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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Both Hostage Standoffs in France are Over; Female Terror Suspect Still on the Loose; French President to Speak Today; All 3 Hostage Takers are Dead

Aired January 09, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: They were off the radar. They came back, the authorities believe, and their reckoning is at this point maybe they came back because of what was happening with the brothers. And, if so, might someone else try to take up action because of what went on with those two terrorists. So they are also taking action in that area right now.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And importantly the police union spokesperson has just said that the female suspect is still on the loose. The female suspect, whose image we have been showing for the last several hours, that she is still on the loose. That is her picture. Obviously, law enforcement released her picture because they wanted people to be on the lookout for this woman who was last seen in the city of Paris, believed to be a suspect in the shooting death of the female police officer Thursday morning, as well as the wounding of another police officer in that same incident Thursday morning.

The male suspect, who took part in that shooting, according to police, he is now dead in that shooting at the - in the hostage taking incident at the supermarket. But that female suspect - and that's an important point because the question is, are there others who are involved in this cell who could aid her? Are there others that she is in communication with? All of these points are things that investigators are looking very closely at, trying to gather as much information as they can about the whereabouts of these people not only in the last 24 hours but in the last weeks and even years, frankly.

CUOMO: Yes. The information on what happened in the grocery store is much less developed than what happened in the industrial park. How many hostages made it out? Was it all -- was it something less than that? On your picture right now, you're seeing what appears to be one of the S.W.A.T. members being treated by members of his own. Is that the only injury?

A lot of the information there is soft. I know we're hearing from an official that that hostage taker, the man of African descent who is connected to the magazine terrorist, that he was killed. But I'm not hearing that from the people close to the investigation. So the information there is very soft. It's a very fluid situation. But, Anderson, good time to reset how we got here.

COOPER: Yes, it's -- it - it is just the top of the hour. Local French media is now reporting that some of the hostages - and, again, this is based on local French media, but they are reporting that some of the hostages at the supermarket have, in fact, been killed. We do not know exact numbers. We don't' - we do not know the number of hostages who have been killed.

Earlier, as we had mentioned, and Jim Sciutto had seen ambulances leaving the scene -

CUOMO: Yes.

COOPER: Early on in this hostage taking, and had seen at least one wounded person being taken away by ambulance. There had been reports that two hostages had been killed early on. We do not know whether or not those are the only hostages killed, whether, in fact, the two is the correct number.

CUOMO: We've been staying away from numbers on that -

COOPER: Right.

CUOMO: Because, obviously, that's the last thing we wanted to be true in this situation. But it has wound up being accurate that hostages didn't make it out of there alive. The information is still soft. It was a very violent assault inside. S.W.A.T. team members were hurt and hostages lost their lives, obviously, according to the French media, but the details are still soft there.

COOPER: Yes. That hostage incident - and, again, if you're just joining us, a good time, as Chris said, to reset. It's just a little bit after noon in the United States, on the East Coast of the United States, just after 6:00 p.m. here. Darkness has now come.

The two hostage standoffs, which we have been broadcasting about for the last four or five hours, they are both over. The three hostage takers, dead. The two Kouachi brothers, Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, 34-years-old and 32-year-old, they have been killed. The hostage that they had taken in their final assault, in their final terrorist incident, that hostage has been freed and apparently is unharmed, is OK.

The hostage taker in the kosher supermarket, who had been holding a kosher supermarket with what we said to be at least six hostages, that hostage taker is also dead. We're told that some hostages have lost their lives. Unclear whether it was just hostages early on in the initial invasion by this gunman, by this terrorist into the supermarket, whether that is when some individuals were killed, or if it was in the actual - the final assault by tactical units. There you're seeing some movement by French police, by paramedics as well.

CUOMO: And we also know that members of the French authorities, the task force that went in there and did that assault, they took injuries as well. We saw at least one of them being triaged, treated by their own outside the grocery store in the immediate aftermath as the hostages were being taken to safety.

COOPER: Yes. There's still so much to learn about this cell. It now appears - I mean I think logic dictates that this man of African descent, who you see, whose pictures we've been showing, it would seem to be that he was part of the "Charlie Hebdo" attack. We cannot say that for sure, though. We simply do not know.

CUOMO: Authorities will only say they know he was connected somehow to the brothers.

COOPER: Right.

CUOMO: Was he involved in the magazine, that they have not said. They don't know. But certainly there was a connection.

COOPER: And connected for a long period of time. We know that early on they were actually part of a sports team, a sports club together. They lived in the same area. There had been also an attempt of - to free an Algerian prisoner back in I believe it was - I don't want to get the year wrong, but an attempt by - by a cell to free an Algerian prisoner. The Kouachi brothers were suspects in that. At least one of them was. They were never brought up on charges on that because it wasn't -- French authorities believed there wasn't enough evidence. The third gunman is also believed to have been involved in that. But, again, whether or not exactly their level of operational cooperation, we don't know.

CUOMO: And French authorities are also moving on that neighborhood. They've removed assets from these two areas to see if there is going to be any shadow activity there. Will there be a follow-up or any type of move of vengeance because of what happened to the brothers or the third terror suspect from that neighborhood where they all were. And, again, we're using the word "cell" loosely, but certainly these three men had an affiliation. And the logical extension, as you said, Anderson, is, there may be more who are sympathetic to their cause, if not connected.

COOPER: Jim Sciutto, let's just review what -- you're on the scene of the supermarket standoff, which is now complete. The hostage taker has been killed. Just bring us up to date what you have been seeing, what you've been hearing and also how you saw the attack take place.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's start with how the attack took place. It began a little more than an hour ago with a series of very large explosions, and then a series of exchanges of gunfire, automatic weapons, more than two dozen shots. We counted very quickly. There was a pause and then another explosion and an exchange of gunfire a short time after that. That's when, as it's happening, we saw streams of black cloud, special police tactical units crossing a bridge across a highway just behind me here, advancing towards that kosher supermarket. And not long after that is when we heard those ambulances. First one, then two, three, a half dozen, as it would turn out. Scenes -- images from the scene of injured casualties being treated.

And, of course, when I first arrived here a number of hours ago, we saw other ambulances leaving the scene and I saw someone taken on a stretcher away from here. Indications that it's possible there were casualties not only at the assault, as the police raided this location, but also earlier in the day when the kosher supermarket was taken over by this hostage taker. But just one sign as well of how difficult an operation this was are -

and you mentioned just a few moments ago, Anderson, that the female companion of the hostage taker, Amedy Coulibaly, the 26-year-old woman identified by police as Hayat Boumeddiene, that she was able to escape as those hostages, as a number of hostages were able to escape, escaping in the confusion there. An indication, along with that gunfire, the series of explosions, just how difficult this operation was. Made difficult, of course, by the number of hostages that were being held there.

CUOMO: And also limited points of ingress and egress. That was another thing that they had to deal with, Jim. Not from your vantage point, but the video that we were showing from French television, you saw how slowly the officers, the S.W.A.T. team members were having to enter that market. Probably not a function of caution, but just how difficult it was to get in.

COOPER: Yes.

CUOMO: That they were going in one at a time. Very dangerous for them and, as a result, the early word was that this had to be a very violent assault.

COOPER: And in the images we just showed, you saw actually the entrance - the entering point and really the slow enter -- entry that a number of the officers were able to make. You obviously want to try to be able to get in as quickly as you can from as many different points as possible. But it looked like they had difficulty really going in that front area. It looked like they were very slow kind of going in. That's the last thing you want as a tactical officer.

CUOMO: You know, one step sideways, you know, just to comment on the types of people that perform these missions. You know you're going through a very tight area. You know the person on the other side is armed. And yet these men, and maybe women, went through.

COOPER: Right. Right.

CUOMO: And they went through in there to help those hostages, preserve their lives and they succeeded. We do not know at this point how many hostages didn't make it out, but most of them certainly did. We saw them running out.

COOPER: Let's certainly hope that that is the case.

Fred Pleitgen is standing by at the other standoff, which has been resolved, where the two Kouachi brothers have been killed.

Fred, if you could, for our viewers who are just joining us, just kind of bring us up to speed on what you saw, on what you heard, and what we know is happening now.

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Anderson, this happened around the same time as this siege was beginning to end at the supermarket. And that -- the first thing that we heard was a damp sort of detonation. And then you heard - I think it was pretty much only two or three shots. It wasn't automatic fire. It was single shots that were being fired, and then several more of these damp detonations that you heard. At that point everything went silent. There are a lot of the police started moving around here and it pretty quickly became clear that this operation was, in fact, over.

I was actually able to speak to the mayor of this town just a couple of minutes ago and he confirmed all of the details. He said that indeed the police went in there. He said that indeed both of the Kouachi brothers were killed in that police raid and that the hostage was saved. He said he was very relieved by the outcome of that operation because, of course, this town has been on edge throughout the better part of the day. The people here have been under siege. The children here have been locked down.

What happened shortly after the operation was that helicopters landed in that area, several medical helicopters, possibly to evacuate any sort of casualties that there might have been. Of course we know that aside from the two Kouachi brothers, nobody was injured in that raid. None of the police, luckily, were injured in that raid.

And then after that there was a lot of helicopter activity overhead. At one point, three Puma helicopters landed, which is usually what the French special police forces use to get around. It's unclear whether or not possibly they were flying the French troops or the French special police forces out after having completed this operation.

And then since then what's gone on in this town is that it's pretty much back open. All the police vans that were here are starting to disappear. Traffic is getting back to normal. The police are still sort of directing it a little bit, but you can tell that there's a sense of relief here in this town, this operation which really, really was, by all the accounts that we're getting at this still fairly early stage, was one that was conducted very, very cleanly by the French police, Anderson.

COOPER: Fred Pleitgen, I appreciate that.

Again, and I just want to repeat something that Jim Sciutto had said just a short time ago, and this is obviously something that is of great concern to people in Paris, and we should put her picture, again, up on the screen. According to a French police union official, the -- there was a female hostage taker involved in the kosher supermarket standoff. She -- so apparently there were two hostage takers initially. She actually was able to escape, blending in with some of the hostages who were able to flee the scene. So she is still now on the loose. This according to a French police union official. That female suspect, who's also suspected in the killing of the French policewoman, actually able to escape. So, actually, initially, there were apparently two hostage takers involved.

CUOMO: Right. Yes, and, again, you and I are hearing the exact same information. The only caution we have here at our benefit is, the information and reporting about the supermarket, the kosher market assault is softer than the other assault.

COOPER: Right. CUOMO: I don't think we know for sure - I know it's being reported and, you know, I'd much rather be wrong this way, but the fact that the African descent man that was identified by the French authorities as a suspect in the shooting yesterday with his girlfriend, we don't know for sure that the girlfriend was in the marketplace. A lot of -- there have been reports from the hostages and people coming out saying that he had somebody with him. We don't know if it was her.

COOPER: I see.

CUOMO: We know that he, that man of - that man, is dead. That we're being told by French officials that he's dead. We don't know that she was there for sure and --

COOPER: Right. The French police union official is saying that she was.

CUOMO: That she was and she escaped with the other hostages.

COOPER: Right.

CUOMO: I am not hearing that.

COOPER: We can't -- we can't independently confirm that.

CUOMO: Right. I'm not hearing that. I'm also hearing that as many as three hostages lost their lives in there. And that the understanding of those who performed the raid was that they were dead when they got in there, which suggests that this man was a killer again many times over.

COOPER: We're just told that President Francois Hollande of France is going to be speaking at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time, East Coast time in the United States, 8:00 p.m. local time here in Paris. We'll obviously bring you those comments live. That's a little bit more than an hour and a half or so away.

It has been really an extraordinary day here in Paris, the likes of which this city, this country has not seen for many, many decades. Two simultaneous hostage standoffs, both of which have now been resolved. Again, the three hostage takers that we know about for sure are all dead. Those three men whose pictures you've seen on the screen, the two Kouachi brothers and the third man who appears to be of African descent who police say was also involved in the shooting, responsible for the shooting of a policewoman, killing her Thursday morning, and also shooting another police officer who was wounded in a separate incident from the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks. Whether or not that man was involved in the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks, police have not been able to ascertain, or at least not been able - not been willing to say publicly.

There has been a confirmed history of involvement of these two brothers with the man, Amedy Coulibaly. The female accomplice of his is still believed to be on the loose. Police are still very actively looking for her. And, Chris, as you've been reporting, looking for anybody else that they may be associated with. CUOMO: Right. Maybe - you know, maybe that's one aspect why they are

sending assets into the neighborhood where they came from. You know, speculative but reasonable. We do know that they have detached assets, dispatched assets into that area. They are concerned about what they called reflective violence. That somebody may act out because of what happened to the brothers or because of this third terror suspect.

Now, there's been so much that's happened. It's about 15 minutes or so past the hour that let's just remember how we got here. I know everybody's been following this story, but a lot has happened.

You had what happened at "Charlie Hebdo." The dozen people who lost their lives, 11 more were injured, many critically. The men wound up escaping in a car. There's a belief that the two shooters, the brothers, had at least one accomplice with them. An 18-year-old young man turned himself in, said he heard his name on social media, says he had nothing to do with it. French authorities now believe he is not the third accomplice. So that's an open question.

They took off. They used this vehicle. They encountered three different sets of police, two patrols, one bike patrol. They wound up killing the officer on the bike patrol. He was a Muslim police officer. They executed him.

They then took off. They wound up being picked up by helicopter surveillance. They abandoned their vehicle. Authorities would find some -- what they called simple explosive devices in their vehicle. They took off on foot, assumed to carry weapons with them. Couldn't be located then or overnight. They commandeered a car the next morning and wound up getting chased and cornered in this industrial park.

And that's where they took a hostage. And eventually there was an assault after they told authorities they were willing to die as martyrs and that they would not give up the hostages. The assault went in. Both of them are taken out. The hostage was safe. That aspect.

And then we have the grocery store, Anderson.

COOPER: Right. Grocery store where we know at least one hostage taker was involved. There are some reports that there was -- may have been a female hostage taker involved as well. We haven't been able to independently confirm that. However, that coming from a French police union official at this point who said that she actually was able to escape.

What we do know for sure, that the male hostage taker, the man of African descent whose picture we've been showing up, who has a long history with the Kouachi brothers, who may or may not have been involved in the "Charlie Hebdo" attack, who police believe was responsible for the killing of a French policewoman, as well as the shooting of another French police officer on Thursday morning. That hostage taker is dead.

He was holding - at the time we were told as many as six hostages. There have been earlier reports of fatalities. It appeared as if - fatalities and/or wounded people. Jim Sciutto, when he arrived on the scene of the hostage taking shortly after it began, saw a number of ambulances leaving the scene. Unclear how many people were injured and/or killed at the start when the gunman first entered the kosher supermarket. But there are also reports of a number of fatalities among the hostages. We don't have confirmation yet on the actual number.

CUOMO: An interesting detail that's coming out of the industrial park raid is that authorities believe the hostage that the two men had taken was a woman. It turns out it was a man and that he may have hidden himself in a box, finding a way to avoid the terrorists. The terrorists then wound up initiating action with the authorities, and they wound up being taken out. So this man may have wound up saving his own life. Obviously, very grateful to have the French authorities so close in the situation.

COOPER: I do want to bring in Tom Fuentes, who we've been talking with, CNN's law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, formerly, obviously, with the FBI, also CNN military analyst Colonel Peter Mansour.

Tom, just as you've been watching these operations unfold, these operations come to a conclusion, I'm wondering your thoughts and also what happens now from a law enforcement standpoint about trying to connect the dots of their movements over the last 24, 48 hours and even, frankly, the last weeks or years, frankly.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, the biggest concern now, Anderson, is going to be to track this woman down and also to continue the investigation of the three others and determine who else they may have been in contact, is there another cell or group within their cell that are out there supporting. And with regard to the woman, can she lead other supporters of the terrorists to a weapons cache or an explosives cache that they could use to further more attacks. She could be a key part of this. And trying to track her down is very important at this point.

COOPER: And, Peter Mansour, I'm wondering what you saw as you saw these tactical units move in. Obviously the supermarket, it seemed to be a much more difficult situation. Even the entrance points seemed difficult to get these units inside.

COL. PETER MANSOUR, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, the supermarket was a very difficult operation for the S.W.A.T. teams involved. Only two points of ingress. Very difficult to get the door open. I'm sort of surprised they didn't just blow it open. You could see them tugging it open and then one person at a time going in. That's, obviously, not how you want to do it if you can get in there more quickly.

The factory situation, the printing plant, a much easier tactical problem for the police there, especially with only two assailants and one hostage in the facility. So that clearly went much more smoothly.

CUOMO: Do we -- what's the best idea of why they would have launched these two assaults at the same time? Does that betray a sense that they thought that the sets of suspects were in communication with each other, or is that just the easiest way to do it operationally? What's your thought on that, Peter? MANSOUR: Well, I think they clearly wanted -- they wanted to avoid the

possibility that the suspects were in communication with one another, and so they wanted to do a simultaneous raid. And that -- if they were in communication with one another, and they assaulted one place and not the other, then the assailant, the terrorist, could simply start shooting his hostages. And that's why they went in both places at once. I'm pretty sure that was the reasoning.

COOPER: And, Tom, what we don't know about at this point is whether or not the operation, which took place first at the industrial park, whether that was precipitated by something that took place by the hostage-takers or whether that was something that law enforcement themselves initiated. Because it seems like there was a several minute gap between that operation starting and, according to Jim Sciutto, at least a several minute gap between that operation in the industrial park shooting and the operation in the supermarket beginning.

FUENTES: Yes, it could be that the terrorist initiated the attack in the first incident and the fear was that the terrorist in the second incident had access to radio or live French television and would have been immediately made aware of the attack or the shoot-out at the first location and the fear might have been, we better go in. If they hear about the other shoot-out, they may initiate something against the hostages here. So you could have simultaneously that they wanted to initiate both rescues at the same time, or the terrorist caused them to go ahead and initiate the first one and then do the second one as a response to the first one.

COOPER: And, Peter Mansour, the length of time that the second operation took, I mean our Jim Sciutto is reporting in the five to ten minute range, you know, of gaps he heard between explosions and gunshots, that's obviously also very worrying.

MANSOUR: Clearly a very confusing scene inside that supermarket. You can imagine a corner grocery store, lots of shelves, lots of places for people to hide. And you have the S.W.A.T. team members going in one by one with flash bangs going off and shooting going on. So clearly that's going to take a lot longer period of time than a factory situation where it's more open. You have many more police. They can get in there much more quickly. And only two terrorists by themselves in the building. And you could see that they could end that situation much more quickly than they could, especially with all the hostages at risk. You want - you simply don't want to go in there and start shooting everyone. You have to pick your targets pretty carefully and move more cautiously.

FUENTES: If I could add one more -

CUOMO: Right. And I think that, you know, look, the headline is -- go ahead, please. Tom, go ahead.

FUENTES: I'd like to add to that, that what you don't know in the supermarket situation is that you assume that all the other people in there were innocent shoppers taken hostage. What we don't know is if these three terrorists had many other accomplices and prepositioned them as shoppers in the store so that when they went in and took over the store, the police wouldn't know necessarily if there's a group of hostage takers or just the one or two taking hostage.

CUOMO: Right.

FUENTES: So that's the other dynamic here is that it's a public store. They could have had confederates in there with them.

CUOMO: Well, Tom, I'll tell you, it's not an empty speculation on your point because I know from sources close to the investigation that there is word, an indication on the ground, that there was someone else in there, that at least hostages were identifying as being an accomplice of the hostage taker. And that further complicated matters to be sure. Another reason that the information is soft coming out about that assault. But we are going to hear information about hostages losing lives and hostages being injured, unfortunately. But as we saw early on, certainly a big group of them made it out.

COOPER: And what's remarkable is, Tom, is, at this point we still don't know where these two suspects have been for the last 24 hours, more than 24 hours, since that French policewoman was killed. The male suspect, who we - who law enforcement had identified, was able to get away very quickly, was said to be wearing tactical gear, a bulletproof vest, armed with what was described as an assault rifle, as well as - some form of a handgun, where they were holed up for the last 24 hours and whether this was - this supermarket was a preplanned target, whether this was something on a list of targets that they had written up or whether this was just kind of a target of opportunity under pressure of the manhunt.

It certainly seems, and as Chris and I have been talking about, that the Kouachi brothers, Tom, were basically just reacting to events. Were on the run, stealing gas where they could, holding up a convenience station according to law enforcement and just ended up at this printing shop. What we don't know is whether or not it was a similar situation with this other gunman or whether he had planned to go into this Jewish supermarket, this kosher supermarket, intentionally.

FUENTES: That's true. And as these events extend over a couple day period, the terrorists themselves can change their tactics, change their mind. You know, in the beginning, the first day, it looked like nothing more than -- not that it wasn't significant, but a targeted, limited assault on the magazine, on the individuals that worked at the magazine. Almost a mafia-style murder.

And then it evolved into - and then, of course, then speculation that they wanted to live. They wanted to survive. They're not suicide guys. And then, as it unfolded to today's events, it's clear that they had no intention of surrendering and being taken alive. They just wanted to pick and choose how, when and where their death came.

CUOMO: Well, you know, it's interesting, Tom, as we look at the clock right now, it has been about an hour since these assaults began to bringing us to this point right now. It is amazing how much activity took place during that, from complete open questions about both of these assaults, to now, what we seem to have about reasonable senses of conclusion. COOPER: It's also remarkable just how our knowledge and law

enforcement's knowledge of the "Charlie Habdo" attacks has changed over the last 12 to 24 hours. I mean what seemed to start out as two suspects and then three suspects, we now have a fourth suspect who we've been talking about. We've learned a lot more about the international movements of the two brothers and no doubt there's a lot to learn still in the next 12 to 24 hours.

CUOMO: And you're looking at a very simple way of amassing the toll of the last hour. Three of the terror suspects have been killed by raids by French authorities, S.W.A.T. teams going in and taking them on. The alleged accomplice of the man on the right of your screen, she is at large. There's speculation as to whether or not she was with him in that grocery store and escaped or she's simply at large.

So, again, about an hour has passed and it's a good opportunity to take a step backwards and remind how we got to where we are. Two very separate standoffs. Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper here. Anderson's been guiding us through it. we do know that it all started here at the offices of "Charlie Hebdo," the French satirical magazine.