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NEW DAY SUNDAY

Suspected Denmark Gunman Killed By Police; More Than 50 Million Impacted by Blizzard; Fragile Ceasefire is Holding

Aired February 15, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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


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CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: It seems terror has now touched Denmark. A Copenhagen cafe riddled with bullet holes this morning, a synagogue under fire and now the suspect may have finally been taken down after shooting at police. Did he talk to a cartoonist over images of Prophet Muhammad?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: Boston buried and the winter blitz won't let up. This is now city's snowiest month on record since 1872 and it's only the 15th of February.

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SAVIDGE: You just heard of sound of dozens of gunshots when a man opened fire at a Copenhagen cafe that audio coming to us from the BBC.

PAUL: People had just gathered for a free speech forum when you heard those shots there. We want to welcome you to the morning here. I'm Christi Paul.

SAVIDGE: I'm Martin Savidge in for Victor Blackwell. A cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad was inside that cafe at the time of the shooting. We want to play more of that audio for you now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I realized that every time we talk about those people, there will be always -- yes, it is freedom of speech, but -- and the turning point is but -- why do we still say "but" when we --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: You can hear the scrambling. Interestingly, you don't hear screaming. You just hear scrambling and trying to get out of the way and as though the shots wouldn't stop.

Next, want to take you to a synagogue in the heart of the Danish capital that came under attack and a man was shot in the head there. Now the suspected gunman invoked attack is now dead as well, killed with a shoot-out with police overnight. Earlier, police released this surveillance image of who they were looking for.

SAVIDGE: Now police say that they are operating under the assumption that he carried out both attacks, but they are trying to determine if he really did act alone. We will talk with a witness to a cafe shooting in just a moment.

But first, let's check in with CNN senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson. Nic, take us back. How did this all unfold?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yesterday afternoon, the group of about 50 people had gathered for sort of a freedom of expression forum that was being hosted by Lars Vilks, the cartoonist, who in 2007 depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog.

There was tight security. People had to come in and out of the venue through sort of an airport style security screening detector. There was -- there were bodyguards there for the cartoonist. There was a concern because there had been threats already made against his life.

And then the gunman and the police say that he had a small automatic weapon opened fire from outside and tried to get inside. The bodyguards returned fire, three of them all injured and not seriously, returning fire.

The gunman ran away, hijacked a car, dumped the car and fled possibly into the train network. Then he goes to the synagogue, shoots a man who is believed to have been -- a young man who is believed to have been on guard duty outside the synagogue, as well as two police officers there.

The two officers injured. The young man killed. Then as this is happening, the police have also seen and released this photo image of the man they believe is the attacker and they are also narrowing down the location which they narrowed down just a street away from where I am now.

An apartment building that they staked out at 11:00 at night. They are there all through the night. Then the police say 4:50 the alleged gunman returns. They challenged him. He shoots at them. They returned fire and he was killed, pronounced dead right there.

That's the sequence of events we have right now, but of course, there is so much more to learn. We don't know who this man is. The only details we have had from the police so far, he is fairly tall, of an athletic build, and somewhere between 25 and 30 years of age. We just do not know who it is, what he was, or his motives yet -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: All right, so much more to know. Nic Robertson, thank you very much.

PAUL: The controversial cartoonist apparently targeted in yesterday's attacked first angered a lot of people back in 2007. That's when Lars Vilks depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. He told CNN's Paula Newton that same year, the drawing was calculated to elicit a reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LARS VILKS, CARTOONIST: I don't think it should be a problem to insult a religion because it should be possibly to insult all religions and they could be in a democratic way, I tell you, if you insult one, you should insult the other ones.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: Did you just get a death threat?

VILKS: I will kill you, you son of a (inaudible).

NEWTON: Why aren't you afraid? You just received a death threat.

VILKS: You get used to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: You get used to it, he said. Let's talk on the phone now with a witness, who was at that free speech forum with Vilks. Dennis Brink, thank you so much, sir, for joining us.

DENNIS BRINK, WITNESS TO CAFE SHOOTING (via telephone): Thank you.

PAUL: So glad that you're OK, first of all. Wondering -- take us back to the cafe yesterday. What was it like from your perspective? I know it happened very quickly as this whole conversation was starting.

BRINK: Yes. After we heard the shots from the -- from the room next door, we -- yes, we kind of panicked a lot of us -- most people ran to the door to get out and to -- I was in a group of, like, four people. We were trying to get out of one door.

Then we heard shots at the other side of the door, which was in the streets and we dared to go out any way. We were just hiding, trying to hide behind tables that were turned over.

I, myself, tried to hide behind a sound system but we know -- we knew we were totally defenseless if the assassinator would get into the room. Yes, we were just trying to hide actually.

PAUL: How many gunshots do you think you heard, Dennis?

BRINK: I would say I think I heard about 30 or 40 shots. There was first a series of shots and then a man yelled something, which, to me, sounded like Arabic, and then there were several other shots after that. And I think the police also opened gunfire at that particular time.

PAUL: Did you feel like that the response, the authority response, the police getting there was quick enough?

BRINK: Sorry. I can't really hear what you say.

PAUL: Do you think that the response -- did you feel the police got there in a good amount of time?

BRINK: Yes. Well, there were police there from the beginning. There were security check when we came in and there were two police officers in uniforms and there were several people, I don't know how many, because people from the intelligence service, they are not so recognizable.

But I think there were maybe eight or ten of them, so -- and without them, he definitely would have got in. So they were the ones who saved our lives.

PAUL: Did you hear the gunman say anything or was it just gunshots?

BRINK: Yes, I heard him, as I said, I heard him yell something, but in a language I didn't understand, so I couldn't -- I can't say what he was yelling.

PAUL: OK, but he was yelling. Dennis, again, we are grateful that you're OK. Thank you so much for sharing this experience with us so we can have a better understanding. Dennis Brink there live for us from Copenhagen, thank you, sir.

BRINK: You're welcome.

SAVIDGE: CNN law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes, joins us from Washington. Good morning, Tom. Danish police are looking into this as an act of terror. Do you know if they had any indication that an attack like this was in the works?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No, Martin. I don't think they had a definite indication. They were obviously worried about the possibility because Lars Vilks, who traveled to the conference from Sweden, has been under this continuing death threats for more than five years.

And there have been plots already uncovered including an American women that was trying to put a team together and go to Stockholm and cut this throat while he was in his home. He has been under this threat and under protection.

He had bodyguards there from the Danish Intelligence Service, as well as police who were apparently manning some type of security checkpoint for people entering to attend the conference, approximately 50 attendees.

So they obviously thought it was a definite possibility, but I don't think they knew there was an absolute plot or they would have thwarted it before it got this far.

SAVIDGE: It's interesting that the level of security was there. They did obviously screened people going inside and yet they hold it in front of a cafe or inside where is there a large glass window and the gunman just simply shot from the outside/in.

FUENTES: Right. He was trying to work his way in. I think that you can ask some questions about that security and I'm not sure how it was set up. I haven't seen any reporting to indicate exactly how the checkpoint was set up to protect people. And check people that were going into it, or to deal with

someone who went from the checkpoint from the outside as he did in this case. You have three wounded police officers. You have one person killed right at the location of the speech.

And you wonder why one person was able to come fire 30 shots and escape basically, apparently leaving that site unharmed, but leaving three people wounded and one dead.

SAVIDGE: You mentioned Lars Vilks on al Qaeda's most wanted list as was the editor of "Charlie Hebdo" and I'm wondering, what does it take to become a prime target for terrorists?

FUENTES: Well, I think, you know, if you draw a cartoon that insults the Prophet Muhammad, that guarantees it and if you are in the publication business, and you know, you published or display that on your TV network and it offends them, they could put you on the list.

This particular list was put out by "Inspire" magazine, which is published by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and it listed "Charlie Hebdo" and their managing editor and it listed Lars Vilks and several others including an American cartoonist, who has been in hiding now for many years.

So if you do that and they become aware of who you are, they put you on that list, and the Danish police along with European police along with the FBI in the case of Lars Vilks himself have uncovered these plots to actually go kill him.

There has been a bounty on his head for $100,000 to kill him and an additional $50,000 if you kill him by cutting his throat. That was the plot by the Jihadi Jane from the U.S. that was putting a team together to go there.

The intention was they wanted to do a home invasion, go into his home the middle of the night, and kill him with butcher knives and cut his throat.

SAVIDGE: Tom Fuentes, thank you very much.

FUENTES: Thank you.

PAUL: All right, coming up, a brutal blizzard causing dangers on the roadways. This is going to affect so many people because we are talking about some tough travel as well. All of this has battered Boston is preparing for the worst of the storm. CNN's Cristina Alesci is there.

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Conditions are getting worse and worse here in Boston, all of these snow mountains around me getting taller, more on how this city is coping after the break.

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PAUL: This monster blizzard that is affecting the east coast is also hitting Ohio and causing the first deaths and hopefully the only deaths associated with this storm. Roadway accident there as you can see killed three people. This is in Ohio, but it is part of this blizzard that we have been watching.

SAVIDGE: And we are all going to be watching it for a while because, right now, millions of people are feeling the effects of another strong blizzard. Snow causing travel concerns and bringing power outages across the country and wind and snow is really the danger.

PAUL: It is. Large snowfalls are forcing state leaders to urge caution. That includes the governor of Massachusetts.

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GOVERNOR CHARLIE BAKER, MASSACHUSETTS: I mean, I can't say this enough. Unless you have a really good reason to be out tomorrow, we would urge you to stay off the roads so the crews can do the work they need to do to plow the roads and continue to do the work we have been doing the past week or so to remove and dispose of snow from previous storms.

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SAVIDGE: So let's bring in now CNN's Cristina Alesci. She is in hard-hit Boston. To look at you, Cristina, pretty much sums up what must be the feeling of many in that city. Good morning.

ALESCI: Yes. Good morning, Martin. It is cold and brutal and it's getting worse and worse. A couple of hours ago, when I got off the road behind me, it was clear. Now it is not clear. It's going to get tougher and tougher to plow with the snow coming down about 1 to 3 inches an hour.

That makes it difficult to plow and what makes it even more difficult to plow is the fact that you've got winds, the wind is picking up. It was about 22 miles an hour. Our meteorologists are saying at some parts of the coast it could reach up to 65 to 70 miles an hour.

When the wind picks up on hills like this, you'll see it kind of whipping around. You'll see a little bit right now. That is going to make visibility really, really tough. This city has just been hit so hard. This is the fourth storm in as many weeks.

As you can see down this street, the city has not melted all of this snow. It has had to bring in resources from around the country really. New York State alone has sent two snow melters into Boston to take care of some of it. It's still not enough. It's really taking a toll on the city.

Mass transit has been shut down. I was talking to residents yesterday. This is the first time that they can remember that mass transit has been shut down. Residents had to take their cars off the street last night at 10:00 p.m. because there was a parking ban.

The second time this season we have had a blizzard warning. That is unprecedented. The governor again using those words yesterday, stay inside, stay warm, it's not worth going outside -- guys.

PAUL: All righty, Cristina Alesci, take good care there. Thank you so much. In fact, she's talking about those streets. I read that they are reconfiguring some of the two-way streets into one way to ease the congestion.

SAVIDGE: It's not just Boston, of course, suffering, airline travelers were also feeling the storm's effects with over 1,600 flights cancelled. Among the hardest hit airport is Boston's Logan Airport and New Jersey's Newark Airport.

So let's bring in meteorologist, Ivan Cabrera. I think I know how far south the storm is going because I'm repositioning to Nashville to meet the weather there.

IVAN CABRERA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we have twin storms. This one and that one that is affecting the south here so this is going to be a big deal. Look at Boston right now getting crushed. If you watch closely here along the southeastern cape, do you see the lightning bolts there?

Thundersnow currently occurring across the region, incredible snowfall rates of 2 inches to 4 inches an hour with winds at around 40 miles an hour. Whiteout conditions currently occurring so we are in the meat of the blizzard here and in fact, the blizzard warnings have been extended further into Central Massachusetts. Why?

Not because more snow is going to fall, but because the snow that is already on the ground and the winds whipping that up. We are going to be talking about a ground blizzard here so unbelievable event occurring right now.

We will watch for the high tides coming up in the next hour here. If we do OK this morning, I think we will be fine, but there is a possibility of some splash over as those north winds begin to hit the cape in the next showers with the high tide coming in.

Look at these windchills as well anywhere from 20 to 30 below to the north and west. This air mass is coming to the south and east so Boston, 5 degrees. That is balmy for you right now.

By tomorrow morning about 20 to 30 degrees below zero that is the way it's going to feel and the snow that is on the ground is still blowing around so even though it has stopped from the sky, it's going to feel like it's still snowing because of the wind -- guys.

PAUL: My goodness, thundersnow. Somebody take a picture of that. I'd love to see it tweeted or even on Instagram or something. That has got to be something to see.

CABRERA: When you hear thunder in the middle of a snowstorm, absolutely.

PAUL: Thank you so much, Ivan. All right, can Ukraine's fragile ceasefire hold? Ukraine

forces and rebels agreed to stop firing at each other just 13 hours ago, but we are already hearing reports of violence and shelling.

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PAUL: It's 25 minutes past the hour right now. And the fragile ceasefire in Ukraine is holding, but it is on the edge of unraveling at any moment, we have heard. The truce between Ukrainian troops and rebels started 13 hours ago.

And there is hope that the peace will hold, but there are many in the region on high alert and already CNN crews have told us that they have heard small arms fire in the streets of Donetsk. Others are reporting minor ceasefire violations around the comfort zone.

We want to go to CNN's Erin McLaughlin now. She is live in Moscow with the very latest. Good morning, Erin.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christie. That's right. CNN's teams on the ground in Eastern Ukraine saying they are hearing shelling in the areas of Mariupol as well as another city that saw intense fighting in the buildup to the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, according to Russian media reports they will have a telephone conference later today to discuss the ceasefire which by all accounts looks to be extremely fragile.

Meanwhile, Russian defense ministry denying allegations coming out of the United States that Russia had moved heavy weapon systems into Eastern Ukraine to help the separatists in the buildup to the ceasefire.

On Friday, U.S. State Department officials releasing satellite images that it said showed weapon systems around the Ukrainian city of Deboltvo, which had been a flash point to the buildup in the ceasefire. On Saturday, they tweeted out the satellite images which Russian officials are now disputing -- Christie.

PAUL: All righty, Erin McLaughlin, we appreciate the update. Thank you.

SAVIDGE: Denmark's prime minister says that her country will never bow to fear. The suspect in two deadly terror attacks is dead. The question now is did he act alone?

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