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Middle School Shooting; Chris Christie Speech; Third Person in Cockpit; 7-Eleven Hostage Standoff; West Virginia Water

Aired January 14, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. NEWSROOM continues right now with Brooke Baldwin.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thank you.

Great to be with you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And just a heads up as we begin the hour, a short time from now, we're watching and waiting for this police news conference on a shooting this morning inside a middle school. This happened in New Mexico. A suspect in custody, but it's still not clear yet as to whether or not that suspect is a student or not.

Meantime, two children rushed to the hospital. The school quickly went on lockdown. CNN's Miguel Marquez is tracking the developments for us right now.

And, Miguel, what do we know?

Oh, he lost his ear piece. OK, let's move along and as soon as we see Miguel we'll ask him as we wait for that news conference.

Also -

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, I can hear you now.

BALDWIN: Oh, here we go. I hear you, Miguel, go ahead.

MARQUEZ: Well, what we know happened so far is that at 8:00 a.m. at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell, New Mexico, a student walked into that school, we believe it was with a shotgun, and shot two other students, critically injuring them. A 14-year-old boy and a 13-year- old girl were both air lifted from Roswell to Lubbock, Texas, to a level one trauma center, where they are listed in critical condition.

The one piece that we don't know for sure is whether the shooter himself was shot. Police are saying he was apprehended or arrested, but they are not saying whether he gave up willingly or put his weapon down or whether they had to, you know, take him out in some way in order to force him to give up.

This is a school where sixth to eighth graders go, amazingly enough, shockingly enough. That would put these students anywhere from 11 or 12 to 14 or 15 years old. Everybody was taken from the school into the parking lot there, and then police were able -- and city managers were able to set up a collection area at the Roswell Mall. Some area - some several miles away from the school itself.

Roswell is a town in southeastern New Mexico. It's a rural area. The place where this school is, is particularly rural. Shotguns would be a fairly common weapon in that part of the country. I know it well.

We are expecting a press conference in an hour.

BALDWIN: OK.

MARQUEZ: And we expected that the governor of New Mexico and the head of the state police there will be in attendance, as well as the superintendent of the school and other officials trying to make sense of this all. Clearly, all hands on deck in New Mexico trying to understand what happened there.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: We'll be watching for that police news conference. Of course, we'll bring it to you here on CNN. Miguel Marquez, my thanks to you.

What we'll also be watching today, Chris Christie, New Jersey's Chris Christie, in less than one hour as well is to begin his state of the state address. And given the snowballing investigations that threaten his reputation, we do expect to get a glimpse at the state of Chris Christie himself and his political aspirations here.

Take you back just a couple days and that lengthy 108-minute give and take with reporters last week, Christie said it certainly wasn't him who ordered those fishy lane closures that tied up traffic for days and days back in September, in a town whose mayor had refused to back Christie's re-election, this Democratic mayor. Of course, he also announced the firing of his deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, who has sent - who had sent, I should say, a suspicious e-mail back in August suggesting some sort of need for traffic jams in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Jake Tapper, host of "The Lead," is in Trenton, New Jersey, right now.

And, so, Jake, we have these two investigations into this whole traffic scandal. Then you also have this federal probe into Christie's handling of Superstorm Sandy relief funds. You know, as we wait for this state of the state in about an hour, do we know when, how, how much he will address these issues?

JAKE TAPPER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "THE LEAD": We know that he will address the George Washington Bridge controversy during the state of the state address. We're not sure what exactly he's going to say, although contrition has been the way that he has discussed it so far, saying that he had nothing to do with it but he's sorry, he is ultimately responsible as the governor.

When it comes to the Superstorm Sandy funds and whether they were misused with that ad campaign and in any other way, that's a charge that the administration here, the Christie administration, doesn't take all that seriously. They say that this probe is really not that big a deal. They're just looking into -- an inspector general looking into whether the funds were spent properly. The federal agency that the inspector general works for, the Housing and Urban Development, had signed off on it. They are not worried about it. But Christie will, we're told, go into ways that the Sandy funds were spent and talking about how they were spent wisely.

Most of the address, of course, will be spent talking about New Jersey business -- education reform, pension reform and talking positively about the last four years and looking forward to the next.

BALDWIN: You bet. Everyone will be watching and waiting for the governor to address specifically what we've been covering, and that being the issue with this bridge. We have seen it before, you know, where investigations are launched, subpoenas are issued and deals are cut and then all of a sudden the ugly truth, if you will, you know, spills out. I mean, Jake, do you think that that could be an imminent danger for Governor Chris Christie given the fact that you now have one, two, you know, three investigations, two of which investigating by the feds?

TAPPER: I think it's true that even his closest allies acknowledge that if there is any evidence that he was lying in his press conference last week, if he said anything untrue about his knowledge, that will be calamitous for Governor Christie. But people close to him say, that's not the case.

Obviously, there are still a lot of investigations to go. A lot of subpoenas. We haven't heard from Bridget Anne Kelly, the deputy chief of staff. We haven't heard from the man who was the head -- supposed to be the head of the Republican Party, Mr. Stepien, about his role in all this. He, of course, was un-nominated by Governor Christie for that role to be state chairman of the Republican Party. So there's still a lot of voices and a lot of versions of events that we have not heard from.

That said, Governor Christie is inside right now running through his speech. And his team do not seem worried. That's not to say that they are taking this lightly. They take - they know very seriously that this was a very hard hit on the governor and his reputation for being hands-on and anti-corruption. But they don't seem concerned because they have faith in him. Whether that faith is well-placed, we will find out in the coming weeks and months as the investigations continue.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: And we will see you, Mr. Tapper, at the top of the hour from a very rainy Trenton, New Jersey. We'll be looking for Chris Christie inside that state house coming up, as we mentioned, 3:00 Eastern. Jake, we'll see you then. Thank you very, very much.

Now to this. Just into us here at CNN, we are now learning that a third person was inside that cockpit of the Southwest jet that landed on the wrong runway on Sunday night. This third person who was not a pilot. The plane at the time carrying more than a hundred passengers landed at this airport seven miles from its ultimate destination in Branson, Missouri. Let's go right to Rene Marsh live in Washington. And so, Rene, when we talk about this third person, who was this third person, if not a pilot?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're right, it was not a pilot. We now know that those two veteran Southwest pilots, they had some company in the cockpit. A source familiar with the investigation told CNN, and we just got confirmation from Southwest Airlines, that a company dispatcher was seated in the jump seat behind the pilot and co-pilot. The jump seat is a fold-down seat. It's in the cockpit. And we do know that this employee, which essentially dispatches the flights there, they were authorized to be in that position, to be inside --

BALDWIN: They were authorized?

MARSH: Yes, they did have authorization to be there.

But now, at this point, now that we know this new information, we know that investigators want to know if that third person created maybe a distraction causing the pilots to land at the wrong airport. Because we do know that during those critical phases of flight, we're talking about takeoff and landing, there is an FAA rule and it's called "sterile cockpit," and that simply means that only conversations relevant to takeoff or landing are allowed because they want to cut back on potential distractions during this very crucial, critical points of flight.

BALDWIN: OK. So questions are being asked and we know an investigation is underway. And the whole issue with this, which we should be clear, this plane, this jet, ended up landing on this runway that's about half the length of the intended destination. We still don't know the answer to the question, which is, why, right?

MARSH: Absolutely, because, at this point, neither the FAA or the NTSB has said this is the official cause of why things went so wrong on Sunday. And we want to make really clear, this new information that this third person was in the cockpit, it is one of many factors that investigators are going to be looking at. Right now, no one is saying that that third person in the cockpit created this distraction that led to this mistake -

BALDWIN: Paints a clearer picture.

MARSH: But it is something that they have to look at. Exactly, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. Rene Marsh in Washington. Rene, thank you.

MARSH: Sure.

BALDWIN: Coming up, graphic video of a woman being held hostage outside of a 7-Eleven. You will see how it ends and hear directly from her in the purple jacket. And we'll talk to the photograph who shot this video from Denver.

Plus, right now, a court hearing is underway involving the shooting inside a movie theater. What drove a retired police captain to allegedly shoot and kill someone at the movies for texting during the previews, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just moments ago, a retired police officer made his first court appearance one day after allegedly shooting and killing another man inside of a Florida movie theater in an argument that apparently started because the man was texting. As the previews rolled ahead of the Monday afternoon showing of the film "Lone Survivor," witnesses say an argument over the use of this cell phone escalated into a shouting match. Voices were raised. Popcorn was thrown. And then came the unimaginable. In the movie theater, a gunshot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX CUMMINGS, WITNESS: Man, I can't believe he got shot. And he started walking. And then like -- he said, Alex. He started - just blood started coming out of his mouth and I was like - I just held him. I was like trying to hold him up and he just fell down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was talking at first?

A. CUMMINGS: He was talking at first. He was trying to talk. And he started walking. And blood -- he started talking more and the blood came out of his mouth. It was just a very bad scene.

CHARLES CUMMINGS, WITNESS: He staggered two seats over, fell on my son and I. I asked my son to go call 911, which is what he did. I fellow was in the movie. He said he was a nurse, jumped down, they started pumping the gentleman's chest until the paramedics arrived. But that's - that's what happened today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow, so that's the guy's blood that you have all over you there?

C. CUMMINGS: Yes, his blood, his blood, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The gentlemen they were referring to, the man shot, 43-year- old Chad Oulson. His wife was hit as well, as she raised her hand in front of her husband as the shooter drew his handgun. The shooting suspect is 71-year-old Curtis Reeves. A large group of family and friends, colleagues attended his first court appearance just to show support for this man who was not present in the room. He appeared via video link. His attorney talked about his connections to this community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ESCOBAR, ATTORNEY FOR CURTIS REEVES: He retired actually in 1993 from the Tampa Police Department. He retired as a captain in the tactical division. In fact, he was responsible for co-founding the tactical response team for the Tampa Police Department. He was commander for 16 to 17 years, was on the selective enforcement unit, was a homicide detective, was a property crimes detective and taught various courses at the Tampa Police Academy.

After his retirement in 1993, your honor, he served as the director of security for Busch Entertainment Corporation, which is Busch Gardens, where he obtained various certifications in security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The judge overseeing today's hearing ruled Reeves will be held without bond. He has been charged with second-degree murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE LYNN TEPPER, PINELLAS-PASCO CIRCUIT COURT: The only description I have is he was struck in the face by an unknown object, not by a hard object, not that he was knocked around, just struck in the face by an unknown object and, regardless of human life, pulling a gun, when hit in the face with some unknown object in the additional information in here is popcorn, it may or may not have been popcorn, but an unknown object doesn't equal taking out a gun and firing it at somebody's chest. In addition, that certainly would be to affect the death. The court is finding that there is more than sufficient probable cause of second-degree murder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Stay with us as we follow that one in the courts.

Meantime, a woman is taken hostage as a 7-Eleven in Denver. The whole thing caught on camera. But first, just a warning, some of what you are about to see is graphic, but if you choose to watch, watch closely.

You heard that single shot. The gunman goes down. He is now in critical condition, and that woman in that purple jacket who was being used as a human shield, she came out of this unharmed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLAS LEROUX, TAKEN HOSTAGE: It's terrifying. It was stressful. And I don't wish it on my enemy. Great job. I got out alive, so I guess they did, huh?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Thank goodness. The photographer who shot these amazing images, Paul Makarushka, he is a photographer with KDVR in Denver.

And, Paul, thanks for joining me.

PAUL MAKARUSHKA, KDVR PHOTOGRAPHER: You're welcome.

BALDWIN: So, here you go. You, you know, get this assignment from the assignment desk. You hop in your truck. You've got your gear. You head to the 7-Eleven. You're standing there across the street, hit record. Walk me through initially what you see. MAKARUSHKA: Well, initially I saw a police officer off to my left, and he looked at me and I think he was just too wrapped up with what was going on at the 7-Eleven, obviously. And I just hit record and I was looking as closely as I could into the 7-Eleven to see if I could see either one of them. And then when I saw the suspect and the victim come walking out, I knew that something was going to happen. And then when she said -- when the woman said to the suspect, I'm not going back in, I knew that it was going to get pretty hairy pretty quick.

BALDWIN: So you actually heard her say that. And tell me how long these two were standing outside the 7-Eleven before you hear that single gunshot?

MAKARUSHKA: It wasn't very long at all. It probably lasted all of about two and a half minutes or so.

BALDWIN: And describe the scene around you. Was there a tremendous media presence or were you alone?

MAKARUSHKA: Well, I was circling the scene trying to find a good vantage point, and I went down one alley, which was barricaded, and I shot some video there. And then I went up a block and then went down that alley and there was no one else there. And then all of a sudden I realized I was only, you know, 100 feet away from the door. And somehow I got inside the perimeter it appeared.

BALDWIN: Wow. And as we - or as, I should say, as you were there and actually could see this woman, this victim, this female shield who was using, at the same time, there are people inside this store as well. Other hostages, correct?

MAKARUSHKA: That's correct. Yes. There was, I believe, one other manager that was inside at the time. And she was locked in the office. And then an additional manager had gotten out through back door. And so he was out of it. But the woman, Betty (ph), I believe her name is, was still inside.

BALDWIN: And so this woman just finally - I know you or your reporter talked to this woman, this victim, who thank goodness survived. She said it was stressful. Did she say anything else?

MAKARUSHKA: No, she was very hesitant to talk in the first place, but she said that she would talk to us for a little bit. And you could see that she was still pretty shaken up. And as you see in the video, when she was being led out, she must have been terrified. And I think she was just trying to, you know, move on and try to, you know, get her life back to normal again.

BALDWIN: Can you blame her? Not at all.

MAKARUSHKA: Not at all.

BALDWIN: Paul Makarushka, thank you. KDVR, thank you so much for sharing this with us here at CNN. Appreciate it.

Coming up, thousands of people still without water in West Virginia. Federal inspectors right now are on site investigating the chemical spill there. All of this as House Speaker John Boehner says the industry doesn't need more regulation.

Plus, the home of Justin Bieber raided today, wait for it, over the egging of a neighbor's home. These are the aerials of his mansion. Folks, this is a felony investigation now. We will explain. We'll take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A little bit more relief for some folks in West Virginia who have now gone without water for five long days. A do not use order was lifted today for yet another zone. West Virginia American Water Company says the South Ridge south side area near Charleston has now been given the all-clear, but nearly two-thirds of the people affected are still waiting to use their taps here. The spill has also prompted preventative measures in neighboring states. So, Cincinnati has stopped taking water from the Ohio River until traces of the chemical have passed them by. Then you have two Kentucky water systems doing the exact same thing. But those valves are back on.

This chemical leak has really put a spotlight on loose regulations in the state of West Virginia. Today, federal inspection teams arrived from our nation's capital. Meantime, a judge has ordered Freedom Industries not to destroy any evidence.

And this morning, House Speaker John Boehner expressed his dismay over how this spill could have happened in the first place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Why wasn't this plant inspected since 1991? I am entirely confident that there are ample regulations already on the books to protect the health and safety of the American people. Somebody ought to be held accountable here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Eighteen class action lawsuits have now been filed against this company, Freedom Industries, and also the water company. CNN correspondent Jean Casarez has more on the state's investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These tanks hold hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemicals. They just sit a mile from Charleston, West Virginia's, only water treatment plant. And yet the state has not inspected these tanks since 1991. That's because it says the tanks are now considered storage.

RANDY HUFFMAN, W. VA. DEPT. OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: The material that they were storing there is not - it's not a hazardous material.

CASAREZ: And because they are considered not hazardous, they don't have to be fully regulated by the state or federal government. And that means no inspections. DOUG WOOD, FORMER WEST VIRGINIA STATE BIOLOGIST: It is a pollutant of course, it's something that doesn't belong in the river.

CASAREZ: Doug Wood, a water biologist, who worked for 33 years at the state's Department of Environmental Protection, says just because it's considered a pollutant does not mean it's not dangerous and doesn't mean it shouldn't be regulated.

WOOD: It's one of a class of thousands of chemicals that haven't been studied.

BOOTH GOODWIN, U.S. ATTORNEY: These are tanks that should have been inspected, I would imagine.

CASAREZ: West Virginia's U.S. attorney, Booth Goodwin, has launched an investigation and says regulated or not, hazardous or not, no one is above the law when it comes to keeping the water safe.

GOODWIN: The tanks were in bad shape, with their secondary containment systems were shoddy, if they had a release, saw it, and didn't report it for a while. All of those things are things that we would be looking to.

CASAREZ: Goodwin says it is still too early to know if laws were broken, but the fact that the facility just changed ownership might make it easier to determine who knew what and when.

GOODWIN: If you violate federal environment laws, you will be prosecuted.

CASAREZ: The mayor of Charleston, who calls this the worst disaster in his city, welcomes a criminal investigation, but does not let the government off the hook.

MAYOR DANNY JONES, CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA: I'm not sure what responsibility the state has here, but if not them, who?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: And Jean Casarez joins us live there in Charleston.

And, Jean, you're on the ground. You're talking to folks. How angry are people?

CASAREZ: You know, I think people are so upset, they have to make a joke out of it because, you know, yesterday, the federal courthouse was closed and I asked the U.S. attorney, you know, why did you shut down the whole courthouse? And he said, well, if people can't take a bath, we don't want people to have to come to the courthouse.

BALDWIN: Oh.

CASAREZ: But this is something that is really disrupting their normal life. And, you know, Freedom Industries fell through the cracks. And we spoke with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection that is saying that at the legislative level, there are going to be changes. Now, I don't think they know what the changes are going to be, but it could be that storage facilities have to be regulated and then they would be inspected, or that pesticides have to be regulated and then would be inspected, the facilities.

We do want to let everybody know that a federal lawsuit has just been filed in regard to this case.

BALDWIN: Oh, wow.

CASAREZ: They are suing in federal court, civil. They wanted it to be designated as a class action suit. And on a federal level, the manufacturer of the chemical, Freedom Industries, and also the water treatment plant right here in Charleston.

BALDWIN: A federal suit now as well. Jean Casarez, thank you very much. We will be following this in West Virginia.

CASAREZ: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Coming up, sheriff's deputies swarm the home of pop superstar Justin Bieber today. Why? I tell you, this whole thing could all be related to eggs. We are expecting the sheriff to speak live about that at any minute now. We're watching for that.

Also, two police officers acquitted in the beating death of a homeless man. Look at this. In the video here, this man calls out for his father. And coming up next, we will speak to that dad who says these officers got away with murder. A lot going on today. Stay with me. You're watching CNN.

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