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A Texas Public Safety Official Says It Was The Wrong Decision For Police Not To Have Breached The Classroom Door During The Mass Shooting At The Robb Elementary School; Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Russia Pursuing Policy Of Genocide In Donbas; Survivor Tells CNN She "Played Dead" For Nearly An Hour; America's Biggest Gun Lobby Holds Convention In Texas; Depp's Lawyer Asks Jury To Give Actor "His Life Back". Aired 2-3p EST

Aired May 27, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN HOST: Hello everyone, I'm Lynda Kinkade, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Atlanta. Tonight, two major stories this hour. In the U.S., a Texas public safety official says it was the wrong decision not to breach the classroom door during the mass shooting at the elementary school where 19 children and 2 teachers were murdered. We'll have the latest from the scene.

Then, to Ukraine, where President Zelenskyy says Russia is openly committing genocide in the Donbas region. We'll have the latest on the Kremlin's brutal offensive in the east.

It was the wrong decision. A shocking admission a short time ago from Texas state police about the response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that killed 19 students and 2 teachers. The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed the school district police chief who was in command decided not to storm the classroom when the gunman was barricaded inside, even though 9-1-1 calls were being made by children still alive inside.

He says 19 police officers were in the school hallway at that time. But the commander wrongly thought the shooting situation was no longer active.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN MCCRAW, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: And for the benefit of hindsight, where I'm standing now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision. Period. There is no excuse for that. But again, I wasn't there, but I'm just telling you from what we know that we believe there should have been an entry at that as soon as you can. When there's an active shooter, the rules change.

It's no longer, OK? It's no longer a barricaded stuff. You don't have time, you don't worry about outer parameters. And by the way, Texas embraces active shooter training, active shooter certification, and that doctrine requires officers -- we don't care what agency you're from. You don't have to have a leader on the scene, every officer lines up, stacks up, goes and finds what those rounds are being fired at and keep shooting until the subject is dead. Period.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: The director also said a teacher propped opened the school door that the gunmen walked through minutes later. And he outlines disturbing online discussions and posts that the gunman engaged in, in the weeks and days before the massacre. I want to get to Jonathan Wackrow. He is a law enforcement analyst for CNN and a former Secret Service agent. He joins us from Middletown, New Jersey. Good to have you with us. So --

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning, how are you?

KINKADE: I just have to say I was listening to that entire press conference and it was unbelievable, particularly, when we heard that there were 19 officers in the school at the time, my colleague Shimon asked the official, were there any efforts made to break into that classroom? And the response was none at the time. This, as the kids were calling 9-1-1. How could this happen?

WACKROW: I don't know how it could happen. This actually could turn out to be one of the worst failures -- one of the worst police failures in U.S. modern history. And I am stunned at the words that I heard during that press conference, and I think that your colleague, Shimon Prokupecz, well, he was pressing law enforcement officials relentlessly through that press conference to get to the truth, to understand what had happened.

And when we heard that, you know, a law enforcement official say where I'm standing now, it was not the right decision, it was wrong. I mean, that is brutal. That is going to haunt the parents of these children. It's going to haunt the loved ones of those that had, you know, tragically been murdered on this day forever. And you know, again, law enforcement has tactics. They're supposed to, you know, understand those tactics, they're supposed to understand how to react to different situations.

This was a failure of leadership. It was a complete breakdown of the incident command structure. I mean, there's -- this will be, you know, looked at from every angle, but every angle is just bad. I mean, there's bad decisions made across the -- you know, during the entire situation. And quite frankly, I'm almost at a loss for words at how shocked I am right now after that press conference.

KINKADE: I'm in that same situation, and I have to ask you, how many officers does it take to neutralize a shooter in an active shooting situation? There were 19 on the scene. Nineteen not enough?

[14:05:00]

WACKROW: Listen, you know, often times, law enforcement, the way that they train is the first officer on the scene of an active shooter situation, makes solo entry or entry with a small team. And their goal in every other officer that arrives, their number one mission is to stop that killing that is in progress.

And you do whatever you take -- whatever it takes to stop that hostile assailant from killing individuals. You know, there's a breached door, there's other ways to figure out how to get that individual, you know, and stop that action from happening. Law enforcement trains on this. This is a basic law enforcement tenet these days, ever since the tragic massacre at Columbine High School, law enforcement has changed their tactics.

It's the responsibility of every officer to respond to an active shooter situation with the -- you know, that protocol. Not wait and stack up and wait for a tactical team, because time is critical. And we heard that during this press conference. You know, the fact that they took pause, they shrunk back, and they determined that this was a barricaded subject instead of an active shooter situation cost lives at the end of the day.

KINKADE: Absolutely. There's -- it seems it was a completely -- it was a fatal mistake. That mistake not to go in while kids were in that room, calling 9-1-1, saying where are the police? Not realizing they were on the other side of the door. They were on the school grounds at the time.

I have to ask, in terms of Texas, it has more guns than any other state. We heard that -- and as you mentioned, Texas have active shooting training. Where did things go wrong? Because clearly, it failed in this situation. We heard that police had arrived initially on the scene didn't even have the right tactical gear.

WACKROW: Well, listen. You know, the narrative that we're hearing and the visuals that we're seeing don't align. When you say that you don't have the right equipment, what equipment do you need? This is a rapid, very fast deployments. First officers on scene must go to the sound of the gun and neutralize that threat.

But what we saw was officers outside also with long guns, with tactical style equipment. So, what type of equipment were you waiting for? Again, this is about incident command, and who is making that call and those judgment calls? And unfortunately, right now, in hindsight, those judgment calls were wrong, and they were tragically wrong, and it cost lives. We know that today because that's what we heard during this press conference.

KINKADE: And the question has to come back to regulation. This was an 18-year-old kid who was able to buy two AR-15s in a matter of days. And he's up against a police force that feel unequipped to deal with that.

WACKROW: Stunning. Again, but this is training tactics inexperience of that police department, and that's going to be part of this review process. And you know, I feel that, you know, there needs to be an independent review of law enforcement action and how they responded to this incident, right? Because we know law enforcement across the country trains for active shooter situations.

My God, it's something that's destroying our communities, and law enforcement knows that. Why didn't the protocols that are widely accepted across the United States by law enforcement agencies, large and small, why weren't they followed? Again, this is the training, or did they have the appropriate -- inadequate training around hostile assailants?

Did they have the right equipment at that moment on their persons as they made entry? And again, this comes down to experience as well. The experience of the officers and the leadership to understand the changing dynamics of a very fluid situation. How to make the right decisions at the right time to save lives.

KINKADE: We can only imagine the anguish of the parents who were on the scene, saying to the police officer at the time, if you won't go in, let us go In

WACKROW: Well, again, that's a critical -- that's a critical point right there. We heard that, right? That just shows you when you had parents that close to a critical situation, the incident command structure, the perimeter structure, they had already lost control. So, that was on the outside, imagine what was happening on the inside.

KINKADE: Devastating. Jonathan Wackrow; former Secret Service agent, good to have you with us, thank you for your time.

WACKROW: Thank you.

KINKADE: Well, authorities say despite failing to go after the gunman, police helped many children and teachers escape through windows. Ten-year-old Jayden Perez was among those survivors, and as he recovers from the emotional shock and fear of his experience, he described what it was like in his classroom while the gunman was on the loose.

[14:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jayden Perez is better today.

JAYDEN PEREZ, SURVIVED ROBB ELEMENTARY MASS SHOOTING: Still sad about some of the -- some of my friends that died.

BROADDUS: And the ten-year-old shooting survivor says talking helps.

PEREZ: It was very terrifying. Because I never thought that was going to happen.

BROADDUS: Inside a fourth grade classroom, the ten-year-old said he and his classmates hid near the backpacks. This photo of the classroom was taken long before the shooting.

PEREZ: Five of us hide in there, and then the rest under a table. But that didn't stop one of my friends getting hurt. The shooter shot through the window, and hurting my friend and my teacher, like my teacher got hurt like on the right -- like on -- I don't know which side, but she got hit -- like hit on the side. And then -- and then my friend got like shot through the nose. And they had - and they both had to get surgery.

BROADDUS: Perez said an officer helped him and his classmates escape through a window, but not before the shooter had killed his friends.

PEREZ: McKenna(ph), Tess(ph), Annabelle(ph), basically almost all of them, basically almost all of them.

BROADDUS: Jayden's pain not physical, but emotionally paralyzing.

PEREZ: I know because after what happened, you know --

BROADDUS (on camera): Do you ever want to go back to school?

PEREZ: I don't want to -- no, but -- because I don't want anything to do with another shooting and me in the school.

BROADDUS: You scared it might happen again?

PEREZ: And I know it might happen again, probably.

BROADDUS (voice-over): Jayden's mom Krystal(ph) shared these pictures taken about 90 minutes before the shooting. She's with her son at the school, celebrating Jayden's honor roll achievement. His mom said waiting, not knowing, was tough.

(on camera): What did you tell your mom when you finally saw her?

PEREZ: I left my water bottle at school.

BROADDUS: Your water bottle? Did you hug her.

PEREZ: Oh, she hugged me first, she was like --

BROADDUS: Was she so happy to see you?

PEREZ: Yes, and my dad, and my grandma.

BROADDUS: What do your parents mean to you?

PEREZ: A lot, because they brought me into this world.

BROADDUS (voice-over): A world where schools are also crime scenes.

(on camera): Did you hear the gunfire?

PEREZ: Yes, you never know whenever you're going to lose someone close to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: That was our Adrienne Broaddus reporting there. And we will have much more on that massacre in Uvalde later in the show. But, first, let's turn to Ukraine in the latest there. Russian forces closing in on the last pocket of resistance in Luhansk as they fight to control the entire Donbas region.

Ukraine says it's fiercely defending Severodonetsk, but acknowledges that Russians are now occupying two-thirds of the city's perimeter. He says 90 percent of housing that has been damaged in relentless bombardments. And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had this grim assessment about the reality on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT, UKRAINE (through translator): The current offensive of the occupiers in the Donbas can make the region uninhabitable. They want to burn Popasna, Bakhmut, Lyman, Lysychansk and Severodonetsk into ashes, like Ivanivka, like Mariupol.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: Well, Ukraine has been appealing to allies to send long- range weaponry that some consider could be a game-changer. And we're now learning that the U.S. is expected to approve sending multi-launch rocket systems to Ukraine in the coming days. A prominent Russian TV host, who usually reflects the Kremlin's thinking, calls that a red line that the U.S. should not cross.

All right, I want to bring in Suzanne Malveaux, who joins us from Lviv. Suzanne, shelling obviously has increased exponentially in that region in the east. Just explain for us what you're learning.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ukrainian military officials really in a rare ignition are saying that Russia is making some gains in the east, in that Donbas area, in the Donetsk region.

In particular, they say that the Russians were able to capture a district that is very close, about 10 miles or so from a resupply station that is critical for Ukrainian military to get their equipment in and out as well as their soldiers, also is a humanitarian corridor, if you will, allowing Ukrainian civilians a passage into safety and also food to come in.

And the Russians are very close to that, that would be a critical win for them. As you had also mentioned as well, it is just outmanned and outgunned.

[14:15:00]

The Ukrainians now admitting, saying that the Russians advantage in terms of personnel in that particular region is 8 to 1, and twice that, when it comes to some of the equipment here. And the communities are just being pounded. We have seen and over the last 24-48 hours, some two hours, the reports are very consistent about the artillery, about the rockets, about the tanks, about the relentless pounding of these civilian communities.

You mentioned Severodonetsk, that is where 90 percent of the housing has now been damaged. Earlier today, there was a hot spot at a near hotel, that is where they say that Russian forces stormed that hotel. Ukrainian military were battling them, we understand that it is now back in Ukrainian hands.

But that there were street battles that were going on. The whole region, essentially, really a chaotic scene. A very difficult scene. And President Zelenskyy just laying it out there that it's only going to get worse.

KINKADE: And Suzanne, CNN is learning more about civilians. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine are being forced to release so-called filtration camps and deported to Russia. What can you tell us?

MALVEAUX: Well, that's rights. I mean, human rights watch as well as President Zelenskyy and some western Intelligence sources say that they are confirming what Ukrainians are telling them. And that is that their relatives who are basically stuck in these areas that are Russian-controlled at this point are going through what's called a filtration process. It is a process meant to dehumanize, to humiliate and control those citizens who are still there in those regions.

They typically separates members from their families. They are stripped, they're interrogated. They are beaten. Their fingerprints are taken as well as their cell phones, their documents, their social media is gone through. The Russians are trying to see if there is any kind of information about these individuals, whether or not they're sympathetic to Ukrainian government cause or Ukrainian military.

If they pass this filtration process, they get a certificate and then are allowed to perhaps visit their family members or leave the area, maybe come back. Some are stuck there with no explanation as to why or how they can get out of this human rights watch, saying that clearly, this is a violation of international law, and that, these are atrocities and war crimes that are taking place. Lynda.

KINKADE: All right, Suzanne Malveaux in Lviv, Ukraine, our thanks to you and your team. Well, still to come tonight, genocide is hard to prove in international law. But a new report says there is evidence that Russia is pursuing a genocidal policy in Ukraine, and there's still time to stop it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:20:00]

KINKADE: Ukraine's president says Russia is overly committing genocidal acts in the Donbas region. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces are trying to burn entire cities to the ground in a campaign of hatred and mass killing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENSKYY: In cities and communities closer to the Russian border, in Donetsk and Luhansk, they gather everyone they can to fill the place of those killed and wounded in the occupation contingent. All this, including the deportation of our people and the mass killings of civilians, is an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: In international law, the burden of proof, the charges of genocide is very high. But a new report signed by more than 30 legal scholars and genocide experts say there is a wealth of evidence that Moscow is inciting genocide in Ukraine, and they're begging the world to act now before it's too late. One of the contributors to that report joins me now. Azeem Ibrahim is the director of the new lines institute for strategy and policy. Good to have you with us.

AZEEM IBRAHIM, RESEARCH PROFESSOR, STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE, U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE: Thanks for having me, Lynda.

KINKADE: So you've reported on genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar, and more recently, you travelled to Ukraine to gather evidence for this report. What did you find that led to this assessment, that Russia is inciting genocide, and is intending to destroy Ukrainian people?

IBRAHIM: Well, Lynda, the word, 'genocide' is used very loosely and it's used usually interchangeably with mass murder. But there is a very precise definition of what genocide is. And that definition is articulated in the 1948 Genocide Convention. So, what the report that we have put together, the new length intertwined with the law one book center, is to apply all the evidence as available to examine whether Russia has breached the 1948 Genocide Convention.

And for that, we put together teams of open source intelligence experts, language experts, and then over 35 of the top legal scholars to examine the evidence. And the conclusion they reached was very clear and very unambiguous. That the Russian federation is in breach of the genocide convention. It bears state responsibility for incitement to commit genocide. And the pattern of atrocities that is engaged in indicates an intent to destroy the Ukrainian national group.

So, it is essentially a very serious risk of genocide, a full-scale genocide occurring in Ukraine. And we have to understand that the purpose of the genocide convention was to prevent and punish. The prevention always comes first. And this is known, the onus is on the international community, and in particular the 151 nations who are signatories to the genocide convention, to take up this task, and to stop this spilling over into a full scale genocide.

KINKADE: Azeem, from the very outside, Russia has claimed that it is the victim of Ukraine's aggression. It claims that its reason for going into Ukraine was to denazify Ukraine. Talk to us about the narrative that Putin is pushing in order to legitimize what he's doing.

IBRAHIM: Yes, precisely. And this is actually one of the signs of genocide, it's called murdering when you accuse the other side of exactly what you intend to perpetrate to them, to the claim that Russians are being wiped out, Russia is a victim of genocide than Putin himself is in the process of organizing a genocide. Genocide is all about intent, and for that intent to be perpetrated, you have to lay the foundation. And so Putin himself has never recognized Ukraine as a separate

individual country. You know, he said in his own speech in July 2021, for example, that Ukraine is an artificial country, a very senior member of Duma said that there is no Ukraine, there is no Ukrainian- ness. And this is a disorder of the mind. There is no nation of Ukraine. So, they're essentially are denying that Ukraine even exists, and the Ukrainian people have their own identity.

And it's not just a rhetoric, Lynda, that we're seeing. We're actually seeing this transpiring into action on the ground. For example, we have reports of over 180,000 Ukrainian children that were forcibly transferred into Russia, and then they were spread out throughout Russia so they cannot coalesce and cannot identify themselves as Ukrainian children.

[14:25:00]

And this is on top of all the other atrocities -- you know, we've had reports of a young girl who's been locked in a basement and being gang-raped and then being told that they will be raped until they will no longer want to have Ukrainian children. So, this is all part of the pattern of trying to delegitimize and trying to deny that the Ukrainian people actually even exist.

KINKADE: And of course, you've spoken before in the past about this so-called filtration camps. And we are learning more about the hundreds of thousands moving going -- moving through eastern Ukraine, being forced through these camps and being deported to Russia. Talk to us a little bit about that, and what the international community can do right now.

IBRAHIM: Well, essentially, what Putin and the Russian federation are trying to do is that they're essentially trying to wipe out the Ukrainian identity. And the onus on the international community is to try to prevent this. As I said earlier, the purpose of the genocide convention is to prevent and punish perpetrators of genocide. And unfortunately, Lynda, through our history, we have the examination of genocide is just a common academic exercise.

Always after the fact, was the Rohingya -- was our Rohingya genocide a weaker genocide than Darfur or Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and happens after the fact, when academics and scholars discussed these issues. But this is not the purpose of the genocide convention. The primary purpose is to prevent the genocide from happening. And now the onus is on the international community to step in.

And so what that essentially means is that countries can no longer have business as usual with the Russian federation. They have to do everything within their power, reasonably, within their power to stop and put pressure on Russia. And that could include suspending all trade agreements with Russia. Whether it's gas and oil agreements or any other agreement of such nature.

And suspending all sorts of diplomatic engagement with Russia until Russia changes its behavior. So, the onus is on all international community, and particularly the signatories of the genocide convention to ensure that this never happens again.

KINKADE: And that they stop this as soon as possible. Azeem Ibrahim, good to have you with us, thanks very much for your time.

IBRAHIM: Thanks for having me, Lynda.

KINKADE: Well, still to come tonight, as the United States continues to reel from the massacre in Texas, some of the young survivors are telling their stories. Plus, America's biggest gun lobby group holds a large gathering in Texas. Why many are protesting the event, and why some are even pulling out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:30:00]

KINKADE: A Texas official has acknowledged that police made a wrong decision when responding to Tuesday's school shooting. He says an onsite commander thought the gunman was barricaded in a classroom and that the children were no longer at risk. Instead of immediately entering the room, he waited for a tactical team to show up.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz was at the scene and joins us now. Shimon, it was an unbelievable press conference. You push several times to try and get some answers as to why police, 19 police on the scene at the time as this shooting was taking place, didn't go in. What was the response? Why didn't any of those officers go in as kids were making 911 calls?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, simply put, I think they were trying to protect themselves. It's very clear when you, as a police officer, law enforcement official, are on a scene where a shooting is taking place, and you've transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded situation, you're trying to protect yourself. When you're going and dealing with an active shooter situation, you have to protect the lives of people. And in this case, it was the children, the teachers inside that classroom.

We're not -- we don't know simply why the police chief of the school police here made this decision. He was not at the press conference. We don't know why. I asked why he wasn't there. I asked who was in charge. And they told me he was in charge. He was the incident commander. Keep in mind, he is a chief of a very small police department. Four officers, a detective, and a security guard, plus him, that's six people. That's what he's in charge of. So a lot of questions need to be asked about how he went about making this decision.

Because very clearly what the head of the Department of Public Safety here was telling us was that while these officers, we learned 19 officers were in the hallway of this school, 19 officers who could have easily, could have tried to make their way into this classroom, were in there, as students, children were calling 911, saying they were inside as gunshots were going on, as the gunman was firing shots, that these officers were taking cover. They were inside the school, but they made no effort, according to the

head of the Department of Public Safety, to go inside, and he said it was the wrong decision, that is something they should have done in hindsight, why they didn't do it, why did they transition from an active shooter situation to a barricaded situation, we just don't know.

We also learned that there was an enormous amount of shots that were fired by the gunman, over a hundred, or at least over a hundred, that -- massive firepower that the gunman had. Police also firing over 30 shots, ultimately killing him. But still, of course, a lot of questions here that needs to be answered for the families as they prepare to bury these children. And simply why didn't the police do more?

KINKADE: Exactly. And Shimon, the official made it clear that for lifesaving purposes, it's crucial to get to the victims as soon as possible. So, if police did indeed think that it was a -- no longer an active shooting situation, it was a barricaded situation, why didn't they at least try and get in there to render some aid to these children, some of which I'm sure parents are wondering, could my child have survived if they'd got to them sooner?

PROKUPECZ: That's right. And we may never know the answer to that. This is what they trained for because they -- police law enforcement, since these school shootings, Columbine, some 20 years now, everything changed. You don't wait. You don't wait for tactical support as they did in this situation. You take the group of officers you have and you try to get inside and eliminate the threat. And we won't know.

[14:35:00]

You know, remember, there were families out here, parents wanting to go inside and save their kids and the police are keeping them back outside the school, police telling them you can't go inside. It's a dangerous situation.

And then we learn that these officers who were inside were just simply not responding to the threat and it goes against every piece of training that law enforcement gets everywhere. If there is a shooter, you go after the shooter, especially, especially when people's lives are in danger. And officers are trained to put their own lives in danger. That is, if they have to take a bullet to save a person, that's what they're supposed to do. Why they didn't do that in this case, we simply don't know yet.

KINKADE: And there's poor students calling 911, calling the police to come in, begging for help not knowing that police were just outside the door. Shimon Prokupecz, you're doing a great job there, pushing officials for answers. Our thanks to you.

Well, as the pieces of this awful puzzle continue to come together, parents of the survivors are trying to find a path to healing. One 11- year-old is hoping that if she tells her story, things will change. Her name is Miah Cerrillo and she didn't want to go on camera or speak to a man, but her family did reach out exclusively to CNN and she had an emotional conversation with our producer, Nora Neus. And Nora is with us in Uvalde.

Nora, this was a young girl who survived this traumatic event. What did she tell you about what was happening as this unfolded as she heard those first shots ring out?

NORA NEUS, CNN PRODUCER: Yes, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, fourth grade, she was in a classroom. They were watching the movie "Lilo and Stitch" because it was the end of the school year. And so they were done with their lessons, having a normal day. And they got word that there was a shooter in the building. And so her teacher went over to close the door. And he was right there, the shooter.

And so he shot out the window and the door and then back to the teacher into the classroom. Miah tells me that the shooter looked her teacher in the eye, said goodnight, and then shot and killed her. And that's when Miah says things happened very quickly. The shooter kept going into the room and kept shooting, so open fired in this classroom full of fourth graders, killed the other teacher in the room, killed a lot of Miah's friends. And Nia had bullet fragments still that I could see yesterday just all over her shoulder, in the back of her head. It's horrifying.

KINKADE: And Nora, she -- Miah attempted to lay still, act dead to survive. Is that right?

NEUS: Yes, the -- one of her friends was shot and seemed to be dead already next to her. And she put her hands on her friend's body and then smeared her friend's blood all over her own body to try to play dead so that if the gunman came back into the room, he wouldn't shoot and kill her.

KINKADE: And Nora, did she -- did Miah attempt to call 911? Did she know that police were on the scene for much of this as it played out?

NEUS: I think this is part of what's so infuriating about this is that she called 911. She and a friend took the phone off of their teacher who had died at that point and call 911, got through to dispatchers and talked to the dispatchers, said "We need help. We need help here." She kept saying to me and recounting this "We're in trouble. We're in trouble. We need you to come."

And at the time, Miah said that she thought the police just weren't there yet, that they just hadn't gotten there yet somehow, even though more and more time was passing. But after the fact, she told me that she heard the grownups talking about how the police had been outside and just hadn't come in. And that's when she started getting emotional talking to me and said why wouldn't they just come in and save us? Like why wouldn't they come and get us? Why wouldn't they come in?

Her little friend on the other side was still alive but had been shot in the legs and was screaming and pain. And she -- Miah and another friend put their hands down and had to smother, you know, put their hands over the mouth of this friend to try to smother the scream so the gunman couldn't hear the screams. And that's what was happening while the police were waiting, thinking they had time. KINKADE: Unbelievably traumatic. Nora Neus, CNN Producer, thank you for joining us. And our thoughts obviously are with Miah and her family and the other survivors from her classroom. Thanks to you. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:42:35]

KINKADE: Welcome back. I'm Lynda Kinkade. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Well, the most powerful gun lobby group in America is holding a convention in Houston, Texas less than 500 kilometers from the site of Tuesday's massacre. Protesters have slammed the NRA for going ahead with the gallery -- gathering calling it "inappropriate." In some of the meetings, own participants have even pulled out, among them the maker of a gun used in the mass shooting and free musicians who were set to perform. Here's what one of them said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY GATLIN, COUNTRY SINGER: I believe that I have the right to protect myself and my family and my home, as I believe everyone does. So, I'm a Second Amendment guy unless there, you know, so there's no question about that. I just did not believe it was the right thing to do. It would have been kind of a classy move on the NRA's part, and they need some good PR right now, if they'd canceled the whole thing. Instead, hey, we're going to go in here for one big moment and say a prayer for those folks or have a moment of silence and we'll come back and do this later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: CNN's Camila Bernal joins us now from Houston. And Camila, just looking at the people behind you, clearly, the NRA is tone deaf to have a convention like this the same week as this massacre. What are the people there telling you?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, everyone is just frustrated. They're sad, then -- they're angry. They say they have so many feelings, especially here in Texas because they feel like their political leaders are not listening to them.

Of course, this is a big crowd right across the street from the convention center, where the NRA is holding its annual meeting. You can see the lettering, the NRA, but in between -- they're in this park and you're seeing hundreds and hundreds of people out here with signs. You can hear them cheering, they're clapping, but they also held a moment of silence.

As we speak, Beto O'Rourke, the Gubernatorial Democratic candidate, is here and he was essentially going over every single name, the victims in Uvalde, the children. That's what they started out, with remembering every victim and that's what they say motivates that anger, that frustration, that a lot of them are feeling at the moment. It is very different from what you're seeing inside of the convention

here. You see a lot of passion.

[14:45:10]

And just people demanding action from their political leaders when it comes to gun control in this country. I also talked to some of The of the NRA members that were coming in this morning and some of them were saying, look, we feel horrible about what happened in Uvalde. They say they never want to see that happen, but they were very excited to come to the convention here. So, really, opposing viewpoints.

In terms of security, the Houston Police Department is taking care of everything happening outside. They said they were going to have a section for the protesters, and a section for the counter protesters closer to the convention center.

Now inside the venue, it's a different story because the former President, Donald Trump, will be speaking it its secret service that will be in charge of the security inside of the hall. And in there, no guns will be allowed. So just very different scenarios, both inside the convention center and outside of the convention center. Look, it's more than 90 degrees out here and these people have been out here for hours. They are not giving up, they are angry, and they simply want their voices heard. Lynda.

KINKADE: And they are speaking loud and clear. We can see the politician Beto O'Rourke speaking there to the crowd.

A little bit tricky for me to hear everything you're saying. But I understand you spoke to some NRA members as they arrived. So often, when we hear from the NRA, they -- the line they give us is that a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun. We had this massacre at a school, 19 officers, at least at the start, that couldn't stop this massacre. Can you explain to us if they have any answers to that, from those NRA members you spoke to, about the fact that this massacre could take place in a state that has more guns than anywhere else in the U.S.?

KINKADE: Well, look, I think that everyone that you talk to has a different point of view, but I have heard a lot of them pointing to having a teacher with a gun or a police officer at a school, they are focused on securing schools. That's a part of the message. And even part of the statement that the NRA released earlier this week, they were pointing to one person responsible for that shooting, a criminal. They were not mentioning guns, they were not mentioning anything around gun legislation, but instead, pointed to one person said that their commitment was to make schools safer here.

That has been brought up outside of the convention where a lot of these activists say we do not want our teachers to be armed. They say this is not their job. They barely even get paid to begin with. And so they say that is not the solution. So, it's going to be difficult to find an issue that they both agree on. But I think that both sides want their political leaders to come to the table. And part of the whole message here outside of the convention is

getting people registered to voting, getting people to become involved in the sense of going out to the polls, and electing the people they believe will make some change. Of course, that is yet to be seen. But there is a lot of that passion here today.

KINKADE: And, of course, Camilla, we have to highlight the hypocrisy, because this is an organization that wants to see guns, leads that people have the right to carry guns into supermarkets, into movie theaters, anywhere, no background check, no license, yet at their own convention, where the former President is speaking in the next couple of hours, they're banning guns.

BERNAL: Yes. Look, a lot of people were calling for them to cancel the event, or even postpone the event because even supporters of the NRA were saying it's not the time, it's not the time to celebrate, to get together. They haven't been together in about three years because the 2020 and '21 conventions were canceled.

So even NRA supporters and members were saying, hey, let's take a minute to pause and wait. And then maybe we can reconvene and figure it out. But they went on as planned and there are a lot of political leaders who are still scheduled to speak, among them, of course, former president, Senator Ted Cruz, the leadership of the NRA. We have some who have canceled, some Republicans from the state of Texas, among them Senator John Cornyn of Texas, although he didn't cite the shooting and instead cited just a conflict of schedule. And so you're seeing musicians also canceling.

So it's more difficult to say, you know, what the NRA is thinking, but they, for sure, just wanted to move on and continue with this convention. And tonight's event is really one of the most important for them because this has so much political power. Lynda.

KINKADE: Camila Bernal, good to have you there outside that NRA convention in Houston, Texas. Clearly a lot of people are turning out there to have their say. Our thanks to you. We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. Stay with CNN.

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[14:52:42]

KINKADE: Welcome back. Closing arguments are wrapping up in a defamation trial brought by Johnny Depp against Amber Heard, his ex- wife. The Pirates of the Caribbean actor is suing Heard for $50 million over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post back in 2018, where she called herself a public figure representing domestic abuse.

The op-ed does not mention Depp by name, but he claims it caused him to lose work in Hollywood. Johnny Depp's attorneys presented his closing arguments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMILLE VASQUEZ, JOHNNY DEPP'S LAWYER: Today on May 27th, 2022, exactly six years later, we ask you to give Mr. Depp his life back by telling the world that Mr. Depp is not the abuser Ms. Heard said he is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: And jury deliberations are expected to start soon.

But to some other Hollywood news, Tom Cruise is back for another adventure on the big screen. The latest adrenaline rush continues the Top Gun story that began back in 1986. And it kicks off the summer movie season in North America and opens in theaters around the globe. Senior Media Reporter Frank Pallotta joins us with more on this sequel. Good to have you with us, Frank.

So I am a huge fan of the original Top Gun, the iconic soundtrack, the action, the story is this latest one, Top Gun: Maverick, going to live up to the hype?

FRANK PALLOTTA, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Not only will it live up to the hype, I've heard it actually exceeds the hype of the original. I know a lot of people who love Top Gun, who were beloved by that movie, and they think this one is better. And the reason why is because it's kind of a throwback to the 1980s. It's kind of a throwback to that action film type or feel where you didn't have to know about 20,000 universes and a bunch of different films and movies and TV. You enjoy one movie.

It's a standalone movie star and a movie star which, at this point in time in Hollywood, is a very rare thing. And according to Paramount, it looks like it's going to have a really big weekend. It all brought in about $20 million for its preview showings and it's off to a very big start. It could have close to $100 million opening, which will be the biggest opening in Tom Cruise's legendary 40-year career.

KINKADE: It's always a risk when you try and do a sequel even so far after the original and this film was meant to hit theaters, I imagine, back in 2020 or so.

[14:55:00]

But because of the pandemic, they delayed it. Unlike other films that released to streaming services, they decided to hold this one and it sounds like it's going to pay off.

PALLOTTA: Yes, I think that's a huge, huge part of this. And Tom Cruise, the star of the movie, was adamant about it. At the Cannes Film Festival, they were -- asked him, you know, an interviewer asked him, would you have put this on streaming? He goes, that was never going to happen, that this had to be experienced on the big screen.

And I think that's very important for Paramount, which is having kind of a revival this year. They're in third place. They're usually in the basement. They're really making a big comeback this year. But also a huge thing for theaters. Theaters have been struggling to get back the Gen-Xers, the older audiences that have been kind of not at the theater, it's been very, very young audiences. And this movie is a sequel to a film that is 36 years old.

So, I think it could bring back a lot of people who haven't been going to the movies lately, and even maybe bring back a lot of the joy that many of them have been missing out by going to the cinema.

KINKADE: I'm looking forward to it. And nothing really beats an action film on a big screen. We'll leave it there for now. Frank Pallotta, good to have you with us. Thanks so much.

And thanks so much for watching tonight. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Stay with CNN. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS is up next and we'll have much more news in the coming hours. Stay with us. You're watching CNN.

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