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Multiple Injuries In Atlanta Shooting, Suspect At Large; Atlanta Police Release Photos Of Possible Shooter; Police: 1 Dead, At Least 4 Injured In Atlanta Shooting, Suspect At Large. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 03, 2023 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was -- well, I work in the building right next to where the shooting took place. And I was going on my lunch break. I was crossing over to go into Whole Foods and, all of a sudden, they were pushing us out of the building, pushing us further back into the streets.

Telling us to get away from the building where the active shooter were at and just telling us to get back, get back, it's a shooter, it's an active shooter.

And we don't even know who the shooter is and where the shooter at right now. And so it's really nerve-racking.

UNIDENTIFIED CHANNEL 2 REPORTER: What was the first thing you did, though? When they started saying active shooter, what did you do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What could you do? Because I went to start looking up to make sure no one wasn't hanging a rifle out of one of these windows, anything like that.

And I went to try to put my back against the wall and just to do whatever the officers tell us to do at the time.

UNIDENTIFIED CHANNEL 2 REPORTER: I don't know if you've seen this yet. Atlanta police released photos of the shooter, the suspected shooter. I don't know if he looks familiar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not right offhand. No. Not right offhand.

UNIDENTIFIED CHANNEL 2 REPORTER: Can you just tell us, though, again, I mean, it's become so common for something like this to happen. But for you to actually be living this and experiencing --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Aerial pictures here outside Northside Hospital Medical Midtown in Atlanta, site of an active-shooter situation, yet one more in America. Police have released a picture of the suspect captured on CCTV. We

have that picture here. We're awaiting further details from police as to whether that suspect still a threat. They have not found him.

They're certainly deploying forces now, deploying police there, as you can see, showing the urgency of the situation.

Police tweeted earlier in a statement that multiple people were injured. Our reporter on the ground said a number of those people have already been taken to hospital. We don't know the condition of all those people. We do know that at least some of them are in critical condition here.

The situation on the ground remains urgent. We urge people to look at this picture if they happen to be in the area and share any information with police that they may have.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We want to go back to CNN's Josh Campbell, who's been watching all of this unfold with us.

And if we could put up again the picture of the suspect.

Because a detail that stood out to me, Josh, hearing the reporting from Ryan Young and talking to his sources there on the ground, they indicate that the shooter arrived at the hospital and was apparently already agitated.

And as we look at some of the photos of the suspect, it looks like he has a bag and it looks like he's wearing gloves as well.

How do you read the images that we're seeing of the shooter that police have put out, Josh?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, to me, as you look at that image there on your screen, the one where he is standing without his mask, what's eerie about that photo is it appears he's standing right behind someone. It looks like he's in some type of elevator.

We don't know if this was perhaps before that shooting actually started. But this is the clearest picture of his face we're seeing from police because you don't see the mask.

What that tells us is the police pushing this out as what they call a BOLO, a be on the lookout. They want the public if you see this person to contact law enforcement, obviously not approach this person.

One positive development, if there's any positivity in any of this, is that, according to Ryan's reporting, the police know who this person is. So it's not like they're dealing with an unknown person.

That's particularly important if he is able to flee this containment area. If he's already on the run, at least they have that identification. But we have not received the all-clear from police.

We see from some of the images that the containment area is still up. Traffic control officers pushing people back. You have dozens and dozens of officers that are staged.

One thing about a situation like this is that, for the police, it's all about control at that scene. We saw a number of tactical vehicles moving in, tactical officers.

You know, based on the posture of law enforcement, it does not appear that the shooting is continuing or, in this era of shootings, we would see those officers headed toward the sound of gunfire.

They're likely going through this facility trying to find this individual. And the fact you're talking about in the middle of a city with a multistory building that's a lot of ground police have to cover methodically.

As they go through, you know, they're trained for this. What's called clearing operations, where you go floor by floor, room by room, you're looking for the individual.

And until they find that person or they come to the calculation that he's no longer there, then they can issue an all-clear for that original area.

But again, control is their ultimate goal right now. And if those SWAT officers are called in to try to make communication with the suspect, if they ultimately find him, they want time to be on their side.

If there's not gunfire, they want to try to bring this to some sort of peaceful resolution to the extent they can.

SCIUTTO: OK. Josh, hang on there because the Atlanta Police Department, via their Twitter feed, has just provided two important updates.

[13:34:59]

One being that there have been no additional shots fired since the initial incident unfolded. They say they're currently aware of four shooting victims.

And they just shared the news, via the Atlanta Police Department's Twitter feed, that one of the victims has been pronounced dead on scene.

Our Nick Valencia has been following events from the ground there in Atlanta.

Nick, what are you hearing from the police?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This report just coming out. At least one person dead. Four altogether have been shot as a result of this incident. But no shots have been fired since the initial incident unfolded.

I just was speaking to the Atlanta Police Department spokeswoman, who tells me that this is still very much so a fluid and active situation. I asked if she wanted to deliver any message to the public and she

said she's asking for people to shelter in place and to avoid the area.

They basically squared off an area in midtown, closed it off to the public.

We're also getting alerts from the Atlanta public schools, who are sending out alerts to have people lock down as well. So students are on lockdown in and around the area.

As are, as we've been reporting, several businesses in lockdown as well. Still very much so an active situation that is deadly.

At least one person killed, four people shot altogether in this incident so far. And that's the update that we can report as a result of this preliminary investigation, details they just put out - Jim?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: So at this point, three at the hospital, a fourth, as you mentioned there, Jim, as we just learned from the Atlanta Police Department, deceased at the scene.

Officers are not only looking for the suspect, they are also, according to what they're posting on social media, looking for any other victims. Right?

Because this is a large building. And at this point in time, they do not know where this suspect is. And certainly, he has capability to do a lot of damage. We've already seen that.

SCIUTTO: The question is, what has changed since the initial shots were fired, given police saying no shots fired since then? Is he on the run? Is he isolated in a location? We don't know yet.

But we should also note police are certainly still acting with -- by the way, issuing shelter-in-place orders, which would communicate they're still concerned about danger on the ground.

SANCHEZ: An interesting facet of this, as CNN's Ryan Young reported a moment ago to you, Brianna, is the suspect went to an appointment with his mother at the hospital and, apparently, she is now cooperating with officers in the investigation.

I believe we still have Juliette Kayyem with us.

Juliette, as we watch these live images of downtown Atlanta, we've noted just the scale of the search that officers are conducting for the suspect. Large office buildings in the middle of downtown. How difficult an operation is that?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's incredibly difficult. I want to take a step back. This is what a culture of which - you -- all of us are sort of together every day now, in terms of conflict resolution through guns -- because we don't know exactly what happened -- is leading to. Which is, of course, police departments responding and, in some ways, reacting to, say, Uvalde or some of these bad cases, are essentially just putting as much manpower, which has its own risk, and woman power, excuse me, onto the street.

That is because you have to close areas. It's an urban area. You cannot have people out and about if you've lost the suspect. You have a lockdown. You have to have people run out of the way if the person's active.

Then, as we now know, they -- the police department is being transparent. That immediate threat is gone. Now they're on a search. They're asking community members to -- or neighbors to figure out where he might be.

I will say, because of the nexus between the mother and the place where the shootings occurred, that he may have a plan to have escaped.

He brought a gun. He's with a sweatshirt. That might have been because of the weather. But this may have been something in which he comes in agitated, he has a gun, he has a weapon. One would assume that he wanted to use it or knew he could use it. And so this could take a little bit of time.

But the communication has been pretty good. But unfortunately, we're getting used to this, which is, you've got to put a lot of resources out there. You don't know how big it's going to get given the weapons.

SCIUTTO: Speaking of resources, just as we've been showing pictures there, those folks in military-style uniforms, they are police, as it says clearly on the backs of their flak jackets.

Police in body armor, police in an armored vehicle, and police with what appear to be at least semi-automatic weapons because the nature of the threat maybe they need those weapons and that sort of level of protection, as you can see there, to respond to shooters like this.

Nick Valencia has been following this from Atlanta. He's got some more details from police.

[13:40:02]

What do we know, Nick?

VALENCIA: Hey, there, Jim. Yes, the Atlanta Police Department telling me what we have already been reporting. Officially, they say they're look at this medical appointment as a potential cause for the shooting, as a potential motive.

I did ask the Atlanta Police Department spokeswoman if this individual was -- you know, potentially police had prior knowledge of him. That officially is still not the case. They are looking at that as well.

But one thing is clear, and officially on the record we are hearing from APD, they are looking at this potential medical appointment as being the cause of the shooting -- Jim? KEILAR: And what we learned from Ryan Young, right? He reported the

suspect went to this appointment and became agitated. And we don't know what specifically made him agitated.

But that is what precipitated the killing, we now know, of at least one person who was pronounced dead at the scene and three other people who are now in the hospital, including some with critical injuries, as the authorities are still looking for the suspect who is at large.

SANCHEZ: I'm curious to get a perspective from Josh Campbell here, who has covered so many of these shootings.

We just noted the level of response we're seeing. Military vehicles. Obviously, these are police, as Jim noted. It says so on their uniforms. But they are using weapons that are of a grade you would likely see on a battlefield.

What does that tell you, Josh, possibly about this incident and just the number of shootings we've seen across the country over the last decade?

CAMPBELL: You know, I talk to law enforcement officers all the time. They continue to describe how they are outgunned, particularly with some of the high-powered assault-style rifles that we see on the streets.

In this case, at least according to one of the photos police had tweeted out, it looks like the suspect was holding a pistol, at least according to one of the grainy photos.

But nevertheless, the reason why you're seeing this level of tactical response is because these officers don't know what they're facing.

I'll give you an example. Here where I am in southern California, we just went through a mass shooter training with local law enforcement where they basically took a college campus on spring break, turned it into a simulated war zone.

I asked them why are you doing this? They said because we may be the ones that who have to respond to the next mass shooting.

This is happening from coast to coast around the country. We see law enforcement having to continually plan for that.

One thing I wanted to point out, and this gets to what Nick and Ryan were talking about earlier, and that's these lockdowns that happen every time we have one of these shootings, these violent incidents.

I don't think we, as a nation, talk enough about the psychological impact these are having on people.

Obviously, our thoughts are with this deceased victim and their families and the three who were injured.

But think of just this ripple effect of all the people who are now in fear right now around that area, where you have schools on lockdown, you have shelter-in-place orders that have been issued, particularly since, right now, we don't know if the suspect has been contained or is on the run right now.

And this isn't happening just in Atlanta. Obviously, we've been reporting on the situation in Texas where you had a days-long manhunt for a mass shooter. There's a manhunt on the way right now for a stabbing suspect in California.

It's that ripple effect that happens where, psychologically, people are so impacted by violence, even if you're not at the scene.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CAMPBELL: And that's just a -- just like we see officers having to equip themselves, that's another casualty I think of this epidemic, is just the American psyche. We're just getting so used to these.

SCIUTTO: If you're just joining us, police have confirmed one dead, three others wounded in an active-shooter situation in Atlanta in the Northside Hospital Medical Midtown.

They have a photo of a suspect captured on CCTV, which we've been sharing and we'll continue to do as police look for his location.

Josh, I do want to ask you, because we've been showing what I believe are live pictures of a police SWAT team in military-style clothing. They are standing, they're not running, they're not entering the building.

What does that tell you? Does that tell you police don't know where the shooter is? Does it tell you that the shooter may have been neutralized? Why are they not acting or -- clearly, they're waiting for information to act.

But what does that tell you about the fact that they're not entering the building right now?

CAMPBELL: So they are quite literally standing by, waiting for assignment, waiting for god forbid if they hear the sounds of gunfire, if that continues, that will vector them to a particular location they need to go.

If their colleagues from these other agencies actually contain this person and they have to either go in and stop a shooting that begins again or try to call that person out and begin that resolution operation, they are there on the scene and in place.

What we don't know obviously is what is happening inside that building.

Now, if there's gunfire, you're not going to see what you seeing here, which is many, many officers that are staging.

But at some point, if they're inside and involved in what's called these clearing operations, there becomes a point where - a point of diminishing returns, where if you have dozens and dozens of officers jammed into hallways, obviously, that's going to make it difficult to methodically go through and clear in a safe way.

[13:45:07]

So we expect right now, because we haven't received the all-clear, that they're likely going through that multistory building. All the officers that arrived on scene well before these officers, and we're talking about many, many different agencies, but you see all the officers standing by and ready.

And we have to see whether or not they ultimately decide this person has been located or if they need to fan out. If this becomes a larger search operation, they will have what appears to be over 100 police over there ready to assist.

SANCHEZ: All right. Let's turn over to Ryan Young, who was live on the ground moments after we got the breaking news that the shooting was taking place.

Ryan, what are you seeing and what's the latest you're hearing from police?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris, the patchwork of police officers throughout this area really blocked off the streets here. So we had to get rid of our cars and sort of hike in. They've moved us several different times because they are trying to keep up a hard perimeter around this entire area.

You can see just off the side here, you can see the heavy SWAT personnel vehicles that are in this area. We are a block away pretty much from the location where this shooting happened.

If you look down this direction here, that is the corner of the hospital right there that everyone sort of focused on. I've been to this place before. Every different floor has a different sort of practice on the inside of it.

And for those who know Atlanta at all, the midtown Whole Foods is one block over.

There's a lot of focus on that building right now, and especially around that parking garage area. They really shut this area down to make sure all that traffic that usually comes here during the lunch period was also not in this area.

So officers are obviously concerned about the foot traffic. High foot traffic in this area during the day that they wanted to get out of this area.

Now, when we were on that block right there, we could see SWAT Units setting up in several different locations so they could get closer to the building. But obviously with the several different units, they're pulling them back and forth. No sort of active moment toward that building.

Now I've been talking to my sources and got that picture early on of that man in the hoodie. I've also learned some new information in the last 20 minutes or so

where I was told that the medical appointment was for the man and not his mother.

I've also been told he is a military -- former military servicemember and they were worried about his mental health before this happened. And so that was the reason why he was being brought to this location, to be talked to and evaluated, according to my sources within the Atlanta Police Department.

And after that, something agitated that man. I'm not sure anyone was aware that he was carrying that bag that apparently had a weapon in it. And then the shooting started.

And once that shooting started, I'm told several people were hit and, of course, we're not sure of the conditions right now. There were nurses inside the building who started locking their doors with their patients. Several different people calling 911.

The initial groups that got here, of course, were this Atlanta Police Department that was already training for active-shooting situations. Several officers armed with those extended rifles set up a perimeter on the scene and they were able to lock the situation down.

And that's why they started getting that picture out because they wanted to make sure if someone was in one of these buildings that they didn't get surprised by this man.

And they've also been putting "push alerts" out on iPhones as well to let people know this area is something everyone should be cautious of.

I want to show you something, guys. This building right here, there are some residents in this area as well. So they were also concerned with all these apartment complexes, that they didn't want that man roaming the hallways of some of these apartment complexes.

And that's why setting this hard perimeter at the time they did was so vitally important.

And so that is the question right now, do they have him located in an area and they're talking to him? I know they're talking to his mother at this point. They're trying to get information from her exactly about his condition, what may have been going on in his life.

There are several dozen other people who were inside that building who were terrified about exactly what was going on. They were calling 911.

And then you have the massive police response from all the agencies in the metro Atlanta area to try to make sure this block -- midtown area was sort of cordoned off and shut down.

You have all that happening and, at the same time, you have these SWAT Units setting up that soft perimeter as well so if they find out the location of this man they can move in if they have to.

Not sure if he has more ammunition. Did he come prepared for this? So many questions about that part.

But again, I was told from a source that this man was coming for a medical appointment for himself with his mother. There was a turn. Apparently, there was some intervention before.

And now all these extra units have flowed in this space to try to lock this area down -- guys?

KEILAR: And obviously, good news that no additional shots have been fired since the initial incident, according to the Atlanta Police Department.

[14:49:57]

I wonder, Ryan, what we should make of that. Because there are questions as you said about what the situation is right now. The suspect is at large. Do they know where he is? Are they talking to him? And we don't know, right, the answers to all of these questions.

YOUNG: Well, I've been texting with several different people about how the operations were moving. That's how I'll say it.

So when we were on this block right here, they made sure they pulled us off this block several minutes ago. So we've seen several different pockets of law enforcement in several areas. And then there was a focus of one building over there.

So there was a concern at one point that he may have been moving to the building next door. That's what one of the initial calls was. I think there were some 911 callers that helped the police know what direction in which the man was moving in.

One of the big questions now is, you saw him with that heavy, gray hoodie. It was cooler this morning. Did he shed that hoodie once he started running?

And, of course, maybe that bag that we see in that picture will help someone see him and see that military style sling bag over his shoulder, and that would indicate to some whether they see that picture, whether or not they need to call 911.

And I can tell you, the program here, in terms of people calling 911 has been pretty good in the early steps. There's a lot of people who were out here with their cameras shooting video. Iso 'm not sure what they've been able to gather from there.

The command center is about two blocks over my shoulder in this direction. That's when they moved us off that point. So we can see a lot of people at the command center.

I've been asking people involved, do they think they have him pinned down? No one can answer that question right now.

And, of course, you can assume, if he entered a medical office, is he watching television and getting information? So maybe they're not giving the flow of information that they would want to tip some of their positioning off.

And that could be the thing they're thinking about because obviously you want to think about officer safety and you want to think about the safety of the people who may be in these buildings, who don't even know that this active-shooter situation was going on just about a couple hours ago.

SCIUTTO: Ryan, you said he was going -- the suspect was going to an appointment for himself at the medical center. Do you know what that appointment was for?

YOUNG: Yes, and I'm tiptoeing here, and if I didn't think the source was 100 percent, I wouldn't say what I was saying. I think this is -- what the source was telling me is the family was concerned for this man's mental health and that he was a former military member.

What I was told is he was a member of the Coast Guard and served there for quite some time. And after serving there, something went sideways when he came back and his family was concerned.

And as you can imagine, I think his mom wanted to get him some sort of help and they've been trying to get him to see some doctors.

I feel comfortable saying this because the person who is involved in this is really concerned about this, the general area. They wanted people to know what was going on. That's how that started to build out from there.

And then during that appointment, something was said and that may have tipped him off to a certain side.

So we're still trying to put the nexus of this together, Jim. You know how this works. The flow of information comes in drips. And then, all of a sudden, it's a flow.

What I do want to say, though, you see how quickly APD not only moved in but pushed out the information of that picture so fast because they wanted this entire neighborhood to know exactly what they were dealing with and what they were looking for.

Instead of just giving a basic description of a black male, they put out a picture so you could see the fact that he is probably about six feet tall, looks like a pretty athletic build, was wearing a heavy gray hoodie, had the canvas bag over his shoulder, more than likely was carrying a handgun.

All of those things sort of flow together. So if you saw someone moving in that sort of way, you knew how to handle yourself, maybe you call 911 and maybe you get out of this situation.

Especially since there's a grocery store just about a block that direction, you would hate for an active-shooter situation to be happening one block over and then the guy runs down into the lunch crowds at the Whole Foods on the corner here.

I think that's what they were thinking about in terms of putting this together.

And I can tell you, the Atlanta Police Department has an extensive communications department and that's what they were thinking about in terms of getting that information out there.

And then bringing in those tactical squad officers who train for this situation all the time, who are not normally officers on the street.

And then you had the officers on the street, who were also set up for the active police situation who got their A.R.15s out, which many of them buy themselves, and set up a perimeter so the man couldn't extend this throughout the midtown area in the middle of lunch.

SCIUTTO: No question. Well, just to be clear, good and quick police work here in that they were able to get that image out quickly of the suspect and share it quickly. Because their focus now, right, is on finding the shooter and containing the situation.

SANCHEZ: Absolutely. And also, it appears as though they very quickly secured a perimeter around those buildings.

And that's something that I wanted to step back and focus on with Ryan because obviously this Northside Hospital Medical Midtown is located in a very busy area in Atlanta.

[13:55:00]

And I'm wondering, Ryan, if you can paint a picture for us of what that looks like on a standard Wednesday afternoon. A lot of folks in that area, as you noted, a lot of people going to medical appointments. Not an area where you would anticipate any kind of violence or the potential for a shooting.

YOUNG: Yes, Boris, that's a great point. I've been to this medical center before. I actually had an MRI there at one point. This is one of those medical centers that's popped up in the last few years here in the bustling midtown area. As we know, during the pandemic, Atlanta saw an unbelievable growth of people.

So you have a parking garage that's stacked to the side. And then you have several different medical floors. I think Northside Hospital is on the top but every single floor could be a different practice.

So we all understand that, at this point, and you hit the elevator and, of course, every floor might have a different doctor, right?

So at some point, there was some worry about, because all these buildings have those stacked parking garages, that the man might be moving through the parking garages and maybe carjack someone to get out of here.

They were able to shut down the exits to all of those parking garages. And on top of that, they were able to ascertain from that video system from security really quickly who they were looking for, push out that image. So --

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: -- because there's a lot of pictures. We're see it unfold. We're seeing two armored vehicles of police SWAT team in motion now. You see the officers hanging on to the back. Not clear where they're going.

But it's the first movement we're seeing from the team, quick reaction force, if you want to call it that. But it is a police force responding to the shooting. And we'll bring you updates as we have it as to why those officers are in motion.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And notably, there were people moving around in the background. It did not appear anyone was in imminent danger. The movement of those vehicles did not appear to be urgent. We see folks walking down the street.

Perhaps there is a sign that there is reason for optimism in terms of containing or neutralizing the shooter.

KEILAR: Certainly, this area where folks are staging, where police are staging is a safe area to be walking by.

This is midtown Atlanta.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: This is a very busy area.

Boris, you're familiar with it, having recently anchored a show based not far from there.

This is a place where people are going about their day, where they are working. And so you can see some of them have been sheltering in place. Obviously, that's been a huge disruption to the day.

Again, at this point, we did just see those Bearcat vehicles move, the armored vehicles that the SWAT personnel were on. We don't know where they're moving at this point.

SCIUTTO: That's been the question. We don't know if they've located the suspect. The latest update from police, which came 27 minutes ago, a half hour ago, noted there had been no shots fired since the initiation of the shooting.

What police have not said is whether they're making any progress as to the suspect's current location.

Ryan Young, he's been on the ground. He's been talking to police sources.

Ryan, tell us what's the latest you've learned?

YOUNG: Yes, I was talking to some sources and, of course, they were just sort of going through what the next steps are.

And so, as I'm sitting here talking to you now, I'm getting several text messages from police officers in the area. They say, right now, they don't have him located in terms of the situation. But he could be in this several blocks area so that's why they're keeping this hard perimeter. That's what's been said to me at this point.

As we work through this, of course, everyone is trying to figure out exactly what the next steps will be.

And again, what they are being cautious about is nobody wants to give up too much information as this person could be watching television and/or, you know, hey, we live in a new world, they could be streaming on their phone.

So they asked us to move back several different times. As you see, we are at the tape line right here. The police have set up a perimeter. We can't go past the perimeter.

It's set up that way all the way around this like four-or-five block area that they're making sure they have locked down. So they set that up. Obviously, there are certain points where you can get a camera into and see a little further down.

But also, we are being cautious. I don't know if they cleared the airspace just yet.

But again, you have to start wondering, in a situation like this one, whether the person involved in this is streaming on their phone or listening to the continuing coverage to figure out exactly what's going on.

So that's all a part of at least they were able to neutralize and stop the fact of the shooting going on in midtown at this point.

SCIUTTO: Well, Ryan, just provided an important update there. And, again, we should note that this information is coming in quickly and information can change quickly.

[13:59:59]

But to this point, police saying they have not definitively located where the suspect is right now. And that might explain some of the lack of movement we're seeing of those quick-reaction teams.