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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Police: Atlanta Shooting Suspect In Custody, Accused Of Killing One, Wounding Four; Special Counsel In Classified Documents Case Probing Trump Organization's Handling Of Mar-A-Lago Surveillance Footage, Whether It Was Tampered; Ukraine Denies Russian Claim It Launched Drone Attempt To Kill Putin; Discovery Of Carlson's Text Message Contributed To A Chain Of Events That Led To His Firing From Fox; Atlanta Shooting Suspect In Custody, Police Holding News Conference. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired May 03, 2023 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And as long as everyone fits into that, then we can be a multi-dimensional, multi-cultural nation which of course other groups say that's not the point at all -- Pam.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Tom Foreman, thanks so much.
And thank you for joining us tonight. See you back here tomorrow night.
AC 360 starts now.
[20:00:24]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening.
We begin with breaking news tonight.
For the last eight hours, authorities in and around Atlanta have been looking for this man, Deion Patterson, a suspect in a mass shooting in a local medical facility that killed one woman and wounded four others.
Tonight, he is in custody. We've just learned this. We want to go straight to CNN's Gary Tuchman. What did you learn, Gary?
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson just about 10 minutes ago, a police officer in Cobb County, Georgia said the alleged gunman, Deion Patterson is under arrest in this gated community behind me here in Smyrna, Georgia, which is a suburb about 11 miles northwest of where the shootings happen today.
This is Waterford Place. There are police cars behind the gates as we speak. We know that because we were following them as we arrived.
We were about five minutes down the road and we saw a police car zooming by us. We then followed them. We came here.
A police officer was sitting right outside here. I asked him what's going on inside. He told me, we have apprehended the suspect and he is alive. There was no shootout. It appears that he surrendered peacefully.
About an hour ago, there were about a hundred police officers and SWAT vehicles about five minutes in this direction next to Truist Park where the Atlanta Braves play baseball.
The Braves are playing on the road tonight. It was very quiet in an area. The area is called the Battery. There are shops, there are restaurants, there are theaters next to the baseball stadium. It was full of SWAT vehicles and police officers looking for the suspect.
Earlier in the day, the car that is believed that this man hijacked was found in a parking lot in the Battery area. Police then asked employees in the office where the car was parked if they saw the man, they said they do not see the man.
A woman I talked to who worked in the office tells us the officer told her we have video from a camera nearby that shows him leaving the car and walking through an apartment complex, which is right next to us.
Apparently, he walked through the complex here, crossed this very busy street in Cobb County, Georgia, a county with a population of 670,000 northwest of Atlanta, as I said, and is now apprehended inside this fence.
We're waiting for him to come out, but it appears that this chase for this man, looking for him is all over. He is under arrest -- Anderson.
COOPER: Gary, we just got word by the way, Gary, that the police are giving a press conference at 8:15 PM. We're going to bring that to you.
I want to go to CNN's Ryan Young where the shooting happened.
Ryan, it's obviously been an incredibly busy and chaotic day for law enforcement.
RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. It has, Anderson.
What we were told early on from my sources is that this man appeared here at this facility to get some sort of medical attention with his mother. And at some point, he became agitated on the inside and started shooting inside this complex.
There were nurses and patients who were running for their lives. They were locking doors.
And they were immediately aware of the situation. Now, while you can see that APD was able to put out a great description photo of this man, they tried to shut down all the parking lots in the nearby area so he could not get out of here.
And then we learned, he did carjack someone, and that carjacking took place while he was rushing toward Cobb County. All along, all day long, we've been talking to our sources just about what they did to try to minimize this shooting scene in terms of just the impact of it all. There were dozens of people who were calling 9-1-1 when this initially happened, and as we moved through the situation, we knew that they were actually arresting some people who they thought looked just like the suspect.
Then we learned that the man at some point, was a member of the military, he served in the Coast Guard for quite some time and was agitated with some of the medical care that he was receiving, and they came to this facility to get some help and something went sideways on the inside, Anderson, and then that shooting started.
From that point on, it has been an all-out effort all day long with the roads around here shut down and the massive manhunt using camera networks throughout the city to try to locate this man.
But I can tell you, people have been shaken all day long. It is a very busy area. Hundreds of people were here on lockdown throughout the day, just trying to figure out exactly what happened.
You've got to think about those patients who were rushed to the hospital. One woman was killed. And obviously you have two other people who were in surgery just hours ago who were in critical condition with the other people who were shot as well.
So this has been a day that people have been talking about for quite some time in terms of not only the lockdown, but then the presence and knowing that the man then carjacked someone and went to Cobb County -- Anderson.
COOPER: Ryan Young, appreciate it.
We're going to be bringing in John Miller in a little bit. He's trying to find out more information, but joining us right now is former Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms; also CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI deputy director, Andrew McCabe.
Andrew, I'm wondering first of all what your reaction is to this suspect being apprehended?
[20:05:07]
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Anderson, obviously, it is a great result. This is what you hope for in a manhunt, to find the person you're looking for, before they're able to hurt anybody else. And of course, to have -- to take that person into custody without having to fire a shot.
It will be really interesting to hear what the police have to say about how they finally identified his location in that neighborhood that we just saw Gary pointing to. So there will be a lot of things to listen to there.
But I have to tell you, there is no way to describe the intensity of what it's like to be involved in or overseeing a manhunt like this, having done it a few times in my own career, including the search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after the Boston bombing. I can tell you, you just live from one second to the next going from one piece of information to the next, and it is an absolute singular focus. And it's just a great, great accomplishment for these folks on the ground in Atlanta to have gotten this person back into custody.
COOPER: John Miller is joining us here as well.
John, obviously a great result. But I mean, what a frenetic day trying to kind of figure out where this guy was.
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it's another tragic day. A life has been lost, other people have been wounded. The city has been, you know, charged with terror during this hunt, not knowing where a gunman was. But in the end, they were very careful understanding this was a person who was on edge, who was distraught, who was armed and dangerous, to try and go through this with a plan that would come to an ending that would be as safe as possible for him, for law enforcement, and to bring some kind of justice without getting into another shootout.
After the carjacking of that vehicle that was recovered in Cobb County, they fanned out in that area and then did something interesting, which is they started to withdraw the uniformed people away and put plainclothes people into the area, into those two apartment complexes, on foot in unmarked cars on the idea that if he wasn't seeing police everywhere, he might pop out somewhere.
Not exactly sure how that happened. But between Atlanta PD, Cobb County PD, and US Marshals Fugitive Task Force, they encountered him and took him into custody safely.
COOPER: By the way, we're seeing there some police cars coming out of the facility where we believe he was apprehended.
MILLER: Right, and they've had a lot of law enforcement agencies, but it ended as safely as something that started this way could possibly end.
COOPER: Mayor Bottoms, I mean, clearly, the surrounding areas are breathing a sigh of relief tonight after hours of this manhunt?
KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, absolutely. I mean, this has had everyone as you can imagine, on edge all day. I describe Atlanta, Anderson as really a big small town, so many people are connected.
I have a friend who was in that medical office earlier today. I know the woman who runs that medical practice. And so there was a lot of personal concern amongst a lot of folks. And then also reminiscent of the courthouse shooting that we had a few years ago, where Brian Nichols was on the run, shot several people in the courthouse, and then killed someone in the following days.
And so you couldn't help but think about that today. I certainly thought about it, as I had to leave home to go pick up my kids today. COOPER: Andrew, you know, you talked about the hunt for the Tsarnaev brothers in the Boston bombing. I just watched a documentary about that. And it was remarkable to kind of relive that and realize and in a case like this, police must get so much conflicting information from the public about, well, I think I saw somebody here, and you don't know what you don't know. You have to follow up all those leads?
MCCABE: That's absolutely right. One of the challenges for law enforcement on a day like today is you know, you ask for the public's assistance. You try to crowdsource your intelligence collection in a way. And what you get is a lot of information, a lot of tips, most of them are not relevant, but you have to go through every single one.
So in order to sort through those things quickly and effectively, it just takes an enormous amount of people focused on the same objective. And of course, every place that police, the boots on the ground have to go to actually search, they never know if they're going to come across somebody who has been killing people earlier in the day.
So they have to be careful and deliberate and to make sure they're safe about doing that. So it's a very challenging set of circumstances for the law enforcement folks.
COOPER: Yes, and Gary Tuchman is standing by as well. And Gary, I just want to remind our viewers what we're looking at right now on the on the side of the screen. We're seeing a number of police vehicles and other unmarked vehicles leaving the scene where this person, yes, I know where the person was captured.
Gary, I don't know if you can hear me. Are these live pictures?
Okay, we're looking at live pictures. So actually, you can actually see Gary Tuchman there on the side. He is the gray-haired guy trying to talk to authorities.
Gary, I assume you don't have IP?
Yes, Gary does not. He is out of range. So we'll try to go back to Gary. But Gary is trying to gather information. It was Gary who talked to a police officer there about 10 minutes or about probably now 15 minutes or so ago, who learned from that police officer that they had, in fact, apprehended him.
You can see some other people standing on the other side of the road giving the thumbs up to law enforcement as they drive by.
John, what goes into a manhunt like this? I mean, you talked about all the different agencies that are involved, but just the coordinating of all those agencies. When you have so many police officers descending on an area, it can cause problems.
MILLER: Well, it can and you don't want to have a blue on blue situation, which is why, you know, plainclothes people all in one area can cause confusion, but this was very well-coordinated.
You know, I kind of echo what Andy McCabe says, which is, every man hunt is different. If you look at, you know, the hunt for the Tsarnaev brothers, think of the Chelsea bomber. We had his name, we had his picture and we had rush hour coming up and we had a guy who was targeting train stations.
We blasted that out to the public on the same system you use when they say there is a storm coming on the idea that we could hit every phone within 50 miles.
Think of last year, or just a little more than a year ago in New York City with the Frank James who shot up the subway, wounded 10 people. Thank God, didn't kill anybody.
We were able to identify him by a piece of paper he left behind, and we did the same thing Atlanta did. The minute we had his picture, we pushed it out with his name and said, as Andy McCabe said, crowdsourced it.
You've got 3,000 detectives looking for him, when I can have 8.4 million people looking for him. I'll take the 8.4 million people.
Atlanta did a great job using the pictures from the video at the scene. He's wearing a hoodie and a mask, hard to identify. They then got to his driver's license photo and said, this is what he looks like without a mask. This is the guy you'll probably recognize.
COOPER: Gary Tuchman is standing by now.
Gary, we saw you there seeing the police vehicles, trying to talk to people. Did you hear anything? What did you see?
TUCHMAN: Yes, Anderson, I was talking to the police officers, most of them from the Cobb County Police Department if the suspect is in one of their cars and is going to the police station right now. They say he is still inside this complex, the Waterford Place apartment complex here in Smyrna, Georgia, which is in Cobb County, 11 miles north of where the shootings happened in Midtown Atlanta.
We counted between 25 and 30 police vehicles that came out of there. There are still some inside there. And we know there were a lot because about an hour ago, I counted 100 police vehicles about two blocks to our south.
They were there because that was the report the police got from video cameras they looked at that they saw this man go into an apartment complex that was under construction. That was a few blocks away.
They got a tip that a suspicious man was inside this apartment complex, the Waterford Place complex in this upscale neighborhood in Cobb County, and that is indeed where they found him and that is indeed where he still is, as we speak -- Anderson.
COOPER: And Gary, as I said to our viewers, we are anticipating a press conference in a minute or two. We were told it to be at 8:15. So that's about just less than two minutes from now. We'll try to bring that to you live. Mayor Bottoms, while the manhunt was ongoing, the Atlanta Police chief said that cameras across the city were really instrumental in helping track the suspect, identify license plates. Can you talk a little bit about the surveillance capabilities around your city?
BOTTOMS: Yes, it's a very intricate camera network, Anderson and as you know, Atlanta is a central part of a very large metropolitan area. And the great thing is that there's often coordination with law enforcement even in the city of Atlanta itself in that midtown area. You have the Georgia State University Police, the Georgia Tech Police, you have Atlanta police, Georgia State Patrol, the MARTA Police, several different agencies.
And then when you expand that, the Fulton County Sheriff's Office you get into Cobb County. Well, because we host large events in Atlanta like the Super Bowl, we often coordinate and work together. So it doesn't surprise me that there was immediate coordination and joint effort because this area is right near the main interstates 75/85 that runs through downtown Atlanta and you can jump on very easily from that location and head north into Cobb County.
[20:15:11]
And so, it is an intricate, very expansive camera network in and around the city and also great coordination, constant coordination with law enforcement throughout the metropolitan area.
COOPER: I just want to remind our viewers, I've been told that the press conference maybe has slid a few minutes, so we're going to take a quick break. We expect to hear from Atlanta Police about the capture of this shooter tonight.
Stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back.
We're waiting to hear from Atlanta Police about the capture of mass shooting suspect, Deion Patterson. We'll bring you the latest on that as it happens.
In the meantime, we have more breaking news tonight in this case, in the Justice Department's Mar-a-Lago documents case and it could lead two senior Trump Organization executives and longtime close associates in the former president in the hot seat.
Specifically, there is exclusive new reporting that special counsel Jack Smith is looking into how the Trump Organization, how the company handled surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago and that the grand jury is expected to hear tomorrow from the father and son executives at the Trump Organization.
Two guys named Matthew Calamari, Senior and Junior.
CNN senior crime and justice reporter, Katelyn Polantz has the exclusive, joins us now. So what more are you learning about these latest moves by Jack Smith?
[20:20:01]
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Anderson, Paula Reid and I were able to confirm from many sources that it is quite clear, prosecutors are asking questions about the handling of surveillance tapes and conversations that would have taken place about those surveillance tapes at a time last year when the Justice Department wanted access to them.
So we're talking about surveillance tapes at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, that would have been owned by the Trump Organization, Donald Trump's resort. And these were tapes that the Justice Department were demanding that they see last year as they were looking at whether there were documents being kept in Florida, and so they sent a subpoena for those tapes.
And now, we know the prosecutors are looking at that episode of time. This is before the FBI went in and searched the property because on those tapes, ultimately, they were able to see boxes being moved. But the questions now are about the tapes themselves. It is just another leg of this investigation and there is going to be grand jury activity we know tomorrow where the two men, Matthew Calamari and his son, Matthew Calamari, Jr. are expected to be testifying to the grand jury.
COOPER: The Calamaris name have popped up on and off throughout the last couple of years. Can you just remind our viewers about the role that the Calamaris play in the former Presidents Organization, the Trump Organization?
POLANTZ: Yes. I mean, these are two very senior people, people who are very close to Donald Trump in his business empire. They're working out of New York.
Matthew Calamari, Sr., he is an executive vice president and the chief operating officer. He became a person of interest in that New York investigation around the Trump Organization and their business dealings. He is somebody whose lifestyle, his apartment and his car is subsidized by the Trump Organization. And his son, Matthew Calamari, Jr. is the director of security for the Trump Organization.
And so these two people clearly are the people that would be responsible for the surveillance tapes that are owned by the organization and then ultimately, were turned over to the Justice Department.
COOPER: CNN has previously reported that another close aid of the former president was seen on camera moving boxes containing documents out of a Mar-a-Lago storage closet. To be clear, what we're talking about tonight is a separate inquiry into how the surveillance footage itself was handled, right?
POLANTZ: That's right, Anderson. So we are getting a taste though, that that person that person is named Walt Nauta, he works for Donald Trump. He is on his payroll down in Mar-a-Lago. He travels with Donald Trump quite often. This is all sort of -- it might have a connection, right? So Walt Nauta was seen on those surveillance tapes moving boxes with another employee of Donald Trump's in Mar-a-Lago and we do know that the Calamaris, one of the things that they're being asked about is potential conversations with people in the Trump world, people like potentially Walt Nauta.
And we were able to confirm that there was at least a text message between him and Matthew Calamari, Sr., that is part of this portion of the inquiry.
So there is a lot of things that could be potential obstruction cases that the Justice Department is investigating, the special counsel is looking at. This is another leg of that possibility of an obstruction case -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Katelyn Polantz, appreciate it. Thanks.
Joining me now CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Elie Honig.
So how big a deal is it that the special counsel's office is reportedly looking into the surveillance footage issue?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Anderson, this tells me once again that prosecutors here are squarely focused on potential obstruction of justice. Now, it's important to understand why this surveillance video is so important because the underlying case about the handling of these classified documents really depends on where were these documents stored, where were the actual boxes, who had access and were they moved?
This video footage from inside Mar-a-Lago would presumably be the best possible evidence of that. And Anderson, one really important detail from Katelyn's reporting is that this is a new round of subpoenas and that tells me that prosecutors in what they had already gathered saw something about this footage that made them say, hold on, there's a problem here, now we need to dig into this.
COOPER: What kind of evidence would the special counsel need in order to send out this latest round of subpoenas?
HONIG: So they would need some evidence. They would need some basis to send the subpoenas. They would need something that indicated to them either that some of this footage was tampered with or was withheld. What types of evidence are they looking for? I think the testimony from the two individuals we've been talking about, the two Calamaris is going to be crucial to figure out who downloaded essentially, who access that video footage, who was responsible for turning it over to DOJ and then is there a gap there?
COOPER: So how concerned do you think the former president would be about the Calamaris from going before the grand jury tomorrow?
HONIG: So as Katelyn's reporting reminds us, they are absolutely insiders in the Trump org. On the other hand, they have shown repeatedly that they're loyal to Donald Trump. They refuse to flip on him in the various financial investigations that were happening in the state.
So we'll see. I mean, I presume prosecutors have real tangible evidence that they can cross examine or question these individuals with in front of the grand jury. They're under oath.
Prosecutors, I don't think they're going to bring these two in and just hope for the best. I think they're going to have the goods to back up whatever they need to ask them.
[20:25:00]
COOPER: All right, Elie Honig, appreciate it.
Again, we are waiting for a press conference in Atlanta on the capture of the suspected Atlanta mass shooter.
Also tonight, a reported drone strike on the Kremlin. Was it a Ukrainian attempt on Vladimir Putin's life, a false flag, or something else? New reporting on who might have been responsible and perspective from the CIA's former man in charge of Russia operations.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: As we wait for Atlanta Police to talk to reporters about the capture of a suspect in today's mass shooting there, we want to go overseas to Russia, the video of a reported drone strike on the Kremlin that you're about to see is almost unimaginable given the location and security surrounding it.
Take a look, coming in from the upper left hand corner of the frame, some sort of projectile which then seems to explode above the domed roof.
Russia claims it was a drone strike and an attempt on Vladimir Putin's life. They blame Ukraine. Ukraine has denied it publicly, and American officials late today said they've done the same privately to the White House explicitly, according to one of those officials.
Meantime, CNN's Matthew Chance has some new reporting on another theory of who may be behind it. He joins us now from London.
What have you learned -- Matthew.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, astonishing pictures those are, aren't they?
Well, tonight, a former Russian lawmaker telling me that he has direct information that this drone incident wasn't the work of Ukraine. It wasn't even a false flag operation. But instead, it was the work of partisan Russian groups fighting against the Russian state. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHANCE (voice over): Is this the moment Russia's war in Ukraine finally struck home? Two drone attacks on the Kremlin minutes apart, leaving smoke billowing from the historic buildings and an extraordinary scene of vulnerability at the heart of the Russian state.
(UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE speaking in foreign language.)
CHANCE (voice over): It was hours before Kremlin controlled TV announced the news in the form of an official statement, blaming Ukraine.
"Last night the Kyiv regime attempted a drone strike against the residence of the President of the Russian Federation," the statement reads. "We view these actions as a planned terrorist attack and an assassination attempt," adding that "Russia reserves the right to take countermeasures, wherever and whenever it deems appropriate."
Amid calls in Russia for an overwhelming military response, Ukraine's president visiting Finland is distancing his country from the incident.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We don't attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities.
We don't have, you know enough weapon for this.
[20:30:16]
CHANCE (voice over): It's more likely a false flag operation or local resistance forces in Russia say Ukrainian officials that are responsible for this. In recent weeks, even days, have seen an upsurge in unexplained attacks inside Russian territory. Like this train derailment in the Bryansk region near the Ukrainian border. Or this key oil storage facility in southern Russia near annexed Crimea, set ablaze also using a drone, causing significant disruption.
One former Russian lawmaker now in exile linked with groups carrying out operations in Russia tells CNN the Kremlin attack is the work of what he calls Russian partisans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, FORMER RUSSIAN LAWMAKER IN EXILE: Some of them are focused on railroad sabotages, some of them doing arsons of military recruitment posts, some of them doing attacks on activists, pro-war activities, some of them doing hacking attacks.
CHANCE (on camera): Are any of the partisans supported by the Ukrainian Special Services, for instance, because Ukraine says it's got nothing to do with this attack. Do you believe that claim?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, Ukraine indeed has nothing to do with this because it's all organized by Russians.
CHANCE (voice-over): But whoever is responsible is a threat. At the moment, preparations are continuing for the annual May the 9th Victory Day Parade in Red Square near where the drones struck. But the weakness and the insecurity of the Kremlin has now been exposed for all to see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST OF 'ANDERSON COOPER 360': Joining Matthew Chance now, CNN National Security Analyst Steve Hall, formerly Head of Russia Operations at the CIA. Steve, I mean, how stunning is it to see those explosions and what do you make of them? Who do you think is to blame?
STEVEN HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST AND FORMER CIA CHIEF OF RUSSIA OPERATIONS: Yeah, it certainly is stunning, Anderson. And I think Matthew's reporting is fascinating. I think you have to ask who benefits from this and for that reason, I would cast a lot of doubt on the idea that it's Russians themselves, sort of a false flag type of thing because they don't need any excuse to do what they're already doing in Ukraine.
So then, that takes you to either the Ukrainians or perhaps one of these partisan or guerilla forces inside, which would truly be astounding because the FSB, the internal security services on the Russian side spends so much time tracking down those kinds of people. For them to be able to do something like that is pretty incredible. They would certainly benefit, so would the Ukrainians, sowing that kind of fear right up -- right before the celebrations of the end of the -- the parades and so forth, the celebrating the end of World War II, and causing fear, that is a big deal as well. So my money is on one of the last two options.
COOPER: Matthew, is there any indication that there would be an actual investigation by the Russians as to who is responsible for this?
CHANCE: Well, I mean look, if it isn't a false flag operation, I imagine the Russian Security Forces are working overtime to get to the bottom of how on earth they missed this because, you know, whether this was the Ukrainians, whether it was a partisan group, or whatever else, I mean this has really exposed the gaping holes in Russian security. In the days ahead, six days before the Victory Day Parade, which is going to be held in exactly that spot where the drones struck, and so there will be some serious questions I expect being asked tonight, if this is real, of the Russian Security Services as to what went wrong.
COOPER: Steve, I mean, there have been a number of -- you know, there have been some targeted assassinations of a blogger, the daughter of a pro-Putin war supporter, the -- we saw the train derailment. I mean, is there -- has anyone proven that Ukraine has capabilities to operate deep inside Russia?
HALL: I don't know that anybody has proven it publicly, I would imagine that NATO and US intelligence services have a pretty good idea as to what their capabilities are. We've seen them attack the Kerch Strait Bridge, we have seen other things happen inside Russia and inside of Crimea that seem to make sense for the Ukrainians. But, Matthew talks about the gaps in the security. I would argue there is also a significant gap in society in Russia if you what you have got is a guerilla operation working against the Kremlin. I mean, that doesn't happen very often in Russia and that is something that's really got to send a chill down the spine of Putin and those in the Kremlin if it is indeed true.
COOPER: Yeah, obviously, there's a long history of partisans in the former Soviet -- pre-Soviet Union days and stuff. The idea that there would be active partisans in Russia today is just -- Matthew, does that ring true to you?
CHANCE: Well, I mean, you're right, it's hard to sort of get your head around. In a society that's so controlled as Russia, the idea that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people that are operating as partisan groups, carrying out attacks against the Russian state is difficult to comprehend, and would be a major news, I expect a major concern for the Kremlin.
[20:35:00]
Look, I mean, nevertheless, we're seeing a series of unexplained incidents, attacks on army recruitment centers, assassinations of kind of semi-political figures or pro-Russian propaganda figures, attacks on railway installations, oil installations, things like that, the drone attack on the Kremlin. Clearly, somebody is carrying these out. They can't all be false flag operations. And so, I think it is difficult to rule out that there are individuals, that they are Russian or Russians backed by Ukrainian Special Services or something operating in Russia is pretty clear.
COOPER: Yeah, Matthew Chance, Steve Hall, I appreciate it. Thank you.
Coming up, as we await to hear from police in Atlanta on the mass shooting arrest, "The New York Times" has obtained a text message they say is from Tucker Carlson from after the January 6th attack sent to a Fox producer and continuing an undeniably racist comment. Its discovery may have contributed to Fox firing Carlson. We'll talk to The New York Times reporter who helped break the story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: A CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall, next Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
COOPER: Police in Atlanta are still expected to hold a press conference shortly on the arrest tonight in today's mass shooting. Other news first though, "The New York Times" has obtained a text message it says was sent by Tucker Carlson to a Fox producer in the hours after rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6.
According to The Times, "The discovery of the message contributed to a chain of events that ultimately led to Mr. Carlson's firing." It contains a racist statement and I'm going to read the text message as The Times quote said. "A couple of weeks ago, I was watching" -- this is from Tucker Carlson allegedly. " A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living 's' out of him. It was three against one at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable, obviously. It's not how white men fight. Yet suddenly, I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they'd hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then, somewhere deep in brain, an alarm went off. This isn't good for me. I'm becoming something I don't want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I'm sure I'd hate him personally, if I knew him, I shouldn't gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don't care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?"
Jim Rutenberg, one of the reporters on The Times piece and I talked to him earlier.
[20:40:00]
Jim, have you heard anyone, either inside or outside Fox, express surprise that according to that bombshell text message you obtained that Carlson used racist and violent language in private communications? Obviously, I mean the public saw some of his unredacted communication in the Dominion court filings and certainly, his now defunct show had a history of pretty awful speech.
JIM RUTENBERG, WRITER AT LARGE, THE NEW YORK TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: No one is saying that they are shocked in the context of his show that he would say something like this. Everything we're told is very specifically in the context of what was happening at that moment. A jury is coming together in Delaware of diverse background, $1.6 billion are at stake. Tucker Carlson who is a faction of evidence in this case, his show is not a major part of this case, is playing an outsized role. And now, here is a text that is certain to, should it up in court, inflame a jury.
So, it's all in the context of what is happening at that moment, less so whatever you may or may not see on his show.
COOPER: Is it clear to you how much this particular message contributed not just to his firing, but also to the settlement that Fox made with Dominion? Because, I mean, as you said, the negotiators for Fox were already in settlement talks when the message was discovered.
RUTENBERG: Obviously, a lot is going on at this moment and this is one thing that's going on at that moment. But let's think about this, the board is asking questions. There are shareholder lawsuits. The company at the same time doesn't want to see any of its stars have to testify, any of its stars be cross-examined. It doesn't want its Chief -- its Founding Chairman, Rupert Murdoch, cross-examined.
There are a lot of reasons they want to avoid this, but this text being an eleventh-hour discovery, certainly on the board, and we are told some executives now where this is coming to light in a series of talks that will result in a record settlement cost of $787.5 million, almost $1 billion. So we know the context, we're told it's definitely adding to pressure, it's in the mix. I think a lot is going on at this moment.
COOPER: The -- according to your reporting, as you said, it came to light during the discovery process of the case. Why would Fox lawyers not have alerted the Fox board to something so incendiary?
RUTENBERG: Well, that's a question that we still would like to know ourselves. This came up in deposition. Listen, the lawyers were already handling -- these materials get handed over, right, so lawyers know they exist. We're trying to figure out why that is. But, I'm also told and speaking to other lawyers in similar cases, things fall through, these things happen. But, let's find out. We're going to keep reporting to see who did know about it, who didn't know about it, and more of what role it played. But either way, as we have it, this comes to light on the board level late and it is coming to light at a very critical time in these talks.
COOPER: Yeah, it's extraordinary reporting. Jim Rutenberg, thank you so much.
RUTENBERG: Thanks so much.
COOPER: Joining me for more on this is CNN Political Commentator Van Jones, former Special Advisor to President Obama. Van, I mean, when Tucker Carlson says it's not how White men fight, what goes through your mind?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER SPECIAL ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, a couple of things. First of all, history shows that's exactly how White men fight if you want to talk about the history of brutalization of people of color, ganging up on people, lynching people. So his history is wrong, but it not just his history, his heart is wrong. This is a moment of private self-reflection where you can see he's trying to pretend he's enlightened and even there, he's a disgusting little bigot, even there he is a disgusting little racist. Even there, he can't figure out that categorizing people the way he's categorizing them is wrong.
And so, you know, I think a lot of us had hoped that the Tucker Carlson you saw on TV was more of an act for ratings. But this shows even in the privacy of his own home, talking to his friends, Tucker Carlson is a racist. He is a white supremacist. What is a white supremacist? Somebody who thinks that White people are superior to Black people. He thinks the way that White people fight is superior to the way the Black people fight. He's like, White men -- imagine like, while we (ph) engage in fisticuffs --
COOPER: Well, that's the thing. It's so -- first of all, I mean the idea that Tucker Carlson knows anything about fighting or has ever been near a fight is ludicrous, pretty ludicrous. And the idea -- I mean the implication is, well, it's Black people who gang up on poor individuals and, yeah, that White people fight like old gentlemen with fisticuffs in London Rules or whatever it's called.
JONES: Yeah. Look, I mean, and it gives you a sense of how deep the sickness goes. When we said, talk about White supremacy, it is a term you rarely, rarely hear me say because it's incendiary term. [20:45:00]
But it has a meaning, and it means I think that White people and White culture is superior to non-White culture. And here is an instance of it. And in the tone of it, he's trying to be self-reflective but he honestly believes that White people fight like fisticuffs --
COOPER: Right.
JONES: -- like in the cartoons and that Black people fight like savages, when in fact the history shows the opposite. And that is what we're dealing with.
COOPER: The casualness with which he said that, I just -- I don't know why I found it stunning but I did. And I imagined like, does he say that to his children? I mean, is that something he would say to his kids? Like, oh, honey, no, White people don't fight like -- I mean, how can he look at his family with that dirt in his mouth?
JONES: It's a glitch in the matrix that is shocking, it is also confirming, like if you're a person of color, you always feel like you're somehow being brainwashed or -- I forget the term, where it is like, you are being -- people are telling you stuff that is not true, when you know it must be true. And we have someone like Tucker Carlson on television and his massive movement behind him. This is still maybe the one or three, four, two top-Republican voices in the country, and this is how he thinks.
And so, when you're sitting here and you are like, guys, I think there's something -- I think that racism and white supremacy is alive and well in the country. People tell you, ah, geez, you're being woke, and shut up, and come on, and what are you talking about, it's 100 years ago. Listen, Tucker Carlson thinks that White people fight in a more civilized way than Black people. Like, literally, that's what he thinks.
And so, that's obviously not true. Again, the history of lynching, the history of white mob violence is a bigger source of terror in the history of this country than anything that's ever come out of the 9/11. The situation was horrible, but can you image, 300 years of that, every day, that's the terror that Black people lived under out of fear of White mob violence. That's the history of our country that we're still trying to overcome.
He missed the whole -- he somehow missed all of that. He somehow missed all that. And that's why I think this particular text I think probably did lead to a faster resolution of this case because this is the kind of stuff that's just disgusting. It's disgusting without any -- there's no upside on this text.
COOPER: Yeah. Van Jones, appreciate you being with us. Thank you.
JONES: Thank you.
COOPER: Just ahead, we still expect to hear from Atlanta Police on the mass shooting arrest and a late update from Gary Tuchman about how the arrest went down.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Press conference in Atlanta has begun, let's listen.
ANDRE DICKENS, (D) MAYOR OF ATLANTA, GEORGIA: -- as well as our Fire Rescue Chief, Chief Smith. I want to thank also our local college police officers and also Atlanta Public Schools police office, as well as neighboring jurisdictions, the State of George, and the federal government that has all chipped in on this support today. We also had strong coordination with our Fire and Rescue and Emergency Medical personnel. And last but not least, we must thank our E911 operators who spent the day fielding calls as we tracked the suspect. I am pleased to share with you that, thanks to our strong partnership with Cobb County Police Department, law enforcement have taken the suspect into custody. Thanks to the highly trained police officers across our region, we were able to bring the suspect into custody without further harm. He will be charged and stand trial for his crimes. Not only did law enforcement bring this man into custody, they also kept our community safe during an enormously tense afternoon and evening.
I want to thank our citizens for keeping calm, staying in place, and for providing critical information to law enforcement throughout the day. Now, I'm going to turn it over to law enforcement to share an update, and I'll return to share a few additional remarks later.
[20:50:00]
Now, I'll turn it over to APD Police Chief Darin Schierbaum.
DARIN SCHIERBAUM, CHIEF, ATLANTA POLICE DEPARTMENT POLICE: Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank the members of the press for being here this evening. You all have played an important role today as we kept citizens both in Atlanta and Cobb County informed, asked for their assistance as we sought the apprehension of this very dangerous perpetrator. And thank you for returning tonight to again update those of our various communities. The Mayor spoke today of a capable, competent and brave response by the first responder network that served not only this city but this region.
And I just want the men and women of the Atlanta Police Department to know those that are in our 911 Center, our first responding officers, our tactical teams, our investigators, how proud yet again I am of you of the work that you've done today on behalf of the city and in the most dire of circumstances, you've shown what do daily for the men and women that call this city home, and those who visit here.
If you look closely, on the earliest views from the crime scene, you saw not only the Atlanta Police Department responding, you saw a network of officers, representing multiple agencies, who have trained for this various outcome. Mr. Mayor, over and over again, a day that this tragedy should befall this city that we would be ready and I stand here today to tell you that the first responder network was there today for their city.
The Sheriff of Fulton County, Sheriff Labat, Georgia State Patrol, the MARTA Police Department, Georgia Tech Police Department, Georgia State University, Marshals, they were all on scene quickly, executing their active shooter protocol to stop the situation. And then very shortly, we were joined by the GBI, the FBI, the Secret Service, as well as the United States Marshals Service as we sought to bring this person into custody.
And that investigation soon showed us that this perpetrator had left the city and remained a threat elsewhere. And Sheriff (inaudible), I just want you to know that we're a grateful city tonight for your partnership and the efforts of your law enforcement agency to take this individual into custody. And then, this morning, we celebrated the bravery of Atlanta Fire Rescue. Not far from here, is their annual International Firefighters Day. And to see the paramedics and firefighters, when we didn't know where the shooter was, that could easily have still been in the building, around the corner, to see our firefighters dismount their trucks and Chief Smith go into that situation. But it wasn't the first time I've that, Chief, because we had seen that in training over and over again.
And today, when it was necessary to save lives, we were very proud to see you, a strong partnership as we moved into that dangerous situation, and thank you. At this time, I'm going to ask our Deputy Chief of Criminal Investigations, Charles Hampton, to come forward to recap what has transpired today, what we have learned from the investigation, and then Chief VanHoozer will come forward to outline how his department let to the capture of this perpetrator today. Chief?
CHARLES HAMPTON, DEPUTY CHIEF OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS: Good evening. What we do know, we know that shortly before noon, the subject entered into 1110 West Peachtree Street and went to a medical center inside the building. It was shortly thereafter that he shot our first victim, and then the first 911 call came after that. He spent about maybe two minutes inside the building where he then exited on foot. And what we were able to pick up on the camera network system is he went to a Shell Gas Station where he commandeered a vehicle. The car was a pickup truck, was left running, unattended, and he took that vehicle.
We were able to again use video to obtain a tag and immediately place that tag into our LPR system, our License Plate Reader system. And so, at that time, we had to really do some work to figure out where he was at. There was a series of search warrants drafted both here in Atlanta and Cobb County because we were getting information of residences and other locations he may go to. So, that was done as well. And then roughly around 12:30, we received an alert from the LPR system that he was in Cobb County.
And so, again, we were on the phone immediately with Cobb to let them know that this individual was somewhere in their jurisdiction. And as Chief said, we'll let Chief VanHoozer just kind of talk about what happened in his jurisdiction. But I would tell you that although we may not have known exactly where he was, as soon as we were alerted that he was out of our area of responsibility, we contacted that local jurisdiction and the coordination took place. Chief? STUART VANHOOZER, CHIEF OF COBB COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT: Good evening. My name is Stuart VanHoozer. I'm the Police Chief in Cobb County, just north of Atlanta. And first of all, I want to very much express our collective condolences to the families involved and know that me personally and I'm sure collectively, from all of those who were involved in today's incident, that our prayers and thoughts are with the families that have been affected by this.
[20:55:10]
Of course, we saw what was going on, on the news. We had heard through the networks what was going on in Atlanta. When we discovered that the individual had last been identified on a Flock LPR camera in our jurisdiction, of course, we sent officers to that area and set up not so much a perimeter, but we began to look for the vehicle.
And I will be honest with you, first of all, let me apologize in advance, I have not prepared a statement, I have not had time to prepare a statement. So what I'm giving you guys is not planned, and I will probably make a few mistakes and I probably forget to thank some people. But what I can tell you is this, these are massively complex investigations. And information comes in so quickly, and it is so confusing and so contradicting, that we find that we are often trying to go three or four different places very quickly, each seeming to be the suspect. And so that was what was happening today.
We had -- it was a fairly chaotic scene. We were called to various locations in that area about what appeared to be legitimate sightings of this individual. And there was some fear, of course, in the citizens in that area of course. So our officers were responding to those calls. And I will say this, if you rewind the hand of time four years, we probably would not be where we are today, right now. Technology played a huge role, but technology doesn't do any good without people who are determined to capture an individual that would do something like this.
And today, we saw where those two things came together in an amazing way. Nobody went home today, everybody stayed. We have a fairly new real-time crime center by a local company named Fusus. Flock is a fairly new company. It is a local company as well. We've partnered with both of those and they've brought us amazing tools, as has the other jurisdictions in the Atlanta area.
Those tools are what really got us the clues that we needed to make this successful, and the people that were getting those clues from the technology made this happen. So, we had a lot of clues, enough clues from both our real-time crime center and Flock to have a pretty good instinct on the calls that were coming in. We had checked a building that we knew that he had gone into and we had cleared that building and we knew that he was not in that building. That building was unoccupied, it was being built, it was very close to the tourist park and the battery (ph), which of course was very concerning to us. That's -- many, many, many people would be in that location.
So we were concerned about the safety of our community in general, but particularly that one. So the operators in our real-time crime center were fielding many of these calls and looking at them, and trying to determine which one seemed legitimate, which ones did not. And most of that is a little bit of gut but it was also based on some of the things that we were seeing on the map and what made sense to the real- time operators. One real-time operator in particular saw a 911 call come in, literally said, "I think this is going to be him," and it was mostly instinct but a lot of it did have to do with where this call was coming in, and where this individual was supposed to be.
That real-time operator communicated with a 911 operator that was in the command center with us, and we prioritized that call on the radio and we had some officers, both undercover and uniformed officers, I believe, if I have my facts correct, that an undercover officer was the one that originally saw and confronted this individual and was able to then have backup from uniformed officers that came in and took him into custody without incident.
I will -- I would forget and I will forget some of the people and organizations to thank. But I can reiterate what Mayor Dickens and Chief Schierbaum said, and there's no reason to really go back into all of it. But I can tell you that it does not work without a cooperative community, a community that backs up the police, that allows the police to take risks and try to take violent people into custody. We have a very, very supportive community in Cobb County, a very supportive elected official group, and very supportive leadership. And that's very, very important for us.
