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Fire Chief Says, Plant Previously Cited for Unsafe Building and Grounds; Police Release Dramatic Body Cam Video of Response to Bank Attack; Biden Arrives in Dublin for Three-Day Ireland Visit. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired April 12, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Smoke pouring into the skies over Indiana. Officials say it is definitely toxic. We are live on the scene of a huge recycling plant fire that is still burning right now. Officials are calling the plant owner negligent and irresponsible.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Just moments from now, President Biden lands in Dublin for a quick pit stop on his Irish trip. We will take you there live.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: How easily these beasts kill, that is the message from Ukraine's president as a new war crimes investigation is launched, the incredibly disturbing video now being shared. These stories and more on CNN News Central.

BERMAN: Happening now, the air over Richmond, Indiana, is being called toxic as a recycling plant fire continues to smolder. Officials say it could be days before the flames are completely out. Roughly 2,000 people in order to evacuate their homes with the thick black smoke billowing. Schools in the area are closed and a shelter in place order is in effect.

Sara spoke to the EPA administrator just moments ago.

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MICHAEL S. REGAN, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: Our goal is to ensure that this community stays safe. And so we've been on site since the beginning, and we're going to stay there until we can assure that this community is not seeing any threats from the air quality implications here.

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BERMAN: All right. CNN's Omar Jimenez is live on the scene. Omar, we can see you wear a mask. I heard you at a news conference a short time ago. What are they telling you about the air quality right now?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. When it comes to the air quality, the concern here is particular it's from smoke matter at this point. Obviously, in the plume itself, they say that that is where the toxicity is. But as far as the ground level air, which, of course, is what people would be breathing, the smoke is the real issue. So, that's part of why we're wearing this mask.

I want to give you a glimpse of what this fire is looking at in the daylight. You can see the epicenter of sorts of where this fire has been burning from. This is where a lot of the fire crews have been placing some of their attention throughout the morning. They have been placing a lot of water here. They've now moved to a separate part of the area itself.

But when we talk about what is actually burning, as we understand, at first, it was a semitrailer full of plastics that was on fire. Those flames eventually spread to some piles of plastic and then, eventually, this compound. The fire chief said, in particular, this compound in total is about 14 acres worth of plastic inside and that about 13.5 acres have burned so far at this point.

We just got a briefing from a whole host of officials at the state level, local level and federal level as well, some representatives from the EPA, but take a listen to one of those officials as they explained a little bit of what they're doing dealing with here.

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CHRISTINE STINSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WAYNE COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT: these are very fine particles. And if they're breathe in can cause all kinds of respiratory problems, burning in the eyes, tightening of the chest, it could aggravate asthma, cause bronchitis and all kinds of things. So, we are stressing to the public to honor the evacuation zone. It's for your safety that the evacuation zone is there. And if you can see the smoke, you're in the smoke, get out of the smoke.

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JIMENEZ: And as of now, the evacuation zone is about a half mile radius from these flames, about 2,000 people in this 35,000-person town have been affected by those orders.

BERMAN: And to be clear, one of the things that fire officials did say is that the fire, the good news, is contained at this point to the recycling plant itself. The fire itself not spreading into the neighborhoods, but, Omar, clearly the smoke and the air quality issues are.

So just -- you know, again, we see you there. I see the smoke behind you. What's it like to be there?

JIMENEZ: Yes. At this point you know, there is a smell in the air. Obviously, you can't go far without seeing this in particular. And we were talking to a resident who lives in that evacuation zone, who literally got the order, did not hesitate and left. And even if she had not gotten the order, if she just looked outside, she would have seen that thick plume of black smoke. She's essentially right in it. Take a listen to some of what she told us earlier this morning.

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BRENDA JERRELL, FORCED TO EVACUATE DUE TO TOXIC FIRE: And when they said evacuate, I didn't have shoes on, I have socks on.

[10:05:01]

And I left my purse, my shoes. I left a lot of things, personal things, you know, at the house and just got in the car and drove away.

I'm still worried because they're telling us they don't know what was burning and that, you know, irritation may occur, skin problems, you know, and my Eyes were kind of like (INAUDIBLE), and I put more warm clothes on that. I didn't go to the hospital, but it's available for us.

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JIMENEZ: And the mayor told us that, today, the focus is on the residents, but also the first responders who are in their actually battling this blaze. But when you talk about what may have caused this, we still don't know what that is at this moment. But the mayor here was not mincing words and said that the building owner, the owner of this property is the one that is responsible for this because he says they've had issues with this property before that they've been cited before, that they were fire hazard cited on this location and that this location have been given an order that they were unsafe, and to use some of the words of the fire chief, they did not wonder if something like this would happen but when, and now it appears it has. So, we're trying to find more details on that. But the mayor, the fire chief, did not hold back words when they pointed the blame very quickly, even in these initial stages.

And I should also mention as well the fire chief said the most difficult part about getting to this was that a lot of the entrances were blocked with debris of plastic. So, whatever their initial problems, was just trying to be able to get to the property to fight this flame that obviously you can see from miles away here, John.

BERMAN: Omar Jimenez in Richmond, Indiana, with the smoke billowing behind, Omar, you and your team, please stay safe.

With us now is CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, look, plastic, it's a funny word when it's in a film like The Graduate. But when you're talking about 14 acres of it burning, what are the risks it poses to air quality?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, there's a way of looking at this is yet to look at this in the immediate sort of time period, but also sort of over time, what happens to these particular compounds and over space, meaning that the -- obviously, the evacuation zone is of concern, but we're talking about very, very fine particles which can travel over distance. So, over time and space is when you have to sort of think about this.

Omar was talking about the particulate matter in the evacuation zone. That's the smoke. That's the obvious stuff, John. You know, you see it, you smell it, you breathe it in. It's irritating. That's why people need to get out of there. Masks can be helpful, but, really, as Omar was saying, leaving that area so that you're not actually breathing in that particulate matter, which can affect even healthy people's lungs, and hearts, is the sort of most immediate concern.

I think what Omar was sort of alluding to and what you heard in that presser as well is that when you burn this stuff, plastics turn into what are known as volatile organic compounds, that's sort of a potpourri of all sorts of different things, John. It becomes hard to sort of pinpoint exactly what that's all going to turn into. From previous fires and sort of looking at these types of compounds, they know that it can turn into chemicals, like styrene, benzene, and there's some evidence of what that can do if people are exposed.

But what happens right now, John, is that those compounds, they're so light, so volatile. They get up higher, much higher in the plume that Omar was describing. And then, over time, they will start to dissipate and come down to lower lying areas. How long that takes, where they land exactly, that's a little bit of an unknown. I mean, because you have to sort of anticipate and predict how that's going to unfold.

But those -- you know, those can be potentially problematic compounds if they are in high enough doses still at that point when they come down to the ground, causing things like dizziness and disorientation, confusion, headaches, things like that, skin irritation. There's a lot more that's known about benzenes, for example, versus styrenes. But these are the sort of things we are going to be looking for, measuring the levels but also seeing if there's any health impacts over the next several days.

BERMAN: Who is most vulnerable here? We're talking about people with respiratory issues or asthma. Who should be most careful?

GUPTA: You know, really, there's been these studies that have looked at people who have underlying health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, people are at risk of heart disease, things like that, babies. But, really, you know, if you look at some of these studies, John, anybody is potentially vulnerable, healthy people. There were studies of healthy people who had been near, you know, big sort of plumes of smoke like this. And, certainly, that particulate matter. Just think of that as smoke breathing it in anyone is particularly vulnerable.

When it comes to these volatile organic compounds, which, again, may be high up in that plume of smoke, may travel, may come down over the next you know, several days, you know people who are at risk of that, again, anybody could be at risk.

[10:10:01]

But people who have underlying conditions, specifically cardiac and respiratory, they're going to probably be the most at risk.

BERMAN: Obviously, people in that area need to pay attention to the public health officials. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much for helping explain this all. Kate, Indiana, I know, I mean, this is where you are from, watching this right now, a lot of people at risk.

BOLDUAN: Yes. I mean, this is just west of Indianapolis, right near the Ohio border, and just devastating to see what this means for the community. John is going to stay very close on this as it's still unfolding this morning.

We're also tracking this major story still today. The family of the gunman who shot and killed five people at Louisville bank, that family is speaking up, saying that he struggled with mental health issues. Overnight, police say that they recovered items from the shooter's home. The details of what they picked up, though, not yet released.

But police have put out the body cam video from the officers responding to this tragedy. The video includes also footage from Officer Nicholas Wilt. He's the 26-year-old rookie who had just been sworn in days earlier and is now in critical condition after being shot in the head. And we have video from his training officer, Cory C.J. Galloway, it shows both officers arriving in charging toward the bank as they face gunfire from the suspect.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're making entry from the from the east side, pressing the main.

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BOLDUAN: We can see that was when Officer Wily shot. It was also when Officer Galloway was shot as well.

Officials say those officers, they were dispatched at 8:38 A.M. on Monday. They arrived on the scene about two minutes later in immediately face that gunfire. And it took police about five minutes to neutralize this situation and take down that gunman.

We also have a new image from inside the bank that morning. You can see the suspect roaming the hallways with that long gun in his hands. Officials say it took like him just one minute to carry out that attack that killed five people. They say that he then stopped, stopped the shooting and waited for officers to arrive, and we know what happened then. Sara?

SIDNER: CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent Shimon Prokupecz is here with me.

Shimon, we just saw the clip from that officer, C.J. Galloway. It is so very rare that we get this insight so quickly as to what happened. Can you give us some sense of what we were seeing? Because at that point, there were only two officers, correct, who were engaging the suspect.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. Appears that in that one area, there were other officers responding because you hear Galloway on the radio saying where they're going, doing what they're trained to do, we're going in this direction. And it was just him and this rookie officer going in, trying to figure out where the gunman was, how they can stop the threat, engage the shooter, and, sadly, what we see is that one officer seriously injured, getting shot in the head, just ten days on the job.

So, you see Galloway there approaching the building. They have no idea that point where the shooter is. And that is what is so remarkable in all of this is that they had no idea where he was. You see them approaching. They know he's somewhere behind that glass but they can't see.

SIDNER: There's a glare.

PROKUPECZ: There's a glare. And they just -- they put their lives right there. They sort of were like they were willing to take that gunfire to try and save the people inside.

SIDNER: I want to play another clip for everyone. This is towards the end of the encounter.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I got him down. I think he's down. You're doing after off now. Yank him down the stairs.

I think he's down. Yes, suspect down, get the officer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Okay. You hear him say many different things, like get the officer. I think he says, Nick is, which would be Nicholas Wilt, and to grab him. Did I hear that correctly?

PROKUPECZ: Yes, they were trying to set up some cover. They realized at some point that he was injured and they were trying to get him out, so they wanted cover, which is standard procedure in these situations. But also there, you see Galloway, he gets shot. He actually is grazed. Luckily, that bullet just missed him by inches, and he's grazed and he falls to the ground. But yet what do you see there? He gets right back up, and he starts aiming towards that area and then finally sees the gunman and he is able to kill him.

[10:15:02]

And it's just -- again, you're seeing a situation where these officers -- just two officers going towards the gunman, going towards the gunfire, and we know because of their heroic efforts, lives were saved. And not only that the officers then continued inside, gave medical aid to people that were victims, and they -- as a result of that, those victims survived.

SIDNER: I think we should do mention this because you were in Uvalde, you covered that mass shooting, and there was a very different scenario here. We're talking about two officers who first engaged. They did not wait a second before they went towards the shooter, even though they could not see him at the time. They went for it without backup. Backup was coming but they weren't there yet. Can you give me a sense of just how incredibly different this was in comparison to what you saw and we all saw in Uvalde?

PROKUPECZ: There are some differences here. The thing that is, again, what I keep saying to myself and what is so remarkable, that despite the fact that these officers were shot, they continued. In Uvalde, what happens is, yes, the officers get on scene, they go into the hallway of the school, they start facing fire, and then they retreat. Bullets are coming through the walls, through the windows, an officer gets grazed, he's bleeding, they all run back, and they never go back for another 77 minutes, instead of organizing, saying, okay, one of our officers is injured, like we see here, let's get the team together. We need to go in. We need to go. They retreat and they wait for 77 minutes.

You don't see any officers in this situation waiting. They keep going. They keep going. They keep going until the threat is eliminated. It didn't take very long. And they finally eliminated the threat. And because of that action, they were able to save lives.

SIDNER: The difference is when it's happening to you at the time, what is the officer going to do? Because they're all trained to go in and to take the shooter out. That doesn't always happen, Shimon.

PROKUPECZ: Yes. The deputy chief here, what he said yesterday, has stayed with me. He said, not everyone can do this. And it's so obvious. Only a certain few can do this, and that's what he was saying.

SIDNER: All right. Shimon Prokupecz, thank you so much for that analysis.

And tonight at 9:00, Kaitlan Collins will sit down with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear for his first interview since the deadly shooting. That is right here on CNN. Kate?

BERMAN: I'll take it, Sara.

President Biden just landed in Dublin after a trip to Northern Ireland and Belfast. There it is, Air Force One in a gray and foggy Dublin. Hey, it wouldn't be Ireland if it didn't look like that. A big day for the president already, and he has big plans ahead for today and the rest of the week, national business but also a bit of a homecoming.

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BOLDUAN: On our radar this morning, South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott has launched an exploratory committee this morning to test the waters for a potential presidential run. Scott easily won re- election last fall and is the only black Republican in the Senate. He is scheduled to hold events in Iowa, not surprisingly, maybe, later today.

On the decline, new data from the CDC shows the pregnancy rate in the United States has dropped over the past decade, especially for unintended pregnancies. About 5.5 million women were pregnant in 2019, that's down from 6.1 million women pregnancies in 2010. Teenage pregnancies dropped by half during that same time period.

And stepping out, Actor Jeremy Renner made his first, well, we will call it a blue carpet appearance yesterday for a screening of his new Disney Plus series, Rennervations. The actor, you'll remember, was seriously injured earlier this year after being crushed by the snowplow that he was using near his Nevada home. John?

BERMAN: appreciate the blue carpet fact check their, Kate. Thank you very much.

We do have live pictures right now, I'm reliably told, as President Biden has just landed in Dublin to begin his three-day visit to the Republic of Ireland.

The president has already had a very busy day. He held bilateral talks in Belfast with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and delivered a speech about the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of sectarian violence there.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Belfast where the president just was. So, bring us up to speed on what he has done already, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY EDITOR: He met with the British prime minister. They discussed the importance of the Good Friday Agreement. And then the president went on to give a keynote speech at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Ulster University here in the center of Belfast, and the Good Friday Agreement, and the importance of upholding it, and the importance of continuing to work towards it, and the importance of the United States being committed to the peace that the Good Friday Agreement brought all of those things the president spoke about.

He tried to reach out across the political divide here, to the democratic unionist party, delicate diplomatic language, if you will, because they're not a party that's going to take kindly to hearing words from the United States president. But President Biden was -- pains to explain his English roots as well as this Irish roots, are real deference there to these holdout unionist politicians, pro- British politicians that refused to get into power sharing government here. And the president's message was really very, very clear. It's about hope and it's about hard work.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: The lesson of the Good Friday Agreement is this. In times when things seem fragile or easily broken, that is when hope and hard work are needed the most. That's when we must make our theme repair, repair. In a holy Easter season, this season, when all Christians celebrate renewal on life, the Good Friday Agreement showed us that there is hope for repair.

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ROBERTSON: And I think that was his subtle message there for those unionist politicians to get back into the power sharing government, which was really the most important, enduring institution that came out of the Good Friday Agreement, other, of course, than the piece that is lost in the last 25 years, John.

BERMAN: Nic, I have one eye on you and I'm keeping one eye on these live pictures from Dublin, where Air Force One is now on the ground. The stairs are out. We're waiting for the president to leave Air Force One and get in the limousine. It's a rainy Dublin, as you predicted. So, I'm not sure how much time he's going to linger underneath those umbrellas on the tarmac there, though, Nic.

What does he have in store for his time in the Republic of Ireland, south of you?

ROBERTSON: He is going to travel this afternoon up to County Louth. That's back up to the border, almost sort of coming back halfway towards Belfast, actually. Yes, the rain is coming in here to Belfast. It's literally come in. We'll have been talking, John, I have been watching it come over the Divis Mountain up there that's already in cloud. And the president driving up to County Louth, it appears at the moment, they've taken a weather check on Marine One as best, we understand, while the situation calls for at the moment.

He is going to go visit, we expect, Carlingford, Carlingford Castle and the town of Dundalk, both on the border. His great, great, great grandfather, Owen Finnegan, a cobbler, a shoemaker, came from there, just one of his visits to family roots will be headed out west later in the week to County Mayo, where he will go to the town of (INAUDIBLE) and visit other of his distant relatives there.

But an important speech tomorrow at a full showing of the Irish parliament, the Oireachtas, both houses of the parliament coming together to hear an important speech by the president tomorrow as well, John.

BERMAN: Nic, we always talk about how important Ireland is too many U.S. presidents who can have some familial connection obviously with the island. But how are U.S. presidents received or thought of in Ireland itself? And there is the president right now getting ready to walk out of Air Force One.

ROBERTSON: I think there's --

BERMAN: Go ahead.

ROBERTSON: I hope he's got his umbrella up. He'd certainly need one if he was still here.

I think, you know, presidents get a good reception in Ireland. There is a long and strong connection, whether it's been President Kennedy, President Clinton, president Obama, so many U.S. presidents who visited Ireland and have that deep, strong family connection. And you see it in the types of stores. You hear it in communities. People will often strike up a conversation with you, particularly us with CNN, and they say, okay, I've got family in the United States and they'll tell us where they all are. So, I think it means a lot.

And the fact that the president wants to spend time, a busy man, the man -- the most powerful man in the world will take time out of his schedule. Okay. It gives him time to connect personally with his family out of his normal routine, but it shows respect, it shows that connection and I think people in Ireland generally like it.

Here in Northern Ireland, it's slightly different, some of them not so happy to see the president here.

BERMAN: And I'm looking under those umbrellas. I think I saw the prime minister of Ireland underneath one of those umbrellas as well as the lord mayor of Dublin. You can assume the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, Claire Cronin, also in there somewhere, this as the president continues to greet people on the tarmac.

You get the sense he's going to enjoy this trip. He's going to enjoy this time in Ireland. He brought his son, Hunter. He brought his sister earlier. Yesterday, in fact, the president said that he was bringing with him relatives who hadn't been with him before on his many trips to Ireland. He made a big trip to the Republic of Ireland in his waiting days as vice president.

You got the sense he was doing that back in 2016 because he wasn't sure if he would make any more official visits to Ireland and wanted to make it special. But here he is these many years later as the president of the United States, someone who many people refer to as the most Irish president since JFK. JFK, all eight of his great grandparents were from Ireland, so you can't get more Irish than that. But Joe Biden, very, very proud, Nic, of his Irish roots.

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