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Angry Parents Demand Action, Accountability from Uvalde School Board; Interview with State Senator Roland Gutierrez (D-TX) about Accountability and School Safety; Officials Identify Victims, Good Samaritan Who Took Down Gunman; Chairman Bennie Thompson Tests Positive for COVID-19; More Witnesses to Come up January 6th Hearing. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 19, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Very quickly about when they've been hit by ransomware. And the FBI can actually take action as they did with the Colonial Pipeline hackers. So it's a model going forward for the U.S. government.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It's fascinating and really important when they can successfully do it.

Evan Perez, thank you very much. Good to have you.

PEREZ: Thank you.

HARLOW: Top of the hour. Good morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

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

Overnight, heartbroken, frustrated, sometimes angry parents in Uvalde, Texas, confronting the school board in public, begging, just begging for action. Also accountability after a scathing report detailed how officers, hundreds of them, waited 77 minutes to confront the gunman at Robb Elementary School.

HARLOW: That's right. What you heard last night was students tell officials, they're scared, terrified to go back to school. Parents calling for a number of changes ahead of the new school year, which begins in 25 days, including some of them calling for the immediate firing of the Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAL HARRELL, SUPERINTENDENT, UVALDE CISD: He went on administrative leave that we were going to wait for investigative information to come forward to help us in our decision-making process and I will stick to that.

BRETT CROSS, RELATIVE OF UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIM UZIYAH GARCIA: All right. Well, I'll tell you this. If he is not fired by noon tomorrow, then I want your resignation and every single one of you board members because you all do not give a damn about our children or us.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

CROSS: Stand with us or against us because we ain't going nowhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: CNN's Rosa Flores is in San Antonio.

And Rosa, one of the big headlines from this report, right, was multiple failures across multiple agencies, multiple officers, and multiple commanders on the scene. So I wonder, we heard again anger and attention focused on the School District Police Chief Arredondo. But are the parents asking just for his firing or for something more broad here?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Something more broad, Jim. They were talking also about the other police officers that work for the school district. They want them fired, too. These parents were saying that everyone failed on that day and that there should be accountability, and just think about it. This is a very small town so they continue to see these police officers in the community.

They continue to see these police officers at the grocery store, at the gas station. And so it is a constant reminder of the failures that happened on that ill-fated day and the fact that some of these families don't have their loved ones any more. And so they are demanding accountability, they are demanding that Police Chief Pete Arredondo be fired, that the superintendent be fired and, you know, all that money that has poured in from across the country and the world into that community, now they are demanding, too, to see the receipts as to how this school board is going to be spending some of that money.

They want to make sure that it's spent well. That it's spent for the safety and security of the children. And they also want to do away with executive meetings by the board. What that means is closed-door meetings. So these families are demanding transparency by the school to make sure that their students are safe going forward. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAZMIN CAZARES, SISTER JACKLYN CAZARES KILLED IN UVALDE SHOOTING: How am I supposed to come back to this school? What are you guys going to do to make sure I don't have to watch my friends die? What are you going to do to make sure I don't have to wait 77 minutes bleeding out on my classroom floor just like my little sister did?

ADAM MARTINEZ, 8-YEAR-OLD SON ATTENDED ROBB ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: Let the school officers continue to be hall monitors but, please, don't put them in charge of our babies.

VINCENT SALAZAR, GRANDDAUGHTER LAYLA SALAZAR KILLED IN UVALDE SHOOTING: Put families in your sessions so we know what's going on, what's going and the way you're spending your money for the security of our children. I lost a loved one right here, my only granddaughter. I can hold myself together now because I've done my crying. Now it's time to do my fighting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: And Jim and Poppy, there's a little girl who went before that board wearing the same little dress that she wore on May 24th, and told the board members that that was the dress that her friends saw her last and that she doesn't want to go back to the school if it's not safe, if they can't protect her, she doesn't want to go back into those buildings.

HARLOW: Yes.

FLORES: Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: To hear her and watch her say that, we've played it for our viewers last hour. It's just --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: I Mean, she points and she says, those were my friends. She deserves answers and security.

Rosa, thanks very much.

Well, the Texas statehouse investigation is not yet complete. Parents say the panel's 77-page preliminary report still leaves a lot of questions answered.

[10:05:01]

And it does. I mean, among those questions, could more lives have been saved if the officers acted sooner? And why didn't someone at the shooting scene take control? As parents prepare to send their kids back to school in a few weeks, they are demanding to know how their children will be kept safe.

Let's begin there with Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents Uvalde.

Senator, thank you for your time and let's begin on school safety, I mean, as a parent, I cannot imagine sending my kids back to school in 25 days, that's when school starts, and questioning, having an iota of a doubt that they are not fully secure. What answers do those parents deserve?

STATE SEN. ROLAND GUTIERREZ (D-TX): Well, they deserve answers and they deserve action. We're 25 days away, as you suggested, in Texas, where a part-time legislature and Greg Abbott is the only one with the power to bring us back into the session, to call a special session, so that we can increase the age limit from 18 to 21 on access to these types of weapons.

Let's be clear. That's the only thing here that would have kept this from happening was something like that. After Parkland, it took them 21 days to go back into the legislature and do that. This governor has refused to do so. As to school safety, you know, school district has got a lot of work to do. They've got to re-evaluate the officers that are protecting them. There is not even one officer per school and so we need to change that. My hope is that the school district makes those changes and looks at those things.

HARLOW: Are you saying that there is no guarantee now in terms of where these children -- because they are not going back to this school building. They're going to -- as I understand it, be sent to different schools. But is there a guarantee that there will not be just one officer at those schools, but multiple officers and protection at all the entrances?

GUTIERREZ: Well, it's my hope that that school district and those school board members look at their budget and look what happened at Robb and understand that we need multiple people at each location to be able to do things in the right way. It's also heartening to see all of those people make demands on government because they also need to make demands on state government to make sure that we put the necessary funding so that school districts can do this.

We have asked for more and more money for our school districts but yet Republicans in power have put us in a position where Texas is about in the bottom five by way of education funding, which includes school cops.

HARLOW: Senator, I want to show everyone a picture of a little girl that you brought up when you were on this network yesterday. Her name is Maya Zamora. She's critically injured and shot five times and is still in the hospital. Twenty surgeries. I mean, along with all of those children that were murdered, you have individuals still fighting for their lives. And listen to this parent, Angel Garza, last night with my colleague Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGEL GARZA, STEPFATHER OF UVALDE VICTIM AMERIE JO GARZA: We want to, you know, fight until we do get the answers that we're looking for. We deserve that. Our children deserve that. That's really what it's about. We just -- we want our babies to rest in peace. We want to know so we can grieve properly, so we can try to move forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Of course his stepdaughter Amerie Jo Garza was murdered on that day. What is the single biggest question unanswered in your opinion from that report for these families?

GUTIERREZ: I want to know who knew what and when, and why they didn't act. The people that I -- they're accountable to me and to Department of Public Safety. You had a Texas Ranger walking around that building for 15, 20 minutes on the phone. I want to know who he was on the phone with. I want to know what they were telling him, why they were telling him not to listen to anybody, why didn't tell him, hey, get 10 of our guys and go in? Because we had the resources just like that report indicates. We had

the fire power, the manpower, the know-how and the training for a paramilitary group supposedly. This is Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star Team was there on the spot and they did not go in to those rooms.

HARLOW: Yes.

GUTIERREZ: I want to know why.

HARLOW: And I understand you're taking some of them to court for answers in early August.

Senator Gutierrez, thank you for your time. Our thoughts every minute of every day are with your community.

GUTIERREZ: Thank you so much.

HARLOW: This morning, officials have identified and issue the names of the victims in the mass shooting at a mall in Indiana. They're also naming the armed bystander who took the gunman down. The three victims killed are 30-year-old Victor Gomez, 56-year-old Pedro Pineda, and 37- year-old Rosa Pineda.

SCIUTTO: Authorities say the 22-year-old Eli Dicken who was legally armed, shot and killed the gunman.

CNN senior law enforcement analyst Charles Ramsey, who joins us now to speak. He's led the police departments in two major cities.

[10:10:01]

So this is a fairly rare situation where someone other than police or, frankly, the gunman or gunwoman themselves take themselves out or leave the scene. From a police officer's perspective, given your experience, what is your view of the outcome here?

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, first of all, my condolences to the families of the people there killed in Indiana. You know, this is a situation that is, in fact, rare. You rarely have an individual who is legally armed at the time, who has the courage to take out a gunman in the middle of an assault like that. So this is something that, thank God, he was there and, thank God, the person took action. Otherwise, the carnage would have been a lot worse.

One of the concerns that I have about armed person is that when police do arrive and you're in the middle of shots being fired, you don't know good guys from bad guys. And so that's always a concern. But the reality is that he was there, he was legally armed, and it's not just about being armed. It's also having the courage to take action and this young man had that courage and I commend him for it, I really do.

HARLOW: So here is what we do know so far as they, obviously, search for a motive in this heinous mass shooting. The gunman's cell phone was found in the toilet. The laptop, his laptop and can of butane were found in a high temperature oven. And here's what the mayor said this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR MARK MYERS (R), GREENWOOD, INDIANA: He tried to destroy his cell phone. He tried to destroy his laptop. Those have been turned over to the FBI for forensic analysis and until they can dry out his cell phone and they can get to the hard drive on his laptops, we really don't know that much. His social media page was deactivated a couple of months ago. And talking to family members, they were totally shocked. They didn't see this coming. So, right now, we're just still trying to find out what his motive might have been.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: How will they be doing that given it sounds like his family was caught off-guard and this odd things that he did with his devices?

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, the FBI crime lab is excellent. And if there is a possibility of getting anything out of those devices, they will do it. It depends on the extent of the damage. I mean, the one cell phone in the water, depending on how long it was in there, they may be able to retrieve something. I'd be more concerned about the one in the oven and whether or not there was any melting of the hard drive or anything like that.

And, obviously, I don't know that. But if there's a way in which they can get that evidence, they will definitely get it. There's no question in my mind about that. But, he did take extraordinary steps to try to cover his tracks. That's unusual. You don't usually see something like that. But it did occur. As far as warning signs, I find it hard to believe that family or friends saw absolutely nothing. I mean, it's possible but I just find it hard to believe that you didn't see any warning signs at all.

SCIUTTO: Yes. That's a commonality in these things. I mean, sometimes the motive, sometimes there's a motive, there's a particular kind of person targeted if you look at Tops in Buffalo, he was there to kill black people. But other times, the motive is just wanting to kill people, in general. How important is it for investigators to establish a motive, if there is one?

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, it's important to try to establish a motive but this individual is now deceased so there is no trial. But it's not unusual to have cases, homicide cases in which you'd never really clearly get a motive behind the actual killings. If they can find one, believe me, they are looking to try to find one, then they will. But it won't change what took place. You know? It may help in the future to identify people who may be going down a particular path.

You know, was it based on hate? Was it just trying to because he was influenced by the shootings in, say, Uvalde or elsewhere? I mean, who knows what may have prompted this individual to do what they did?

HARLOW: Charles Ramsey, thank you for your analysis on yet another American tragedy.

RAMSEY: You're welcome.

HARLOW: Well, this just into CNN. The chair of the January 6th Committee, Congressman Bennie Thompson has just tested positive for COVID-19. We hope he is -- it's not too severe and that he's recovering OK, and also this, you know, complicates, impact certainly the primetime final hearing of the committee on Thursday.

SCIUTTO: Plus, the Supreme Court has given Indiana the green light to pursue banning abortions for minors. How that potential law could have a much wider impact. We'll discuss.

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[10:19:15]

HARLOW: So this just in to CNN. The January 6th Committee chairman, Congressman Bennie Thompson has tested positive for COVID-19. A spokesperson for Thompson says this will not impact Thursday's primetime hearing, though.

SCIUTTO: CNN congressional correspondent Ryan Nobles, he's on Capitol Hill for us this morning.

Ryan, so it's your understanding the primetime hearing on Thursday goes ahead.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. That's exactly right, Jim and Poppy. In fact the committee, this January 6th Select Committee just put out a statement saying that the chairman has instructed the committee members and staff to plow ahead with the hearing on Thursday night regardless of whether or not Thompson will be able to participate.

And it does appear, just based on the timeline and what we know about CDC guidelines, that it would be very difficult for Thompson to be in person during the hearing on Thursday if he tested positive yesterday, as his office said in a statement.

[10:20:08]

And he has said that he plans to isolate for the next several days. Now that doesn't mean that Thompson can't be a part of the hearing. There's obviously some opportunity for him to appear virtually in some way, shape or form. The committee has obviously utilized a number of different forms of technology to get their point across during these hearings. But it is important to point out that there is no one that plays a more important role in these hearings than Bennie Thompson.

As the chairman he is the person that introduces the witnesses each and every time. He'd starts the hearing usually with some sort of opening statement. And he conducts the flow of the proceedings. And what's different from these hearings as opposed to other more traditional congressional hearings is that there are many times where other members of the committee are not heard from at all over the course of the hearings, that they've separated this out, and individual members take a starring role. That doesn't apply to the chairman. We hear from him each and every

time. So we'll have to see how this impacts the flow of that hearing on Thursday. Obviously we wish the chairman well as he recovers from COVID-19, but this is a pretty big development ahead of what could be the biggest hearing that the committee has held yet, focused on those 187 minutes during the Capitol siege -- Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Yes. What was done, what wasn't done by the former president.

Ryan Nobles, thanks so much.

One person who will be at Thursday's hearing, this is news, witness Matthew Pottinger. He was Trump's deputy national security adviser before he resigned in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, 2021. One of the most senior officials to do so. He will testify publicly at that primetime hearing.

HARLOW: Joining us now is Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election lawyer who testified before the January 6th Committee last month.

Ben, it's great to have you. And just so people have the context, you're a guy who has in the past fiercely litigated in support of Republican candidates who are instrumental on the Bush side in Bush v. Gore. But you're also clear about the facts. I mean, you signed this report, right? Recently, "Lost, Not Stolen," about the actual facts as it comes to the election. So that's your background.

Why is Pottinger so important for this committee to hear from?

BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTION LAWYER: Pottinger is so important because he was there on the day during the 187 minutes that the insurrection was going on and the big missing piece from what the committee has discussed so far are former President Trump's precise actions, conversations, lack of actions during that period of time. So Pottinger is somebody who was in the White House, who there's already been testimony that said he did have some contact with the former president during that period, can become a key fact witness, along with Sarah Matthews, the former deputy press secretary, who is also slated to testify.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this because Poppy brought up the "Lost, Not Stolen," report. And you speak to a lot of Republicans. I wonder what -- and I don't want you to break any confidences here, but what they say to you privately as you and other Republicans who signed this report went point-by-point knocking down the various facets of Trump's 2020 election lies. What do they tell you?

GINSBERG: Well, they mostly thank us very much for putting it out there and having a record and having a point of support for future discussions. So that it's tough to know, Jim, whether to be just extremely gratified or extremely saddened by the fact that all these people have not or are not speaking out but we hope that the report will be a catalyst and a factual foundation for people who have been following along with the notion of fraudulent elections, to see just how evidence-free that claim is. HARLOW: And I think we all commend you and the, you know, 70-plus

other folks who put together this report and signed it. But the reality is that the opposite is happening in terms of beliefs among Republicans. You've got CNN polling showing 70 percent of Republicans believe Biden was not legitimately elected and you have Monmouth poll that shows, you know, in June 2021, over a year ago 33 percent of Republicans thought January 6th was an insurrection and now only 13 do. Why is it getting worse?

GINSBERG: Well, we think, in part, because there is not a lot of explanation for why the claims were wrong, so that we did produce this report to talk to the 30 percent of the electorate, 70 percent of Republicans who do believe that the elections were not valid because this is a factual basis where eight rock-ribbed conservatives went out, looked at every case, looked at every allegation, looked at everything that was said in a court case.

[10:25:12]

And we came away with the conclusion that there is just no evidence to support the claims of fraudulent elections. And, by the way, if we had found that evidence, we would be among the first to be saying you have to fix the system. But again, in the absence of evidence, you have to be honest with the facts.

SCIUTTO: You do, indeed. Well, wish more were. Ben Ginsberg, we appreciate your work and your straightforward talk.

Still ahead, doctors must now wade through murky laws, changing state- to-state on abortion. Some murky, some pretty straightforward. Our next guest know all too intimately the risks and dangers facing women and doctors in the new post-Roe America.

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