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50 Dead, 53 Injured in Orlando Terror Attack; Shooter Had Been Investigated by FBI; Investigators Probe ISIS Ties to Orlando Massacre. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 13, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[05:58:02] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. We are live from Orlando, Florida. This city is reeling after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history took place here at a popular gay nightclub. The names of 50 lives cut short, they're beginning to emerge. Fifty-three other people were wounded here.

So many questions about the terrorist who carried out this senseless attack. Investigators are confirming that he was known to the FBI, and he pledged his allegiance to ISIS in a call to police during the massacre.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR; All right. Now, we are learning more as this goes on, as it is in all of these situations, some early information changes. Numbers will change, but certain images remain the same.

One that really brings it home, investigators walking the scene, reporting hearing cell phone after cell phone going off inside. Families, loved ones, desperate to reach those trapped there, desperate for that voice on the other side and, in too many cases, it never came.

There's no question that we see this community, the nation, the world coming together around what happened in Orlando, but it's also a time for leadership, and we have, on NEW DAY this morning, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump joining us live to say what this means and what needs to be done.

Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Boris Sanchez -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, good morning to you.

You know, this was supposed to be a fun night. This started out as being Latin night at one of Orlando's most popular gay nightclubs. People were having fun, socializing, drinking and dancing. And then, at 2 a.m., all of it changed.

Now 24 hours later, we're getting a clear picture of sheer terror.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SANCHEZ (voice-over): A massive investigation into the terrorists responsible for carrying out the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

(GUNFIRE)

SANCHEZ: Inside the popular gay nightclub, chaos as club goers were confused by the sounds they heard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At first it sounded like it was part of the show. Once people started screaming and shots just keep ringing out, you know that it's not a show anymore.

SANCHEZ: Police say Omar Mateen carried out the massacre, using an assault rifle and a 9 millimeter handgun, Orlando Police ending the hours'-long standoff by storming the building to rescue hostages.

CHIEF JOHN MINA, ORLANDO POLICE: We had 11 Orlando police officers that exchanged gunfire with the suspect and killed him.

SANCHEZ: According to one U.S. official, Mateen called 911 during the attack, pledging his allegiance to ISIS and mentioning the Boston Marathon bombers.

Police say the 29-year-old gunman drove a rented car from his home in Fort Pierce to Orlando in order to carry out the attack. Inside the vehicles, investigators recovered another gun, a 38 caliber Smith & Wesson, according to a law enforcement official.

The ATF says Mateen legally purchased the two weapons used in the attack within the past week or so. Mateen had a permit to carry a concealed weapon because of his work as a security guard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He seemed pretty normal to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Professional?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, always.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a security guard, was he dressed as a security guard?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes. Gun and everything.

SANCHEZ: Mateen was known to the FBI, suspected of being an ISIS sympathizer, but they said they found no evidence in 2013 and 2014 of direct links to the terror group. Now, a man who worked with Mateen back in 2014 is wishing that investigators had done more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw it coming. He said he was going to kill a whole bunch of people.

SANCHEZ: The imam of this mosque tells CNN that Mateen worshipped here just two days before the attack, saying he kept to himself and saw no indication that Mateen would do something so violent. DR. SYED SHAFEEQ RAHMAN, IMAM, PIERCE ISLAMIC CENTER: We don't recall

any friend of him in this mosque as he would not socialize with anybody.

SANCHEZ: When it was all over, at least 50 people were killed inside Pulse nightclub. More than 50 others were wounded. A community torn apart, now coming together with hundreds turning out to donate blood for those injured in the horrific attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And Alisyn, it's really important to point out the despair that some of these family members are going through. Fewer than half the names of those killed inside the club have been released, so there are still families out there fearing the worst about their loved ones and likely to get confirmation of their worst fears today.

CAMEROTA: I know.

CUOMO: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

CAMEROTA: Boris, thank you. Thank you for all of that reporting.

Well, investigators are poring through all of the terrorist's electronic activity and devices; and they're going his home to look for signs that he became self-radicalized. The gunman had been on the FBI's radar before, suspected of some sort of radical or extremist ties.

CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez is live in Washington with more. What have you learned, Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, investigators are still looking for any possible direct connections between Mateen and ISIS in Syria. So far, they've not found any, but the FBI says that Mateen made a 911 call during the Orlando attack, pledging allegiance to the ISIS leader and invoking the Boston Marathon bombers.

The FBI twice interviewed Mateen twice in 2013 after co-workers reported that he made statements about ties to terrorist groups and again in 2014 because of connections to a Palestinian-American man who carried out a suicide bombing for the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Both times the FBI says it didn't find enough evidence to continue looking into Mateen, and he was not under investigation when he drove two hours from his home on Florida's east coast to carry out the attack in Orlando this weekend.

Investigators are now going back, however, to the previous investigation of the suicide bomber to see if there were deeper ties that somehow eluded investigators -- Alisyn and Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Evan, thank you very much. We'll be checking in with you in a little bit.

There's a lot of confusion over what the FBI knew about this man, and what that enabled him to do. CAMEROTA: Right.

CUOMO: And not do, frankly. Where the weapons were involved and following up on him later on. So we'll take that on.

But right now let's bring in Orlando city commissioner Patty Sheehan. She obviously has intimate knowledge of this community and its reaction. We also have Nic Hornstein, who witnessed the immediate aftermath of the shooting and heard the barrage of gunfire inside the Pulse nightclub.

Nick, we know this has been a very long night. Thank you for joining us. If you could, just give us a sense of how the night changed. It goes form late at night, midnight to 1 in the morning, 2 in the morning. That's when the Pulse closes. Then what?

NIC HORNSTEIN, WITNESS: So when the gunfire rang out, I was actually asleep in my friend's apartment, which is about 100 meters cattycornered to Pulse. And I was awakened by the gunfire there from the original shooter.

CAMEROTA: And Nic, what did you do then? This is, I think, your video. So you're looking out the window, and we can hear -- your video is what allows us to hear the barrage of gunfire. So tell us what you were doing and seeing.

[06:05:11] HORNSTEIN: At that point, you know, I'd been awake for a bit. I got a look out the window, and you could just see, you know, chaos: people running, screaming, trying to find their loved ones and friends. That video was around 5 a.m., when the standoff was ended by SWAT Team.

CAMEROTA: That's interesting, because that's the diversionary tactic -- you know, when they threw in -- the police, the SWAT team, threw in the explosive to make it sound sort of like those fireworks. And that's what he caught on tape.

CUOMO: So you have what was going on, this present-sense impression. There are a lot of questions about why this happened, what the response was, and then you have what is the impact?

To know that your community has just suffered something like this is horrible, any way you look at it, but now to understand the scale of it, that this is the deadliest shooting that we've had in history, how is that hitting the community in these hours after the event?

PATTY SHEEHAN, ORLANDO CITY COUNCIL MEMBER: Well, that was my first, I'd say, please, let us just not be the top. I don't want to be the No. 1 fatality, and it ended up being that that was what happened. And I'm horrified by that. We don't want to be, you know, on that list for Orlando.

But I have to tell you, my community is really coming together on this. The GLBC Community Center has been doing, you know, grief counseling all day yesterday, and they'll be open all day today again. I just want to caution people, though, be careful about where you

donate money. There's a lot of scams going on. Make sure it's a proper 501(c3). Because again, there's unfortunately a lot of unscrupulous people who take advantage of these situations.

CUOMO: What are you hearing about the reaction to the targeting? Whether this was terror or it's simply murder, often they go together. But this was certainly a specific target. Why he picked this nightclub, why he picked Orlando, we'll figure that out or not, but how is the community feeling about knowing that he wanted them?

SHEEHAN: Well, I was distressed when they were saying, well, this really didn't really affect the gay community. Of course it did. I mean, there was people saying, well, you know, this affects us all. It does, but the bottom line, this was targeted towards the gay community.

This is a very diverse area. I'm very proud to represent this area. This is kind of our main street. We're right -- we're just, you know, blocks from city hall. And this was a very active main street district; this is a very diverse area. And this was Latin night. That's why so many of the victims were Hispanic. There was a Hispanic festival and Latin night in conjunction with that.

CAMEROTA: And this club was significant. I mean, you -- we should tell people, you are the first gay elected official of his area.

SHEEHAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: You know the Pulse nightclub.

SHEEHAN: I know the owners of this club.

CAMEROTA: And it was more than just a nightclub.

SHEEHAN: Absolutely. I mean, they were always -- they always open their club up to political -- you know, if we're trying to get people active on things, and they're just great people; and they're very supportive of this community. And it's a tremendous loss.

And, you know, that was the first thing. I'm like, where's Barbara? I was so worried about my friend who owns the club. She was -- she's OK.

CUOMO: A lot of that has been going through the community, right?

SHEEHAN: Exactly.

CUOMO: Because Orlando is a big city, but the -- this is a tight community.

SHEEHAN: We are.

CUOMO: And people knew who was there that night, and this went on for a long time. And, again, there are forensic questions, investigative questions that

go along with how long the duration was at this. But it also gave people a long time to process and to reach out.

What kind of stories are you hearing?

SHEEHAN: Well, I heard a story from a young man last night that was in the club that didn't want to talk to the police. I don't know, you know, what that's about. But he said that that he was there, and the guy was there all night.

So I'm hearing conflicting reports that he was there, and then he came in, and what was happening. But he said that he got out, and that it was horrifying, that there was -- it was just blood, and it's a very awful scene.

And -- I mean, I was walking around yesterday, and you could just see the blood on the sidewalk. You could tell where people had been dragged. It's just gruesome.

CUOMO: I mean, look, this wasn't just the deadliest. It was an unusual set of circumstances. You had 300, 350 people inside.

SHEEHAN: Yes.

CUOMO: A third of them wound up being either killed or injured, and many of them seriously. And as the reporting will reflect this morning, this isn't over for a lot of people who are still in the hospital.

SHEEHAN: No. And people still don't know where their loved ones are at. It's very difficult to -- on a crime scene of this degree, everything has to be cleared. I don't know if they've gotten anybody out, everybody out yet, but it takes a long time to process a scene of this degree.

And I know that the families are just trying to get information. The Beardall Center will be open again at 8 a.m., and we will have resources there for them. But, again, it's just trying to respond to something on this magnitude. We've never had anything like this before in Orlando.

CAMEROTA: I mean, look at the ages of some of these people.

SHEEHAN: Oh, they were kids.

CAMEROTA: They were in their 20s, 21.

SHEEHAN: They had their whole lives ahead of them. These were young kids that went out. But for the grace of God, there go I. I mean, I'm a little older now, but I used to go to this club all the time.

[06:10:10] CAMEROTA: Right. And this is something that it feels like everybody can relate to. You're with friends. You're having a great night. You're dancing.

SHEEHAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And then this -- this happens.

SHEEHAN: Some of the kids at first thought it was the bass. The gunfire was actually the bass.

CUOMO: They thought it was still music.

SHEEHAN: But it took a while for them to realize what was happening.

CAMEROTA: Is Nic still with us? Nic, tell us what happened. So as you were shooting all that video, what did you think was happening out your window, and how soon before they would let you go back out into the street?

HORNSTEIN: We didn't -- you know, we had no information from the police. Just they told us, stay inside. Stay up there. So we didn't know, you know, the scope and the gravity of the situation that was going on inside Pulse. We just knew there was an active shooter with hostages at that time.

And we weren't allowed to leave the apartment until about 11, 11:30 the next afternoon, and they still had, you know, and still have, an active crime scene investigation going on down there.

CUOMO: Patty, what do you do to put your arms around the community? The situation like this is horrible to endure.

SHEEHAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Ordinarily it would be all of Orlando saying, "Hey, we were all in that nightclub last night."

SHEEHAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Everybody knows somebody, loves somebody.

SHEEHAN: Yes.

CUOMO: Works with somebody who was there.

But again, because this was a gay club, and this man, as deranged or as maddened or as sympathetic to hate as he may have been, wanted it to be gay people that he attacked.

SHEEHAN: Yes. And I have to tell you, my community is really coming together. I mean, they lifted the ban on gay men giving blood yesterday. I mean, like, really? Is this what it took? Is this what it took? They've been able to test for HIV in the blood system for years, and this is what it took to allow gay men to finally be able to give blood. And they lined up -- there were 1,500 people in line yesterday.

CUOMO: The lines, we want to show that this morning also, because it is -- those names of those who were killed are young. The people in line yesterday were young. SHEEHAN: Yes.

CUOMO: And it was the gay community. It was the straight community. It was whatever you identify with.

SHEEHAN: Absolutely.

CUOMO: They came out in droves. What do you think that means to the gay community to know that?

SHEEHAN: I think that means that -- it shows that terror is not going to strike at the heart of this city, that we are coming together and love to combat hatred. And we are a strong community, and we're going to continue to work together and show our support.

The one thing I'm cautioning the community about is people wanting to have a vigil right away. It was a small vigil last night. We're trying to discourage that, because we actually had to take resources and officers from the scene to go to Lake Iola (ph) for that small vigil. Again, I want the officers to be here on-scene...

CAMEROTA: Right.

SHEEHAN: ... not having to worry about protecting people off-site. We still have victims inside. You know, we don't want to spread these resources even thinner than they are.

CAMEROTA: Right. You want everyone to be safe.

SHEEHAN: I want everyone to be safe.

CAMEROTA: Patty Sheehan, thank you very much. We know how this is affecting you and your community.

Nic Hornstein, thank you very much for sharing your video and sharing your story with us.

One note to tell everyone: at 7 a.m. Eastern, so less than an hour from now, the FBI will be holding a press conference. We'll take that live, because obviously, there are so many questions about what the FBI knew about this shooter, what they asked him in their two interviews with him, and why they -- then he was able to drop off their radar. So we'll get to that.

Meanwhile, investigators tell us that this terrorist was different than most. He negotiated with the officers while this was happening.

CUOMO: On a 911 call. You know, it's not something that we are used to seeing. There a lot of aspects like this with the man on your screen right now.

We try to give no unnecessary attention to the people who commit these kinds of murders, but there are differences here that, hopefully, will be a window into what was done surrounding this man and what can be done differently the next time.

Please, stay with NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: All right. When we wind up living through one of these tragedies, there are familiar questions that come up. We need to know who was victimized, how they were victimized, and then it becomes, well, who did this?

The 29-year-old murderer behind these shootings in the club behind us, a gay club in Orlando, and that matters, too. We know his name, and we know more importantly that he was no stranger, not just to the authorities but the FBI, not one case, but two.

We also know that there are some peculiarities here. What happened that night inside the club but also before. This was someone who worked as a security guard. He been there for nine years. He'd been vetted at a company called Global Security Firm. And he also had a carry permit with him, so he had special access to weapons.

Let's discuss the dynamics of this investigation and what makes it different because of these details? We have CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank. We have CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd. And we have CNN chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto.

And sadly, the last time this team was together -- you, me and these guys -- was in Paris. And when you look at the Bataclan and you look at this, Jim, there are a lot of horrible similarities. The Bataclan, of course, that concert hall in Paris, where there was that -- the largest, destructive and deadly attack there. What do you see here?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, in terms of the target. I mean, first of all, in addition to being a gay club, we know that gays have been a target of ISIS in the past. They post videos online of them throwing gays off the roofs of buildings in Mosul.

CUOMO: You're comfortable attaching this guy to ISIS this early on, as someone who is acting off of them?

SCIUTTO: He attacked himself. He attached himself to ISIS. He made a pledge of allegiance. Whether he had contact with ISIS central, we don't know on that question, and the fact is, he doesn't need to. Because this is ISIS's M.O., is attack anywhere, any time. Read our stuff online, go where you can go.

And the thing about that pledge of allegiance to ISIS, that is an ISIS thing. We saw it in Garland, Texas. We saw it in San Bernardino. They say, "When you carry out these attacks, pledge your allegiance to us." That's what they ask their supporters to do.

CAMEROTA: Paul Cruickshank, what have we learned about his ties to terrorists?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, we haven't learned a great deal about ties to any organized terrorist groups. No evidence so far that he had any organizational ties to ISIS or that he was even in communication with ISIS operatives in Syria and Iraq.

All indications at this point is this was an ISIS-inspired attack. And ISIS have encouraged their followers in the United States to launch a surge in terrorism during the month of Ramadan, which started just about a week ago, asking their supporters to launch attacks anywhere, anyhow in the United States against just about anybody.

They see this as a big success. On their radio station in Syria and Iraq just in the last few minutes, they have called this individual a fighter, a soldier of the caliphate.

They have not said that they had any direct relationship with him, however. So that is something that investigators will be looking at, at this point.

CUOMO: Phil, when you look at this situation -- and, again, the analogy to the concert hall in Paris, the Bataclan -- what do you see that's worthy of analysis?

[06:20:12] PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I'm only half way there. Obviously, in terms of target, that makes sense. Two targets that represent western culture: whether it's a gay club or a rock club.

From an investigative or intelligence perspective, they looked totally dissimilar. When you're looking at the attack in Paris, you're looking at a conspiracy. That's communication among people; they live in the same place; they talk to each other by phone and e-mail; they're traveling. All those are digital trails that allow you to determine not only what they're up to but determine their state of mind. What are they talking about on e-mail? In this case...

CUOMO: And they had their commander outside the concert hall...

MUDD: Correct. That's correct.

CUOMO: ... telling them what to do inside. This case, just one guy.

MUDD: Yes, a conspiracy of one.

SCIUTTO: But the thing is, for ISIS, it doesn't -- both work for them. Right? If they have central control, trained, infiltrate those guys into Europe, as we saw with Paris, that works for them. If they can radicalize a guy online, they get the same result. And we know that this is part of ISIS's M.O., to do both, in effect.

CUOMO: But Phil, you believe it's worthy of extra scrutiny here, to look at this guy, even the 911 call. Was he in the right mind to be giving an intelligent direction to why he was doing this? Or is someone who's what his ex-wife said that he was, someone who had an undiagnosed mental problem and a deranged hatred of gays?

MUDD: That's right. You have a couple of characteristics we have to look at. No. 1 is his professed allegiance to ISIS. But No. 2 is mental state. If you look at the series of mass murderers in this country since 1980, a lot of the folks who survived those were found not guilty by reason of insanity.

I think in these cases of counterterrorism, often we blow through the question of what was his mental state when he went into that club? And was he capable of making a choice about killing people for a political purpose? I'm not sure.

CAMEROTA: Jim, this went on for an unimaginable three hours. The first shots, 2 a.m., and then for three hours there were people who were cowered, who were texting out, and at 5 a.m., it ended. Is that, in terms of the SWAT team going in -- what's the rules after the Bataclan and after Paris? Do they wait?

SCIUTTO: It's going to be a hard question. Like you, Alisyn, Chris, none of us likes to jump on law enforcement in a situation like this. They had a horrible situation down here with a lot of questions.

CAMEROTA: Worse.

SCIUTTO: And there was apparently some sort of communication underway, which might give a hope that you could...

CAMEROTA: Meaning negotiations. They might have been...

SCIUTTO: ... get in there and save -- talking to the -- talking to the shooter.

But we also know that the new guidance for law enforcement in situations like this is, if you can, don't wait. Because particularly, once he's made a pledge to ISIS, you know this is a certain kind of person who, one, wants to kill a lot of people; and two, doesn't mind if he dies. And we remember this after Bataclan. There was some criticism across the pond from U.S. law enforcement to the Europeans, saying, "Listen, we've learned to go in. Don't wait." And there were questions about how long French police waited to go into the Bataclan.

That's going to be a question. We don't know the answer to that question, but it's certainly going to be a question as they do the post-mortem on this.

CUOMO: Paul, when you're analyzing this situation, the lethality of it. Obviously, one of the headlines will be that this is the deadliest shooting in American history. It's the most lives taken under the guise of terror as murder since 9/11.

But what does it mean in terms of the analysis, how many people were killed here? What does that mean in terms of looking how it develops a threat going forward?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, there's great concern moving forward about the fact that there is easy access to guns in the United States, much easier access than in just about any other western country. There also is a significant amount of radicals in the United States. Sure, they're fewer than in Europe, but the FBI has 1,000 cases that they're actively investigating. These are the most radical, which they believe may have some propensity to carry out some sort of terrorist activity in the United States.

Al Qaeda just a few years ago told its followers in the United States, exploit weak U.S. gun laws. Go and get weapons at gun shows, and then launch the biggest attacks you can.

We saw in the Bataclan, with 90 killed there and, again, a hostage siege lasting a few hours, just how deadly guns can be. In Europe they managed to get them quite easily on the black market, but it's even easier to get guns in the United States. Both ISIS and al Qaeda want their supporters in the United States to take advantage of this fact, for there to be many more days like the one we just saw.

CUOMO: And look, Paul, as you know and we all know here, there are a lot of questions about the weapon and about what the laws are and what the investigations did and did not do in terms of enabling federal authorities to monitor this guy. We're going to get to all of that.

Gentlemen, thank you for being with us early this morning and coming often.

We're going to talk to two presumptive presidential candidates. This is moment for leadership. Communities are going to come together, but the leadership is going to begin at the top. What does Hillary Clinton see in this situation? What does Donald Trump see in this situation? And what will both recommend to make something like what was just suffered in Orlando less likely?

CAMEROTA: And it's been just a little more than 24 hours since shots rang out inside that gay nightclub that you see behind us. So we are learning more about the chaos that unfolded inside from those who survived it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:29:09] CAMEROTA: As the FBI investigates the motives and any possible ties to terrorism here, there is a clearer picture emerging of the chaos that unfolded inside and outside of the nightclub behind me, from the very first shots fired to the scramble to save lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I still think that I'm going to, like, wake up; and everything is going to normal, but it's not.

(GUNFIRE)

CAMEROTA (voice-over): Two minutes after 2 a.m. on Sunday, shots rang out at Pulse, the popular gay nightclub in Orlando.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was just one after another after another after another, and it could have lasted a whole song.

CAMEROTA: Some club goers thought the sounds were part of the music.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once people started screaming, and shots just keep ringing out, you know that it's not a show anymore. CAMEROTA: The club packed with more than 300 patrons when the

terrorist opened fire. Eyewitnesses describe the horror and chaos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was turning around to grab alcohol. He got shot three times. He heard chaos. He heard consistent semiautomatic shooting, and he said it would not stop.