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Orlando Police Releasing 911 Call Transcripts; U.S. Airports Ramp up Security; Airport Attack is Latest in String of Attacks in Turkey. Aired 8:30-9:00a ET

Aired June 29, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:33:47] VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Orlando Police releasing transcripts of 911 calls from those trapped inside the nightclub in Orlando when a deranged killer opened fire, killing 49 and injuring dozens. Now, the calls for help are raising questions about the police response.

Here to respond, Orlando's Police Chief John Mina.

Chief Mina, good to have you this morning.

CHIEF JOHN MINA, ORLANDO POLICE DEPARTMENT: Good morning, Victor.

BLACKWELL: So after the release of these new records, there are these renewed questions about the response. I know that from these records, according to the city, that Mateen fired no shots between 2:18 a.m., when the SWAT team was called, and between 5:02 when the wall was breached by the SWAT team. That is according to the city records.

But I want you to listen to Patience Carter. She was one of the victims trapped inside a bathroom there, and then we'll talk on the other side. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATIENCE CARTER, PULSE ATTACK SURVIVOR: I could see his feet like scooting back, scooting back, scooting back as he heard the police outside. He said, "hey, you," to someone on the floor inside the bathroom and shot them. Shot another person. And then shot another person, who happened to be directly behind me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Patience Carter there saying that there were shots fired, people shot between two and five, the questions about whether or not waiting three hours to go in was the right choice. Your response to what you're hearing from Patience Carter.

[08:35:09] MINA: Well, it's not uncommon for accounts of witnesses to vary, you know, based on stress level and experience and all the different things that are going on, especially when it is time and distant related. Now, you know, there's dispatch calls are pretty detailed and, remember, our officers were in and around that bathroom, the bathroom wall right where the hostages were. So I'm certain if they had heard gunshots, they would have made entry. And that's what we're trained to do.

BLACKWELL: So you believe that Patience Carter just has it wrong here?

MINA: No, I - I believe that those are the gunshots that she heard either in the initial gun exchange with the suspect, or right prior to the - or right at the hostage rescue.

BLACKWELL: OK. Let me go here to what we're hearing as it relates to Miguel Lefa (ph). He said on the show yesterday. Now he said that he believes that he would be dead if the SWAT team went in earlier. So there are some victims who are supporting you, but there are the relatives of those who question, why wait three hours, not specifically about the shots fired, but according to these new records, at 2:09 a dispatcher logged, quote, "my victim is no longer responding. Just an open line with moaning." Take us into the decision-making process as these hours go on - and this is early on - to decide not to go in, when quite possibly some of these people who - and I know the details are indelicate for the hour, bleed out while that negotiating went on.

MINA: Well, you know, as you know, it started out as an active shooter situation. Our officers entered the club within minutes. The shooting had stopped. The suspect had retreated into the bathroom. Exchanged gunfire with our officers again. And the shooting had stopped. So during that time, we were setting up for our plan, for our op - for our rescue operation, and also talking with the suspect on the phone. And, you know, in any type of situation, we want this to be peacefully resolved, because we know that a hostage rescue operation is one of the most dangerous things we can do. So to prevent further loss of life, you know, is our intention to peacefully talk him out, but also set up for that operation, for the rescue operation. And during that three hours, our officers were actually rescuing victims from other parts of the club, and setting up for their rescue.

BLACKWELL: Well, let me ask you about this reporting coming from "The Orlando sentinel." We know that there were six exits in this club, but I wonder if all of them were operable. Hopefully you have an answer to this. "The Orland Sentinel" reporting a text exchange between the fire chief and the fire marshal, Tammy Hughes, in which she says she saw a photo by a code enforcement officer that showed a soda machine was blocking an exit door and he was also sent an e-mail that day saying that the last company check was back on May 12th and there was one door that was inoperable. Do you know if all of the exits, as they are supposed to be legally, were operable on that night?

MINA: As far as I know, they do. And I haven't had any reports from our police officers or SWAT officers about any inoperable doors.

BLACKWELL: All right, the club disputes that. A lawyer for Pulse Nightclub says that all the doors were operable.

Let me ask you, it's been two weeks now since the autopsies have been complete. Have you been notified on whether or not your officers or any law enforcement injured initially any of these victims were killed any of the 49 who were killed?

MINA: No, that's all part of the investigation. As soon as the FBI is done with their investigation and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates the officer involved shooting portion of that, we're hoping to get those results back because, you know, we want to know all of the - all the facts as well.

BLACKWELL: All right, Orlando Police Chief John Mina. Thanks so much.

Again, we are hearing from victims who are critical of the police department, and also those like Miguel Lefa , who said that if you had gone in earlier, he would be dead today. And he's quite grateful for the time of that night.

Thanks so much, chief.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Victor, that was a very helpful segment. Those are big questions people still have.

So we're going to go to break. When we come back, the situation is now frighteningly familiar. Innocent passengers massacred by murderers terrorists at an airport terminal. Can officials keep it from happening here? What is the reasonable expectation of safety? We have the U.S. response, ahead.

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[08:43:46] CUOMO: Officials in the U.S. say they are not taking any chances, that they are ramping up security at airports across the nation after the attack at Istanbul's airport. CNN's justice correspondent, Evan Perez, live in Washington with more on what's being done.

Tough call, Evan. You want to be safe, but people do not want to be hampered with their travel, what they call freedom. So what do you see as the balance?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right - that's right, Chris. You can expect to see more visible security at U.S. airports and train stations as U.S. officials review what can be done to prevent such an attack here. Now, the Homeland Security Department says there's no known credible threat here in the United States. And we don't know yet which terrorist group is responsible. But the immediate suspicious falls on ISIS and U.S. intelligence officials have - recently have warned that ISIS - as ISIS loses some of its territory in Iraq and Syria, you can expect the group to launch cells to carry out more of these types of attacks.

Now, here is Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy on the effort to defeat ISIS, describing the pressure that the group is under.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT MCGURK, SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY TO THE GLOBAL COALITION TO COUNTER ISIS: ISIL's leaders are either in hiding or being killed now at a rate of one every three days, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's main deputies, terrorists named Haji Imam and Abu Sayyaf, killed by U.S. military forces. And ISIL's territory is shrinking, losing nearly 50 percent of territory once controlled in Iraq and 20 percent in Syria over the last 18 months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:45:11] PEREZ: Now, the deadly attack on the airport with security screening outside the terminal shows how difficult it is to secure any of these so-called soft targets. The terrorists use AK-47 style rifles to attack the outer security perimeter, and at least one of them got a few yards inside before blowing himself up.

Now, with the upcoming 4th of July holiday, officials say you can expect to see more armed security guards, more bomb sniffing dogs. But much of the law enforcement and the intelligence work, Alisyn, that's being done to prevent these types of attacks here is stuff that we simply just cannot see.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Let's hope there's a lot of that. Evan, thank you very much for that.

Well, eight suicide bombings already this year in Turkey, including the attack hours ago on that crowded airport terminal. Up next, we discuss why Turkey is becoming such a target for terror.

BLACKWELL: But first, the new "Dancing with the Stars" winner defied expectations with every step. And now he hopes to make his greatest impact off the dance floor. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more in "Turning Points."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NYLE DIMARCO: I had doubts in myself to join "Dancing with the Stars." I just felt like, you know, if I went ahead and just failed in the first week, that means people would view deaf people as people that can't dance.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): But he didn't fail. He won.

DIMARCO: I'm Nyle DeMarco. I'm a model, an actor and an activist. I was raised in a family that was completely deaf, two brothers, parents, grandparents, great grandparents. It is genetic, so I really consider myself very fortunate. My whole family knows sign language. I went to Gallaudet University, the only university in the world for the deaf. My whole goal was to become a math teacher.

GUPTA: But then Hollywood came called.

DIMARCO: "Switched at Birth" and "America's Next Top Model" both found me on social media.

GUPTA: But being on the modeling reality show wasn't easy. DIMARCO: I had to live with the models. I couldn't really communicate

with anybody. And, you know, I just remained optimistic. And I was like, I'm going win this show.

GUPTA: And he did. DeMarco's next goal, to help other deaf people gain access to American sign language.

DIMARCO: There are 70 million deaf people in this world, and only 2 percent of them have access to sign language. To deaf kids, they should always find the ability in a disability. If you do, then you'll do great things in life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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[08:51:31] CAMEROTA: The deadly attack at Istanbul's International Airport is just the latest in a string of terror in Turkey. Why is Turkey a target? Here to discuss is our CNN global affairs analyst Bobby Ghosh.

Bobby, great to have you here.

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Likewise.

CAMEROTA: There have been nine terror attack since October, which was the largest terror attack in Turkey. Maybe we can put up on the screen so that people can see, there have just been scores and scores of people killed all over Turkey. What's going on there?

GHOSH: Well, you have - you have a couple of groups operating. There have always been Kurdish extremist groups that operated - that operated there, but their activities tended to be small. Now you have ISIS that has joined the party, if you like.

For a very long time, ISIS seemed to leave Turkey alone, but clearly a decision was made last year that that - that sort of period had come to an end.

CAMEROTA: What do they have against Turkey?

GHOSH: Well, they - what do they have against everybody? It's - a part of this is just simply, it fits into that pattern of mayhem around the region, around the world. They're enemies of everybody. For a long time they left Turkey alone in part we think because Turkey was a useful conduit. A lot of their fighters, their money, their supplies came through Turkey. They didn't want to mess with that. But in recent times, now that Turkey is allowing NATO flights from its air bases to attack ISIS targets in Syria and in Iraq, that was an important change.

Over the past few months we've seen an increasing anti-Turkey rhetoric in all the ISIS communiques, online, through Twitter. The most recent ISIS magazine, the one they put out every now and again, had on its cover Erdogan, the prime minister - the president of Turkey speaking with Obama, president of the United States. So they've clearly been ratcheting up some rhetoric and they've also been ratcheting up the violence. The interesting difference is, for some reason, we don't fully have an understanding why, of all the attacks they do around the world, the ones in Turkey are the only ones where they don't openly take credit.

CAMEROTA: That is curious.

GHOSH: Yes. And we're - and we can speculate, but it's very odd. It's - it allows a certain amount of plausible deniability. But who are they kidding. The Turkish authorities know that they're responsible. Turkish people know they're responsible. The world at large knows. So, you know, we'll - we'll understand better once there are more captives, there are more people that the Turkish authorities can interrogate. Why do they not take responsibility, or as they would see it, credit for these attacks?

CAMEROTA: Explain the timing. It is Ramadan. Explain how during Ramadan, the holiest month, it makes sense to kill women and children and Muslim women and children?

GHOSH: It makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense. They, a couple of years ago, they - he had announced that Ramadan was sort of open season for anybody. That there would be no exceptions. They, in fact, encouraged people to go out and see this as a kind of holy duty, as part of the piety of Ramadan, which is incredibly - sort of a kind of perversion of the religion that sort of defies belief. This is the second anniversary of the announcement of the ISIS caliphate. That might have something to do with it.

CAMEROTA: Do you put stock into timing like that? Because some of our experts have said, these are all targets of opportunity. They act when they can act.

GHOSH: They are targets of opportunity, but a three man suicide attack on a prominent, highly secure target takes planning. This was not done overnight. There has been some suggestions that Turkey last week announced it was resuming relationship - the relations with Israel, that this might have been it. I doubt that very much because this would have been months in the planning. It's possible that the - that the exact timing, the exact date and time was a matter of opportunity, but there was a lot of planning that went into it. They had a pretty good idea that around this time they would do this attack.

[08:55:10] CAMEROTA: Ramadan does not end until July 5th.

GHOSH: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Do you think we'll see more attacks before July 4th?

GHOSH: I - the one thing we've learned is that this means nothing to them. So we won't see any - whether we see any more attacks or only fewer attacks, it will make no difference, that was ISIS is saying essentially is, Ramadan makes no difference. We're not - historically in Islam, there are - there are periods where waring Muslim countries have announced a temporary truce during Ramadan. ISIS is telling the Muslim world, we're not doing that. CAMEROTA: Very quickly, do you think this is because ISIS is losing

territory in Syria and Iraq?

GHOSH: Well, smart people have been making that. Analysts have been saying that. And there is something to that. They need to reassure their supporters that they're still relevant. That the fact that they just lost Fallujah, which is a big, big loss for them in Iraq, that they still have something to offer. They still want people to come and join the fight. They still want the money that comes in. They do need some propaganda victories to make up for the defeats on the battlefield.

CAMEROTA: Bobby Ghosh, we're going to miss you here on NEW DAY.

GHOSH: Oh.

CAMEROTA: You're heading out. This is your last visit here and then you're heading out to your new great opportunity in Delhi, India.

GHOSH: Yes, I am. But I'll be back. And you know where to find me in Delhi.

CAMEROTA: OK.

GHOSH: It's been two wonderful years. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Best of luck to you. We've loved having you here.

GHOSH: My pleasure. My pleasure entirely.

CAMEROTA: That does it for us today. "Newsroom" with Carol Costello picks up after this very quick break. We'll see you tomorrow.

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