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The Lead with Jake Tapper
All 10 Victims, Suspect in Boulder Shooting Identified; Biden Calls on Congress to Ban Some Semi-Automatic Weapons, Close Loopholes on Background Checks; Hero Officer Was First to Respond to Shooting, Leaves Behind Seven Children. Aired 4-4:30p ET
Aired March 23, 2021 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:36]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
We begin with the national lead. Today, we see evidence of three different national tragedies going on in the United States beyond the COVID pandemic.
We begin with the latest in the epidemic of gun violence in this country and the latest tragedy out of Boulder, the shooting yesterday afternoon at the King Soopers market coming a week after the Atlanta area spa shootings. Today, we learned the names of all 10 victims and the identity of the alleged gunman, 21-year-old male lived half and how away from the supermarket where he staged his deadly rampage.
One witness happened to be livestreaming as the shooting was happening. We want to warn you may find the video excerpt we're about to show you disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He went in the store?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He went right down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God!
Guys, we've got people down inside King Soopers.
Look --
(GUNFIRE)
Holy (EXPLETIVES DELETED)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: A short time ago, President Biden took part in what has become a very unfortunate, sad and aggravating tradition of the modern presidency, reacting to yet another American mass shooting. Biden implored Washington that now is the time to act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't need to wait another minute let alone an hour to take common sense steps to save the lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act. We can ban assault weapons.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: That's not the only national emergency demanding action from President Biden in his first 100 days. Eleven thousand unaccompanied children and teens fleeing violence and poverty have flooded America's southern border with U.S. resources stretched too thin to care for them as of now.
And then there's this third crisis of disinformation in the United States. Yet another in which freedoms in this country are pit against competing issues of life and security with a Trump lawyer who preached the president's big lie now admitting in court that no reasonable person would actually believe her election fraud claims. Of course, this country does not only consist of reasonable people as we all saw on January 6th and we will all get -- we will get to all of that this hour.
We're going to begin in Boulder where police are trying to make some sense of this latest senseless act of violence.
CNN's Lucy Kafanov is on the ground in Boulder for us when she filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHIEF MARIS HEROLD, BOULDER POLICE: It's hard, it's challenging. I live three blocks up the street from that store.
LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Boulder, Colorado police chief expressing what an entire community is now feeling.
HEROLD: You're worried about your neighbors, you're worried about your partners, you're worried about everything when you get that call. And so, yeah, I feel numb, and it's heartbreaking.
KAFANOV: Ten people were gunned down at a supermarket here Monday afternoon. Today, the chief struggled to say their names.
HEROLD: Denny Strong, 20 years old. Neven Stanisic, 23. Rikki Olds, 25. Tralona Bartkowik, 49. Suzanne Fountain, 59.
Teri Leiker, 51. Officer Eric Talley, 51. Kevin Mahoney, 61. Lynn Murray, 62. Jody Waters, 65.
Our hearts go out to all the victims killed during this senseless act of violence.
KAFANOV: Police say a 21-year-old man from a Denver suburb has been charged with ten counts of murder in the massacre.
HEROLD: The suspect has been identified as Ahmad Alissa, 21 of Arvada.
KAFANOV: Aerial images show police taken him away after being shot, he was taken to the hospital and then the Boulder County Jail.
His brother telling CNN he believed the gunman may have suffered from mental illness and that he was bullied in high school for being Muslim.
One senior law enforcement source telling CNN the weapon used was an AR-15-style rifle but still no word about the motive.
HEROLD: No, no motive at this time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He went in the store?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He went right down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God!
Guys, we've got people down inside King Soopers.
Look --
(GUNFIRE)
Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
HEROLD: A live stream of the shooting shows what appears to be victims both inside and outside the building, as witnesses scrambled.
[16:05:06]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) is the building. This is the Boulder Police Department. The entire building is surrounded. I need you to surrender now.
KAFANOV: SWAT vehicles and hundreds of officers responding to the scene, including 51-year-old Boulder Police Officer Eric Talley.
HEROLD: Officer Talley responded to the scene. He was the first on the scene, and he was fatally shot.
KAFANOV: Many shoppers scrambled to safety. Some leaving out the back of the building.
RYAN BOROWSKI, WITNESS TO COLORADO GROCERY STORE SHOOTING: This was the safest spot in America and I just nearly got killed for getting a soda, you know, and a bag of chips.
ANNA HAYNES, WITNESS TO COLORADO GROCERY STORE SHOOTING: I initially heard maybe ten gunshots. I also saw the gunman himself holding a semiautomatic rifle. I heard screaming. I heard people leaving in their cars and it just devolved into chaos within just a couple of minutes.
(END VIDEOTAPE) KAFANOV (on camera): And new details about that shooting from court documents. Police say they removed a green tactical vest and two weapons from the scene which they believe belonged to the gunman. They also describe him walking backwards to the SWAT team to turn himself in. He had apparently removed all his clothing and was just wearing a pair of shorts. He refused to answer questions, but he did ask to speak to his mother as he turned himself in -- Jake.
TAPPER: Lucy Kafanov reporting in Boulder, thank you so much.
Joining us to discuss is the mayor of Boulder, Colorado, Sam Weaver.
Mayor Weaver, I'm heartbroken for you and the community of Boulder where I have loved ones dealing with yet another senseless mass shooting in this country. How are you doing? How are the citizens of Boulder doing right now?
MAYOR SAM WEAVER (D), BOULDER, COLORADO: Well, it's a tragedy, Jake, and, you know, there's no real upside to such a tragedy except that it brings people closer together and, you know, our community is very resilient and we're relatively small city. We're 110,000 people.
So, many people know their neighbors here, and so I think the only -- the only positive thing to come out of this will be that our community will bond together and work through our pain and then we'll look to the future and see if there are ways to prevent this from every happening to another community.
TAPPER: You're supposed to speak to President Biden imminently.
What are you going to tell him? What's the message you want to share with him?
WEAVER: Well, of course, everyone in Boulder will appreciate hearing from the president, and I think that the one message that I have for lawmakers is, you know, the consequences of us not having control over military grade weapons in the hands of who knows who has them is that people will be killed, and we've experienced that, and, you know, as you probably know, we passed an assault weapons ban in Boulder in 2018, and that was recently overturned by a Colorado district court judge.
We, of course, intend to probably appeal that, but I guess the real message is cities can't handle this problem. Rules need to come from the state and the federal level so what I'll be sharing with the president if I speak to him is that we would really appreciate his support and the interview he gave today indicates that he's with us and we really need everyone to -- to make their voices heard at this time.
TAPPER: There's so little information that we know right now. Did the judge taking that action and saying that Boulder can't enforce that ban on certain kinds of semiautomatic rifle, did that play a role in that tragedy?
WEAVER: You know, I'm not sure that if did directly. I'm not certain that if the ban had not been overturned that this killer would have made any different choices. It's very hard to enforce, you know, at a city level.
So I'm not certain that overturning it had practical negative impact. But obviously, you know, it was terrible, terrible timing, a terrible coincidence and redoubles our resolve to make changes at our state level.
TAPPER: Do we have any idea where the suspect got the gun that he used in the attack?
WEAVER: None, none at all.
TAPPER: The brother of suspected gunman says that he thinks his brother, the suspect, was suffering from mental illness. Is there any sort of law in Colorado that could have kept him from being able to legally purchase a firearm if his family members had let law enforcement or let a judge know that they considered him to be -- to have these issues, and obviously, we also want to underline that people with mental illness, most of them do not commit acts of violence.
[16:10:03]
They should not be stigmatized, but I'm just wondering if they thought he was paranoid, which they describe him in some press accounts as being, if there's some way that they could have kept a gun out of his hands legally?
WEAVER: Well, we do have background checks in Colorado, so I believe there are pathways that people can be refused the right to buy a weapon. I think mental health is one of those. We do now have I think went into effect a little more than a year ago an extreme risk protection order which I believe speaks to that as well.
So there are some measures in place, but I don't feel like they're strong enough. The results of yesterday's shooting show us that they are not strong enough. So, yes, there are measures in place. I don't think they are sufficient and they certainly weren't sufficient to prevent yesterday's tragedy.
TAPPER: All right. Mayor Sam Weaver, I'm going to let you go. I want to thank you for your time and obviously again I want to express our deepest condolences to your community and the wonderful families in Boulder, especially those who suffered loss.
WEAVER: Thank you, Jake.
TAPPER: We're going to talk about President Biden's demand for action and in his specific request today. Can he get it done now that the Democrats control the White House, the House and the Senate?
Plus, Colorado's history with mass shooting and how that perhaps factored in the police response in Boulder. And then later, the rare statement on the AstraZeneca vaccine that Dr. Fauci fears could be a setback for its ending the pandemic. That's coming up. Stay with us.
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TAPPER: Today, President Biden addressed the nation still reeling from last week's spa shootings in Atlanta. He said his heart goes out to the victims in Boulder, consoling the nation as he has so many times throughout his career, but he also made crystal clear he wants new legislation calling on the Senate to act as CNN's Phil Mattingly reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BIDEN: We have to act.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Joe Biden faced with a familiar crisis, calling for urgent action.
BIDEN: I don't need to wait another minute let alone an hour to take common sense steps to save the lives in the future.
MATTINGLY: The ten shot and killed in Boulder, Colorado, the second deadly mass shooting in as many weeks.
With flags at the White House dropping to half staff again and thrusting back to the forefront an issue that Biden has worked on with limited success for years, gun control.
BIDEN: This is not and should not be a partisan issue. This is an American issue.
MATTINGLY: Pressure building from Democrats, including former President Barack Obama who released a length and pointed statement saying it is long past time for those with the power to fight this epidemic of gun violence to do so and calling those opposed cowardly.
Biden today urging the Senate to act on House passed background legislation.
BIDEN: The United States Senate, I hope some are listening, should immediately pass the two House passed bills that close loopholes in the background check system.
MATTINGLY: And pressing for lawmakers to reinstitute an assault weapons ban.
BIDEN: I got that done when I was a senator. It passed and was the law for the longest time and it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again.
MATTINGLY: But for now, a push with no clear legislative path forward, a dynamic on full display on Capitol Hill this morning.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Every time there's a shooting, we play this ridiculous theater.
MATTINGLY: Where Republicans and Democrats remain as far apart as ever on any solution.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): You need to do more than reflect. We need to act. We need to show that we care and prevent the next mass shooting if we can.
CRUZ: The Democrats who want to take away the guns from the potential victims would create more victims of crimes, not less.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: And, Jake, just a few moments ago, President Biden was asked by the pool at the event he's at right now at Ohio State University, if he had the political capital to get changes made in regards to gun control. He's just crossed his fingers, according to the floor man saying, I don't know, I hope so. I haven't done any counting yet -- Jake.
TAPPER: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks so much.
Let's talk about all this with our panel.
Abby, President Biden called on the Senate to act right now to pass some sort of gun legislation. He mentioned the Charleston background checks loophole. He mentioned a ban on some forms of semi-automatic rifles commonly called assault rifles, something he helped lead back when he was back in the Senate.
I guess the question is what can pass the Senate what can get 51 votes? I mean, they couldn't even close the gun show loophole after Sandy Hook. What can they do now?
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, that's 451 votes that. Who mean what can get at least unanimous Democratic support? As strongly as Joe Biden feels about this and as many Democrats feel about this, it is an open question whether there is unanimous Democratic support for Democrats moving forward on these issues, on gun issues, without any Republican votes.
The obvious sort of forced here are moderates like Joe Manchin, someone who specifically has an issue with moving forward in a non- bipartisan fashion. So this is not actually really about where Republicans are because we know that Republicans are not particularly interested in doing any sort of gun control measures at all, whether it was after Sandy Hook or after Charleston or after -- or any of these mass shootings, they are not interested, but is Joe Manchin interested in moving forward even without that support, and I think the White House is clear-eyed that that may very we will not be the case which is why they are talking about executive action.
TAPPER: Yeah, there was Manchin and Pat Toomey, the Republican from Pennsylvania, did have a compromise legislation on background checks, but I take your point in general. Republicans oppose any sort of gun restrictions. Phil Mudd, it was Columbine back in 1999 I believe that changed the
way law enforcement respond to mass shootings.
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Now, police go in there faster and that might have cost this officer his life. He ran into danger.
PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Yeah, but the honorable moment here and the reason we honor people like that is how many people he saved.
You talked about Columbine. Let's go back three years, what happened in Broward County, Florida, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. As you know, after that event, a lot of controversy about why people who were involved in law enforcement and security did not move into the high school faster. Seventeen people dead in that event three years ago.
I think the debate, Jake, to cut to the chase, has to be not whether the law enforcement officer did the wrong thing by moving in so quickly but whether he sacrificed his life --
TAPPER: Right.
MUDD: -- to save people. That is so American. I love it.
TAPPER: Definitely a hero.
Abby, President Obama said today, quote, a once in a century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country. That's true. Last year we haven't covered many of these because so many people were cooped inside.
But actually, let me ask Phil this question. What does law enforcement want to be able to help them to deal with this? I remember -- I'm old enough to remember in the '90s when Biden was pushing all that legislation with Bill Clinton, President Clinton, law enforcement organizations were behind it. They wanted background checks. They wanted some of these guns banned, semiautomatic rifles, assault weapons because their officers were getting outgunned, but they are more conservative now when it comes to these things.
MUDD: I don't agree with that. If you look at one of the most significant police organizations on the planet, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a huge police organization that's global. Not only do they talk about assault weapons bans, they talk about limit on the amount of ammunition you can have in a magazine.
And let me take it a step further. Something you saw on January 6th. They talk about limit on the kinds of body armor that you can buy on the web. They don't want this stuff. The politicians don't act.
Look at what Marco Rubio said after the attack in Broward County Florida in 2018 and look what he did, minimal. The police speak. The politicians do not act. This is not a police issue, Jake. TAPPER: Yeah. Abby, we heard in Phil Mattingly's piece Senator Ted
Cruz of Texas make the argument that gun control legislation would take away guns from potential victims.
I want you to also listen to what Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): We have a lot of drunk drivers in America that kill a lot of people. We ought to try to combat that, too, but I think what many folks on my side of the aisle are saying is that the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers. The answer is to concentrate on the problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I mean, I don't even know what to say to that. It's so stupid.
PHILLIP: I don't think it's -- obviously, it's not -- that is not a good analogy, but I mean to your earlier point, Ted Cruz who you just mentioned also has a background check bill that he said he's going to introduce, but there is a gulf between where Republicans are and where Democrats are, even on the issue of background checks.
Republicans are increasingly opposed to universal background checks and when you hear the argument that Senator Kennedy is making, what it is it's a slippery slope argument. The base is telling them any sort of increase in gun control measures is going to be a step toward eradicating, you know, gun ownership in this country all together, and when that is the position of one side of this argument, I think it's very hard to come to the middle here, and I think many Republicans are increasingly further on the right on this issue.
TAPPER: All right. Abby Philip and Phil Mudd, thank you to both of you.
More now on that 51-year-old police officer who ran into danger so bravely, Eric Talley. He was the first officer on the scene. He leaves behind a wife and seven children.
CNN's Stephanie Elam joins us now to tell us more about him.
And, Stephanie, the police chief seemed quite emotional, understandably talking about this man willing to die to protect others and she explained he had another career before he was a cop?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's true, Jake. He was saying that this was not something that he needed to do. He became a police officer at the age of 40 in 2010, and she said he did it because it was a calling for him, that he wanted to do this.
His father going on and telling our affiliate KUSA that he wasn't surprised that he was one of the first people there, the first officer to be there and that he was actually working to become a drone operator because he wanted to find something safer that could keep him closer to his children who are aged according to the police chief between 5 and 18 years old.
In fact, let's take a little bit of a listen to what the police chief had to say about Officer Talley.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIS HEROLD, BOULDER POLICE CHIEF: This officer had seven children, ages 5 to 18. I just had that officer's whole family in my office two weeks ago to give him an award.
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He's a very kind man, and he didn't have to go into policing. He had a profession before this, but he felt a higher calling, and he loved this community. He's everything that policing deserves and needs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ELAM: And she also said that he was, quote, willing to die to protect others. That is his police cruiser outside of the police station that is there and becomes a bit of a memorial to him at this point, Jake, as this town is just really trying to figure out how to move forward after this tragic massacre.
TAPPER: So horrible with seven kids that don't have a father anymore.
Stephanie Elam, thank you so much.
New images today show inside border facilities holding migrants, including children. I'm going to talk to a U.S. senator who has also been inside that facility and calls the situation inhumane.
Stay with us.
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