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No New Shooting in Baltimore; ISIS Sympathizer Elton Simpson Killed by Texas Police. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired May 4, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: And Tom, let me just bring you in because I want you to explain to me some of what we're looking at. I mean, obviously we're not on the ground, but when you see, as I've been watching, it looks like there was this police line. I think there still is when the camera would really, you know, zoom out and you could see on the north side of the screen and on the south side of the screen, almost setting up a perimeter. Why would they be doing that?

THOMAS FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: They'd be trying to preserve the crime scene, Brooke, and look for evidence. And see if there's anything else that the young man threw out of, you know, threw on the sidewalk or got rid of, including the firearm. So that's just standard procedure to block off people from walking over the crime scene until they finish looking for any other material that might be part of the investigation.

BALDWIN: OK. And then when you hear handgun violation, right, so this is Evan was reporting that police are saying they were approaching an individual over a handgun violation. What does that mean?

FUENTES: Well, to me, a lot of times people, business owners, or somebody else nearby might witness somebody pulling a gun out of his pocket to show it off or, you know, putting it in and out of his pocket and would call the police and say this individual appears to have a handgun. It doesn't look like a security guard or a uniformed or off-duty police officer. So the officers would respond and try to check out the person and see if they have a handgun and if it's lawful for them to have that gun. So what happens after that in this case, dropping the gun, the gun going off, you know, that will remain for more investigation.

But, you know, as Evan mentioned, the city of Baltimore wants to go back to normal or at least a new normal. But nobody has mentioned -- and I just received information a short time ago that since last Tuesday when the heavy police and military deployment arrived, since that time there have been 12 shootings in Baltimore, nine of them homicides. So I guess if it's going to go back to the new normal, which average was about six murders a week in Baltimore, you know, that's sad but true if they go back to normal.

BALDWIN: Sad, but true indeed. Tom Fuentes, do me a favor and stand by. I have another voice I want to bring in, my colleague Athena Jones. She's joining me on the phone from the scene.

I've got you, Athena. Can you hear me? You're live on CNN.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Yes, I can hear you, Brooke. We're here at the corner of west north avenue and Pennsylvania. This was the scene of a lot of the distress last week on Monday night. We're right across the street from the burned CVS. And there's a crowd forming because there were reports of a police- involved shooting.

This is the information we have. The Baltimore police department has tweeted this. They said the reports of a man being shot at north and Pennsylvania avenue are not true. Officers have arrested a man for a handgun at the location.

Now, we're still gathering information, but I have a little more from our own Evan Perez. He said that the police department -- officers were trying to arrest a suspect near this intersection, the intersection of north and Pennsylvania, this afternoon. The suspect was carrying a handgun, and when he, the suspect, attempted to throw the handgun, it discharged. This is according to a source with the Baltimore police department. The bullet from that weapon hit the suspect. We understand that he's not been killed, but that's what happened. Of course, we're still gathering facts.

I've got to tell you, Brooke, though, there are a lot of people around here just as we were approaching the scene who had a different story. Just as we arrived, a woman said, no, too many people saw the police shoot that man. So it's very clear there are a lot of people in this crowd who don't believe the take from the Baltimore police department.

I should tell you, again, you'll remember the police lines we've seen after Monday, so Tuesday last week a line of police blocking the road, blocking the intersection here. We're seeing that again now. Several dozen police officers with their shields, the plastic shields and helmets, are now blocking the road at this same intersection where we saw so much destruction last week. So it's clear a lot of people are concerned. They're trying to figure at what's going on and so are w, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Right. I mean, they've established this perimeter, as Tom Fuentes was just explaining to, you know, protect the scene here as they're gathering evidence. I hear you loud and clear on how some of the people in this community, right, have a different story. This is a real deep-seeded mistrust in the Baltimore city police department when you talk to some of the people in these communities.

But again, Baltimore police saying this individual, they were trying to arrest this individual over a gun violation, gun dropped, gun went off. In fact, they say this individual was never even shot ever. He was taken to the hospital just upon falling. That's what Evan Perez was telling us.

But I think bigger picture, Athena, and I know I still have you. You've been there in Baltimore for quite a while now. We know the curfew is gone. Yet, still are people out demonstrating in parts of the city? What are you hearing from folks in the wake of fact that the state's attorney charged all six officers?

[15:35:05] JONES: Yesterday, but there was no curfew last night and no one arrested last night. There was -- it was a celebration, really, yesterday afternoon outside of city hall. You had several marching bands from area high schools who arrived on the scene. They were dancing and they were trying to show a positive picture of Baltimore. We had one of the organizers saying the Baltimore you see on the news is not Baltimore. So it's been much, much calmer. And in fact, we were reporting today on the National Guard troops who have begun to pull out. This has been a situation that has been calming down. Right now, of course, with this new incident and like I said some of the questions on the scene here of people who say, no, the police shot this man.

So we're still trying to get to the bottom of what happened. There is, as I mentioned, this crowd gathered on this intersection, north and Pennsylvania. There is that police line. And there are a bunch of us reporters here trying to get the story from whatever eyewitnesses we can find. They have different stories they're telling than what the police have been tweeting.

BALDWIN: Got it.

JONES: We're trying to get answers for you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I appreciate that so much, Athena Jones. I'll let you continue doing your job. Let's stay in contact.

And Evan Perez, I know I still have you, our justice correspondent. You were the first one to report exactly what's happened. And again, if people are just now joining us, there has been an incident on Baltimore city streets here minutes after President Obama spoke about this new initiative, my brother's keeper alliance, who are trying to help young men, young boys around this country, minority young men and boys have opportunities which quite honestly having seen it myself are lacking in communities like this right here in Baltimore. You know, you have this incident. And now, you know, police are out cordoning off this area. You have crowds gathering. You heard Athena reporting these crowds are saying one thing, Baltimore police saying another. Let's get the facts. Again, what is Baltimore police telling you?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, we're hearing from the police that there was definitely no gunshot by the police. That is the one thing we know. There's still a lot of early preliminary information from the police.

Here's what they believe happened. They were trying to arrest a suspect on a handgun violation. As they were trying to do that, he attempted to toss the handgun. The handgun went off. And that's the shot that people heard. Now obviously, people on the street reacting in a different way because they believe the police shot this man, but that is not the case.

According to the police, they believe that there is proof of this, they have video that they're now reviewing, that they're going to hopefully release to try to prove the situation. But it just goes to show you the lack of trust that police have with this community right now, especially in that area of Baltimore, which was the epicenter of some of the protests and obviously the riots that broke out last Monday.

BALDWIN: That distrust has been magnified.

We're going to stay on this breaking story out of Baltimore. Evan Perez, thank you so much. Athena Jones talking to people there on the ground at that intersection. We'll come back to what's happening in Baltimore. But we also have some breaking news out of Texas we've got to get to. This link to ISIS in that shooting in a Dallas suburb.

We have just learned the idea of the second shooter who opened fire outside this contest to draw the prophet Mohammad. All of this comes after the first shooter was identified as an ISIS sympathizer. We have new information there. We'll take you to Texas next.

You're watching CNN's special live breaking coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:43:08] BALDWIN: All right. We'll take you back live to Baltimore in a moment. But first, we have to talk about Texas here.

The governor has just called for a full terror investigation as we're getting new information about this ISIS sympathizer Elton Simpson, who along with a man we've just confirmed as his roommate, (INAUDIBLE), tried and failed to attack and exhibit in Texas. It was an exhibit featuring cartoon drawings of the prophet Mohammad. This event, sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which a number of critic describe the hate group, offered up as much as $10,000 for the best cartoon of Mohammad. A risky move considering such offensives have this year alone been met with deadly violence. But unlike the attack we saw in France at "Charlie Hebdo," both would-be shooters were killed, taken down by a single traffic cop.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON HAMM, GARLAND, TEXAS POLICE: Both of them had assault rifles, came around the back of the car, and started shooting at the police car. The police officer in that car began returning fire and struck both men, taking them down. Obviously they were there to shoot people. We will continue to investigate. This is not going to be a real fast investigation. We've got our suspects. We continue to monitor social media and gather other Intel to make sure that we're not getting any threats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The story has a social media thread as well. Because it was during this examination of twitter pages that authority in s found something else on Elton Simpson's twitter, an apparent pledge of allegiance to this leader of ISIS, Abu Bark al-Baghdadi in a tweet that ended with #Texasattack.

Joining us now our correspondent there, Ed Lavandera. Crime scene tape still up behind you. What more do we know about this second gunman?

[15:45:01] ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He appears from what two law enforcement officials are telling CNN, obviously he was the roommate of Elton Simpson. But he was not really on the radar as much as Elton Simpson was for federal investigators.

I mean, right now what they're really trying to do is piece together and go through as much evidence as possible in their apartment there in the Phoenix, Arizona area to try to piece together a timeline of how this particular attack unfolded. And it really ended right here on this street that you see behind me, Brooke. That's the car that you see that the two suspects had driven up to this civic center here in the Dallas suburb of garland, Texas.

Just until a few hours ago, Brooke, their bodies were actually -- had still been on the ground. I saw them earlier with bullet proof vests on. One of them also apparently had been wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. That cap was next to him on the body. The bodies have since been removed. But federal investigators and investigative teams have been here throughout the day collecting evidence. At one time, we could see the assault rifles that were used in the attack, being boxed up in that sort of thing. So a lot of that TV work here continues. They have been here since just after 7:00 last night, just when this shooting took place. But it's really -- it took most of the evening hours to be able to secure the scene and get these investigators on the ground to be able to start the process of collecting evidence.

But as you can see here, it really kind of speaks to the layers of security that were put in place for this event. Garland police officials say they had been planning for this event for several months after it had been first organized. If you notice, the car didn't even make it into the parking lot of the civic center. That's because the two officers that met the car there were at the -- they were the initial layer of security here. So they were checking each car that was coming into the parking lot.

One of those security officers, the one that was wounded in the leg and has been treated and will be fine, got out of the car. That's when Garland police say the two men jumped out of their car, that black sedan you see there with assault rifles, and started shooting. It was the second officer who put a quick end to everything, firing the shots that killed both men, despite both of them wearing the bullet proof vests. And they fell right there on the street, not even making it into the civic center area where some 200 people had been attending that event -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Looking at live pictures of the FBI there not too far from you. Thank you so much for that. Just also seeing these pictures. Thank you, sir. Let me bring in Buck Sexton, former counterterrorism analyst for the CIA, now a political commentator.

And Buck Sexton, you and I have talked multiple times about plots and lone wolves. But to me, what separates this is the twitter traffic, right, between this one guy, Mr. Simpson, and this seemingly prominent ISIS fighter. And to the fact he tweeted about this just before, you know, heading into this location. That seems significant to me.

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, well, the investigation still in the early phases, obviously, but just based on the time stamp on twitter, somebody knew this was coming and it was reasonable to believe the individual who says that he's the one engaging in the attack would have been perhaps the only one who would know, or these two individuals, rather. So we can see they would use that kind of a social media platform in a sense as their last words here, trying to make it clear what their intent was, which was solidarity with the Islamic state. This all lines up with other lone Wolf cases we've seen. We know there are individuals who are at this forum who are on a hit list. We know this is a target. That's why the security was --

BALDWIN: $30,000 in security.

SEXTON: As extensive as it was, these two gunmen, despite the fact they had semiautomatic rifles, were clearly outgunned. But fortunately, they weren't even able to get past that first outer ring of security. So the precautions here were sufficient. But the people at the event, including security, got lucky. If these individuals, these two had better training, better tactic, and better attack plans, we would have seen casualties. It's a miracle we did not see casualties.

BALDWIN: Got to go from you, Buck. Stay with me. We will come back to this. Baltimore police updating us on the situation in west Baltimore. Here you go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sound of the weapon discharging, the police never discharged any weapons. We finally stopped him. We got the weapon back. It is a revolver. There are three cartridges, one of them are spent. One of them are spent, meaning it has been fired. We have a medic that arrived. He has no injuries on his body whatsoever. No injuries whatsoever. He is not shot. He did not want to go with the ambulance, but they took him anyway. We have the weapon. He's with the medic crew and our police officers right now. That's the beginning and the end.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE REPORTER: What was he doing when he was spotted?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just walking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE REPORTER: He wasn't robbing someone?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: People are saying he was shot in the back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am, I said no one was injured.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: Is he under arrest?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No people are saying he was taken to the hospital shot. Members of his family --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Again, I'm going to say, he's not injured. Nowhere on his body does he have a gunshot wound.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: Was he taken to the hospital?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was taken to the hospital. He has a handgun.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: What did it hit? Have you recovered it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. I don't have that information, no.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: Did they fire think weapons? Sir --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Again, we are in the early stages of this investigation and get information to you as soon as we can. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone.

BALDWIN: There you have it.

OK, so Baltimore police obviously trying to clarify what happened this past hour right around where the looting actually took place. They call it Penn north, around where the CVS was looting and burned.

And then There was an incident according to police, they in which they obviously tried to approach a man on the streets, tried to arrest him because of a handgun violation. You the police officer, he was , why stopped? Just walking. So I do have questions about that. But bottom line, police, they say, never fired their weapons. This individual was never, ever shot. No injuries at all. And he didn't want to take the ambulance but they put him in the ambulance in case he injured himself upon falling.

This is what we're getting from our correspondents as well. I have got Athena Jones right there at the scene. And Athena, just so I'm -- do we have any more clarification about why exactly police approached the man in the first place?

JONES: No, we're not clear on that yet, Brooke. We haven't been able to get that information but know they were attempting to arrest him for a handgun violation. We understand he dropped the gun and that's when it went off but he was not shot. He was not injured. You heard police say that over and over again.

We talked to an officer a few seconds ago, who wasn't able to speak on camera or give a public statement who told me he helped get the suspect into the ambulance at he saw no injuries. Now, the problem here, Brooke, is a lot of people do not believe the police. There have been eyewitnesses, for people who said they witnessed it, talking to reporters as we approached several minutes ago, even from blocks away saying that police shot a man, and when we came up, there was a woman telling a crowd of reporters, too many people saw the police shoot this young man, but the police say the man was not injured. More than one police officer has said he was put in the ambulance but was not injured, and that's the situation here. There is a lot of distrust.

It's a sign of the distrust many in this community have of the police, that they don't -- they didn't believe them. We don't know how they're responding now since that press conference just wrapped up. But I can tell you upon approach, a lot of people were already spinning a different story -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Athena Jones, thank you for your reporting there as we work to get more answers as far as what's happened in the last hour in west Baltimore.

We are also getting this new information into the two individuals in garland, Texas, a shooting over the weekend. I got Buck Sexton sitting next to me. We are going to finish that conversation after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:56:33] BALDWIN: Back to our breaking news out of Garland, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. We were talking you about these two shooters, both of whom have been roommates. We know, Elton Simpson' was ISIS was sympathizer. So, let's through it more of what we're learning with buck sexton, still with me. Former counterterrorism analyst for the CIA and now a political commentator here with us as CNN.

So, we are were talking about the social media threads, and I mean Elton Simpson was tweeting back and forth, what? Would you classify him as an ISIS fighter?

SEXTON: Well, he is certainly fancied himself that way. He seemed to want to chase that life, but the truth of the matter is he was already known as somebody with terrorist sympathies long before this, and had actually been arrested and prosecuted for lying to FBI agents about his desire to join al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Now, they got him on the lying, which still a crime. You are talking to FBI agents about this general issue. But they didn't get him necessarily on the proving joining a terrorist group. So all he got was three years' probation.

Now, I know people will look at it and say, Sufi and Simpson, how could these two individuals? Specifically one already on the radar for terrorism.

BALDWIN: That's what I'm saying. How did they not --

SEXTON: At some point they are going to have divert resources away from continuing surveillance to somebody after that three-year period of probation. They are not going to follow him around forever. And the question, did they miss some glaring signs in the run-up to this either on social media or elsewhere, an hour before the attack, tough to ask the FBI to get that, but I'm sure there are other signs probably out there that were missed. We have to look at that in terms of how to overt this attack planning.

(CROSSTALK)

SEXTON: I'm sure there are other signs that are probably out there that were missed. And so, we have to look at like in terms of how to reverse this kind of attack plan.

BALDWIN: Post-probation. What would FBI surveillance even look like? How do they monitor people like them?

SEXTON: Well, they have to have a very high threshold for continuous monitoring of individual. It takes a very manpower intensive and you also kind of do constitutional issues whether somebody can just be followed around continuously without some kind of a predicate if they've served probation of three years, at some point you have to drop surveillance. You can't follow somebody forever.

And so, of course, this was some years ago when he went through the process of lying to investigation. So I'm not sure something major was missed. I assume there were things that could have been picked up. But again, good security in this case prevented this from turning into for what it clearly a mass casualty attack. I think the ramifications of this, you are going to see that at other events that want to have, whether you call it provocative or just open discussions about issues of radicalization, Islamism, jihad, they have to have heavy security. Because you can, it's necessary, and in this pace fortunately it paid off.

BALDWIN: Buck Sexton, thank you very much for coming in.

And now, before I go I wanted to talk about, you know, we've talked so much about tension between communities and police but cannot forget police risk their lives each and every day. So before I let you go, just sad news to report from here in New York.

A police officer shot over the weekend has died from his wounds. Officer Brian Moore only 25 years of age. Pronounced dead just a couple of hours ago. He was shot in the face Saturday when he and another officer in an unmarked police car tried to stop a man walking down a sidewalk, who appeared to adjust something in this waistband. Accused gunman is Dimitrius Blackwell. He was initially charged with two counts of first-degree attempted murder, those charges are expected to be upgraded.

Thank you so much for being with me here on this Monday. I'm Brooke Baldwin in New York. Let's go to Washington now. "The LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: The sound of gunfire has the city of Baltimore back teetering on the edge.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is "THE LEAD."