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Frustrated Families Demand Answers About Shooting Response; Survivor Describes Being in Classroom Where Students, Teachers Killed; Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Directs Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to Work With Democrats on Gun Violence. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 27, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A good Friday morning to you, I'm Jim Sciutto.

Frustration, anger from families already grieving, new video shows parents confronting police officers outside Robb Elementary School begging them to enter the school while the attacker was inside still shooting.

All of this as we are learning that law enforcement did not confront the 18-year-old gunman before he entered the school, even though he was firing shots outside for some 12 minutes. There are so many unanswered questions.

Here is what we do know so far. At 11:28 A.M. central time, the suspect crashed his truck into a ditch near the school. He exited the vehicle, fired at two witnesses across the street.

At 11:40 A.M., the gunman entered the school through an unlocked door on the west side of the building. Four minutes later, officers entered the school, received gunfire then retreated from the building as they called for backup.

It was not until an hour later, full hour, 12:44 P.M. local time that a tactical team made entry and killed the suspect.

This morning, we are learning more about just what was going on inside that classroom.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Miah got some blood and put it on herself so she can pretend she was dead. My brother said she had bullet fragments in her back.

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SCIUTTO: That poor little girl and so many stories just like it. We're going to have more on Miah's story in just a moment. Let's begin though on the investigation. CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent Shimon Prokupecz, he is outside the school where all this took place in Uvalde.

Shimon, you've been pressing for answers on this. There have been a lot of back and forth, a lot of incorrect information, frankly, early on. But what's consistent here are indications of a slow police response. What do we know?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. Jim, those are all indications. And, look, a senior -- former senior law enforcement officials who are experts in this field are all saying this, right? They're saying that the response here, the tactics here just do not seem right based on the way you handle active shooter situations and that it is you go towards the gunfire, you engage the shooter and then you do everything else because you need to eliminate that threat.

And so authorities are not answering that question. There is that hour that you spoke about between 11:44 and 12:44 where the gunman is inside that classroom. We're hearing stories from these children inside this room hiding, having to play dead while the police are outside trying to figure out what to do.

So, those are the questions we have. We are trying to figure out what were the police doing in that hour. They initially have told us that the suspect, the gunman was barricaded. We don't know how he was barricaded, what led them to believe he was barricaded. Did they make any effort to get inside that classroom?

So, we will be hearing from the police later this morning. Hopefully, they will answer those questions and not come here like yesterday and just take five questions and then say that they're done, because that's just not going to be sufficient. So, hopefully, they will take more questions.

And, of course, all of this is happening as we are hearing from parents, parents of children that were inside, parents who themselves were willing to go inside, take weapons, put on protective gear and get inside that school to rescue their children.

Here's one of those fathers talking about that.

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VICTOR LUNA, SON SURVIVED SCHOOL SHOOTING: I told one of the officers myself if they didn't want to go in there, let me borrow a gun and a vest and I'll go in there myself to handle it up. And they told me no.

I mean, they -- like they say, they were doing their job when they could have done it quicker before that man went in the school.

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PROKUPECZ: And so, Jim, we're hearing stories like that from many parents who say they were out here sobbing, screaming for the police to go inside. And like I said, hopefully later this morning, we'll start to get some answers from investigators when they come here and address the media. And most importantly, it's for the parents who are planning funerals now and also demanding answers, of course, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Understandably so. So many more unanswered questions. Shimon Prokupecz, thank you so much.

Well, this morning, there are new accounts from inside the classroom where these children and their teachers lost their lives.

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CNN Producer Nora Neus sat down for an exclusive interview with an 11- year-old girl, Miah Cerillo, she was inside the room throughout the horror. Nora says Miah did not want to be on camera or speak to a man because she was understandably traumatized by visions of the male shooter. But she insisted on doing the interview because she wants people to know what kind of evil this man did. That's an 11-year-old girl with that kind of resolution. So, that may be something can be done to prevent this from happening again, she hopes.

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NORA NEUS, CNN PRODUCER: 11-year-old fourth grader Miah Cerillo was in Ms. Garcia's class and Ms. Mireles' class. And they were watching Lilo & Stitch because it was one of the last days of class and that's what they were doing for one of the last days.

Their teacher got word that there was a shooter in the building and she went out to lock the door. But Miah says the shooter was right there and shot out the window in the door. She describes it all happening so fast from there, her teacher backing into the classroom and the gunman following. She says the shooter looked one of her teachers in the eye, said, good night and then shot her. Then he opened fire shooting the other teacher and a lot of Miah's friends. She says bullets flew by her and fragments hit her shoulders and her head.

Miah says that after shooting a lot of the students in her class, he went through kind of an adjoining door between the classrooms and she heard screams and then heard him shooting in that classroom, heard a lot of gunshots.

After shots stopped, though, she says he started playing music, sad music. I asked how would you describe it and she said, it just was sad like, you want people to die. She was scared that the gunman would come back to kill her and her other few surviving friends, so she says she actually put her hands in the blood from her friend who lay next to her, she was already dead, and then smeared the blood all over herself, all over her body so that she could play dead.

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SCIUTTO: She just smear a dead friend's blood on herself to try to save her life. Joining me now to discuss, Daniel Garcia is the former Phoenix police chief, former assistant chief for the Dallas Police Department, now a spokesperson for Quest Public Safety and Critical Incident Management. It's good to have you, sir.

I want to ask you, we've said this many times on the air, this is a fact, training for active shooters since Columbine has taught, instructed law enforcement to go in quickly, get a group together, go in, confront the shooter fast, don't wait. Are there any circumstances that would explain what we saw happen in Uvalde where they waited for an hour before entering the room?

DANIEL GARCIA, FORMER CHIEF OF PHOENIX POLICE AND FORMER ASSISTANT CHIEF OF DALLAS POLICE: Well, there's a number of questions that still need to be answered. There's more questions out there than answers. But the fact is that waiting an hour to engage an active shooter is unacceptable. That counterassault, let's call it what it is, it is a counterassault on the suspect should have happened immediately.

As quickly as the resources and the staffing can be obtained, it needs to happen. And it -- if it can't be obtained, then the officers at the situation have to make a critical life decision and law enforcement has a priority of life decisions always. It's citizens first, police second and the suspect last. You make that evaluation and you go in.

SCIUTTO: I mean one thing we know just looking at the video we're playing as you speak there now, there were officers present, they were armed and they had body armor too. So they had several of the things they needed. Who would be responsible? There were multiple units from different agencies responding out there, I mean, more than you could count as you look at the video. Whose call would it be to go in or not to go in?

GARCIA: Well, Jim, that's actually a great question and one of the questions that I had first and foremost. You see officers there from the Independent School District Police Department. You see officer there is from Uvalde. You see officers there from the Department of Public Safety. You see officers there from the federal government, from the Border Patrol. So, you have every faction of law enforcement representative but who is in charge? That's a question that needs to be answered. It's a critical question especially when it's time to make an assessment to engage the suspect.

But the first question has got to be asked by the officers engaging the suspect right now. It has to be immediate.

SCIUTTO: The other apparent failure was the time period before the shooter entered the school, 12 minutes by the timeline, as provided by the police, crashes his car, fires shots, right? He wasn't just carrying the weapon, he was firing the weapon, so clearly a threat, but 12 minutes before he then went into the school. What does that tell you about police response time to this?

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GARCIA: Well, again, you want a response time for this type of critical incident really within under four minutes.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GARCIA: Again, you're talking -- look, and let's be realistic about this, this is Uvalde, Texas, it's a small city, less than 14,000 in population. I don't know what the size is of the Uvalde Police Department but another point I'd like to make is when you take Sandy Hook, that was another small city, 10,000 in population. When an active shooter engages a small city, those resources may not be coming as quickly as you want.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I understand. As you look at discussions now and, by the way, we've had these before as a country, about gun legislation, lots of proposals, red flag laws are one, expanding background checks. You've been in law enforcement. You've led police departments in two major cities. You faced your share of gun crime. Is there a change or a handful of changes that you believe -- not going to solve all these problems, but do you believe would make a difference?

GARCIA: Well, first and foremost, we have to get past the situation of making sure that our officers have the resources they need to engage an active shooter like this. Do they have the right weapon? Do they have the technology, the live technology that, for example, our company provides, live technology that can make decisions as they're occurring? Those resources are very important. Those are the resources that the military always had that from an officer's standpoint I'd watch and watch an example of it in T.V. and go, why don't we have that technology?

SCIUTTO: But they did have the resources. We saw it. I mean, they had manpower there. They had body armor. They had high-powered weapons. They even had one of those big combat-style vehicles, right, that was just parked out there flashing its lights. I mean, they had the tools, it seemed.

GARCIA: Absolutely. Again, let's go back to the previous question. It goes back to assessment, acting and deciding. Who was in charge?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GARCIA: Who was in charge? Multiple agencies, let's face it, it was chaos out there. It's been chaos for the last three days. But who was in charge?

SCIUTTO: Well, we'll be seeking an answer to that question. Daniel Garcia, we appreciate you sharing your experience with us.

GARCIA: Thank you, sir.

SCIUTTO: Well, CNN is hearing many accounts from survivors, child survivors, of this brutal attack. Ten-year-old Jayden Perez says he's afraid to return to school. Wouldn't you be? Because he fears something like this may happen again. He described what it's like losing so many of his friends.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAYDEN PEREZ, TEN-YEAR-OLD SURVIVOR OF ROBB ELEMENTARY SHOOTING: Still sad about some of my friends that died.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who are your friends that died?

PEREZ: Jayce, McKenna, Tess, Annabelle, basically almost all of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Basically almost all of them, he says, the friends he lost.

I want to bring in Pastor Tony Gruben of Uvalde's Baptist Temple Church. Pastor, it's good to have you on this morning. I can't imagine the kinds of conversations you're having right now with people who lost loved ones, friends, family. How are they doing?

TONY GRUBEN, PASTOR, BAPTIST TEMPLE CHURCH IN UVALDE: Grieving, weeping, as you would expect, questions, questions without answers, and just -- and in most cases, a lot of cases, just straight shock. I mean, there's sometimes anger, sometimes fear, sometimes all of them rolled into one, not knowing what to do or how to do it and looking to each other for help and solace, perhaps, for us to provide the love and the care that they need and us trying to point them to Jesus and to God.

We've had a prayer service just a few days ago and the morning after having been with the families there on Tuesday. And Wednesday morning, as I woke up, knowing that I'd have to be speaking to people as yourself and others and families that, what do you say and what do I say to myself, because I too am grieving, I too am weeping.

And the Lord just gave me a little verse, it says, God is our refuge and strength and ever present help in time of trouble, therefore, we will not fear though the Earth is lay and the mountains fall into the bottom of the sea. And so that's where I've been pointing them and also for my family, for -- I had a child that was at that school last year.

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So, it's very close to home.

SCIUTTO: There's sadness, of course, there's grief. There's confusion. There's anger too. I wonder how you respond to that anger and frustration we're hearing from parents.

GRUBEN: I've always believed that God is omnipotent, God is all powerful, God is big and can handle our anger but also don't stay there. You can't stay in your anger and your -- because it will eat you up. And just as this one that shot, he allowed anger to fill him so much that he would act out in such a way. And we have to be careful that we too in our anger don't allow that to just fester and build up and then explode in actions such as this.

And, you know, so it's a dangerous thing to allow our anger to fill us, whether it's righteous or not, we have to learn to, you know, to channel it in a proper way and get over that and learn forgiveness and learn strength and learn, you know, to focus it in a positive way.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GRUBEN: The bible talks about in your anger, do not seem -- that's easier said than done, I realize. And so that's where others of us who come in that we seek to, you know, direct the anger, I guess, to positive outcomes.

SCIUTTO: Yes, my mom used to say, put it to good use, right? Pastor Tony Gruben, I know you're probably having just the first of the many difficult conversations you have to have. We wish you the best of luck.

GRUBEN: I appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: If you would like to offer support for those involved in the Texas school shooting, please go to cnn.com/impact. There are a lot of great, verified ways there to help the community and they need help. It's a great resource in times like this.

Still to come, what we're learning about President Biden's upcoming visit to Uvalde on Sunday and the message he will deliver to the second community rocked by a deadly mass shooting in just two weeks, the second community the president has gone to visit.

Plus, a significant move by Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on gun legislation, what he is instructing Texas Senator John Cornyn to do and which bill is now the focus of bipartisan negotiations. That's coming up.

And a teacher's cry for gun reform, what would actually make her feel safer in the classroom. We're going to speak to one. That's coming up.

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SCIUTTO: Once again, the president on his way to the scene of a mass shooting in America. President Biden and the first lady will visit Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday to meet with families of those young victims. This is the second time in just two weeks the president has had to console a community rocked by a deadly mass shooting.

CNN's John Harwood, he is traveling with the president today. He's in Annapolis for the Naval Academy's commencement ceremony.

They just did this two weeks ago. It's an American story. What are his plans for Texas?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think once he finishes this diversion of this commencement speech, which is not expected to touch on the gun issue, the president is going to deliver a very familiar message of consolation and empathy for the family members of the victims, for other members of the community. He'll meet with religious leaders, little dicier to meet with law enforcement given the way stories have been shifting. That was not part of the announced itinerary for the president meeting with law enforcement.

But we can also expect the president to continue his pitch for some sort of action in Congress on gun legislation of some type, whether it's red flag laws, whether it's expanded background checks, certainly don't expect the possibility of action on assault weapons, which is something that President Biden helped bring about in 1994 and later that ban expired ten years later.

But it's really the push for gun legislation. It's out of President Biden's hands. It's out of Democrats' hands because this is really a decision for Republicans who have road blocked opposition to things like expanded background checks, even after the Newtown massacre in 2012. The question is, are they prepared to go in a different direction.

And as Lauren Fox, our colleague, has reported, Mitch McConnell said he's interested in some negotiations so that's taking place, the White House is staying back from that and there's always the possibility something can change and we will see if that happens, guys.

SCIUTTO: Yes, we'll see. John Harwood, thanks so much.

So, as we were discussing, there are positive signs lawmakers could be ready to move on gun legislation. CNN has learned that Senate Minority Leader McConnell directed Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn to work with Democrats, among them Chris Murphy of Connecticut, on potential legislative response to the shooting in Uvalden.

CNN Congressional Correspondent Lauren Fox joins me now from Capitol Hill. You and I have talked about this before at different moments where action did not happen after an initial sort of flurry of activity here. But we are hearing, with Joe Walsh on the air a short time ago, others saying they are hearing from Republicans that this time may be different.

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I'm curious what are you hear and do you believe it?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think the context is important here, Jim. We are talking about a much smaller universe of what might be possible up here on Capitol Hill. You are not talking about resurrecting an assault weapons ban, something that would have barred the shooter from being able to purchase an AR-15. Instead, what we are talking about is a narrow scope of options that Republicans and Democrats are going to try to hammer out over the next couple of days.

Lawmakers are away from Washington for the next week. We will see if this momentum continues, but we're looking at a universe of things, like universal background checks, something much more scaled back, though, something along the lines of what Manchin and Toomey negotiated many years ago after the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut.

There's also debate over red flag laws, but this wouldn't be a national red flag law. Instead, it would be an opportunity for states to pass their own red flag laws and then Congress would incentivize them with funding. There's also discussion about mental health.

It is significant that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told me yesterday after meeting with Senator John Cornyn, who had just returned from Texas, that he thought that he wanted Cornyn to go in and have these conversations.

And this is exactly what he told me. I have encouraged had him to talk with Senator Murphy and Senator Sinema and others who are interested in trying to get an outcome that is directly related to the problem. I am hopeful that we could come up with a bipartisan solution.

Again, Jim, the key line there, something that is directly related to the problem, what do Republicans view as in that universe and do they argue that something larger like background checks may not be part of that. These negotiations just in their infancy, we're going to have to give it time to see how they play out. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Absolutely, and notable language there from McConnell. Lauren Fox, thanks so much.

Still ahead, more survivors tell their stories about what happened during that hour, full hour the gunman was in their school killing children, teachers, while survivors huddled in classrooms waiting for help, plus what one teacher says would make her feel safer.

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