Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

50 Dead, 53 Injured in Orlando Terror Attack; Who Is Orlando Terrorist?; Shooter Had Been Investigated by FBI; Witnesses Share Stories of Attack. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 13, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. There's a lot of news and developing information. Remember, we still don't know who was in this club over my shoulder right now. So let's get right to the latest.

[07:00:10] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Collectively, heavy hearts this morning as you're watching NEW DAY. We're coming to you live from Orlando, Florida. Over our shoulder is the site of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Fifty victims massacred at a gay nightclub behind us, almost all of them Latinos. There's a number of wounded, many still fighting for their own lives. That number from the 40s into the 50s, all of it because of a private security guard who vowed allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call that he made in the midst of the attack.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So police describe the grim crime scene. It is as bad as you could ever imagine. The silence of discovering all of these lifeless bodies, along with the sound of their cell phones ringing over and over.

The president and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump all have their own explanation and answers for what happened here. So Hillary Clinton will join us live on NEW DAY in just moments, and Donald Trump will join us live in the next hour.

But we want to begin our coverage with CNN's Boris Sanchez. He has the very latest on the investigation for us.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, good morning.

We're set to start a press briefing at 7 a.m. from Orlando Police. It's slightly delayed, so we're waiting for it to start at any minute.

But this morning, 24 hours after this vicious attack, we're getting a clear picture of exactly what happened here. This was supposed to be Latin night at Orlando's most popular gay club. More than 300 people inside having drinks, dancing and having a good time.

At 2 a.m., all of that changed. And now, we're facing a harsh, harsh reality.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SANCHEZ (voice-over): A massive investigation into the terrorist 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 vehicle, 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. 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: Chris, it's also important to point out right now, there are families out there that have lost contact with their loved ones, and they are fearing the worst. Keep in mind, fewer than half the names of those killed inside the club have been released. So there are a lot of families out there, anxiously awaiting to hear their worst fears come true.

We also just got word a short while ago that press briefing we expected at 7 a.m. has been moved to 7:30. So hopefully, we'll have more information not only about the shooter but to provide those families that are desperately in need of information right now -- Chris.

CUOMO: Boris, that is the most important point you could have made. This is still a developing situation. I think it's 24 names have been released so far among the dead. So you have half of those yet to be identified.

[07:05:08] You also have dozens of people in local hospitals. And many families and loved ones and friends are still trying to find out if the people they're looking for are among that number.

You heard Alisyn say earlier, investigators walking this crime scene were haunted by the sound of cell phones going off again and again. People desperate to see who was still inside.

So we're doing that work of figuring out where people are and who was involved. At the same time, we're dealing with the murderer who did all of this killing. And for that, we have CNN's Paolo Sandoval, live in Fort Pierce, Florida. That's where this man lived. Paolo, what do we know now?

PAOLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, this community only about two hours south of Orlando where so much loss happened. The people here are reeling with the reality that the man that was responsible for that lived here.

In fact, the apartment complex, the condos, rather, he called home right behind me. Law enforcement, a small army of local, state and federal officials descended on this place yesterday early in the morning. Today no law enforcement in sight.

Really, the only -- the only remnants of this federal investigation is a vehicle that you'll make out just here to my left that we noticed actually has federal evidence tape on the doors itself. Most importantly, federal court documents inside, what appears to be an inventory sheet with Omar Mateen's name on it. So that obviously would be a very crucial piece of evidence that they continue to analyze exactly what happened here.

Meanwhile, the people in this community are asking why nobody saw this coming, and that includes the suspect's own father. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEDDIQUE MATEEN, OMAR MATEEN'S FATHER: So what had happened, it really surprised me. Radicalism, no. He doesn't have a beard, even. When someone becomes radical, they grow long beard and they wear clothes that, you know, long clothes. And I don't think -- religion or Islam had nothing to do with this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: So obviously, there's no shortage of shock and disbelief in this community here in Florida.

The paper this morning reading, quote, "The Shooter Was One of Us." This is a reality for the people here as they're left asking exactly what happened? At what point did Mateen eventually have this twisted ideology? That's a question that many people are asking this morning, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Of course they are, and they will for days. And we're trying to get some answers this morning. Paolo, thank you.

Investigators are poring through the terrorist electronic devices to look, try to figure out any sign that he had become self-radicalized. He had been on the FBI's radar before. He was suspected of being an ISIS sympathizer.

CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez is live from Washington with more on that. Evan, what have you learned?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, this morning, investigators are looking for any possible direct connection between Mateen and ISIS in Syria. But so far, they have not found any.

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. 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 this attack in Orlando. Chris, investigators are going back to the previous investigations of that suicide bomber to see if there were deeper ties that somehow alluded investigators. CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much, Evan. There are a lot of

open questions here. There will continue to be, and we'll keep checking in with you for the latest.

Now, in just minutes, talking about the latest on this, we are waiting for a press conference here. The local police are going to come out. It's been a little bit jumbled about which agencies. You have to remember, there are a lot of federal, federal, state, and local agencies involved in this investigation. So when they hold the presser, we will bring you that information.

We also have eyewitness accounts and stories of survival and loss that are emerging from what happened in the club just over our shoulder. Right now, let's bring in some people with experience they wish they'd never had. We have eyewitness David Ward. And we have Chris Enzo, whose friend was shot inside the club last night.

Gentlemen, thank you for being with us. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances. Let's start with what's most daunting. How's your friend this morning?

CHRIS ENZO, FRIEND SHOT IN ATTACK: Well, right now, he is hopefully sleeping and getting ready -- should have been fasting now to be ready for surgery this morning to get the bullet out of his body.

CUOMO: What can you tell us about who he is and what happened to him?

ENZO: Rodney was -- or is a bartender over at Pulse. And what happened, as he described in his own words when I went to visit him, is that the assailant, once entered the club, he was bartending. And in front of him was a girl that he was bartending for. And when the shooter started opening fire, many people were shot before the girl in front of him was actually killed in front of him as he was turning around to grab a bottle to continue to bartend.

[06:10:15] And he in that process got shot three times: two in the shoulder, one in the elbow. And the force of the shot caused him to fall onto the ground. And in that time period, he said he heard very, very, very consistent gun shooting that would not stop. So there he was able to deduce that it was a semi-automatic weapon. And he basically was confronted with the choice of whether or not he was going to run or stay and become a hostage. Luckily, he got to run out before the hostage situation even took place.

CUOMO: We are hearing one of the things, David, that makes this so terrible, is that this man not only had the right equipment, but he had a lot of time, and it seemed as though he had some expertise. People keep saying that the fire patterns and the man -- the way this man moved around was to maximize taking as much life as possible. Tell us how your night changed? We get to about 2 a.m. in the morning and everything goes horribly wrong.

DAVID WARD, EYEWITNESS: Yes. I was asleep at the time. I've got a condo that's directly across the street from there. I heard, originally, two shots that I thought were backfires. There's always a lot of commotion and things going on. There's a lot just on the other side that's overflow parking for valet.

So I stepped outside, and I did see a few people running out. I went into the street, and about that time is when I heard the other volley of fire.

CUOMO: What did you think it was?

WARD: It was clearly, you know, semiautomatic rifle. I fire a gun. So it was very clear that's that what it was.

At that point in time, more people came out. They were just flooding the street, going through my yard. I did notice a number of them, realizing that some of their friends weren't with them at the time, actually turned back around, headed back towards the club, you know, shouting their names.

I went back inside at that point just to make sure my daughters were secure. They were with me at the time. And then basically from my balcony, the staging area just below in that same lot, was where SWAT was. And they were kind of doing some triage.

CUOMO: We keep hearing, it was so long. It took so long. What did that mean to you? What did you make sense of in terms of duration?

WARD: Well, I mean, I -- I saw law enforcement really come onto the scene fairly quickly. I know that they always have an officer stationed there each night.

Over the course of the next couple of hours prior to the detonation, it was just a lot from the balcony, a lot of talk, tactic talk, things like that on the side. They had police going car to car in that lot, searching it. A few they actually had at gunpoint down on the ground. Seemed they were trying to assess whether they were a threat or injured. A few were injured.

I did notice they were bringing victims in kind of makeshift either tarps or cloths or something, from the back side of the club, just literally pulling them across the street to the other lot, and loading them up onto pickup trucks.

CUOMO: Now, obviously, our sensitivity goes to the people who were inside there, those who lost their lives, and those who are still struggling for them, like your friend, but to be exposed to this is not easy. How are you making sense of what happened just across the street from your house?

WARD: It's bizarre. I've been up. I've slept maybe three hours in the last 30, so I don't think it's completely registered. I'm a little bit more concerned about my daughters. They're on the young side, and we'll see how they, over the next couple of weeks, kind of handle this.

But they did pretty well. The detonation shook the building. And that was probably worse for them than the gunfire.

CUOMO: The idea that here we are in June. It's actually Gay Awareness Month. This is no question, whether it's ISIS, ISIS directed, ISIS sympathizer, self-radicalized, all that will be taken care of. This man wanted to murder gay people, and he came here to do it and found a big concentration of them. What does that mean to you?

ENZO: The fact that 103 people were shot, and right here in the heart of Orlando, it's going to affect every last one of the members that live in Orlando. All of us will know someone who were hurt by this, and all of us will continue to go on our whole life, knowing that we were all affected by the worst tragic incident in American history.

CUOMO: Nine-eleven, this is the biggest loss of life that is, in any way, related to terror and murder since then. It's the biggest gun violence death total that we've ever had, but the numbers are often confusing.

What is penetrating right now is the knowledge that this is the first time we saw a select group of people. Nine-eleven was really all of us. Anybody who could be killed -- gay, straight, white, black, Christian, Muslim -- were killed.

The targeting, Dave, looking for gays, killing 50 of them, trying to kill hundreds of them. How many Latinos? You know, obviously, this area, so many Puerto Ricans here. What does that mean to you?

WARD: Well, it's disturbing. I mean, I -- I have balconies on both sides of my condo. And I'll sit on the back on, and a lot of times they'll park on the other side, and they'll flow through. And they're talking; they're on their phones. And, you know, I've gotten used to it. And then they'll walk into the club.

And you know, I think the thing that dawned on me kind of late last night was, you know, how many of those people that were walking past me or below me that went in maybe didn't come out. And so that's a little sobering.

[07:15:10] CUOMO: What are you telling yourself? Your friend, hopefully, he'll be OK. So many won't. What does something like this tell you?

ENZO: It tells us that, for me, I really think that, as a city, we need to band together and be stronger than we were before. Because right now I'm getting text messages from people saying that they're scared to go to work today. They don't want to leave their house today. They're literally scared to even think about going out and attempting to do night life.

And we -- I just want everyone to know that, if everyone is out here, we shouldn't have a reason to fear terrorism any more.

CUOMO: The point of terror, to the extent that that's what this is. Again, a lot of it's unclear. Certainly, a hate crime; often that can be both things. Right? I mean, it could be murder. It could be terror and a hate crime all in one. But the point of it is to make you scared or make a statement, or make people unstable.

ENZO: Right. CUOMO: How do you feel the need to respond to that, if somebody was

right across the street from you?

WARD: I think as everybody always says after something like this, life goes on. You've got to go on. You mourn, but, you know, we're America and we move on. We go about our lives, and I think that's the key thing. Is not to shut down over it. Cope with it, find the help and then move on with your lives.

CUOMO: Dave, I'm glad you're OK. I'm glad your daughters are OK.

I hope your friend winds up being well. As we know right now, there are so many are still searching for people they believe were inside last night. They don't know if they're dead. They don't know if they're in a local hospital. So at least you know where he is, and he's on the road to recovery. Hopefully, the surgeries go well. Let us know so we can get his story out.

Gentlemen, thank you very much.

WARD: Thank you.

CUOMO: There obviously is a lot of unanswered questions here. We keep giving lot of various forms of information, because law enforcement doesn't know yet whether there were direct corrections -- connections or not. Was this about another lone wolf? Was this just about murdering a group of people?

There will be a press conference, and when it happens, no matter when agencies are there, we'll bring it to you, and we'll give you that information.

We also have the two main people who want to be president right now: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They're going to be coming on to give their assessment of what this means and the leadership they would provide going forward. So stay with NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:21:19] CAMEROTA: This time it is Orlando, Florida, trying to come to grips with another senseless mass shooting. Fifty people killed here, 40 -- 53 wounded in this terror attack at this gay nightclub that you can see behind me. This is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

Joining us now is former Florida senator, Mel Martinez. He was also once the mayor of Orange County, which includes Orlando.

Senator, thanks so much for being here.

MEL MARTINEZ, FORMER FLORIDA SENATOR: My pleasure.

CAMEROTA: This is your town. You lived a mile and a half from here. What's today like for you?

MARTINEZ: Just surreal. It's kind of hard to conceive that, in our own neighborhood, this is happening, and that's just the reality of terror. This isn't happening in some strange city in Europe or in the Middle East. This is happening right here in Orlando, in the heart of Orlando, in a peaceful neighborhood. And so what used to be Lorenzo's Pizza became the Pulse and now...

CAMEROTA: So you know that building?

MARTINEZ: Sure.

CAMEROTA: You went to this building often...

MARTINEZ: Sure.

CAMEROTA: ... before it was the Pulse?

MARTINEZ: Right. And you know, I've had staffers, political staff that went there, even as the Pulse. And so it's a well-known neighborhood, and it's sad to see what has happened here and the tragedy that's touched so many lives.

CAMEROTA: What do you think was at the root of this attack?

MARTINEZ: Well, I don't think there's any question that this was motivated by a radical vision of a religion that is not appropriate and that is probably not the right approach to that religion.

But at the same time, I think it's also mixed in with a hatred for a particular group, both of which are despicable and neither of which belong as a part of who this country is and who we are as a people.

CAMEROTA: I mean, I ask because his ex-wife, the shooter's ex-wife, said that he was violent with her. He was always violent. She said that he had an undiagnosed mental illness. She blamed not radicalism; she blamed mental illness.

MARTINEZ: Well, you know, I think, in all these shootings, at the root of it, for someone to do something this brutal, this crazy, you have to have a mental illness problem. You know? And we so often get into the gun debate, back and forth.

The fact is that, you know, whether it's in the sense of drug abuse or whether it is just in plain, old mental illness, you know, I worry a great deal about homelessness. As a former HUD secretary, it's an issue I care passionately about. And the issue of homelessness always has, at the root, some other underlying cause, which is either addiction or mental illness.

CAMEROTA: So you see a combination...

MARTINEZ: So -- so no one normal does this. That's right.

CAMEROTA: No one normal does this. So you see a combination of homophobia and radicalization?

MARTINEZ: Along with a violent personality and access to guns in a way that perhaps we need to address, as well. But it's not about the gun debate today. I think that we make a mistake to focus it on that.

CAMEROTA: Do you feel as strongly as Donald Trump does that this must labeled radical Islamic terror?

MARTINEZ: I think we need to understand what is causing this issue around the world. I think defeating ISIS is tremendously important. Why? Because it is inspiring others, home-grown terror, as now we see.

I think the labels? We can wait for another day as to whether that's the best way to get at the problem or not. I just think we need to defeat this radical vision of Islam and we need to defeat ISIS. I think in defeating ISIS, we make a tremendous statement and stop the recruiting of others.

CAMEROTA: I think Donald Trump would argue that you must call it what it is in order to defeat it. What do you think is the answer for this level of home-grown extremism that we've seen here?

MARTINEZ: I don't think there's a problem with calling it what it is. I think what we don't want to do is alienate more Muslims. So I think we have to walk a fine line between calling it what it is so we understand it and we can work towards defeating it, while at the same time understanding that we do not want to alienate all Muslims.

But here's something else we need to do. We need to understand we have to give away some of our privacy. You know, the Patriot Act. A lot of the things that we were doing we have stopped doing. I think we need to recognize that it's very important in this war we're involved in -- that's another label we've dropped, by the way.

CAMEROTA: War.

[07:25:12] MARTINEZ: This is a war on terror, and I think we need to be cautious...

CAMEROTA: But how would that have changed? What else could the FBI have done? What level of giving up of privacy would have stopped this?

MARTINEZ: I believe that, in general, we need to be mindful of the fact that we're still in a war situation, and we need to be conscious of giving up some of that, if it means safer neighborhoods, if it means that we're not going to have this scene here in Orlando on Orange and Kaley.

CAMEROTA: The FBI interviewed this guy twice. Then after that, they should have what? Tapped his phone? They should -- what else could they have done?

MARTINEZ: If that was necessary, they could have.

But I think the part that needs to still be done is to better connect the dots. I'm not a law enforcement expert, but I know after 9/11 how much we talked about that we were not connecting the dots. The left hand didn't always know what the right hand was doing. I think we need to do more of that. We need to work more closely among law enforcement to exchange the information.

What happens now is that we have so many people on a watch list that it's impossible to continue to track all of them. And who knows the one that's going to completely crack up and do something insane like what happened here?

So you know, our heart has to go out to all of the victims and, frankly, understand that we have got to take action so that there are no future victims.

CAMEROTA: Our heart does go out to them and to you. This is your hometown. Senator Mel Martinez, thanks so much for being with us on NEW DAY.

MARTINEZ: Thank you. Good to be here.

CAMEROTA: We are awaiting for a live update from law enforcement this hour. Both -- and also, the presumptive presidential nominees are speaking out about this terror attack. So we will here from Hillary Clinton, as well as Donald Trump. That will be happening live here on NEW DAY. Stick around for that.

Also, we will bring you the law enforcement, the FBI update as soon as we have it for you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: ... from Orlando, to tell us what's going on. We've been waiting for the press conference here in Orlando. We believe it's beginning right now. Let's take you to it.

BUDDY DYER, ORLANDO MAYOR: Good morning. Yesterday was the most horrific day in the history of the city of Orlando, and yet I stand here prouder today of our community than ever. We came together, united, to support the families and friends of the victims. We learned of the heroic acts of our Orlando Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies, as well as our citizens. Hundreds of lives were saved during the course of that night.

OPD and the other law enforcement agencies responded heroically, allowing hundreds to escape at the beginning of the event, and then breaching the wall, killing the bad guy, and rescuing dozens of hostages.

The medical personnel that saved so many lives that were transported to the hospital, are certainly heroes in my mind today, as well as the entire community.

And then we turn it over to, we begin thinking of the families and identifying the victims, which is critically important. Because I cannot imagine being one of the parents or knowing that your loved one might be among those that are deceased and having to wait and find out.

The FBI did an unbelievable job of clearing the scene. By 11, all of the victims had been removed and turned over to the medical examiner and to the FDLE.