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Munich Terror Attack Details. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 22, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, HOST: All right here we go top of the hour you're watching CNN, I'm Brooke Baldwin. We begin in Munich in Germany where we are getting reports of deadly gunfire. It's happening within a McDonalds. This is at a Munich Shopping Mall. We have pictures of what appears to be a suspected gunman opening fire. We're going to play just a short clip for you but obviously this is disturbing to look at.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right let me also just be crystal clear we don't know if the man in the black t-shirt you saw a second ago is the gunman or not. In fact what we're getting from law enforcement is that the perpetrator(s) note that's plural they don't know where they are. Our affiliate NTV is reporting multiple people are dead, more are wounded. Police there in Munich telling CNN again there could be more than one gunman, none of whom by the way, according to reporting have been caught.

Police now telling people avoid the mall, stay inside your home, do not post pictures or video of the police operations to quote them they don't want you to help the perpetrator. We have a couple of voices, let me just bring Will Ripley in first following the developments for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Also with the CNN Intelligence and Security Analyst Bob Baer, formerly CIA. And on the phone with me, retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. But Will Ripley to you first. Just tell me what you know.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well it appears Brooke that there may actually be a second location where there is also an incident unfolding just within the last 20 minutes or so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: This is coming from a spokesperson for Munich Police and I'm just going to read you it says "a large police operation at the center of town, this is separate from the northwest side of Munich where the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum Shopping Center is located. So you have an incident in the Northwest of the shopping center. Now police confirming within the past 20 minutes or so an incident in the center of Munich saying there might be people injured they're already -- the situation is unclear. And police are not just asking people to avoid the shopping center they're telling people in Munich to avoid all public areas right now. And they say they do not have the shooters and they're now saying shooters plural in custody.

This is obviously a very frightening scenario for people in Germany who just three days ago there was an axe attack on a train in Wurzburg, an Afghan teenager who pledged allegiance to ISIS was shot by police in that attack. We don't know -- there's been no claim of responsibility certainly in this we don't know what the motivation is here but you -- if you now have multiple shooting locations multiple deaths and multiple injuries in Munich a very frightening time considering Brooke that we just that were covering just about a week ago we were in Nice France talking about an ISIS inspire terror attack that killed 84 people and injured more than 200.

BALDWIN: I can't believe it wasn't even a week ago I was standing next to you Will Ripley in Nice and now we're talking about Munich.

Bob Baer to you. Again this is so totally fluid and new but what does your gut tell you so far?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well I think its same thing. Look multiple shooters public areas random slaughter. Germany was under threat after the train attack the Germans said there would be an attack soft targets I can go right down the list and the chances of this being terrorism is very high and the chances of it being the Islamic state inspired or directed is very high.

Unfortunately Europe is under attack. I mean Europe is going to change very quickly as long as these things keep happening.

BALDWIN: Bob, stay with me General Hertling; I know you're familiar with Munich yes, I mean do you know where this McDonald's is or even this potential second incident that Will was just describing in the center of the city?

GENERAL MARK HERTLING: Yes, Brooke, I've actually been there about a month ago. We were on a conference in Germany down in Garmisch, which is about an hour so of Munich. This Einkaufszentrum which is a German word for shopping center is in the (inaudible) region of Munich, it's the northwest portion of the town multiple roads coming in and out of there. It's a very touristy popular area of town it's the old -- it's near where the old Olympic Stadium is and some of the Olympic events from the '72 Olympics. But what's interesting, I'll jump on to what Will was saying you know the axe incident earlier in the week was in Wurzburg, this one now is in Munich both of those are in the state of Bavaria, you which is the German state in the southern part of the country.

[14:05:04]

HERTLING: It also is the area where most of the immigrants had flown through as they came up from Italy and through Austria. So as you go to Germany today very different than when I commanded forces in Europe three years ago, there is an obvious change in the cultural patterns. You're seeing a lot more refugees and immigrants throughout the city. The German government have really distributed about a million 200 thousand immigrants and refugees into the various states. The state of Bavaria which is a very popular state for vacationing, it has Munich and several other major cities that a lot of Germans go to to -- and it's where most of the beer and the BMWs and Mercedes are produced a lot of Germans go there during the summer time and you're getting ready to enter the period of time were Germans takeoff. So there are a lot of Germans from other parts of the country near Munich right now and the area is crowded.

That shopping center with the McDonald's in the basement is very popular right across the street there is in fact a parking lot and once you get between the parking lot and the major shopping center a lot of confusing corridors and a lot of places to hide.

BALDWIN: That was - wow - so you know think about the timing, you know you point out this is the time of year when a lot of people are on holiday and not just pe9ople from Munich but many other Germans. The fact that this is a McDonald's right, that is an American, that is a Western brand. And apparently this all started happening around 5:50p.m. local. So people popping in for dinner.

Bob Baer, you know again, we've been in France, we've talked a lot about France, we've talked about ties. And again, let's be crystal clear no-one knows who directed this or why but you know everyone's thoughts obviously go to potential terror and cells. And we've talked a lot about France and even as recent as Nice and knowing that there were connections in Nice in certain neighborhoods. Tell me about Germany.

BAER: Germany is even more vulnerable because frankly the German police are not as good as the French police; they haven't had these problems with refugees before. We don't know if it was a refugee by the way.

And you know there's also the question we should get to right away is they don't know where the gunmen are and the possibility that they're in the mall assaulting, a police assault on the mall would be a nightmare, there's so many places to hide. They can't get listening devices in, the cameras are you know incomplete. The coverage you know again.

We go back to the hallmarks, we've done this dozens and dozens of times, it has the hallmarks of the Islamic state. You know this is not a military target of course. Most casualties they can carry out. A crowded time in Germany has been under threat, it really is. And they don't even know where to start to close this down.

BALDWIN: Well let's - let's talk about what's happening right now. You bring up a great point that you know there are perpetrators plural, they don't know where they are, this has happened in this --- in this McDonald's in this shopping center as you point out a soft target. And according to will there's some other location potentially in the center of Munich. What are law enforcement doing right now to find these gunmen? BAER: They're collecting intelligence that's what they're doing. They're finding out how many. They're talking to eye witnesses that saw them go in. What kind of weapons, were they carrying explosives because that will make a big difference in the assault. If they weren't it's a lot easier to go, and a lot of people would probably run out of that mall, and they're talking to them right now. They simply can't go into that mall shooting because there would be a lot of innocent people killed. And if there's multiple targets, and let's don't forget first reports are always pretty inaccurate. That makes it even worse.

But at the end of the day Germany has closed down one of its most important city's probably because of a terrorist attack. And this gives you an idea again where the problem Europe is facing.

BALDWIN: Bob, stay with me. General Hertling, stay with me. Let me bring in one more voice. Former assistant director of the FBI, Tom Fuentes is on with us. And Tom, you know Will was reporting a moment ago because of this potential second location you know Munich authorities are telling people in Munich avoid all public areas. Bob makes the point that they're talking to eye witnesses, they're gathering intelligence, what else are police doing right now?

TOM FUENTES, FORMER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI: Well they would also be trying to see if there's any video footage available from those malls, if there's other information, if they're able to get cellphone information from the cell companies there that someone was using it to communicate, it might be a familiar number to them.

[14:10:00]

FUENTES: But again you know to Bob's point about shutting down the city like this, it's evening on a Friday night in Munich, a beautiful city, summer time, you know to shut that down, you know the whole downtown area, the whole city is basically a soft target. So you have the mall but you have restaurants, you have parks and promenades. And so at this time of day it's pretty hard to get everybody into their homes back to their homes safely to lock it down. And you know and that's another problem just the time of day and the day of the week makes it all the more difficult for the police.

BALDWIN: General Hertling, have you actually been inside this McDonalds?

HERTLING: Not the McDonalds but the Mall Brooke. Let me if I can comment on what Tom says because he brings up some very good points.

First of all Munich is a city of about 1.7 million people, you're not going to lock down the whole city. But this particular area of Moosach in the northwest region has a lot of commuter traffic from people who work in the suburbs but also as he said it's a Friday evening.

The other thing that's important to realize about the summertime in Europe is the German's have a word called "urloup" which means vacation. When they have an urloup period certain parts of the country literally shut down and travel to the vacation lands and it's usually sequenced in periods of a week at a time. So you're probably going to have some people either flowing into Munich or flowing out of Munich on a Friday night depending on where they're - when they're vacation period is.

And McDonalds, you know for us in the United States, McDonald's is a fast food place. It is a cultural icon in Germany. That's - it's almost better than going to a fancy restaurant when you have children believe it or not and a lot of German's really love what they call McD's.

So there were probably quite a few people in that McDonald's at 5:15 on a Friday afternoon when the work week's over and the weekend is about to start.

BALDWIN: If you are just joining us here, 10 minutes past the hour, we're covering breaking news out of Munich out of Germany. There are reports of a fatal shooting inside of a shopping mall in Munich. This is the northwest part of the city if you're familiar with it. An unknown number of casualties.

The shooters' plural, are at large. The situation is fluid. This is the point we're very early on where we don't have a lot of information, let me just be totally transparent with you. According to this police spokeswoman she said "there could be several dead but there is no confirmation at least thus far on casualties. We know that a number of people have been wounded." And apparently CNN has talked to a woman who works in a store within

this same shopping mall where you have this McDonald's, she was actually inside during the shooting and she told CNN she heard several shots inside the mall. Let me quote her; she said "I was just going to buy something while my co-worker was still in the shop. People started running, I went outside as well, more people running outside, I think I heard more shots and then it sounded like he went to the parking house next to the mall where she heard several more shots there."

Guys, let me know if Will Ripley is still standing by in London, I'd love to loop back with Will. Yes. Will Ripley are you - tell me you know what you're hearing and also guidance from law enforcement as far as shutting the city down and staying home.

OK. No I'm told no - OK, no Will Ripley. Bob Baer, let me just loop back to you. And I know we don't have a lot of information so just sort of repeating myself as I'm waiting to get more and you know we're looping these same pictures as you see families, you know and different people running, walking quickly away from the shots. What's happening on the ground right now?

BAER: Well, it sounds to me based on the police statements, it's been a shoot and run case where the shooter took the most casualties he could maybe in the McDonald's and then ran into the mall, unless there's multiple shooters there.

But the same questions you and I are asking the police are asking too.

BALDIWN: Yes.

BAER: I've done study takedowns a lot, been involved in them, and you know when you have this much, such a big mall you don't know where they are, this could go on for a very, very long time. You know collecting intelligence about something like this as Tom was saying, you need cell phone, camera coverage, CCTV, but assembling all that quickly is truly a nightmare for the police. And if it had been a single location it would have been settled by now but the fact that they haven't identified the shooters you know a lot killed - a lot of people - some German newspapers reporting up to a dozen -

BALDWIN: Up to a dozen what?

BAER: Dead. And that will probably be corrected at some point. But the point is in Munich right now there's sheer panic because they don't know what they're dealing with. And our reporting is reflecting that.

[14:15:00]

BALDWIN: Yes, Bob, thank you so much, please just stay with me. I've got a - I've got an eyewitness on the phone, Lynn Stein. Lynn, I was actually just reading a quote from you. You work in a store in this shopping complex. Tell - are you OK first and foremost?

LYNN STEIN, WORKER IN SHOPPING MALL: I am - I'm OK, yes.

BALDWIN: What did you see, what did you hear?

STEIN: Perfectly. All right so I just left my store because I was going to buy something (inaudible) left in the store. I was at this other store when suddenly shots were fired. I mean (inaudible) noise but didn't identify it as shots at first, people were confused and then they started running outside. So I just joined them, ran outside, I think there were more shots fired inside the mall at that point. I was outside, just waiting for something to happen. People were screaming and running outside the building, clearing the building. Then I heard several shots from what I believe is to be the car house, the parking house next to the mall and I heard several shots fired there or from that direction. I went back inside the mall then because I wanted to check out my co-worker because she didn't answer the phone. So I went back inside. While I went there there was like a couple of people from a store - a shoe store and I asked them whether they were OK, and what was going on. And I saw other shops had already closed and were evacuated.

I told them to leave and close up as well, so they did that, and so I continued forward to my store and a man came running toward me and he said you know like we have two stories in the shopping mall, I was upstairs running upstairs - walking upstairs to my store, and he said - he's downstairs, he's downstairs and coming toward me. I ran to my mall, my co-worker wasn't there, I ran outside again. Police told me to - told us all to leave the area, evacuate the area, go on the other side, the opposite side of the street. So I did that while I stood I tried to figure out what was going on. And this was about I think 15 minutes after it happened and I was actually in a safe place outside. And things have been going on from that point on.

BALDWIN: Let me - wow - let me just jump in because it sounds to me as your describing the shots from within the mall, the shots from you know parking house or we say parking garage. You know we have actually now heard from witnesses reporting three different people with guns. So this isn't - this isn't a single shooter situation. According to eye witnesses they're seeing three different people which perhaps would explain how you're hearing these shots from multiple locations.

Tell me Lynn how close is your store to this McDonald's?

STEIN: It's pretty close. Like I also heard - I actually heard from a lady outside that you know we have two shopping malls right next to each other and apparently he's already been, or somebody's also been in this other shopping mall, there were shots there too.

And the McDonald's is opposite the street. You know there's the shopping mall and on the other side of the street there's the McDonald's where he supposedly also went to.

And this lady that I spoke to when I was standing at the street outside she said she was just having a coffee when she saw someone and heard the shots, she actually saw the person. She said he was like dressed in black and had a mask. And she said he had a fake gun. And there was an escalator close to her and people running up or down the escalator I'm not sure, and he shot at them, he fired shots at them and they were hurt. She said dead, but apparently it was just hurt.

Actually when I - when I ran through to the store, when I walked to the store I saw somebody lying on the ground as well. And a woman like over him or her, I don't know crying. So I don't know what happened with them.

BALDWIN: This is just - this is horrendous. This is horrendous that this is now happening in Germany.

And that was the first description we have from you. Just looking at the map we can see exactly where Munich is. That's the first description we have from you know the person you spoke with that one of the gunmen dressed in black, wearing a mask, holding a very large gun.

Here's my other question because for you all it was around - it was around sort of early dinner time. I mean how - I'm seeing a lot of people in a lot of these pictures. How crowded are these shopping malls at this time of day?

STEIN: Relatively crowded. And I mean a Saturday it's usually really packed, but today, you know the day was pretty nice, nice weather, so usually when the weather is nice there's not that many people in the mall. But I'd say a couple of hundred definitely in the mall at the point where it happened.

BALDWIN: And have you been inside this McDonald's Lynn, are you familiar with it?

STEIN: I'm definitely familiar with it yes, I've been there a couple of times.

[14:20:00]

BALDWIN: Is it small, is it large?

STEIN: It's medium sized. I mean it's not - it's not an American sized McDonald's you know but for like a German McDonald's it's a normal size, it's also a two story McDonald's. You know there's a serving area downstairs and then a lot of - a big seating area upstairs.

BALDWIN: So, so -

STEIN: Yes, it's a normal size.

BALDWIN: I'm sure being in Europe you have followed what's happened over the course really the last couple of months. And the thing is you know we don't know who these people are or why they're doing this. But you know Nice just happened a week ago, and you know I'm sure you've been following these attacks far too - far too many of them. How have you felt as a German knowing that this is happening close to home?

STEIN: Well I mean Germany has always been very safe. So I wasn't fearful or anything like this happening. I think the general population of Germany wasn't either you know. But like personally I definitely saw it as an option, it could happen, especially you know like Oktoberfest for example it's very popular. And I guess people are a little bit suspicious that maybe something might happen there because there's a lot of people gathering there and it would be you know a target.

But this is like definitely a surprising and you know very sudden and very surreal.

BALDWIN: You do think - absolutely you think of Germany as an entirely safe place. You have this axe attack you know on the train in Wurzburg, also in the same state of Bavaria earlier this week. And now - and now we have this. Lynn Stein, please stay safe, thank you so much for jumping on the phone with me and describing all of these different reports of shootings.

You know again, let me just if you're just joining us - we - and again I have to just reiterate we don't have a lot. But what we do know according to multiple witnesses that CNN has been in touch with. People have seen three different gunmen. Three different gunmen here and we're also reporting potentially two different locations.

You've just heard Lynn describe hearing shots from there, two different shopping malls, one where that McDonald's is located, and another across the street. The nature - the number of victims is currently unclear. Police they've deployed you know all available emergency services. You have SWAT there in Munich, federal police, neighboring you know jurisdictions all working this.

But still at this moment no gunman has been arrested and we are hearing gunmen plural from law enforcement. The police operation it is running at the very highest level. And so what is just so stunning here on a Friday evening in the middle of summer where you have lots, and lots of people out and about enjoying themselves, they're asking everyone to shelter in place, to stay home. And if you're not home already go home in this massive more than 1 million person city in southern Germany. Asking people to stay home, take shelter.

Public transportation is now currently suspended. So that is what we have so far here as we're covering the breaking news out of Munich.

We're going to work on getting a little bit more information for you here. I'm Brooke Baldwin, we'll be right back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:26:30]

BALDWIN: And we're back on this Friday afternoon, I'm Brooke Baldwin, on a Friday where we thought we would be talking about a lot of politics. Instead sadly we have to talk about a horrendous situation unfolding in Munich in Germany.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We have reports of multiple people dead and several more injured after gunfire erupted at a shopping mall.

Police say it happened at least in part - we're getting reports of multiple gunmen and in multiple locations, but in one part within this McDonald's.

Witnesses say they have counted at least three different shooters. We do have pictures of what appears to be one of the suspected gunmen opening fire. Before I show it to you though, just know the video is disturbing.

Police are telling people in Munich do not go anywhere near the shopping mall, stay inside your home. And in addition to the shopping mall location in the northwest part of this city there is now a second police operation in effect right now in the city center.

So, we have a number of voices on. We are working really hard to get you more information here. I've got Bob Baer, he's still with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: General Hertling is still with me. Bob Baer, let me just begin with you. I don't know if you listened to my conversation with this eye witness who was just describing to me multiple what seemed to me multiple locations or shots. She described two separate shopping malls, a parking garage, we're also talking about this McDonald's as it's part of one of the malls. Multiple gunmen, no-one's been caught. What does that tell you?

BAER: Well it takes me back to Istanbul the attack on the airport.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAER: We had multiple shooters, there's no suicide vest so far but it tells me this was clearly an organized attack if the eye witness accounts are right. Often they hear echoes and there's only one shooter but in this case she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. And if indeed there's another location in downtown Munich that's another bad sign this is just sort of an assault on the City of Munich.

I guarantee you the death toll is going to go up from the three that have been reported with this kind of an attack. These are all vulnerable targets, very difficult for the police to deploy, get themselves in position, find out who the shooters are and getting automatic weapons into town which isn't absolutely - it's not everywhere in Munich. So I think this situation is going to go on for a long time.

I find it very disturbing that the police don't know how many shooters there are, just multiple ones.

BALDWIN: They do not know, that's exactly right. They keep using the word perpetrators and that's all we have. And you're right, you know if the eye witness accounts are correct they're describing three different gunmen.

General Hertling for people who are just tuning in and they're seeing this for the first time you are so extraordinarily familiar having just been to this part of Munich a month ago. Give me the lay of the land.

HERTLING: Munich is a terrific city first of all Brooke, a population of about a million and a half, maybe a little bit more. This particular area, this shopping center is in the northwestern part of what they call the Moosach district.