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Suspect in Custody After At Least Six Killed, Dozens Hurt at Parade; Doctor Attending Parade Rushes to Care for Victims on Street; Resident Describes Bloody Scene at July 4th Parade Shooting. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired July 05, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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


[07:00:00]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And so they had to hold down to their customers, they raised prices more slowly as oil prices were soaring after the Russian invasion. And now, on the way down, they're trying to make up that margin. This happens every time and it makes consumers feel they're getting cheated. But what it is, is, many times, these small business owners who are trying to make up what they lost on the way.

And a reminder that the margins for these gas station owners is people who are selling you the gas that's going into your gas tank, but margins are very, very low. They want lower gas prices because when you have more money in your pocket, you walk inside the convenience store and you buy a bunch of other stuf, and they make more money on the candy bar than they do on the gas. So, the margin is bigger on the candy bar than on the gas.

So, it's a very complicated set of factors from the gas station to your gas tank. And there's an awful lot of economics all the way up from when there -- the big oil companies are drilling the oil. I think what's frustrating for the White House is they see what will be record profits for the big oil producers, right, the big oil companies.

And for Jane and Joe on the street filling up their gas tanks every week, they feel just the pain of the higher gas prices and they're looking for some place to place the blame because the White House doesn't really have much more it can do. They can't -- the White House can't lower gas prices.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It's such an important reminder, though, that some of the folks who own these gas stations, most of them, they're small business owners.

ROMANS: Yes. And their competitor has their price advertised right there. We go to the lowest price.

KEILAR: I do it. I do it too.

ROMANS: I know, me too.

KEILAR: Christine Romans, thank you so much.

New Day continues right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers in the United States and all around the world, I'm John Berman in Highland Park, Illinois, Brianna Keilar in New York this morning.

I am standing right on the parade route, 25 miles north of Chicago, where yesterday at 10:15 A.M. a gunman opened fire in the middle of a Fourth of July parade, killing six people, injuring 25 more. There you can hear the gunshots ringing out there in rapid succession in the middle of this, what was supposed to be, joyous moments. In fact, you can still see behind me, this moment frozen in time, beach chairs still litter the streets here for blocks and blocks. I see a towel, a Frisbee, a beach ball, all left behind. It gives you a sense what it was like for the people here who fled in true terror.

Now, police recovered not long after the shooting what they're calling a high-powered rifle on that roof, not far behind me where the shooting took place. And then eight hours after the shooting, they did apprehend, the police did, someone they are calling a person of interest. They also used the word, suspect, here. There was a small police chase, a short police chase about five miles from here. And then this person of interest was apprehended on the road himself, several officers holding him down on the road, taking him into custody.

And for so many people here in this community, so many who come to this parade, so many who were sheltering in place after, that did provide a moment of calm after what was a truly terrifying day. For so many people here, it was obviously like nothing they've ever seen.

I spoke to Paul Toback, who was here, who had come to this parade for years since he was a young kid. He was here with his two sons, an 18- year-old and his 20-year-old son who has special needs and was in a wheelchair. And Paul described to me this moment of terror. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL TOBACK, WITNESSED HIGHLAND PARK SHOOTING: And for a second, everybody froze, literally like time stood still. And then we looked down the street right over there we saw the crowd running towards us and screaming. And it was mass hysteria. And people were just running in droves across the railroad tracks right behind you. And we turned and ran. And I pushed my son's wheelchair and the wheelchair collapsed on the payment. And he toppled over and I fell and then it happened again. And then my young son picks up my older son and we ran. We ran for our lives.

BERMAN: You carried -- your other son carried his brother?

TOBACK: Yes, he was a hero. I mean, there were a lot of heroes on this day, but he was one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: There were a lot of heroes on this day. And, Paul Toback, I don't want to tell you, after he spoke to us right here, he walked away from this location just a few blocks. He actually found the wheelchair still on the ground where he and his two sons had left it behind to flee the scene. You can see the picture that he sent us right there.

But it just shows you how quickly, how scared people must have been to try to get out of here as quickly as they possibly could when they saw hundreds of people running right at them, Brianna.

[07:05:06]

KEILAR: Yes, that was the chaos of it. As he said, they toppled the wheelchair twice, and then his younger son just picked up his eldest son, unbelievable.

And we are, Berman, just learning the identity one of the victims, in fact, former pre-school teacher Jacki Sundheim has been identified by her synagogue as a lifelong congregant and a member of their staff. The NorthShore Congregation Israel says, there are no words sufficient to express the depth of our grief of brief for Jacki's death and sympathy for her family and loved ones.

BERMAN: All right. Joining me here in Highland Park is CNN's Josh Campbell. For the latest on this aftermath, it's still all around us and this investigation still very much under way, Josh.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And one witness described this as a battlefield who was here whenever these shots rang out. This, obviously, John, a community that has mixed feelings. I was just talking with a local resident, he was out walking his dog. This was his third shooting that he's been associated with. He said mixed feelings they're obviously happy that this person has been caught and he's now in custody, that a threat is off the street but, obviously, in mourning now as well, with six residents lost, dozens more injured.

Of course, this happened yesterday morning, just after the start of this July 4th parade, one of many that were probably going on around the country. Shots rang out. We saw people fleeing. There were hundreds of people fleeing for their lives.

Authorities recovered what they are describing as a high-powered rifle on one of the rooftops. They were working to try to trace that weapon. We eventually saw them actually put out the name of this person of interest they were calling at the time, as well as the description of the vehicle.

And it was several hours after that shooting that police got their big tip. It was a patrol officer about five miles from here, spotted the vehicle that matched the description of the suspect, tried to execute a traffic stop. They went on a short police chase. And the suspect came to a halt. We saw this flood of officers. He was taken into custody without incident.

Now, I was just on the other side here whenever this was going down. And I started to see police rushing to their vehicles. These so-called bearcats, the tactical vehicles, were rolling out here very quickly. So, I followed them and actually rolled up. I was the first reporter there as they were working to process the scene.

Of course, the vehicle, they didn't know if there were any incendiary devices, if there was still a threat there. But, obviously, a very harrowing situation there for police as well, not knowing what they were dealing with, we're told that they took the person into custody without incident. The investigation right now into him continues. We know he's in his early 20s. He's a resident of this area. But they're working to try to figure out what was his background, what was this motive. That investigation is under way.

BERMAN: Yes. They say the shootings were intentional but random, which is an interesting choice of words. And, Josh, I also understand they're going through these videos, a lot of music videos that this person of interest had posted. What are they seeing inside these videos?

CAMPBELL: That's right. Well, intentional but random, he wanted to kill a bunch of people, he didn't care who he was trying to kill, which obviously shows you just the dangerous nature of this individual, one of many shooters that we've seen across the country. And as often the case whenever law enforcement looks into the background, they start to see these troubling signs. With this individual, they saw a number of online posts, including music video animation, which was one of many. In one, you actually a person that depicts or resembles this person conducting a shooting, trying to attack people, so, obviously, very troubling there.

I got a note from a law enforcement source as we were trying to gather all this information, who said, hey, here's some stuff online, you want to grab this now because we're about to take it down, obviously becoming part of that investigation. They have a lot of work to do.

On its face, you see some of these troubling signs, obviously, it's -- clearly, this is a person who is troubled but the work isn't done. They want to ensure that there weren't any other associates, maybe someone who might have known that this was about to happen, and then the nexus of the weapon itself, how did the shooter actually get this weapon, all of that is ongoing right now.

BERMAN: All right. Josh Campbell, you're working the scene both on the ground and on the phones. I really appreciate you being here, terrific reporting, thank you. Brianna?

KEILAR: And joining us now to dig deep into the investigation is former FBI agent and author of Compromise, Peter Strzok. Peter, do you have right now as you're looking at this investigation?

PETER STRZOK, FORMER FBI AGENT: Well, Brianna, I think just in the segment just now, there is a lot of work still needed to be done on the law enforcement front. Certainly, any number of things about the suspect, his background, what he might have said or planned, whether in fact this was random, how he came about to buy that weapon, whether he did it days before the shooting, whether he had it months or years before, people he was in contact with, folks that might have been talking with him, certainly, anybody who might have been working with him or helping him, but also what caused him to go down this path, whether there was any sort of mental issues or whether he was radicalized or motivated by some other things, all of these different things, talking to people, reviewing video footage, going to gun dealers, all of these are the activities that I would expect that law enforcement not only has been doing over the past 24 hours or so but also will be doing in the days and weeks ahead.

[07:10:03]

KEILAR: You know, Peter, his family reported no warning signs. But I know what he posted on social media, I know you've seen it. Do you agree with that assessment?

STRZOK: Well, I think it's hard to say what somebody is doing if they're living alone. You know, he's an adult at this point. He was not living in the house with family. It's the kind of thing that if you're online, certainly, and you're living alone, if you're not posting under your true name, it's very difficult to see in some cases.

And so the troubling aspect to this is that we're seeing a pattern whereas shooters become -- you know, as they, you know, are known, as people dig into social media, we are able to go back and see indications of descriptions of wanting to engage in violence. But it is generally both anonymous and in many ways non-specific. So, it's very difficult in many of these cases that, yes, we can see in retrospect that there are these signs but it's very difficult. There's this question of how do you monitor things in real-time to get ahead of it. That's a very, very difficult question.

KEILAR: Yes. How do you tell the difference between something that is alarming and something that is truly threatening? It may be impossible in some cases.

Peter, thank you so much. We always appreciate your expertise.

I do want to go back now to Berman who is in Highland Park where this is a community in shock still, Berman.

BERMAN: Absolutely in shock, Brianna. And I just want to make one thing clear, this is the busy downtown area. This is the commuting hub right here. The train station is not far, right here behind me. And we've seen trains go by. So, people coming back to go back to work, even as the downtown is frozen in time at the moment the shooting took place. The police still here, very much still an active crime scene.

Again, so many people come to this parade every year and have for generations. And joining me now is a couple who was here to watch their grandchild in the parade, Debra Baum and Dr. David Baum. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

And, Debra, just tell me, you were here to see your two-year-old push a bubble lawnmower in the parade. DEBRA BAUM, EYEWITNESS TO HIGHLAND PARK, ILLINOIS PARADE SHOOTING: Yes. We come every year to this parade. I mean, my husband has been an obstetrician in this community for 30 years. So, we know all the babies. We know the babies, we know the young families. I mean, it's just horrible that this kind of thing can happen here. It's horrible that it can happen anywhere.

BERMAN: What did you hear? What happened?

DEBRA BAUM: I heard a series of like machine gunshots and then I smelled the gun smoke. And there was like say split second where everybody thought, is it fireworks? People started saying bodies down, and I just grabbed my kids. My three children were there, my son-in- law and my grandson, and we all just ran. We ran one way, my husband ran towards the victims.

BERMAN: And, Dr. Baum, that's where you come in here. You ran back in. Why?

DR. DAVID BAUM, EYEWITNESS TO HIGHLAND PARK PARADE SHOOTING: Yes, John. I waited maybe a minute to see -- I knew the shots had stopped. And then, you look down and you saw just people screaming. You saw people on the ground. And, you know, I think the instinct of a physician to not run away. I thought, you know, that the shooting had stopped

But, you know, it's not really about -- I didn't think about it. You just instinctively feel like you have to do something. And, you know, that's what I did.

BERMAN: What were you treating? Who were you treating?

DAVID BAUM: The people who were killed were killed instantly. There were -- when the paramedics finally arrived, it took a couple minutes. Obviously, they weren't ready for a mass casualty situation. But the people who were gone were blown up by that gunfire.

BERMAN: Blown up?

DAVID BAUM: Blown up. Blown up. The horrific scene of some of the bodies is unspeakable for the average person. I mean, having been a physician, I've seen things in E.R.s and, you know, you do see lots of blood, but the bodies were literally -- some of the bodies -- it was an evisceration injury from the power of this gun and the bullets. There was another person who had unspeakable head injury, unspeakable.

So, these are the bullets and guns that 18-year-olds have a right to shoot down on a parade in a sleepy little community, July 4th parade.

BERMAN: I know you think it's important. It's not -- you're not trying to ruin anyone's breakfast as they're watching this.

[07:15:00]

On the other hand, I know you think it's important to describe to people the horror of what you saw so that they understand it. DAVID BAUM: The horror of what I saw was that this community will never, ever be the same. Because people move up here for the schools, there's, you know, nice recreational facilities, you're close to the lake, it's a great community, that it's always been a great community. I grew up here. I grew up here. And I moved back here with my wife. We raised our kids here. My daughter and my son-in-law moved here because they were concerned about gun violence and carjackings in the city when they had their son. And now people are -- you know, they're scared to take their kids to nursery school.

But what I saw was just families' lives forever changed because they were walking down with their kids in their scooters and somebody who shouldn't have had access to a high-powered rifle got up on a rooftop and decided to do what he wanted to do.

And, you know, to me, you can't drink until you're 21, but I still do not know why this country allows an 18-year-old to have a weapon that was meant for war. And the injuries, John, that I saw, I never served, but those are wartime injuries. Those are what are seen in victims of war, not victims at a parade.

DEBRA BAUM: These people didn't have a chance and it happened in 30 seconds. 30 seconds, he was able to do this, to all these poor people. I mean, it was in an instant that he was able to get that many people with a gun.

DAVID BAUM: You know, there were three doctors who stuck ground. There was a nurse, there was a nurse practitioners, I mean, there were other people probably just trying to hold pressure against the wound. But those people, from what I heard, fortunately left the hospital. They had graze wounds, they had lower extremity injuries.

But the people that died at the scene, and pretty much they all died at the scene, the paramedics walked around and just said, covered them up quickly, and said, black. I guess they have a code for dead, do not try and resuscitate.

BERMAN: I'm so sorry you now have both experienced something that more and more people in this country are now experiencing, Debra. Do you think people -- having been through this, do you think people understand the terror of that moment, to hear shots like that?

DEBRA BAUM: You know what? I don't even understand. Because yesterday, I felt like I was on adrenaline mode is just was trying to keep my family safe and get everybody away and worried about my neighbors and worried about this community. But, today, I'm just so sad.

Today, it's sort of hitting me more just how sad I am. And I'm also thinking we all have to change our behavior until this gets under control. I mean, I'm not going to a parade anymore. I'm not going to a sporting event. I'm afraid for my grandson to go to school. So, we all have to change our behavior and not do the things that we love to do because of this situation.

BERMAN: And, David, Doctor, do you think people understand the horror of what you saw?

DAVID BAUM: I think they saw the horror on the street when they ran because they heard the gunshots.

BERMAN: Do people --

DAVID BAUM: Yes, I don't think the average person has to see a body eviscerated or a head injury that is unspeakable to understand that they shouldn't have to see that to understand what the problem is with this country. And the problem with this country is the failure to recognize that, every week, you all are going to a different community with a different Uvalde.

And Uvalde was in Highland Park in a small way. I mean, that is -- what happened in Texas is horrific. What happened here is horrific. The fact that my kids and my grandson and all of these other kids from this community who are nice community members were walking down the street on scooters, in their wagon, that's all they have to know. They don't have to see what I saw. But, you know, what we did was, you know, the people who were gone were gone instantly.

DEBRA BAUM: Families are not safe. They're just not safe.

BERMAN: Thank you for what you did, Doctor. Debra, I appreciate you being here. Hug your grandson who was here. I know he's part of the parade was past thank goodness at that point. Hug your kids for us. You're all going to need each other because these days will be tough. I do appreciate it. Thank you.

DAVID BAUM: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Brianna?

KEILAR: Berman, soon we're going to be hearing from a father who hid his son in a dumpster and then went back to find other family members there in Highland Park, Illinois.

[07:20:08]

And strong reaction this morning to yet another gun massacre in America, this time from a White Sox pitcher.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIAM HENDRIKS, WHITE SOX PITCHER: Because it takes long -- I have to take a driver test when I was over here. I won't have to take a test if I wanted to get a gun. That's stupid. Whoever thought that was a great idea is an idiot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Welcome back. I'm John Berman in Highland Park, Illinois, standing on the parade route where yesterday at 10:15 A.M. a gunman opened fire killing six people. Joining me now is someone who has been coming to this parade for 30 years. I'm joined now by Miles Zaremski, who was standing not two blocks behind me, right in the shadow, basically, of where the shootings took place.

Miles, what did it sound like to you?

MILES ZAREMSKI, EYEWITNESS TO HIGHLAND PARK, ILLINOIS PARADE SHOOTING: John, first of all, thank you for having me on the program. At first, I heard a pop and then I heard a second and a third pop.

[07:25:04]

I first thought it was a backfire of one of the vehicles that traditionally starts the July 4th parade. And then I said, well, maybe it's somebody shooting off a fireworks too early. But then there were multiple pops and then there was a pause and then there were more multiple pops, I'm guessing around 30 ballpark. And I knew from being in the reserves decades ago that was from an automatic firearm. And it was frightening.

And then all of a sudden, the crowd that was lining and sitting down on lawn chairs and their blankets started rushing eastward, as we are now, and I was gingerly inching myself forward to see if I could help. I didn't know exactly the extent of it but then I saw blood on the ground. I saw blood on arms and legs of injured individuals. And then, unfortunately and graphically, I saw what looked to be three female bodies in pools of blood still as if they had passed away from being murdered by this gunman. It was horrific and gut-wrenching.

BERMAN: I can't imagine. And you were in the service which is how you knew what gunshots like that sounded like.

ZAREMSKI: Right.

BERMAN: You tried to help people, the people you were near, you just told me, were beyond help. You took some pictures to show people.

ZAREMSKI: Well, I provided it to one of your colleagues at CNN. But, otherwise, I have kept them to myself because they're too horrific. And I will tell the viewers here that we are all aghast at what happened in Uvalde or in Buffalo or the synagogue in Pittsburgh, schools entertainment venues. But until you actually see the result of carnage with blood surrounded -- bodies surrounded by blood, it drives a stake in your heart and we just do something because guns kill.

BERMAN: When did you know you were safe yesterday?

ZAREMSKI: You know, I really didn't, because as I tried to offer assistance -- I'm not a doctor -- and law enforcement which was on the scene almost immediately and indeed some were, because they were part of the parade, they started shooing us away, and they said go home, get away from here, this is an active shooter scene. So, even when I was walking a few blocks from here, my wife called and she said, where are you? Where are you? And I passed a Lake County sheriff with a long gun or automatic rifle drawn, says, no, this is an active shooter, sir, you must leave and go and shelter in place. And, of course, the person of interest wasn't caught until hours later, so this entire scene remained active.

BERMAN: And it's still a crime scene this morning.

ZAREMSKI: And it's still is this morning.

BERMAN: Miles, thank you for being with us this morning. I appreciate you joining us. I'm glad you're well.

ZAREMSKI: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

BERMAN: Brianna?

KEILAR: So, ahead, what is next for the January 6 committee? What we're learning this morning about the upcoming hearing. Plus, are the hearings, particularly the damning testimony from former President Trump's staffers tanking his chances in 2024?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]