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Manhunt in Brooklyn Shooting; Hourari Benkada is Interviewed about Surviving the Subway Attack; Frank James Now Suspect in Shooting; Zelenskyy Proposes Prisoner Swap; New Military Aid to Ukraine. Aired 9:00-9:30a ET

Aired April 13, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

[08:59:43]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: We are following two major stories this hour.

First, a manhunt underway for the gunman who terrorized rush hour commuters on a subway in New York. The shooter firing 33 shots, hitting at least ten people. More than a dozen others injured in the chaos.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga.

[09:00:01]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

We've also learned overnight this, that five children on their way to school were among those wounded in this attack. Five children. This morning, police are looking for what they're describing as a person of interest. The man you see here identified as Frank James. Investigators believe he rented a U-Haul van, the keys of which were found at the scene. James had also recorded dozens of hours of YouTube videos ranting about, among other things, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, homeless people in the subway system, gun violence. We're going to bring you the latest from Brooklyn in just a moment.

GOLODRYGA: We are also tracking major developments out of Ukraine. This morning, a CNN team has observed stepped up shelling of residential district of Kharkiv, as new video appears to show explosions from cluster munitions in a civilian area of that city. At least four explosions just seconds apart.

Plus, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is proposing a prisoner swap with Russia after capturing an ally of Vladimir Putin. We'll have more details on that just ahead.

SCIUTTO: First, let's begin with CNN's Jason Carroll. He is in New York.

You've been following this story since it first broke in this broadcast some 24 hours ago. What is the latest on the police search for the person of interest, Frank James? JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point, the

investigation is still very much focused on finding Frank James, finding anyone out there who knows him and might know where he is.

A little bit more information about James, 62 years old. Investigators say that some of the items that they found here at the scene of the shooting, including keys to a rental U-Haul van they believe belonged to James. That U-Haul van found not far from the scene at just a few miles from here, at an N (ph) subway stop.

That U-Haul rental van rented in Philadelphia. Apparently James has addresses in both Philadelphia and Wisconsin. In addition to that, Jim, investigators are also playing very close attention to James' social media at this point. On Monday, he posted a YouTube video, very disturbing, where he apparently talked about killing people. Some of his social media posts, he also talked about violence. He talked about mass shootings. And at one point mentioned New York City Mayor Eric Adams by name.

Through -- over the last hour, CNN spoke to Adams, spoke to him about all of this, and he put it on the social media companies saying that they need to do more to protect the public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: You look at how we use this social media right now to put threats out there, carry out dangerous actions and there are clear correlations between what's being posted and what's being carried out in our streets, in this case and in many other cases.

Part of the job is receiving threats. I get threats from time it time, not only in the role as a mayor, as a state senator, as a bar (ph) president, and even as a police officer. I have a great deal of confidence in the law enforcement officers that are around me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Eric Adams also saying during that interview with CNN that police and investigators still following up, Jim, on a number of leads, not wanting to say too much at this point, not wanting to jeopardize the case. But one point he did make abundantly clear, he said whoever did this is still out there, and still a threat to New York City.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, and notable, Jason, that the mayor singled out social media companies for not doing enough to bring down these video postings that have been posted for a while now.

Jason Carroll, thank you.

Well, joining us now from the hospital is a survivor of the subway attack, Hourari Benkada. He says he was sitting next to the shooter and was shot in the back of his knee while trying to flee the scene.

Hourari, first of all, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

I understand that you are still in quite a bit of pain. How are you doing?

HOURARI BENKADA, SHOT IN THE KNEE DURING NYC SUBWAY SHOOTING: I still feel the pain. They gave me a punch of pain meds, but I -- it's still bad. I still feel it. I can still see the hole.

SCIUTTO: Goodness, my friend. Thank you, as Bianna said, for joining us from your hospital bed there.

These are difficult memories, I know, from yesterday. You were sitting next to the shooter. Can you walk us through the moments --

BENKADA: Yes, I was sitting right next to the shooter.

SCIUTTO: Right before, did he say anything? Did he do anything to cause you to be suspicious?

BENKADA: I had my headphones on. I just thought it was a regular smoke bomb. And then the smoke kept pouring out. This pregnant lady was yelling, I'm pregnant, help. Everybody was pushing. I'm thinking it's just a smoke bomb.

[09:05:02]

I grabbed her from the -- I grabbed her from the back so she don't get shot in the back. She was pregnant. And a lot of people kept rushing. And that's when I got shot in the leg. That's when the shots kept going off.

GOLODRYGA: Hourari, I know that you --

BENKADA: (INAUDIBLE) in the train, I didn't hear anything. So, I did -- I had my headphones on and I was just (INAUDIBLE) -- I was looking at my phone. I was just minding my business.

GOLODRYGA: And then the unthinkable, of course, happened, just seconds later.

Hourari, I know you have been in a great deal of pain there getting medical attention over the past 24 hours. I'm just curious if you have been able to follow through those near you, telling you or watching television and hearing about where this investigation has led thus far and this particular person of interest.

BENKADA: Yes, I had a lot of people reaching out to me. I'm just, you know, I'm still traumatized and I just don't want to talk about it.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BENKADA: So many people telling me the same thing, a lot of people calling me, loved ones, friends, co-workers, classmates. Like, you know, I'm just still shocked about the whole situation. GOLODRYGA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I know that time can be confusing in moments like this, moments of fear and panic and danger. Do you have any memory, any sense of how long he was shooting?

BENKADA: Yes, it was -- the shooting went off for a good minute, a good 60 seconds. Just about -- I heard about like 20 shots, 15 to 20 shots. And at first it was like fireworks going off. And I think he was trying to mask (ph) -- he was trying to hide the sound of the fireworks with the gunshots. It was just so much noise.

GOLODRYGA: Hourari, we're not going to take up too much --

BENKADA: All I remember is all the blood leaking out of me, to be honest.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Hourari, we're not going to take up too much more of your time. We'll let you get back to recovering.

I just want to ask you, as a New Yorker, as a commuter there, along with millions of New Yorkers who take the subway system every day, do you feel safe riding on the New York public transportation?

BENKADA: I mean I don't -- I don't think I'm going to ever -- I don't think I could ever ride the train again. You know, the busy train station on 36th Street, trains going to all four boroughs, they're saying they don't have cameras. That's just ridiculous, you know?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BENKADA: That's unsafe. And -- and the train was an old n (ph) train. The -- you can't even switch cars. That's unsafe as well, you know?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BENKADA: You can't -- nobody could go anywhere.

SCIUTTO: We heard that from another witness yesterday, that the doors were locked, so people trying to go to another car --

BENKADA: Yes, it was an old -- it was an old school n (ph) train.

SCIUTTO: Do -- did you hear the shooter's gun jam? Because a lot of the question at this point is, what happened? Why did he stop? And how did he get away? But, listen, you were focused on saving someone's life, a pregnant woman's life there, but did you hear anything that sounded like he couldn't shoot anymore or just stopped and he went away?

BENKADA: I mean, my ears were ringing. And I already had been shot. I was in plenty of pain, you know.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BENKADA: The difference between a gunshot and a gunshot jamming, I'm not going to be able to pick that up in that situation, you know what I'm saying.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I get it.

Listen, man, take care of yourself. Just agreeing to speak to us with what you're going through, that's a big stretch. So, we're thinking of you. We're praying for you. And our best to your family as well.

BENKADA: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Hourari Benkada, a survivor who was sitting right next to the shooter before it all happened. Just remarkable.

We do have this breaking news.

Frank James has now been named as a suspect, not just a person of interest, in that Brooklyn shooting.

CNN's senior law enforcement analyst, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe joins us now.

You know the standard, Andrew McCabe, for identifying someone as a suspect, officially. What's the significance of that?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Jim, what this really comes down to is evidence. And we, of course, don't know all of the evidence or information that the investigators have. But you can understand how early in the investigation, if all they had was the fact that Mr. James', you know, rental car keys were at the scene, and they possibly -- I've heard some reports that he may have left a credit card there as well, that simply doesn't (INAUDIBLE). It doesn't -- it's not evidence that he was actually engaged in the shooting.

The fact that they've now elevated him from person of interest to suspect indicates to me that they've likely developed more evidence of his specific involvement in the attack. That could be, again we don't know, but it could be something like maybe identifying a fingerprint of his on one of the smoke canisters or a fingerprint or some sort of DNA trace on the -- on the firearm itself.

[09:10:04]

So, my guess is that overnight they've developed evidence that actually shows his involvement in the shooting.

GOLODRYGA: Andrew, Frank James had residences in Wisconsin and Philadelphia. I believe it was in Philadelphia where he rented that U- Haul. What role are investigators in those cities playing right now?

MCCABE: Well, I can tell you, Bianna, they are actively engaged. And as are investigators in each one of the cities that we know that James has been in over the last several weeks.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCCABE: So, for instance, we know just from his YouTube videos he left Milwaukee around March 20th, and then made stops in places like Fort Wayne, Indiana, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Newark, New Jersey, and then, of course, he ends up in Philadelphia, where he rents the van that he left at the -- at the scene. So, each one of those locations, investigators are going out to try to establish a timeline of every place he went, every place he stayed, maybe every hotel he stayed in, if he -- if he has friends or associates in those cities, they're going to talk to those people. You want to, at this point, know as much about this individual as you possibly can. And hopefully put those facts together that give you a very consistent timeline leading from, you know, your original traces of him, all the way up until the moment that he goes into the subway.

SCIUTTO: Yes. New York police have for some time talked about the role of firearms, right, in the rise in violent crime there and oftentimes in mass shootings like this. Listen, the weapon makes a difference -- the kind of weapon. So this a Glock semi-automatic, allows you it fire more rounds.

Also, investigators found three extended magazines at the scene. So, in other words, you have more bullets in each clip, allowing you to fire 33 shots in a short span of time.

In your experience, in mass shootings like that, what difference does it make to have a weapon that's semi-automatic, particularly also to have an extended magazine?

MCCABE: Yes, Jim, it's very simple. The more rounds that a mass shooter has and can easily facilitate, reloading his weapon, the more damage and destruction they're going to be able to do, which is why we see all of these mass shootings, many of which over the last several years have been perpetrated by things like AT-15 rifles in which you can very easily reload high capacity magazines, one after another, with pretty -- it's pretty easy to do. You don't have to have a lot of technical training to be adept at that.

It's a similar situation here with the Glock. The Glock is a semi- automatic pistol. The magazine is inserted through the handle of the -- of the weapon and it -- and it connects into the receiver or just into the frame of the weapon. The Glock is designed so that you can buy higher capacity magazines that essentially hang out of the bottom of the handle of the weapon, and enable you to shoot more and more rounds without having to reload. So, that ability to fire more rounds without having to reload is what makes these mass shootings so lethal.

You know, 33 rounds in one shooting by one person and, of course, in the span of a very short period of time, it's really remarkably lethal.

GOLODRYGA: Andrew McCabe, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

MCCABE: Thanks.

GOLODRYGA: And we'll, of course, have much more on this shooting investigation ahead, including details on the five young people injured while they were just trying to get to school.

SCIUTTO: Yes, kids on their way to school.

First, though, we will take you to Ukraine, where a Russian missile has just hit an apartment block in the eastern Donetsk region, wounding at least seven people. Yet another attack on a civilian target.

Plus, the Ukrainian president is now proposing a prisoner swap, one Russian oligarch, pictured there, for several captured Ukrainian soldiers. Details on why this man is such a high-profile target.

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[09:18:15]

SCIUTTO: Civilians as targets. Take a look at this new video in to CNN this morning from Ukraine. It appears to show Russian forces using what are known as cluster munitions on a civilian area in the Kharkiv region. This is in northeastern Ukraine. These cluster munitions release a bunch of smaller bombs, which then blow up themselves over time.

Ukrainian forces are bracing for a major Russian offensive in the east as the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, offers Vladimir Putin a potential prisoner swap.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, this is a fascinating turn of events here.

CNN's senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen joins us from Kyiv.

And, Fred, Zelenskyy is offering to exchange a detained Putin ally, Viktor Medvedchuk, for Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Tell us more about Medvedchuk.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's something that President Zelenskyy said last night in an address. He said, look, we'll trade Viktor Medvedchuk, we'll trade your boy, as he said it, for some of our guys.

And Viktor Medvedchuk is, obviously, someone who's a businessman, an oligarch really, here in Ukraine, and someone who is very close to Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin has said in the past, yeas, we do know each other. He didn't want to confirm that the two were very close. But we can see them there together in some older video.

And Medvedchuk is someone who's really hated by a lot of Ukrainians, quite frankly, and someone who they say is not someone that they would trust, someone who they believe is too close to Vladimir Putin and is trying to undermine the Ukrainian state. And he was apparently detained in a raid by the Ukrainian intelligence service. He was then later pictured, as you can see right now, in handcuffs, wearing a Ukrainian military uniform. And then President Zelenskyy came out and said that they wanted to conduct this prisoner swap, or at least putting that out there.

Of course, prisoner swaps, Bianna, is one of the few things that have actually been working so far between the Russians and the Ukrainians.

[09:20:04]

Those negotiations have been ongoing between the two sides that really have not yielded very much at all. At least prisoner swaps have been working. We'll see if, in this case, this is something that the Russians might be willing to do. But it really is very much up in the air.

And at the same time, I think Jim was referring to it, it is definitely the case that there has been shelling on civilian areas in that Donetsk region. Seven people were wounded there. And the Ukrainians obviously very angry, saying that the Russians are not capable of waging a war against the Ukrainian military, instead hitting civilian areas, guys.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Evidence of that every day, right? Attacks on civilian targets. Leveling of entire civilian areas. It's the way Russia wages war.

Fred Pleitgen there in Kyiv, thanks so much.

Also new this morning, my colleagues and I reporting that the U.S. is expected to announce today an additional $700 million in military assistance to Ukraine. A draft list of weapons systems sent to Congress includes new ones not provided before, including sea drones intended to attack targets at sea. This as Pentagon officials are set to meet with top weapons makers to discuss production capacity.

Bianna, you know, there's been a continuous ramping up of military support to Ukraine.

GOLODRYGA: And it appears that it's turning from defensive to offensive weapons as this war continues.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Let's discuss all of this with retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons, and CNN national security analyst Beth Sanner, who was a former deputy director of national intelligence.

Good morning to you both.

Major Lyons, let me begin with you.

We talk about this new tranche of weaponry. We hear that the Pentagon is meeting with these defense companies about ramping up production. But how quickly can these weapons get into the hands of the Ukrainian army?

MAJ. MIKE LYONS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): That's a great question. And I think that's the concern. And that's where they'll come out of defensive stockpiles that exist in the United States. They won't be able to be manufactured it get them to the battlefield.

But we're talking about multiple launch rocket systems, more heavy armored type systems as well. The drones is what they really need for counterbattery to go against the artillery and the cruise missile platforms that Russia is firing against the civilians that -- the targets that are hitting there.

So, that's going to be the issue is how quick they can get them there and how can they get them there safely that they don't come under attack by Russia knowing they've got to come across that border. That's kind of the issue here.

But if we can also get them these kind of drones that come from the sea and launch from the sea, it will just be a whole lot quicker in order to put combat firepower on those Russian targets.

SCIUTTO: Beth Sanner, part of the reason we're seeing an increase and also a change in the kinds of weapons going in is that the war is going to change, I'm told, in the east. Partly it's terrain. It's not forested. It's wide open. That means bigger engagements. But also just the size of the units and armor divisions and so on that are going to be face to face with Ukrainians there. How does that play out, in your view? It's going to be bloodier, we know that. Who has the advantage?

BETH SANNER, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, if you listen to military experts, they say that the advantage could go either way. I mean it does depend on some of this, how it plays out. In fact, you know, right now there's a lot of rain coming in, into the east, and that actually hurts the Russians. They're confined to roads. And they have a lot of heavy equipment to move in and they're not moving it in very quickly.

But the Ukrainians have, you know, a lot of -- they have a lot of benefit in terms of the will to fight, but they're short of equipment. The Russians are short of men, not short of equipment.

So, you know, it's kind of hard to tell how this is going to go. I think it's going to take a while and it's going to be very bloody. And, at the same time as we're seeing (INAUDIBLE) resorting to using banned weapons, like the cluster bombs. And I think we'll see now some truth coming out of Kramatorsk of that train station, that cluster bombs were probably used there.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

Major Lyons, let me pick up on the cluster munitions that we saw targeting civilians, it appeared, in the northern city of Kharkiv there. Is this something we can expect to see as far as Russia's playbook there in the east, as they continue to rain down on those areas?

LYONS: Unfortunately, I think that we have to. Russia is not a signatory to that cluster munition treaty that took place in 2010. They consider them as part of their regular inventory. We should not expect Russian leaders to act humanely against civilians. There's no expectation of that -- that ever happening.

But what the advantage the Ukraine military does have is the amount of intelligence that we're giving to them, and potentially the opportunity to shape the battlefield. So, Russia has not proven they're going to do fire and maneuver yet. They can't get out of their own way. Long convoys that exist that are long targets there. And if Ukraine military can kind of shape their defense and shape kill zones, so to speak, remember at the end of "Saving Private Ryan," when they put that plan together to bring the Germans down a certain road, that's the kind of thing I think you're going to see the Ukrainian military do superbly.

[09:25:07]

SCIUTTO: Wow.

LYONS: They are outthinking the Russians at something that they shouldn't really be doing.

SCIUTTO: I mean the World War II parallels, remarkable here. I mean many of them, of course, sad, including the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Beth, just quickly before we go, there have been questions throughout about to what degree the slow progress of the war is hurting Putin at home, as well as the economic costs due to the sanctions. What's your measure of that? Is Putin weathering this at home better than you expected?

SANNER: Well, I think that he is weathering it in terms of the information war at home. He has rallied the Russian people. And we saw yesterday in the joint press conference with the Belarusian president, Lukashenko, that he's hitting on all these nationalist themes. He's saying that the Russian economy, yes, it's not great, but we have strong foundations and we'll weather it. And look what we did in the Soviet era. This was celebrating the Soviet space day, the first Soviet astronaut in space. And so they were rallying the troops.

And I think, unfortunately, that is winning the hearts and minds of Russians who have -- have had this kind of barrage of disinformation for decades.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANNER: So, and it's not -- it's not good.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. Yes. Just this morning he was talking about how bad inflation was in the United States to the Russian public.

Major Mike Lyons, Beth Sanner, thank you.

Well, we're staying on the breaking news that the NYPD has now declaring Frank James a suspect in the Brooklyn subway shooting, not just a person of interest. We'll have the latest on the investigation just ahead. And we are moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. Futures

are mixed this morning as investors monitor a series of corporate earnings reports. JP Morgan Chase and Delta Airlines making headlines after revealing major earnings, but investors also concerned with the highest inflation rate in 40 years. A top Fed official signaling aggressive rate hikes and other measures are ahead.

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