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Updates on Louisiana Shooting; Gunman is CNN Producer's Neighbor; Witness Describes Strange Conversation with Gunman; Obama's Sister's Organization Helps Kenyan Youth. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired July 24, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:32:17] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

When the worst happens, time and again, we see the best in people. That is the case for these two teachers, Jena Meaux and Ali Martin. People are calling them heroes. And Louisiana's governor explained precisely what these two women did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBY JINDAL, (R), LOUISIANA GOVERNOR: One teacher jumped in front of her friend, potentially saving her life. That bullet was coming for her head. The second teacher was injured in the leg. She had the presence of mind, despite her injury, to pull the fire arm la. Who knows how many lives she saved by doing that. She was released from the hospital last night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let me bring in Colonel Michael Edmonson, the superintendent of Louisiana State Police.

Colonel, thank you so much for spending time with me today. Welcome to the show.

COL. MICHAEL EDMONSON, SUPERINTENDENT, LOUISIANA STATE POLICE: Absolutely. Thank you. Glad to be here.

BALDWIN: I understand you just walked out of that movie theater. We just got a briefing on the survivors. We got an update from Lafayette General. As far as the investigation goes, as far as what you can tell me, without compromising the investigation there, what can you share with us?

EDMONSON: We've got to be very careful because we're certainly trying to put this puzzle together and there's so many unknowns there and it's just trying to find that motive as to why that individual was at this theater in this city at that particular time. I just came from the crime scene itself inside the movie theater with the chief. Just walking in the very first part of it was a horrific scene and something we'll talk about at the 5: 00 press conference with more information. But, look, this is about trying to take every bit of information. We've reached out to the public. We're all over social media. We're looking at every single thing that we can to try to find out what put him here. What was he talking about prior? Who did he meet with? Brief discussions with his mother. They were talking to family and finally talked to his wife and a daughter. They painted a picture of him. As police officers, we've got to deal with facts. A lot of people are making accusations and things like that. We want to put all of that together along with that and try to find out why this gentleman went into a movie theater and sat in there for 20 minutes, got up and shot two individuals in front of him, walked down and around while he was shooting as he goes outside and then tries to leave the theater at an emergency exit. Goes back in because he saw police coming. He's back in the movie theater. Police are coming into that actual theater itself. It's a small one. And at that point, he turned the gun on himself and ended his life.

When you look at those two lives, 21-year-old and 33-year-old beautiful ladies, this wasn't their vision of their future to die in a horrific scene like this. So we've got to try to do everything that we can to put it together.

[14:35:21] BALDWIN: I know you're working hard, sir, and you're giving a news conference in a couple of hours. Can I ask you quickly, as you talk about walking into that theater, what do you see?

EDMONSON: Well, I had not made it all the way in there and I don't want to take anything away from Chief Craft, what he's going to talk about. I came out here to talk to you all. Certainly, from what I saw, the technician, the crime scene, they were cleaning up the scene and actually taking the rest of the evidence and the stuff that was in there, all things that are not the fun part of a crime scene investigation but something they have to do. We'll get a full briefing at around 4: 00 and we'll give a press conference and I'll be glad to talk to you all as we move into the evening with further information.

BALDWIN: Understood. You know, I want to ask you what you can share about his escape plan. I know you all were saying earlier that his car was parked near that movie theater exit, and in this motel room he had apparently been staying in for the better part of the month, you all found disguises. You found wigs and glasses.

EDMONSON: Yeah.

BALDWIN: What can you share there?

EDMONSON: When he came into the theater here, he didn't have a disguise on. He bought his ticket and went into the movie theater. He parked his car right outside the emergency door for that particular theater. The keys were on top of a tire. When the dogs were first looking at location and hit on the car which concerned us because we had bomb dogs in on it which is why we dispatched our bomb unit and actually entered that car remotely. We didn't find anything but indeed that was because of the concern of people working in that area. He clearly, clearly -- from what we can see, had a motive and a plan. A plan put him in there. A plan showed him firing that weapon, reloading that weapon and then having his car out there for a possible quick getaway. Why were the wigs, the glasses inside that room? Who knows at this point but certainly he wanted to disguise himself. Maybe that was part of the plan and maybe he just didn't -- there's a lot of speculation. We don't like to do that in law enforcement because it's not set by facts. We want to be accurate about that. Clearly we have to come to some type of a conclusion.

BALDWIN: Listen, I'm with you on facts. And I don't want to speculate whatsoever. But let me ask you, if you can be precise on the wigs or disguises, what types of wigs were they? Men's wigs? What kinds of disguises.

EDMONSON: Women's wigs.

BALDWIN: Women's wigs?

EDMONSON: Yes, women's wigs. That was there. From what we've determined at this point, and then some glasses and stuff like that, kind of a larger hair -- I guess would be the proper way to say it -- that would have disguised him as another individual --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Was there women's clothing?

EDMONSON: Not, not at this time. Not from what we've been told at this point.

BALDWIN: OK. I know that you all had said he had one .40-caliber handgun. You've recovered that. Did he reload at any point in time?

EDMONSON: He did. He walked outside and came back into the theater. Unknown if he expended some bullets at that time but apparently he did, and then, of course, he had the final bullet that was for himself. Again, we're compiling all of that information and trying to put it together. It's taking a while to take that whole scene in that whole movie theater because we had to work from the outside in, look at all of the different areas specifically where the shooting took place inside that theater.

BALDWIN: You mentioned conversations he had had that you're looking into, trying to understand the why part of this, conversations with his mother or with his -- from what I understand -- I don't think she's still married to this woman, the woman who filed this protective order and wanted the guns removed from his home because of the manic depression and/or bipolar disorder she had reported at the time. Was she in contact with these two women recently?

EDMONSON: We do not know that. We do know that he had reached out to his mom recently and that he needed cash and she sent some to him. He paid cash at this particular hotel. We're not even 24 hours since that shooting. We're only about 18 hours out. So still a lot of information -- this is going to be a marathon. No expectation that this is going to be cleared up in a short period of time because there's too many unknowns at this point. But certainly we want to be meticulous and respectful and mindful of the families and the people working inside that theater. [14:40:19] BALDWIN: Of course.

EDMONSON: And also the efforts by the employees and teachers who also pulled the fire alarm inside that building.

BALDWIN: That's right.

EDMONSON: We want to put that together. The unfortunate side for the police is it doesn't work as quickly as you see on TV but we certainly want to do it correctly and we want to make sure we don't leave any stone unturned.

BALDWIN: Colonel Edmonson, thank you. We'll look for that news conference at 6:00 eastern, 5:00 your time there in Lafayette. Thank you so much, sir.

EDMONSON: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

BALDWIN: Coming up, we'll talk to someone who knew the shooter growing up. He'll join me on what this man apparently kept in his yard, more about his family life.

Stay here. This is CNN special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:45:21] BALDWIN: Here's a quote, "We're searching for answers." Those are the words from the police chief in Lafayette, Louisiana, after the gunman opened fire in the movie theater.

I have one of our own, CNN producer, Wes Bruer, who once lived down the street from the gunman, a gunman identified as John Russell Houser.

Wes, my goodness, when you first saw this man's face pop up on the TV screen, did you immediately recognize him?

WESLEY BRUER, CNN PRODUCER: I did and I had a hunch that it was the person I thought it was when I connected the names and pieces of information. It was bizarre to realize this was this man that lived down the street from me for a lot of years that committed this crime. And even more sad to see that he had a very lovely wife and daughter and to know that, you know, he went off and committed these crimes. I know that left a lot of families hurting.

BALDWIN: You last saw him, what, back in middle school when you were in middle school?

BRUER: Right.

BALDWIN: But still then I know you told some of our producers that you noticed early signs that he was mentally unstable. How do you mean?

BRUER: Well, it's a fairly small town where I'm from, Columbus, Georgia. He was known around the community. It's a very neighborly community. He was known as being a very politically charged person, very politically active, and a little bit paranoid. He would use rivals of his political rivals trying to do things to him and often got in trouble for tampering with political rivals' campaign signs. You can see the beginning of someone unraveling and had mental issues.

BALDWIN: Sounds like his then wife recognized that because we heard that she had all of his guns removed, weapons removed from the home, had him committed to this mental facility. Can you just tell me more about the family, about the daughter as well?

BRUER: Right. Absolutely. Like I said, I grew up with their daughter, same age, went to elementary school together. Knew them as the normal family down the street. Although, you could tell that things were off with their father. On the surface, everything seemed very typical with the mother and daughter relationship and did normal things such as attend school events. And our families would run into each other around the neighborhood, as you do, at the grocery store, little league games. He was well known in the sense that a lot of people knew him but I don't think that anyone knew that he had quite gotten this unsafe.

Wes Bruer, one of our CNN producers, thank you so much.

BRUER: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I want to bring in Bonnie Barbier, who spoke with the shooter as recently as Saturday night.

Bonnie, can you tell me about that conversation?

BONNIE BARBIER, WITNESS (voice-over): Hi. Yes, I was at a local bistro with a friend and my two dogs. And this gentleman approached me to pet my dog and continued to start a conversation with us. Immediately, the conversation got very strange. He started talking about euthanizing animals and about how to be more readily accessible for people to be able to do that and people spent too much money saving their pets when they were sick or ill and he began to tell us a story about a cat that he had that came to his house from maybe the woods and he had -- after a few years, the cat got sick and instead of bringing him to the vet, which would cost money, and he didn't want to traumatize the animal by putting him in a kennel, he said -- and the crazy part is, you could tell that he had a lot of emotion sharing this story with us. But he saw the cat outside and hit it with a rebar to try and kill the cat. And then he -- and I'm like, my dogs are like my children.

BALDWIN: I understand. I have the same situation in my house. Right.

BARBIER: And my mouth just dropped. He just continued to talk about how, you know, people should be able to have an easy way to kill their animals and that the cat ended up coming back, but I don't know what happened. But that people should be able to go to a place and get a pill to give to their animals to knock them out and finish them off with an ax. And my friend and are I just sitting there looking at each other saying, what is going on? And then he started talking political stuff about -- you know, the

government spent so much money on things they shouldn't. And he pulled up a chair and sat down with us. And he was ranting and raving about how he would try to write all of these articles for newspapers and letters and send them in and nobody would publish his writings but whenever he would gun them down, then they would publish them.

I felt from the get-go very uncomfortable, very scared. There was just something about him that just wasn't easy. He looked -- I'm going to use quotes, he looked normal. He had on a nice shirt.

[14:51:02] BALDWIN: I was going to ask you about his appearance.

BARBIER: Yeah. But the words coming out of his mouth were just scary and insane and inside I was telling myself, OK, you need to get away from this guy. There's something wrong with him but I also knew we needed to do it in a nice manner because I didn't want to set him off. I just had a feeling. So I just kind of lied and said, oh, my gosh, look at the time. Oh, we have to run. But this is after like 30 minutes of him just --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Going on and on about animals and politics and this and that?

BARBIER: Right.

BALDWIN: And I should tell everyone --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Right. You gave all of this information to detectives as part of them trying to piece all of this together.

Bonnie Barbier, who just happened to have a conversation with this man a couple days before the shooting.

Bonnie, thank you so much for hopping on the phone.

Next, moments ago, President Barack Obama landed in Kenya. And one of his greeters, right there on the tarmac, this woman, who I sat with days ago in their ancestral village in Kenya. I interviewer Dr. Auma Obama, the president's sister and their grandmother. You're going to hear another part of my interviewer and why, the reason we came, profiling her foundation, helping kids in her community. Back in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. President Obama is now officially wheels-down in Kenya, arriving in Nairobi in the last hour. He's going to attend the entrepreneurship conference. This is Auma Obama, greeting him, his half-sister.

I was given this tremendous opportunity, exclusive opportunity to meet her ahead of this trip and Auma gave me unprecedented access to the village that they live in, including where their father is buried. Auma Obama runs an organization there encouraging young people to lift themselves out of poverty. Auma allowed me to see her work at Sauti Kuu. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SINGING)

[14:55:09] BALDWIN (voice-over): Sauti Kuu, Swahili for powerful voice, is an organization distinct in its vision of empowering young people.

(SINGING)

BALDWIN: The source of hope for one young man who could barely afford his schooling.

MAURICE OTIENO, HELPED BY DR. AUMA OBAMA'S FOUNDATION, SAUTI KUU: I had a dream that one day through education I may have my way out of the problem.

BALDWIN: Maurice Otieno grew up in a small hunt down a small path and was drawn to Sauti Kuu when his family was struggling.

(SINGING)

(on camera): When you first came to Sauti Kuu, you were 2?

OTIENO: Yes.

BALDWIN: What brought you here?

OTIENO: The reason I came here, it was because of the idea that Sauti Kuu had.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Founded in 2010 by President Obama's half- sister, Auma Obama. Auma invited me to Kenya for an exclusive first look at what she has created.

DR. AUMA OBAMA, FOUNDER, SAUTI KUU & HALF-SISTER OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The vision in itself to give the community here a possibility to create their own future by using their potential and resources that they have to be able to send their kids to school to get an income.

(SINGING)

OTIENO: When Auma came up with the idea, she was trying to challenge our mentality. So that we can change and believe that it is us, that it starts with you.

BALDWIN: It all started when Auma went to a local school, sat 10 kids down under a tree and asked what they need. Maurice was one of those 10.

OTIENO: When I was a kid, I was wishing that one day I have a good life, a better life somewhere. But when Auma came, she made me understand that it's not just wishing but go for it. Get it.

OBAMA: He is special because he has a very difficult background. His mother struggled to keep him in school. His older sister had to get married before she even finished middle school.

BALDWIN: Through the help of Sauti Kuu, Maurice is now three years away from finishing medical school in Nairobi.

Inspired by the organization's support of Maurice, Loyce Duall (ph) offered to pay his tuition. She has since become like a mother to Maurice, which made that moment that much more emotional when she met his biological mother for the very first time.

BALDWIN (on camera): Mama.

LOYCE DUALL (ph), SUPPORTED MAURICE FINANCIALLY: Yes. I've never met her. It's the first time.

Yeah.

(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

DUALL (ph): She said many, many thank yous, and she's very happy.

(CROSSTALK)

OTIENO: I am very happy about it.

BALDWIN: Very happy.

BALDWIN (voice-over): And true to s Sauti Kuu's mission, Maurice pays it forward at this orphanage that Loyce runs.

DUALL (ph): They have had such a drastic improvement in their grades.

(SINGING)

OBAMA: He's very good with young people so he can really give back in terms of telling a story.

BALDWIN (on camera): Yes, dancing, singing.

OBAMA: Just even his presence.

BALDWIN: Yes. I imagine these little boys look up to him and think, that could be me.

OBAMA: Yes.

(SINGING)

OTIENO: I think Auma is an inspiration to all of the youths here.

BALDWIN: You are. You are.

OTIENO: Fro helping me, yes. BALDWIN: No pressure, doc.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN (voice-over): Sauti Kuu serves as an example, cultivating its own garden to show people how to grow and provide food for themselves.

(on camera): Why do you care so much?

OBAMA: Because it's so easy to do this and it's so normal. It doesn't make sense that people are going hungry when they have land.

BALDWIN (voice-over): And what better place for Auma Obama to go for advice on gardening than the White House.

(on camera): Your sister-in-law, Michelle Obama, I hear is quite a gardener. Have you traded gardening tips with your sister-in-law?

OBAMA: We have talked about it because I've told her what I'm doing and I have her book and I would like to work with that as well.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Now just a few years after breaking ground on Sauti Kuu, the foundation is still growing with a new soccer field and new resource center and young people like Maurice are fighting, too.

(on camera): What does Auma Obama mean for you?

OTIENO: Auma is like a mother to me.