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California Shooting; Man Named in Manifesto; First Sterling Deadline is Tomorrow

Aired May 26, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: People think, wow, that GM crisis is pretty bad for GM, but, you know, I'm buying a Chevy. They don't realize -- some buyers don't realize that GM is this big, overarching brand with all these other car companies. Or, if you want to buy a Corvette, you're going to buy a Corvette. If you want to buy, you know, the GMC Terrain, you're going to buy the Terrain. So it's interesting. As the economy continues to improve, she keeps this, you know, this very grown-up and responsible - I mean she's handling the crisis from the PR perspective, I think, very, very well. And if people want to buy a car, they're going to go buy a car, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It's twisted logic, but I get it. Christine Romans, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, we'll have more on that massacre in a California college town. As we learn more about the killer's troubled past, many are asking what, if anything, could have been done to prevent this tragedy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Elliot Rodger's day of retribution to punish those he felt had rejected him in life ripped apart a California community and ended in the deaths of six young people. Sara Sidner has more now on those who lost their lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, OFFICER (voice-over): Shots fired. Shots fired.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All six victims in Elliot Rodger's killing rampage have now been identified. Rodger's roommates, 20-year-old Cheng Hong and 19-year-old George Chen found dead with multiple stab wounds inside the gunman's Isla Vista apartment, along with another man, 20-year-old Weihan Wang. The three men students at the University of California Santa Barbara were, police say, Rodger's first victims before taking off in his black BMW to this sorority house.

KYLE SULLIVAN, NEIGHBOR: I saw a gunshot wound to her abdomen and like on her side, and also one through her head.

SIDNER: This is where police say he shot 22-year-old Katherine Cooper and 19-year-old Veronika Weiss, killed right in the front yard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, OFFICER, (voice-over): OK, we need a second ambulance for another gunshot wound.

SIDNER: Less than two blocks away, Rodger opens fire again at the IV Deli Mart, according to officials, killing 20-year-old student Christopher Martinez. Surveillance video captured customers diving and scrambling for cover as the bullets flew.

RICHARD MARTINEZ, SON MURDERED IN CALIFORNIA RAMPAGE: I'll never have another child. He's gone.

SIDNER: CNN's Kyung Lah spoke to Chris' father, who blames the government for a lack of gun control.

MARTINEZ: I can't tell you how angry I am! It's just awful! And no parent should have to go through this. No parent! To have a kid die -- my kid died because nobody responded to what occurred at Sandy Hook. Those parents lost little kids! It's bad enough that I lost my 20- year-old, but I had 20 years with my son. That's all I'll ever have.

SIDNER: Rodger's shooting spree injuring over a dozen more before, according to police, the 22-year-old took his own life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That was Sara Sidner reporting.

Now, one of the people named in Elliot Rodger's chilling manifesto, and here it is right here, it's quite lengthy, but one of the people named in this manifesto was this childhood classmate, his name was Lucky Radley. This morning, Radley actually talked about what Elliot was like when he knew him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, HOST, CNN'S "NEW DAY": How close were you? And there's a reason I'm asking here.

LUCKY RADLEY, CHILDHOOD CLASSMATE OF SPREE KILLER: Well, not -- I know him just - I went over to his house a couple times, played games with him. He was - he was my - one of - just - he sat at the same desk or the same table as me in my classroom. I didn't know him. I mean that's about as far as it goes and, you know -

BERMAN: Yes, that doesn't sound like you were close buddies -

RADLEY: No.

BERMAN: Or best friends or someone you dealt with every day of your life growing up.

RADLEY: Oh, no.

BERMAN: Which makes it very interesting, Lucky, that your name came up in this so-called manifesto.

RADLEY: Right. BERMAN: Let me read you the section here. It says, "Lucky would later go to the same middle school as me where he would become an object of my extreme jealousy and hatred. Looking back, I can't believe I actually played with him as a friend in my father's neighborhood."

RADLEY: Correct.

BERMAN: What's it feel to see something like that now?

RADLEY: Yes. When I saw that, I was just shocked. I couldn't - I was - I literally didn't believe that that was, you know, coming from him. I didn't -- when I heard everything, I'm still shocked and -- it's just a crazy feeling. I was - I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Kris Mohandie is a forensic psychologist. He joins me now from Los Angeles.

Welcome, Kris.

KRIS MOHANDIE, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: OK. So, first of all, let's talk about this. So this shooter names this kid in his manifesto and calls him a friend. But as you heard Lucky say, he didn't really even know him that well. Strange, right?

MOHANDIE: Right. It is - it is strange but not unexpected with the man of - of this individual's psychological makeup. He's very narcissistic. He's got a lot of paranoia. And everything gets magnified in his world. He's seething with envy. He's looking at all the things he doesn't have. He's an injustice collector. He holds on to every perceived insult that's occurred in his life. He's grandiose, feels the world owes him something. He's probably one of the most narcissistic individuals I've heard about in a long time.

COSTELLO: Supposedly he'd been getting treatment for mental illness since he was eight years old. Was he born with a mental illness?

MOHANDIE: Well, it certainly sound like he's had a chronic history of problems. Whether that was something that was genetically loading or something that was created through an environment, we don't exactly know at this point. But what is significant is, it's been chronic for him. And, you know, obviously, many people were aware that he had problems and, in fact, some people were aware that he had harbored these kinds of hostile, violent thinking and these kinds of violent thoughts.

COSTELLO: And his parents kept tabs on him. They really did. It seemed to me they did everything they could. But then he writes this manifesto. It was full at rage, anger at girls for rejecting them -

MOHANDIE: Right. COSTELLO: Anger at other young men for being more successful with the opposite sex. There have been reports he was diagnosed with Asperger's, actually. His parents suspected he was like perhaps autistic. But like you say, you think this was a case of narcissism. So explain the difference.

MOHANDIE: Well, I'm not saying - right. Well, Asperger's is a whole other kind of developmental disorder. And I'm not saying he doesn't have that. I mean I've never evaluated him. But what you see in his writing, what you see in his video, is profound narcissism. He's so into himself and all the things he thinks the world owes him. He's very entitled. He's seething with envy. And these are kind of classic, narcissistic features. He is very obsessed with himself. You've got 140-plus pages of his own reflections upon himself.

This is a very narcissistic individual. He may have other things that were wrong with him, but what comes to the surface as leading to this tragedy is the narcissistic component of the self, along with the paranoid features. That's what I'm seeing.

This is a person who held on to every sense that he had been wronged, has no gratitude for any of the good things that have happened to him in his life and only focuses on that which he believed the world owed him and other people had and he was denied. That's, you know, kind of classic narcissism intersecting with some paranoid issues.

COSTELLO: So knowing that, right, saying that -

MOHANDIE: Right.

COSTELLO: Was there anything anyone could do to prevent him from playing out his anger in a violent way?

MOHANDIE: Well, I think it was attempted. I think that somebody brought it forward. I heard that it might have been the parents even that brought forward that there were concerns about what he was posting. He engaged in what we call leakage, which we see in many, if not most offenders that will do something like this. They'll talk about it beforehand. They'll make these kinds of social networking kinds of communications like on YouTube, as he did, and that stuff needs to be noticed and reported. It was.

Police went out to try to deal with him. The question was, and we need to see what comes out in any full reviews of this situation, which I'm sure will be done, was enough done to see if he had guns? To do a search? Was there a threshold reached where that could have been done? Because the opportunity presented itself.

COSTELLO: Right.

MOHANDIE: People knew about him. People were concerned. Why did he still have guns? Why was he allowed to have guns knowing what was going on? And I suspect more will be revealed as the investigation unfolds to answer those questions.

COSTELLO: Yes, we'll continue digging. Kris Mohandie, thank you so much for your insight. I appreciate it.

MOHANDIE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the Sterling family may be trying to sell the L.A. Clippers, but the first deadline is around the corner to kick Donald Sterling out of the league for good. That comes tomorrow. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The first deadline in the effort to kick Donald Sterling out of the NBA comes up tomorrow. That's when Sterling is supposed to respond to the NBA's charge that his conduct has damaged and continues to damage the league. It comes as his wife sits down with potential buyers over the sale of the team.

On Sunday Shelly Sterling reportedly met with the former Microsoft Chairman Steve Ballmer. And according to ESPN there are six serious bidders for this franchise.

So let's talk about that. With me now, CNN commentator and senior writer for ESPN, L.Z. Granderson and Brian Claypool, a criminal defense attorney and a Clippers season ticket holder. Good morning gentlemen.

BRIAN CLAYPOOL, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Hi Carol.

L.Z. GRANDERSON, CNN COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Hi.

Thank you for being with me on this Memorial Day. Brian, we know Donald Sterling turned over the sale of the team to his wife. Does that mean she can sit down with Steve Ballmer and negotiate a sale?

CLAYPOOL: Happy Memorial Day, by the way, Carol.

How ironic that on Memorial Day, on a day where -- where our veterans have fought for equality in our country and they fought for freedom in our country we're talking about a man who wants nothing to do and a woman who really wants nothing to do with equality in our country.

And getting back to your question, Shelly Sterling can talk to whoever she wants to try to negotiate a sale a team. But at the end of the day, Carol, she's not going to have any interest in the Clippers, because in 2005, she signed the same agreement that Donald Sterling signed that says that neither one of them can transfer their 50 percent ownership in the L.A. Clippers to each other unless the board of governors of the NBA approves that by a three fourth vote. So she's not going to have a say in who the Clippers get sold to.

COSTELLO: Well there's kind of a caveat to that and L.Z., I'd like you to address this. Shelly Sterling wants to remain a minority owner. Donald will be completely out of it. The NBA commissioner might have complicated matters when he said in that initial news conference quote, "There have been no decisions about other members of the Sterling family. And I should say that this ruling applies specifically to Donald Sterling and Donald Sterling's conduct only."

So what does that mean for Mrs. Sterling or Sterling's children?

GRANDERSON: Well, that was made before the NBA really started to do its investigative work and put together what seems to be a really impressive case, not only against Donald Sterling, but also against Shelly Sterling. "The L.A. Times" reported a couple days ago that there were several employees of the Clippers who talked specifically about Shelly Sterling and her racist behavior around the organization and that that organization does not want her involve either. You also have had leaders like LeBron James, players in the league saying they want no Sterling to be a part of the Clippers franchise.

And so while she may have a desire either for tax reasons or just vanity reasons to want to hold on to a portion of the team, the reality is she doesn't have the support in the league office nor with the players to make that happen.

COSTELLO: And Brian, I think L.Z. brings up an important point, I would think LeBron James at this point is the our powerful person here, he could lead a boycott if any Sterling family member has a stake in the Clippers. So that sort of settles how the NBA is going the fight this, doesn't it?

CLAYPOOL: Well I think he makes a great point. And I think another angle, though Carol I think that the NBA is going to carry out here is they're going to also go after Shelly Sterling on this morality clause. There is evidence -- there's testimony under oath, Carol, years ago from prior tenants, from prior property managers that it implicated Shelly Sterling being a racist.

And I think if the NBA was smart, what they do, what they should do is broaden the umbrella at this hearing and also include allegations against Shelly Sterling to prove that she is also racist so that they can capture this all in one hearing and stop her from having any ownership in the Clippers based on this same clause and Article 5 that she has also done things that have morally impugned the NBA.

COSTELLO: Ok so L.Z. last --

GRANDERSON: You know the thing that's interesting --

COSTELLO: That's ok.

GRANDERSON: -- I was going to say the thing that's interesting about that is that I don't think the NBA wants to really air out that dirty laundry because ultimately the question then becomes if you knew this about the Sterlings, why didn't you do something sooner? Why do you do something ten years later or earlier rather? There's video of her portraying someone in the government trying to identify the race of the people the occupants of the rooms that they were renting of their apartments they were renting and NBA had this information like ten years ago. So they don't want that dirty laundry out there because they've got to figure out why they didn't do something sooner.

And if I can just say one more thing and that is thank you to our veterans and those who are serving on this Memorial Day.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. Ok. So I would like to wrap this up by kind of pondering who will eventually own the Clippers because I don't think it will be the Sterlings. I don't think it will be any Sterling. I think any of that so Shelly Sterling approaches Steve Ballmer right L.Z. So is he out of the picture just because Shelly Sterling sat down with him, do you think?

GRANDERSON: Well Ballmer was involved with a group trying to keep the Seattle Sonics at a time in Seattle. And so this is a man which the league knows. He was sitting next to Adam Silver a couple of weeks ago at a Clippers game. So this is someone you know the owners have been familiar with and someone who's worth $20 billion so he would be ideal.

But there's also rumors about Grant Hill. The longtime NBA player leading a group that's trying to get the Clippers and then of course there's Magic Johnson. So I don't think it's a done deal but Ballmer is a known entity, a known person with ownership ideas that the league has already vetted on and knows.

COSTELLO: L.Z. Granderson, Brian Claypool thanks so much. I'm back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Later this morning, President Obama will deliver Memorial Day remarks at Arlington National Cemetery. The service will also include a wreath laying cemetery at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Many people have already started gathering to pay their respects at what's described as the saddest acre in America, Section 60. Since September 11th, that's where more than 2,000 soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors have been laid to rest.

Let's bring in CNN's pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. Good morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTATON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Here Memorial Day 2014 at Arlington. We're hearing some of the motorcycles rev up, some of the older veterans coming through here also on their motorcycles to pay their respects here this morning. Families and friends and colleagues of those who have fallen on the battlefield have been streaming in here since the gates opened at 8:00 this morning.

And one of the things that is so remarkable every year, we see so many small children being brought here by their parents to visit fathers, brothers, uncles, sisters. We stopped and we spoke to one young mother, Brittany Jacobs, who brought her very young son here to visit the grave of his father.

I want you to listen to what she had to say for just a minute.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRITTANY JACOBS, WIDOW: To me it's just important for me to raise him and let him know about his father. His dad would want him to know about him and I want him to know about him and how great of a man he was. And I never, I want him to always grow up knowing it and seeing it. I don't want it ever to come as a shock to him.

This morning he was asking questions. And he was, like, mommy, why can't daddy come from heaven. Is daddy hurting? Those are the hard things right now that we're going through.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you tell him?

JACOBS: Yes I tell him daddy is not hurting. And daddy is heaven. He can't come see us. I told him it's just like he's in our hearts. And he's having a hard time understanding that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Christopher Jacobs served five tours in the war zone before coming home. He was killed in a training accident here in the United States -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Barbara Starr reporting live for us this morning. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)