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Services Begin Today For 19 Children, 2 Teachers Killed in Uvalde; DOJ to Review Police Response to Uvalde School Shooting; Biden to Lay Wreath at Tomb of Unknown Soldier at Arlington. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 30, 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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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Stay safe.

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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, of course, in that Eastern Ukraine area, a lot of fierce fighting in the Donbas area, which the Russians have said, again, is a priority for them to take, a significant military goal for them in this conflict.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Matthew Chance, thank you very much for your reporting live from Kyiv for us today.

Well, it's the top of the hour. Good morning, everyone, I'm Poppy Harlow. So glad you're with us. This is a special edition of CNN Newsroom.

And today, another very, very sad day, we are seeing the first of several funeral services for the 19 children and 2 teachers killed in Uvalde, Texas. Visitations for Amerie Jo Garza and Maita Rodriguez, both ten years old, those will place this afternoon. This as officials are investigating what went wrong in this response. We have learned now that up to 19 officers stood in the hallway of Robb Elementary School for more than 457 excruciating minutes as the gunman killed children inside of those two classrooms.

The Justice Department has announced it is launching its own review of all of this response at the request of the mayor. They will provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day and look into why it took so long to take that gunman down.

President Biden once again vowing to do something about gun violence in America as Texas Democrats are demanding that Governor Abbott hold a special legislative session to address gun violence in the state. I'll speak to Texas State Senator Rolando Gutierrez about all of that in just a few moments.

But, first, this is just in to CNN, ABC News has obtained what appears to be dispatch audio informing officers on the scene that a child is calling 911 from a classroom advising that he's in a room filled with victims. We should note, CNN has not been able to independently confirm this video and the audio. The source is unclear, and we don't know at what point in that 78 minutes this happened. Listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a child on the line. The child is advising he is in a room full of victims, full of victims at this moment.

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HARLOW: Full of victims at this moment. We should also note that while the audio discusses one emergency call from a classroom, Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw told reporters on Friday that there were at least eight 911 call from at least two separate callers from inside of the school covering a span of nearly 15 minutes.

Our Senior Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid is following all of this. And, Paula, you broke the news that the Justice Department is reviewing the law enforcement response at Robb Elementary School. What will that look like? What are they trying to determine?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, that audio you just played there, that is exactly the kind of evidence that the Justice Department is going to take a look at as it conducts this review. But to be clear, this is not a criminal investigation. The Justice Department, the nation's top law enforcement agency, has many different functions and here, what they want to do is take a look at how police responded and look at what went wrong and really make some recommendations going forward for what we know is likely to be inevitable in other active shooting incidents.

Now, the mayor specifically requested the Justice Department do this review. And that's not surprising as we've seen that Texas law enforcement officials have been under significant scrutiny for how police responded to this shooting and these conflicting accounts that they have given in the wake of this horrific attack.

Now, the Justice Department at this point, they are pretty much the only agency that can come in and objectively and most importantly with credibility analyze what went on here and try to get some answers. In a statement, the Justice Department said that the goal of this review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond for active shooter events.

Now, this review will be conduct by the Justice Department's Office of Community-Oriented Policing. They have conducted similar reviews into how police responded to the terrorist attack in San Bernardino as well as the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

Now, I read both of those reviews, Poppy, and here is, I think, what we can expect going forward in this review. Investigators are going to go to Texas. They are going to want to visit the scene. They are going to want to talk to witnesses. They are going to want to talk to victims. They are certainly going to want to talk to first responders and gather any kind of audio or visual evidence to put together a timeline, a picture of exactly what happened and what lessons can be learned here.

Now, again, as I said, this is not a criminal investigation. This is also not a civil rights investigation, like those that we've seen into police departments in Ferguson or Chicago. They are not looking to try to make recommendations or take over the police department. Instead, they are just looking to try to determine what happened here and really going forward make some recommendations for how other law enforcement agencies and these ones can do better going forward.

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HARLOW: Paula, thank you very much for the reporting. Obviously, you'll be on top of what they find as they launch this investigation. We appreciate it.

Meantime, right now in Texas, this afternoon, mourners will attend visitations for Amerie Jo Garza and Maite Rodriguez, both ten-year-old girls killed at Uvalde Elementary School last week. It is just the first of the funeral services for those 19 children and 2 teachers.

We're also hearing more from Alfred Garza, the father of Amerie Jo Garza. Listen to what he says about this daughter.

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ALFRED GARZA, FATHER OF UVALDE SHOOTING VICTIM AMERIE JO GARZA: She was the perfect daughter to me. So, it brings me joy to know that I got an opportunity to have such a great daughter and I tried to be the best father that I could be.

No matter who is held responsible, it's not going to bring my date back, right? I mean, my daughter, she is gone and we're trying to lay her to rest and for her to be at peace. But somehow, someway, someone needs to answer for, you know, what was -- what was done, you know? When somebody out here does something wrong, they have to pay for it. So, what does the law going to pay? Whoever was responsible, how are they going to, you know, try and make it right?

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HARLOW: Well, moments ago, President Biden spoke to reporters as he returned to the White House from his weekend visit to Uvalde, and he was asked what will change, what is next on the issue of gun control. Listen to the president.

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REPORTER: Do you feel more motivated to get action on guns now?

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I've been pretty motivated all along. You know, the folks -- the folkswho were victimized there and their families, they spent 3 hours and 40 minutes at least. They waited all that time and some came two hours early. And the pain is palpable. And I think a lot of this is unnecessary. So, I'm going to continue to push and we'll see how this works.

REPORTER: Is there one element? Is it age, is it red flag, is it some component that you think could be most successful now?

BIDEN: Well, that's hard to say because I've not been negotiating with any of the Republicans yet, and I deliberately did not engage in a debate about that with any Republican and that (INAUDIBLE) with so many families affected. So, I don't know what is the most -- how far it goes.

I know that it makes no sense to be able to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds. And I know what happened when we had rational action before back in (INAUDIBLE) with the law that got passed. It did significantly cut down mass murders.

And, remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment was the never absolute. You couldn't buy a canon when the Second Amendment was bad (ph). You couldn't go out and purchase a lot of weapons, and those who -- not many are saying it anymore but there was a while there where people were saying that, you know, the tree of liberty is water with the blood of patriots and what we have to do is take on the government when they are wrong. Well, to do that, you need an F-15. You need an Abrams tank.

I mean, so it's just -- I think -- I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more irrational about it, at least that's my hope. I have a goal --

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HARLOW: That was the president speaking just moments ago on the south lawn.

Let mow bring in Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez. He is a Democrat and Uvalde is in his district.

To say I am sorry is, of course, not adequate but we are all so deeply sorry and we appreciate your time this morning.

STATE SEN. ROLAND GUTIERREZ (D-TX): Yes, ma'am, thank you so much.

HARLOW: I know for you representing this district at the same time you're doing it as being a father of two girls, and they are just 12 and 14, so as you address this as a lawmaker and as a parent, you told my colleague, Dana Bash, yesterday that you were disgusted by the official police response and that the mistakes may have led to the passing away of children. Do you think that the Department of Justice now investigating can actually make a difference going forward?

GUTIERREZ: I think that, you know, to sit here, we saw a lot of finger-pointing last week. At the end of the day, I think that everybody that was at the scene should look to make themselves responsible, including the state troopers that were there. We have an Operation Lone Star that Greg Abbott was put on our border. We had plenty of people in there.

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At what point did they not say, we're going to take operational control? Responsibility doesn't lie just in the hands of one person with six police officers in his force. A lot of different agencies were here. So, I'm hoping that that investigation reveals where that accountability should lie so that this never happens again in another community.

HARLOW: Governor Abbott said following the shooting, quote, the status quo is unacceptable, and he said he expects absolutely new laws. So, that's what he said. And now there is the letter from Texas Senate Democratic caucus. You guys are demanding a special session from Governor Abbott and calling for a number of laws to be passed, namely universal background checks, raising the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21, as we saw in Florida, and red flag laws.

You called for a red flag bill in 2019. It didn't even make it out of committee. Will it be different this time?

GUTIERREZ: Yes. Actually, I laid my -- we looked back at that. I laid mine down so that Joe Moody could move his forward, but Joe is the head -- is the chairman of the committee and, unfortunately, he couldn't get it out of his own committee because these Republicans just don't want to move forward on the most rational of things. We are not asking to take guns away. We're saying an 18-year-old should not be able to access an AR-15. You can get an AR-15 in Texas easier than you can baby formula.

What's going on right now in society is pathetic. We need to change our laws and Greg Abbott needs to take responsibility.

HARLOW: Senator, you also told my colleague, Dana Bash, just yesterday that there are Republican colleagues of yours right now in the last few days who have privately told you that they do support raising the age to purchase a firearm to 21 but they won't say so publicly. Why? Did they tell you why?

GUTIERREZ: I like all my colleagues. They are great, nice people on the other side of the aisle. They need to develop the fortitude that is necessary to stand up to the NRA to do the right thing here. Their own constituents are asking to raise the minimum age. How is it that you have to be 21to buy a .9 millimeter but you can get the AR-15 at 18? It makes no sense. That's an easy one. We should have a waiting period of seven to ten days. That's an easy one. We should be able to have a red flag law.

Where is our moral red flag law, that gun shop down the store? When did that clerk not say, this is a weird deal down here on the border where this kid comes in and buys two guns in 48 hours and all of these ammunition? He's either going to kill somebody or he's going to sell the guns to the cartels. Nobody was called.

HARLOW: I would just note that in Florida after the Parkland High School massacre, Republican governor, then-governor, now Senator Rick Scott did stand up to the NRA, and in a matter of weeks, they passed laws that raised the age and it didn't politically hurt him, right? I mean, he became a senator.

Just to your Republican colleagues, I do want your response to this from Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw who said on CNN yesterday this about why he does not support red flag laws in Texas. Listen.

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DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, who you support a red flag law in Texas?

REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): Well, no, and here's why. Because we are essentially trying to go do what the red flag is enforce the law before the law has been broken, and that's a really different difficult thing to do. It's difficult to assess whether somebody is a threat.

Now, if they are such a threat that they are threatening somebody with a weapon already, well, then they've already broken the law. So, why do you need this other law? That's the question that I think critics rightfully ask about these things. And so it's really unclear how they are properly enforced, how due process is adhered to and then, ultimately, how they even solve the problem.

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HARLOW: What is your response to why he doesn't support red flag laws in your state?

GUTIERREZ: I think it's preposterous. Two years ago, he was saying that we should have red flag laws, now he's saying no red flag laws. We know he's probably been visited by the NRA in that period of time. You know, at the end of the day, we need red flag laws to prevent what happened here. The notion that we can't have -- we teach our kids see something, say something. Somebody here saw something and said nothing. That's all that red flag is. If there's something off kilter, someone needs to say and do something. It's the bare minimum and Dan Crenshaw, Mr. Crenshaw and others need to do the right thing on this piece.

HARLOW: Look at this for our viewers, I'm going to show you them, the number of mass shootings in your state, in Texas, more mass shootings over the past decade than on any other state, 26 people killed in Sutherland Springs 2017, 23 killed at the Walmart in El Paso 2019, 10 people killed at Santa Fe High School 2018, 21, of course, killed at Uvalde Elementary School just last week.

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You said, Senator, that you ran for office because you are hopeful. Are you really still hopeful?

GUTIERREZ: You know, I'll never give up hope. My day job, we don't get paid in Texas to be senators. My day job, I'm an attorney. I get hired to fix things. I'm an immigration lawyer. We have to fix this problem. People elected me to fix this. People elect Greg Abbott to fix this. He needs to get away from the NRA lobby and fix this problem because we can. The fact is 70 percent of the mass shootings in our schools are done by perpetrators of less than 21 years old, so we can fix the bare minimum here and do that.

I heard yesterday from -- by another party that my Republican Party want to do more school hardening, a lot of good that did those kids. School hardening isn't the answer. Abbott says it's mental health, well, then go fund mental health properly because it is part of it but it's not the entire equation here. Access to militarized weaponry needs to end. I'm a hunter, I own guns and I get it and I know my constituents but we can do better in this space.

HARLOW: Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez, thank you very much for your time this morning.

GUTIERREZ: Thank you so much, Poppy.

HARLOW: Of course. Still to come, a woman who survived the attack at Columbine High School, she was a sophomore. She shares her thoughts on this massacre in Texas and how she says it is tragically similar to what happened to her in 1999, also how she hopes the survivors will be able to get the help that she knows they need to move forward.

And I will also be joined by an E.R. physician who deals with the effects of gun violence in America every day.

And also for us, if you're worried that monkeypox, that virus, could cause a global pandemic, health experts are saying don't be. We'll tell you why.

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HARLOW: In just a few minutes, President Biden and the first lady will host a breakfast at the White House to mark Memorial Day. They will then, of course, go to Arlington National Cemetery, where the president will speak after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That will happen a little bit later this morning.

Our White House Correspondent John Harwood is with me now from the White House. Good morning, John. What's on the president's schedule today?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's all the things, Poppy, as you indicated that presidents typically do on this somber holiday. He'll meet with gold star families. He'll go lay the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He will make remarks.

But, of course, on this Memorial Day, the entire set of circumstances is shadowed by what happened in Uvalde. And from the clip that you played from the president, he expressed the state of the debate, which is it's dependant on whether rational Republicans, as he described them, step forward and are willing to do something.

Because the truth is, on gun legislation, it's not about President Biden's commitment. It's not about the commitment of Democrats in Congress. They have very narrow control of Congress. And given that, Republicans have the ability to veto any steps on guns. They have exercised that veto after Newtown when Barack Obama was president. They exercised it under the Trump administration when Trump expressed some interest in background checks. The question is are they going to exercise it this time? The pattern has been thoughts and prayers. Maybe we'll talk about some things. They talk about good guys with a gun, that sort of thing, and then they exercise the veto.

Is this time going to be different? That's what President Biden is waiting to find out. That's what Democratic negotiators like Chris Murphy is waiting to find out. It's what the whole country is waiting to find out, but it's up to the Republicans.

HARLOW: John Harwood, it is. We'll see if this goes anywhere, if this time is it actually any different. Thank you very much for the reporting at the White House.

And up next, I will speak with a woman who was just a teenager, a sophomore in high school, when a mass shooting at Columbine changed her life. How she survived and what she has learned.

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HARLOW: Today, as we see the first of several services for the 19 children and 2 teachers killed in Uvalde, there is also the question of what is ahead for the survivors, so many of them children, who will now have to cope with this trauma as they try to move forward with their lives.

My next guest is Marjorie Erickson, a survivor of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School and co-author of the book, A Columbine Survivor Story. She recently posted on social media about the striking similarities between what happened in Columbine and what happened at Uvalde last week, and what these young survivors now faced.

Let me read part of that. She writes, there are too many parallels between what happened to me 23 years ago and what happened in that fourth grade classroom. I remember being trapped in my science classroom for over five hours while we waited for police to come for us. During that time, I sat there watching my teacher bleed to death feet away from me. We were on the phone with 911 for hours begging for police to come for us. We put a sign in our windows so that they could find us. And after several more hours, we put a red shirt on the outside door handle of our classroom because police had not come yet.

Marjorie Erickson joins me now. Thank you very, very much for being here. And your statement goes on to express real anger that you have that this country still has not addressed this problem more than two decades later. So, I wonder what your message is for lawmakers now.

MARJORIE ERICKSON, SURVIVED 1999 COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL SCHOOTING: You know, I -- there's 23 years of data that they can use to help their responses now.

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I don't want fourth graders being able to relate to me, and I don't want other families being able to relate to my family in Littleton, Colorado.