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New Day

New Details on Virginia Shooter's Escape Plan; Update on Condition of Shooting Survivor; WDBJ Anchor Witnessed On Air Shooting; Alison Parker's Father Vows to Fight for Gun Control. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 28, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00] POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's still early. The case is coming together for investigators. You have the evidence, the witnesses and also that chilling suicide note that was left behind. It all now paints a clear picture of who Vester Flanagan was and what may have led him to commit a terrible act. Now, evidence suggesting he planned to make it out alive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reporting live in the news room...

SANDOVAL: This morning, evidence of a getaway plan found inside his rental car. A search warrant revealing he had a wig, a shawl, sunglasses along with multiple license plates, a to-do list, six magazines and a pistol. The gunman was unable to evade police, shooting himself as they closed in on him on the side of a Virginia highway. This is video of his one-bedroom apartment obtained by NBC. You can see the refrigerator covered with photos of himself, possible warning signs of the anger fueling the murderous attack on Adam Ward and Alison Parker live on air starting surfacing over a decade ago. In 2000, he was fired from a station in northern Florida.

MARIE MATTOX, ATTORNEY FOR SHOOTER FROM 2000 LAWSUIT: I was concerned about just his mental status and whether he need counseling.

SANDOVAL: And in 2013, he caused a disturbing scene after being fired from WDBJ lashing out at co-workers including victim, Adam Ward.

JEFF MARKS, GENERAL MANAGER, WDBJ: On the way out, he handed a wooden cross to the news director and said, you'll need this.

SANDOVAL: Prior to being let go, internal documents showed co-workers he made them feel threatened and extremely uncomfortable. A station's manager said Flanagan was asked to seek mental health assistance.

ANDY PARKER, FATHER OF KILLED JOURNALIST: I'm not saying let's take away guns, I'm saying let's make it harder for people with mental issues.

SANDOVAL: In an interview with Chris Cuomo, Parker's father says, gun regulations have to change. PARKER: There has to be a way to force politicians that are cowards

and in the pockets of the NRA to have sensible laws so that crazy people can't get guns.

SANDOVAL: A father's crew said for stricter gun laws. A rally against gun violence with a vigil in front of WDBJ station Thursday night.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Now, this morning, we are told that a search warrant is revealing Flanagan texted a friend moments after the shooting indicating he had, quote, done something stupid. I can tell you, the focus here on the ground is not on the killer, but his victims and outside the studios here at WDBJ you can see the growing makeshift memorial, balloons, flowers, candles. It's a testament of the support for a team that continues to work through the tears. Back to you.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much for all of that. Joining us is Pastor Troy Keaton. He is the spokesperson for the woman who survived that shooting, Vicki Gardner and her family.

Pastor, good morning. We understand you have new information for us about Vicki's condition.

PASTOR TROY KEATON, GARDNER FAMILY SPOKESMAN: Good morning, Alisyn. Yesterday was a good day for Vicki and her recovery. She went through a second surgery. Early in the afternoon was able to come out of her medically induced coma and speak to her family. She is very positive and exuding the energy and positive personality that Vicki is known for. We are very optimistic and thankful for all the prayers and excited about Vicki's recovery.

CAMEROTA: That is good news, Pastor. We are happy to hear she is making progress. She was shot in the back. According to her husband, she has lost a kidney, lost part of her colon. She will walk again, is that what you understand?

KEATON: Yes. We certainly -- it was a very serious thing that happened to Vicki. But, her prognosis is good. They are excited about her recovery. You know, she was up and moving around shortly after being shot. That was a very good sign. Now is on the road to recovery after a couple surgeries.

CAMEROTA: Pastor, when we spoke on NEW DAY to her husband, because she had been in that medically induced coma, he hadn't been able to have many conversations with her about what she remembered. She is lucid and speaking coherently. Has she shared with you what she remembers of the incident?

[07:05:00] KEATON: She has not shared with me the details of her memory of this incident. She is speaking with her family. Vicki is an extraordinary person. She is an excellent executive director for the chamber of commerce, which I'm the chairman of the board. We are so blessed to have her. She is speaking to them and we are very, very excited about her recovery. She is telling them, you know, I think she remembers things and certainly has some vivid memories of what went on. She's very thankful to be alive. One of the first things she expressed to her family was her concern and condolences for the other victims. That was one of the first things that her daughter shared with me that she shared with them. So, we are encouraged today with Vicki's recovery.

CAMEROTA: I have a few more details, Pastor, because her husband was on with Don Lemon on CNN last night. He says Vicki told her family that she does remember a great deal of the account and she believes if the gunman had had more ammunition, she would not be alive. This terrible incident galvanized people in your community including Alison Parker's father. They don't want the deaths to be in vain. They want something positive to come out of it. How do you think Vicki and her family will move forward?

KEATON: Well, they are a very strong family. They will move forward with the love and encouragement with a wonderful community and close- knit family. You know, yes, if there was something we could do to prevent these kinds of things from happening that are happening all too often, of course, we are all in favor of that. It's complex, as you are well aware of, I'm sure. You know, her family believes that, you know, he wanted to hurt somebody. He was going to do that regardless of the means.

CAMEROTA: Pastor, as a man of God, how do you explain when horrible things happen to good people.

KEATON: There is good and evil in this world. When a child takes a cookie out of the cookie jar, sometimes it's because their parents didn't feed him, sometimes because he didn't know any better and sometimes because he's rebellious. I don't know why people do these things. I know there is such a thing as evil. We look to God and rest in the confident, loving, good, wise and faithful God in these moments and know that he has all of our best interests at heart.

CAMEROTA: Pastor Troy Keaton thank you so much for being on NEW DAY with those words and the update on Vicki. We wish her the speediest recovery.

KEATON: Thank you, Alisyn.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I tell you the divine hand that she got shot in the back, so close to the spine. She was walking and talking right after. She walked to the ambulance, her husband told us, yesterday. Her recovery is going to take a while. In this terrible experience, she is the lucky one.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. Right afterwards, you are pumped up with adrenaline. Her progression is going well.

CUOMO: Look, this story brings up and provokes a lot of big issues, whether it's mental health or about what the Pastor is saying, human decency. We have to remember, at the end of the day, it's about three people and their extended family. It happened on live TV. The anchor, who was anchoring at the time it happened was Kimberly

McBroom. She is the morning anchor and joining us now. We know you are very busy. The way you handled this as a voice and face of your family, your joined anchors in a moment of silence. Obviously this is affecting you in a way that goes far beyond the role as a journalist. How are you guys this morning?

KIMBERLY MCBROOM, WBDJ ANCHOR, WITNESSED SHOOTING: We are keeping each other together. We are hugging, we are crying, we are holding hands during the newscast. We are a family. I have said that a million times in the last couple days. We are. That's what's getting us through this. The outpouring of love that we have gotten, not just here in the community, but all over the world and social media. I have heard from people in Nigeria, Scotland, England, Canada, of course all over the country through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook. You name it. We have gotten food. We have gotten cards, flower, balloons.

If you have seen what our station parking lot looks like, it's a loving tribute to find people that we lost. We lost two family members on Wednesday morning. We are still trying to come to terms with that. I know that Alison and Adam would want us to keep doing. This is what we do. We are WDBJ 7. Adam's Twitter handle was do work. He believed in that. This morning, we were looking at each other going, do work, do work. We are doing it for Adam and Alison. It's why we are here.

[07:10:00] CAMEROTA: Remarkable...

MCBROOM: It is hard.

CAMEROTA: We can only imagine. It is remarkable to any of us you were able to do a newscast. It seemed like the right answer. Just that you could get through it. What was it like when the lights went on yesterday morning without your colleagues?

MCBROOM: It was unbelievably sad. There was a big hole there in our morning family, there was. But, you know, I had my partner by my side. I Hadley owe with me and all our co-workers. We have a great station here. We are a family. I will say that a million more times before this is over. We are. Alison was just a shining light. She could have gone all the way to the top. I always felt she would. She wanted to be a news director someday. She would have been a great one. Adam always had a smile on his face, even at 3:00 in the morning. He came in with a loud, booming, cheerful voice. Hey, Kim, how are you? You have a news story. What's the weather going to be like. A ritual. He had found love at our station.

He and our morning producer were engaged to be married. There's so many poignant moments. Wednesday was going to be her last newscast with us, she had taken a job in Charlotte. He was going to follow her there. Alison was in love with our 6:00 anchor, Chris Hurst. They were going to get engaged. So many relationships. Adam and Alison were both from our area. This is their community. They have classmates and families that are mourning them along with us. This is just huge. CUOMO: A couple things for you. One, what does it mean to you the

way the community came out and put their arms around you. Not just the memorial behind you, but the way they have come and wanted to see how you were and brought food and made it like this was part of their extended family this happened to, not just the people they watch on the news. What does that mean to you? How is Adam's fiance doing? To be in the control room when it happened, is she getting the love and support she needs?

MCBROOM: She is. Her family is here with her. That's who she needs right now. We texted back and forth yesterday. She is devastated. You know, she lost the love of her life. I don't know how you move on from that. She will. She will in time. We are going to help her. Just the outpouring of support that we have gotten from the community, from our colleagues.

We have gotten help from our sister station. We have the general manager, his boss who was here this morning helping write stories. Everybody had come together in so many ways to get us through it. If there is any good at all in any of this, it's that we know what family means. We know what our own families at home mean to us. We know what our WDBJ 7 family means. All of us in the news business. Everybody has rallied around us. It is appreciated. We can't express what it means. Thank you doesn't seem like enough, but thank you.

CAMEROTA: All the details that have come out about the love stories behind the scenes of both of these people.

MCBROOM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And the idea that your show producer, it was her last show. She had to watch this hideous crime live, of her fiance and her wedding dress arrived that day. It's just -- this was her future. She lost her future.

MCBROOM: I have to say, when it happened, when we heard the sounds, when he heard Alison screaming, we did not realize what happened. You have to understand, they were doing a feature at mountain lake. It was a beautiful morning. They were at a lake. This was not a standoff or hard news story. This was a morning feature. When we heard those sounds, I did not think gunshots.

CAMEROTA: What did you think?

[07:15:00] MCBROOM: Maybe a car backfiring or somebody setting off fireworks. It's in Franklin county, a rural area. I thought somebody firing shots in a distance. I thought something else. Live shots go awry. You know, when I'm looking into the camera, when it was me and them, it's a small picture. I couldn't see as much as the viewer could see at home, so, I did not think that. It was not in my mind at all.

As time went on, as people in the control room were trying to get in touch with them through texting and the longer it was that we didn't get a response from either of them, the more it was very, very clear something happened. Something was very wrong. Just each moment I got more and more worried. Then it was toward the end of the newscast, came back and we addressed the sounds to our viewers. We know you heard a sound during Alison's live shot, we don't know what it is. At that time, we weren't sure. It wasn't until after we were off the air we found out.

CAMEROTA: This is interesting for us to hear. We saw your stricken face. We saw something went wrong with the live shot. We heard the sound. You looked stricken. We didn't know you didn't know until later that something this terrible happened. Did you call 911? How did you get the word of what happened?

MCBROOM: No. Someone else called 911. When you saw my face, it was shock. It was confusion you know, as much as anything else. Again, gunshots were not anywhere...

CUOMO: There's no reason for them to have been...

MCBROOM: I should have but I didn't think that.

CUOMO: There's no reason to. The context didn't suggest in any way. You had no idea. The news manager has been spending a lot of time on this story. Why was this guy removed? Why did owe know then? The temptation is to say after this, hindsight wise, did you think he could have been a risk? There was no reason to see it coming.

CAMEROTA: That reminds me, Chris, Kimberly, how did this gunman know this live shot would be happening with Adam and Alison at that time there?

MCBROOM: My guess, and I'm only guessing here, I can't begin to get into his mind, he is gone. Our show is two hours long. We start at 5:00, end at 7:00. He could have turned on the TV at 5:00, her first tease, you know, letting everybody know what is coming up. It's about 5:10. He could have seen them at 5:10, we are at bridge water plaza, he could have seen that and hit the door and got in the car and made it in plenty of time. Assuming he was leaving from Roanoke somewhere, it's 40 to 45 minutes to get there. Again, I don't know where he was coming from. I don't know what was in his mind that day. We never will know. That's a guess.

CUOMO: The less time you spend on him, the better it is for your head and heart and probably for your community. We know you have your own cut-ins to do. This hits home. Kim and to everybody else there, everybody is thinking of you. Think of yourselves and take care of yourself, OK?

MCBROOM: Thanks. We are hugging our families extra tightly now as well as our broadcasting families. I want to thank everyone for their support. It's so appreciated.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much. Take care of yourselves.

Well, these brutal shooting deaths of the journalists Alison Parker and Adam Ward are reigniting debate on gun control. What will come of this tragedy?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: This can't happen anymore. How many Alison's is this going to happen to before he stop it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: I'm for the second amendment, but there has to be a way to force politicians that are cowards and in the pockets of the NRA to come to grips and make sense -- have sensible laws so crazy people can't get guns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: That's Andy Parker, the father of the slain reporter, Alison Parker, 24 years old. He is emotional. Certainly both sides look at the lawmakers in Washington as part of the problem. So, we are hearing about can we do better when it comes to situations like this? How we deal with mental illness and guns and how we deal with mental illness as a community. Let's discuss.

CNN Political Commentator and host of the Ben Ferguson show, Ben Ferguson. And the president of the Brady campaign, Dan Gross. Here is my suggestion, not just the emotion of remembering what we are coming out with. I would agree, I would think both of you gentlemen agree that we can do better when it comes to who has weapons and how they get them, am I right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

CUOMO: The question is how we do that. Let's get the sense of perspective on that part of this from both of you. Mr. Gross, go first. Why do we have a situation like yesterday when it comes to weapons?

DAN GROSS, PRESIDENT BRADY COMMISSION TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE: Well, the situation we had yesterday is, if it was...

CUOMO: Not yesterday, we were down there yesterday dealing with it. Go ahead.

GROSS: 89 people are killed every day with guns in America. Many of those deaths happen because guns get into the hands of people we agree shouldn't have them. People who are dangerously mentally ill, convicted felons, fugitives, domestic abusers. We can keep guns out of their hands. Only have to do with the rights of dangerous people we agree shouldn't have guns. Also, we should start there.

CUOMO: Ben, the reason I'm saying not just yesterday, we have seen lots of mass shootings, lots of crimes that show who gets weapons and why. One of the steps is often suggested of what Mr. Gross did. We should do background checks. What is the objection and why?

[07:25:00] BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We did do a background check. This person was a horrible, insane murder, who is willing to have himself die in the act. Got a background check. This is the problem with people that immediately want to think a law that would be passed would stop a psychopath that is willing to die in the act. The system did work. He was not a convicted felon. He had not lost his right to own a gun. He had not gone to jail.

CUOMO: He had not been adjudicated mentally ill.

FERGUSON: Right. This idea that if there would have been a law that would have been passed. Let me remind people, if we would have passed the most extreme Gun control measures put out there, it would not have stopped, by their rules, if Republicans would have gone along with it, it would not have stopped the legal purchase of a law-abiding citizen to the point he did this. If you want to do a mental health law, that's where we should look. The campaign the Brady campaign pushed would not have stopped this tragedy.

CUOMO: Mr. Gross?

GROSS: I mean, it boggles my mind that we take one individual tragedy and talk about how it wouldn't have been stopped and use that as a way to write off a sensible measure -- a sensible measure that 90 percent of the American public support that is stop people from dying every single day. We could spend the rest of the interview rattling off people that died because of purchases that would have been stopped.

CUOMO: What kind of background check are you talking about. We have background checks? Gun shows and online. That's the extension?

GROSS: Why are people against that?

CUOMO: Ben, it's not about what type of background check, it's where it applies, no loopholes. Why are you against that?

FERGUSON: Again, I go back to this. We had a background check for this individual to buy a handgun. To buy a handgun you have to go through a background check.

CUOMO: You don't. Not at a gun show or online.

FERGUSON: Hold on. This is where you put a false narrative out there. It is not true. I bought a handgun at a show and had to go through a background check. I have been a victim of a crime with a two-time convicted felon that purchased a gun, guess what? On the black market. He didn't worry about going through the proper channels. He's back on the streets today.

GROSS: Let me tell you about the Brady law passed in 1994. 2.4 million prohibited purchases have been blocked. Have there been some that haven't? Absolutely. 2.4 convicted felons, rapists.

FERGUSON: I'm going to ask quorum a simple question. Tell me what law -- listen, this is simple. Tell me what law you want to pass and I'm willing to listen to it, that would have stopped this individual who never committed a crime or was a convicted felon from this. If you can tell me that law, I will support you.

GROSS: Here is the thing I want to emphasize. The debate we are having...

FERGUSON: I'm waiting.

GROSS: 90 percent of the American public, 74 percent of NRA members, the overwhelming majority of conservatives. This isn't a conservative view.

FERGUSON: I'm asking you again, name a law -- name a law.

CUOMO: You guys are talking...

GROSS: I'll answer your question if you answer mine. Why are you against it...

FERGUSON: I asked you first, you are the one in charge.

GROSS: Why are you screaming over me.

CUOMO: You are on two remote satellites and talking over each other because you are hearing a delay.

Hold on. I want to end the conversation there because it's losing productivity. In the case that we just had where we lost these journalists, the task is for your side to figure out a law to make a difference and see if it's acceptable. If you are going to talk about gun shows and talk about what happens online, it didn't apply here. You have different levels of this conversation that need to be had. We are going to hold it there for now. Mr. Gross, Mr. Ferguson, always appreciated.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Was Hillary Clinton right to compare republicans to terrorists groups when it comes to women's issues? Did she cross a line? Inside politics with John King has that answer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)