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Mass Stabbing At Pittsburgh Area High School; Pinger Maker Hears, Confirms First Ping Set

Aired April 09, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: That's how severe their injuries were. The high school went into lockdown mode during the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: The school has been searched twice for any additional and some of these students in the area were immediately questioned to see if there was more than one actor involved. Apparently, we are reporting only one actor.

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COSTELLO: Only one suspect to blame for 20 people injured. Jean Casarez is following the story for us. Jean, what have you found out from your source?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That one suspect is in custody and is being questioned by officials right now. This all happened when the doors opened to the school this morning, 7:13, 7:15 is when the first call came in. Students arriving for the day. Driving, being dropped off by their parents. The school bus bringing them.

It happened right at that time in a classroom or classrooms and a hallway. The deadly weapon was a knife. The knife perpetrated stab wounds and slashes wounds were culminated as you are saying in the surgeries that are taking place right now as we speak. While victims are being treated at four hospitals in the area. Other students are being reunited with their parents.

They were held at another school until their parents could pick them up. They are not allowed to leave on their own. The high school itself is now an official crime scene.

COSTELLO: It is mind-boggling that one suspect armed with one knife could create such chaos.

CASAREZ: It is amazing. That is the reality. So often we just think about guns as being deadly weapons. A knife can be a deadly weapon. As the trauma doctor told you, these are life threatening injuries in some of these victims that range in age from 14 to adulthood.

Those in surgery, their blood pressure was so low they had to be in surgery. The CAT scans, x-rays, ultrasounds that are now being done to determine if there are internal injuries could result in more surgeries to follow with other victims. COSTELLO: Yes, he was describing some of the injuries to these students, which he said were around 15 years old. They also have one adult at Forbes right now. I don't know the age of the adult. The students were 15 years old. Some of them suffered stab wounds to the torso, back, stomach, quite deep wounds. Two of them are in surgery right now.

Three others are waiting to go in. Jean, stick around. I want to bring in Ken Trump. He is the president of the National School Safety and Security Services and also Jeff Gardere. He is a psychologist. Welcome to both of you. Ken, I know you are on the phone. Can you hear me?

KEN TRUMP, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL SCHOOL SAFETY AND SECURITY SERVICES (via telephone): I can hear you fine, Carol.

COSTELLO: So this particular high school had a school resource officer on duty. Authorities tell me that school resource officer did all the right things. In general, describe how that went down.

TRUMP: The officer first and foremost focuses on neutralizing the attacker, taking that person in custody in whatever technique has to be used. After that, they are taking care of the injured, making sure that you have emergency medical services rolling, securing the building, getting students locked down, into the areas, out of the hallways, into a place where they are safe and not visible for attack.

They are going to be wondering about whether or not there are multiple attackers. You have one person in custody. Are there other people involved? That's in the back of the mind and then the actions they are taking while securing the building. At the same time, they have to have something in place to hit the ground rolling with parents who are going to be showing up on scene due to students' texting, Facebook posts, Twitter and other social media.

So there are so many things going on that you have to have these things planned in place. You have to go ahead of time. You have to drill for these things and meet some of the basic fundamental drills and you have to know the mechanisms in place to deal with these different simultaneously. The parents are going to keep rolling to the schools. Texting and social media is going on. They want their children. The ambulances need to get in.

We are looking at video now that is rolling with buses lined up. As you saw ambulances lined up. You are going to see parents lined up. You see parents wanting their children. Carol, it is just overwhelming. The reality is, if you don't have a school resource officer there to be the first responder and ready to roll.

If your staff is not ready to roll, people don't know what their duties are as crisis team members of what to expect. The situation could be even worse in terms of injuries as well as in managing parent concerns. Getting information and getting the kids back in the arms of the parents.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about that a little bit with Dr. Jeff. So parents, probably most of them, found out from the news that there was an incident at this high school. They probably rushed to the scene looking for their children. We understand that authorities transferred those kids to another school. It took parents a find where their kids were. I can't imagine the pain everyone is feeling there.

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: They are learning about it from the media. As Ken Trump said, and he is absolutely correct, probably even quicker, from social media. You better believe kids were texting and taking pictures and video and so on. This is coming as quite a shock to parents. Quite frankly, despite all of the other massacres in all of the other schools, we see them more and more.

These parents are still going to be in shock. This is really, truly a culture shock because they see the schools as still being a safe haven. That thought is certainly dissipating in their minds. In the minds of all parents across the United States at this particular time.

COSTELLO: These kids are at such a tender age, 14, 15 years old, 16 years old. A tough time in your life. It is also interesting that this suspect, who was also a student at the school, I would assume he is between 14 and 17, right? He chose to use a knife.

GARDERE: It is too early to talk about it. I hope the gun lobby doesn't get into this idea of guns don't kill people. People kill people. This is a very complex issue. We have to look at the fact that yes, it was a knife. There are probably mental health issues going on. They need to determine whether the suspect was on legal or illegal drugs, whether he had mental health issues.

You asked how can someone wreak such havoc, probably, this person, if he is not medicated or self-medicated was in a frenzy, may have been having some sort of emotional issues along with some rage. He has this adrenaline. He is pumped up. That's how you are able to do something that is so monstrous.

COSTELLO: All right, let's go to Pittsburgh now. Dave Bondy is a reporter from WPXI. He is at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. Tell us more. Do we have Mr. Bondy?

DAVE BONDY, REPORTER, WPXI: Five people were taken here to UPMC East. We were over there on the property, but we were told to leave. We are here right now. We have not been able to talk to any parents or any students whatsoever. But a hospital spokesperson did meet me when he came out of the building, he had no comment.

Our sources at our station have confirmed through UPMC Media Relations, five people were taken here. We don't have a breakdown to how many students and how many adults. This is something that hospitals have a plan in place. It is called a mass casualty incident. As soon as the call goes in, people in the emergency room know exactly what to do, what their roles are. That went into place today at several hospitals as we know throughout our area.

So right now we have five people at UPMC East. We are not sure on their exact conditions. We are going to be out here throughout the morning trying to learn more. I want to show you. We have an ambulance coming in. I'm not sure if that may be related to what has been going on. We're trying to talk to anybody who has been out here. We have been kept off the property.

Right now, five people here at UPMC. We will be out here throughout the morning bringing you any information as we get it. Reporting live, Dave Bondy, Channel 11 News.

COSTELLO: Of course, some of the other victims have been admitted to other area hospitals around the Pittsburgh area. I want to bring back in Jean Casarez and talk about how this attack went down. We both listened to Dan Stevens earlier from Westmoreland County. He said the stabbing happened early in the morning around 7:13 this morning. It happened in restrooms and the hallways of the school. Do we know anymore?

CASAREZ: I think at this point, we are hearing classrooms and hallway. I want to tell everybody, we are just learning that the FBI is now assisting local police in this investigation. They are playing a supporting role. The investigating agency is the local police, but the FBI is involved. It did happen just about 7:13 this morning when the doors were just opened. Students beginning to come in. Classes start at 7:30, 7:40 at that high school.

This attack happened before the first class began. In multiple locations, it sounds like, involving many people. We know 20 victims. We know some are in surgery now, life threatening. Obviously, when you think about the slashing and the stabbing to backs and torsos in the front and also the stomping. Can you imagine the melee of trying to get out when someone has a vicious knife attack?

COSTELLO: I cannot. I want to bring back in Ken Trump. He is the president of the National School Safety and Security Service. Ken, you were telling me earlier, this happened at the start of school. That concerns you. Why?

TRUMP: It's a really vulnerable time, particularly at the high school levels. We are doing security assessments. We are finding many schools, the custodians are unlocking the doors at 6:00 in the morning due to staff coming in and some student activity. Oftentimes, opening too many doors in our opinion. The point is that students are arriving oftentimes before all the teachers and support staff are in place. There is a skeletal staff for supervision.

We have a scenario that occurred at 7:13, if not a little bit before the initial call at that time. The classes start just about a half hour later. The question we have is where are the adults? We are not saying that they are at fault for causing this attack obviously. We want to make sure that schools are best prepared. Oftentimes, the teachers are just arriving or perhaps just getting into the office, heading to the classrooms, not in the halls, proactive, supervised, where you can quickly intervene or prevent an incident from occurring.

We are looking closely at what time do you open the doors, what time are staff in place and ready to go. You have to have adequate staff supervision, not just security and policing. But the adults who are ready to roll as soon as the first students hits the door because as we've seen in school shootings and in today's incident, a lot of these incidents happen just as the students arrive in the morning and schools are at a skeletal staff and not ready for something like this to occur.

COSTELLO: Understandable. Of course, we will learn much more about how this incident went down a little later on today. Ken Trump, thank you so much for your insight. I so appreciate. Jean Casarez, thanks for your fine reporting and Jeff Gardere, thank you for your insight as well. I got to take a break. We'll be back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: We are going to continue to monitor the breaking news out of suburban Pittsburgh, 20 people injured in a school stabbing attack.

But we want to switch gears right now and focus on our other big story this morning, the search for Malaysia Flight 370. A development that officials say has them optimistic they will find the plane's wreckage. Fresh signals detected by the pinger locator aboard the "Ocean Shield" confirmed that overnight.

That brings the total to four signals recorded over the past several days. All of those sounds, all of those signals located within 17 miles of one another. The man in charge of the search detailing the discovery and where things go from here now.

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ANGUS HOUSTON, CHIEF COORDINATOR, JOINT AGENCY COORDINATION CENTER: The analysis determined that a very stable, distinct and clear signal was detected at 33.331 kilohertz and that it consistently pulsed at a 1.106 second interval. I therefore assess that the transmission was not of natural origin and was likely sourced from specific electronic equipment. What we are picking up is a great lead. We've got to visually acquire before we can say this is the final resting place. There is still a way to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In a moment, I'll talk to someone who has heard those kinds of signals. He tells me why he thinks this is the real thing. First, let's hear from Will Ripley, CNN's Will Ripley. He is in Perth, Australia. Tell us more, Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Yes, you know, this is definitely the strongest language that we have heard yet from the search chief. Cautious optimism. He feels that within a matter of days, perhaps or at least within the near future, he believes they will find this plane. You need to remember. This is why they are still tempering this optimism with the fact that 33 days into this search, we still do not have one single piece of evidence.

Not one physical, tangible sign of Flight 370. We have four pings, two heard on Tuesday, two others heard on Saturday. All of the pings, if you looked at the data, seem to be coming from an in-flight data recorder.

When I asked Angus Houston, when he got on board, I asked him, did he think when he started the search he would be announcing the news that he announced here in Perth today. Listen to his response.

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HOUSTON: When I arrived last Sunday night, I would have been probably more pessimistic than I am now. I'm now optimistic that we will find the aircraft or what is left of the aircraft in the not too distant future.

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RIPLEY: There are still search planes taking off every day. Our own Matthew Chance just arrived from a search flight in New Zealand P3. They flew over the area. They didn't see any debris. That has been the story time and time again. There is a confidence, a new confidence among searchers, Carol, including Angus Houston.

One of the most telling things that I noticed is that he talked about the families, many from China, now, preparations are being made here in Perth to accommodate the families if they decide to fly here. He used the words, when they come, not if they come. He said when they come. More optimism than we have ever seen so far in this search on day 33 -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So Will, they have detected these four sounds. The two sounds they initially detected on Saturday they determined they weren't naturally occurring sounds. This he did come from a black box. Many are wondering, why not just send the submarine down right now to look? Why don't they?

RIPLEY: You know, there are a lot of people who are anxious to get this submersible down to take a look and start taking pictures, but they are waiting to do that. There is a good reason why. They can cover a lot more ground with the TPL, that pinger locator, than they do with the submersible. If there is any chance these data recorders are still emitting signals, they want to get that listening device under water to hear those signals as many times as possible.

Because with each new detection, they can narrow and narrow and narrow the area down so when you do get the submersible down there, it can operate much more efficiently and save time in the future. One day's work for the TPL takes about a week for the submersible. That's why we haven't seen it deployed just yet. It will be coming especially if they continue to detect more pings.

COSTELLO: I hope so. Will Ripley reporting live from Australia. Thanks so much. For more on the pings, I want to bring in Chris Portale. He is the director of Dukane, a Haico company, which makes underwater locator pingers. Welcome, Chris.

CHRIS PORTALE, DIRECTOR, DUKANE SEACOM, A HAICO COMPANY: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You got a chance to hear the first set of pings. What did they sound like?

PORTALE: Well, they sounded exactly like our product is designed to sound. It's an ultrasonic frequency. It doesn't have a sound that you could describe, but it's more of the cadence. It's the 1-second, once every second pulse. That's really what you are looking for in there and that's what we heard. And that's consistent with what our product does.

COSTELLO: So can you say with 100 percent certainty that those pings that you heard were coming from black boxes under water?

PORTALE: I wouldn't say 100 percent certainty, but extremely confident that they were man-made and they are consistent with what our product does. I think they want to wait for visual confirmation, but we believe these are the boxes.

COSTELLO: So one set of sounds are in one area of the search area. The other set of sounds are like 16 miles away. Why would that be?

PORTALE: Well, on that aircraft, the 777, you actually have two black boxes. You have the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. Each of them carry a pinger. They could be hearing both of those pingers or hearing one pinger in one area or the other. The other item is the ocean currents and the depths can play some friction on the acoustics and cause sounds to travel in different areas. It is not uncommon. They could have actually found both pingers.

COSTELLO: Interesting. So the batteries are dying, right? It has been 32, 33 days. How much longer can they go?

PORTALE: Well, the batteries and the requirement are 30 days. Our product has exceeded that. We're extremely proud by that. Our testing has indicated that we should be able to get about 35 days. So we're hopeful it will continue to ping. It is pretty overwhelming that you have an international search coalition and they are looking for our product. They have outperformed the expectations.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. Another thing that I don't quite understand. So they heard that first set of pings on Saturday and then there was a space where they didn't hear anything. Another set of pings on Tuesday. Why would that be?

PORTALE: It could have been a multitude of factors including the sea temperature, the currents and where they are looking. They are towing an extremely long cable trying to hear these sounds. As the batteries get weaker and weaker, the sound travels less and it won't radiate as much. It is not uncommon for them to pick it up in different areas.

COSTELLO: Just, you know, in observing this month-long agonizing process, are you amazed they were able to detect any pinging sound at all?

PORTALE: Yes. Without any surface wreckage, I mean, the math and science and hard work by everybody to try to pinpoint an area to drag an underwater hydrophone and to actually be in the correct area. Our pingers have a range of two nautical miles. In the depth of the ocean they are at, they are up over two nautical miles deep. In looking at the precision they had to have and the accuracy of the prediction where the plane went down is simply amazing.

COSTELLO: It really is. The other curious thing is they are looking for debris. They want to find some debris so they can further pinpoint where exactly the plane went down. Why do you think they are not finding in debris?

PORTALE: Probably, most of it has sank or the ocean currents have moved it out of that area. Again, the black boxes aren't going to locate the debris. They are going to locate the boxes and hopefully from there, they will be able to see the debris.

COSTELLO: Once they send the submersibles down, once they pinpoint a smaller area, how long will it take to bring up those black boxes, you think?

PORTALE: It will be several days, it could even be weeks. You are dealing in a depth of an ocean that is significant. To try to get the resources out there to get it. That's why they are using the pingers as long as they can hear them to narrow it down. Those submersibles do have a much narrower range. It could be weeks before you get those recorders out of the water.

COSTELLO: Chris Portale, thank you so much for your insight, I appreciate it and your fine product too. Thank you so much.

PORTALE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, possible breakthrough in the search for Flight 370. We are going to talk more about that. The two signals detected. Still, no wreckage though. We'll delve deeper into that. Martin Savidge will help us do that. Hi, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Yes, we have a new simulation to show you. What if this aircraft actually had a pilot at the helm and was under power when it landed in the water. We will show you that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Thirty three days after the disappearance of Flight 370, officials are expressing optimism that the plane could be found in, quote, "not the too distant future." Their belief based on the discovery of two signals consistent with those emitted from a black box. If confirmed to be from Flight 370, it could help explain the mystery that began on March 8th when that plane took off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.

Along the way, the aircraft made that mysterious left turn for a reason that's unknown. Government sources telling CNN the plane later skirted Indonesian air space possibly to avoid radar detection, flying for several hours along a suspected path that has led authorities to the Southern Indian Ocean.

While we are getting possible clues with signals, there is still no sign of debris. What could that mean? Could that mean the plane landed intact and broke apart as it sunk beneath the water. Here to help us sort through that, CNN correspondent, Martin Savidge and pilot, Mitchell Casado. They are inside that flight simulator. Good morning, Gentlemen.

SAVIDGE: Good morning, Carol. Yes, it's pretty interesting theory that you bring out as far as the possibility of a landing on water.