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Source: TSA Agent Killed In LAX Shooting

Aired November 01, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Talk to me, Steve, though about what we're not seeing. What is happening with members of law enforcement, with LAPD, with others, as far as backtracking? We know that the gunman is in a hospital. We know this gunman was shot. You mentioned, you know, finding the suspect's car. Where do they go from there?

STEVE MOORE, RETIRED FBI: Right now, you're going to have probably the FBI taking the lead on at least doing a complete background check on this guy. Right now, any information that have, including his fingerprints, I can guarantee you he's already been fingerprinted whether he's cautious or not, those are been uploaded into the system, and everything you can find out about him is going to be coming out within hours, minutes for most of the information.

Washington FBI is going to be the headquarters is going to be working on this. Their data centers around the country are going to be working on it. And you're going to come up with a profile of who this guy is, what motivated him, as he ever been in law enforcement before? You're going to know his favorite color and his favorite food within about an hour.

BALDWIN: Incredible. Steve Moore, retired FBI, thank you so much. Please stay with me. We're looking at these pictures. Different live pictures, aerial pictures outside LAX, you see the tremendous crowds. That picture, the smaller picture in the middle of the screen, you see a bunch of microphones. We're awaiting a news conference from officials, potentially FBI, certainly L.A. police as they responded as did LAX police and airport security officials.

We're awaiting that news conference to get a little bit more information and so as we await that, let me just reset, for those of you who are just now joining us, a terrifying ordeal unfolding this morning inside one of the biggest and busiest airports in this country, according to folks close to this investigation, we can tell you that a gunman at some point, according to eye witnesses, wearing gray clothing and wielding some sort of rifle, assault rifle, walked into this airport and just before breaching airport security at terminal three, opened fire and shot a TSA agent.

So that TSA agent, we know, is wounded, don't know the status any more than that. In an exchange of gunfire between these gunmen, this unidentified gunman and law enforcement, who quickly responded, the gunman was injured as well. Is in police custody, and is now also at the hospital. So we know that there are many, many eye witnesses, and this is just -- just imagined this happening at one of the busiest airports. Hundreds of people are stuck. They don't know where their bags are. They have to get rescreened. They're going to be questioned and investigated. You see the tarps outside the passenger drop off and pick up area on the right side of the screen.

That was a pop-up triage area, as we have seen, gosh, by my count, some dozen ambulances responding as this has been a multiple injury incident here at LAX. Stephanie Elam is one of our correspondents who has responded to this shooting at LAX. Stephanie, tell me where you are and what you know.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Brooke, I have been circumventing the airport on foot because I ditched my car far away that I could start to walk. I just made it to Terminal One, and there are hundreds of people out here, just standing here, hoping to get back into the terminal. I did see on my walk one family that was walking. I asked them if they had just landed and they said they did.

I was like, what about their bags? They said they couldn't check, so they're lucky. The people who have checked luggage are not getting them back right now. The other thing, it's really hot out here today in Southern California. I'm on the phone right now. So I was walking here, and looking at the e people trying to hide underneath the palm trees, up against walls, just sitting there.

And they're lugging their big suitcases and people who couldn't get out. They're waiting or some people are giving up and going home. So there are a lot more people at terminal one than I thought I would see, Brooke. There are a lot of people. Hundreds of people standing out here right now that I'm walking by.

BALDWIN: Stephanie, stay with me. As you sort of paint the scene outside, let me tell those of you watching, according to eyewitnesses I have talked to, a number of our anchors have talked to from the scene inside, after they heard these gunshots, many of these people hid in rest rooms, they ran into office areas, one young woman I talked to, spoke with me, incredibly emotional, speaking about pushing a copy machine up against the door.

And everyone whispering, speaking in hushed tones, turning off their cell phones, turning off their ringers for fear that this gunman could still be out there and could still be walking about. So just absolute, palpable fear within this airport and really in and around this Terminal Three area.

Stephanie, I think that I know the answer to my question as far as traffic being really, really bad. Do you know if law enforcement, do you know if, you know, ambulances are still trying to get to the airport or do we know that those who have been injured are in fact en route to or at area hospitals?

ELAM: Actually, as I was coming up here, there were actually ambulances that have passed me on their way up here. I heard some were stuck in traffic and not able to get around. They were coagulated in the traffic, and they're now making their way up here, but Century Boulevard, which is one of the main arteries to 405 is completely shut down.

They have tape up, trucks up, making sure no one tries to get around it. I walked around to get here. They're still making sure that this environment is safe. It is not as if they're acting as if it's completely done at this point. Definitely, as you probably heard, they're still asking to see my ID every 20 feet even though I have gotten through so many clearances. They're not messing around out there right now.

BALDWIN: Yes, can you blame them? Stephanie Elam --

ELAM: Not at all.

BALDWIN: -- walking around and around because traffic is so bad here, and understandably so, at LAX. Stephanie, thank you. Don't go too far. Leslie Rockitter was an eyewitness this morning. She's at LAX. Leslie, can you hear me?

LESLIE ROCKITTER, WITNESS (via telephone): Yes, I can.

BALDWIN: Leslie, tell me, just take me back to the very beginning. Where were you outside, inside the airport when the shots rang out?

ROCKITTER: I was actually right in the terminal, in Virgin America. I was waiting for a flight to New York and I was just walking around in the Virgin America Terminal. And suddenly, I just heard alarms and I heard very, very loud gunshots, and people started just running. And it sounded like 50 feet away from me.

I ran the other way and got into a bathroom under a counter where people were just hiding, and you heard nonstop gunshots going about 10 minutes or so, and it was very, very frightening. Right now, we are in the international terminal where they walked us to safety, and they're going to be interviewing us to see if we witnessed anything. But it happened so fast, but it was terrifying, terrifying, to say the least.

BALDWIN: Mayhem, worst ordeal of anyone's lives. These are things we're hearing from those of you who have seen it. Stand by for me, Leslie. Deborah Feyerick, I understand you're getting more information here on the shooting. Go ahead, tell me what you know. Deborah Feyerick.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I'm sorry, Brooke. OK, so what we're learning now, that is we have two sources now, myself, I have a source, and my colleague, Evan Perez, has also has a source. We're now being told that one TSA agent was shot and killed. The gunman was also shot as he stepped through that security checkpoint. He was taken to a local hospital. We are now told that at least one security -- one TSA agent was indeed shot and killed during this. We're also being told that the operation is being scaled back somewhat in the sense that the heavy presence you see. They're now going to focus on the witnesses who may have been near the checkpoint when the shooting took place. They have to re-secure the area, but they're looking at this as if this was one gunman, one incident in which he approached the checkpoint -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Do we know yet, Deborah, do we have confirmation yet that this person was acting alone?

FEYERICK: They were looking for other people and that's procedure. You've got to figure out exactly what is going on, but now they believe he did act alone. They did search the other terminals. Terminal three is connected to terminal two by sort of a breezeway, a Jetway, so they had to make sure that that entire area was secure.

Right now, what they're doing, also, is pulling all security cameras, all the surveillance video from those terminals. You can imagine, there are a lot of them and they're going to sort of re- create and piece together specifically what happened and I'm also being told the gunman was wearing camouflage gear. He was carrying an assault rifle.

It was concealed when he walked up to that checkpoint. That's when he pulled it out and managed to get through after the shooting began, about ten shots, Brooke, were fired. Those were a combination of shots by the gunman, but also shots by responding officers -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Deborah Feyerick, thank you so much, with the latest information there. You just heard, now we can say this was a fatal shooting this morning inside LAX. Leslie Rockitter is still on the phone with me. She was inside this terminal, inside the Virgin America Terminal when she heard the shots.

Leslie, sorry to break away. Let me come back to you. We have some pictures that you allowed us to show. Let's put those back up until the news conference is officially under way. Take me back, Leslie, you say you went to try to find some safe place. You and others went to a bathroom.

ROCKITTER: Yes, we basically ducked away from the gunshots to the bathroom and there was probably, I want to say about 20, 25 people in the bathroom hiding. The scariest point for me, though, was we constantly heard these gunshots, and suddenly, you heard someone shouting, is there anyone in here?

And you just saw the barrel of this machine gun pointing at us or pointing inside the bathroom, and I thought, this is it, I'm going to die. And then it happened to be the law -- a sniper, a police officer that was there to secure the area. But for that brief moment, you had your life flash before you.

BALDWIN: We have heard that.

ROCKITTER: And then we -- everyone was -- they didn't know if there was another shooter. So they had us stay in the bathroom, and everybody was hiding in the stalls because they thought it was another guy roaming around the airport, so we had to stay in the bathrooms for approximately another 40 minutes, I want to say. And then at that point, they just had us come outside, wait a little bit, then they started walking us en route to the international terminal. Like I said, where we're being held right now for any kind of witness --

BALDWIN: Forgive me for interrupting you. Thank you so much. We're glad you're all right. Here we go, the news conference just started, LAPD. Take a listen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One more time. Mayor Garsettee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two-minute warning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Los Angeles Airport Chief Police Patrick Gannon.

BALDWIN: OK, you just heard that, 2-minute warning. In the 2 minutes, Elizabeth Cohen, you're just joining me here in the studio. What can you tell me?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We just received a statement from UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center. They say they have three patients there from the shooting, all three men. One is in critical condition and two are in fair condition. So that's all we know so critical condition means, of course, that this person is in imminent danger, possibly of dying. You know, this is a level one trauma center, terrific hospital. Obviously, they can handle this and much more than that. But they do say that they have three men, three patients in their hospital from the shooting.

BALDWIN: Here's a question I have had. When we were watching this makeshift triage area popping up right there along the drop-off, the passenger drop-off pick-up area, we saw the three different colored tarps. Do they signify status of patient?

COHEN: They do. You see the green rectangle, yellow, and red. The green is for patients who are able to walk, ambulatory patients. They're injured, but they're doing pretty well. The yellow ones are for folks who are injured and need help, but they're not at risk of dying imminently. You can wait a little bit of time. The yellow in the middle, those patients can wait. They're not going to die any minute.

The red ones are for the patients who they're really worried might not make it and that's how they do their triage. It's really a simple and standard operating procedure, simple and brilliant. This is how you separate patients. You can see the activity in the yellow, but it doesn't appear to necessarily be a patient.

BALDWIN: Guys, tell me in my ear. Are these live pictures? No. I have been trying to watch the screen and sync as well, but I think I saw they were wrapped them up, which would tell me that at least hopefully those who had been injured inside this terminal are taken safely away. Would that be correct? COHEN: I would think so. If they're wrapping it up, that would seem to be a logical conclusion. They go from the airport to this tarmac, to this area where they did that triaging, and as we can see, quickly, you know, to a hospital. I mean, this sort of reminds me eerily of the marathon bombing in April where similar kind of activities, they drill for this, they know how to do this.

BALDWIN: As we are under 60 seconds away from the news conference here, dealing with gunshots.

COHEN: Right.

BALDWIN: -- at a trauma one hospital.

COHEN: They deal with that all the time. They deal with that all the time, and they drill for surges. So they drill for, you know, thank God, it wasn't the case, but mass groups of people, if it had been dozens of people or hundreds of people shot. An urban hospital like this is accustomed to dealing with gunshots wounds.

It's not a huge, huge deal for them and they made a note that they have enough blood to handle what they need to handle, although they welcome people to give blood if they want to. They're very much accustomed to doing this, as the paramedics who were going out to those three red, yellow, and green tarps are very accustomed to doing this. This is what they drill for.

BALDWIN: OK, Elizabeth Cohen, stay with me as we await the news conference. I'm keeping my eye on the screen, waiting for law enforcement officials, potentially the mayor of Los Angeles joining us. Steve Moore, I still have you, a retired FBI. Here's a question just thinking talking to Elizabeth about the injuries, we heard from an eye witness who said they were specifically told in the airport as they were being moved to the tunnel and kept, not to step in blood and not to step in shattered glass. Why would that be, Steve?

MOORE: They're trying to protect a crime scene. It's -- one of these things you try to do if you can. Obviously, that's going to be secondary to the safety of the people. But as long as you're not in imminent danger, there is no reason to destroy the crime scene, which may be valuable. You don't know what you're going to find in the shattered glass.

Certainly, there could be something in the blood or in the location of the blood that would be important. What you also don't want to do is track blood into an area of the airport where the guy never was and caused yourself some issues about what happened here.

BALDWIN: OK, and as you have been watching our coverage, you've been watching and learning as we have now learned this TSA agent who was shot by the gunman at that security checkpoint is dead. What questions, just from your law enforcement mind, what questions do you have about everything?

MOORE: Well, right now, what you're trying to do is get an idea to gel as to what you're dealing with here. Because really, you can call in 400 people and shut down this airport for two days if you think you have an imminent problem. You're trying to scale back, much like you just saw the green, red, and yellow triage areas.

You as an investigator are trying to triage your investigation. How far do we have to go here with this investigation? In 2002, when Hesham Hight came in and killed three people, it was what we call a lone wolf attack. It is a single person, possibly on their own, likely on their own. Just deciding that whatever grievance they perceive, they're going to resolve themselves and this, to me, kind of smacks of one of those lone-wolf attacks.

The guy was not in any way shape or form part of a large group of people, which would be the sign of a terrorist attack. He seemed to be alone. I don't -- this doesn't strike me as a religiously motivated, at least as far as an organized religiously motivated attack. This guy, I would start to think about whether we had one deranged individual rather than a statement of any political nature.

BALDWIN: Again, on the gunman and this is the information we're getting here, that this gunman shot and killed or I should say the TSA agent has died, in and around that checkpoint area, but according to our sources, this gunman we are talking about was dressed in sort of grayish, almost camouflage clothing.

Did conceal his weapon up until those last moments when he pulled out what's been described as an assault rifle, and some ten shots were ultimately exchanged, not just from the gunman, but from law enforcement that responded as well. That gunman was hit and is now sitting in a hospital.

We're talking to Steve Moore, retired FBI. Elizabeth Cohen, too, getting an update on the status of the folks who have been injured, and we're awaiting this news conference, running a little late, a lot of moving parts. Understandably so, waiting for this news conference to begin, to begin to fill in some of the blanks as far as what happened inside.

Steve Moore, here's something else. As we we're looking at some of the people, I don't know if they're walking toward the microphones, there are masses of people right now sitting in the airport. These are the folks who had already gone through the security checkpoints. One eyewitness said she's sitting in the international terminal. Another said he's just sitting in a tunnel. The purpose is to keep them in one spot and to ultimately rescreen them, but really, that's for investigative purposes, yes?

MOORE: Yes, it is also for investigative purposes. Again, like triage, like medical, you're going to go from one stage to another stage to another stage. Initially, what you're trying to do is get them in an area where they're not vulnerable to gunshots or bombs. Secondarily, you're going to try to keep them out of areas where there could be a secondary device or a secondary gunman.

The third phase is the immediate investigation. Do we have another suspect in the crowd who has blended in with these passengers? That's number three. When you -- when and if you can say we've got the one guy, and when you can say it to a certainty that you're willing to bet lives on, then you say, and by the way, I always hated to be the person who had to make those decisions. You, at that point, say you know what?

We can release these people. Excuse me, you can release these people by identifying them, showing that they had a ticket, showing that they were in a place they were supposed to be, and release them at that point, once they have been interviewed to see if they were witnesses. So right now, I don't know.

I can tell you they're not in phase one or two, but they're still deciding how far to go phase three and phase four. They have got -- meanwhile, you've got an entire another group, an investigative group, who is burning through the electrons, trying to find out who this guy was, and anything you can tell from the information you have. And that's going to be tough.

BALDWIN: It looks like we have some officials walking toward the podium.