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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Manhunt for Terror Attack Suspects Continues; Several Detentions In Paris Terror Attack; Police Officer Shot This Morning Dies

Aired January 08, 2015 - 05:30   ET

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

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, breaking news this morning, the manhunt for the gunmen behind the massacre at a French magazine, 12 people murdered and 10 more injured. This morning, several people questioned by police. The search continues for the two gunmen on the loose.

And now we have new breaking news, an officer shot and killed south of Paris. We are live on both scenes with team coverage from all the developments overnight starting right now.

Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christine Romans. It's 30 minutes past the hour.

BERMAN: As we said, the breaking news at this hour, two police officers shot this morning in a suburb of Paris. One of those officers has now died. The deputy mayor of Paris, Patrick Klugman, tells CNN there has been one arrest. We don't believe that is now the case.

Jim Bitterman just told us that at this point one person was taken into custody. We are not sure why. He reported that there is an apartment building being surrounded near that scene. A suspect clearly still on the loose there. We will get a chance to check in with Jim from that scene in just a moment.

At this point, it is far too early to connect that shooting with the one at the French satirical magazine "Charlie Hedbo." In that case, yesterday, of course, 12 people killed, that was the biggest terror attack that country has seen in decades.

Eleven more were wounded. One eyewitness called the scene a massacre. After the attack that seemed very carefully planned, the suspects jumped in a car and drove away. There has been a manhunt ever since stretching from the scene in Paris to the city of Reim which is 90 miles away.

ROMANS: Overnight, the French interior minister announced quote, "several detentions" in connection with the shooting at the magazine. One suspect named by police is in custody, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad. He turned himself in, that's according to the French press agency, AFP. Now police say two older suspects, brothers, Sharif and Said Kouachi, they are still on the run.

With the latest, we turn now to "NEW DAY" anchor, Chris Cuomo live in Paris. We have Jim Bitterman at a separate shooting, a police officer has died. Chris, you are there near the scene of where the magazine attack happened yesterday.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Exactly. As were you saying, Christine, they are trying to see if there is a nexus between the recent acts of violence. The one you were referring to where Jim Bitterman is in South Paris. There is a point of intrigue there.

The man who is the suspect in that shooting although older in his 50s was dressed similarly with a bulletproof vest on. The attacks on police are relatively rare here. Investigators are taking a look at that.

But here at the main location of the dismay right now is obviously the offices of "Charlie Hedbo" where again you said you had 12 people killed, 11 of them, the cartoonists and writers and workers there. A police officer assigned to protect one of the cartoonists there.

There are big questions in the investigation about what is the nature of the threat that we saw hatched here. These are not suicide bombers. These were not madmen. These are not someone, who are mentally ill who just caught on to the idea of jihad.

They seemed to have been skilled. The nature of how they carried out the operation and the equipment they had. Maybe a rocket propelled grenade launcher. How they are used. The tight bullet patterns in the windshield of the police cruiser calling out people for massacre.

The deliberate execution of the police officer, the non-chalance, the coordination of movements, that is not to give a nod of congratulation to the killers. It is to think about who is doing this type of terrorism.

Is this the big threat? Is this the threat of people being sent abroad and learn how to become warriors and fighters and come back to the countries and creating havoc. The deeper level of the concern is found in the suspects themselves. The brothers were known to police.

One of them was caught and convicted of helping to traffic people into jihad war zones. He served time, 18 months, reduced sentence. He was then supposedly surveiled by police, which gets into the issue of manpower and how much time you can spend on these huge watch lists of people. Similar to what we deal within the United States.

The youngest of one of these three suspects, the 18-year-old who turned himself in. He said he did so because he had nothing to do with the event and heard his name in social media. Not corroborated at this point.

Today, here's what we do know for sure. This is a nation is mourning. It has been designated as a day of mourning. There will be around the time of the actual shooting, which by the way deserves mention, 11:30 noon here local time in Paris. That is lunchtime. It is congested here. There is foot traffic and there is car traffic. These men knew what to do and had the confidence that they could escape anyway. That also speaks to the preparation and training. Working against that assumption of the professionalism, well, they did not seem to know the right building when they went in.

They asked maintenance workers. They wound up shooting one of them. The big bone-headed move that wind up being the key to the investigation so far, one of them left an identification card on premises.

Without that, who knows where they would be in the investigation. We will have a moment of silence here about the same time of the shooting. It leads to a lot of big questions here, John and Christine, about what do you do in this investigation?

What does it mean about the posture toward terrorism going forward? What is the nature of the threat? What should be the nature of the response, the memorials here?

I want to bring in two really seasoned journalists who understand the situation here much better than I. We have Chris Dickey from "The Daily Beast" and Christine Ockrent. She is from France Couture, did I come close to saying it, right?

CHRISTINE OCKRENT, FRENCH JOURNALIST: Wonderful.

CUOMO: Well enough. To more important matters, when we are looking at this situation with the investigation, the desire, Chris, I'll start with you, to see if there is continuity between these two attacks. No information yet, but the idea of someone getting out traffic checkpoint, taking on police officers and killing one of them, very rare here, yes?

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, FOREIGN EDITOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": It is rare in the political sense, absolutely. I mean, I think one of the things that is interesting about the case is the question of whether there is some link with organized crime. Not that organized crime is behind it.

If you look at the history of who gets into firefights with the police, often it is people involved with drug trafficking and organized crime. There was an issue in 2011 and shootings in Marseilles all the time. We will see probably some kind of connection there.

CUOMO: Well, whether it's assistance or this is a one off, it does get you to the point of who the main assailants were, the terrorists here. Christine, we have suicide bombers. We have people who plant car bombs, who see themselves as part of their misplaced zealotry that they'll find their own demise and they act of faith.

Not this time. These people seemed to know what they were doing and they wanted to escape, which leads to the suggestion of their escape of, were they foreign trained fighters and come back home to create havoc. That is the big concern, yes? OCKRENT: Of course, it's the big concern and how does any democratic society face that new kind of threat? Isolated individuals or people who look like many, many people in this country, as you said, one of the two brothers suspected to be the murderers, it is not proved yet, did serve jail.

Can you put police surveillance behind everybody who served time in jail? It's impossible. I'm very struck by the coincident with the Boston trial right now.

Because when you think of it, the Tsarnaev brothers proceeded pretty much the same way in the sense that you had two guys who sort of came out of nowhere and just decided to strike during the Boston marathon.

Of course, in this particular case, our friends who were murdered at this very time of the day, 11:30 a.m. Paris time, they were very precise hits. Their names had been already designated as targets.

Dating back to 2006 when they decided to publish the Danish cartoons, you remember. This time around, these two guys and individuals are really absolutely freezing because it's very cold blooded.

CUOMO: And methodical, Chris. That shot pattern on that windshield is not easy.

DICKEY: Chris, this is the great mystery. This is the thing we don't know. Let's assume these two guys Said and Sharif Kouachi, they were the guys who did it. Let's assume that for the point of argument.

What we don't see in anything we know so far about their record is where they learned to handle weapons like that. There have been some reports they may have been in Syria. Those are unconfirmed.

There were reports that Sharif had gone to Iraq. That turns out to not be the case. He never made it there. I don't think that when he was part of a group of kids thinking about the park here, they learned how to handle those weapons like that. I think that is the big mystery of the case at the moment about these guys.

OCKRENT: And killing a cop in cold blood after wounding him.

CUOMO: Walking up to him, kill him, and walk away.

OCKRENT: And pick up a shoe because one of the two guys had lost a shoe and just putting the shoe back in the car. At the same time, forgetting his ID card in the car. It is that mix of, you know, typical amateur stuff and the cold bloodedness.

CUOMO: You have to investigate about how did this and why and how. You get into the difficult questions of what do we do to prevent? One of the things you dealt with here which is a fundamental question to us in the media is the criticism around you have the right to publish, but should you publish?

What do you think this incident will do to the resolve not only of the hopefully future staff of "Charlie Hedbo?" Because I very much hope that they reinvigorate and come back stronger than ever. What do you do that is seen as provocative? Do you give leeway to extremists factions?

DICKEY: It is a complicated issue here. There is a lot of guilt or hangover from World War II. A lot of things you are not supposed to say here. It is illegal for instance to deny the holocaust. It is illegal to deny the Armenian holocaust in France.

I'm not saying one should go around denying it. These are the kinds of laws put in place in order to protect different groups. Should "Charlie Hedbo" be allowed to completely profane the Prophet Muhammad? Frankly, I think it should be.

CUOMO: They profane everybody else?

DICKLEY: I believe in absolute freedom of speech. It is a complicated issue in this country and society.

OCKRENT: But there is another dimension I think which needs to be taken into account. This is a secular country.

CUOMO: Strongly secular.

OCKRENT: The tradition in our way of being secular is that you can attack the Catholic Church, which is still, you know, the predominant religion in this country and that's what our friends here did.

You know, the pope would be ridiculed every other day. So, I think that secularism also explains the need to maintain not only the freedom of expression, but the freedom for satire. Satire is very important and satire of religion, whatever the religion.

Satire of the establishment, satire of all of the politicians and businesses and all of the establishment. That is, I think, runs very deep in our culture.

CUOMO: Uniquely French. You do it as well. Christopher and Christine, thank you for giving us context.

One of the things that buoy the spirit here, John and Christine, is one of the memorials nearby here. One of the officers was taken down and executed. People were gathering and of course they are upset and remembering the tragedy of the situation.

They were holding up copies of "Charlie Hedbo." They are saying they want to be a cartoonist. I want this. There is no question that the strongest way to fight against terrorism, which is trying to inspire fear is to not be afraid.

To show you will have greater resolve than you even had before this attack. We are seeing signs of that already a day after the horrible situation here. That is what we have from Paris right now. Little bit of rain coming down in this beautiful city.

BERMAN: All right, thanks so much, Chris. Right now, we want to go back to the scene south of Paris. There was a police shooting this morning and a police officer was killed in the suburbs.

Right now, heavily armed police officers seem to be gathering in the neighborhood of the shooting. They appear to be surrounding one building there. One person is in custody. It is unclear who that person is.

As our Jim Bitterman reports, it does seem as if the shooter is on the loose. We have Jim Bitterman on the scene. He joins us live by phone. Jim, give us the details.

JIM BITTERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, John, the way it stands now is that the police have brought up an armored car and as well have called in what is, I don't know, roughly equivalent to the Navy SEALs, the brigade force that is used rarely in hostage situations and whatnot.

These are heavily armed guys who have bulletproof vests and assault rifles within their mask. They are bringing up forces and as well medical personnel up to the scene. It has all of the appearances of building toward some kind of assault.

They surrounded this apartment building which is not far away from the routine traffic accident occurring this morning. In the process of directing traffic around that accident, two police officers were standing there and a guy got out of a car, who is dressed in black and according to eyewitnesses had a bulletproof vest on.

Got out with an assault rifle and shot the two police officers who were directing traffic around the accident. One of the officers has now died. So, this is another very serious incident.

Understood, what connection there may be, but the method of operation and the gunman was dressed in black and mask like "Charlie Hedbo" leads one to believe there may be a connection, maybe not. We don't know at this point.

BERMAN: Huge, huge police presence there, some confusion over the last hour, Jim, is there is someone in custody. Do we know the distinction between the person if custody, someone who is older and someone on the run?

CUOMO: We heard the person in custody is 53 years old. That would put them out of the age range of the shooters involved in "Charlie Hedbo." we don't know why he was picked up. It may be they thought he was involved and they may have information they need.

Could be said here police routinely round up people for information and put them under lock and key for a while to question them. Overnight, we heard from the prime minister in connection with the "Charlie Hedbo" shooting, they rounded up six or seven people who knew the shooters to see if they can provide them any information.

It could be this man was arrested on the south side of Paris this morning was someone who had knowledge of the shooter or it may be something else. We just don't know it. ROMANS: Jim, quickly, the "Charlie Hedbo" shooting. We are assuming the brothers are the suspects because of the I.D. card found in the getaway car. Has police said there is other corroborating evidence that those are the suspected shooters?

BITTERMAN: If they know it, they have not said it to us. We don't know if they have more corroborating evidence. The fact they released these photos and named them and then put out an all-points bulletin, basically, indicates they are pretty sure these are the two involved. I don't think they would not have done that without assurance.

BERMAN: Jim Bitterman for us on the scene where there has been a new shooting. A police officer killed south of Paris. Police officers surrounding an apartment building. Jim will bring us any information as we get it from there.

It's 48 minutes after the hour, a show of support for victims of the massacre yesterday. That show of support coming from around the world and also online. The president of France has declared today a day of mourning. We'll tell you how people are paying tribute everywhere right after this.

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BERMAN: Remarkable show of solidarity for the victims of the terror attack in Paris. A lot of it happened online. There have been more than 2.2 million tweets featuring the #jesuis Charlie. The English translation is "I am Charlie."

People are expressing outrage that the terrorists should know free speech should never be taken away. For that part of the story, let's go right to Isa Soares right now live in London for us. Good morning.

ISA SOARES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. People have been expressing shock and horror over what happened. The hash tag you mentioned has been a rallying call around the world. Je Suis Charlie. Look how many tweets. It has grown exponentially. Mostly tweets in Europe.

We have seen the #wearecharlie. In the last 24 hours, John, we have seen famous cartoonists putting pen to paper as a tribute to the cartoonists killed. Many tributes have been posted on Twitter.

This is popular from David Pope among the first to tweet, shared 67,000 times. Even Marie Claire depicting a picture of pen to the pencil, no matter the language, john and Christine, the sentiment has been universal. Drawings should not have led to violence. Back to you.

SOARES: Thank you.

ROMANS: We are following the latest on the French terror attack all morning long. The desperate search for the gunmen, the manhunt is on next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROMANS: The world is standing with victims of the terror attack on "Charlie Hedbo." Solidarity rallies held in French cities and Europe. Like so many others, they are holding signs with the phrase "I am Charlie."

They were lighting candles in Geneva, Switzerland to remember those killed. Around the French embassy and Madrid was organized by Reporters Without Borders. This is an attack on journalism and free expression. People in Boston were surrounding with signs not afraid. In Washington, D.C., people rallied outside the newseum.

BERMAN: There is breaking news this morning, the manhunt for the gunmen responsible for the attack in Paris yesterday. A new shooting, police officer killed south of Paris today. We are minutes away from a moment of silence in France. "NEW DAY" starts right now.