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FDNY: 10 People Shot On NYC Subway, Five In Critical Condition. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 12, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: This was the N line in Brooklyn.

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CAMEROTA (voice-over): The FDNY says 16 people were injured, at least 10 of them shot. Five are in critical but stable condition. And the suspect is still on the loose. A manhunt is underway and police are asking for the public's help.

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KEECHANT SEWELL, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: An individual on that train donned what appeared to be a gas mask. He then took a canister out of his bag and opened it. At that time, the train began to fill with smoke.

He opened fire, striking multiple people on the subway and in the platform. Again, it is an individual, being reported as a male Black, approximately 5'5" with a heavy build. He was wearing a green construction type vest and a hooded sweatshirt. The color is gray.

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Now the police commissioner is clear to say they do not believe there is any active explosive device on any New York City subway train car. They are not investigating it as an act of terror right now.

But they have said they have not ruled anything out. Here along Fourth Avenue, the road has reopened here. Traffic is moving but things are not normal. There is a massive police presence here, local police, transit police, the FBI here on scene as well as this investigation is just starting.

We're about 5.5 hours from the shooting that happened this morning and still, as mentioned, this massive search for this shooter, as you heard a very limited description of the suspect. Let's bring in Brynn Gingras, who's been on the scene since early this morning. BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are agencies from all over

the place, ATF, NYPD, JTTF. They are coordinating, with the NYPD, federal authorities. They are basically all huddled together, trying to pull in video and talk to witnesses.

Some of the victims on the train, we have talked to one ourselves, trying to get a better description of who this person is. It's very likely they might have an idea. And at this point, they are just trying to look at this person.

No indication to say -- sources (INAUDIBLE) -- but these investigations go quickly. And they are working together to determine that.

But this happened during the rush hour on the train in Brooklyn. Clearly this is a train most people were trying to commute to work. I want to go to the mayor, who talked to Dana Bash earlier today. I want you to hear what he had to say about that particular aspect of the story.

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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: When you look at how miraculous this is, you have to really point to the passengers and the transit authority officials. They responded with a level of care for their fellow New Yorkers.

And our first responders at the neighboring hospitals immediately kicked into gear and provided the necessary care. While I believe lives were saved based on the actions that we witnessed on some of the amateur video released, you saw passengers coming to the aid to each other. I cannot thank New Yorkers enough for how we responded.

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GINGRAS: I was at that news conference. Someone came forward and sort of invoked 9/11 in the sense of that so many people were just trying to help each other get off that train and get to safety.

So many people were still injured, facing injuries from just the smoke inhalation, being suffocated and trampled to get out of there. Two actual gunshot wounds. So certainly, this is something that they are wanting to find this person, that's priority number one at this point. And that investigation is still ongoing.

BLACKWELL: Yes, the police commissioner said this is not being investigated as an act of terror. But we heard from the mayor, he said people were terrorized, the impact on the system that everyone in New York takes.

GINGRAS: I know you guys have done it on your show multiple times. There's fear right now on the subway system. Multiple people are texting me, just friends, being like, this is why I don't take the trains anymore.

So this is something that's invoking a lot of fear because there was already fear there, seeing a lot of different attacks, whether it be slashings or stabbings. Nothing to this scale but it's fear-inducing for many people here in New York.

BLACKWELL: What more do we know about the victims?

GINGRAS: There are 16 people being treated right now at area hospitals. That number could change. We are hours away from this; 10 people shot by a gunshot wound. We know that five people are critical but stable.

The police commissioner saying they don't think anybody is going to die from their wounds. But certainly we pray they don't and this means just people with gunshot wounds. We are trying to confirm the ages but it looks like it was a range of ages.

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GINGRAS: Again, this is a train system that's not in a tourist area of New York.

BLACKWELL: This is -- Sunset Park High School is right around the corner. First period starts 8:50. This happened right before 8:30. We hope there are no young people or children, students involved in this. We know that the investigation has begun and it's early.

But what can you tell us about evidence collected?

GINGRAS: Evidence collected: we know that a gun was recovered at the scene. And we know it is collected. So there's still a lot -- this is a moving subway. That's something to point out.

Thank goodness the train conductors kept the train moving to get people to safety. But also this crime scene takes up a massive area in New York City. So this is a big crime scene. We're still working on sources to figure out what's been uncovered.

Because all of that information, from the smoke canister to the gun, to the description of this person, that's all being tied into this investigation to try to pinpoint who this person is and try to identify them and find them.

BLACKWELL: Brynn Gingras, thank you so much for the details. I'll let you get back to some reporting.

Alisyn, we're about a block away from this station entrance here. That's blocked off. I don't know if we can get any closer there.

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BLACKWELL: But you see the detective vehicle and a massive group of law enforcement agents, collecting evidence, continuing the investigation here. But of course, that train platform, the train car, the center of the investigation that's branching out, we're 5.5 hours out from the beginning of this. And still a search for this suspect.

We'll talk with our law enforcement analysts about what that looks like. For now, back to you in the studio.

CAMEROTA: We can see the huge crime scene. We'll check back with you.

As they just talked about, the FBI is now working with the NYPD on this investigation. They say they are following every viable lead. Let's get right to CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez.

What's the deal with the investigation?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SR. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The role of the FBI here is to provide support that the NYPD is using there on the scene. You saw FBI and New York Police Department people, who are serving on the Joint Terrorism Task Force. They are on the scene.

You heard earlier from the police commissioner that they don't believe this is connected to international domestic terrorism groups. However, they have this expertise to help use not only analyzing the surveillance footage -- that I'm sure they have already collected from that area -- but also electronic surveillance, perhaps, if the suspect was carrying a telephone, a cell phone.

That is something they can use to try to figure out where that person traveled to. Again, one of the most important things is to figure out who this person is, try to get them detained and then get to the bottom of what the motive here is.

One of the other things, we know the FBI and NYPD are doing at this hour, is looking at the victims.

Perhaps is there any sign that one of the victims may have known the assailant?

Those are things that the investigators would want to know at this hour, to try to figure out who this person is. Last thing I'll mention real quick: the gun recovered is now going to be analyzed by both the NYPD and ATF in New York.

They have a crime gun intelligence center that looks at the history of guns. If that gun has been used in a crime before, that is something that will be key to try to get to the bottom of this.

CAMEROTA: Let's hope that leads them to the suspect. Evan Perez, thank you very much for the latest on that investigation.

Joining us now is security correspondent Josh Campbell and Tom Verni, a former NYPD detective, and CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.

Juliette, I want to start with you. I was so interested in something that you said earlier on the air.

You said, in all of your training for a hypothetical mass transit attack like this, the first thing you do is shut down the subway system. They didn't do that here. But I don't know what that would look like. How do you shut down a mass transit system at rush hour that 8 million

people rely on?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It would have been subway station specific. What you don't want is the ability -- you don't want trains coming in, because you don't know if there's an ongoing scene. You want to stop the trains coming in. They have very sophisticated systems.

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KAYYEM: And you also don't want trains leaving because we don't know how the perpetrator left. You don't want things leaving the crime scene. You want to exit everyone and make sure that they are safe.

And as I said, what we know now is that the system kept running during this incident.

This is why some of the questions that someone like me has is, what happened in those moments because we're still looking for the perpetrator?

I will say, as I have said earlier, I have never seen the NYPD come out so strongly, so early. And I would be curious what Josh thinks. So saying it's not terrorism. We know it's not terrorism. That also, just based on my experience, says that they have some sense of the perpetrator.

They may even know who it is and they know him for reasons unrelated to terrorism, because that's a big thing for the NYPD to say. They will continue the investigation to make sure there's no ties.

But to come out like that, it calms the city and calms the population and gets the subways moving again. But it also says that's where the investigation is heading right now.

BLACKWELL: So let's take that question to Josh.

We heard from the police commissioner that they are not investigating this as terrorism but they also do not have a motive.

How do you rule that out so early in the investigation?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, when you're talking about terrorism, it's more about ruling something in rather than ruling something out.

They have to identify this person before they are able to make that assessment whether this was actually ideologically or politically motivated. It sounds as though, at least what they are saying publicly, they yet don't have an identification they are willing to share.

But in law enforcement, there's a way to make that calculus.

What information am I going to release? If they do have some indication of who this person is, they are able

to possibly locate an address. They want to maintain the element of surprise to effect an arrest.

The other side of that coin is sometimes you want the eyes and ears of the public. We see these fugitive publicity campaigns, these wanted posters out there. So that's a decision that they are going to have to make, how much to share.

I will say they have a lot of work ahead of them as it relates to digging through all of the different evidence. The key aspect here is going to be that video. Those of us who worked in counterterrorism know even the most advanced surveillance in the world isn't a full- proof way to prevent an attack.

In law enforcement, action beats reaction. The suspect acts first and then law enforcement has to respond to that. But that said, in a place like New York City, we have seen in past attacks, such as the 2005 London bombing, where there was a host of video evidence available to investigators, they were able to track down the movement of each of those perpetrators, which that is what's going on, to try to track that person back.

But we know that itself is not full proof because one need only look to January 6th and, just before that, we still don't know the identification of the pipe bomber, for example, despite a wealth of evidence and video. And so a lot of hard work there.

The last thing I'll say is we can't overlook the importance of the ballistics. Authorities now have a firearm. They also have shell casings. And the ATF had has this special unit they can look and see, was this gun used in a past incident.

We don't know how the suspect got the gun, whether it was legally or illegally. But they have a lot of tools to bring to bear, to try to identify this person. And what happens next, whether they publicize that to get the public to assist, that we'll have to wait and see.

CAMEROTA: Tom, I was concerned to hear the New York police commissioner saying they are trying to determine whether the video camera at that station was working and was operational where this happened. So tell me what you think the NYPD is doing right now.

TOM VERNI, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Good afternoon. And my thoughts are with the people affected by this. I hope they recover fully. It seems as if right now that seems to be the case.

In today's day, when we have so much video footage to draw from, while some of the cameras or maybe all the cameras may not have been operational at that station, which is problematic -- and I'm sure that the MTA will be digging into that, why some or more of those cameras are not functioning properly.

But within that area, even though it's a largely residential area, there are a number of stores and shops in that area, as well as schools. There were at least half a dozen schools in the area that were on a shelter in.

And it's all day because this is still an active scene. So they will be able to gather, I think, a lot of video footage from the area, from different vantage points and, through facial recognition technology, should hopefully be able to get a clear enough shot of the perpetrator's face.

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VERNI: If it's someone known to us in the system, that'll make it easier to figure out who it is. And then hopefully --

(CROSSTALK)

VERNI: -- later.

CAMEROTA: I want to say they are really relying on the public's help. They put up the tipline, 1-800-577-TIPS.

Somebody saw something. And they said that nothing, no bit of evidence is irrelevant and it can be strictly confidential.

Tom, Josh, Juliette, thank you very much. We'll call upon you throughout the show.

BLACKWELL: Ten people shot, five in critical condition but stable condition, we're told, as well. Our live breaking news coverage of this mass shooting at the New York City subway continues after a break.

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BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell, outside of the subway station, where there was a shooting this morning here in New York. The FDNY says that 16 people were injured, 10 of them shot. The suspect is still out there. One witness in the train car explained his experience.

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YAV MONTANO, NYC SUBWAY SHOOTING WITNESS: As soon as the smoke flared up, it started to engulf everything. People started migrating to the front of the car. At the front of the car, I don't know if people know this, but it was one of those old trains, where they locked the doors to travel into the cars.

So there was one generally on the train, using all his strength, to try to open that door. He ended up opening it. But the other door to get into the other car was locked. So there were people in that other car saw that was happening and they tried to open the door but they couldn't. So we were stuck in the car. And I don't know if this is too vulgar for TV but there was blood on

the floor with a lot of blood (INAUDIBLE) on the floor. At the time and the moment, I did not think that it was a shooting because it sounded like fireworks. So I saw people trampling over each other, trying to get through to the door, which was locked. And there was just a lot of panic.

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BLACKWELL: Back with us now is Tom Verni, a former NYPD detective; CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, and CNN security correspondent, Josh Campbell.

Tom, the details we have now about this suspect is that he was wearing a green Day-Glo construction vest. We know about the smoke.

Does it sound like this is a suspect who took conscious steps to distract his potential victims from his identity?

We often see, in some crimes, people wear things to distract from their facial features or other elements.

VERNI: Yes, correct. Initially, there was reporting of explosive devices that the FDNY found undetonated (INAUDIBLE). And we know that those devices were smoke canisters, in which this case, this perpetrator used to kind of literally cloud his actions he was taking as well as his escape because everyone is now distracted, not only by the gunshots but also now the smoke.

And then thinking perhaps that something had exploded and (INAUDIBLE) fires, now they are worrying about whether or not they can breathe. So that seemed to be the case here. It's unclear as to what the motive is, which is why the police commissioner mentioned earlier -- and Josh mentioned this point, as to the terrorism part of this.

With terrorism, we're generally talking about someone who has some sort of political motivation or is looking to act out in a violent manner to achieve some sort of political motivation.

But that's unclear at this point. It could be just a garden variety psychopath. We don't know enough yet. But we do know enough about the description of the perpetrator, which is why people can call the TIPS line with any bit of information they saw.

Even if they saw someone running out from there, whether they have it on video or not, every little bit of evidence is going to be helpful to authorities.

BLACKWELL: Josh, what we know from the New York Police Department is the suspect they are looking for is a Black male, 5'5", heavier build with a gray hoodie. And that vest.

Is this a scenario in which police would hold back any details about a potential suspect?

Or would they tell the public everything they know?

CAMPBELL: That's something that they will have to calibrate and recalibrate in real time, based on the information they get. If you look, on one hand, authorities, if they have some indication of who this person is, the identity, that could come at any time as they look at the witness interviews, as they look at the point of sale information from the train.

If there's a clue that gets them on to this person and they do identify a residence, a cell phone, they are able to geolocate this person, there's a case to be made that law enforcement would not want to put that information out there publicly, as they are trying to get together an arrest team and maintain that element of surprise to take that person into custody.

But absent some piece of information and the longer this goes on, that they are not able to identify this person and locate this suspect, there is an argument to use the public, to crowd source --

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CAMPBELL: -- the eyes and ears, the millions of people in the New York area, if they are able to provide more information. Some of that video evidence, something that's locked on, where you can get a sense of description, there's a benefit there to try to use the public.

So that is something that they are going to have to weigh. We don't know how far along in the investigation that they are. And it's important to remember that any clue could come at any time that locks them on to this person and leads them in direction where he might be.

BLACKWELL: Juliette, the commissioner says this is not being investigated as an act of terror.

But if you're in law enforcement in Chicago or Philly or D.C., is that enough for you?

What's your reaction if you're watching this attack in New York?

KAYYEM: So my reaction would be a little bit confused, to be fair. They came on very strong about it not being terrorism and that there's no continuing threat.

One would interpret they either know who the perpetrator is and know this person through non-terrorism related activity or, for some reason, they simply know this is not related to anything international.

I should say toward the end of the press conference, that was walked back a little bit. I was only listening -- I don't know if it was the fire chief or NYPD saying all investigations are going forward. So what we do know is JTTF has been activated. That's the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

That tells me some piece is still being investigated as a federal crime opposed to a mass shooting. That's not good but those are different types of investigations. If I'm in Chicago, L.A. or Boston, I'm doing a couple things.

I'm making sure my police department is on and is receiving the right intelligence about what New York is seeing. I'm probably doing something that people will accuse of security theater. I sort of don't mind it, which is probably deploying more transit resources in terms of law enforcement just to make people feel calm.

That's OK. We should do that. People need to get on to the subways and need to get home.

And then you're waiting for information from the NYPD, why they think this is exclusively a New York incident. The further along we get and there's no multiple attacks, the more confident other cities will be that this was either related to New York or a mass shooting.

I should just remind people on Josh's point about the crowd sourcing. It could be we have a while, while they're trying to find this person and then decide to pivot to the crowd sourcing.

It was about 48 hours the FBI decided in the Boston marathon bombing. So if they don't find him within 24-48 hours, you may see the pivot to we need everyone on board here, giving us information.

BLACKWELL: We heard from Governor Hochul. She's asking everyone to be very vigilant and this is an active shooter situation, as she described it. And it was Commissioner Sewell, who said at the end of the news conference, she was asked if terrorism was ruled out.

She said that nothing is being ruled out at this point. Brynn Gingras back is with us and has new reporting.

GINGRAS: You asked me what else has been recovered from the crime scene. We got new information from sources learning that multiple magazines were actually recovered there at the scene, as well as the facts that we're learning.

The gun actually jammed, according to sources, during the shooting. So this really speaks to the possible intent of this person. This could have been a larger catastrophe than what we are first learning about. Certainly this could have been a lot larger incident since there were multiple magazines.

It shows he possibly wanted to continue shooting after he ran out of bullets. And then the fact that the gun jammed means something happened and he had to stop. So that's why the shooting ended and possibly that's the only reason why.

So this is a lot of new information we're learning. And again, it speaks to the intent and how big of an issue this could have been.

Now in the investigative process, we know that gun was also recovered. So the hope is we're not dealing with a ghost gun, like we were all talking about yesterday. We're hoping there's a serial number on that. And investigators will try to run it and find the birth of that gun, so to speak, and discover where possibly it was purchased. And hopefully that will help them tie back to a possible suspect. Right now, at this point, we haven't learned from sources a name at all as to who might be tied to this.

BLACKWELL: Yes, important detail. Brynn Gingras, thank you so much.

Additional magazines found and that the gun jammed. That was what ended this shooting.

Let's bring in now Yav Montano, on that train car.

Yav, I want your reaction to what we just heard, that this shooting ended because the gun jammed. And there were magazines available, if this shooter intended to go further.

MONTANO: Yes, that's news to me. That's the first I'm hearing that. It's very unsettling for me.

I read some of what you said about what happened.