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Terror Attack in France Kills at Least 84; Remarks by French President Concerning Nice Attack; Attacker Identified in France Terror Attack. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 15, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:00] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Anderson Cooper.

The heart of the French Riviera transformed into a killing field. France, reeling from yet another terror attack. We want to warn you some of the video is shocking and difficult to watch.

A large freight truck became terrorist's latest weapon of choice as it plows to a holiday crowd. People run in all directions, many simply cannot get out of the way. 84 people now dead. At least 100 more injured. Many of the dead and injured are children.

The rampage stretched for a remarkable 1.3 miles. The beach area was packed with locals and tourists, partiers and family, all gathered for Bastille Day, the holiday celebrating France's independence. Some witnesses say the driver was also shooting as he mowed down the crowds. As you can see from the bullet riddled windshield he was shot to death by police.

Now we are waiting for France's president, Francois Hollande, to speak. We're going to bring that to you live obviously with translation when he does.

CNN has mobilized correspondents and experts around the world to cover every angle of this developing story. I want to begin with CNN's Clarissa Ward.

Clarissa, what's the latest?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Anderson. Well, we're here just at the end of the Promenade des Anglais, one of the major tourist attractions here in Nice, which is one of the most popular tourism destinations. Not just in Europe, but even in the world. People from all over coming here, also many French people. They would have been gathering by the thousands yesterday to watch the fireworks display.

But as you can see now, the promenade has been completely blocked off. There is a heavy police presence here. They're essentially forbidding journalists from moving any closer into the area. They even got angry when people were trying to get to an elevated spot. They don't want anyone looking at what is behind that screen, and that's because it is an active crime screen.

Take a look at how the attack went down.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (voice-over): A scene of horrifying carnage. Bodies strewn along Nice's famed seaside promenade after this truck plows through a crowd of hundreds watching Bastille Day fireworks.

A witness says the driver first started shooting into the crowd from inside the truck right after the fireworks ended.

DOMINIQUE MOLINA, EYEWITNESS: I wondered, is that fireworks? But it definitely was not fireworks. And you heard screaming and then you just see masses of people fleeing.

WARD: The truck slowly approaching people on the promenade before the driver accelerates hitting one after another.

INGA, EYEWITNESS: It was complete chaos. People were running away. One lady fell on the ground, and everybody was running right over her.

PAUL DELANE, EYEWITNESS: The music was so loud that we couldn't hear anything. I didn't really see a truck but just people running and screaming and crying, and people carrying their children.

WARD: Those who survived the attack describing the chaos and confusion.

MARYAM VIOLET, EYEWITNESS: I was walking amongst bodies, dead bodies, and wounded people and families of those people just gathering around the bodies.

WARD: The truck's path of destruction over a mile long before finally stopping in front of this witness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was nervous. He was moving inside like this, like this. And I saw he was like holding something like a cell phone.

WARD: Police circling the truck, ending the carnage by shooting and killing the driver.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They shoot gun until they killed him already, and his head was out the window.

WARD: Survivors desperate for help.

ERIC DRATTELL, EYEWITNESS: I wasn't sure what it was and tried calling the police. The lines were completely jammed.

VIOLET, WITNESSED ATTACK: I think it took 10, 15 minutes until, you know, there were like first signs of, you know, ambulances.

WARD: Police say they found a handgun and several fake rifles and fake grenades. French President Francois Hollande raced back to Paris after the attacks, telling the world that France is strong and will always be stronger than those who want to attack the country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD: Now ISIS has yet to claim responsibility for this. So far there are no real indications as to who carried out this hideous attack. It is being called an act of terrorism. We know that an I.D. card was found in the truck. That I.D. belonging to a 31 year French Tunisian. He had a rap sheet but mostly, Anderson, for petty violent crimes, not any known indications or connections, rather, with terrorism or extremist activity.

So now French authorities here really trying to go over that area behind me with a fine-tooth comb. There have been raids, according to French media on the home of this French Tunisian, you can hear sirens behind me.

[09:05:02] We've been hearing those all day, as they try to answer more questions about just how this attack was carried out -- Anderson.

COOPER: And, Clarissa, and obviously we don't know this yet, and it's not clear from investigators, whether there is a wider network involved in this. Whether this was just one person get behind the wheel of a vehicle and doing this, or whether others were involved.

WARD: Well, that's right. And that's always the difficulty, Anderson. Because the concern, of course, for authorities is to prevent anything else that could possibly happen, to try to essentially cut off the nexus or network that may have facilitated this act. And what we don't know yet is was this a sort of ISIS inspired lone wolf attack. Certainly the fact that he was carrying fake rifles and fake hand grenades might indicate that he was not operating with a very sophisticated network. But at this stage, still a lot of questions and not many answers yet, Anderson.

COOPER: Yes. Clarissa Ward, of course our thanks. We'll continue to check in with you throughout these two hours.

Andy McCarty was working near the attack when it began. He watched as hundreds of people began streaming into the restaurant where he works, running for their lives. He joins me on the phone.

Andy, thanks for taking time to talk with us. Where were you and what did you see? When did you realize something terrible was happening?

ANDY MCCARTY, WITNESSED ATTACK: Well, I was working last night, and all of a sudden, there was at the end of the fireworks display, we heard this -- a lot of screaming, gunshots, and then people just sort of running in all directions. And a lot of them headed into our restaurant, trying to find an escape route. And it all happened in a flash. And then I'm standing now inside the area that your people can't get into it. I'm actually on the promenade where the restaurant is.

The van that caused all the problems is still here and there is about 50 meters away from me, but still a crime scene apparently. And we don't know what the position is, whether we'll be able to open, when they're going to reopen the promenade. It's just like it was left last night. COOPER: So your restaurant is very close to where the truck ended up?

MCCARTY: Yes, 50 meters.

COOPER: Wow. Did you see or -- how it actually came to a stop?

MCCARTY: No. Because it all happened so quickly, literally passed here in a flash, and we heard the gunshots and that was it. Then it was just pandemonium because people were just running in every direction.

COOPER: And in terms of security last night, obviously this was a major event in Nice. Was there a heavy security? And the promenade was for pedestrians last night. Were there barricades?

MCCARTY: Yes, the promenade was closed because it was a night of celebration with live music, live bands on the promenade. But before that they had the Bastille Day parade, the police, the fire people, the army, the Navy, and there was a noticeable presence of security for that. And you got the feeling that after that the same level of security was not there. There were barriers at the end of the promenade, where the -- where the music actually stopped, but obviously not secured because that's where the guy with the van crossed in onto the promenade and started to kill everybody.

COOPER: And how long did -- I think about -- I think you said, I mean, dozens of people came into your restaurant to seek safety. How long did you end up staying there?

MCCARTY: They must have stayed for two hours before the police -- the police came and said nobody was to move. They stayed in the back of the building and then eventually they were told that they could go. But it was a -- it was a long wait for everybody before the police said it was secure enough for them to return to their hotels or homes.

COOPER: Well, Andy, I appreciate you telling us what you saw and experienced. Thank you very much, Andy McCarty, from Nice.

Last night thousands of people were packed along the Promenade Des Anglais. This video shows you the crowd before the attack. Again gives you a sense of just how crowded it was. A lot of people celebrating Bastille Day. Taking the fun, the fireworks. As Andy was saying, there were bands playing. Moments later, the same sidewalks becoming triage centers. More than a dozen victims are in critical condition right now fighting for their lives, we're told.

Sadly we do know at least 84 people have died. Some of them children, including 11-year-old American, Brody Copeland of Austin, Texas. Brody and his 51-year-old father Sean Copeland were killed. Their family was in Nice for a vacation.

Here's a picture of Brody on the beach in Nice. It was sent to loved ones in the U.S. yesterday afternoon hours before the night's horrific tragedy.

CNN's Atika Shubert is inside one of the local hospitals in Nice. She joins us by satellite.

And so, Atika, tell us about what you have been seen, what you've been hearing.

[09:10:04] ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're speaking to families, to victims and to doctors. And it's been a long and difficult night. We're actually in front of the children's hospital. This was actually the hospital closest to the scene. So --

COOPER: Atika, I've got to jump in. France's president, Francois Hollande, has begun -- Francois Hollande has begun to speak. Let's listen in.

PRES. FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, FRANCE (Through Translator): Dealing with this act, whereby a man got hold of a truck and used it for deadly purposes. Why Nice? Because it is a -- it's a town famous across the world. The beautiful town, one of the most beautiful on the planet. Why the 14th of July? Because it is the celebration, Bastille Day, freedom. And it was to effect France that this individual carried out this terrorist attack.

With the prime minister, the minister of the Interior, the minister of Social Affairs, the elected representatives who came with us, we wanted to first of all take into account the organization of today to see what we need to do for the whole region and the town to have full safety, security. So if there were accomplices, there shouldn't be any threat at all to the population. But also, we wanted to express our compassion with respect to the victims, the families.

As I'm talking to you, 80 people, 84 people to be precise, are dead. And there are about 50 people still in a critical state between life and death. Among those victims, there are French people, also many foreigners. Once again, coming from all the continents and many children. Young children. Who had come to see a fireworks display as a family to experience joy, to share happiness. Stunning beauty. And who were thus struck a deadly strike simply to satisfy the cruelty of an individual, or maybe a group.

So we've seen the injured, many of them, who have in their mind still horrifying scenes, and in their flesh, they suffer even more than psychological. And there are even people who haven't had any trauma, physical trauma, but who for a long time, their whole lives, will bear trauma for those images of horror, which unfortunately they had to share. As we say, they couldn't remember anything about what might have caused their injuries, but on the other hand, they did remember there was bodies torn apart that they saw before them.

That's why France as a whole has to share this emotion, this solidarity, with the victims, with the people close to them, their families. And then there is the commitment, the courage that once again, we have been able to see among the forces of law and order, or active who took all the arrangements necessary so as far as possible this fireworks display could be protected, as was the case during the Euro Cup here in Nice. And the security forces neutralize the assassin. I still have in my

mind these young police officers who acted so that the killer could be dealt with and put an end to the carnage, and the forces of law and order fully committed, not being able to do any more with respect to what's happened in the last few months, and particularly the attacks of January 2015, and November in Paris in Saint-Denis.

[09:15:08] So I wanted to render homage to all those forces here, the police, the gendarmerie, the intelligence services, working for France and working in the investigation, and to identify, and there are the fire brigades who have done extraordinary work with the emergency service, to evacuate, and to take to the hospitals at the town and even beyond the town, because the certain plan was triggered, and many establishments welcomed victims.

And I've been to the hospital, which once again, with the emergency services, did what had to do. Doctors who came even though they were off duty, they came to operate, to act, to treat, to save lives. Others couldn't be saved until the very last moment, everything possible was done. I would like to congratulate the staff of those hospitals, whose devotion was exemplary.

And then, you have all the volunteers, the associations, organizations, which immediately got involved, getting involved. That's something, a lesson, another lesson we draw from this tragedy, this drama, this terrorist attack. One more after already several others in the last five years.

We're dealing with a struggle which will take a long time, because we have an enemy who is going to continue to strike all the people, all the countries who have freedom as a fundamental value. There, we have to count to the commitments of our forces, public services, the state as a whole, with the prime minister for many months now, I took decisions that were necessary to strengthen the number of people unfortunately which had been reduced in the past, but we haven't finished with this. And we will continue to extreme vigilance and protection to serve the French people.

And commitment also that we should be strong. The world as a whole is looking at us once again, expresses its solidarity to us, tells us with words of great friendship, great affection for France, what the world thinks of us. It thinks that we are a strong country, a country able to overcome all trials, and there have been trials in recent months.

And we have given a great example to the world, because we've been able to show unity, cohesion, that's my role, my responsibility, not to let myself be deviated from the commitment that I took on behalf of the French people, to protect them, not to lower myself to whatever kind of excess might be thought of, we have to respond and respond in the right way to the challenges, using all necessary means. It's this unity, this cohesion, this force, strength that I call (INAUDIBLE), so that France may be stronger, with those who hope to injure it, make it suffer, we can overcome this evil because we are France as one.

Thank you. ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: France's president, Francois Hollande,

praising first responders. Also, saying that not only are 84 dead, but he said 50 people are in critical condition at this point. Many of them, he said, children. That's larger than the number that we had previously known. Fifty people in a critical state, he said, many of them children.

Atika Shubert is outside one of the hospitals there.

Atika, obviously, that's one of the headlines coming out of what is France's president had to say -- the large number of children who are among the critical.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. In fact, we're right outside the children's hospital, where 28 of those children remain in intensive care here, some of the very serious injuries.

[09:20:04] Part of it was not only that of the children that were actually in the way of the truck that were hit, but also caught in the stampede to get out afterwards. So we're seeing horrific injuries, catastrophic fractures, the kinds of things you would see in a car accident, for example. Doctors have been up all night trying to treat many of them. They have special pediatric surgeons here on-site. Unfortunately, overnight, two of the children did pass away.

But seeing these high numbers of children as victims is very unusual in these kinds of attacks that we've been seeing in France. The reason we see so many children victims, this was a family event. It was like the Fourth of July. Everyone was out to see the fireworks and they were just about to leave when the attacker plowed through the crowd with his truck.

COOPER: Also, one eyewitness was saying that because it was so crowded, it was very difficult to get out of the way of the truck. You could sort of try to -- this man, whose account I was reading, was saying he and his wife were able to dive behind some cars, but they were in an area that didn't -- there wasn't as densely packed, but for people who were close to each other, you know, they couldn't run as fast. They couldn't get out of the way.

SHUBERT: Absolutely. In fact, I spoke to two victims. One of whom, he actually broke his arm trying to dive out of the way. He hit the cement on the promenade. He said he quickly got back up, but he would have been injured even further if he hadn't, because it was the stampede of people to get out.

Other man that I spoke to was still really in a state of shock. He had blood on his shorts, he was limping, he had his ankle injured, and he kept saying over and over the truck kept going through the people. He said in the rush to get out, he lost his daughter, his teenage daughter. He was still looking for her as well. So a lot of terrible stories of families becoming separated in this horrible event.

COOPER: Atika, France has mobilized, and Nice mobilized any hospitals, anybody on reserve or off-duty would come in at a time like this. But the crime itself, the scene along that promenade were so long, I mean, it must have taken quite a long time for paramedics, for EMTs to get to all those who had been injured, just given the length this vehicle was able to travel.

We saw early videos where it was civilians trying to care for and help those who were among the living strewn in the streets.

SHUBERT: Absolutely. I mean, you can't overstate just it was. Some of the early videos are too graphic to show on the air. It was a crime scene more than a mile long. He literally drove two kilometers, about 1.8 miles, trying to get to where people were gathered to the most, trying to hit as many people as he could. He swerved several times, according to eyewitness accounts.

So, the first problem was just trying to figure out what was going on. And then when first responders get there, how to deal with this 1.8 mile stretch of a crime scene.

COOPER: Atika Shubert, appreciate your reporting, thank you very much.

More to come with America's oldest allies, grappling with terror once again. What the U.S. is trying to do to help France.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:27:51] COOPER: Well, there has been an out pouring of shock from world leaders on this France attack.

President Obama responded quickly, saying, "On behalf of the American people, I condemn in the strongest terms what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack in Nice, France, which killed and wounded dozens of innocent civilians. Our thoughts and our prayers are with the families and other loved ones of those killed. And we wish a full recovery for the many wounded. I've directed my team to be in touch with French officials and we have offered any assistance that they may need to investigate this attack and bring those responsible to justice. We stand in solidarity and partnership with France, our oldest ally, as they respond to and recover from this attack."

We want to bring you some breaking news now about the killer. CNN's Christiane Amanpour joins us live by phone from London.

Christiane, what are you learning?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the name of the attacker has been on the minds of everybody, since this happened last night. And right now, we can confirm a French government source and a French anti-terrorism source in the government has told me that the name of the attacker is Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, Mohamed Bouhlel, whose name was out there amongst some of the French media immediately in the aftermath of this terrible attack. But who now we have confirmed as the attacker.

He was killed, as you know with a shoot-out with police. He is described as a 31-year-old French-Tunisian who was a resident itself. As we've been reporting all morning, this person has been known to police, but did not have a jihadi record, and therefore was not on the radar of the anti-terrorism or special intelligence police. That's what we know right now.

COOPER: Yes, and source close to the investigation had told CNN, Christiane, that this person was essentially had been involved with sort of petty criminal offenses, I think some weapons issues or charges, but as you said not on the radar for jihadism, for extremism.

AMANPOUR: Well, exactly. And you know what? This unfortunately is part of a pattern as we've seen over the past several attacks, whether in France or elsewhere.