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Massive Manhunt in Illinois for Three Suspected Cop Killers. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 01, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00] RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You could have the three suspects who may have gone into a vacant home in the area and they'll have to put a search point out there to make sure none of the homes that are vacant during the week are used by the three suspects. The officer on foot patrol seeing these three and making that call in, was he able to give a description of what the people were wearing? The shoes they were wearing in? The shirts? That's something we'll have to learn more about in the next few hours. We're about 10 miles out. I'll tell you once we get on the ground we'll know more information about that search pattern but as you talked about all the law enforcement has swung into the area with helicopters and with canines on the ground trying to figure out where these three suspects are, the two white males and one black male.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Ryan, stay with me on the phone.

I want to get back to Deb.

Because Ryan said something, Deb, as we look at these pictures, of police officers are going door to door, looking in yards. They have canines with them as they are scouring the area. He mentioned the idea that -- Ryan did -- that this is an area with weekend homes, which is a deja vu to what we saw in that intense manhunt for two escaped convicts in Upstate New York not too long ago. This is the challenge that officers really have cut out for them if these suspects are indeed in hiding.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And there's no question about it. If these suspects entered a vacant home thinking perhaps they could hide and regroup then, in fact, officers are going to have to go door to door. If they decided to get as far away from the scene as possible. That, too, all of these are factors that police are going to have to contend with. The fact that these three individuals are armed, the fact that now a police officer is dead, all of that is going to factor into the intensity of this search. You can see the officers there going around the corner. You know, whether many people have left their lake homes to return, labor day is coming up on Monday so that may still be in that area, in that vicinity so you have a lot of people and that's why they've been told to lock down, shelter in place, don't go out of their homes, at least give police and other authorities, the sheriff and his deputies to see if they can find it.

If you look, Brianna, in the right-hand corner you can see the major highway. This took place near U.S. 12, which is a heavily trafficked highway that cut us there the Chicago metropolitan area so whether these three decided to stay in the area or get out as fast as they possibly could all of that will impact the search that takes place. Best case scenario is if somebody witnessed the shooting, identified the license plate, if there was a car and that will be a much faster way for authorities to close in on these individuals.

KEILAR: And in between those homes in that highway, we see train tracks as well. Certainly, a concern for officers there.

This is a community, Fox Lake, Illinois, currently on lockdown. There's a massive manhunt under way for three suspects. Two suspects are white males, one is a black male. That's what officials are telling us. An officer has died in Fox Lake, Illinois. We're going to monitor this story. We have details coming in. We'll share details after a quick break.

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[13:37:40] KEILAR: I'm Brianna Keilar, and you're watching breaking news on CNN.

We are monitoring a community not far outside of Chicago. This is Fox Lake, Illinois, where searches are currently under way for three suspects involved, authorities believe, in the killing of a police officer there this morning. We should mention -- and the reason this is moments ago -- this is on a considerable delay that we are running this video of these searches. We don't want to interfere with operations as they conduct them by air and on foot.

We're seeing police officers go door to door. We know canine units are involved. We have seen officers in these pictures that we've looked at with guns drawn, patrolling train tracks that are adjacent to homes in this area in this residential community of 10,000 people about an hour outside of Chicago. You can see in this video there are police officers hanging outside, sitting on the edge of this helicopter, as the wind coming from the rotors is parting the grass. Obviously, they're trying to make sure suspects are not concealed in that tall grass.

I want to bring in Katie Dahlstrom on the phone, a reporter with "The Northwest Herald." She is on scene where searchers are looking for these three suspects.

Katie, thanks so much for joining us.

Tell us about what you were seeing where you are.

KATIE DAHLSTROM, REPORTER, THE NORTHWEST HERALD (voice-over): Well, what we're seeing here is lots of streets blocked off. Nearly every street you try to turn down, there's at least one officer blocking it. And like you said, officers with large guns dressed in SWAT gear. There's helicopters, canine units dozens upon dozens of officers descended upon this town.

KEILAR: And just to make note to our viewer viewers, the FBI and U.S. Marshals have are involved in this search. I think one of the things that is surprising is this is an area of low crime. This is an area not accustomed to violent crime like this.

[13:40:03] DAHLSTROM: Right. This is not -- Fox Lake is not renowned for crime. It's a middle-class, lower-middle-class community with many vacation homes that have been converted into year round homes. McHenry County, in general, not renowned for crime. There was an officer-involved shooting here last year involving McHenry County sheriff's officers and Fox Lake is split between McHenry County and Lake County. So this I would say is the biggest crime to hit the area in some time.

KEILAR: Some of the pictures we're looking at, we see one officer with his partner, one of them has a canine with him, a police dog, and he's gone up to the front porch of a house, obviously, to inform a woman there of what's going on. What are officials telling residents in the area? What are the concerns here about public safety?

DAHLSTROM: Well, officers are telling residents to stay in their homes. This is a massive search. They couldn't give a perimeter for the search but I know grant community high school was reported to be on lockdown as well as other schools in the area. Some businesses that are closer to state route road and Route 12 where this incident occurred are closed. Other businesses are open but officers are telling people to stay in their homes.

KEILAR: What is this area like near Satan Road and Route 12, which is a thoroughfare through the area? And I know there's also some officers patrolling the train tracks. We know there's wooded areas in this community. Is this a place that is frequented and there's traffic?

DAHLSTROM: There is Route 12 like you said is a thorough sphere there is plenty of traffic traveling down Route 12. Satan Road is just off of Route 12, it could almost be considered a frontage road. And there are shops. There was a small strip mall, a mechanic shop. There appeared to be a veterinary hospital and there was some wooded area. There's METRA stop not far from where this incident occurred so when the police were originally blocking it off they had to turn quite a few cars away that were trying to do business in that area.

KEILAR: You said there's a METRA stop not too far. We see train track. I don't know if that's train tracks for the METRA. We don't know at this point. What are you hearing if these suspects could have found transportation either by car or would they have been able to access the met slow in is that a concern you're hearing from officials?

DAHLSTROM: Well, I know that this search has interrupted service on the METRA train line so I think it's a concern. The number of officers in that area, officers have turned people away from the train station. At this point, officers are telling us the suspects fled on foot so they -- other than that, it's not really clear if they got a ride or hopped on a train or anything like that.

KEILAR: Now, you said that officials you've spoken with are not giving a perimeter. We just spoke with the spokesman, the detective who is representing the Lake County Sheriff's Department as well. We asked him, how big is the search area, and that was not something he would reveal, probably, for very good reason, I would imagine. Are officials trying to keep their cards close to the vest to make sure their movements aren't known by suspects?

DAHLSTROM: Yeah. I would think that is what they're doing. Their presence is very obvious but how far their presence extends I think they just don't want people to know.

KEILAR: I know you've seen a lot of police activity in the area. Are you getting any sense talking to officials there about any of the circumstances surrounding the killing of this police officer? Do you know anything about the suspects or circumstances of what they think happened or are officials sort of at a loss and limited by what minimal information they got over the radio from the officer?

[13:45:02] DAHLSTROM: What I heard was the same information they got over the radio from the officer that he initiated this interaction because he saw some -- what he believed to be suspicious activity involving two white males and one black male. He radioed that he got into a foot pursuit with these individuals and then sheriffs lost connection with him. So it's not clear why the shooting occurred. It's not clear what the suspicious activity was that the officer witnessed. There's a lot of unanswered questions right now.

KEILAR: There certainly are.

Katie Dahlstrom, a reporter with "The Northwest Herald," thank you for being our eyes and ears on the ground. We appreciate it.

Just to recap for our viewers. This is a community under lockdown as a big manhunt is under way following the killing of a police officer just northwest of Chicago. We'll be back with more details after a quick break.

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[13:50:26] KEILAR: I'm Brianna Keilar. We're following breaking news here at CNN. New information, just in on the officer killed this morning in Fox Lake, Illinois. We are just learning from a source that he was a 32-year veteran of the force. This is what a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation is telling us. We also are finding out that the FBI, in the form of a SWAT team as well as helicopters, is now in position, involved in this manhunt in what is really a residential community that is on lockdown at this point. You see that helicopter there on your screen.

I do want to tell our viewers that these are pictures we're bringing to you on considerable delay. We don't want to interfere with police operations there. And this is a wooded area, sort of a swampy, meadow area that is behind some homes in the area. You can see officers there on foot. There are K-9 units and officers going door to door talking to residents, telling them to stay indoors. Schools are on lockdown at this point.

We know that this officer was killed around -- shot around 8:00 a.m. this morning, central time. He had radioed for backup as he was in pursuit of three suspects. That's what officials there are telling us. And the search for those suspects continues.

I do want to get to Ryan Young. He's our CNN correspondent.

We talked a moment ago. You were en route to the area. Are you there yet? Are you seeing any of the search going on?

YOUNG (voice-over): Definitely. We are here. We're driving around the area now. You can see, as soon as you get into town, officers are everywhere. In fact, they're in neighborhoods. They're on bridges. They have their weapons pulled out. People are watching them, but you can tell, through the community, they have set up several areas where they have blocked off a section, an area cordoned off. Teams are working in camouflage and you see officers in plainclothes and uniformed officers. One thing we did notice, all the different jurisdictions that flooded into the area and are working their way through the neighborhoods. You do see that helicopter overhead? It's doing the circles in the circle pattern. Not sure if they're focused on the area just yet. But it is interesting to watch how they have blocked off certain sections of the community as we work our way through to see what we can-- in terms of where officers are, every block, it seems like there's a different group of officers from a different jurisdiction.

KEILAR: And this is along a route that is Route 12. This is a considerable thoroughfare, as we are telling our viewers. And there are also train tracks there, right? This is METRA rail. This is the local commuter train that goes through. We just learned from a local reporter on the ground that METRA service has been affected for the area. So certainly interrupted.

The thought -- the last we heard, Ryan, was that these suspects, three of them, had gone off on foot, but certainly there must be concern that they could have either found a car or made their way away from the area on rail.

YOUNG: Certainly. We were told actually that the METRA service here had been suspended. We've been working to confirm ourselves. We passed the high school that is obviously on lockdown, and the library as well. They say it's temporarily closed.

One of the things we wanted to point out here, being an officer out on foot what did he see, what was the initial description he was able to give back to the fellow officers before the foot pursuit started?

Then we're looking into the neighborhoods where a lot of them have boats. A lot of them have tarps on their boats. Could these suspects have run into someone's backyard and jumped into a boat? There's a lot of questions about exactly what's going on.

We came in on Route 12. Didn't see a heavy officer presence for most of our ride in, and then once we got into the city it was a complete change. We can see officers riding around in unmarked vehicle, marked vehicles. Their presence has certainly changed. In one part of the neighborhood, we saw people sitting on top of their roofs looking over to see what officers were doing. So everyone is aware of what's going on here in this small community, wondering what's going to happen next. Obviously, with a city of 10,000 people and all the officers flooding into the area, you know, more than likely someone is going to call in if they see something suspicious.

[13:54:47] KEILAR: Yeah. That's the hope.

Ryan Young, stand by as we cover the breaking news. You're our eyes and ears on the ground in Fox Lake, Illinois.

Quick recap for our viewers. A police officer has been shot and killed. We learned this just a short time ago. We know that it happened a few hours ago. And this community, Fox Lake, Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago, is now under lockdown as a massive manhunt is underway, involving local authorities, U.S. Marshals, FBI. There are -- there's a SWAT team. There are K-9 units and there are officers going door to door. We'll continue to cover this breaking news.

That's it for me. I will be back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

We'll have breaking new coverage after a quick break. We'll have more with Brooke Baldwin.

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