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Bombing Suspect Captured. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 19, 2016 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:02]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: So, there's that.

You also have this surveillance picture. This is believed to be Rahami in New York carrying a duffel bag in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. Authorities now believe that within that bag was, indeed, a pressure cooker bomb that he later planted, detonating the device in a blast that injured 29 people, shattered glass, businesses, cars along the way.

A couple blocks from that location in Chelsea, another pressure cooker device was discovered. That never went off. Rahami is also being questioned over possible ties to other improvised bombs, a blast that happened at the start of a charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey, Saturday morning. Then flash forward to Elizabeth, New Jersey, five pipe bombs were discovered near a train station overnight, one of the devices detonated by a bomb squad robot.

Now, police have a lot of questions. One of the questions they have, how did he put the bombs together? Did he do it alone or did he have help?

Let's begin the hour with Jean Casarez, who's at the scene of the capture in Linden.

Jean, it is extraordinary how quickly this all went down. Two hours from when the FBI I.D.ed him to when he was caught. How did they catch him so quickly?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is extraordinary.

And when you hear this, you talked about a tip -- excuse them. You talk about a tip. This is a residential area. This is where he was brought down. But it was that tip of a man that owned a bar and he looked across the street on his property there and he saw a man sleeping in the doorway to the entrance.

And he was watching CNN and he saw the picture on CNN of Rahami. He looked at the man on his doorstep of his bar and he realized, that's the guy. And so he called police. Law enforcement came in and that was the beginning to come here to this residential area.

This is where families are. It's a peaceful area. I spoke with neighbors and they said that this morning they just started hearing all these gunshots. And they said, that doesn't happen around here. And when they realized that it was Rahami, the man they also were watching television on, knowing that he was armed and dangerous, they couldn't believe that it was right here in this neighborhood.

Now, of course, officers were injured along with Rahami. They were all taken to the hospital. But while this was going on, about three miles away in Elizabeth, New Jersey, at the First American Fried Chicken restaurant, the mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey, confirmed with me that that is where Rahami lived, in the upper portion, with his family.

And that is where for hours this morning, even before dawn, the FBI was executing a search warrant of the restaurant and the residence. I saw the upstairs. The curtains moved. The FBI agents were up there. At least one box of evidence, two cars were taken away. All of this was happening simultaneously in part to when the takedown was going down.

Now, here's one more component. One mile away from that fried chicken restaurant was where last night at 9:30 two men found a backpack in a trash can, one mile away from that chicken dinner restaurant. They took the backpack underneath the train tracks, and they opened it up and saw a pipe and wires.

Those two men -- and the mayor tells me they were homeless men. They ran to the police department and told the police that there was something very serious. That's when the bomb squad was called in. That's when the robot went up. You see it being detonated. One of the bombs, it went off, but lives were saved because there were five bombs in that backpack.

And now Rahami is also being associated with that, which was so close to where he lived and where his family owned that restaurant.

BALDWIN: So many bombs that did not go off, the one in Chelsea under a metal dumpster, that shielded what could have been a much more gruesome scene. Then the fact that the race for the Marine Corps Saturday morning didn't start on time. That could have been worse. It's all sort of extraordinary.

Jean Casarez, thank you in Linden.

Let me now bring in Evan Perez, our justice correspondent, who's been on this really since the get-go, beginning with the news that we now have on -- this is an Afghan family. It's not incriminating to go back home to Afghanistan in and of itself, but what are authorities looking into?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, now they're trying to go back to those trips that he made to Afghanistan. He traveled multiple times, made multiple trips to visit family in Afghanistan.

At the time, obviously, it looked innocuous. It's a very common thing for an immigrant family to do. And each time he came back, he was questioned and questioned by authorities, which is also part of the routine practice of border agents here in the United States. They did not find anything wrong at all. They didn't -- nothing -- no

flags were raised at all. You know, as you know, they have hundreds of young men who are attracted to ISIS or are following supporters of different terrorist groups and are speaking out online, doing things on social media.

[15:05:05]

He was not one of these people. He did not arouse any kind of suspicion that he might be radicalizing. Now the big question is for the FBI is putting that picture together. They want to go through his social media. They want to look at his computer. They want to see who he was talking to.

Now they also want to know who he met with. They're going to be in touch with the Afghan authorities to see who he was meeting with while he was there, who he associated with, whether or not those people might have taught him how to make this bomb. This is not just a small device. This could have been a very lethal thing, obviously.

There are recipes to make these type of devices on the Internet, so we don't know whether he got it online or whether someone taught him. His expertise doesn't seem that great. But, as you mentioned, we have had some incredible stroke of luck here that some of these devices did not work as well as they should have.

BALDWIN: Right. Right. Stay with me.

I want to bring in two more voices and have just a broader discussion.

Michael Balboni is here with us, former New York homeland security adviser and senior fellow for the Homeland Security Policy Institute, and Lenny DePaul, former commander for the U.S. Marshals Service heading up the fugitive task force for both New York and New Jersey.

Gentlemen, welcome into the conversation.

Lenny, let me begin with you. The fact they got him, that they got him alive, what's the incentive for him to talk and what do they want out of him?

LENNY DEPAUL, FORMER COMMANDER, NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY REGIONAL FUGITIVE FORCE: That's a home run, Brooke.

And good afternoon.

We're fortunate he's still alive. Hopefully, he does cooperate and talks to the authorities. But I'm just happy to see this thing went down quick. And there was a shoot-out. My prayers go out to the police officers that were hit.

But, yes, it's time to move on at this point. But this guy's DNA was all over everything, to include the bombs, cell phones. They're collecting all kinds of human intelligence, signals intelligence, so this investigation is ongoing. And, yes, that's huge for us. I hope he cooperates. BALDWIN: Michael, what are they asking him?

MICHAEL BALBONI, FORMER NEW YORK HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER: They're asking him, so, first of all, why? Why did you do it? What's your motivation?

Did you get any help? Who have you been talking to? How did you learn how to do this? What's your digital footprint? They will also take a look at what kind of leverage they can develop from his personal contacts, family members. He has family. Does he care about them? Is there an ability to go to them and say, look, if you don't work with us, well, then everyone around you who may have been complicit may get hit with a conspiracy charge.

That may happen anyway, so there's leverage. Now that he's here, you can actually go and say, do this, help. But the real question is, is there anybody else out there? Was this solely him alone? So far, that's the initial take-back there, that this seems to be just him and his associates immediately, but we don't know what else he's done.

Is he a lone wolf, or, better yet, a known wolf, but that kind of slipped through the cracks? That's always going to be the question for everybody.

BALDWIN: And when we talk about -- I know it's tough to wrap your head around. It's Elizabeth. It's the car that was pulled over, maybe that had nothing to do with it. It was the Chelsea 23rd Street location and 27th and then it was the race in Seaside Heights in the morning. Was he tied to all of them?

PEREZ: They do believe he was tied to all of these bombings. Of course, there's still a lot of investigative work, especially the ones -- the bombs in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which happened just last night. They're still examining that to make sure they match.

But their belief is he was responsible for all of this. The question is, again, the difference in the bombs. Some of them were pipe bombs. Some of them were pressure cooker bombs.

BALDWIN: With cell phones to detonate.

PEREZ: With cell phones to detonate.

BALDWIN: And so, the question is, how did he come up with this recipe? Who taught him to do this? Was he making trial runs at this? Where was he doing that? If he was making these bombs, was his house, his home a bomb lab? How did no one notice? How did his brother and his father..

BALDWIN: He was living with his family right above the fried chicken restaurant.

(CROSSTALK)

BALBONI: His family lived with him. Those are a lot of questions that are being asked right now of those

family members and of anybody who saw any changes in his demeanor in the last -- certainly in the last few months.

BALBONI: And where did he get the gun? That's the other thing. He had a gun.

PEREZ: It appears he had no criminal record that would have prevented him to buy a gun, so that's pretty easy...

(CROSSTALK)

BALBONI: But it was a concealed weapon, right? It was a handgun?

PEREZ: We don't know what kind of firearm it was. The authorities have not said yet.

But that is also interesting. When did he buy that? At what point did he decide that he needed to have that? Was he planning this? For how long has he been planning...

BALDWIN: Lenny, this apparently was from a fingerprint. I don't think we know, correct me, but I don't think if we know it was a fingerprint from the cell phones or from the pressure cookers, from the devices themselves.

PEREZ: It was from one of the devices that did not go off.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: That then led to I.D.ing and then the be on the lookout and the face and then the guy watching CNN and sleeping in his bar vestibule and, thus, the shoot-out and the capture.

What are your biggest questions?

DEPAUL: I mean, for me, Brooke, here's a guy that he went a couple miles from his home. He falls asleep on the front porch of a bar.

Obviously, didn't have a plan B or C or didn't appear that way. As a manhunter, as a fugitive investigator, that's a home run for us.

[15:10:03]

As this puzzle came together, connecting the dots with New Jersey and 23rd Street, 27th Street, you know, these investigators had a lot to go with. It came together very quickly and they were able to put this thing to bed very quick.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREZ: I was going to say, it's very rare -- I think what you're getting at, too, is, it's very rare that we get these guys alive.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: So rare.

PEREZ: And unable to unravel really what was behind him.

And so that's -- often, these guys either kill themselves or they die in a shoot-out with police. Perhaps that may be what his plan was.

BALDWIN: What do you make of, Michael, though, the significance of the locations or the timing? People are pointing out it's not too far after the 15th anniversary of 9/11, but beyond that?

BALBONI: So, traditionally, we don't really see a lot of ties into anniversaries.

You had have some attacks, but mostly there isn't this type of calendar, at least the organized ISIS, al Qaeda, if that's who is behind this. It has the flavor of an individual who's self- radicalized, perhaps inspired, but not instructed.

But then you take a look at what the locations were. Again, people are sitting there saying, why 23rd Street? Why 27th Street? One of the speculations from some of my sources is that on the 27th Street the reason why the device didn't go off was because it was ditched, that the individual was spooked by something and decided not to do it. That would be a plausible explanation.

But, again, now he's moving. If he is, in fact, tied to three different locations, so when did he do that? How was he able to travel back and forth?

BALDWIN: What was he doing 72 hours prior?

(CROSSTALK)

BALBONI: Beforehand. How was he preparing for these things? And, as you said, well, was he testing it? How does he know to do this and where did he build these things?

BALDWIN: Police, FBI, they're on it.

Evan and Michael and Lenny, thank you all so much.

We are just getting word the suspect's family filed a lawsuit over anti-Muslim discrimination. We will take you live outside the family's restaurant with new details on that piece of the background.

Also ahead, I will speak with a witness who saw the shoot-out. We will ask him what he witnessed and what happened moments after the takedown there before the suspect was wheeled into that ambulance.

And breaking developments into the knife attack over the weekend at a mall in Minnesota. We now know who stabbed those nine people in that attack.

Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [15:16:25]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: We're back live. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

This is CNN's special coverage here of the arrest of Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in a number of bombings this weekend, both in New York and in New Jersey. Rahami's family owns a restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Customers there were, we're told, shocked at the news that this 28-year-old man had been arrested after a shoot-out with police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN MCCANN, WITNESS: I come in here about once every week or two just to get something to eat. He's always in there. He's a very friendly guy. That's what's so scary. It hits hard when it's home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Jason Carroll is there live in Elizabeth for us.

And, Jason, I know you have been talking to people who know this family. Let's begin there. What have they said?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, I spoke to a young man who says he's known Ahmad's younger brother, Nasim, he says, for many, many years.

He says he remembers when they moved here from Afghanistan. What is so surprising to him, Brooke, is that he says this was just, in his words, a family that was just trying to fit in. He said that when he spoke to Ahmad, which wasn't that often, but when he said that he did, he felt as though he was very friendly. He said they would talk about cars all the time.

He really felt as though he had a connection with him. He also told me that Ahmad would go back to Afghanistan and then he said, Brooke, it was about a year or so ago, he said he started to notice a change in him. I said, well, can you define what a change means? Was he angry? Was he different? He said, he would not use the word angry. He just said he just seemed a little bit more distant, not as talkative as he was in the past.

He did talk a little bit about that lawsuit that was filed here. As you know, we have gotten word that the First American Chicken here, establishment, the owner of the restaurant, Ahmad's father, did file a civil lawsuit with the city. Apparently, the family felt as though they were persecuted against because of their race, because of their religion.

Those who have I spoken to here in this area basically said this lawsuit was simply about staying open too late, people coming out in front, drinking, smoking cigarettes, causing problems, and so eventually the city passed an ordinance that the restaurant had to be shut down by 10:00. The family did not want to do that. They sued, that lawsuit still outstanding.

But still getting -- at this point, putting sort of the picture together of what this family is like. You talk to some of those who knew some of those in the family they say, look, this was a family that was simply just struggling to fit in -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Struggling to fit in. Huh. Jason Carroll, thank you.

The arrest comes as a relief obviously to those who live in the area where the explosion took place and where a second unexploded bomb was also found.

Joining me now, New York City council member Corey Johnson, whose district includes Chelsea, where the bombing injured 29 people.

And we were just chatting in the commercial break. Nice to have you on. You were in Chelsea Saturday night, just a couple avenues away from the blast. What do you make of the fact that this guy was caught just over in northern New Jersey?

COREY JOHNSON, NEW YORK CITY COUNCILMAN: Well, the block the first bomb exploded on, 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, 6th Avenue and 23rd Street, there's a PATH train station that you can take to New Jersey.

And I believe, I could be wrong, I have never lived in New Jersey, but I think there's a stop in Elizabeth, New Jersey, or in the vicinity out there. I'm not sure if the PATH train was running that night. There has been construction.

But it's not that hard to get into the city. You're just a few blocks south of Penn Station. But if I may say, this area, that block is still shut down.

[15:20:05]

It happened in front of a home for the blind and disabled people, windows blown out. It's a miracle that 29 people injured, no fatalities. The neighborhood is still trying to get back on its feet.

BALDWIN: And that the other bomb that didn't go off under 27th Street, thank goodness, and that the race even in Elizabeth Heights -- or, rather, Seaside Heights in the morning didn't go off on time. Timeline, do you know anything more?

JOHNSON: About?

BALDWIN: That evening.

JOHNSON: Oh, that evening. No.

I would just say that we know that the explosion happened around 8:30. And the secondary device wasn't found anything a few hours later. I mean, that area...

BALDWIN: They were doing sweeps. JOHNSON: They were doing sweeps. When I got there initially just

after 8:30, they hadn't cordoned off much, just the immediate block. Then they started to push everybody back.

The NYPD bomb squad showed up. Bomb-sniffing dogs showed up. State troopers showed up and that's when they started to canvass the entire area from 14th street to the south, so nine blocks to the south, up to the 34th Street to the north, I believe from 5th Avenue over to 8th Avenue, so a pretty large area in the heart of downtown Manhattan in a densely residential neighborhood.

And thank God that second pressure cooker didn't go off. Thank God we had no fatalities; 81 small businesses in that area right now are still closed down. And so people are still suffering right now. It looks like we are going to hopefully get that street up and running again soon. We don't have an exact time yet, but I think it will happen pretty quickly.

BALDWIN: In the hours after it was all happening, obviously, law enforcement and city leaders have to be careful with what words they use. But what do you make of the fact that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio did not immediately call this terror?

JOHNSON: I think it's important that we be circumspect when things happen and make sure that we have the facts in front of us.

The mayor had a press conference just a few hours after this happened. I was at the press conference with the police commissioner, with the FBI. At that time, the FBI wasn't saying that it was terrorism. They were still gathering facts.

I'm not a counterterrorism expert, but I would say this. Even if he is not linked to al Qaeda and ISIS -- he still may be -- this is terror. This is striking terror in the hearts and minds of people going about their lives on a busy Saturday night. This was not Times Square. This was not Grand Central Station. This was not the World Trade Center.

This was a residential block with restaurants and stores on a Saturday night. That is terrorism, in my mind, when someone does something like this. And when you look at Seaside Heights the day before, 23rd Street, 27th Street, and last night in Elizabeth, this is a pattern. And this individual, if it is him, has had a reign of terror over the last three days for people in the metropolitan area.

BALDWIN: Councilman, thank you so much for coming by. I'm sure they're looking into the PATH train. You're not the first person who has mentioned that here on the show. Thank you for swinging by CNN. I appreciate it.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next here, we have new details about the travel history of this 28-year-old suspect, including multiple trips to Afghanistan. We will talk to former NYPD and CIA agents about what that means for

investigators. Also ahead, I will talk to a witness who saw the shoot-out. Hear what happened moments after the gunshots rang out there in Linden before he got caught.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:58]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Want to share some video that we have just gotten in here. This is from a man who was right across the street when the shoot-out happened that ultimately ended in the capture of the suspect in the New York/New Jersey bombings.

Daniel Carnivale (ph) says he was listening -- rather, he was visiting a friend in Linden, New Jersey, when this happened. Those are the shots. That was part of the shoot-out. Ultimately, the suspect was apprehended, rolled away into an ambulance, and off he went.

I can tell you also that at least two officers were injured. And all were rushed to hospitals to be treated.

CNN's Brynn Gingras is joining us live from a Newark, New Jersey, hospital where the suspect was taken in.

Brynn, do they know if they have begun questioning yet or is he still being treated?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's still being treated, Brooke.

At this point, the officials here at the hospital are only confirming the fact that he is here being treated. They won't confirm his condition. We do know, though, he has not yet spoken to authorities or at least isn't speaking to authorities at this point giving up information.

Certainly, though, this is a center where part of the investigation, at least for the FBI, has been focused on, as we have seen a number of authorities circling around this hospital and being very particular about who is allowed to enter this hospital at this time.

But, of course, we can deduce from the video that you have shown your viewers that when Rahami was brought from the Linden, New Jersey, location here to the hospital, that he was on that stretcher, he did have gunshot wounds to his arm and to his leg likely, and also was alert.

So, we do know that he probably is going to at some point be in contact with authorities. But, at this point, he has not said anything to them at this point -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Brynn, thank you.

Let me bring in Wally Zeins, former hostage negotiator, supervisor for the NYPD, and Buck Sexton, former CIA counterterrorism analyst.

So, good to see both of you.

And, Wally, let me just turn to you and ask.