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Elliot Rodger's Killing Spree Left Seven Dead in California; Obama Makes Surprise visit to Afghanistan; Day Two of Pope Francis's Trip to the Holy Land; Elliot Rodger's Neighbor Talks About Him

Aired May 25, 2014 - 17:00   ET

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

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Deborah Feyerick, in for Don Lemon.

We start with case of 22-year-old Elliot Rodger and the killing spree that left seven people dead in California. It's all about the evidence. And so far, there's a lot of it. Ten crime scenes in 12 locations, series of retribution videos, a chilling 140-page manifesto and now the news that Rodger's parents found out about the document and videos just before the killing spree began. Apparently the couple frantically searching for their son as the shooting was taking place.

Meanwhile, Santa Barbara county Sheriff Bill Brown is defending an earlier investigation his agency conducted into Rodger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF BILL BROWN, SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: They found him to be rather shy and timid, polite, well spoken. He explained to the deputies that it was a misunderstanding and that he was, although having some social problems, it was unlikely that he was going to continue to be a student here and was probably going to go home and he was able to convince them that he was not at that point a danger to himself or anyone else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: You can see the memorial there behind the sheriff, memorials popping up all over the place as police continue to sift through evidence. The communities of Isla Vista and UC Santa Barbara are starting the healing process.

(VIDEO CLIP LAYING)

FEYERICK: Thousands of students and community members attend a vigil on cam pause last night.

Let's go to CNN's Kyung Lah in Isla Vista and Pamela Brown in Santa Barbara.

Kyung, first of all, you traced Elliot Rodger's steps Friday night. You are going to be bringing that to us in a moment. But first, let me ask you, Pamela. You have now learned new details about warnings signs from a family friend. What do you know? PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We have spoke on the a family friend of the Rodger family. His name is Simon Astaire and he walked me through in great detail about the warning signs and the moments just before and during the rampage on Friday night.

A desperate search was under way by Elliot Rodger's parents to find him when the rampage was going on because they had just been tipped with that chilling manifesto. He had e-mailed it to them as well the couple dozen other people.

The mother apparently came across the e-mail at 9:17 p.m. pacific time. Apparently she read one sentence, knew something was terribly wronged. She looked at his You Tube page. He was known to post videos there and she came across retribution video where he talked about slaughtering women at a local sorority house. She frantically, apparently called the father and called 911 according to this family friend. They got in the car, going to Santa Barbara trying to get in touch with Elliot.

Meantime, he was shooting and killed six people in Isla Vista when this was unfolding and they found out later on that he was indeed the shooter behind all of this. Of course, very troubling for the parents. And we looked back on red flags that might have been missed along the way and the police talked about the welfare check. They were called back in April to go to Elliot's home and checked on him because his mother was concerned and at that point they say there was nothing too alarming, that he didn't show any signs of danger to himself or others and it just seemed timid and shy and talked about issues with his social life. So the mother was reassured that everything was OK with her son. But it turns out that Elliot was plotting this whole shooting spree.

And talked about it and in that manifesto, he sent he said as soon as I saw those crossed, the biggest fear I had ever felt in my life overcame me. I had the striking and devastating fear that someone had somehow discovered what I was planning to do and reported me for it. If that was the case, police would have searched my room, found all of my guns and weapons with the writings of what I planned to do with them. I would have been thrown in jail, denied the chance to exact revenge on my enemies. I can't imagine a hell darker than that.

His parents believed this was a pivotal moment, that welfare check in April. They believe it was a miss opportunity. And know -- we learned, Deborah that Eliot had been seeing a therapist on and off since he was 8-years-old. He had a history of mental health issues. He was clearly a very disturbed individual.

FEYERICK: And Pamela, you said that the family friend said that both parents raced to the location. They knew something was terribly wrong. They called 911. Is there any suggestion that anybody from either the sheriff's department or police actually responded? If they're driving because he's in crisis, were the police also aware that this was -- that he was in trouble?

BROWN: Well, the 911 call was made around the time the rampage was going on so this is all happening simultaneously. FEYERICK: There was not enough time?

BROWN: There was not enough time. It was all very chaotic as you can imagine. But interesting to note here, Deborah. I asked the family friend if Elliot had displayed any signs of increased aggravation or distress recently. And he said, no. That in fact, he had just spoken to his father on Thursday and told his father he was looking forward to seeing his family this weekend. And the family friend said, before this, he had never had any signs violent tendencies, never had any sort of fascination with guns and not part of the dialogue. His family clearly still in shock and going through indescribable grief at this hour.

FEYERICK: All right, Pamela Brown, thank you so much. We appreciate that.

We were speaking with somebody yesterday who saying the personality disorder. These kinds of people can talk their way out of a lot of things.

And now, we turn to Kyung Lah. And Kyung, let me ask you to walk us through what we know about the killing spree. You went to all the locations.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A total of ten locations. Because that's what investigators are looking at. And it is astonishing to think when you walking through every single spot he went through and how many people he hurt, all of this when the shooting began, Deb, took only ten minutes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAH (voice-over): This is where the rampage began in the gunman's apartment. Three people stabbed to death. Detectives describe it as a horrific crime scene.

ELLIOT RODGERS, GUNMAN: The supreme gentleman.

LAH: From here, investigators say he got into his BMW, just as he predicted in the You Tube videos, would head first to a sorority.

RODGER: On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB. And I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blond (bleep) I see inside there.

LAH: Four blocks from his apartment, the alpha phi sorority. They heard loud knocking coming from the front door. They did not open it. So the gunman turned to three women who were standing over here. Shot and killed Veronika Weiss and Catherine Cooper. Another woman was seriously injured.

Less than two blocks away, the IV deli mart. Surveillance video from inside the store captures the barrage of bullets. There's another victim killed. Christopher Martinez who was just out for a sandwich.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about Chris's right to live? When will this insanity stop? When will enough people say stop this madness? We don't have to live like this!

LAH: At this point, the pace is picking up. Witnesses here say he's driving the BMW into people on the street. One person is shot outside of these apartments. Gun fire, smashing windows. It is everywhere.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get inside!

LAH: A few blocks away, the gunman shoots at a deputy and misses. Officers now in pursuit. He makes it a few more blocks, striking a bicyclist, a couple blocks away, he shoots three more people until there's a gun battle with deputies.

It is four deputies who run across the park and fire into the suspect's car. They believe they've hit him in the hip but he continues to drive. He's able to travel a few more blocks until he strikes a bicyclist. That bicyclist hit so hard he caves in the wind shield. The BMW crashing outside (INAUDIBLE) apartment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw the driver get pulled out of the car. He looked very hurt. I mean, to me he was either unconscious or already dead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: Back live here. We are outside the third shooting location. The third crime scene, that is. And you can see that there are candles here. There are flowers here. All of this for Christopher Martinez, the young student, the UCSB student who died here when he was out just trying to get a sandwich -- Deb.

FEYERICK: Just remarkable how much ground he was able to cover in such a short time, especially because obviously so many people were there and watching.

All right, Kyung Lah. Thank you so much. Appreciate your walking us through that.

I want to bring in my guest to talk about these latest developments. CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director, Tom Fuentes, retired law enforcement officer Lou Palumbo and Holly Hughes.

Tom, we just heard Pamela Brown talk about some of the warning signs, the parents actually when they saw that manifesto knew that danger was imminent and they raced to try to find him at the same time these killings are going on. It almost defies the imagination.

Should they have called sooner? Should they have done more welfare checks? We are not pointing a finger but they knew their son was in a terribly dangerous place psychologically it seems.

THOMAS FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST (via phone): Well, I think you are right. At this point if they knew from the manifesto that the violence was imminent, you know, to be calling 911 or calling the police up there, I guess not 911 from where they were but, you know, call the police where their son lived and say, you know, I called you before. You said he was OK. He's not. He's going on a rampage. I just see you what on you tube and the manifesto by e-mail, and that should have been, you know, something that went out immediately.

You know, I'm sure they panicked and weren't thinking straight. But, you know, the length of time it took to drive from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, they should have been on the phone with the police before that.

FEYERICK: Yes. You have to wonder about that.

You know, Holly, that's another question. Police did show up for that welfare visit. That was 25 days before this rampage began. This is a young man, very smart, able to talk his way out of it. Should those officers have done more to question this young man as opposed to take his word that everything was fine? He was just having some social problems at school.

HOLLY HUGHES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You have to remember, the police can't just rush in to somebody's apartment and start looking for manifestos and searching because then you have everybody hollering it's an illegal search, it's violating the civil liberties. You can't do that, unfortunately.

The police did exactly what they're allowed to do within the confines of the law which is inquire, see if he presents a danger to himself or to someone else. And we don't know what the parents said. If all the parents said is, I am unable to contact my son, I've left messages on his cell phone and not called me back, if they didn't say, he has been seeing a psychiatrist since he was 8-years-old, he's been seeing a mental health official, we think there is some imminent danger coming, the police are constrained by the laws, unfortunately. And that's where we need to go back to the legislatures and sit down and say, we need to open up what it is they're allowed to do because otherwise they're suing the police department for infringing the rights. These officers did what they could, Deborah.

FEYERICK: And so, let me ask you, Lou. Because you have had some experience with this, as well. Do you think that the law should be revised so when there is a welfare check, when there's some measurable concern of a possible threat either to the individual or to others, the police and a mental health experts should be able to do more to as Holly says do some sort of a look around, not necessarily a full search, but to look around? I mean, the stakes are so high now.

LOU PALUMBO, RETIRED KAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT: Well, you know, we're in a little bit of a hindsight mode right now, Deborah, and we really need to find out --

FEYERICK: So why not? We're trying to advance the conversation which is, you know, we look at these welfare checks, I'm sorry, but I'm looking at everything pretty objectively. That's the one time deputies had contact with the young man.

PALUMBO: Yes, but you see, Deborah, law enforcement individuals are not clinically background to make spontaneous assessments of some mental or emotional state. If the parents were concerned about the welfare of the child and that's what they're articulating to the police, the police went there to make sure he was OK.

Oftentimes, you might enter the home and look around, depending on the circumstances. Each one of these visits stands on its own merit. I was involved a welfare check as a police officer and it involved in a en elderly person and getting there the person expired. The family contacted us because they lost contact with the loved one. They couldn't establish any type of communications. They called the police department. They said can you do us a favor? Go down and check on him. We did that. We ended up finding this individual expired.

It is not uncommon for the police to conduct welfare checks. But in this particular set of circumstances, we really need to know what information was supplied to the police to make a determination as to whether or not they should have perhaps gone further than they did. That's the mode we're in right now. We need more information before we can pass a judgment.

FEYERICK: Well, I don't know we're passing a judgment. I think we are pressing questioning whether, in fact, the system as it exists is the right one and whether more things need to be done in order to prevent these kinds of tragedies.

Tom, Lou, Holly, we just got in an interview with the neighbor of Elliot Rodger and he is giving us some interesting details about Friday night shooter, including a fight that the neighbor witnessed. We'll have that and get your thought in a few minutes. So standby for us.

But first, a surprise visit today for troops in Afghanistan. What President Obama said to U.S. forces after, well, you know, simply popping in for a visit.

And Pope Francis in the holy land and what he's doing to try and end a decades old conflict. This will surprise you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: As Americans prepare to observe Memorial Day, President Obama made a surprise visit to troops in Afghanistan and said he was there to say thank you and praised the dedication to making Afghanistan more secure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You're completing the mission. We said that they were going to deny Al Qaeda safe haven and since then we have decimated the Al Qaeda leadership in the tribal regions and our troops here at Bagram played a central role of supporting the operations including the one that delivered justice to Osama bin Laden.

So, along with our intelligence personnel, you have helped prevent attacks and save American lives back home.

Tomorrow's Memorial Day. And bases here in Afghanistan and the towns across America, we will pause, we'll pay tribute to all those who have laid down their lives for our freedom. And that includes nearly 2,200 American patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice that last full measure of devotion right here in Afghanistan.

I know you have stood in front of those battle crosses. I know many of you have carried the memories of your fallen comrades in your heart today. We will honor every single one of them, not just tomorrow but forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: The president also promised to support America's veterans, reference no doubt noticed back in Washington where controversy swirling over reports that as many as 40 vets have died waiting to receive medical treatment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We're going to stay strong by taking care of our wounded warriors and veterans. Because helping our wounded veterans and soldiers heal isn't just a promise. It's a sacred obligation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: President Obama also said that by the end of the year, Afghans will take full responsibility for their own security and said America's war in Afghanistan will come to what he called quote "a responsible end."

A man formerly known as the chocolate king is now the president of Ukraine. Billionaire, Petro Poroshenko, a candy tycoon, got 56 percent of the vote today according to exit polls. But with such heavy violence in the country, some people couldn't cast their ballots.

Russian separatists guarded the Donetsk region, but said they were just volunteering. Few polls were even open in other areas. President Obama congratulated voters who are making it to the polls but accused the separatists, the pro-Russian separatists of blocking votes. Russia has denied having any influence over the election.

Day two of the Pope Francis' trip to the holy land, show finds him in Jerusalem at this hour. His world when (INAUDIBLE) taking in to three cities in three days. Today, the Pope visited a group of Palestinian refugee children living in the West Bank. He also met with leaders of Israel and the Palestinian authority. And he invited them to travel to his home at the Vatican for a peace initiative.

Vatican correspondent Delia Gallagher reports on how that invitation went over.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: The second day of the Pope's trip to the holy land has been one of surprises and solemnity.

It began in Bethlehem on the West Bank when the Pope spontaneously stopped his pope mobile heading towards Major Square and approached a concrete wall separating Israeli and Palestinian zones. He touched the wall in prayer. A prayer not just for this wall, but for all the walls in the world that are barriers to peace.

And then, a surprise invitation extended to Palestinian president Abbas and Israeli president Peres, to his house at the Vatican for a day of prayer for peace. The next surprise was for the holy father himself at a meeting with Palestinian refugee children as they greeted him with placards messages of saying they're under occupation.

The Pope told the kids, I have understood your message. The path does not determine your lives. Violence is never overcome by violence. It is overcome by peace.

And peace was the Pope's message. Reiterating the vat ran support of a two-state solution to the crisis recognizing both Israel's right to live in peace and security and the Palestinian right to a sovereign homeland.

From Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, to the holy sepulcher, where Jesus is said to have been buried. The Pope finished the day in a solemn ceremony of historic reconciliation between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, split since the year 1054. Reconciliation and peace for his own church and for the holy land.

Delia Gallagher, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: And some are describing the moment stopping at the wall as the Reagan moment where he told Gorbachev to take down the wall.

Up next, hear from a neighbor of Elliot Rodger sharing the experience with the shooter before Friday night's rampage. What he knows about who may have been inside the apartment with him. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: A couple of new developments from the deadly shooting near Santa Barbara, California.

Investigators today entering and searching the homes of Elliot Rodgers' parents. Rodger is the man police say killed six people Friday night, stabbing them to death or shooting them in a rampage drive by. No word on whether they found or removed anything from the Rodger family home.

The place where is the shooting victims died are now memorials. A store where Christopher Martinez was fatally shot. Also the sorority house where Catherine Copper and Veronika Weiss were killed. All three of them were students at UC Santa Barbara.

And this is what where we want to talk about right now. Eliot Rodger made no secret of the rage boiling inside him and his desire to take revenge on the people that he felt have rejected him. He posted videos. He wrote long scripts (ph). He collected guns and ammunition. Police say it's clear that he planned this rampage for a very long time.

And just in to CNN, the neighbor of Elliot Rodger, the man police say killed six people in out of this to California, that college town Friday night, that neighbor is talking about Rodger and the interactions that he had with the 22-year-old community college student. He has asked us not to identify him. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he first moved in, we tried to invite him out to, like, several parties and probably, like, you know, he would be walking to the apartment and that's all he ever did. He walk to and from his apartment. So like he would be coming in the courtyard and we would say, hey, Elliot, come over and chill. Like, you know, and we would be sitting in front of like right in front of his apartment on the benches.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: So you tried to include him socially?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Multiple times. It was like four or five times. And then he sat down. We probably talked with him for like six and a half hours like in total. And every single time he just sat there on the bench -- like, in the single chair at the very end of the courtyard every single time and he would just look around and just stare. Like he wouldn't say anything. Do you want a beer? Do you want a shot? Like do you want a cigarette? Like, what do you want? And he would just sit there and be like no, no, no, no. Just turn down everything and just sit there and just stare the entire time. And he had like dead eyes and he's just staring at you the entire time just looking around, just glancing at everybody and like everybody else is having fun and he was like a buzz kill. You know, he is just -- he is literally just to sitting there staring at people the entire time and had this, like, emotion behind the eyes like he was (bleep) off the entire time. And then eventually he would just get up after like 45 minutes, he just get up and walk inside.

And yes. And then I guess like July was when the sheriffs reported he went to the hospital. Yes. I thought he was like anger from like four to some months ago, but I guess it is like seven or eight months ago. Yes, he came back like late at night like 9:30. 10:30 and he had this (bleep) kicked out on -- I just like the silence space with all batch in. He's like bleeding. His knuckles were all cut up and he came walking in, I said, like, hey, Elliot. Like, what happened, dude? Like, are you OK? He was just, just crying profusely. Coming in all in tears.

I said, dude, like, seriously, like, when's going on? He was like, get the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) away from me, and like trying to push me off. I was like, sit down. I need to make sure. Do you need stitches? What's going on?

Like he sat down. I looked at his face to make sure he was okay and then -- I mean, I just like -- did you get mugged? Did you get jumped? He was like, I got (EXPLETIVE DELETED) jumped by five guys and pretty much after three hours, all I could really get out was, like, I'm guessing he was at a sorority or frat party and he, like, pretty much like when he was trying to make his case, I like, I could tell he was the aggressor. Which is like the same thing that the person at the hospital -- yes.

He pretty much came on to the girl too strong and guys didn't like it, so he pretty much like beat him up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And you're going to hear more from the neighbor and also from our panel, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Tom Fuentes, Lou Palumbo, Holly Hughes, they are joining us right now. We're going to talk about the sound of the neighbor that we just heard.

You know -- and, Holly, when's fascinating is this neighborhood sounded as if he tried to reach out to did gunman multiple times, tried to befriend him. And the gunman, who kept saying, oh, nobody likes me, in fact, rejected any overtures. What do you make of that?

HUGHES: Well, it doesn't surprise me, Deborah. If you look at the video posted on the video, his affect is completely wrong. His words don't go with the emotions. He's saying, all I ever wanted was to be loved, but he is not despondent over that.

You know, when you hear people say like that they are lonely. They are expressing loneliness. What struck me when I first watched that video, that was just an audition tape by a really bad actor, because the emotions and words didn't go together. His little affected laugh to come up with so contrived, this is an individual who based on the history we're now hearing about started seeing therapist at 8 years old, he had a lot of mental health issues and pointing fingers and blaming everybody else, nobody wants to be my friend. Of course, it's not true. This is a person whose problems were centered in his own mind and not in any kind of reality.

FEYERICK: And so, Tom Fuentes, how do you counter that as law enforcement? How do you counter that? That's the question that everybody's asking today as we sort of try to make sense of all of this.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I agree with what Lou Palumbo said in the last segment, that the police are -- have their hands tied behind their back in situations like this. If a person hasn't acted out yet, no matter what he says or what you guess he's thinking you're severely limited.

When I was a uniformed police officer 40 years ago, we had the ability to get somebody if we came across someone like that and take them to the mental health facility and check them in, whether they liked it or not, and have them held for 24, 48 hours so they could be examined and find out what was going on. The police have lost that ability. These mental ill subjects get the chance to do the first act free. They -- until they act out, there's not lot the police can do with them. FEYERICK: All right. And so, Lou, you know, we're sort of talking about this, do you think that there should be a new procedure in place that does give police or mental health experts or anyone a little bit more latitude when it comes to checking and making sure that somebody is, indeed, OK?

LOU PALUMBO, RETIRED LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT: Deborah, obviously we need to have some dialogue and examine this topic. I think that there were indicators with this young man that should have prompted the family to go to a mental health professional who then collaboratively gone with the attorney to the courts to have the court order a psychiatric evaluation.

You know, this young man was seeing counselors, psychologists, or psychiatrists since he's 8. That's a big tell right there. And his condition as it progressed continued to deteriorate. So much so that the parents in April initiated contact with the police expressing concern.

I go back and I hate to say this redundantly we need to know what was said to law enforcement who dispatched police to him.

FEYERICK: Yes.

PALUMBO: But I get the feeling this could have been prevented. That's the part that bothers me the most about this. This is not typical case. The parents were on to something. He had individuals who were treating him. I mean, something got away here.

FEYERICK: Right. That's all going to be under --

PALUMBO: This is going to continue to unfold.

FEYERICK: That's what everybody's going to look towards moving forward.

All right. Tom, Lou, Holly, I need you to stick around. More of our interview with Elliot Rodger's neighbor coming up straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: We are learning a little bit more about some of the people who may have been killed inside Rodgers apartment. He shared it. He had roommates there. We're now learning that perhaps some of the people who lived with him were Korean exchange students. A local station is releasing the name of one of them as Chen Yun-Hong and apparently that was the young man who Rodger had some sort of altercation back in January, accusing him of stealing $22 worth of candles.

This is a young man who was driving around in a black BMW and apparently worried about those candles.

OK. We're going to bring in Tom Fuentes, Lou Palumbo, and Holly Hughes to talk about the things that the neighbor said. And it's very interesting because even the neighbor, Lou, really seems to have felt there was a disconnect with this young man. He kept reaching out to him, inviting him to parties, even offering help returning home one night and appeared beaten up.

So, you've got this 140-page manifesto saying everybody hates me and, yet, it seems as if he was out and out rejecting any overtures of friendship.

PALUMBO: I think it lends itself to a seriously deteriorating mental state. He was probably delusional. I'd love to speak to the people who were his mental health professionals to get a little bit of an impression of what they thought was going on with this individual. They're paid professionals there to assess this young man.

I mean, the input from the neighbor was very telling. This kid was withdrawn. You know? I think this kid was in a severely delusional state.

You know, Deborah, there's a question I would like to have answered, not to go off on a tangent, but I'm curious to know if the family knew that their son had gone out and bought these three firearms.

These weapons cumulatively cost an excess of $2,500. The young man is 22 years old. Where did he get the money to do that? Did he put it on a credit card?

I'm really curious to know if the parents understood that's what he had done.

FEYERICK: Right, or whether they, in fact, tracking the money. Clearly, any parent seeing some sort of an expense that didn't seem to be justifiable that also might raise a red flag.

Tom, when we talk about the description of this young man as having dead eyes, is there a possibility that he was on medication and maybe was either withdrawing or had taken himself off the medication to try to feel something? I mean, he is very almost robotic in his descriptions. Holly pointed out this sort of sardonic, sinister laugh. But there's also a sense of a robot to him.

FUENTES: That could be. We don't know if he was on medication or just mentally in such a -- as Lou said, such a detached state that that's what's leading him to be that way, to not be able to interact in a normal manner, whether it's a neighbor or a schoolmate or roommate or family, you know, he's reached a paint in his condition where it doesn't matter. He can't talk to people, he can't communicate.

So, you know, we don't know if that's been medically induced by medication or just the way he was at that point mentally.

FEYERICK: And, Holly, the point that Lou raises about the purchase of these guns, yesterday the sheriff said that those three guns were bought before July 2013, before deputies came in contact with this young man. So, this also indicates that this was something he had been planning for more than a year. And again, it goes to the point was he that smart that nobody understood the seriousness of what he was thinking about within a year's time?

HUGHES: There's no doubt the young man is very smart. You listen to the language he uses which is another thing that struck me.

Now, you yourself have looked at the manifesto and being a literature major, you said there are words in here, he's very intelligent, even you look at the video. He doesn't just rant like I'm going to kill you, I'm going to slaughter you. When he talked how people have treated him, he says what has been brought upon me. So, he's clearly very intelligent.

But here's the thing. The mental health professionals who were treating him should have been taught somewhere along their training to look for malingering. I was a prosecutor for ten years before I became a defense attorney. And one of things we always did when someone raised their mental state was, are they malingering?

You know, when you get someone to very specifically look for -- and what that means is faking it.

FEYERICK: Yes. What does that mean? Malingering? Faking it?

HUGHES: Right. They're faking it, right.

They're smart enough to have read the books and they know what they need to act like in order to feign mental illness or to say they don't have one. So, one way or the other they're trying to trick the mental health professional.

We need to know at what point in time, why did nobody determine that he was a danger when he has this 140-page manifesto? When he has these videos that he's putting out there, when he's clearly withdrawn and rejecting people who are reaching out to him. There is a disconnect somewhere along the line and this is what has to change.

I know we don't want to point a finger at a specific individual, but we have a broken system and we need to do something or we might as well throw our hands up, Deborah, and say what number of dead victims is an acceptable number before we all determine this is a community problem? It needs to be a community solution.

FEYERICK: Yes.

HUGHES: What number is acceptable?

FEYERICK: Well, that's exactly right. We really thought we hit rock bottom when somebody -- one moment, Lou -- we really thought somebody hit rock bottom as a society and as a nation when Adam Lanza walked in and killed those kindergartners and those first graders, and now, we are having this conversation all over again.

Tom, I want to ask you a question. He bought three guns from three different licensed gun dealers. A 22-year-old. Why wasn't there something in the system that cross checked how many guns an individual is allowed to have? My question, why does a 22-year-old need three different guns and how come nobody picked up on that?

FUENTES: Well, that's not up for you or I to determine how many guns someone can have. In our system, if it's hand guns especially, that's not even up for debate. And the whole gun debate is on assault rifle. It has nothing to do with handguns.

The Virginia tech shooter legally purchased two Glocks, went on his rampage and he has already judged by a judge in Virginia being mentally ill and should have been precluded, but he was able to buy those guns legally in Roanoke and then to kill 30-some people at Virginia Tech.

The Aurora, Colorado, shooter, seeing mental health professionals. Nobody was alerted to keep him from going on his rampage. Now, we have it over again.

So, I think that, you know, we are beyond the point where we have a question of whether or not our mental health system is working or not. It's not. But as far as the weapons go, until the mental health system is fixed, there's not even going to be a discussion about limiting handguns that people can buy.

FEYERICK: I think it definitely both can be moved a little bit ahead so that we're dealing with both at the same time. You can't fix one and hope the second gets better. It's just not going to work that way.

All right. Tom, Lou, Holly, we are going to come right back. We're going to come right back, and we're going to ask you whether this is a hate crime on the other side.

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FEYERICK: And this just in to CNN, the neighbor of Elliot Rodger, the man who police say killed six people in Isla Vista, California, Friday night, is talking about his neighbor and the interactions he had with the 22-year-old. He's asked us not to identify him. Take a listen.

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SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can you describe kind of what it is he said to you the times that you did talk to him, the half a dozen or so times you did talk to him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He didn't talk. He didn't talk. When I talked to him for like the three hour, I pretty much -- I would have to say like -- I would talk for five minutes to try to like get some sort of reaction, and then he would say, I don't know, one sentence? And then I'd have to talk to him for another five minutes, then one sentence would come out.

I had absolutely no idea. I didn't even know what college he went to, like I talked to him for that long. I was like, what do you want to do? What's your major? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do with your life? Never came out. He never said a single thing. It was like he seriously did not want friends. Like he's saying he wants friends, wants to hang out with people, he wants girls.

Every single time we invite him outside, there were plenty of girls and just didn't even make an effort, didn't talk to anybody. He was so closed off. And it was like when he's sitting there, you can just tell he's thinking these thoughts in his head the entire time. He was just talking to himself in his head the entire time. It's like why don't you talk to people here? I mean, it just --

REPORTER: Would you describe him as one of the (INAUDIBLE) Have you ever met anyone like him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I met a lot stranger people. It's I.V. I mean, just walking in that park and you see some crazy (EXPLETIVE DELETED) people. But --

SIDNER: The time that you did talk to him or he talked to you a little bit more, was the only time he seemed aggressive was the time he came and his face was all bruised and beaten?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I wouldn't say aggressive, though. He was so emotional. Like I can't describe how emotional he was.

SIDNER: Shaking and crying?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shaking, adrenaline rush, it was like water faucets just coming out like just constantly down his cheeks for a solid half hour. He was so upset. I never seen anybody like that mad like in my entire life.

SIDNER: What threats did he make at that time?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, he was saying I'm going to kill all those (EXPLETIVE DELETED). I'm going to kill all them, I'm going to kill myself. Like -- and I don't know if that's what it is it off -- if that's what set the plan in motion. But that's a long time in the making because that's a long time ago.

REPORTER: How long ago was that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to say four to seven months ago. But when they did the press conference, they said it happened like July 15th when he went to the hospital. So I'm guessing that's like when it happened. So, yes.

SIDNER: He said that he'd been planning it for a year. So, we're almost on a year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, yes, that's -- but it wasn't that bad. I mean, yes, he got the crap kicked out of him. But I can't imagine that's the one event that set him off.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FEYERICK: And we're going to be discussing all of these new details of Elliot Rodger as described by his neighbor, with a lot more to come, after a quick break.

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