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Coverage of the Lafayette, Louisiana, Movie Theater Shooting; What Police Know of Gunman; President Obama Visits Kenya; Debate Over Gun Control. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired July 24, 2015 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:00] ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the Grand 16 theatre. Bullets flying as the gunman described as a lone white hand gun into the audience.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We saw a lady with blood all over her leg. I just grabbed my child and then we -- we just all ran.
LAVANDERA: Police dispatched to the scene at about 7:30 P.M. central time. Witnesses describe the terrifying ordeal as something like a war, gunshot after gunshot as patrons fled the theatre for safety.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heard all the sirens and people coming out and chaos, basically.
LAVANDERA: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal praising heroism of two teachers who were members of the audience.
GOVERNOR BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: Both of them were shot one of them was released tonight, her friend literally jumped over her and -- and -- and her account actually saved her life. If she hadn't done that, her friend got shot and fellow teacher got shot. That bullet -- people will get hit in the head. The second one, the one whose life was saved, even though she was shot in the leg she had the presence of mind to pull the fire alarm to help save other lives.
LAVANDERA: And actress Amy Schumer who stars in the film took to Twitter to express her sympathy, my heart is broken and all my thoughts and prayers are with everyone in Louisiana.
And Michaela, one witness inside the theater described the experience as absolutely surreal. I'm told by Louisiana state police officials here, this morning, that all indications seemed to show that this gunman showed up to the theater by himself and stood up, as we mentioned, about 20 minutes into the film there and began firing. And he didn't turn the gun on himself until police officers had gotten inside the theater. And we're told that's when the gunman turned the gun on himself and killed himself.
Michaela?
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Brief moments of terrible horror. Ed, thank you for the very latest on that. We know that -- the police know the idea of this gunman. But they are not releasing at this time. What do we know about the man behind this senseless act?
CNN's Alexandra Field has that part of the story for us right now. Alexandra?
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Michaela, of course, we want to keep focus on the victims, but there are certain questions about what motivates somebody to do something like this and who this person is. Let's break it down for you. What we know is that, this is a 58- year-old White man, he has some kind of criminal history dating back a few years. The details of that criminal history not yet made available by investigators.
He did dies as Ed Lavandera reports of an apparent suicide turning the gun on himself. When officers entered that movie theater what motivated something -- someone to do something like this. It's a question that police have not yet been able to answer. Of course, the shooter is dead now, so there are some answers that we may never get. We'll see how the investigation unfolds.
This is data about shootings from Mother Jones, it's analyzed by CNN. It shows something that you have probably put together yourselves at home right now but a lot of mass shootings are carried out by White people, 64 percent, followed by Black people at 16 percent, then Asian and Latinos. What we know is that these first few numbers are in line with the population. What we also know is that Asians are statistically disproportionate we hire based on populations from mass shootings and that Latinos are disproportionately lower than the populations.
These are the faces, the names of others mass shooters, you've seen these faces, you know the names well, Dylann Roof, facing federal hare crime charges after opening fire in that South Carolina Church just a month ago. Muhammad Abdulzeez is dead after opening fire in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This is another man who has been in the news the past few weeks, James Holmes, he was convicted by a jury last week. He is now in the sentencing phase of his trial.
A lot of people will look at what happened last night in Louisiana and wonder, was it is copycat attack, was this motivated in anyway by what happened in Aurora back in 2012 when James Holmes opened up fire during that midnight screening of the "Dark Knight" killing 12 people, injuring 70 more people certainly parallel that investigators will be looking at if this is the name, this is the face we have been talking about this past few weeks.
Chris? Michaela?
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, those are the right questions, Alexandra. There are a couple of distinguishing features that they are dealing with right now as the investigation continues. One is age, obviously, this man believed to be 58 years of age and also the sequence of events and here is a big idea for the investigators, why did it stop as suddenly as it began unlike other shootings?
So that's going to be the path the investigation takes. But this is really about what was going on for the people who survived inside that theater who actually saw everything? And we have a young woman who saw what was going on. Her name is Katie Domangue and she joins us by phone right now. Katie, can you hear me?
KATIE DOMANGUE, SURVIVOR: Yes, I can, can you hear me?
CUOMO: I can. How are you? How are you feeling?
DOMANGUE: I'm just grateful to be you know, not harmed and that we're safe.
CUOMO: Where is your head and heart right now in terms of what you made it through?
DOMANGUE: My head and heart are just with the people who were, who were there, who were injured, and their family and the people who lost their loved ones today.
CUOMO: Are you comfortable taking me through what happened in the theater as you saw it?
DOMANGUE: Yes, that's fine.
CUOMO: So you're in there, the movie hadn't started yet, this was previews, is that right?
DOMANGUE: Sure, yes.
CUOMO: And what happens?
[06:05:00] DOMANGUE: We though we gotten there a little bit late right when the preview were starting. We always usually like to sit in the front row, next to that bar where you can put your feet up but that was full. So we sat on the second row and sat at the -- the end of that aisle, where right next to the stairs, which is not usually where we sit. So we were right in at the end of the aisle because the movie was starting to fill up.
CUOMO: Who is we? Who is we Katie?
DOMANGUE: Me and my fiance.
CUOMO: OK. And what happens?
DOMANGUE: He had go on and got some you know, stuff from the concession stand. I didn't -- I never saw the shooter pass while I was sitting there. You have to have already been in the theater at that time.
CUOMO: And you were where in terms of where the entrance and exit is? Were you on the opposite end?
DOMANGUE: No, I was right next to the exit to go back into the main part of the theater, not the emergency exit. The emergency exit was, was further down to the right. So it was closer for me to go around the corner, like right around the wall where I was sitting.
CUOMO: Sure. Luckily you were near an exit. What happens with the shooting? What do you see and hear?
DOMANGUE: Well, probably about 20 minutes, not even maybe 20 minutes into the movie and I hear a loud noise, a pop. You know, I'm thinking all of a sudden, probably someone set off a fire cracker to be silly. I turn and look over my left shoulder because as you are looking at the screen on the bottom right of the screen and the shooter was at the top of the left and he got the corner for me.
I turn and look and I can see him firing off another shot. And that's how I knew he was standing up straight down and you could see the light from the end of his gun, almost like a flash, like a flame. It looked like an older male to me, in his late -- mid to late 50s. Couldn't really see much because it's a dark theater. But I knew it was an older White male.
CUOMO: You only have the light of the screen really to help you. Were you able to get a sense of whether he was shooting at anybody in particular?
DOMANGUE: It didn't look like he was shooting at anybody in particular, but it looked like he was just shooting in front of him. So we took that opportunity. He's not shooting in our direction, he's shooting straight down, we need to go. So we -- we ran out of there as quick as possible.
CUOMO: And did the shooting continue as you were running out the door? Did you hear it as you were getting away?
