Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Panic Erupts after False Reports of Active Shooter at Brooklyn Event; Mass Shootings Across U.S. over Weekend after Texas Massacre; DOJ to Investigate Police Response to Texas School Shooting; Zelenskyy Visits Front Lines in Eastern Ukraine; Biden to Speak at Arlington, Lay Wreath at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 30, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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


BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to viewers here in the U.S. and around the world on this Memorial Day, Monday, May 30. I'm Brianna Keilar with John Avlon. John Berman is off.

[05:59:47]

And we do begin this morning with a nation on edge and more violence just days after the massacre inside a Texas elementary school. Several mass shootings breaking out across the country over the weekend.

In Oklahoma a 9-year-old was injured. Nevada, Arizona and Tennessee. Most of those shot were teenagers. The gun violence following the supermarket shooting in Buffalo; the church shooting in California; and, of course, the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two teachers.

Today the first of many funeral services will begin there. And we will have more on that and the president's visit ahead.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST/ANCHOR: People are feeling on edge. In Brooklyn an active shooter scare at a boxing match sent folks fleeing the stands and running for their lives.

Eighteen people were injured at the Barclay Center. Turns out it was just a loud noise heard on the street that sent crowds rushing for the exits.

Let's go now to CNN's Nadia Romero, who is live in Atlanta with the latest -- Nadia.

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, you mentioned the shooting that happened in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where six people were injured, and police tell us the majority of them were either teenagers or in their early 20s.

And we heard from the mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He says that young people getting into trouble, that's nothing new. But what is new is they have guns and are leaving behind bodies instead of bruises and bruised egos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ROMERO (voice-over): Americans on the edge once again. Early Sunday at the Barclay Center in New York City, people running for their lives. Police say they mistook a loud noise for gunfire after a boxing match.

One person writing on Twitter, "Scary moment as crowds poured back into Barclay Center. My fear was a shooting, but those fears proved unfounded."

And another person adding, "Huge stampede near the exit. Literally had to jump on the floor for cover."

Tennis star Naomi Osaka was there. She said on Twitter that she was also petrified following the commotion. Eighteen people reported minor injuries.

Panic also in Tennessee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm heartbroken for the families and victims whose lives were upended last night by gunfire.

ROMERO (voice-over): On Saturday night, large groups of teens and young adults exchanged gunfire in downtown Chattanooga, according to police.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two individuals from one group started firing upon the other group, and we believe that there wasn't one intended target, at least, in that other group. And all the other victims that were shot were unintended.

ROMERO (voice-over): Investigators said six people were shot. Two have life-threatening injuries.

Patrick Hickey, an uber and Lyft driver, was near the shooting and rushed to help the victims.

PATRICK HICKEY, UBER AND LYFT DRIVER: One of the victims was about 15 feet away from my car. I grabbed a shirt out of my trunk and started to put pressure on that victim. And somebody said there were two more victims just around the corner, one of them with a head shot wound.

There were young kids and teenagers running, some of them tripping on the ground, not knowing if they were hit themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you know your kid has access to a firearm you must intervene before someone, perhaps even your own child, ends up dead.

ROMERO (voice-over): Investigators don't believe the shooting was gang-related. So far, no suspect is in custody.

In Taft, Oklahoma, investigators say an argument at an outdoor Memorial Day festival led to another mass shooting early Sunday. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations said a 39-year-old woman died and seven other people were wounded. The injured range from 9 to 56 years old. None have life-threatening injuries, according to the agency. In Henderson, Nevada, a shooting on an interstate in broad daylight

left at least seven people injured, two of them in critical condition, according to the Henderson Police.

Investigators say the shooter is still at large.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMERO (on camera): The Gun Violence Archive keeps track of these mass shootings. So four or more people shot in a single incident. And at last check this morning, so far this year, more than 225 mass shootings across the country -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Some of these, of course, stand out more than others, but there are just so many and we can't forget that.

Nadia, thank you.

AVLON: And the first of the many funeral services in Uvalde, Texas, will begin this afternoon. There will be visitation and rosary for 10- year-old Amerie Jo Garza.

Her father said Amerie was shot as she tried to call police to save her classmates.

President Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Uvalde to grieve with the families and offer their support. The president vowing to get action on gun reform upon his return to Washington.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department announcing it will review how police responded to the shooting, because more than a dozen officers waited inside the school for about an hour before confronting the gunman as children called 911, begging for help.

CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is live in Uvalde this morning -- Adrienne.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, good morning to you.

This marks the start of another tough week for people here as we see the first of 19 funerals start today for children and two adults. I spoke with one woman who's lived here more than 34 years. She said the shock of the shooting is starting to wear off, but the reality of what happened is starting to settle in. And the pain, she says, becomes heavier each day.

So much heartache and so many unanswered questions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need change. Our children don't deserve this.

BROADDUS (voice-over): The Justice Department says it will review the law enforcement response to the Robb Elementary shooting.

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): I'm glad that the Justice Department is listening, and they're going to do a review of the law enforcement response. Like I said, I think everybody was shocked that it took an hour for law enforcement to go in there and finally take out the shooter.

BROADDUS (voice-over): Law enforcement's latest timeline of events showing officers waited 75 minutes before entering the classroom and shooting the gunman. The response is now under intense scrutiny, especially after the initial timeline provided by police had a number of inaccuracies, some believing lives could have been saved, had officers acted sooner.

ROLAND GUTIERREZ (D), TEXAS STATE SENATE: I sat down with a set -- a family yesterday. Mom told me that her child had been shot by one bullet through the back, through the kidney area. The first responder that they eventually talked to said that their child likely bled out. In that span of 30 or 40 minutes extra, that little girl might have lived.

BROADDUS (voice-over): The gunman was barricaded in the classroom as students in the room called 911, begging for help. Even as gunshots rang out, police waited in the hallway for backup, equipment and negotiators before finally using a janitor's master key to unlock the door and kill the gunman. This as more young students have come forward to describe that excruciating hour.

DANIEL GARZA, ROBB ELEMENTARY SURVIVOR: He just, like, shot like four bullets into our class, but like, her nose broken and our teacher got shot in her leg and her torso, but she's all right.

I was hiding under a table next to the wall. It goes to, like, the end of the wall to, like, the start of the wall, and it's like a very big table, but I could see still his face.

BROADDUS (voice-over): Democrats in the Texas state senate demanding governor Greg Abbott call a special session to pass stricter gun control laws. This as President Joe Biden visited the grieving Uvalde community on Sunday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Biden, we need help. We need help, President Biden.

BROADDUS (voice-over): Residents pleading with the president for change in the wake of this massacre. Biden responding to the crowd as he was getting in his car.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will.

BROADDUS (voice-over): The president and first lady visited a memorial at Robb Elementary to lay flowers, and then they attended a church service for the victims. Afterward, Biden met privately with some of their families.

JOSE CAZARES, UNCLE OF SHOOTING VICTIM JACKLYN CAZARES: He cared. I mean --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He truly cared.

CAZARES: It wasn't fake.

VINCENT SALAZAR, FATHER OF SHOOTING VICTIM LAYLA SALAZAR: It was really just all about my daughter. Do you know what I mean? That's all we talked about. Like I said, they were very gracious. They showed compassion, and that's all we were here for. You know, he listened to everything, and we listened to him. He shed some tears. We shed some tears.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROADDUS (on camera): and this morning, we are at the memorial for victims. This is a site that is normally a place for live concerts in the summer and celebration, but it has been a place of comfort and relief for those in this community who are grieving -- John.

AVLON: Adrienne, thank you very much. Be well.

Joining us now, CNN counterterrorism analyst and former FBI special intelligence adviser Philip Mudd.

Phil, good to see you. Seventy-five minutes the officers waited outside. Seventy-five minutes. What do you think this does to the whole "good guy with a gun" argument?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Well, if you look at me personally, I'm going to say it raises questions, obviously, about someone who took an oath to protect us, is willing to sacrifice their lives. I think there's some follow-on questions that make that a little bit murkier, John.

The first is and the reason -- one reason the Department of Justice would go in to investigate this is what were those officers trained to do, and what did they confront when they walked in the building that related to the training they had?

The second is far more complicated. There's a lot of police agencies responding to this. America has maybe -- maybe the most decentralized policing on the planet, something like 17,000 police agencies in the United States. Where was the communication among the different agencies? Were there crossed wires? How were they communicating back to their central command center?

So there's going to be, obviously, the difficult question about whether people decline to go in for whatever reason, but I think there are a lot more complicated questions behind that on things like coordination and communication, John.

KEILAR: So I want to go back to the end of last week, when our Shimon Prokupecz asked a very crystallizing question that got a very clarifying answer from those in charge on the ground in Uvalde. Here it is.

[06:10:16]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You have people who are alive, children who are calling 911 saying, Please send the police. They are alive, in that classroom. There are lives that are at risk.

COL. STEVEN MCCRAW, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: We are well -- well aware of that.

PROKUPECZ: Right. But why was this decision made not to go in and rescue these children?

MCCRAW: Again, you know, the on-scene commander considered it a barricaded subject in that there was time and there were no more children at risk.

Obviously -- obviously, you know, based on the information we have, there were children in that classroom that were at risk. And it was, in fact, still an active shooter situation and not a barricaded subject.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It would be highly unusual, Phil, for that on-scene commander to not be getting information from dispatch about these 911 calls. That is just regularly relayed information.

So DOJ obviously needs to figure out what he was learning, assuming it was a he -- maybe it was a she -- but they need to figure out what the on-scene commander was learning, right?

MUDD: Yes, I think there are some fundamental questions you look at here. Look, this is not a criminal investigation the Department of Justice will do. That's a separate issue.

But if you look at some of the basic lessons learned, questions DOJ will raise, you just mentioned one we were talking about a moment ago, and that is communication. There's got to be interviews, obviously, with the on-scene commander to say not only how he was communicating or she was communicating with the command center, but whether there are multiple command centers getting 911 calls and how those were being coordinated.

One of the really difficult questions here -- it sounds boring, but it's really difficult -- is training. We have this epidemic of shootings in this country, if you're dealing with 17,000 police agencies, some of them have one, two, three, five officers.

How do you train someone in a department of that size? You can't just familiarize them. You've got to train them. How do you train that number of agencies to respond to an incident like this and differentiate between someone who is barricaded and when you have a live shooter situation?

This is really more complicated than it might have looked at the outset last week, Brianna. AVLON: But Phil, just take people through how you expect this DOJ

investigation to play out, because folks will be expecting some accountability. Is that a misplaced hope?

MUDD: I don't think it's a misplaced hope, but that would not be the primary responsibility of the investigation. Let's look at two channels. The DOJ will go in, and this will take months. You're talking about a report that easily could hit 500 pages.

You've got to look at the basics. Those communications we're talking about with command centers, things like video from the school. But think about all the interviews with the people on scene and the witnesses, especially if those witnesses have cellphone cameras.

All those witnesses, they're going to be unreliable. They will say different things, so the investigators have to spend months sorting out why person "A" said something and person "B" said something fundamentally different about the same incident.

And you've got to come back and say, OK, what did we learn from this?

Then there's a separate secondary question that says, given what we learned and what we heard are there are people there who didn't do the right thing? And that's going to be, I think, one of the most painful parts of this.

KEILAR: Why is it a complicated call, Phil, if you have children calling 911, saying that there are people who have been shot; but there's also people who are alive, clearly at risk. And you have an on-scene commander, saying this is a barricaded suspect situation?

MUDD: Well, let's not make an assumption here. I would not assume -- and this is part of the DOJ investigation -- that all the information the call center was getting was relayed back.

KEILAR: OK.

MUDD: To commander on scene. I would not assume that the people on scene knew everything that was going on in the room, that's what I'd say.

KEILAR: Would that be odd, though, for them to not have had that information relayed? I mean, obviously, that would be a missing link, right?

MUDD: It would be surprising, but to learn that communications was garbled and that people on the scene were trying to figure out what to do in a situation they didn't fully understand, that would not surprise me in the least. Seventeen thousand police agencies, and we expect perfect communication among them. I don't think so.

AVLON: Chaos at a crime scene is a given, but you still have kids being killed in classrooms while more than a dozen officers waited outside --

MUDD: Yes. AVLON: -- for what is apparently 75 minutes.

Phil Mudd, thank you very much.

MUDD: Thank you.

AVLON: All right. Ukraine's president visiting the front lines, making his first foray outside the capital region since Russia's invasion. We're going to have a live report from Kyiv ahead.

KEILAR: Plus, Georgia went south for Donald Trump, so he's taking the revenge tour West. Can he convince Wyoming voters to boot Liz Cheney from Congress?

And we'll go to the White House this morning as President Biden prepares to honor the nation's fallen heroes on this Memorial Day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:19:15]

KEILAR: In Ukraine, President Zelenskyy visited troops on the Eastern front line near Kharkiv. He met with soldiers on Sunday, thanking them for their service and then with regional officials and the Kharkiv mayor discussing plans for reconstructing the city.

CNN's Matthew Chance is live for us in Kyiv. A very important visit that he made to a relatively dangerous area.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, very important and very defiant visit, as well. There have been no shortage of acts of defiance from this Ukrainian president, but this is just the latest example of that.

It's the first time, to my knowledge, that he has traveled outside of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, since the beginning of this conflict with Russia in -- on February the 24th.

And so it's a significant departure from what we've seen so far. Usually he sits in his bunker in Kyiv, travels around the city a bit and is met by sort of foreign dignitaries.

This time, he went right out into the field, right to the front lines in Northeastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces have been battling Russian invaders.

He met those troops. He spoke to them face-to-face. We're told he even went right to the front lines and met people there, gave people medals. And of course, he thanked the defenders of Ukraine for the continued sacrifice that they are making. Take a listen to what President Zelenskyy had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I would like to thank each one of you for your service. You risk your lives for all of us and our country. Thank you for defending Ukraine's independence. Stay safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: Well, Kharkiv, of course, is one of those Ukrainian cities that the Russians tried to capture but failed. Elsewhere, though, in the East of the country, the Russians are making small but significant territorial gains, advancing near the Eastern city of Severodonetsk, which is the Easternmost city held still by the Ukrainians. And so there are big battles going on there.

Meanwhile, there's a sort of counteroffensive, according to the Ukrainian military, taking place in the South of the country. So while much of the fighting is being focused on the Northeast of the country, in the Southeast of the country, the Ukrainians say they're hitting back. They're staging a counteroffensive there and are trying to take territory back from the Russians, who are occupying Ukrainian land -- Brianna.

AVLON: Matthew, it's John. I understand that Russia's foreign minister just commented on Putin's health. What did he say?

CHANCE: Yes, he did, indeed. He didn't say -- I'm trying to call up what he actually said here, but, look, he didn't break any new ground, but it was in an interview with French television in which he was yet again asked about the health of President Putin. There's been a lot of speculation about President Putin having some sort of serious disease. Is he going to last, you know?

It's something that I think, for the critics of Russia, for the critics of the Kremlin, this would be kind of like a godsend, that this -- this leader, this implacable, strongman leader was taken out of the picture sort of prematurely, would be something that a lot of people would -- would cheer for.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of concrete evidence, and that's what the foreign minister was saying, reiterating his Russian position that there's nothing wrong with Vladimir Putin, that he appears on television every day. And that, you know, if you're sane, I think, to paraphrase him, he said, Look, you couldn't possibly look at President Putin and think there was anything wrong with him.

And I think there's probably, you know, a lot of credibility to what the foreign minister said in that in that sense. There's been some kind of verbal cues, which suggest that he could be struggling with something, but nothing concrete we can point to as, look, President Putin has got something wrong with him.

KEILAR: All right. Matthew Chance, live for us from Kyiv, thank you.

As millions are hitting the road this long weekend, gas prices are hitting new records. Why President Biden may be running out of options to lower them.

AVLON: Plus COVID cases are on the rise again across the country. What health officials fear it means, amid the unofficial start to summer. That's ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:27:42]

AVLON: It's one of the president's most solemn duties: honoring our fallen heroes, at one of the nation's most hallowed grounds. This afternoon, President Biden is set to attend Memorial Day ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery and lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier before making remarks.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is live at the White House -- Jeremy.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, John. President Biden waking up in -- at his home in Wilmington, Delaware this morning, but he will head back here to Washington for a slew of events honoring fallen service members.

The president first will host a breakfast this morning here at the White House in honor of Memorial Day before heading over to Arlington National Cemetery where, as you mentioned, he will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, that solemn ceremony that we typically see the U.S. president participate in every year on this Memorial Day.

And then he'll deliver remarks at Arlington, as well, at the memorial amphitheater about Memorial Day. The president later in the day will also plant a magnolia tree alongside the families of fallen service members and the first lady of the United States.

And I think it's notable, as you look to see what the president might say on this Memorial Day, this is the first Memorial Day since the U.S. withdrew its troops from the war in Afghanistan.

And President Biden, as he announced that withdrawal and as he confirmed it following the deaths of those last 13 service members in that bombing in -- at the Kabul airport, the president talked about the fact that we are a nation too long at war.

And he talked about those who would like to see the U.S. remain in that war, even at low risk or at low cost. And what he made clear was think about how much we've already asked of that 1 percent of this country who have put on the uniform -- John.

AVLON: Jeremy Diamond, thank you very much.

KEILAR: In the wake of the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, where 21 innocent souls were taken by a gunman at an elementary school, CNN national security analyst and global terror expert, Peter Bergen writes a new opinion piece: "This. Is. Not. Normal. Americans are many thousand times more likely to be killed by a fellow citizen armed with a gun than by a terrorist."

Peter Bergen joining us now. He is the author of "The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World." The updated paperback available tomorrow.

This is -- the point you make is what we're seeing is kind of the dark side of American exceptionalism.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, I mean, Americans think of themselves as an exceptional nation, and in many ways, they are.

[06:30:00]