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Seventeen-year-old John David LaDeu Arrested in Alleged School Shooting Plot; President Obama Speaks about Strengthening Sanctions Against Russia; Sterling Might Exact Legal Revenge on NBA

Aired May 02, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thank you so much. Hi, everyone. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And here we are at the top of the hour on this Friday.

I want to begin in the town of Waseca, Minnesota, the town just about 80 minutes south of Minneapolis. And people there today, they are in shock, they are in fear, but they are not in mourning after a tip led to a future school shooter being caught. That is all according to police.

That is what investigators say about 17-year-old John David LaDeu here, this is seen with the facebook video, He is playing guitar, appearing are now hearing descriptions of him as a normal kid, but unknown to his fellow classmates and teachers, sister, mother, father. For the last nine months, this young man was allegedly plotting to kill each and every one of them in this elaborate scheme involving a move to distract first responders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS LEE, SUPERINTENDENT, WASECA, MINNESOTA POLICE: I think it's fair to say that we all have that same sick feeling. I do think that people are quite disturbed and shocked. I know the staff is. I know that I'm sure students are, as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: An affidavit shows LaDue had a huge stash of bomb-making supplies, including some 60 pounds of ball bearings. He had practiced setting bombs off. He had apparently experimented with how to even make them deadlier. He allegedly told police he first wanted to murder his sister and his mother and father to begin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. KRIS MARKESON, WASECA POLICE DEPARTMENT: Start a diversionary fire in rural Waseca to destruct to first responders and travel to the junior/senior high school. Once there, he intended to set off numerous bombs during the lunch hour, kill the school resource officer as he responded to help, set fires and shoot students and staff. He planned to be killed by responding law enforcement officers.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: So all of these plans, these materials, he appeared to be ready, the big question, you're asking, what led police to catch him? Well, two women, two astute women noticed LaDue's strange behavior when police say he was taking a little too long coming and going out of the storage unit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHELSEA SCHELLMAS, TIPSTER: He shut the door and I thought it looked funny because normally we see people coming here, doesn't take ten minutes to open up the storage shed, so. That's why I called it in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We'll be talking to one of those young women who called it in, in just a minute here. But the big question why. Why would he have allegedly wanted to do this? We don't have that answer yet.

Let me read this here from the court documents. Quote, "in his journal, LaDue made references to other school shootings such as columbine, Virginia tech and Sandy Hook. Ladue idolized Eric Harris and made several references to both Harris and Dylan Klebold. LaDue critique what Harris and Klebold did right and wrong. LaDue told officer Schroeder he wanted to carry out his plan to kill on April 20th, the anniversary of the columbine shooting.

Joining me now is Dave Cullen, author of "Columbine."

Dave, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Nice to see you.

DAVE CULLEN, AUTHOR, COLUMBINE: Thanks for having me. Sorry to be on your show, again.

BALDWIN: I'm sorry to have you on my show, at least this time it seems to be a different ending, though, thank goodness. So we will get to that and then at Columbine, as you very well know, happened in 1999.

This young man, LaDue would have been a toddler, yet he says these killers were his heroes. How does that happen?

CULLEN: You know, I've been thinking about that this morning, all through so far today. Well, I've been thinking about this for a while with these guys. And it seems to me that it's not just about columbine but more the columbine effect that he's crediting them with.

BALDWIN: How do you mean?

CULLEN: Well, people -- for instance, at Virginia tech, he killed more people than at columbine. But he didn't create years and years of killing. He didn't set that in motion. Columbine did. All these others, 15 years of this horror show was really set in motion by those two boys at columbine. So they're the ones who -- it wasn't just those, you know, 13 other people they killed and the people they injured and the, you know, the horror those families went through, it's the 15 years of all of these others are kind of on their shoulders, too.

BALDWIN: But the two to the young people are sort of like these poster children of this horror show that we have been enduring for so many years since. And I guess my next question would be, though, and you wrote about this, Dave, isn't so much about this, you know, publicity being famous? You wrote this article. Let me quote you. This is from buzz feed. This is last fall. And you wrote, there's no single cause for mass shootings, but we have an opening. The killers share four crucial traits. Nearly all are men, nearly as many experienced a recent failure or loss. Most had easy access to gun. All were seeking attention. But the question you really hammer home is why do we keep encouraging them? How do you mean?

CULLEN: Well, I do, I think that's a crucial thing they have in common. Because I think most of -- most people -- having been on this for 15 years like I have, don't have a good understanding of what's going on here. And there's a couple things to really keep in mind. Nearly all of them were deeply depressed in some ways and they're really sort of distraught in their own life. Hostage negotiators refer to it as the combination of helplessness and hopelessness.

The next thing is, even when you do all sorts of planning, they don't have clear goals. Or, you know, to put another way, it's sort of like, well, I was thinking about this weekend when I was at a conference and coming up there was a kid, a toddler having a tantrum. And he was un-consolable. And, you know, when I've talked to moms versus non-moms. You get a different reaction. You know, a lot of single people like me go, why don't you do something with that kid or just do something for him? And the moms will tell you, there's nothing you can do. The kid doesn't want anything. He's angry and he's just going to scream. And he wants to -- he wants to cause a scene and let it be known. And that's a version of what's going on with these kids. They don't have any specific thing they're looking for. They want to lash out and they want to be heard.

BALDWIN: But, Dave, have you read this probable cause statement? I mean, don't know if he had specifics as far as what he wanted from this. But in terms of -- this young man crossed his Ts, dotted his Is. Let me read you this part of what his plan was.

Ladue conducted experiments. This is probable cause statement to determine which chemicals and components would provide the most flash, fire capability, to cause the most death, we do debated which chemicals would stick to the walls and floors of the school so the fires would not go out but would continue to remain ignited, grow in size. LaDue debated which type of metal shrapnel to include in the explosive devices to cause the most physical injury and property damage. I mean, for nine months, this young man plotted this down to every detail.

CULLEN: Right. And that's just -- just chilling to read.

BALDWIN: It is.

CULLEN: And he's much more -- he was much more meticulous than most of them, although, most of them do plan to some degree. The thing to separate in our minds should understand, though. There's a difference between planning to make an event happen and planning successfully to have this event come off. And then step two is what you want to accomplish with that. What you want to happen. And I think the really telling thing is in the fairly unusual circumstances when we foil them in progress and you have the person held alive, and when they sort of inadvertently get hostages because they start shooting and everybody hits the deck and have hostages.

BALDWIN: Or stabbing as we've seen recently, as well.

CULLEN: Yes. But particularly when you have hostages, the FBI has a field manual in what to do with those cases. They call them non- hostages. I would call them inadvertent hostages. It is when the person had no intent to capture hostages and now doesn't know what to do with them. So they plan out this bombing, shooting, what have you. Gets in progress, they had to wait for it to start and a way for it to go off. They didn't have any plan for getting out of it. They assumed they were going to die.

And while they were still alive, they literally don't know what to do. And you have these situations with these stand-offs, which is occasionally rare it happens that way. We had one in Wisconsin a few years ago, went on for hours and hours. He didn't know what to do. He wasn't planning.

BALDWIN: Hadn't thought that far ahead.

CULLEN: Exactly.

BALDWIN: Right.

CULLEN: And that takes you to the thinking that most of them are entering this way of like, OK. I'm going to blow up the building. I'm going to hurt a bunch of people. I'm going to have people dying and bleeding, then what? And what am I going to get out of it? Nothing, except I'm going to be heard. I'm going to have an impact. People are going to know my name and what I look like and, you know, I'll have shown them. So if we deprive them of that, then I think that's the biggest tool at our disposal.

BALDWIN: Thank goodness for these two women who saw something that looked a little odd (INAUDIBLE). And we are going to talk to one of those women.

Dave Cullen, author of "Columbine." As always love having you on and your perspective. Thanks very much.

CULLEN: Thanks very much, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Also today, President Obama speaking at the White House, revealing a new trigger point for the next round of sanctions against Russia for this crisis ongoing in Ukraine. Until now, President Obama has set the bar at a Russian invasion for Ukraine here. But after meeting today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he moved it up a tad because the president here is hanging on to a possibility of a diplomatic resolution with (INAUDIBLE) and Angela Merkel agreed with that, although, he punctuated that with a very big "but" today.

I want you to hear this for yourself. President Obama speaking at a news conference with the German chancellor, a little more than an hour ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But as Angela Merkel said, if, in fact, we see the disruptions and destabilization continuing so severely that it impedes elections on May 25th, we will not have a choice but to move forward with additional more severe sanctions. And the consultations have been taking place over the course of the last several weeks about what exactly those would look like and would apply to a range of sectors.

The goal is not to punish Russia, the goal is to give them an incentive to choose the better course, and that is to resolve these issues diplomatically and I think we are united on that front.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's take you now live to the White House, to our correspondent there, Michelle Kosinski who attended the news conference.

And Michelle, just talk to me about the significance here of this change and a trigger. First it was invasion, now it sounds like it's the presidential elections up coming in a few weeks as far as the sectoral sanctions go against Russia. And also, can we just be specific, explain sectoral sanctions. What does that mean?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. That's a good point. They keep mentioning this, only because it has been mentioned so times. But it does bear explaining.

So what they've sanctioned and targeted up until now are individuals and companies, basically a ban on them traveling, or doing business with the U.S. and also, of course, the EU where their sanctions have coincided with ours. So they'll take somebody and say, OK, you can't come to the U.S., nobody can do business with you. But to impose sections on a whole -- sanctions on a whole sector of the Russian economy, say arms dealing, manufacturing, that would be kind of shutting it out entirely from business with a whole other chunk of the world.

But today, President Obama did mention that it wouldn't be realistic, for example, to at this point, at least, impose those kinds of sanctions on something like gas and oil because to ban other countries, for example, the EU from importing those, well, that's going to hurt everybody, essentially. And Angela Merkel, I think, put it well today by saying that she is the last thing that people want are these sweeping sanctions. Because even as the U.S. has emphasized, that could affect the global economy. So nobody, of course, wants to hurt the economy, but they feel like that would put appropriate pressure on Russia. But this is a big deal hearing that this is coming possibly much sooner than Russia full-on invading Ukraine, which is where they've kind of benchmarked it in the past.

BALDWIN: That's right, presidential elections happening third weekend in May. We could see something more severe coming down the pike. We wait.

Michelle Kosinski, thank you so much at the White House for us this afternoon.

Just ahead here on CNN as the NBA bans Donald Sterling for life, the L.A. Clippers owner reportedly is suffering from cancer. All of this as the front offices, Sterling (ph) is about to air some dirty laundry. We'll explain what that could mean for them.

Also ahead, hundreds of schoolgirls disappear, kidnapped by armed terrorists. We will speak with one woman who is asking, why isn't the world paying attention? It's time we do. Stay here.

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BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

You know, one of Donald sterling's big battles may actually have nothing to do with basketball or the NBA, or even his racial views. ESPN is reporting the 80-year-old Clippers owner is battling prostate cancer. CNN has not been able to independently confirm that report. "The New York Post" first reported it. Sterling is banned from seeing his team gear up for the crucial playoff game 7 tomorrow, if the clippers lose game 7, eliminated from the playoffs.

Sterling might exact legal revenge on the NBA for his lifetime ban and for sale of the Clippers after racist comments recorded by his mistress surfaced. And Sterling has a long history of filing lawsuits. This guy is note for being litigious. So let's focus on his legal options to make a possible end run around a forced clippers sale.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN legal analyst Sunny HOSTIN, former federal prosecutor and also joining us, legal analyst Michael McCann, writer for "Sports Illustrated."

So welcome to both of you. And Michael, just reading your piece here, I want to begin with you. Because you say this will be an epic fight. That the battle between sterling and NBA no longer seems frivolous to a bunch of people you talked to. Why do you think he has a case here?

MICHAEL MCCANN, LEGAL ANALYST, WRITER, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED: Well Brooke, I think one possible avenue for Donald Sterling is that the bylaws don't necessarily authorize evicting him from the league. And the specific language goes to willful conduct. While Donald Sterling could argue, comments made privately in his house with no expectation of being made public, comments that may have been recorded illegally, shared illegally with the media that that's not willfully trying to hurt the NBA or breaking the rules. So I think he is going to attack the language of the bylaws and say they don't authorize this ultimate sanction.

And he'll also argue that to the extent an owner's going to get kicked out, it should be more than for comments made in his own home. That is should be something more egregious or more public. Whether or not that works remains to be seen. And the NBA has latitude in interpreting the rules. And this is the real problem for Sterling.

Adam Silver, the commissioner really is the final say. So sterling has his work cut out for him, but I think we will see a fight.

BALDWIN: Reading a piece, I didn't even realize there was no morals clause in the constitution. I found that interesting.

But Sunny, let me pick up with the point about that the private conversations recorded. We know that the mistresses or maybe we should be saying the ex-mistress's attorney saying she recorded this but then gave this to a third party, to a friend for safekeeping?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Sure. Yes, I mean, I think there are two issues in terms of the recording. I think certainly one of the issues is how did it get disseminated? We don't really know at this point.

But I think the larger issue is California's a two-party consent state. And so, both people that are on the phone, have to have agreed and consented to being recorded. She said she was his archivist. And so she had his permission to record the conversations. That sounds like a stretch to me.

But even if, Brooke, even if it's determined that the recordings were illegally, you know, gotten, I don't know that really changes the analysis in terms of the NBA trying to oust him from the owners' group. I don't think that is going to be a big deal. But I will tell you and I agree with Michael, this is just uncharted territory in sports law. I mean, we just don't really know how this is going to shake out. But he uses -- this guy uses lawsuits for sports.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HOSTIN: So there is no question about it. He's going to sue.

BALDWIN: So when we talk about how this is unprecedented, people in the front offices, Michael, are saying uh-oh, because you know, one of your colleagues at "Sports Illustrated," he said the front offices are fearing a lawsuit. They're worried that sterling wants executives to testify, might be airing their dirty laundry. What specifically has them worried?

MCCANN: Well, a real worry for the other owners is that the premise behind ousting Donald Sterling is essentially that he's really racist. Sterling could argue those grounds should not be made if other owners themselves are racist or bigoted or politically incorrect or however way you want to put it. And there, the issue of pretrial discovery becomes a factor. If he files a lawsuit and it's not dismissed, it would move toward pretrial discovery where he would make owners testify under oath. They would be deposed or they would be asked sensitive questions about their thoughts on race, whether or not they made similarly insensitive comments. It could end up being embarrassment.

BALDWIN: Well, Michael and Sunny, thank you so much, which maybe.

Just ahead here in CNN, today, we got one of the best jobs reports this year. But what kinds of workers are being hired or be specifics on that one.

Also ahead, police say a Minnesota teenager had his store's locker full of guns and explosive and detail plan to kill his family and his classmate. How these women managed to stop him before anything happen? We will talk to one of the women who alerted police. Do not miss that. It is a stunning story here. We will be right back.

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BALDWIN: Great news. More people found jobs in the month of April, and the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level we've seen since 2008.

Chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here to tell us what kind of workers companies are hiring.

Hey, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, a strong jobs report, 288,000 jobs reported net new jobs in the month of April, and an unemployment rate at 5 1/2 year low. When we look within these numbers, you can also see broad-based jobs gains.

Professional and business services, 75,000 new jobs there, these are accountants, these are lawyers, these IT professionals. These are jobs that tend to pay a little bit more than we've been seeing in other sectors like retail jobs, again, job creation there and leisure and hospitality. Those have been the sectors that have been driving jobs gains. We want to see jobs created in places like construction. We did this month. Manufacturing, mining, those tend to be higher paid jobs. Those are the kinds of quality jobs you want to see driving a recovery.

Again, Brooke, bottom line here, you had some better numbers earlier in the year. A freeze in job creation. Remember when all that cold weather. It looks like we've seen the thaw -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: We'll take the thaw, Christine, thank you.

And make sure you watch Christine this weekend on "YOUR MONEY" for a complete breakdown of jobs and the economy. Tune in to CNN tomorrow 2:00 p.m. eastern.

Coming up here, police say a teenager had a storage locker full of guns and bombs and detailed plans to attack not just his family, but his high school. That attack was (INAUDIBLE) because a woman called police. We will talk with her live next. Also ahead, a plea from parent, bring back our daughters. It has been more than two weeks since dozens of girls were kidnapped from a school, and now with more than 250 of them still missing. The question remains, what happens? And what is the government there doing about it.

Stay right here.

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