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Sheriff Reveals New Details of Kansas Shooting Spree; Rubio Launches Rapid-Fire Attack on Trump; CNN Sits Down One-On-One with Trump. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 26, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:30:00] SHERIFF T. WALTON, HARVEY COUNTY, KANSAS: Oncoming traffic. Both vehicles went off into the ditch. The shooter was getting out of his car. The driver getting out of his car. And the shooter shoots that driver.

The shooter then takes that victim's car. Travels on up here to where Excel is. Once he gets to Excel, he goes to the northeast section of the building, exits, and shoots an individual who was in the parking lot.

He then enters the doors at the northeast corner of the building and goes inside. A sheriff's deputy pulls up in the parking lot and reports that he's being fired upon. The deputy was not hurt.

The shooter then goes into the building. And at that point, shoots 14 more people. Three of those were fatalities. A Hesston police officer, the response, goes in to where the shooting is occurring and meets the shooter towards the front office area of Excel. They exchange fire. The Hesston police officer shoots and kills, and this is his name, Cedric Larry Keith Ford, 38-year-old man.

Cedric was armed with an assault rifle, and automatic pistol. Mr. Ford, who was residing in Newton, Kansas, had been served a PFA, that's a protection order, at 3:30 that afternoon. 3:30, he gets served. 5:00, we have the first shooting.

Currently we have 14 people in various hospitals, Newton Medical Center, Wesley and Saint Francis. Those conditions range from stable to critical, and one going into surgery as we speak.

Involved in this operation is a number of agencies. KBI currently is doing the crime scene investigation of Excel. The FBI is here doing numerous interviews. ATF is here to help us with the guns and weapons.

Again, this is a tragic event for the city of Hesston and Harvey County. We're going to get through this. We're going to do it right. We're going to make sure this investigation is concluded. We have jobs to do. People have been tasked to do their jobs. They're going to do their jobs. And then we'll take care of ourselves later.

With that -

PAUL MULLET, CEO, EXCEL INDUSTRIES: I'm Paul Mullet, CEO of Excel. And I've got a statement I'd like to read and I have copies for everyone. The Excel family is deeply saddened by the horrific event that

occurred yesterday. Our hearts go out to our employees and their families who are enduring this tragedy. Our first priority has been and will remain the safety and wellness of our employees. We are fully cooperating with the law enforcement agencies and the Red Cross. Our internal teams are fully engaged in crisis management. We are thankful for all the support we are receiving during this very difficult situation. Thank you for your concern.

That's all I have at this time.

WALTON: Notification has been made for all those that have been deceased. Those names will be released later when I get the final coroner's report. That could be the end of today or first of tomorrow.

With that, I would take questions at this time.

QUESTION: Can you go into the protection order a little bit more, what that involved?

WALTON: Protection from abuse order are - are made usually because you're in a relationship where there's been some kind of violent occurrence and a party files those particular orders.

QUESTION: And this person - was this person known - Cedric, known to the police, known to the sheriff's office? Was he known? (INAUDIBLE) have a record in the past?

WALTON: Cedric?

QUESTION: Uh-huh.

WALTON: Yes.

QUESTION: Can you go into that?

WALTON: All I can say is, he's been in my jail a couple of times before.

QUESTION: Do you know how he was able to get those weapons?

[09:35:01] WALTON: I do not.

QUESTION: Given that he has a criminal history.

WALTON: At this point, I - I don't. Now, we're only about 15 hours into this investigation. There's a lot of those questions. And we want to find those answers and we hope to.

QUESTION: When did -

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) served at the plant?

WALTON: She was.

QUESTION: He - he was? WALTON: He was.

QUESTION: With the - with the -

WALTON: The protection from abuse order.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) order. At that point, did he leave the facility?

WALTON: Yes.

QUESTION: Does the person who filed the other work at that plant?

WALTON: No.

QUESTION: Can you go into detail into what was in the protection order?

WALTON: No.

QUESTION: Sheriff, how much ammunition did he have with him?

WALTON: I do not know.

QUESTION: But he had the assault rifle and a pistol.

WALTON: Yes.

QUESTION: Was he - we were told he emptied the assault rifle and was preparing to use the pistol. Is that correct (ph)?

WALTON: I don't know at this time.

QUESTION: As a result of a protection order, are weapons confiscated from an individual, or any - any other protocol other than serving the individual with a protection -

WALTON: No, they - they just get served with the order.

QUESTION: Was he targeting specific people at the business?

WALTON: He was not. He was randomly shooting people.

QUESTION: Sheriff, I know you said that you were investigating how he obtained the weapons. Is it your belief that he had the weapons legally? Was he allowed to have the weapons or was it legal for him to (INAUDIBLE)?

WALTON: ATF is working on that right now. We're conducting traces of the weapons themselves. We're also doing an investigation of how he got those weapons. Of course a big part of that's going to be who purchased them, but that - that part of the investigation is just a few hours old and it will take - it will take more time before we have those answers, but those - that's what we're seeking right now.

QUESTION: Do you know -

QUESTION: What about the quantity of ammunition?

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) before he shot them? Do you know if Ford said anything to the victims before he shot them?

WALTON: I'm not aware he said a thing.

QUESTION: Were you aware it was Ford when the first two incidents were recorded?

WALTON: No.

QUESTION: So you had only a description of a car and that was it?

WALTON: Correct.

QUESTION: You were not aware that he was going to the Excel plant?

WALTON: No.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're going to step away, but you could hear this suspect, Cedric Ford, he was just randomly shooting people after being issued a restraining order, in essence, because of some type of abuse within his home. You heard the sheriff say he spent time in jail before, but we don't know why. And we also don't know why a man would have guns who, you know, who was just issued a restraining order. That investigation is still ongoing. We do know that three people died and 14 people were shot in that incident in Hesston, Kansas, at excel Industries.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:00] COSTELLO: Senator Marco Rubio continued his attacks on Donald Trump this morning. He called Trump a con artist on the "Today" show and other morning shows.

I'm' joined now by CNN political commentator and host of "The Ben Ferguson Show," Ben Ferguson, along with the executive director of the Independent Women's Forum Sabrina Schaeffer.

Welcome to both of you.

SABRINA SCHAEFFER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM: Good morning.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

So, Ben, this morning Marco Rubio's message seemed honed. I mean he got it - he got it down to, I don't know - he was very succinct about it. Now he's calling Donald Trump a con artist and leaving it at that mostly.

FERGUSON: Yes. COSTELLO: Effective?

FERGUSON: Finally they're figuring out how to deal with Donald Trump is the way I look at it. It's like, hey, the one-liner is OK. You need to define him as a candidate the way that Donald Trump has defined everyone else as a candidate. And I think that's what you saw him last night onstage and it worked really well for not only Marco Rubio, and I think it's going to give him a boost in Florida, but it's also helped Ted Cruz as well because they finally started fighting fire with fire and they also started saying, hey, you come after us and you call us liars consistently. Well, let's look at your record. And they also scored big points on his tax returns. So it was a very interesting night, not what most people were used to seeing during a debate.

COSTELLO: And, Sabrina, at times Trump appeared flustered. At times he was visibly angry. You could see his face redden. He's tweeting this morning up a storm and he's tweeting so fast that there are often misspellings in his tweets, but this is the latest one that we read. Quote, "lying Ted Cruz and lightweight choker Marco Rubio teamed up last night in a last-ditch effort to stop our great movement. They failed." But let's face it, Sabrina, Donald Trump leads in - he leads everywhere. He's going to win Super Tuesday, right? Unless this really did work.

SCHAEFFER: Yes. Look, I mean, I think it was about time that somebody tried to take down Trump, but I do fear that it was too little, too late. The reality is, that when you look at some of the online polls that came out after last night, you know, "Time" found that 71 percent of viewers still thought that Trump came out ahead to only about 18 percent who thought that Rubio won last night.

I think what people are forgetting, and this is really hard for us here in Washington and New York to really accept, is that whether or not you like Trump doesn't matter. The reality is, there are a lot of people out there who don't like Washington. They don't like politics as usual. They don't like anything that sort of reeks of the Republican establishment. So it doesn't really matter if he came out with some great punches, and he did, no doubt, but I'm not sure it's going to be enough to get a lot of those Trump voters to jump ship.

COSTELLO: Well - well, here's the thing, though, Ben. Marco -

FERGUSON: Can I - the main thing here -

COSTELLO: Marco Rubio's team is also reassuring donors. They're even developing a plan for a brokered convention. Does that mean even if Rubio loses on Super Tuesday, he's going to make sure he wins?

FERGUSON: Well, look, I think he's putting out there different scenarios so that he keeps his donor base, you know, not looking at, he must either drop out or continue with victories on Super Tuesday. And I think that's limiting expectations to say, we can make this into a longer contest.

[09:45:01] I think that's part of the reason why these attacks that you saw last night were so effective. It may not turn everything around for Rubio or Cruz, but if Ted Cruz can win Texas, if Rubio can have some solid showings, they can both continue on and then you deal with John Kasich, and Ben Carson. Do they stay in? Are they even viable candidates?

But last night I think there was two things that happened for the first time. One, there was true doubt put on Donald Trump's record, specifically with what is he hiding in his tax returns. That is going to be a message you're going to hear, not just from one of these campaigns, I think, but from all of them about, hey, you can after Ted Cruz on his loan, that it wasn't on a - that one form, but was on another. Well, we don't know what's in your tax returns.

And this excuse that, well, they're complex, they've already been done.

COSTELLO: No, he's being audited.

FERGUSON: They're already finished.

COSTELLO: That wasn't the excuse.

FERGUSON: I'm sure they were...

COSTELLO: He's been audited.

FERGUSON: Yes, right, yes. And saying that you've been audited does not help you in this, and I think that was one big thing. The other one was that the illegal immigration issue last night.

COSTELLO: Sure.

FERGUSON: And I think that Donald Trump walked into a trap when he said, well, I have a big company, I have a lot of people under me, I'm multibillionaire. Well, if you cannot handle the affairs of your own business, then why do I think you can handle the affairs for the entire United States of America when it comes to immigration reform and national security?

You're saying your business was too big to handle and there was too many subcontractors. Well, the U.S. government's a lot bigger than Donald Trump's business. I know he says it's huge, but the U.S. government is a lot bigger than that. So, I think...

SCHAEFFER: These are all fair...

FERGUSON: ... that somewhere else he's got a problem,

COSTELLO: Sabrina?

FERGUSON: Yes, well, I mean, these are all -- Rubio made a tremendous sort of gain last night in the sense that he made very fair points. And if I were, you know, Trump's campaign, I would be thinking, if it's not Rubio it's going to be Hillary who's going to be making these same claims. He ought to be prepared. And every single thing that Rubio threw at him last night was fair

game and there were some really good points in there. The problem, I think, is that Trump represents something different. He doesn't just represent one voter out there. There's Democrats, there's independents, there's Republicans who support him, and I'm not sure that they're going to care enough about some of these issues.

What they want is something different, even if for those of us here on this show today we think he may seem like a fraud, that's not the case to a lot of Americans out there, and I think that's hard for us to wrap our minds around.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there.

FERGUSON: I think there's one big thing...

COSTELLO: Ben Ferguson - I have to leave it there, Ben. Sorry.

FERGUSON: Yes.

COSTELLO: Ben Ferguson.

FERGUSON: No problem.

COSTELLO: Sabrina Schaeffer, thanks so much for being with me this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Trump takes fire from Rubio an Cruz, but Trump's just shrugging it off.

Up next, CNN, one-on-one with Donald Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:54] COSTELLO: It was heated, it was nasty and it was a debate like no other.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz taking every opportunity to knock Donald Trump off his game last night in Houston. During a one-on-one interview with CNN, Trump told Anderson Cooper, he's not rattled by his rival's attacks, and that he was actually pleased with his performance.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: You were getting it from both sides today, they really came after you. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, really, almost attacked him at times. How did it feel?

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, it felt fine because I expected it. I was told by watching you and everybody else, in all fairness, you in particular, I was told that was going to happen, so I expected it. And you know, based on every poll, I hear I did very well, but I felt very comfortable out there.

COOPER: You clearly knew the Mitt Romney comments were going to come up on the stage, whether it was the moderators who brought it up or whether some of your opponents brought it up. Mitt Romney was actually, took a page out of your book, was actually tweeting during the debate saying, look, your reasoning for not releasing your taxes doesn't make any sense. You could release it, even though you're being audited, or even if you didn't want to do that, you could release old returns that have nothing to do with the ones being currently audited.

TRUMP: Let me explain. Look, I know the audit process very well. I've been audited for many, many years. I have friends that are very rich, they've never been audited whatsoever. But until your audit's complete, you just - you just don't do anything. You're negotiating and you just don't do anything. But I'm under audit, which is very standard very, you know, and many, many people...

COOPER: What about some old returns from five years ago?

TRUMP: No, because they all mesh. They interrelate. These...

COOPER: Point blank tonight, once this audit is done, you will guarantee release your taxes.

TRUMP: Oh, sure. I would love to release them. I have no objection, but I'm not going to release them in the middle of an audio. I'd be -- nobody would do that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What would you say to the average American worker who might have been watching the debate tonight and hearing about the Polish worker's lawsuit for the first time, hearing about you hiring illegal immigrants, and might say listen, Donald Trump, it sounds like you're part of the problem of wages being driven down and unemployment being high.

TRUMP: Number one, the Polish worker thing I think was 35 years ago. I was, like, I had the most beautiful head of hair you've ever seen. It's still not so bad, I mean, I'm hanging in pretty good. But that was - that was many, many, many years ago. And, like, that was, yes, like 35 years ago, I guess.

To bring something like that up when I've had deal after deal after deal is pretty pathetic. On the Palm Beach thing, it's very, very hard. You know Palm Beach, okay? You probably do know, Palm Beach, you may know Palm Beach, I hope you do know Palm Beach. It's hot as a pistol. You cannot get help during the season.

COSTELLO: So, he had to hire from outside the country. That's Donald Trump's reasoning for that. Marco Rubio, by the way, this is his event in Houston, Texas. No, in Dallas, Texas. Excuse us. Marco Rubio will speak live in Dallas in the next hour. When he does, of course, we'll bring you some of his remarks live.

Checking some of the stories for you AT 54 minutes past. Apple says the FBI's order to unlock a terrorist's iPhone violates the Constitution. The tech giant argued in court that if it complied with the feds, it would turn the company into an arm of the government's forensics lab, violating the First and Fifth Amendments. The FBI wants Apple to help them bypass the lock screen on the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.

[09:55:02] Bill Cosby's dropped a defamation lawsuit against one of his accusers for now. The attorney for the 78-year-old said they're dismissing the suit against super model Beverly Johnson who accused the comedian of drugging her back in the 1980s because they want to focus their defense on Cosby's looming criminal case in Pennsylvania. The attorney says they plan on re-filing the claim at a later date.

And an assault case involving an NFL quarterback, Johnny Manziel, will soon go to a Texas grand jury. Dallas police wrapped up their investigation into a claim by Manziel's ex that he hit her and threatened to kill her. Manziel denies it, but now the district attorney has the case.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (on camera): The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me. It was a Republican debate like no other.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If he builds the wall the way he built Trump Towers he'll be using illegal immigrant labor to do it.