take a quick break. The It's panel's being very helpful here and it's good to have the former chief on as well because he's got ears on the ground and understands the policing techniques involved, specifically in San Bernardino. We have more information come in. Stay with us. Right after the break, we have another piece to the puzzle.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00] CUOMO: All right, we're here in San Bernardino as part of the CNN's continuing coverage of the mass shooting here. Fourteen people, murdered, 17 more injured to various degrees, many still fighting for their lives in local hospitals. The analysis now on the investigation is obviously about motive, but specifically what went into this. It looks like it was planned by every way that you would focus on the analysis. Maybe it was set off by what happened at this holiday party, but certainly there was plenty that happened before it. And we have new information on that right now.

CNN can report that the male suspect in this case, who was killed by police after the murders here, had traveled to Saudi Arabia at least twice. We can report that in 2013 he went there for Hajj, you know what this is, that's the Muslim spiritual trip. He went there and did that. But what else may have happened during that time?

There's other reports going out there about other foreign contact that this man may have had. His wife, who did the shooting with him, wound up coming here into the country. She was born in Pakistan. Came in through a fiance visa. Very common in the United States for a long time. She wound up getting a green card and becoming a citizen because she was now a wife of an American citizen.

But what else may have been going on there? That is the question that investigators are looking at and now so shall we.

Let's bring in CNN's Jim Sciutto, former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam, former CIA operative Bob Baer, former ATF explosive expert Anthony May and former police chief here in Redlands, California, Jim Bueermann.

Jimmy Sciutto, I'll start with you.

When we hear about this, we had been processing this information all night. What does this take investigators too in terms of what these trips could mean?

SCIUTTO: Well, a couple things. This is the pattern that U.S. counterterror, U.S. law enforcement officials have been warning about, looking out for, for some time, which is an American, radicalized, either overseas or via the Internet, who carries out an attack on this soil. It is early. The evidence is that he was radicalized. But there is still consideration here that there might have been combined motives. Regardless, there are indications that part of that motive was extremism and that's significant.

Now, the fact is, you have precedence for this happening, radicalization happening without any foreign travel, right, because - because groups such as ISIS and others have been very powerful about motivating young men, whether in North America or in Europe, to act, even without that foreign travel. But, listen, you and I saw the importance that that foreign travel can play as we covered the Paris attacks just a couple of weeks ago because several of the attackers there, in addition to being Europeans, a lot of social media contact with these groups, also went to the battlefield.

Now, that's very different from going to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. It may be that he went there and that the radicalization happened separate of that or after he came back to the states, but that is certainly a line of communication that they're looking into, in addition to phone contact and social media contact that he had with known international terrorism subjects.

So, you know, what we're seeing here, Chris, is, it appears, that realization of a danger that folks have been warning about for some time here in the U.S. and it's sad to see. And it's something that they've known about. They've known this potential. And we may very well have seen that play out yesterday.

CUOMO: And, Bob, maybe - Bob Baer, maybe this is part of the reason that we're hearing people in the intel community say, look, don't bother me about the refugees coming in here, it's about who's already here, who are citizens, and what do they do to themselves or what do others do to them. What do you see in this information, especially this wrinkle about the wife, that, you know, she's brought in here on a fiance visa. That's not what should raise the eyebrow. But then she then winds up being part of the attack, not support, not abet, an aide, but actually as part of it?

BAER: Well, you know, what we've seen so far, Chris, I think she was radicalized as well. Clearly, you know, sacrificing, you know, in effect, her baby, handing it off, six-month-old baby. She was a committed, let's put it this way, terrorist. I mean she was - she was a believer. The connections with Saudi Arabia don't surprise me at all. The Saudi, the average Saudi, is absolutely opposed to the United States fighting the Islamic State and al Qaeda. They hold us responsible for the death of Muslims. Would be easy to go back to Saudi Arabia and someone would suggest go home, make an attack, a random attack. The Americans are our enemy.

CUOMO: Now, bob -

BAER: Yes, go ahead.

CUOMO: Bob, let me stop you there for a second because, you know, if you were at the CIA right now, I don't know that I'd be hearing that from you. You know, you get a real mixed message about Saudi Arabia from the U.S. government. They're our friend. They're helping us. But there's always this undercurrent of others who say, you know, they're really the head of the snake. They really fund a lot of these things. And whether it's the Saudi family or some of their cousin, that there's a real division of friend/foe in that country. Are you saying that this points to that as well, this latest information?

[12:29:59] BAER: It's complicated. As we were speaking, I've been getting texts from the Middle East saying the Saudi royal family is not long for this world. They're trying to hold back this radicalization of the Saudi street. They're doing their best. You know, the interior minister, the crowned prince, is on our side