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Police Release Bodycam Video of Louisville Shooting; Biden's Trip to Northern Ireland. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 12, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:37]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A view from the eyes of police of the chilling encounter with a mass shooter. Heart-pounding footage is now taking us inside that Louisville bank. Body cams rolling as officers rushed towards the gunfire. One official saying, there's only a few people in this country that can do what they did. This morning, the killer's family is giving insight into his mental health challenges.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Will Donald Trump's sexual assault trial be delayed? The former president's attorneys are now using his historic hush money indictment as a reason to postpone the assault and defamation case. That trial now just 13 days away.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This smoke is definitely toxic. An alarming warning from officials after this huge fire breaks out at a recycling plant in Indiana. Thousands of people ordered to leave their homes. They say this could burn for days.

These stories and more here on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

All right, let's get right to Richmond, Indiana, and the eastern part of that state. There was a press conference moments ago about this huge fire, toxic fire, at a recycling plant there. Let's listen in.

MAYOR DAVE SNOW, RICHMOND, INDIANA: Mayor of Richmond. Mayor Dave Snow. We want to provide you with information this morning about a fire that began yesterday at the site that you are seeing behind me. This is a very large site. It is a site that previously was a business that collected plastics and other materials for the purpose of recycling and resell. It is an indoor and outdoor site. And so when this fire broke out, it spread through both the structures on the site and the outdoor storage that was on site.

We have been working throughout the day yesterday and throughout the overnight to get this fire under control. We have a lot of information to share with you. I have here city, county and state officials that will each provide you with updates from their respective offices.

I want to begin with Richmond Fire Chief Tim Brown to give you an update on the current containment of the fire and next steps in continuing to put the fire down.

TIM BROWN, FIRE CHIEF, RICHMOND, INDIANA: Good morning. We received the call yesterday morning -- or yesterday afternoon at

14:40 to 358 Northwest F Street in reference to a structure fire. Our efforts yesterday were to contain the fire to the complex that the fire started on. We combated the winds and the intensity of the flames. Our efforts were successful. It did not get into the residential area as far as the fire is concerned. It did not get past the complex that it is in. So, our efforts there were successful.

Today our plan is to get the excavators in and pull apart and make access to the burning areas. Yesterday our access was very hampered by the rubbish and the piles of plastic that were surrounding the complex. Yesterday we only had one way in to the entire structure. Today we're going to use excavators to gain access and to get to the deeper seat of the fire.

Any questions?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chief, you had said that - that this property was known to you all before, that there were some issues that were cited. Are you able to provide any more details about the nature of those issues?

BROWN: Well, the issue was the unsafe building and unsafe grounds that the city had cited them for.

JIMENEZ: And just to be clear, what does it mean -- or what are some of the factors that go into unsafe grounds and so forth (ph)?

BROWN: I'm going to refer that to the mayor.

JIMENEZ: OK. OK.

SNOW: Thank you, Chief.

So, yes, this business owner had previously been cited by our unsafe building commission and given an order to clean up the property. That order was ignored. We had been through a court case over that order. Our unsafe building order was upheld in that court case. We have been through several steps since then to order this particular business owner to clean up this property because we were aware that what was operating here was a fire hazard. So, this was a fear for us and why we've taken so many steps to prevent this from happening.

[09:05:01]

That business owner is fully responsible for all of this. We have the unsafe building order and the recorded court documents. And everything that's ensued here, the fire, the damages, the risk that our first responders have taken and the risk these citizens are under are the responsibility of that negligent business owner.

Today my concern is with our first responders and our citizens. But once we get this fire under control, and I'm positive that everyone is safe, we will turn our full attention to continuing that process to hold this person responsible.

QUESTION: Mr. Mayor, what were you requiring from this property? I mean, sprinklers? (INAUDIBLE) -- what did you want from him?

SNOW: There were a list of requirements that included cleanup and other safety measures to prevent this from happening. We will cover all of that once we make sure everyone's safe. I don't want to turn my attention just yet to the litigation behind this. I want to really keep my attention right now on the safety of our first responders and our citizens.

QUESTION: But we ask this question, Mr. Mayor, because are there others, not only in this city, but other cities where you go to court. You ask for something to happen. And here we are, days later, now you have a disaster on your hands, which then impacts your first responders and your citizens. Are there other properties here in Richmond and maybe across the state that need to be taken action on?

SNOW: I can't speak to situations in other cities. I don't want to speak on their behalf. But I appreciate that the court upheld our ruling. And so we just wish that the property owner and the business owner would have taken this more serious from day one.

This person has been negligent and irresponsible, and it's led to putting a lot of people in danger today.

QUESTION: Have you been in contact with hat business owner since yesterday?

SNOW: Yes, sir. One of our fire investigators made contact with the business owner last evening, but I -- it's an ongoing investigation, so I'm not going to get into any more of that right now. We don't speak on ongoing investigations, but that contact was made last night.

QUESTION: Can you tell us if that person lives here in Richmond.

SNOW: I do not believe they're a Richmond resident, but nearby.

I'm going to bring up State Fire Marshal Steve Jones to speak from the State Fire Marshal's Office.

STEVE JONES, STATE FIRE MARSHAL: Hello, I'm Steve Jones, the state fire marshal for the state of Indiana.

I've been here about 18 hours, working with Chief Brown and the fire department. This has been a challenging fire just because it's plastics. And my understanding, whenever they pulled out of the firehouse, they immediately could see they had a substantial fire already. And I just want to, I guess, they - they did a great job. This fire, because of the nature of the contents of the building, was a fast-growing fire. And so they got in, surrounded it and cut it off from the residential neighborhood, which just speaks volumes of the work that they did yesterday, is getting their troops in, being able to deliver the water where it needed to cut this fire off because it was going to be a total loss, but it could have grown further than just these buildings here. And so just kudos to the fire department and their efforts and their tactical decisions to cut this fire off.

Again, this fire, it takes a lot from the community, the mayor, the street department, emergency management, and a lot of different agencies. And they've done a wonderful job communicating, pulling their team together to deal with this. And currently it's in the short term, but it will go into the longer in just being able to pull that together.

The other thing I want to cover too is media questions, after this press release, that Indiana Homeland Security PIO will be a contact for the media. And you can call 463-202-4063 and that will be your contact for a while because the local agencies were busy trying to manage an emergency situation and we're getting tons of phone calls. And so -- from the media. And so we need to focus on the community, focus on -

BERMAN: You have been watching a news conference from Richmond, Indiana, where this recycling plant has been on fire since yesterday afternoon. The good news is the fire is now contained to that recycling plant. The bad news is, plastics. It's mostly plastics on fire at this plant, and they are concerned it is emitting a toxic smoke plume. About 2,000 people have been evacuated from the area. We were waiting to hear an update on the air quality in that region from that area in just -- we were waiting to hear if we were getting information about the quality of that air there. We will find out more as this situation develops, Sarah. But, again, the situation now is contained, the fire is, to the plant, but they are concerned about the air quality.

SIDNER: And we are going to hear from the head of the EPA in a bit, which we'll certainly ask him about that coming up.

BERMAN: Right.

SIDNER: Thank you, John.

All right, we are all now getting a look at the mass shooting at a Louisville bank as it happened from the responding officers' perspective.

[09:10:04]

The mayor says his city is heartbroken as it prepares for a vigil today for the five people who were killed in that mass shooting in a downtown bank. Louisville police released the body cam video from the responding officers. It includes images from slain Officer Nickolas Wilt, the 26-year-old rookie who just graduated from the Police Academy, as well as video from his training officer, Cory "CJ" Galloway. You can see both officers charging towards the bank as they face gunfire.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're making entry from the - from the east side at Preston (ph) and Main.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer - (END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: You can feel the danger they were in, in your bones listening to that.

We also have new images from inside that bank showing the gunmen walking the halls. Officials say it took him just one minute to carry out that attack. We've also learned this morning that the shooter's family says he had mental health challenges.

CNN correspondent Adrienne Broaddus is live in Louisville for us.

Adrienne, you're learning new details about the shooter's actions after that one-minute firing. What happened?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sara, after that one-minute firing, the shooter returned to the first floor lobby, and that is where he waited to ambush the officers. We received two still pictures. One, which shows the shooter in the hallway of the bank before the shooting, and then another of the shooter in that lobby area where he waited. We also know he texted a friend, he called a friend, and he left a voice message saying in part he wanted to kill everyone at the bank and that he was feeling suicidal.

It was Officer CJ Galloway that fired the shot ending the shooter's life. We know members of law enforcement executed a search warrant on the shooter's home and determine the gun that was used in the shooting here at the bank was purchased six days prior to the shooting. So that was last Tuesday, on April 4th. The gun was purchased legally from a dealership here in Louisville. And it was the same weapon he used to kill five people who worked here at the bank. And later tonight, a vigil will be held to honor those five.

Meanwhile, the shooter's family releasing a statement saying that they are working with members of law enforcement. His family also saying they knew Connor struggled with depression and they were actively, according to them, working to address his mental illness. But they say they saw no signs and they did not know their son was capable of such violence.

I want to read to you part of that statement that was released from the family. It says in part, quote, no words can express our sorrow, anguish and horror at the unthinkable harm our son Connor inflicted on innocent people. The officer, the rookie officer, who was only on his fourth shift that day, is still fighting for his life.

Sara.

SIDNER: Wow. Harrowing details. Thank you so much. Adrienne Broaddus there live from Louisville.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Some of the details of the investigation but let's talk about the timeline of how this played out. Yes, how this has played out. It took officers just about five minutes to take down the shooter once

they arrived on the scene, dispatched at 8:38 a.m. The first two officers pull up to the building at about 8:40 a.m. and immediately faced gunfire. They're forced to back up in the patrol car. They park. And then they get out of the patrol car, as you see.

At 8:41, Officers Nickolas Wilt and Cory "CJ" Galloway, they're out of their car. They're going up the steps toward the lobby area of the bank. And that is when Officer Wilt is struck.

(VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: So, with Officer Wilt now down, Officer Galloway was also shot. He falls down. He then gets up and he goes down these stairs and he hides here behind this large planter in order to get his bearings, alerting other officers that he's unable to get a good view on the shooter at that time.

And then, take a look at this, at 8:44, additional officers arrive on the scene. But from this bystander footage, you can really see how Galloway's trying to get a good vantage point before finally getting a shot, shooting and killing the suspect.

[09:15:11]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I got him down. I think he's down. Get to Officer Wilt now. Yank him down the stairs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Take him down the stairs he's telling the other officers to get Wilt out of there.

At 8:45, about five minutes after arriving on the scene, Officer Galloway walks into the building and confirms that the suspect is down and the suspect is dead.

That's the timeline, John, but there's so much more to it in terms of what all plays out within these five minutes.

BERMAN: Yes, that's a really good explanation of the full events there. We're going to dig in to a few of those moments a little deeper now. With me now is CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.

John, this is Officer Wilt's bodycam. I'm just going to play this for a second more and freeze it almost right away. The first thing I want to point out to people is the guns. Officer Wilk is carrying a handgun. Officer Galloway, the long gun. The importance there.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So this is the Glock 17. It has a 15-round capacity. This is what Officer Wilt has been trained on in the Police Academy. He's just four tours of duty out of there. CJ has the Colt M-4 patrol rifle. That's a 30- round magazine firing essentially military round 762 type rounds. Ironically, this is the same weapon that the shooter inside has, but they don't know that yet.

BERMAN: All right, as Kate explained, these two officers and only these two officers, because they're the only ones there right now as far as we know. They charge. They go in. Explain what we're seeing here.

MILLER: So, he's putting it over the police radio where they're approaching and what direction for other incoming officers to know their position, but they are moving towards the gunfire they heard when they pull up. But they're blind. They don't see the shooter.

And now they come under fire. You see CJ falls back. He's been hit, grazed in the side. He knows his partner's down. He puts that over the air as well.

BERMAN: And the only other thing to mention here is that these two officers, unlike Uvalde, they're going in. They're not waiting.

MILLER: Right.

BERMAN: There are only two of them there, but they're still charging the suspect.

MILLER: And, I mean, in your active shooter training, you're pretty much told, you know, wait for a couple of units, form a team of four. That's a contact team. Move forward. They're not even waiting for the next unit. They're moving towards the gunfire. It's extraordinary courage.

BERMAN: Officer Wilt is down. Officer Galloway then takes cover, which we see from this bystander footage. Explain here what he's doing.

MILLER: So, he's got a position of cover, but the shooter has a position of advantage. He is behind the glass. You can't see through it. He is in the dark. He's exposed in the light. What he's trying to do is shifting sides between where he's taken cover to say, can I get a view of the shooter? And there's a moment here where you see glass break out right there, and that's where he says, OK, now I have a direction of at least where I think this person is standing, and he's trying to get that shot through his optical sight.

BERMAN: He's got a direction. He knows where the shot is coming from. And it's about here, and you can see it right over there, these other officers arrive. And that's a significant moment because he's got some assistance. After this point, he then, you can see, engages directly with the shooter.

MILLER: Right. And his concern, as he's yelling to those officers is, get to my partner, try to get him out of here. And he opens fire. He takes a shot.

And here you can hear him yelling in a moment after he gets that shot. You see the rifle is above where his body camera is, so we don't see that. But he's looking through that site trying to get that shot. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he's down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I think he's down.

MILLER: Right. So he thinks he's got him. And what does he do then is, he advances alone, instructing the other officers, take care of the officer. Get my partner. He advances alone into the building.

BERMAN: And he goes in. And you can see all the glass that we saw over the last couple of days, it turns out this glass was shot out of the windows by the exchange of fire.

Just one other thing I want to point out about the suspect here. He looks like, you know, I'm not making light of this, casual Friday. He's not wearing tactical gear, which is something different than we've seen in past mass shootings.

MILLER: That's right. He didn't, you know, bring the tactical vest with all the spare magazines. He came there for two purposes. One, to kill everyone in the bank for whatever reason, and we're still delving into what was his issue with his bosses at the bank. He goes into the conference room and kills them. But his second reason is, why return to that lobby and wait with the weapon for the police response. There's two things. One, as he demonstrated, he was willing to engage with police and try to kill them. But two, as he said to people in text messages before this, I'm feeling suicidal.

[09:20:02]

What he was looking for was suicide by cop.

BERMAN: I want to go back to the moment where Officer Wilt and Officer Galloway, they are there. They're the only two there. And they've made the decision that they are going to charge. What's going through their heads at this point?

MILLER: What's going through their heads is, let's take this wall. Let's use that for some cover and get up there and assess, because they can't see the shooter. They can hear him. And at this point they don't know that in that position they're exposed. But they're headed for the door. They come under fire.

And there's two things that can happen here. Officer Wilt is down. What CJ can do is he can keep firing and moving towards the target, but he doesn't know what he's shooting at. So the option would have been, you could have had two officers down as opposed to one. And he gets to a position of cover and basically he's running that operation.

BERMAN: They also have to know that they're the only two people there. I mean it takes a certain amount of courage and bravery and training to do what they're doing here. MILLER: Well, thinking of what the deputy chief, Paul Humphrey, said yesterday, which is, there's only a few people in America who can do this. There are actually tens of thousands of police officers who are trained to do this. But you never know how you're going to react to this call and the call to courage, the call to move forward into the gunfire until that moment is upon you. And they showed us a tremendous amount.

BERMAN: And now one of these officer, Officer Wilt, his life hangs in the balance because of the courage and bravery he showed there.

John Miller, thank you. This was a great explanation of what we saw there.

Sara.

SIDNER: Just remarkable and terrifying video.

Now to President Biden, who is touching down in Dublin in just a few moments from now after wrapping up a visit to Northern Ireland.

Also, a new 2024 presidential hopeful is set to throw his hat into the ring. Everything we know about Senator Tim Scott's exploratory committee.

The Biden administration just unveiled its most ambitious climate policy yet, proposing major new emissions rules that would accelerate the nation's transition to electric cars.

That's all coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:26:23]

SIDNER: On our radar this morning, President Biden called the parents of Evan Gershkovich, "The Wall Street Journal" reporter who has been detained in Russia. Gershkovich's family says they appreciate the president's assurance that the U.S. is doing everything possible to free their son. Now he faces 20 years in prison on espionage charges that the White House calls the charges baseless, as does his company. And a top U.S. official is demanding access to him.

A fast-moving wildfire in New Jersey grew to 2,500 acres overnight, and it's not showing any signs of slowing down. Dozens of buildings have been evacuated in Manchester Township. Fire officials say the blaze is only 10 percent contained right now.

Also, Brittney Griner is writing a memoir about her detainment in Russia. The WNBA star spent 10 months in Russian custody. Griner says she wants to bring attention to other Americans still wrongfully detained overseas. Her book, due out next spring.

John.

BERMAN: Thanks, Sara. At this hour, President Biden is wrapping up his visit to Northern Ireland, where he is marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. That peace accord mostly ended decades of sectarian violence. But the president's day far from over. In moments, he is scheduled to fly to Dublin, and then he will continue on to County Louth on Ireland's northeastern coast. The county was home to his maternal ancestors in the 19th century. Then, just before noon eastern time, he's going to visit a cemetery where some of his family members are buried. He will also tour a castle, where his great grandfather was born, before taking part in the community gathering in the town of Dundalk. He then heads back to Dublin, where he will spend the rest of the evening.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: There's going to be so many moments to see.

BERMAN: I want to go on a trip like this.

BOLDUAN: Look, it's fun and exciting. And also, this is real -- this is a real diplomatic moment that I think is also important. There's a lot - there's a lot to watch this morning.

So while in Northern Ireland, President Biden met with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. And this morning the president just wrapped a speech at Ulster University.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live for us, watching all of this play out in Belfast.

What did we hear from the president this morning so far, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, Kate, I'm going to get right to that, but I just got to reference what you and John were talking about. John saying there that he'd like to be along on a trip like this and laying out the president's plans for this afternoon.

The weather is about to change here. It could change the president's travel plans a bit this afternoon. And I would say, look back here in a couple of hours, John, because the weather may not be so likable for standing around outside. The president, of course, will endure that. He's got those Irish roots.

But the importance of his speech here, sensitive, diplomatic for sure. The United States, he said, is fully committed to support Northern Ireland on its journey to ensuring and stabilizing the piece that it has. He talked about the importance of the Good Friday Agreement. And he tried to sort of get over some of the concerns of the pro-British unionists community here that perceive him as being sort of to-pro the Irish pro-Irish community here, the nationalist community here. And he said, look, you know, one of my ancestors was English, Captain George Biden, he said born -- he couldn't quite remember if it was 1828 or 1842, but he said, you know, I have English roots. That message was to that pro-British community. I understand you and here you too. I am not partisan in this. And I think it was significant that he named checked very high up one of the significant, hardline loyalist paramilitaries who had become a politician to help push the peace through.

[09:30:00]

But it was aspirational as well.

Listen about how he framed how much Belfast has progressed.