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Deadly Shooting at Munich Shopping Mall. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired July 22, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00] LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST (voice-over): Munich is a terrific city, first of all, a population of a 1.5 million, maybe a little bit more. This shopping center is in the northwestern part of Munich. It is a typical German shopping center. Not similar to malls in the United States which are usually in a building in the middle of town with a parking garage next door with some restaurants connected to it as this McDonald's is. The McDonald's in Europe and specifically in Germany is a very popular restaurant. Different than our fast-food where we go in and grab a burger, a lot of German families go there as sort of a special treat because it is -- as silly as it sounds, it is acting as imported food.

What's interesting about this, the German police are exceedingly good at what they do. The German police are the most disciplined and very rigorous police force that I've seen anywhere in the world. Connections with intelligence agencies, both the state and the federal intelligence agencies in Germany. As we passed, when I was commanding in Europe and living in Germany, we passed quite a bit of intelligence information between us in terms of terrorist threats and terrorist flow through Germany.

But as I mentioned before, Munich is in the same state of Bavaria where the last attack was from earlier in the week where there was the axe attack on the train traveling between. Bavaria is a very popular state in Europe. It is where a lot of Americans go for vacation.

As the person you had from the mall mentioned, it is the site of Oktoberfest. They're getting ready in the next month or two to have the world's biggest beer fest in Munich. And it's just a great place to visit.

So everything your other guests have said in terms of this being a popular city, the shooting taking place about 5:15, the start of the weekend, at a restaurant, in a shopping mall on a beautiful summer's day in Munich all contributes to the aspect of how the citizens will be fearful of what's going on there.

The other thing I'd mention, Brooke, listening to the film -- this is conjecture right now on my part -- but it sounded like -- the shots fired sounded to me like a semi-automatic pistol as opposed to a rifle. I'm certainly not saying that is, in fact, fact. But it was certainly a semi-automatic weapon. And if you had three shooters all with semi-automatic weapons and if they were pistols and could be hidden in clothing, as they went in to the different malls, or thrown away, it is a lot easier to get rid of pistols than it would long rifles or automatic weapons. BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah.

We have that sound. Let's play that, guys.

The control room, let's play that sound again in case people haven't heard it. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNFIRE)

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Bob Baer, what do you hear there? Do you hear anything that jumps out at you?

BOB BAER, CNN SECURITY & INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: The Germans saying "run for it."

I agree with General Hertling, sounds like a .9 millimeter semi- automatic to me. Easy to buy in Europe on the market, the black market there. What the other shooters are, we don't know. But when somebody is firing a gun, all of a sudden -- and people react by running -- but it just to the advantage of the shooter, and especially if they've moved on to other locations like the parking garage and the rest of it. Are these people committing martyrdom? Suicide? We just don't know at this point. But clearly vulnerable targets. Again, I'll go back and go out on a limb here, it's got the hallmarks of the Islamic State, especially the fact that there are multiple shooters.

BALDWIN: These are live pictures on the right side of your screen here. Number of people are just standing around waiting. You can see they cordoned off the crime scene area. SWAT, multiple police, you hear the sirens there in Munich.

Will Ripley is our correspondent information.

Will, we're honing in on this one shopping center location in the northwestern part of Munich where this McDonald's is located. But talk to me about what police are reporting as far as a second location. What do you know now?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So the Olympia mall that you see most of the video from ISIS is on the northwest of Munich. But this second location is in the city center. Police said that there is a very large operation happening there right now. We know that subway service has been disrupted. Bus service has been disrupted. There is a lot on social media saying that there might have been some sort of an incident as one of the metro stations. But that could also be confusion because metro stations city wide are being evacuated as a result of this.

It is significant that the Munich police in addition to saying that there are multiple shooters and even reporting that witnesses say three shooters, they're also telling people not just to avoid the shopping mall, not just to avoid the city center. They're telling people to avoid, and to actually evacuate, all public areas in Munich right now. That gives you an idea of just how tense, how potentially dangerous the situation is in this city which on a typical Friday evening. People would be out getting their weekends started but instead they're being told to lock down in their homes and monitor the media for information and monitor police social media feeds as well.

Is this a new terrifying reality for Europe, Brooke? We were just less than a week ago in Nice, France, where 84 people were killed and more than 200 people were injured. Just three days ago in Germany, an Afghan teen who pledged allegiance to ISIS pulled out an axe and attacked people on a train. He was shot by police but he injured four people in the process.

While there is no official claim of responsibility here or official word about a motive, obviously the first thing that comes to people's minds is terrorism. And it is here in Europe. And people are afraid.

[14:36:23] BALDWIN: Will Ripley, thank you so much for that. Keep your ear to the ground for us.

Jim Gilmore is with us, former Virginia governor, Republican, was in the running this year, wanted to be president this year.

But interestingly, Governor Gilmore, I know you are with me. You used to work counterintelligence in what then was West Germany in the '70s. You're fluent in German. What are you thinking, what are you hearing?

JIM GILMORE, FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: Well, it's obviously a terrorist attack, Brooke. As you probably know --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Why obviously?

GILMORE: Well, because it's an indiscriminate shooting attack in a crowded place that attack civilians, and it is for the purpose of creating terror and caring out that kind of mission. So clearly, this is what's going on. As chairman of the Gilmore Commission that studied these kinds of issues for five years, from '98 to 2002, we predicted that these kinds of attacks would occurred worldwide and specifically in the United States. And they will.

BALDWIN: And by the way, just need to remind our viewers -- I hear you that your gut tells you terrorism. We do not have that confirmed. We do not have any evidence linking all of this.

That said, how familiar are you, Governor, with Munich and these locations and especially in the wake of what's happened and elsewhere in Europe?

GILMORE: Very familiar with it. While I was stationed at NATO headquarters in Heidelberg, I traveled all throughout Europe and specifically spent a great deal of time in Munich. It is a great city, lovely city, wonderful, exciting, dynamic place. Makes a perfect terrorist target. I might remind you, by the way, that this is within a stone's throw of the 1972 black September attack at the Munich Olympic stadium right up the street from this very location. It is high-profile. It is an attack on a European country that plays a very significant role in Europe. It is intended to be broadcast in the highest possible way. It is clearly, in my view, a terrorist attack. And the question is not whether it is or it isn't. We will find that out. The question is, where do we go from here and what do we do. My commission report suggests a direction. Now we have all these years later, we have to get started.

BALDWIN: You know, on that very simple but profound question of what do we do, I mean I was just on the promenade in Nice a week ago where 84 people were killed after at man plowed through them after they had been enjoying Bastille Day, fireworks, music. You know, soft target. I think of Dhaka, Bangladesh, the cafe, that soft target. In Istanbul, multiple shooters at that airport. Soft targets.

GILMORE: Or the Boston Marathon or San Bernardino or Orlando or any of the other examples we're seeing, including here.

Listen, here's the answer in my view. Number one, we have to recognize two things. That we have to be supportive of our intelligence community, our local law enforcement people, doesn't mean we spy on all Americans all the time. But with proper warrants and proper targeting we can disrupt -- and are disrupting some of these things in the United States and worldwide. Our commission report said you had to focus on local law enforcement and the intelligence community and build them up.

More importantly than that -- this is something that has not been done -- you got to get into the heads and begin to win the actual argument with people who are out there thinking about doing something like this. It's one of two things. Either it is a directed attack from an organization like al Qaeda or like ISIS, in which case it is a military attack and you have to be prepared for that. But sometimes it's just influenced attacks where somebody out there just said I just want to support radical Islamism, I want to support ISIS, I'm going to follow their guidance, I'm going to go do this. You have to begin to win the political and intellectual and ideological argument and say that this is an atrocity, it is a crime against humanity, so somebody will hesitate to pick up an axe or a car or a gun and kill people. That has not been done in Europe or America or anywhere else. Until we win that kind of argument, you are going to see these kinds of attacks.

[14:40:33] BALDWIN: Let me quickly get reaction from someone I do trust in terms of intelligence, Bob Baer.

Bob, thoughts?

BAER: You know, we have to face the root causes of what's causing this. It's a form of Islam which is schismatic. It starts in Syria. It starts in Iraq. And this virus is picking up in Europe and we have to get to the root of this. What do these people think, what do they want, what are they reacting to, before we actually do something about it. I do not belief that bombing Raqqa or taking Mosul will end this. I think it will cause it to pick up. I do worry about Europe. The French, the Germans, are turning right, turning completely against refugees, which will be added problems. And we just have -- we have to change course on this. Simply bombing these places with drones and F-16s is not going to do it. I think once we come to that recognition, we're on the ph to curing this. And it is curable. It's been done before.

BALDWIN: Let me ask all of you to stand by, please, as we continue to cover breaking news.

Multiple gunmen on the loose in what sounds to me like a fatal shooting. The question is, how many are dead, how many are wounded. Much more from Munich and beyond next, here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:44:46] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking new.

BALDWIN: Welcome back. Breaking news here on CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let me bring you up to speed on what we know from Munich. We don't know a whole heck of a lot. But it is being reported as a fatal shooting, multiple people reported dead. That number we don't have yet. Multiple people roared injured. That number we don't have either as this has happened really just in the past hour at this shopping mall. Police say at least one of the shooting locations -- I say one of, because there are reports of multiple, also -- happened at this McDonald's which sits within this shopping center. According to witnesses CNN has spoken to, they have seen at least three different shooters.

We have some video of who appears to be potentially one of the suspected gunmen shooting. You'll hear the gunfire in just a second.

But just to warn you before we roll this, the video is disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNFIRE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Police are telling those in Munich, stay home, lock your doors if you are in these neighborhoods. Do not post videos of the police operation. They don't want to help these perpetrators. According to law enforcement, there is also a massive second police operation going on elsewhere. This second operation happening really in the center of the city as well.

Will Ripley is our correspondent who's been working on this and bringing us new information here every several minutes or so.

So, will, still no one has been arrested, correct?

RIPLEY: That's right. Which means that there is still a clear and present danger for people who are in Munich, which is why police have told people that they need to stay inside their homes or offices or any safe place away from public areas. In fact, the U.S. State Department also put out a tweet just a short time ago also telling people to shelter in place and to monitor the local media and to not go outside until we know the situation is all clear. We don't know how many people have been killed. Several is the number that we're hearing, possibly three, possibly more. In addition to that, people are injured at the Olympia mall on the northwest side of Munich.

Also a second ongoing situation in the city center. Reports that a major metro station, subway station, has been evacuated. We don't know what's happening there. We do know the rail service, subway service in Munich has stopped for the moment. The city is essentially locked down. Public transportation is not moving. People are being told to stay inside on what otherwise would be a very busy Friday night.

This is just a few days after an axe attack linked to ISIS on a commuter train. Four injured, four police shot, hat teenage Afghan refugee who pledged allegiance to ISIS. Then a week ago, in Nice, France, a terror attack killed more than 84 people and injured more than 200.

People in Europe are wondering if this is the beginning of a new trend. ISIS has been calling for quite some time for attacks on Germany being a key U.S. ally. Just like France, it's a prime target.

BALDWIN: Let me add this information we just got.

Will Ripley, thank you.

That the number of people in Munich, how law enforcement are telling people to shelter in place, if people were in this area, were those who live in Munich who are in these locations near the shootings are tweeting or tweeting in German obviously but the hash tag translation is "Open Door," offering up shelter for those who need it for those on social media. So you have that happening now in Germany.

I have Lynn Stein. She's been good enough to stay on phone. Lynn works in a store in one of these shopping malls and she has heard a number of shots.

Lynn, are you still with me?

[14:50:17] LYNN STEIN, WITNESS: I'm still here, yeah.

BALDWIN: So you are still safe. Tell me, for people who did not hear our conversation earlier, what did you hear?

STEIN: Well, I was outside my store because I was going to buy something when I heard shots fired. I heard the noise. I mean I didn't identify it as shots at first. People started screaming and running outside. I followed them. I heard several shots then. I was outside. I think there were more shots from inside the mall and more people running around, screaming, scared, confused. A few minutes after -- maybe five minutes after, I heard shots from a separate location. Seemed to be coming from the location of a parking garage which is like next to the mall. And then I went back inside the mall because I tried to call my co-worker on the phone but she didn't pick up and I didn't know whether she was safe because I had left her alone in the store when I went out to buy my stuff. And she didn't pick up. So I went back inside the mall to go to my store and see whether she was OK, whether she was outside. And most the stores that I passed by were empty and evacuated and some had closed the doors. I passed by one store that was still open with maybe four or five people working there. I ask them if they are OK and they say, yeah, but they didn't really know what was going on either, but asked if they should close down the store. I said yeah.

I went towards my store. Some guy was walking towards me. We have two stories and I was upstairs in the mall. He came towards me and said he's downstairs, he's downstairs. So I went faster. I saw somebody lying on ground. A woman above them was either dead or badly hurt. She was crying. I went into the store and she wasn't there so I just left on the other side of the street. And police said, yeah, OK, everybody stay back, everybody get on the other side of the street. Stay back.

It's been like this for two hours now and they still have the people on the streets. I guess some people can go back home but the street is closed.

BALDWIN: Are you heading home?

STEIN: No, I would like to head home but I cannot. I can't go home because the street is closed which I have to take. So I am just sitting around and waiting for the situation to clear up.

BALDWIN: We've seen pictures of a number of people standing around and waiting. I imagine they are in the same predicament but they should be home. That's what law enforcement wants for them but you're sort of stuck in this perimeter. Can you tell me -- this is a Friday evening. It was early evening right around dinner time when we got reports of shots within this McDonald's. How crowded in this part of the city is it?

STEIN: The part of the city in itself isn't very crowded. But lots of people come to the shopping mall on Friday and Saturday especially to shop or hang out or get something to drink or something. So you know, so it was fairly crowded. Not overly crowded. It was like medium. Medium crowded.

BALDWIN: Medium crowded. I understand. So other than sort of frustration that you can't go home, last question -- how are you feeling?

STEIN: Well, currently, kind of OK. It's been a while now. I was very shaken up when it happened. Right now I'm just basically waiting. I feel a bit shaky actually, but all in all, I'm OK.

BALDWIN: Lynn Stein, I really appreciate you and your voice. Thank you so much for sharing with us what you're seeing, what you have heard. Please stay safe. STEIN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Law enforcement asking, obviously, those who are not within this perimeter -- thank you -- to go home and to stay home.

Again, to reiterate, you're seeing on the screen, witnesses saying they've seen at least three different people with guns, none of whom at this moment have been caught.

[14:54:43] More on the breaking news here. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Quick break. Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Here we go. Top of the hour. You're watching CNN breaking news. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

On this Friday afternoon, we are reporting on what's happening in Munich, Germany. Reports of several people killed, several more injured. Police say gunmen, plural, opened fire near a McDonald's at a shopping mall.

We have video of the deadly incident. It is caught on someone's cell phone. Before we roll it, the video is disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNFIRE)

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That is what it sounded like. We have pictures.

As far as what has happened now, police tell us there could be more than one gunman. Witnesses tell us they have seen at least three. In addition to this shopping mall area, we are learning about a second police operation under way in the center of the city. Two locations at least, according to these early reports. Authorities say they don't know where the perpetrators, plural, are, and are telling people in the city, avoid the mall, stay inside your homes.

People who are -- live near the scene are actually taking to social media and using the hash tag in German, which means "Open Door," just to offer refuge for these strangers who are stranded.

So with that, let me bring in our correspondent, Will Ripley.

Will, I am now just hearing. according to German media, six people are dead.

[15:00:02] RIPLEY: That's the number we're hearing, Brooke. As you know in these situations, numbers do change. It could up, it could go down. But the latest, six people reported dead. Other people injured at the McDonald's restaurant where --