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CNN News Central

Iowa School Shooting. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 04, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:02:18]

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: We are and have been following breaking news for you out of Perry, Iowa, multiple law enforcement agencies responding to a shooting that happened at Perry High School early this morning, probably just as school was starting to -- people were starting to come into the school.

Any moment now -- we have been just listening to the police department as they're about to hold a press conference, doing the mic checks and all the things you have to do beforehand, but you are seeing a very large police presence there.

What you are not seeing, because police have said this is a secure area now, what you are not seeing is the signs of an active shooter, which is the good news from this morning. We do not know any of the details as to who the shooter may be, who may have been or may have not been shot. We do not know any of those. We just know that there was an active shooting going on early this morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: And, again, number of victims, which I know is a question that many people have on their minds right now.

Our producer who drove to the scene and was helping us with these pictures you're looking at right now saw ambulances traveling in the other direction. That's all we know. Again, we will hear from the Dallas County sheriff. Dallas County is where Perry is located about 20 miles northwest of Des Moines. We're going to hear that news conference any second. We will jump in the minute it starts.

In the meantime, CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem here and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe is with us.

Juliette, let me just start with you.

This news conference, we don't know anything. What will you be listening for?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Anything.

Well, obviously, as an analyst and as a mother, you want to know the extent of this, of the tragedy and what occurred in the rooms. We haven't heard any news of any numbers of those shot or any fatalities. As Andrew was saying and we have all been saying all morning, we have been doing this enough. It's not guessing. There's not a lot of ambulances. There may have been some, but we

don't know if there were people in them. I haven't seen ambulances with sirens. Those are the kinds of things you look at. So, that's the first thing.

The second is just never -- I feel we're on this enough and I'm texting with your producers and I'm -- is this a big deal or is this not a big deal? It's based on the numbers, but we should never forget that it should be a big deal whatever the numbers are in terms of those hurt that we have guns and school shootings.

And it's hard for us to even manage the numbers now, as we're seeing this as the fourth in 2014. There's not even that many days of school shootings. So, those are the two different pieces that get merged because we do focus, of course, on the numbers.

SIDNER: Andy, we have been watching -- and I know you have been looking at the scene too -- officers really sort of bringing down their attention there in front of the school.

[11:05:05]

But what happens next? Because we are hearing, of course, that the area is secure, which gives you a hint that the shooter has either been neutralized or captured. What happens now? Because there's a ton of work that has to be done now in these kinds of cases, especially if it happened inside the school itself.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Sure.

So, first and foremost, Sara, you have got to preserve the crime scene and collect as much evidence from that scene as you can. It is that evidence that enables you to reconstruct what happened, understand not just who committed this act, but what led them to committing that act?

Like, how did they enter the building? Were they carrying weapons that they brought into the building? Had they secreted those weapons inside the building in a locker or a closet ahead of time? Where did they move first? Where did they shoot first? How many rounds did they shoot? These are all important things.

Even if there is no prosecution to come of this, if the shooter has been neutralized on the scene, we still want to know exactly how this happened, so that we can possibly learn from it to try to protect this school and other schools better in the future.

So that also leads to a more broad investigation about the motives and the intentions of this offender. And, again, we don't know if that person is alive or dead at this point, but it's still important to us as law enforcement, as security experts, but to society in general, and certainly to this community, to understand why this person did what they did.

We don't always get the answer to that question, but understanding as much about it as we can is important. So they will look at social media, they will look at journals, writings. They will interview friends and family members to understand what might have been going on in this person's mind that led them to this point.

So, all of that work is really in front of this small town right now.

BERMAN: And, again, we are waiting for a news conference from law enforcement there, the Dallas County Sheriff's.

And we are looking at these pictures live coming back to us. We can see the law enforcement presence there. We can see the relative calm on the scene.

All we see, Juliette, is law enforcement. We have been watching this now for about 45 minutes. I don't think I have seen one single student in our camera shot.

KAYYEM: That's...

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Which is fine, which means either that they have been removed from the back or that we're not showing the students.

Normally, what would happen with students in this situation, family reunification?

All right, hang on, Juliette. Here we go.

KAYYEM: OK.

BERMAN: We have people now approaching the microphones. Last-minute audio checks here. This will be the Dallas County Sheriff's Office. Let's listen in.

ADAM INFANTE, DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS, SHERIFF: You good?

My name is Sheriff Adam Infante, I-N-F-A-N-T-E. I'm the sheriff here in Dallas County. I'm joined by our state, local, and federal partners here at the Perry High School.

This morning at approximately 7:37 a.m., we had a Sears (ph) radio activation at the high school, which indicated an active shooter situation. Our officer first arrived within seven minutes of that activation and located multiple gunshot victims.

We're still unclear of exactly how many are injured or what the extent of those are, but we're working on that right now. There is no further danger to the public. The community is safe. We're just now working backwards, trying to figure out everything that happened and make notifications.

There will be another update later on today. We're still very early. This happened at approximately 7:37 this morning. School didn't start yet, luckily, so there was very few students and faculty in the building, which I think contributed to a good outcome in that sense.

But we will have more information later on this afternoon. We will not be releasing any more information in the meantime, so please be patient with us, so that we can talk with these victims and their families and try and figure out what happened.

We won't be answering any questions today either or right now. We will let you know later on this afternoon what time we will be meeting back with you again, and we hope to provide more detail then.

QUESTION: Just to be clear, you don't have a number of people who were injured from this?

INFANTE: We're still working on that.

QUESTION: Have you identified the shooter?

INFANTE: Yes.

QUESTION: What's their current status?

[11:10:01]

INFANTE: We will get to that later on this afternoon.

QUESTION: Can you confirm if the shooter was a student at the school?

INFANTE: I can't confirm that right now.

QUESTION: Can you confirm me any death?

INFANTE: No, not right now.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... reunification center for families and students right now?

INFANTE: Great point. The reunification center has already been established, and that most of those -- I think all the kids have been reunified already. So we're good in that area. Thank you.

QUESTION: Were there any faculty members that were hurt?

INFANTE: I can't answer that question yet.

QUESTION: Have you made any apprehensions or arrests?

INFANTE: Can't answer that question yet either.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will take no further questions at this time. We will see you this afternoon.

QUESTION: When's the second presser? Sorry. Just want to make sure.

INFANTE: I -- will let you know. I -- we don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iowa Department of Public Safety will push out a message as far as location and time of the next press conference.

QUESTION: OK. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So if you go to the Iowa Department of Public Safety Web site, it'll be posted there probably within...

INFANTE: Shortly after noon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shortly after noon.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry?

QUESTION: Any of the surveillance video available?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's nothing more that we're going to be able to answer right now.

INFANTE: Yes, thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

INFANTE: We will be back.

BERMAN: All right, you have been listening to a news conference from the Dallas County sheriff, Adam Infante, some new details filled in here; 7:37 am local time, 8:37 Eastern time, before classes had actually begun, they got word of an active shooter inside the school.

(CROSSTALK)

SIDNER: Yes.

BERMAN: An officer arrived seven minutes later and found multiple gunshot victims. Now, they did not say how many victims or the extent of the injuries. They told us that would be released later in the day.

SIDNER: They did. They also said that there is no danger to the public. They are working to figure out what happened, but they were asked -- because the officer, the chief, made a statement that notifications have been made.

And often, when you say that, you think that somebody has perished, but he was pointedly asked, has anyone died? And he said no. So that's what I heard from the reporter to the sheriff. I'm not sure if that -- because he didn't -- he didn't have a lot of the details.

BERMAN: One of -- the question I heard, was the shooter alive or dead?

SIDNER: Yes.

BERMAN: He said no word on that.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: The shooter, we understand, has been neutralized.

SIDNER: Right.

BERMAN: There's no further risk. No word on whether the shooter is alive or dead. No word on -- no word on whether there were faculty who were injured, but did say there were not many people at the school when the shooting took place.

SIDNER: Correct.

BERMAN: And he saw that as good news. No further threat to the public. They made that abundantly clear.

SIDNER: And that they had identified the shooter as well, so they know who they were dealing with. We do not know what the status of the shooter is. We do not know what the status of the injured are at this point in time.

But, obviously, families have to be notified as to what happened there before school started. But there were still students and faculty, of course, in, because school was going to start pretty quickly, and people were still coming into school.

Let's -- we have got Andy McCabe, I think, and still Juliette Kayyem with us.

Juliette, I'm going to start with you.

When you hear the details that you just heard, multiple people have been injured, there was a shooting inside the school and they were alerted at 7:37, but they don't have a number, what does that tell you, how the police don't know what the number is yet?

KAYYEM: So they probably do know what the number is, but may not have been able to reach all family members.

Like you, I'm a little bit confused, so I want to be -- I mean, not that you're confused, but...

SIDNER: No, I am.

(CROSSTALK)

KAYYEM: ... I thought it was a little bit confused in the press conference.

SIDNER: Yes.

KAYYEM: Because you couldn't hear what he was answering to. But my understanding is that no fatalities.

So here's what's interesting is at least we learn, is, this explains the sort of lack of activity of students or parents, that this was pre-school. Those of us who have high school kids know that there's clubs and newspapers and even sporting...

SIDNER: Yes.

KAYYEM: ... training before, so it would have been a limited target, so to speak.

And we also don't know if this is an employee. And that would be telling and maybe may also explain the timing and also the fact that they know actually who the person is who perpetrated it. So we will learn more about that, the key details in terms of are there lots of -- our understanding so far is, is this a high-fatality, high-casualty event, the answer is no.

That's consistent with what we're seeing. We don't know the extent of the injuries, nor the gun. But I just -- so, it's so challenging in these instances to say -- he even said he said. He said, this good outcome. I mean, it's so challenging, because there's a lot of people or multiple people shot, to say that's a good outcome, but we certainly know what he meant, which is, of course, the alternative is always the tragedy, yes.

SIDNER: In this country, it is a good outcome, sadly.

BERMAN: And we were wondering just before the news conference started, Andy, I was wondering about reunification, parent notification.

The officer did say, the sheriff did say that there had been a reunification center set up, but he believed that everyone had been connected at this point with their families and the students that were there; 7:37 a.m., they got the call.

[11:15:00]

Seven minutes later, the police arrived, which is a quick response, Andy, but there were already victims, gunshot wound victims, there when the police arrived.

MCCABE: Yes, John, as we have seen so many times before, even a quick response is too slow, right?

You can never get in front of this. Law enforcement will never be able to get in front of the shooter before they arrive somewhere and start doing what they intend to do. So, seven minutes is pretty good, especially for a place that seems pretty rural, and it's a small town.

You're not talking about the middle of downtown Atlanta or Memphis or any of the other cities we have seen. So that's a pretty quick response. I also noted that he said they were making notifications now.

SIDNER: Right.

MCCABE: Notifications is really something that would happen, you would contact a victim's family members if that victim was deceased...

SIDNER: Deceased, right.

MCCABE: ... or if they were grievously injured and unable to speak for themselves or maybe had been spirited away to the hospital and you want to tell that family where they are. So I think that's certainly another indication that they have multiple

victims who are -- who were pretty seriously injured. And he also mentioned that they are starting to work backwards, which is conducting that investigation that you and I were talking about just a minute ago. And he said, and we won't know more until we talk with the victims and the families.

So, again, they're -- I feel like they're just starting to get their hands around this thing. They certainly don't want to do anything, speaking to victims, injured, and deceased, speaking about that until all the families have been notified. And so you don't want to ever have people learning about their family members on the news.

SIDNER: Juliette, can I just quickly ask you before we go to break here and try to get more details, what does it tell you that this was before school started?

So, whoever the shooter is would likely have known that at 7:37 in this small town...

KAYYEM: Yes.

SIDNER: ... families are not, there aren't a ton of people inside the schoolhouse. So what does that tell you? Does this give you a clue that there was someone specific, or what?

KAYYEM: I mean, there's a range of possibilities, just given the timing, obviously.

And so one could be just the randomness of someone deciding to shoot in the school at the time that they decided to. But one of the things that I would be looking at from this perspective is someone who was focused on a particular place or group that was meeting at that time. So that would either be employees or some student group, because -- if that is, in fact, what their purpose was.

And just consistent with what Andy was saying, that the -- when the sheriff said that they needed to talk to people who were injured about why it would be -- it would seem that they have some understanding that this was a focused target for the shooter, and that is consistent with the timing, that you would do it before school.

And the timing obviously now discloses why we're seeing pictures like this. I was surprised we didn't see any kids, and I thought that they might still be under lockdown. And, basically, they weren't there at this stage. I mean, look, this is a small community. It is dealing with whatever the numbers are, an absolute tragedy in a high school that is presumably the only high school for the community.

So that's going to be impacted for a couple of days. I mean, this is a -- these are the social consequences of the violence itself. Whether you have one dead, 10 dead, whatever these horrible numbers are, the ripple effects for these communities, in terms of closing of schools, the closing of the community college nearby, commerce and other things, are impacted as well.

And we don't have a way to measure that, at least not now.

SIDNER: Yes, the emotional and mental toll that this takes on everyone, families, the community, the teachers, the staff, everybody that's in there, is just too high to imagine.

Juliette Kayyem and Andrew McCabe, thank you both so much. We will probably be coming back to you as we learn more details.

Our coverage continues just after the break. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:23:25]

BERMAN: All right, the breaking news out of Iowa, we just heard from law enforcement there confirming a shooting at the Perry High School.

They got word of it at about 7:37 am local time. Police arrived seven minutes later and found multiple shooting victims. No word on how many or the condition of the people who were shot there, although they made clear there is no current danger to the community, as -- in other words, it's a secure situation, no ongoing threat.

SIDNER: They did say too that they had identified the shooter, but we have no details on who that was, whether they were related to the school in any kind of way.

CNN producer Aaron Pellish is there for us now. He's been taking these pictures for us.

So, thank you and your team for that. And, obviously, the candidates are in town, and there are a lot of people in town, reporters in town, and producers in town, because that is where Vivek Ramaswamy was today. He's already tweeted out that he sent his prayers to the community and to the high school there in Perry.

Aaron, what are you seeing at this hour? And did anything strike you from the press conference that you were videotaping?

AARON PELLISH, CNN PRODUCER: Yes, Sara, it's a very calm scene here, it seems like, as the Dallas County Sheriff's Department said in their press conference, just a minute ago, that they have this scene under control here, a lot of law enforcement still on the ground here, a lot of media here obviously covering developments as they still unfold.

One of the things that struck me, as we heard from the Dallas County Sheriff's, that they got reports from the incident at 7:37 a.m. local time, that there was a shooting incident at the school and, as we heard, multiple gunshot victims.

[11:25:12]

I was driving up here, as you mentioned, for a Vivek Ramaswamy event that was taking place in town around 10:00. The event was scheduled for around 9:00 local time. So I was driving up here in between 8:00 and 9:00 heading towards the event, and saw dozens of law enforcement, emergency medical personnel from all across Central Iowa, State Troopers, Polk County, which is the county that Des Moines is in, Dallas County, Greene County, a nearby county in Iowa.

Urbandale police, we have seen on site. West Des Moines police, we have seen on site, so law enforcement from all over the place responding within the hour to this incident. And, as you said, Sara, we're still learning more from law enforcement here.

SIDNER: Aaron, I know that you sort of just got into town the last couple of days, but I'm wondering if you know the hospital, the one that I found that was a trauma one center was all the way in Des Moines, which is a 40-minute drive.

Did you notice or see anything closer, just a hospital, because gunshot wounds require such intense care?

PELLISH: Sara, it's hard to say. I'm not as familiar with the state as some others.

SIDNER: Yes.

PELLISH: I have spent a lot of time here political events, but, luckily -- luckily, for me, I have not spent a lot of time at the hospital.

But Des Moines is the largest city all around. We have talked about it on air recently previously. This town is a very small town, less than 8,000 people. Des Moines is the capital of the state. It's about 30, 45 minutes away. And so those facilities would -- I imagine would be the nearest -- nearest by.

And as I was driving up here, as I said earlier, as I was driving up here to cover the Vivek Ramaswamy event, just in the last couple of hours, we saw EMTs, ambulances driving away from Perry, Iowa, towards Des Moines. So that is in all likelihood the direction they were headed.

SIDNER: Yes.

Aaron Pellish, thank you so much for doing triple duty today for us and getting to the scene so fast to give our viewers a view of what's going on there at Perry High School, where there has been a confirmed shooting, multiple shooting victims, according to the sheriff there.

And we will be checking in with authorities, trying to get you the most information that we can and new details after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)