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Prosecutor Announces Charges In Deadly High School Shooting; Suspect Charged With 1 Count Terrorism, 4 Counts First-Degree Murder In Michigan School Shooting; California Officials Hold Press Conference On First Omicron Case In U.S.; Supreme Court Hears Case That Could Reshape U.S. Abortion Rights. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 01, 2021 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:32:21]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: We have breaking news because a Michigan prosecutor just announced charges in yesterday's deadly school shooting.

A 15-year-old has been identified as the alleged gunman. He will be charged as an adult.

He's being charged with one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of assault with intent to murder, and 12 counts of possession of a firearm.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: And we've just learned a fourth student has died of their injuries.

Authorities believe the suspect fired at least 30 shots and that his father purchased the firearm just four days ago.

Investigators now have writings that contain some of the teen's thoughts after authorities executed a search warrant at his home.

And that prosecutor just said she's considering charges for both of the suspect's parents and she'll make a decision about that soon.

We know the identities of some of the four victims. Tate Meir (ph), just 16 years old. Played for the varsity football team.

Madison Baldwin, she was 17 years old. CNN affiliate, WBID, reports she had gotten into several colleges and universities on scholarships.

There's chilling video, too, from inside one of those classrooms. A voice claiming to be the sheriff's office knocks on the door. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Sheriff's office! Come out!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: We're not willing to take that risk right now.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: I can't hear you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Moments later, those same students rush out of the classroom through a window and then run to safety.

Our next guest is a student at Oxford High School, Zander Cumbey.

Zander, thank you for being here.

I just cannot imagine this generation having to live through this and the suspicion of a member of law enforcement coming to the door and saying we don't trust you, we're not coming out.

How are you doing today after what happened at your high school?

ZANDER CUMBEY, MICHIGAN SCHOOL SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I'm doing pretty OK. I'm really shook up. But I'll make it through it.

BLACKWELL: So, tell us when you realized that something was going wrong. You just walked into class and then what happened?

CUMBEY: I heard screams come from the hallway and the first gunshot happened. And my teacher, he walked into the classroom. He locked the door and he told us to call 911.

Then we heard the rest of the gun shots go off. More screams. I was on the phone with 911. I didn't even really speak with them. I just said Oxford High School, shooter, because I couldn't talk.

He was right outside my classroom. I had to be quiet. We were there. Just waiting. Hoping we would be OK.

BLACKWELL: We know from the sheriff's office that more than 100 calls came in from the school about the shooting.

And you say the shooter was just outside your classroom. How close were those screams you heard? Do you know?

CUMBEY: Less than 20 feet.

BLACKWELL: Within 20 feet.

Tell us about what was happening inside the classroom as you were waiting there.

CUMBEY: We all got in the corner least visible from the door. There was crying. People were texting their families letting them know they loved them and just hoping to make it out OK.

BLACKWELL: Did you text your family?

CUMBEY: Yes, I did.

BLACKWELL: And what did you text?

CUMBEY: I texted both my parents. Told them I loved them. I told them what was going on. I texted my grandparents. I texted my little brother who was also in the school trying to make sure to see if he was OK.

BLACKWELL: Do you know -- we now know the identity of the accused shooter. Did you have any interactions with him before what happened yesterday?

CUMBEY: No. I can't say that I have.

BLACKWELL: OK. I do know that you know, unfortunately, one of the deceased. One of the teenagers. Tate was one of your friends. Tell us about him.

CUMBEY: Tate was a really close friend of mine. I've known him five, six years now. We were on the football -- we were on the football team together.

He's a great, he was a great person. Great leader. He's just always wanted to make sure everyone was OK and involved in everything he could. He's great.

[14:35:08]

BLACKWELL: We, of course, are sorry for your loss of your friend and your other classmates.

Listen, there have been some parents there in Oxford who say they saw or their children saw threats that have been posted online or a mention of something bad that could happen at the school.

Did you see any of that?

CUMBEY: I didn't see anything beforehand. I heard about it. I've seen stuff now that I've been shown. And I didn't really see anything before, no.

BLACKWELL: You're going to have to go back into that building at some point. Have you prepared yourself for the day that you'll have to go back to Oxford High?

CUMBEY: Not really. I've just been trying to mourn the loss of a friend.

BLACKWELL: I understand.

Zander Cumbey, we are so sorry for what you had to endure yesterday. Too many students across this country have a similar experience.

Thank you so much for your time.

CAMEROTA: My gosh. Our heart just breaks for him.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is in Oakland, Michigan, where that press conference just ended.

Shimon, help us understand what the prosecutors said because these are very interesting developments in terms of, I believe she said it was something like it was absolutely premeditated.

Did they share what they have been seeing?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: No, Alisyn. They would not share. She said because she doesn't want to hurt the investigation. They still have more to do.

And obviously, at some point, there's going to be a trial so they don't want to reveal too much information.

It is significant she said the prosecutor here, Karen McDonald, that there's indications that this was planned, that this was not an impulsive act.

And that is why they are charging him with the first-degree murder charge, which allows them to charge him as an adult.

He's 15 years old. He's now facing the prospect of the rest of his life in prison because of these charges.

And she explained why they did that. Why they went ahead and charged him as an adult.

And she said that is because there's information that they have that indicates that this was not something that was sudden. That was impulsive and that is something that he planned.

She also began the press conference by identifying the alleged shooter but then said she doesn't want to dwell on that.

Instead, she went and talked about the victims, how they were athletes, a football player, an artist, other things like sports. A lot of sports. The school has a lot of sports, athletic. So she wanted to talk about that.

She wanted to talk about the families of these victims. Also significant is that she announced that the parents, of course there's been a lot of questions about the weapon used. A nine-millimeter handgun in this shooting.

The sheriff just yesterday revealing that the father, the father of the alleged shooter, bought this weapon four days before the shooting on November 26th.

The prosecutor saying that is not part of the investigation. And that it is likely that they will -- that the parents of this alleged shooter will be charged for not securing the weapon.

So that is also a very significant piece of information. She said we will hear more about that perhaps in the coming days.

So significant pieces of news here. And that, number one, there's some indication here that this was planned. The parents are now likely to face charges because they did not secure the weapon.

Again, the prosecutor wouldn't go into too many details about how the gun was obtained, but it seems from what she was saying that the parents did not secure the weapon. They didn't keep the ammunition separate from the gun. And that's the direction that this seems to be heading in.

She also said we will likely see the suspected shooter, the alleged gunman here, in court later today for an arraignment. So perhaps we will learn more.

But the big questions here are, what is the premeditation? What is the planning? And obviously, what was the motivation here?

So we still have yet to get answers on those very, very important questions.

BLACKWELL: We know the police will be briefing at 3:00. Of course, we'll bring the latest to you as soon as that happens.

Shimon Prokupecz, there in Michigan, thank you.

California officials are set to discuss the first case of the Omicron variant of coronavirus to be detected in the U.S. We will bring that to you live.

[14:39:36]

CAMEROTA: And the Supreme Court has just finished hearing arguments in a case that could reshape abortion rights across this country. We have all of the big takeaways for you coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: This is San Francisco's mayor, I believe, speaking, about the first case of Omicron variant being detected there.

MAYOR LONDON BREED (D-SAN FRANCISCO): -- discovered our first case not only here in San Francisco, but the entire country.

And I wanted to at this time introduce Dr. Grant Colfax to talk about the specifics and what that means in terms of what we need to do as a city.

Dr. Colfax?

[14:45:00]

DR. GRANT COLFAX, SAN FRANCISCO DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Thank you, Mayor Breed.

Good morning, everybody.

And thank you, Mayor, for your ongoing leadership during this pandemic. And I want to thank our partners at UCSF, especially Dr. Charles Chu and his team who worked so quickly to sequence this specimen. And I'd like to thank our testing partner at Color, Dr. Scott Popper (ph). Both are here today.

And of course, my partner in our emergency response, Dr. Mary Ellen Carroll.

All of us have been working furiously for the last 24 hours with our federal and state partners at CDC and at the State Department of Health to determine whether this is indeed the first case of Omicron that has been detected and that has, indeed, been the result of our work overnight.

I want to acknowledge our outstanding health officer, Dr. Susan Phillip, for her outstanding work. Her team worked really hard to ensure we got this information as quickly as possible.

But I want to emphasize that this is not a surprise. For those who have been following this, we knew that Omicron was going to be here. We thought it was already here. We just hadn't detected it yet.

So this is cause for concern but is also certainly not a cause for us to panic. We are prepared here in the city for this.

With regard to the case itself, the person recently traveled to South Africa and developed symptoms upon their return. And they did the right thing and got tested and reported their travel history.

They had received a full dose of the Moderna vaccine, but no booster. They had mild symptoms and thankfully have now recovered. Contacts have and are being notified be notified by the health department.

And again, here's what we know now. San Francisco is relatively well positioned to respond to variants. Our vaccine rate is high. More boosters are going into arms every day. And 5 to 11-year-olds are getting vaccinated at a rapid uptake.

Our masking and vaccine requirements are among some of the most stringent in the country.

These efforts have been very effective in helping us slow the spread of the virus.

And there's still a lot we do not know about Omicron. We don't know how infectious it is, although, there's a strong likelihood that it is more infectious than Delta.

We don't know how sick it will make people, but that is being studied furiously right now across the world.

And we don't know yet how effective, fully effective the vaccines are in protecting against transmission or serious cases of illness and hospitalizations due to Omicron.

But most experts that I have spoken to believe that the vaccines will still be of critical importance in protecting ourselves, our families and our community.

So our message is the same as it was yesterday, to best protect against this variant, get vaccinated, for goodness sakes, if you have not been vaccinated. Get your booster if you're eligible.

Continue to wear those masks inside where required. Continue to take the steps that we know that have been successful in San Francisco to prevent major loss of life and to slow the spread of this virus.

We know how to do this, San Francisco.

At this time, we do not anticipate changing any of our health orders or changing any current restrictions or imposing any restrictions on activity in San Francisco.

We're also following these developments very closely. We will share additional information as we have it.

And again, get vaccinated, get your booster, wear the mask and, for goodness sakes, it's been a long almost 24 months now. Please have a great holiday season with your family.

And now, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Chu, our great partner in sequencing the virus. And again, his team worked so hard over the night to make sure we got this information as quickly as possible.

Thank you.

DR. CHARLES CHU, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO: Good afternoon.

So, my laboratory at University of California, San Francisco, has been working very closely over the past year with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the California Department of Public Health and Color Genomics on surveillance of the virus.

[14:50:01]

And by that, I mean, when we identify positive cases, COVID-19 cases in the city and country, we make an attempt to sequence the cases we can identify.

This particular example was --

BLACKWELL: You have been listening to health officials, also the mayor, London Breed, in San Francisco about the first case come Omicron identified in the U.S.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is back with us, along with epidemiologist, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.

Stephanie, first to you.

You have been covering the spread of COVID across the state, just how well connected this system is to immediately get a sequencing of this and it was identified overnight. STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Victor, I actually took the

time to call of the epidemiologists from UCSF. I have been talking to these people for a good couple of years now.

One of the things I learned is what they are doing at UCSF is taking all the positive tests from San Francisco County so they can then genome sequence them. And that's how they were able to identify that this was, in fact, Omicron.

The main thing here, though, is that the vast majority of the tests there -- and they're averaging about 54 positive cases a day. The vast majority are the Delta variant.

At this point, that's why you heard Dr. Colfax say the same thing. This is no reason to panic, but to be concerned.

I would point out you heard Dr. Colfax say that in San Fracisco they have stringent mask rules, you have to wear them indoors. Same with L.A. County. We are still wearing these masks.

And I think this is part of the reason why. We're seeing the variants. You still have a need for people to get vaccinated.

Information can travel quickly in the small world of ours as the virus can. What they have been able to learn from South Africa, they have been able to sequence it here quickly. And also to know how to respond to it.

So what he said is how they're testing down in South Africa is what they are doing this San Francisco County that helped them identify this variant very quickly after someone came back and reported being ill and also gave their travel history as well!

CAMEROTA: Dr. El-Sayed, it was comforting to hear the patient has mild symptoms and has now recovered.

What did you take away from the press conference we just heard?

DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: That's really good news.

I want to go back to what the last individual was talking about, that capacity for genomic surveillance. That ability to sequence the genome of the virus that is pulled out of a patient. That really is critical.

Couple that with contact tracing and that capacity for genome surveil is going to be critical to contain Omicron in our country.

That being said, we only surveil about 10 percent gnomically of all of the samples that we collect from patients.

And so the capacity to do that and do that at scale across the country is going to be really important.

It is a great thing that most of the circumstantial evidence that we have about the severity of cases suggests that they have been generally less severe. That being said, of course, we've got to wait for the science on this.

And we've got to understand that, you know, an N-equals-one situation doesn't really tell us about the overall risk of severe illness among individuals who may come down with Omicron.

But it is heartening to hear and certainly good for that one individual, and certainly the folks with whom he has come in contact.

BLACKWELL: Doctor, let me lean on your experience as a public health official of a major city, former health commissioner there in Detroit.

What we heard there was that they're not changing the health protocols in San Francisco despite having identified the first case of Omicron.

You look here in the state of New York, the governor's already declared a state of emergency saying that it's coming in no identified case of that variant here.

Which path is prudent, makes sense from your perspective?

EL-SAYED: Well, I will say that there are a lot of different kinds of states of emergency. And what declaring a state of emergency can do for you is to open up funds and resources to be able to get ready.

We just talked about genomic surveillance, and that's going to be critical. We talked about contact tracing, again, critical.

And opening up the resources to be able to set up and build up the infrastructure as we know that Omicron is making landfall, may already be in a city the size of New York, that is really critical.

ELAM: Can I just add one thing to that?

CAMEROTA: Sure.

ELAM: Just really quickly.

CAMEROTA: Sure.

ELAM: It was also noteworthy that Dr. Colfax said this person did not have a booster. This person did not have a booster shot but was fully vaccinated.

They're pointing to that as another reason and proof that you should get your people to go out and get vaccinated.

Also worth noting that San Francisco County has a high vaccination rate. These are all things that play into that region as well.

CAMEROTA: Really helpful context.

Thank you for that, Stephanie Elam.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, thank you as well. All right, turning now to Supreme Court. For nearly two hours of oral

arguments, the conservative-leaning court seemed poised to uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks.

[14:55:11]

Some of the conservative justices expressed skepticism about the Roe v. Wade precedent and indicated that may be looking to a potential middle ground on this issue.

CAMEROTA: Today's arguments were the culmination of a decade's long effort to return the abortion issue to the states, a move that could limit abortion rights in more than half of the country.

Hundreds of protesters from both sides of the issue gathered outside of the Supreme Court.

CNN Supreme Court reporter, Ariane De Vogue, is outside the courthouse.

Ariane, tell us what you have heard from the justices that suggest which way they might go.

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Right. I was in that courtroom, and it was somber. Respectful but somber. This court, 6-3, is really divided on the issue of abortion.

What looks like will happen is the conservatives on this court will move to uphold this Mississippi law that bars abortion after 15 weeks. But what was less clear is if they're ready to end the right to abortion, to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Chief Justice John Roberts is key here. And he seemed to be proposing kind of a middle ground. He would allow states to bar abortions earlier, move that viability line back.

But he would try to find a way to still keep some remnants of the right to abortion. That would be a more incremental move.

And the big question would be, are other justices ready to sign on to that?

All eyes were on Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He could be key. Maybe he would be interested in it.

But in court, he really seems to push on the fact that how this issue really belongs to the states. And if he goes that way, he would be a vote to overturn Roe, to get it away from the Supreme Court down the line.

Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT KAVANAUGH, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE (voice-over): When you have those two interests at stake, and both are important, as you acknowledge, why not -- why should this court be the arbiter rather than Congress, the state legislatures, state Supreme Courts, the people being able to resolve this?

And there will be different answers in Mississippi and New York, different answers in Alabama than California. Because there are two different interests at stake. And the people in those states might value those interests somewhat differently.

Why is that not the right answer?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DE VOGUE: So this was the most important abortion case this court has heard in some 30 years.

It does look like Roe v. Wade is in trouble, maybe not in this particular case but down the road.

CAMEROTA: OK, Ariane De Vogue, thank you very much for explaining all of that.

Let's bring in constitutional law professor and author of the book, "She Took Justice," Gloria Browne-Marshall, and CNN contributor and law professor, Stephen Vladeck.

Great to see both of you.

Gloria, some of the questions from the justices struck me how little they know about pregnancy. I mean, never mind abortion.

The question from John Roberts, he was basically asking, why isn't 15 weeks fine, as though he doesn't know that there are all sorts of screening tests when you're pregnant that happen at week 18, at week 20, that decide the viability of your fetus.

You get important information at week 20 that you didn't know before that. But it didn't sound like he understood that.

So here is his question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE (voice-over): If you think that the issue is one of choice, that women should have a choice to terminate their pregnancy, that supposes that there's a point at which they've had the fair choice, opportunity to choice.

And why would 15 weeks be an inappropriate line? So viability, it seems to me, doesn't have anything to do with choice. But if it really is an issue about choice, why is 15 weeks not enough time?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So what did you hear there, Gloria?

GLORIA BROWNE-MARSHALL, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR & AUTHOR: I'm hearing somebody who doesn't really understand that sometimes, in the early stages, a woman might not even know she's pregnant for some time, you know, depending on how her body changes or doesn't change.

I think it's also a wrestling period of trying to figure out, how can someone feel a time period in which a woman's choice should be made as opposed to having viability be that choice.

And then that brings in science. It goes almost to what we're dealing with right now with COVID, a feeling versus science.

[14:59:53]

And in this instance, that's what we're working with this court, is the sense that we want to give the states this power from the conservative standpoint.

And that goes against science. So then, just forget about science and make up standards as we go along.