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LAX Suspected Gunman In Custody; LAX Shooting Press Conference; LAX Shooting Suspect Had Anti-TSA Rant

Aired November 02, 2013 - 16:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. You're in the NEWSROOM. I'm Don Lemon. Thank you so much for joining us. Top of the hour and we're going to get to Los Angeles live, we're awaiting a press comment there. In just moments we'll bring it to you.

In Los Angeles, troubling clues are emerging one day after a gunman opened fire at LAX killing a TSA officer and bringing chaos to one of the world's busiest airports. A source tells CNN the suspect 23-year- old Paul Ciancia had a note with an anti-TSA rant. Also, the note reflected his fear of an ominous new world order. Our affiliate KCAL and KCBS got this exclusive video and they're both reporting it appears to show the suspect handcuffed to the stretcher.

CNN cannot independently confirm who it is. We also had video of the chaos inside the airport moments after shots were fired and you can hear police screaming for people to get down. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the floor! On the floor now! On the floor!

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LEMON: Bags abandoned. So now stranded passengers are reclaiming bags abandoned in the panic and we're covering every angle of this story for you.

CNN's Kyung Lah is live at LAX. Our Chris Lawrence is live near the suspect's family home in New Jersey. Barbara Starr live for us in Washington.

First we're going to get to Kyung Lah. Kyung, right now the TSA chief John (INAUDIBLE) headed to Los Angeles to meet with the FBI and the grieving family of the officer Gerardo Hernandez. So, tell me, how is LAX honoring this fallen TSA officer?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the first thing you'll notice especially if you come at night because it will be more visible at night but when you enter the gates of Los Angeles, of LAX, when you pull in, there are these 100-foot pylons and those until Thursday will be lighting up the light sky blue for the TSA colors. That's the first way.

When you go in to check in, what you'll see is that the TSA officers if you look at their badges, almost every single one of them has a black band over it. The reason why this is so significant is these are semi, quasi-law enforcement jobs. Many of these folks are former military, but also there are civilians in the mix here. This is shaking them to the core, Don, and so this for them is certainly reminding them what they put at stake here every day, Don.

LEMON: Kyung, I need to get to the press conference. We'll get back to you in just moments. Stand by. Let's listen in.

GINA MARIE LINDSEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES WORLD AIRPORT: ... found impacting approximately 3,400 passengers. Now, passengers are checking in at T-3 now. The Jetblue and Frontier operations are actually operating at terminal three. The Virgin American operations are operating out of the Tom Bradley Terminal or the remote gates. Airline staff is taking them to their respective gates.

T-3 airlines are operating at the two adjacent terminals as I mentioned. Jetblue's flights for today are likely to be operating out of Long Beach Airport. We expect them to return back to LAX this evening.

Now, passengers who abandoned personal belongings during yesterday's evacuation of T-3 should work with their airline to claim everything that they left behind at Terminal 3. We greatly appreciate the public's patience during this. Most of the terminals are reporting that they are having normal operations, just very, very busy.

We know the security screening checkpoints are operating normally, but there is a very large demand. So, once again, thank you for everyone's patience. I know there are questions for Chief Gannon, so I would like to bring up our (INAUDIBLE) chief of airport police, Patrick Gannon.

CHIEF PATRICK GANNON, LOS ANGELES AIRPORT POLICE DEPT.: Thank you, Gina Marie. Good afternoon, everybody. Trying day yesterday for everybody involved. And as we mentioned yesterday, we'll mention again, that our hearts go out to the TSA officer that was shot and killed yesterday. That's a tragic event and to those others that were also injured.

In our attempt to try and to ensure that we keep security posture here that's high for the foreseeable future, I'd like to thank and continually thank our partners that came yesterday. Obviously from the Los Angeles Police Department, California Highway Patrol, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Hawthorne Police Department, El Segundo, all of our surrounding agencies that came very quickly to help us out.

Again, today in our enhanced deployment for Los Angeles World Airport, also in addition to our airport police officers who are here every day obviously, Los Angeles Police Department has committed additional resources. This morning I met with the federal air marshals and they are providing additional resources for us. And every agency in the surrounding area has offered resources to us if they are needed, and I'm very, very grateful for that.

Our whole posture for security is high profile. We have a security strategy that we employ every single day. Obviously today and for the foreseeable future we'll continue a very high profile at the curbs and anywhere in those ticketing areas and anywhere on our campuses. As I talked about a little bit yesterday or I said yesterday about how proud I am of the airport police officers who responded to this incident, who did not hesitate for one moment and confronted an armed and dangerous individual. Some people have asked about how those officers are doing, and I want to report to you that they're doing well.

To say that this wasn't a traumatic incident for them, I would be lying then because it absolutely - it absolutely was. But they handled it with the utmost professionalism throughout the night as they cooperated and helped with the investigation and interviews. They were here to the wee hours of the morning to help the investigators with what they saw.

I also want to emphasize one point also. When the TSA officer was shot and part of our responding officer, some of our responding officers obviously went downrange looking for the suspect. But additional officers began to treat the wounded officer. They performed first aid on this officer. We all carry trauma kits with - that we're assigned to that can handle open wounds and chest wounds and things like that. They brought out that trauma kit. They worked very hard to try to help this individual until paramedics could get there to help, arrived on scene, and put him in a wheelchair and transported him to the medical - to the ambulance down the arrival level on the upper - on the upper level.

These officers went way beyond what we would normally do. I mean, they were absolutely committed to trying to save a life. Unfortunately, that didn't work out in that case, but every attempt was made to help save that life. Just a few weeks ago actually on October 5th and 6th, I talked about it before, we held a large scale training exercise out on Ontario at a facility out there, an old hangar - not a hangar but a terminal. I can't believe I can't say that word right now. An old terminal out there, to actually practice this type of an event.

When we look at how we're going to respond to things and things that have occurred over the last - not that far when you think about what happened in Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya, and you think about what happened at the Washington Naval Yard, Sandy Hook Elementary School. It doesn't take much to want to be prepared and ready to handle an incident if it were to occur in our own backyard.

And so we trained up over 200 of our own officers and almost 200 officers from the Los Angeles Police Department in enhanced training to enhance the training that they'd already received on this. And I can't tell you how many people, how many officers, have stopped me both today and yesterday to express how grateful they are that that training occurred. And so that training was provided not only by our officers who are trained and certified in that but also with the help of the Los Angeles Police Department.

So, great cooperation here at this airport to ensure the safety of everybody. And so I just really want to end by once again saying how sorry we are that somebody - that people had to be hurt in this incident, but we're confident that we're trying to do everything we possibly can do to keep this airport safe. Thank you.

LINDSEY: Thank you, Chief. LAX is part of a broad community. Nothing happens here without great partnerships. People come from far away that use our airport every day, but we are very fortunate to reside in council district seven, West Chester Playa Del Rey, I want to introduce and welcome to the podium our Council member Mike Bonin, Council District 11.

MIKE BONIN, L.A. CITY COUNCILMAN (11TH DISTRICT): Good afternoon, everybody. As Gina Marie indicated, I'm the council member who represents the airport and the surrounding communities. Yesterday morning shortly after 9:30, one guy, a single man with a gun, demonstrated the worst of human nature. And all throughout the rest of yesterday and today tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated the best of human nature.

Our first responders, our airport employees, our civil servants, and the passengers who were traveling through here yesterday and today. All demonstrated that in a pinch, in a crisis, in a tragedy, when challenged, Los Angeles is ready and knows how to respond, and this is one tough town.

Barely 24 hours after this happened, terminal three was partially opened. Less than 30 hours after this incident this airport is going to be fully functional. That is a remarkable achievement. That is unheard of. The work that Los Angeles Airports has done in order to make everything come back to normal in so short a time is nothing short of miraculous.

And it parallels the kind of work that we saw by the Los Angeles Police - the Los Angeles Airport Police Force yesterday and again today. The fact that they disabled this assailant within minutes was actually remarkable and saved untold lives. I am absolutely confident that when we analyze this event after the fact, we're going to see that what the police force did yesterday is absolutely textbook.

We had great work by our first responders, but we also had great work by our second and third responders. We had cooperation yesterday from the Los Angeles Emergency Management Department, from the Red Cross, from L.A. County Mental Health, from the L.A. City Department of Disabilities, from the city's Recreation and Parks Department, from the mayor's office of Homeland Security, the county sheriff, highway patrol, Los Angeles D.O.T., the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau and Los Angeles Metro. Everybody came together yesterday to show that Los Angeles is ready in a crisis. Thank you.

LINDSEY: Thank you, councilman. And I am very proud to say that -

LEMON: We're watching a news conference now taking place in Los Angeles. They're updating the situation that happened yesterday, of course, a horrific situation, one person lost their lives. You can see they are applauding the officers who helped out there. There are still lots of questions here. You heard the councilman said we are prepared, we are prepared, in a situation like this.

The question is, though, how did this gunman, this lone gunman, get into the airport and wreak so much havoc on the airport. Where were the other armed officers here? Our Barbara Starr is going to join us on the other side of the break and talk a little bit more about that and also talking about the suspect will be Chris Lawrence who is at the suspect's hometown in New Jersey and our Kyung Lah live at LAX. We're going to continue to monitor this press conference for you. If any more news comes out of it, we'll bring that to you.

But on the other side of the break, how did this happen and what might change of in light of this?

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LEMON: Back now breaking news on CNN, we're following this press conference that you see right here over my right shoulder. The officials at the Los Angeles International Airport are updating the information after yesterday's rampage. LAX is the sixth busiest airport in the nation and we have complete coverage for you on this particular story.

I want to get to all of our players here, Kyung Lah is live at LAX, Chris Lawrence is live at the suspect's hometown, (INAUDIBLE) New Jersey and Barbara Starr is in Washington monitoring details there from the Pentagon.

Barbara, my question to you, you heard the press conference there where they're saying we're prepared, we're prepared. How did this gunman get all the way to security? Where were the other armed guards?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is going to be the key question for the investigation by all accounts, Don. You know, what we now know but we don't have really a full explanation of why is that armed officers at some point in the past had been moved away from those TSA checkpoints. Some say that the officers had said it was a boring assignment, they needed to do more, the TSA says the officers perhaps weren't paying enough attention, all of this being reported by our Dan Simon in Los Angeles.

So, there's a question - could they really respond within still the required two minutes to that crisis point. That's going to be something clearly that will be looked at. Because when you look at a diagram of the terminal, you see exactly what you are talking about. The shooter goes through the checkpoint and then moves down this long passageway towards the food court.

So, how does he move all this way and not get stopped by anyone else - by any other law enforcement. What we did learn at this press conference that's just concluded, they tell us that law enforcement responded very quickly and did chase him, if you will, down that passageway. And while they were going after him, other officers arriving at the scene of the downed TSA personnel and rendering extraordinary assistance to the mortally wounded TSA officer using their emergency first aid packs, anything they could, to try and save him until paramedics could arrive in the middle of all of this, even putting him into an airport wheelchair and trying to get him out of there and get him to an ambulance as fast as possible. Of course, sadly, tragically, we know that man lost his life. But it does go to the really heroic response of law enforcement still there will be a lot of questions about all of this and whether any changes are need in the TSA and law enforcement posture.

LEMON: Yes. And I want to - let's see. I do want Chris? Stand by, Barbara. Do I want Chris or Kyung - who is better to answer this? Let's get to Kyung and then Chris, I'll get to you. Kyung, here's my question, there is very little buffer - you travel at the LAX, that airport a lot. I go through that airport a lot. There's very little buffer between the street and security at LAX, you go right up the steps and you're right at security.

Same thing at La Guardia, you're off the curb and right at security. In Atlanta you've got a big buffer between the curb and the security checkpoint. What are they looking in to try to mitigate that, something from happening again?

LAH: Well, the terminal is just reopened and I was actually standing outside the doorway from the sidewalk where you are dropped off, Don, it is maybe 12 steps before you get to the spot where the TSA officer was shot.

And then once that weapon is out and he is firing, it's very easy to move on in. So, I think the question is going to be an infrastructure question. Do those spots need a change. Because literally it is 12 spots. You are absolutely right. The way LAX is built, you drop your luggage, you walk right in and the TSA officer is there right beyond the door.

LEMON: Yes. Kyung, stand by. Chris Lawrence in New Jersey, we're going to get to you because we want to find out more about the suspect, but, Chris, I'm going to do it on the other side of the break because of that press conference I've got to get a break in and we'll go to our Chris Lawrence in New Jersey to find out about this guy.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ahead, on "SGMD," literally coming back from the dead. There's some remarkable video you're going to see today of someone being rescued from an overdose. You know, every 19 minutes someone in this country dies from a prescription drug overdose and the question we're answering, could a simple medication be an antidote to that prescription drug overdose epidemic? Join us, find out at the bottom of the hour.

LEMON: OK. We are following some breaking news here on CNN. We just watched a press conference out of Los Angeles with new updates after yesterday's rampage at LAX, sixth busiest airport in our nation. I want to find out now more about the suspect here.

His name is Paul Ciancia, Chris Lawrence is standing by at the suspect's home, and he is in New Jersey, in Pensville, New Jersey, as a matter of fact, in his hometown. What are we learning about this man, this young man, as a matter of fact? CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, I can tell you right now, I mean, his family pretty much is sad, overwhelmed and more than a little bit confused. They are telling the police that they just did not see this coming. The family is saying that, number one, they didn't know he had a rifle. They're saying he didn't have any history of mental health issues, and they say that Paul Ciancia was back here at home over the summer for a wedding and at that time everything seemed fine.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is the state of mind of the family members?

CHIEF ALLEN CUMMINGS, PENNSVILLE, N.J. POLICE DEPT.: Obviously, you know, they're upset. It's a shock to them and to our community. At this point right now, you know, this is - the FBI in California and the FBI here in New Jersey, they're working together as a team, and they're going to, you know, turn every stone over and try to find out what happened and why it happened.

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LAWRENCE: One of the things that's going to make that difficult is we found out talking to people he just was not that close to a lot of people outside his family. You talk to young people in this area and they will tell you, he mostly kept to himself and was very quiet, Don?

LEMON: Chris, he moved to Los Angeles 18 months ago from New Jersey. To do what?

LAWRENCE: That's the key. We don't know yet. But I think that's the key, Don. 18 months ago, that's not all that long. He lived his entire life right here. He grew up here, went to school right over the bridge in Delaware at an all-boys private Catholic school. But it's still very hard to find friends who knew him well and were close to him.

LEMON: All right. All right, Chris Lawrence in New Jersey. Chris, thank you very much for that.

At the top of the hour we'll have the very latest on that shooting at the Los Angeles Airport. Right now I want you to stay tuned for "Dr. Sanjay Gupta." we'll be back live at the top of the hour.

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