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CNN This Morning

Now: Manhunt Underway After Mass Shootings in Maine, Residents Told to Shelter in Place. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 26, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: There's a shelter in place and so neighbors, people who live in these homes are hearing things in their yards and they are getting concerned and so they are dialing 911 and then the officers are responding.

But what's significant about this is that this is the first time they were actually seeing -- how are you guys, thank you -- The first time that we're seeing the officers out here like this searching and so now they will go to another location I believe and I think the officer wants to tell me something.

How are you? How are you doing? All right thanks. What happened? Did you get a call for something? Is that why you guys came here? You got a call.

RYAN MCGEE, CHIEF OF POLICE, LISBON, MAINE: We had calls all night long. We have a great community. They call at the same time. They hear something, which is great. That's what we want them doing right now, reaching out, calling us, anything suspicious, making sure everyone stays indoors.

When you guys are driving around and whatnot, I'd stay up near your vehicles. If I see you I will stop and talk to you.

PROKUPECZ: Sure. But what is the reaction from people in the neighborhood with this man being on the loose here?

MCGEE: I can't comment on any of that right now. I will say that state police, I'm sure we'll be doing a news briefing. I think I heard 10:30 in Lewiston. And I think they'll be able to get more information at that time.

PROKUPECZ: How long have you been out here searching now?

MCGEE: Since the incident started in Lewiston. I called my entire department in and we close down our businesses just as a precaution.

PROKUPECZ: What's your name sir?

MCGEE: It's Ryan McGee.

PROKUPECZ: Are you one of the supervisors?

MCGEE: I'm the chief of police.

PROKUPECZ: You're the chief of police? Wow. Okay. So, for you, certainly, as a chief this is something you've never experienced before, I assume.

MCGEE: Unfortunately, I keep comment on everything right now.

PROKUPECZ: Tell me how many officers are involved in the search at this point.

MCGEE: There's a lot of officers involved in the search. I mean, I don't want to give anything away. I can say my whole department's involved.

PROKUPECZ: And how many officers is that?

MCGEE: Every department in this area, say, every department. I've seen departments across the entire state of Maine have responded. So, we want to locate the individual and make sure our communities kept safe.

So, biggest thing I can say is that make sure that if the community sees anything, stay inside, don't approach, call the police department, just like we just did here just here, someone heard something, they called, it's the right thing to do, it'd rather turn out to be a deer, than this person, but we want to locate him.

PROKUPECZ: Where do you think he is in what area possibly could he be?

MCGEE: I can't comment on anything on that down right now. But you can see from the barricades, it gives a pretty good indication, so --

PROKUPECZ: And how many calls have you had so far tonight? Would you say dozens?

MCGEE: We've got a lot.

PROKUPECZ: A lot?

MCGEE: A lot, yes, a lot, a lot of calls.

PROKUPECZ: And do you know if the person of interest, if he knows this area, is there any indication?

MCGEE: I can't comment on any of that right now.

PROKUPECZ: Okay.

MCGEE: We have a lot of intel and we're just working in conjunction with our state and federal partners. Everybody is involved. We're just trying to keep the community safe. Obviously, it's a very tragic incident that happened and we're doing our job to best abilities to locate this suspect.

PROKUPECZ: So, how confident are you that you'll get them? MCGEE: I would say that we're going to not stop until we locate them. So, you don't have to worry about that, okay?

PROKUPECZ: All right. Thank you, sir, so much. I appreciate it.

MCGEE: I would recommend though, just for your own safety, just stay near vehicles. It's the best thing I can say for you because, you know, if anything that says police on you, did a lot of people in town, you know, the last thing we need is somebody walking by a house and getting scared of one of you in their front yard and inadvertently calling us when they just see you guys.

PROKUPECZ: Sure.

MCGEE: I know you guys have a job to do and I completely respect that. You have to stay in the local news stations. They know me by first name and we have great reports. So, like I said, if we're on a scene, I'll come by, I'll talk to you briefly. I'll give you anything that I can give you, but, unfortunately, we can't release.

PROKUPECZ: All right. Thank you, chief. I appreciate you stopping it. So, my name is Shimon. We're with CNN.

MCGEE: All right.

PROKUPECZ: All right. Okay. Thank you, sir.

So, Phil and Poppy, this has sort of been the story here all night that they're getting phone calls. People are hearing things and they're dialing 911 and the officers are responding.

So, it's a pretty tense situation out here, certainly people on edge. You know, we've been here for about an hour, hour and a half now. We've not seen many people outside. We're seeing cars, people driving cars like it would be any other morning. You see this woman here walking her dogs. The police just leaving, so perhaps she feels a level of safety knowing that the police were just here.

But it's certainly going to progressively, I think, as this day goes, it's going to get more tense as daylight comes, more officers will be arriving here. And, certainly, we expect that the searching here will certainly escalate as the day goes on.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Shimon, can I ask -- first of all, it was remarkable. We haven't had a lot of information coming out since the last press conference several hours ago.

[07:05:04]

And the next press conference, I think, as you noted, it was scheduled for 10:30. But while he couldn't comment on much, and we appreciate the chief taking the time to talk to you, he did say they feel like they have a lot of intelligence. Do you have any sense of what that meant?

PROKUPECZ: Yes. So, I think they know a lot about him because they've identified him. They know his history. Perhaps maybe there is some information that he knows this area. Obviously, there's a lot they're not telling us. I mean, it's pretty -- you know, a lot of people have questions because this is what happened, you know, 7:00 last night, we're now almost, what, 12 hours or so into the -- after this happened. And we still haven't heard anything from law enforcement. We won't hear anything at least until 10:30, in a couple of hours.

So, it is pretty concerning for people here that they're not hearing more information. They're just being told to stay in their homes. And, really, it's the first time that we've heard from any person in law enforcement to provide any kind of information.

And, honestly, I feel like we just stumbled on this. You know, we -- what happened is we when we first got here, we weren't seeing a lot of police activity. So, we just decided that we're going to start driving around and seeing for ourselves what's going on, because we've kept hearing there's this massive manhunt here. And this is the first time that we stumbled upon, that we came upon any searching. And so that's why we stopped here. And, luckily, we got the chief here and he was willing to talk to us a little bit.

But you can tell that the law enforcement here is certainly on edge. You know, there are checkpoints. There are other areas here where there are law enforcement officials that are parked. There's a high school nearby where there are SWAT team members just hanging out waiting to deploy, should they be needed. But, really, just seeing this activity just now was the first time we've seen anything like that here.

And this has been going on apparently all night. You know, the neighbors here, the folks who live here, are calling 911, they're hearing things, and the police are responding, and then you see what they do here, they start searching, and so far, clearly, they've not had any luck.

MATTINGLY: All right. Shimon, first off, great reporting. You didn't stumble onto that. You worked your way toward that. It's the most information we've gotten over the course of the last several hours. Stay with us. We'll definitely be coming back to you shortly.

And if you are just joining us, it's just past the top of the hour. Let's get you caught up on the breaking news. Right now, as you've been watching, a manhunt is very much underway in Maine after mass shootings at a bowling alley, in a bar and grill in Lewiston. Law enforcement sources tell CNN at least 16 people are dead.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And police are looking for a man named Robert Card. You see him on your screen. He is described as armed and dangerous and a person of interest. We are told he is a military- trained firearms instructor, also a member of the Army Reserve, who was also recently committed to a mental health facility. These are images of that gunman inside the bowling alley.

MATTINGLY: And this, what we're about to show you is video of people running out of the building as police search the area with flashlights and their guns drawn. And we're now hearing survivors who were inside that bowling alley, including a man who says he was just 15 feet away from the gunman.

ABC News spoke to a little girl and her mother who were there for a youth night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was grazed by a bullet when we were running.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I never thought I'd grow up and get a bullet in my leg. And it's just like, like, why? Like why do people do this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Out of nowhere, he just came in and there was a loud pop. I thought it was a balloon. I had my back turned to the door. And as soon as I turned and saw that was not a balloon. He was holding a weapon. I just booked it down the lane. And I slid basically into where the pins are and climbed up in the machine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: This morning, investigators say a vehicle connected to Robert Card was found near a trailhead in a boat launched in a nearby town. This is video of a SWAT team with an armored truck, heavily armed officers rushing to that area.

HARLOW: The hospitals in the area have just been overwhelmed because, in addition to that, at least 16 dead, we are told 50 to 60 people were injured in the shootings. Officers with rifles, you see them there, they've been guarding the hospital in Lewiston all night. A city councilor from the neighboring city says his son is the manager at the bar and grill where the shooting happened and he hasn't heard from him since.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEROY WALKER, SON MANAGES BAR WHERE SHOOTING OCCURRED: If you had my gut right now, I feel like I'm squashed with a vise. My neck and the back of my head feels like there's a vise squashing at the other way. And I don't know, telling you the truth, what kind of night this is going to be from now until tomorrow when I wake up to the true facts and that my son is dead and I know he's dead. I know it, as well as I know I'm standing here telling you because he's not here and he's not at any other hospital and he's not running on the street.

[07:10:00]

So, he would have called us because he manages Shemengees. So, I know he was there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: It's an unthinkable reality so many families are dealing with this morning.

Omar Jimenez is live on the ground for us in Lewiston, Maine. Omar we've been hearing from some of the survivors, from family members. What more are we learning about the manhunt and the investigation underway?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the manhunt is very much a fluid situation right now, as we just heard from Shimon a few minutes ago, that law enforcement are out and about trying to figure out and hone in on where this person may be. Because the reality is, for people in these communities, they are waking up unsure about the safety of going outside in this community.

To give you an idea of where, we are we are nearby one of the mass shooting locations. The bowling alley is just a few miles from here. We are outside the bar and grill, where we just heard that they were looking for someone who was working there at the time.

You can see it over my shoulder police have this entire block blocked off as they work through some of their investigators we can see them on scene. But you see the sign of where this particular bar and grill is.

It's been relatively quiet along this stretch, some people asking questions about whether they can go through and about what's going on and things like that. But at the very least, we know that a good portion of this area has been recommended to have -- to shelter in place while police try to hone in on where this person may be.

I can tell you when we first got to our hotel a little bit earlier this morning, the clerk wouldn't let us through the door unless we showed our I.D. through the glass doors and then even still he only looked at it while peeking out behind the wall, and that was because, look, it's the middle of the night he's been told to shelter in place. He wasn't sure who we were coming to the doors and whether we might have a potential firearm or could be dangerous.

He had been following what had been going on, of course, in the news, this manhunt, where we know over a dozen have been killed, at least as we have been told, but also many more injured. The hospital is trying to field a huge influx of patients that come in at the last minute and all at once. Essentially, schools have been canceled over the course of today out of safety concerns, just trying to make sure that if you don't have to be out, they don't want you to be out to, of course, let law enforcement do what they need to do.

A reunification center is also open at a nearby middle school just to try and get people together, because as we heard from some people, it's been kind of chaotic trying to locate some people who may have been rushed to the hospital at the last minute.

So, can't emphasize enough what law enforcement has said, it is a very fluid situation across all aspects right now. But for right now, these investigators are still going through this scene, likely the same at the bowling alley to see what clues they can get there, because, of course, there's an investigation there on top of trying to get the top priority of getting this person under arrest.

MATTINGLY: All right. Omar Jimenez, thank you. There are hundreds of law enforcement officers searching for a person of interest in that deadly mass shooting. You heard from Omar in Lewiston. Shimon Prokupecz is with us in Lisbon. We have much more of that breaking news coverage ahead.

HARLOW: Also this morning, smoke billowing over Northern Gaza as Israel launches more airstrikes. We will take you live to the ground in Israel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYNTHIA HUNTER, AUBURN, MAINE RESIDENT: I'm just overwhelmed. I've been here trying to spread, you know, some kind of comfort, some kind of support. But this is an overwhelming situation. I don't think we've ever had anything like this. My insides are just really sick over this.

There was a girl down there with five people all got shot up. And they brought in somebody in a vehicle that was shot right from the pickup, took them right in the hospital.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: An overwhelming situation, a shaken community. We are still following the breaking news as a widespread and very urgent manhunt is underway in Maine after a mass shooter opened fire at two locations in the town of Lewiston.

CNN's Evan Perez joins us live from Washington, D.C. Evan, what do we know about the investigation given the fact this is both a federal, state and local effort at this point?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Phil, look, I mean, the federal agents are now flooded the zone there in Maine. What we know is that the FBI, the ATF, Homeland Security Department, everybody has sent personnel up to Lewiston to try to assist in this search for this person of interest.

Now, one of the things we've heard already is the FBI has got dozens of people sent up from the field office in Boston. What they are doing is assisting with some of the evidence collection. Obviously, this is a -- Lewiston is a small town. It's not a very large police department. And so one of the things that they're doing is assisting with the collection of evidence there at the two shooting scenes, both the bowling alley and the Shemengees restaurant, which is nearby.

Now, according to law enforcement, what they're doing is, you know, they're not only assisting with evidence collection, but they're also having people who do victims assistance. These are people who are going to be reaching out to some of the victims to try to help them not only cope with what they witnessed but also to try to get some information that could be used as part of this investigation. Now, one of the big questions at this point is why this gunman, Robert Card, this person of interest who has been identified as Robert Card, why this person went into these two scenes and carried out this shooting.

So, again, at this point, they're still trying to figure out where he is. Part of this is exploiting perhaps phone signals to see where he last was to try to, again, figure out what happened here before he went to these two scenes.

Again, that's what, according to the police at the scene there, they say these two scenes happened just before 7:00 P.M. last night.

Now, we're going to hear more from authorities at 10:30 this morning.

[07:20:00]

But already we know the reason why they're looking for Robert Card is, again, he knows this area. This is a person who is -- again, a person of interest in these two shootings. They say he is a certified firearms instructor, an army reservist, somebody who knows his way with guns, obviously. And police say that he is believed to be armed and dangerous, one reason why they have that shelter in place for those communities there in Maine. Phil and Poppy?

HARLOW: Evan Parris, thank you for all that information. We'll get back to you soon.

With us now is Glenn Norling. He is a retired FBI special agent, former U.S. Air Force officer, also an expert on active shooter incidents and works with the Active Shooter Prevention Project. I really appreciate your time, Glenn, this morning.

From all we just heard from our colleague, Shimon, and also Evan, what strikes you, including the fact that he didn't, this person of interest, conceal his identity at all?

GLENN NORLING, ACTIVE SHOOTER EXPERT: Well, good morning, first of all, and sorry to be talking about such a horrible situation, but you're absolutely correct. People that are in these type of situations who get to a point where they're going to pick up a firearm and just indiscriminately hurt people, they're not really ready, they're not really prepared or concerned about concealing their identity. You think you try to get inside the mind of the people that do these horrible type of things.

And they get to a point where they're committed to what they believe is the thing that they need to do. And whether they're found out who they are, they understand that that's going to happen at some point. They're going to understand there's going to be an end to the situation, however that's going to happen, whether it's brought upon by law enforcement or brought upon themselves.

So, it's not really a surprise that he's not interested in concealing his identity. Oftentimes, people that do these things want other people to know that they were the person that did this. So, people like us try to figure out why they did it.

MATTINGLY: How does the profile, Glenn, that he's a certified firearms instructor -- he's a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, how does that add complexity or difficulty for law enforcement in this moment?

NORLING: Well, of course, the situation right now is an extraordinarily dangerous situation for law enforcement and for the public at large as well right now. You have somebody that's familiar with firearms, that's demonstrated skill in the application of that firearm.

You've observed somebody that has no restriction in their mind about hurting, killing other people. And right now, we don't know is that person in a single location, is that person continuing to move. So, that's why, as you heard the chief talking earlier about intelligence and things like that, that's where we try to -- on the law enforcement side, try to use all that information to try and figure out where they are, how we can get that person into custody without any additional harm.

But the fact that he's got that background that is -- just makes that extraordinarily dangerous situation, even that more dangerous for law enforcement.

HARLOW: And the terrain, Glenn, also makes it incredibly complex, right? They found a car tied to him at the bottom of a trailhead and also near an area where boats can leave from.

NORLING: Yes. Certainly, you have a whole variety of ways to be transported out of that area. You have wooded areas. You have residential neighborhoods, things like that. So, this is where it's important as we talk to people about situational awareness and things like that, identifying those things that are outside of the normal.

This situation makes me think back to the Boston bomber, where you found, of course, them in the boat. So, you have all sorts of places like this.

MATTINGLY: Yes, in someone's backyard.

NORLING: And if you're not familiar with your surroundings, you know, I'm going to say this is an area where not necessarily everybody is going to normally lock their doors, right? This is somewhere where you're not expecting to have that. And you've heard some of those conversations, some of those statements made by people, hey, I never thought it would happen here.

Unfortunately, in this day and age, we hear that continuously all the time. And that's why, really, from the active shooter prevention project standpoint, we try to focus on people having that recognition that these things do happen anywhere and everywhere.

And all of us need to have a plan. All of us need to have that immediate recognition that if you hear those sounds, don't make the assumption that it's not something bad that's happening. And the immediate reaction is what we need to try and encourage to help people.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and an incredibly important point given how many people are currently on lockdown. Glenn Norling, we appreciate your expertise, as always. Thank you.

NORLING: Thank you.

HARLOW: So, right now, police are searching for that person of interest, Robert Card, in this deadly series of mass shootings in Maine overnight. More coverage of our breaking news straight ahead.

MATTINGLY: Also in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling Israelis at a televised address that a ground incursion into Gaza is coming soon. He did not say when. We're going to be live in Israel. Stay with us.

[07:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: An urgent manhunt underway right now for the gunman behind the multiple mass shootings in Maine last night.

Here's what we know at this hour. The exact number killed unclear. Law enforcement does tell CNN at least 16 people are dead. Dozens more injured in Lewiston, Maine. The shootings happened at two separate locations, a bowling alley and a restaurant.

Police have identified a 40-year-old Robert Card as a person of interest. They say he's on the run and should be considered armed and dangerous.

MATTINGLY: And here's what we know about Card. He's a certified firearms instructor and a member of the U.S. Army Reserve. Officials say he recently made threats to carry out a shooting at a National Guard facility in Maine. He has also reported mental health issues, including hearing voices.

Maine officials say hundreds of police officers and law enforcement officials are now working across the state to locate Card. People who live in and around Lewiston are being told to shelter in place.

Lewiston Public Schools and nearby districts have canceled classes today, and anyone with information on the shooting or Robert Card's whereabouts have been urged to contact law enforcement.

A reporter with our local affiliate, WMTW, is at a police checkpoint as the manhunt continues this morning.

[07:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: We're here in Lisbon Falls along the Route 196 corridor, where they had actually just closed down the road. They're setting up a detour.