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Shooter's Ex-Wife Speaks Out; Gunman Cased Disney and Gay Club in Early June; Shooting Survivor Recalls Attack. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 14, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:00:14] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Divided no more. Thousands gathering here in downtown Orlando last night to pay tribute to the victims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was the scariest day of my life.

NORMAN CASIANO, ORLANDO SHOOTING SURVIVOR: Pure evil. That's what it sounded like. It didn't even sound like a peon.

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: We're working hard to understand the killer and his motives and his sources of inspiration.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Was he gay? Was he leading a secret gay life?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think he was gay?

SITORA YUSIFY, ORLANDO SHOOTER'S FORMER WIFE: I don't know. He did feel very strongly about homosexuality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Carol Costello live from Orlando, Florida. Just down the street from the Pulse nightclub.

BURNETT: And I'm Erin Burnett at the Orlando Regional Medical Center where we are standing by for a press conference in just moments at the bottom of the hour. Survivors of the nightclub shooting, the massacre, the doctors who have been healing them, the surgeons, the anesthesiologists, the nurses, they are going to gather for first time. So people around the world and the country can see these heroes. They will be speaking to all of us, describing the horrifying rampage inside the club and the heroic healing at this hospital.

It's an extraordinary response to such large-scale bloodshed. The stories of courage and love amid the horror, well, people around the world have been celebrating that. Vigils around the world. I'm here in Orlando. Last night here in Orlando this is a bit of what we saw. Thousands were gathering in solidarity and, of course, we saw this in other places as well from New York to London, Paris, Los Angeles. We saw it around the world. Communities coming together in solidarity. Today we finally know the names of all 49 people who were murdered so

cruelly by this terrorist, Carol.

COSTELLO: Those pictures so moving, Erin.

We're also learning more about the killer. Witnesses to the massacre tell CNN the shooter was a regular customer at the Pulse nightclub. In fact, they say he visited dozens of times over the past few years and over the last year the shooter reached out to another clubgoer through a gay dating app. That's according to "The Los Angeles Times."

Was this shooter so consumed with hate when he gunned down dozens of gay patrons? Was he hiding a secret life of his own?

Erin, I know you talked with the shooter's ex-wife. What did she tell you about that part of her ex-husband's life?

BURNETT: You know, I mean, she was incredibly emotional, Carol. She talked about his abuse of her and how that started early in their short and extremely troubled marriage, and she also talked about how much she is crying for the victims, the anguish that she feels for the souls as she called it in transition. She talks about what could have motivated him, whether he was gay, and here is how that part of the conversation went.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: The "Orlando Sentinel" reports that he had visited this particular nightclub, the gay nightclub Pulse, at least a dozen times. Why do you think he might have been frequenting this gay club?

YUSIFY: Well, you know, when we had gotten married, he confessed to me about his past that was recent at that time, and that he very much enjoyed going to clubs and the nightlife, and there was a lot of pictures of him. So, you know, I feel like it's a side of him or a part of him that he lived, but probably didn't want everybody to know about.

BURNETT: Do you think he was gay?

YUSIFY: I don't know. He never personally or, you know, physically made any indication while we were together of that. But he did feel very strongly about homosexuality.

BURNETT: I mean, I know this is a tough question, but do you think it was possible he was hiding his own feelings about being a homosexual? Did you ever get the feeling that that might be the case?

YUSIFY: I -- it surely might be because, you know, now everything that is coming out and I feel like the tragedy that happened, you know, particularly in that nightclub, you know, targeting that group of people, there has to be some sort of a reason psychologically, you know, for that person to feel that way that much to do something like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:05:06] BURNETT: And Carol, you heard her words talking about how he confessed to his clubbing habit, and it certainly seems that he was trying to hide from himself and from others the reality of who he was.

COSTELLO: Fascinating. Erin, thanks so much.

We have a bit of breaking news to pass along about the investigation and the shooter and Disneyworld. Our CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez has more on that.

Evan, what can you tell us?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, we know from talking to sources that Omar Mateen visited the Disney entertainment and shopping complex known as Disney Springs as well as the Pulse nightclub at the beginning of June.

Now this is according to a law enforcement official we have been speaking to who has knowledge of this investigation. Now the visits happened between June 1st and June 6th, and we don't know exactly how many times he went to each location, but the dates do coincide with what's known as gay days, this is a gay-themed celebrations that are taking place at Disneyworld and other Orlando theme parks between May 31st and June 6th.

Now investigators do believe that these visits to Disney Springs and to the Pulse were intended to surveil the locations, at least that's based on information that they have learned in interviews. And the visits also came, Carol, at the same period that Mateen was purchasing weapons that were used in the attack and which he picked up on June 9th back at his home in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Now Disney security officials have also told the FBI that there was an earlier visit to Disneyworld on April 26th by Mateen and his wife, and that that was possibly to conduct reconnaissance for an attack.

Now the FBI is still investigating that possibility and investigators don't know whether the wife Noor Salman knew or suspected at the time about what her husband's intent was. Now we also know that Salman has spoken to investigators and we've previously reported that.

Now we also have information about what the FBI has seized from -- from Mateen's home as well as the home of his parents and his sister and brother-in-law. Among the items that were seized from his home was a Dell computer, a smartphone, digital camera and related media, and the phone that belonged to Mateen has now been recovered at the Pulse nightclub. The FBI had to wait a while to be able to try to exploit it because it was covered in blood, Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh, my gosh, Evan. Is there any indication that the shooter's family suspected that their son was up to no good?

PEREZ: That is -- I can tell you that that is the top of the FBI inquiry. They're trying to figure out what the family members knew, should they have suspected something, should they have seen something in his behavior, did they know about the gun purchases, did they know -- what did they know about these visits that he made to the Pulse nightclub and to Disney, and did they -- should they have said something to law enforcement?

Now there is a difficulty there because, you know, the government not necessarily can charge you with not necessarily speaking up about what you know about your family members. There is some difficulty in the law there, but certainly if they saw stuff that they should have known was intended to be a terrorist attack and they didn't say something, they could be -- they could be facing some charges there, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Evan Perez reporting live for us this morning. Thank you so much.

There is so many twists and turns to this investigation. Our reporters have been digging in. One of them, Boris Sanchez, is here. He has more information on the investigation and the possible motive to this terrible tragedy.

Hi, Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol. Just based on that news that Evan gave us, we're getting more and more of a clearer picture of just how calculated and premeditated this attack was. We just heard from Evan that the FBI confirms they believe he visited Pulse nightclub in June to stake out the place. We've also heard, as you mentioned earlier, from many patrons of the club, that he had been there many times before. Whether or not over the past three years he visited the club to stake it out, hard to say.

We don't know at this point, but it's clear that he knew the layout of the club well, so much so that when additional police officers were sent in to try to stop him after the initial gunfire was exchanged with that off-duty police officer that was working security at the club, he knew where to hide. He went into the bathroom and he held hostages in there.

Aside from that, we know that as this casing of Disney Springs and of the club was going on, this was around that period where he was buying the weapons, the AR-15 style assault rifle, the 9 millimeter Glock pistol and the .38 that was found inside his car.

Not just that but from electronic records that Evan also alluded to, we're learning that he was consuming, this is from a CNN source, I'm quoting here, "A whole hell of a lot of jihadist propaganda."

[10:10:05] He was watching ISIS beheading videos. He was also watching videos by Anwar al-Awlaki who was a known jihadist sympathizer. He was an American imam that moved to Yemen and he inspired a generation of jihadists, even going back to some of the 9/11 hijackers. So it's clear as we get this picture of who this person was and what thought went into this crime that this was something he was thinking about for quite some time and nothing is more haunting than hearing the survivors talk about his demeanor during the shooting.

I want you to listen to what they said, what they told Anderson Cooper. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASIANO: Someone starts screaming, like please, please, please, don't shoot us, don't shoot us, and he does the first round through the door.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Of the stall where you were.

CASIANO: Of the stall that I was in. And that's when I got my first wound which was an entrance and an exit. We start yelling again, please, please, don't shoot. There's people in the background just begging him, like, please, please don't shoot. Like we haven't seen your face. We don't know what you look like. You haven't spoken. We don't know anything. Please let us go. Don't do this. And I guess that just -- like I said, I guess like enticed him to do it more. And he put his hand over the stall and just free shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: He was laughing as he was carrying out the shooting. Just unimaginable and sickening.

Two more important details to point out. The shooter had extensive weapons training, at least a month of weapons training specifically with one of the weapons that he had for the shooting. Aside from that we should also mention that he tried to buy body armor last week and he was denied buying that. So this attack could have potentially been worse had he been able to defend himself with that body armor.

Aside from all of that, I want to point something out, too, about him casing out Disney Springs specifically. This is a place not far from here. It's an outdoor mall that I grew up in south Florida. My parents took me there when I was a kid. It was designed for families. There were restaurants there and concert venues and shopping, and it's not exactly security wise like a Disney amusement park where you get patted down, they look through your bags, there's metal detectors.

This is again an outdoor mall with all kinds of entrances and to know that he was there just a few hours before coming here to the Pulse nightclub and doing what he did has to be unsettling for anyone that has kids and would think about taking their kids to what's known as the happiest place on earth.

You can bet that investigators the next phase of this will be talking to people that were there that night to see if they saw the shooter and potentially to find out what his demeanor was like, what he was acting like when he was at Disney Springs -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Boris Sanchez reporting live for us.

While all of that was going on, the shooter was apparently living a pretty normal life. He was married. He had a small child. He was going to work.

Erin Burnett has more on that. Hi, Erin. BURNETT: Yes, Carol. And, you know, we are finally getting a look

inside the shooter's home. You know, as we've reported, the FBI had opened a case into him, and they -- part of the reason that they let it close was they found out that he had a wife and a young child and a job. They thought that meant he was stable. Now police of course have been searching his apartment looking desperately for clues in that seemingly normal family life.

According to authorities, the shooter's wife Noor Salman helped them put together a timeline of the shooter's movements before the attack. Last night she actually was seen leaving the apartment. She shared with their son 3 1/2 years old, the age of that little boy. She was carrying a duffel bag, she was hiding her face to try to avoid the cameras. Salman is the shooter's second wife. He had been married before.

Let's bring in Polo Sandoval joining us now from Fort Pierce.

And Polo, what have you been able to learn now that we're finally seeing what was inside the shooter's apartment?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, you heard those very crucial questions that are yet to be answered, several questions that were just mentioned by my colleagues on who, if anybody, actually had any idea that this plan was in the works. So very important for investigators to speak to the family, but at the same time they also have to rely on hard, tangible evidence, some of which could have potentially been recovered from the apartment complex here which is where the gunman actually lived, only about two hours south of Orlando.

Yesterday I was able to look through an open door and actually see some of the items that are shown on some affiliate video and I have to tell you, Erin, it is by all accounts and based on what I saw, it was a relatively normal home. You had all the makings of a home that maybe you and I may actually keep. You have pictures on the wall. You have a fully stocked kitchen. Even children's toys in one of the rooms. But at the same time we didn't see any obvious signs or any clear indicator that this is a place where such a terrible attack could have been planned.

Now of course, granted the feds had already gone through this place presumably top to bottom and actually removed any potential evidence and that's including from the interior of a car that was parked just outside of the apartment itself. So, again, all of that evidence is being processed including potential electronic evidence as well that may paint a clearer picture of what kind of material this man was actually accessing online more than just some of those -- more than some of that propaganda footage.

[10:15:13] But yesterday some of our local reports had indicated that his current wife, Noor Salman, actually made a return here to the complex as you mentioned with a hoodie and a duffel bag in hand under police escort and then eventually made her way out.

We don't know much more about her. We do know that she's cooperating with investigators so as they try to piece together a time table to try to find out what led to that terrible attack on Sunday, Erin.

BURNETT: And, Polo, what have you learned in terms of -- I mean, you know, this family life, obviously the son was only about 3 1/2 years old, a toddler. I mean, I was at the mosque yesterday. They said he had brought the little boy in as recently as just last week and had attended mosque with his young son.

Have you gotten any sense of the amount of time he spent or his relationship with his family because obviously he was living in so many ways a complete double life. He's at a Disney mall with his family and then hours later at a gay club.

SANDOVAL: It's remarkable. Going back to those pictures that I just mentioned that were -- that are hanging in his -- in his home, there are pictures of him with his son and with his family smiling. Pictures that, again, you would see in any family household, but at the same time hearing from his first wife and the conversation that you had, Erin, it is a very different picture here.

After the first few months of what seemed to be a relatively normal marriage where he quickly changed, here though when you speak to some of the folks here and some of the folks who lived here, they would occasionally see him out and about with his son. One neighbor that I spoke to tells me that her son and his had actually played together. So again very different, conflicting takes on one man. And again the main key, though, what was going on through this man's mind, but you can't really explain something unexplainable, Erin.

BURNETT: No. You certainly cannot. Thank you so much, Polo. Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Erin.

I want to dig in to more of what Evan Perez just uncovered. Fine reporting by Evan Perez and I want to read it to our viewers one more time so you get it. Omar Mateen, the shooter, visited the Disney entertainment and shopping complex known as Disney Springs and the Pulse nightclub at the beginning of June. This is according to law enforcement officials. The visits happened between June 1st and June 6th, though how many times he went to each was not specified. The dates do coincide with gay days 2016 celebrations that were taking place at Disneyworld and other Orlando locations between May 31st and June 6th.

So what does this mean? Let's bring in Phil Mudd.

So when you hear that kind of information, what goes through your mind?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: A couple of things. First, the stage of the investigation. The investigators going in a few days later are getting things likes phones, laptops, uncovering a lot of information. What did he search? Did he search gay day? Did he have a phone that indicated a travel pattern around the facility. So a lot of information that might have suggested what he was up to and what he was interested in. The second thing I think is hugely significant. For the past few

years we talked about soft targets. Disney security is excellent. There's a chance that he looked at the security around the facility, compared it to something he might have seen in a place like what's standing behind us and said wow, this one bigger target, bigger bang, much tougher. I can't do it.

COSTELLO: He was a security guard so he would absolutely know that. And that's why he would be casing these kinds of places out.

In 2013 and 2014 he was on a terror watch list, right?

MUDD: Sure.

COSTELLO: They were investigating him, and then supposedly nothing happened in between that time and today. I mean, something had to trigger this behavior, didn't it?

MUDD: I think that's correct. We're seeing sort of a mosaic, a picture over the course of hours moving together quickly. One of the pieces of the mosaic is what was the time frame for action. And a lot of these cases, especially as we move further away from 9/11 and we've got not people who took years to learn about an ideology but people who got inspired by thoughts, by photos, people who are very emotional, that the acceleration of the radicalization process was down to weeks, days, months.

In this case you have years of interest obviously in different kinds of ideology but then starts looking at locations, starts looking at weapons. We don't know what, but something seems to me to have happened in the past month or so that led him to trigger.

COSTELLO: Phil Mudd, thanks so much.

MUDD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: OK. We're expecting a news conference at the hospital at any moment now. We expect doctors to be talking about patients with injuries and what kinds of injuries they have and perhaps we'll also hear from a few patients themselves. Victims of this terrible shooting. We're awaiting this news conference to happen at any moment.

I'm going to take a break. We'll be back with much more in the NEWSROOM.

[15:19:40]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: At this moment we are waiting for the Orlando Medical Center to hold a hospital press conference. I'm standing right outside the hospital right now. Media from around the world have gathered. Two of the shooting survivors who have been fighting for their lives right here in this hospital are expected to speak. We're also going to hear from eight of the surgeons who were there when the shooting took place as well as many of the other doctors, nurses, and anesthesiologist who have been such heroes.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta spoke with one of the trauma surgeons and here's what he told Sanjay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL CHEATHAM, ORLANDO REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER SURGEON: We were up to six rooms within about 90 minutes. To have 44 gunshot wounds, victims, come in all within a space of about an hour and a half, two hours certainly exceed anything we've ever seen before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: And we're going to bring that to you as soon as it begins. As I said, momentarily going to begin right here in the hospital behind where I am standing.

Right now, though, joining me is Giovanni Nieves.

Giovanni, I can't even -- look, I can't understand what you're going through and no one truly can.

[10:25:04] You have lost five of your dear friends.

GIOVANNI NIEVES, SURVIVED ORLANDO CLUB ATTACK: Yes.

BURNETT: We're so sorry.

NIEVES: I lost five very dear friends of mine, two of which we performed together at Pulse. We performed together in numerous stages as far as different clubs in the area, so, you know, at that time we consider it what would be like a sisterhood. You know, we come together, we perform, we have fun. I mean, to think that they're gone, you know, like, the term the show must go on is definitely something that is very short-handed at this moment.

BURNETT: Giovanni, we're starting to learn more about the person who committed this horrific act. More and more about the motivation, that he was gay, that he had been to this club many times. What is your reaction when you hear that?

NIEVES: You know, in this community in this day and age, we all have our moment where especially when we're coming out, you know, where we try to figure out who we are and what we are. Me personally, I never saw him -- I never saw him in the club. I only performed on the Latin nights which were Mondays and Saturdays, so I never really got a chance to see if he was ever really there. Of course, there were other nights within the club.

But the fact that people are saying that maybe he could have been gay, I can probably say yes, maybe that's what it was. Maybe he was so torn between his upbringing and his religious background and what he deeply felt inside that it just filled him with hate. I had heard that there was a comment that his father had made that he saw a gay couple kissing and that enraged him. To me that's just a cover-up. I find that to be just an excuse. You know, for someone to be driven to do something like this, it's not

just being upset because, me, I am a gay man. And if I was to see a heterosexual couple kissing in the street, I'm not going to be enraged by that because it has absolutely nothing to do with me, none of my business. So for him to say, oh, I feel that my son was enraged because he saw a gay couple kissing, to me that's just -- he's trying to justify his son's actions, and I find that to be not only disrespectful but ignorant. I do feel that --

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: Well --

NIEVES: Uh-huh?

BURNETT: I just -- it's incredible that you're able to talk about it and even to put words to it considering the horrific things that he did to those that you loved, to your friends.

Giovanni, thank you very much.

We have Paul Ryan right now, the highest elected Republican in the United States, talking about radical Islam. I want to listen in briefly.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: And prevent this from getting out of control.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aside from vetting, should there be an actual ban on -- regardless of religion -- on immigrants from countries with terrorist ties that you know are spreading terrorist ideology.

RYAN: Well, again, we've addressed part of this issue with the visa waiver. We thought there was a problem where you had people from different countries with a visa waiver where they could come without even a visa. We passed a law addressing that but we believe ultimately that we ought to have the tools where we have a security test, not a religious test, a security test, and we think that's the preferred route to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Speaker Ryan, you said that Donald Trump's call for a ban on Muslims coming into the country was not conservatism. And Chairman McCaul has said that kind of inflamed rhetoric can actually help the recruiting of ISIS.

Was Donald Trump wrong to double down on his Muslim --

RYAN: No, I stand by my remarks, I bet you do too as well. I do not think a Muslim ban is in our country's interest. I do not think it is reflective of our principles not just as a party but as a country. And I think the smarter way to go in all respects is to have a security test and not a religious test.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Constitutionally do you think Donald Trump, if he were president, could enact a ban on --

(CROSSTALK)

RYAN: That's a question -- that's a question about immigration law, and you can go into the 1952 Immigration Naturalization Act to determine whether or not the president has that kind of discretion or not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does the Orlando attack affect the appropriations process beyond a delayed markup of the Homeland Security Bill?

RYAN: We --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the second part on Zika, when do you expect to --

RYAN: Our conferences are making very good progress on Zika. Mr. Cole and Mr. Blunt are making excellent progress on Zika. That conference is making good progress. We're proceeding with appropriations. We've got defense right now under way. We delayed the Homeland Security markup just in case there was something that need to be addressed in that appropriations bill because of this terrorist attack. Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Ryan, do you stand by your support of Donald Trump?

BURNETT: And that was Paul Ryan just speaking on radical Islam.

And Carol, yet again trying to deflect questions about Donald Trump's ban on Muslims by saying that was an immigration question.

COSTELLO: All right, Erin. Thanks so much.