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At This Hour

Garland, Texas, Shooter an ISIS Sympathizer, Linked to ISIS on Social Media; News Conference with Garland, Texas, Police. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired May 04, 2015 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:27] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm John Berman.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kate Bolduan. We want to welcome our viewers around the United States and around the world.

A lot to get to AT THIS HOUR. Any minute, we're awaiting the police department in Garland, Texas, will hold a press conference about this shooting outside a cartoon contest and exhibit focused on the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.

But also this just in. We're learning that one of the shooters, not only sympathized with ISIS but also had links to ISIS members on social media.

Here is what we know right now. Two men opened fire on an unarmed security officer stationed outside the event in this Dallas suburb. This was the scene last night captured on video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: We got to stop this right now.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Shots fired.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fired?

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Shots fired.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Police returned fire killing both men. The security guard was hit in the leg. He's doing OK. The FBI says one of the suspects in the shooting has been identified as Elton Simpson. The Arizona man was previously the subject of a terror investigation. It is Simpson who was believed to be an ISIS sympathizer. It is Simpson who believed to have contacts with ISIS members on Twitter. It's Simpson who is believed to have sent a tweet prior to the attack and was well known importantly to the FBI. The FBI now searching the Phoenix apartment that the two gunmen shared. The FBI collecting evidence there.

Now the group that held the event, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, they were offering a $10,000 reward for the best cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. The group is known to have opposed a building of a mosque near ground zero and they have been accused by some of having anti-Islam views. The keynote at the event was a right wing Dutch politician who was on al Qaeda's hit list. That's a bit of a context, but the headline here is what may be an attempted attack of ISIS sympathizers at a minimum on U.S. soil. One of the alleged shooters, as we said, Elton Simpson, sent a tweet prior to the attack saying, in part, "May Allah accept us as Mujahadeen."

BOLDUAN: Joining us now as we learn more about this guy, Rosa Flores,.

You've been tracking this, Rose, so what more are we learning about him as we await this press conference?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We've been scoring through court documents. He was arrested in 2010 for allegedly -- now this is for making a false statement relating to international and domestic terrorism.

I want to go straight to an excerpt of that document to give us an idea of what we're talking about here. This is what the document says. "The defendant falsie stated to special agents of the FBI that he had not discussed traveling to Somalia when, in fact, the defendant had discussed with others on or about May 29th, 2009, and thereafter traveling to Somalia for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad."

He was found guilty in 2011, and again that charge was for false statement, which in the state of Arizona, is considered a class-D felony. Now, he was only placed on probation for three years. Paid about $500 fine and moved on with his life.

We know he was onto other things as well, and it's that tweet that we were just talking about sent two hours prior to this attack. I want to go through this tweet briefly because we've been dissecting it trying to figure out what the entire tweet actually means. This is what the tweet says. "The bro' with me and myself have given (INAUDIBLE). That means, the bro' with me and myself pledge of allegiance to the commander of the faithful. May Allah accept us as Mujahadeen." He also added #Texasattack.

From what we know, closely after that tweet was sent out, then an ISIS-known member on social media re-tweeted that tweet, and that is where we get this link to this member of ISIS that's on social media. So I'm not sure if we have any of that to show you.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Right now it looks like there's activity in Texas right now. In Garland, Texas, a news conference there. Let's listen in.

[11:05:01] JOE HARN, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, GARLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT: Hi. Thank you for coming. My name is Joe Harn, H-A-R-N, Garland Police Department. I'm a police officer.

Starting with the event that happened yesterday -- actually started several months ago, when Garland ISD contacted us about this event being booked there. There were security concerns with them. And so from that, we began to work with the school district officials, Garland officials and police department officials to set up a security plan for this event.

The security concerns they had was because of the type of event and speaker they were having and issues that have been with those folks before.

A plan was formalized. GISD added officers, our officers. And I will explain that Garland police officers work at the event center all the time as an off-duty job. That's what the case was last night for everybody that was seen, and some SWAT personnel that was in the back. They paid an additional $10,000 for that security last night. The plan included security officers, uniformed police officers, bomb personnel, SWAT personnel, along with FBI and ATF.

The event began at 5:00 p.m. and was to go until 7:00 p.m. The event was going very smoothly, and about 10 minutes to 7:00, a dark colored vehicle pulled up to the west entrance parking lot. There was a police officer, a police car there blocking that entrance, a police officer along with a security officer. When that car pulled up and stopped, those officers began to exit their vehicle and two men exited the dark color sedan. Both had assault rifles and came around the back of the car and started shooting at the police car. The police officer in that car began returning fire and struck both men taking them down. At the same time that was starting, he could hear gunfire around the parking lot. We had a SWAT react team in the back that very quickly responded within seconds and helped secure the scene. Both men died on the street next to their car.

As soon as they got that secured, our bomb unit, and what we know and what we trained on, it's very likely these people that do this may well rig themselves or their vehicles with bombs. So we started taking that precaution and started widening an area and securing that. That included businesses around in the area. That included the Sports Academy behind the event center, the Sonic Drive-In, Sam's, Walmart, to mention those. And on the other side of Garland road, we did not evacuate any of those. We also evacuated the Hyatt Hotel. That's right behind the center.

Once we got that done, many of you were there, and we continued to work the vehicle from the bomb unit side. They detonated -- as they started working the vehicle, there were several detonations of things they we're finding. One of the first detonations you heard was to open the trunk of the vehicle. Once that was open, they found several things that they were suspicious of and continued to ignite those and look into those. There were no bombs found in the vehicle.

The site is still an active crime scene this morning. The FBI forensics along with our forensic unit is working that. It's an ongoing situation.

The concern yesterday and today and every day that we work here is the safety of everybody in this city. We set up a plan yesterday to keep those people safe. We had one incident where the security officer was shot. He was shot in the lower leg. He was taken to the hospital and treated and later released. He was the only one hurt in this incident yesterday.

Because of the way we were set up, we were able to stop those men before they were able to penetrate the area and attempt to shoot anyone else, and that plan was successful that we set up. Once we were working last night, of course, we were stressed on personnel. Plano, Irving, DPS, along with FBI and ATF continued to assist us and assisted us last night.

With that, I'll take some questions.

[11:10:39] UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you confirm if there's a connection between the (INAUDIBLE).

HARN: There's a lot of things that I know is going out and some people are releasing names. We're not releasing any names. Again, at some point they will be but we're not releasing any names at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What do you think was the intent or motivation of the suspects?

HARN: They were obviously there to shoot people. We will continue to investigate. This is not going to be a real fast investigation. We have our suspects. We continue to monitor social media and gather other intel to make sure that we're not getting any threats. So we don't know their intent other than we know they were willing to pull up and start shooting on police.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Was this a terrorist attack?

HARN: We're certainly looking into that. We have not knocked that out. Again, we're working with the FBI and we will eventually figure out what that is.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you expect any other arrests?

HARN: Not at this time. Again, we're working with FBI. There's a lot of things in motion right now. But I don't know of any other arrest at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did you have enough people out there? Request for SWAT personnel was denied and only half was on the scene.

HARN: We had enough personnel there. We had the react team there very quickly. Yes, we had enough people.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: I don't know that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: At what point did these men get to the Dallas area, do you know?

HARN: We don't. That's part of the investigation. There was luggage in the back. We're not sure when they actually got here.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: Luggage I know. I don't know what all was inside that luggage.

I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: I know there was additional ammunition for the rifles. I don't know if there were other weapons at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Sir, in days leading up to yesterday, part of the security planning, were these two suspects people that you guys were made aware of, pictures given to you guys to be on lookout for these guys?

HARN: Not that I'm aware of, no.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Had there been any specific threats made or intelligence received?

HARN: No. With anything like this, we continue to look every single day at things. Had there been chatter over a month or so from time to time, yes, but no specific threat.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) -- put the plan together?

HARN: Oh, no. This was several months ago. Several months ago.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: Correct. Correct.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Officer, how many total officers?

HARN: We're not releasing that right now. I can tell you it was $10,000 spent on additional officers.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When they exited the vehicle, did they say anything to the officers or the security guard?

HARN: Not that I've been told. They simply got out and starting firing.

(CROSSTALK)

HARN: Let's do one at a time.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did the first officer take down the suspect or did the SWAT Team do it?

HARN: The first officer put down both suspects.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Talking about that sequence, there was an officer hit, was there another police officer with him?

HARN: They were both in the same car. Both exited --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: OK, they were both sitting in the same car and they had that entrance blocked, sitting in a squad car. As that car stopped, both started getting out of the car and the men came around and that's when they saw the rifles and the men opened up on them and our officers started shooting back.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: I'm sorry?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: Actually, the officer that was shooting is a traffic officer.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The security officer did not have a weapon?

HARN: Correct. He was not armed.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The officer in the car, he's the one that took down both?

HARN: Correct.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The men looked like they were wearing protection. Can you tell us what they were wearing?

HARN: I don't have details. I was told they did have body protection on. Don't know what type.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you know where either of the suspects hailed from?

HARN: That's what we're working on now.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: So on social media, monitoring social media, literally minutes before the shooting, there were tweets from the shooter themselves or a hash tag called Garland shooting, Texas attacks. Are you aware of the tweets?

[11:15:12] HARN: Yes, we are.

(CROSSTALK)

HARN: Yes, we are. But we don't know that it was those people that put that out. That's one of the things we're working on.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The attendees (INAUDIBLE)

HARN: Good question. The attendees last night, everybody -- there was approximately 200 people inside the event center. Garland Independent School District buses were brought to the center. They were taken away from there. A lot of these people don't even live in Garland. In fact, this event really doesn't have much to do with Garland other than they rented a site here in Garland. They were taken away. Most of them made plans to go stay somewhere. Their vehicles are still at the event center because the crime scene is still being worked. We ended up putting a number of them up in a hotel and taking care of them until they're able to get to their cars.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I know you're not naming the individuals but surely you know their names. Are they on a watch list of any type?

HARN: I'm not sure of that. Do we think we know who they are? Yes. But you're asking questions I'm not aware of yet.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Are these men U.S. citizens?

HARN: I don't know that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you talk about the relationship between the two men?

HARN: I don't know that. Again, there's a lot of things you're asking me and there's an ongoing investigation and there are some people that know more than I do. But I don't know that.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: We are not.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you talk again about the weapons used by the officer and by the two suspects.

HARN: The officer was using his duty pistol. They were using assault rifles.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you tell us -- I know you won't tell us the officer's name but can you tell us how long the officer has been on the department and how he reacted to what was going on last night?

HARN: He's a tenured officer. I don't know exactly how many years. With what he was faced with and his reaction and his shooting with a pistol, he did a good job.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Joe, you mentioned last night that when you were initially presented with the security plan that you went back to them and said this needed to be beefed up. Do I understand that correctly?

HARN: Say that again?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: That when the security plan was presented to you guys for this particular event, that you guys recommended that -- I thought you said last night that you needed more security here. HARN: No. No. We addressed them as we were setting it up.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK.

HARN: We told them what security we thought they need. And that's what they adhered to.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You mentioned that weapons were found in the car. Can you be more specific as to what was detonated or what was exploded?

HARN: Again, I know that there were suitcases. There was some things they could not penetrate, so for safety sake, they detonated and got into those. So far as finding any bombs in the vehicle, they did not.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you think they drove here (INAUDIBLE)

HARN: That's something I don't know. I don't know about the car. I don't know. With suitcases in the car, you would think they drove, but I don't know that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How many shots were fired in all?

HARN: Multiple shots. There's a lot of casings out there. I have no idea how many shots.

Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You talk about two suspects. Was there anybody else picked up at the scene that might have been connected?

HARN: There was a man that was in the area that we detained that we thought might be a suspect in this. However, after we interviewed him, he was not a part of this event and he was released.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I know you commented on this but why did they allow this event to be held there at the center?

HARN: Again, you would have to talk to them. When they have an event there and they ask us for -- we have police officers that work security there all the time. They came to us with this event and said they were going to do that and asked about security and we assisted with that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The vehicle they were driving, is it a Texas license plate vehicle?

HARN: I don't know that. I haven't seen the car or the tag. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you say that it is believed that the

shooting was related to the event? Can you make that connection?

HARN: Again, we are gaining knowledge as we go. Right now, just as last night, we were focused on not having anybody else hurt, and we were looking at possible bombs, today, forensically, we're doing everything. We may have the forensics done late this afternoon. That's going to be an almost a 24-hour event by the time they finish, if they finished then. As we get that done, we learn things there, continue to run things down, we'll know more. As we do, we'll let you all know.

[11:20:13] UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Joe, could you brag a bit more about your officer hero. I think the scenario is two guys with assault rifles who may be wearing protective gear up against one officer with a service pistol. Fair to say he did a hell of a job last night.

HARN: He did what he was trained to do. And under the fire that he was put under, he did a very good job, and probably saved lives. We think their strategy was to get to the event center, into the event center, and they were not able to get past that outer perimeter that we set up as part of that security.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What about the whole idea of holding the event in that venue, is that something the police department can give input on or where P.D. may make recommendations or in retrospect holding the event something the police department thinks was a wise idea?

HARN: Certainly, after this event and after the event that was in January, I think it's very safe to say that officials will be looking into this as to what they're going to rent that out. That's not for us to address right now. What we're focused on is what happened yesterday and making sure that we do everything that we need to do at that crime scene and that everything that we believe happened we prove happened.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: That's correct.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The officer who was shot, he got out of the car unarmed? What did he -- did he look for cover or did he try to attack --

(CROSSTALK)

HARN: No, he did not try to attack. Again, he was hit in the lower leg. From what I'm being told, we believe he simply stepped out of the car and that's the time the gunfire started.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Your officer, the one who had his pistol and killed these men, he was normally assigned to traffic duty?

HARN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is this the first time he (INAUDIBLE)

HARN: I don't know that. I don't know that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He would have been working off duty then?

HARN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: I haven't heard any differently. And another thing, there's a high school right next door. They're having classes today. We've opened that area up. To my understanding, everybody has shown up. It's business back as usual. However, naturally, our awareness is heightened because of this yesterday. We do this -- we do intel. We have people that work on task forces. We conduct intel to try to keep our citizens safe in this city every single day, just as we did yesterday. And the plan we put together, there's no doubt that it saved lives.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is that where graduation is going to be at this school on Sunday?

HARN: There's graduations are scheduled there.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: Yes, that's part of GSID. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did suspects come out of the vehicle already holding the assault rifles?

HARN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: No, they came out with them.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Sir, (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

HARN: There's added personnel at the school simply because there are parents that are worried because of what happened yesterday. We've still got a crime scene there. So, yes, there's added personnel today.

(CROSSTALK)

HARN: I'm going to take two more questions.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Were they wearing some kind of body armor or you don't know?

HARN: I was told they did have body armor. I don't know the extent to what the body armor was.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The woman who organized this is reportedly on the al Qaeda hit list. Is she under your protection or where is she now?

HARN: She's not under our protection that I know of. I have no idea where she is.

OK, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

BOLDUAN: You are hearing right there from Joe Harn, an officer with Garland Police Department. We're really getting for the first time a lot more detail and clarity about what happened last night in Garland, Texas, at the site of a cartoon contest, exhibit focused on depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. You hear right there from the officer. He basically said these men simply got out and started shooting. A car pulled up to a security perimeter at this event. Two men got out with assault rifles and started shooting at police. He also listed out all of the security personnel that were there. Garland police, bomb squads, SWAT, ATF and FBI were all on the scene. Both men were shot by a police officer. And, as Officer Harn says, they both died there on the street next to their car.

[11:25:03] BERMAN: Both men were shot and killed by an officer with his service pistol. This man with a service pistol, the officer killed two shooters with assault rifles. It's still an active crime scene. Additional security nearby. There's a school there. They want to reassure people.

There were no bombs found in the car of these would-be assailants. They searched the car, officers did, because they were concerned there may be explosives inside. They found luggage. We don't know what was in the luggage. They also found more ammunition but no bombs.

They also know the two shooters were wearing protective gear presumably bulletproof vests. This only goes to the skill of the one officer who took them down with his service pistol, which shows you how good of a job he did. Joe Harn, the PIO, made clear that officer probably saved lives. These men showed up at this event, at this center designed to kill people.

I want to bring in Paul Cruickshank, CNN terror analyst, who is in London for us; and CNN national security analyst and former secretary of Homeland Security, Juliette Kayyem.

Juliette, let me start with you.

There are two facets to this, both very important. Number one, an attempted terror attack on U.S. soil by someone, this man, Elton Simpson, one of the assailants, who was an ISIS sympathizer with ISIS connections to people online. And secondly, the people of Garland seemed awfully prepared. They had the right people in the right place before this event to thwart this attack.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: That's absolutely right. Let's start with the second point, which is knowing the kind of event being planned and knowing the controversy that surrounded this group. The Garland police did exactly what's been anticipated in the post-911 structure, which is local, state and federal law enforcement work together to try to protect the public. So good news is the system was in place. It knew it had a high-profile event coming. Very controversial.

On the second issue, look, this is true that this was an attack, and we don't know specifically Simpson and who he was and what kind of training he got or his allegiances. One thing that is just clear from that press conference, you had a local police official standing alone. This case is now being run out of the FBI. They were not present at the press conference. I think the point of that is just reading tea leaves of what's going on, is there's a federal investigation going on now that probably Garland knows little about. In other words, this is now being traced to international sources and international intelligence agencies.

BOLDUAN: Paul, from a lot of the reporting that we have from CNN's own reporting -- I know you have some as well -- this man we only know identity of one suspect here, Elton Simpson, that he was at a minimum an ISIS sympathizer and had connections to ISIS members on social media. What more are you learning about that?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: That's absolutely right, Kate. A few minutes before the attack, he tweeted out a pledge of allegiance to the commander of the faithful. Just before that, he also tweeted out to followers to follow a British ISIS fighter in Syria. That very same British ISIS fighter re-tweeted his pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and set out a series of tweets praising the attack, taking some ownership for the attack. At the minimum, this is an individual who had some online connection to ISIS. The FBI will investigate whether there was more connection than just that, whether there was some colluding in the days ahead between this individual and ISIS.

And Simpson was on the radar screen of the FBI from at least 2006. They investigated him because they believed he wanted to go and fight with al Shabaab in Somalia. The question is, how on earth was he able to get ahold of an assault rifle given the fact that he was on the radar screen and previously convicted of lying to the FBI in that case.

BERMAN: The reason you are seeing pictures from Phoenix, Arizona, on the right side of your screen there is because the FBI is searching an apartment building in Phoenix where these two men, one of them Elton Simpson, are believed to have lived. That's why they are there. This investigation has already spanned to another state, Juliette Kayyem. Explain to me, as Paul Cruickshank says, where they go to now is trying to figure out if there's a bigger connection or if it was more than inspired or perhaps planned by somebody besides these two people. What are investigators doing right now?

[11:29:57] KAYYEM: So there will be two tracks to this investigation. One is purely domestic, which is what kind of evidence is in the building or apartment? Where were they? Where did they eat? Who did they know? Who were they working with?

The other side, as Paul was saying, is going to be the international connections. How strong were they?