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CNN NEWSROOM

Oregon Campus Shooter Kills 9, Wounds 9; Army Vet Tries to Stop Gunman; Gun Control Debate; 58 Million People Under Flood Threat; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 2, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:01:07] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

He killed to be famous, and we will not give him that victory, not this morning. This morning you will not hear us say the name of the gunman who open fire at Oregon's Umpqua Community College, a man who systematically killed nine people and left nine more wounded. He is dead and a grieving community wants him condemned to anonymity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF JOHN HENLIN, DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON: You know, I don't want to glorify the shooter. I don't want to glorify his name. I don't want to glorify his cause. And -- in order to prevent that, I'm refusing to state his name. The Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office will put out a notice identifying who the shooter is, but, again, that's the only information that will come out. You won't hear his name from me or from this investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Still, the killer's horrific act of cruelty and cowardice is resonating across the country and of course reigniting the debate over gun violence.

So let's begin our coverage with CNN's Ana Cabrera. She is on the campus right now. Good morning.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. We are waiting for an update here on the investigation the next couple of hours. We do know that there are more than 100 investigators, detectives working this case right now, working around the clock, all through the night, interviewing family and friends of the shooter, also continuing to process this extensive crime scene, searching for clues and answers into what happened and why.

Now this is a very small town. It seems everybody knows everybody. Nobody has been left untouched by this tragedy. And this morning we're hearing more from the students on that college campus, describing the horror that has rocked this normally peaceful rural community.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CABRERA (voice-over): Overnight, a massive candlelight vigil for the victims of Umpqua Community College's deadly mass shooting. Disturbing new details coming from a father whose daughter was hit in the back by a bullet, describing how the gunman targeted those who said they were Christian.

BOYLAN: "Are you a Christian?" He would ask them, and if you're a Christian, stand up. And they would stand up, and he said, "Good, because you're a Christian, you're going to see God in just about one second." And then he shot and killed them. And he kept going down the line doing this to people.

CABRERA: Thursday morning, around 10:38 a.m., 911 dispatch receives the first calls for help.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The active shooter, UCC, 1140 Umpqua College Road.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somebody is outside one of the doors, shooting through the door.

CABRERA: Oregon Police say the 26-year-old gunman was carrying body armor and loads of ammunition, enough for a prolonged gunfight, along with three pistols and one long rifle. Entering a classroom, he opened fire, shooting a teacher at pointblank range, according to witnesses. Students overheard the gunshots.

HANNAH MILES, UCC STUDENT: It was just rapid fire over and over and over again. You could -- you could hear the people -- you could hear them moving and crying.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I said to the teacher, we need to get out of here right now. And then we heard the second and third gunshots.

CABRERA: Within minutes, officers swarmed the campus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exchanging shots with him. He's in a classroom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Copy, 17, exchanging gunshots right now with the male. He's in a classroom on the southeast side of Snyder Hall.

CABRERA: The shooting began in Snyder Hall, but it didn't end there. The shooter continuing his rampage into the science building, casualties found in at least two different classrooms.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: And the sheriff telling us that within minutes of the 911 calls, two officers responded and they immediately were able to confront the shooter. There was a shootout between the shooter and those police officers. The shooter also ended up dead.

[10:05:02] Now, in the end, nine people were killed by this gunman. Nine others were injured. And we just got an update from Mercy Medical Center here locally, giving us an update on those survivors who they took in. Sadly, one of the people who they initially saw died in the E.R. We know four people underwent surgery. One of them has been released. They anticipate another one of those individuals being released today. Right now one person remains in critical -- critical condition, that is, and one in serious condition.

But these injuries are really severe when you think about gunshots to the torso, to the head, to the back. That's how they've been described, Carol. So a lot of healing and a long road to recovery for this community and especially those survivors.

COSTELLO: All right, Ana Cabrera, thanks much.

One of the wounded is being called a hero this morning. Army vet Chris Mintz tried to keep the gunman from entering his classroom. This is Mintz with his son. And you'll hear from his family why that's so poignant today.

CNN's Jean Casarez is here to tell the tale. Good morning.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Carol, there are victims, there are survivors and there are heroes. And Chris Mintz really fits all three categories. He's in the hospital right now, 30 years old. He was a member of the U.S. Army. He had gone back to school, doing something with his life. His family tells us that he was shot in the back. He was shot in the stomach. He was shot in the arms. He was shot in the legs. They also say he has two broken legs.

And right before this all happened when he went to college yesterday, he actually got a phone call from his own father and his father said to him, now, you've got to tell your grandson, your son, my grandson, a happy birthday because today's his birthday. He may have remembered that very conversation. Listen to what Chris Mintz's family says happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANDA MINTZ, VICTIM'S AUNT: Tries to block the door to keep the gunman from coming in. Gets shot three times, hits the floor. Looks up at the gunman and says, it's my son's birthday today. Gets shot two more times.

ARIANA EARNHARDT, VICTIM'S COUSIN: He's going to have to learn to walk again, but he walked away with his life. And that's more than some many other people did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And CNN producer Christie Bear just got off the phone with the cousin of Chris Mintz who said that he has just visited him at the hospital. And Carol, here's what he said. He saw, when he saw him, he said to him, how are you? And immediately Chris said, people died. And he started just crying uncontrollably.

So you see the emotional impact for the survivors and we heard this morning from the press conference there will be pastoral -- they're specialists, psychological specialists to help get them through this.

COSTELLO: What you just said hit me. Wow. Well, good for you, Chris Mintz.

Thank you, Jean Casarez.

This is something we should politicize. That was the message from a visibly angry and frustrated President Obama as he addressed the nation and slammed Congress for not doing enough to change gun laws.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It's not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America. Next week or a couple months from now.

We don't yet know why this individual did what he did. And it's fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds.

Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation and the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this. We talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Newtown, after Aurora, after Charleston.

It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun. And what's become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common sense gun legislation.

We spent over $1 trillion and pass countless laws and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so.

[10:10:02] And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be? This is a political choice that we make.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: If the president's message sounds familiar, that's because he's had to do it 15 times following a mass shooting since he's been in office.

Some facts before we go on. According to a Massachusetts gun control group called Stop Handgun Violence, more than 150 Americans are shot every day. More than 80 people are killed. And the group estimates one child is killed every three hours. Since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, more than 87,000 Americans have been killed by guns.

You know how Americans are going to respond. A good number will say, we need more gun control laws and others will say, we just need more guns. I don't want to really have a debate this morning. I actually want to have a conversation.

So I've invited John Lott, he's the author of "More Guns, Less Crime." Welcome and thanks for being here this morning, John. JOHN LOTT, AUTHOR, "MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME": Thank you.

COSTELLO: The sheriff in Oregon says it's not the time to talk about gun laws, but others, like Andy Parker, whose daughter was killed on television, told me this is exactly the right time. Why can't we talk about how to prevent tragedies when tragedies happen?

LOTT: Well, I mean, I agree with the president, that something needs to be done about this. I guess the interesting thing to me is that he was speaking out in favor of expanded background checks yesterday before we even know how the individual got the gun. And even more important, you mentioned the 15 times that he's spoken out and not one of those cases would the laws that he's advocating have had any impact on whether these crimes occur.

So, I mean, there's a bit -- more than a bit of disconnect between the laws being made and whether they're even related at all to these horrible tragedies.

COSTELLO: But see, if you don't talk about existing laws and what laws might prevent such tragedies, aren't you just throwing up your hands and saying, well, there really isn't an answer to the problem except maybe everybody should be armed.

LOTT: Well, I mean, I do think there's a solution and the one thing in common, as oppose to the president whose statements have nothing to do to these tragedies in terms of the laws that he proposes, is to notice that yesterday, just like in all these other cases, they occur where guns are banned. That where citizens aren't able to go and defend themselves. I mean, I don't know how many explicit statements these killers have to make about how they chose targets where they knew people weren't able to go and defend themselves.

COSTELLO: Well, wait just a second.

LOTT: Whether it be the Charleston case or the Santa Barbara case, or whether it'd be the diary we just got back from the Aurora, Colorado, shooter this summer, or other places. They explicitly say we didn't go after this other target because we were worried people with guns would stop us. Instead, we chose this other target where we knew we could do it unopposed and kill a lot of people so we could get media attention.

COSTELLO: Well, let me just run this by you because according to Oregon law, you can carry a concealed weapon on a college campus but you can't take a concealed weapon into a college building. Plus police were there in minutes and they were armed.

LOTT: Well, that's not quite right.

COSTELLO: And stopped the gunman. The laws are cloudy in Oregon.

LOTT: Right. But that's --

COSTELLO: And that's one of the problems in this country because the laws aren't consistent and nobody knows what they're talking about. But let me put this to you. According to Pew --

LOTT: No, no, but -- no, but you're wrong.

COSTELLO: No, let me go on for just a second. Let me talk for just a second.

LOTT: No, I just want to correct you on the law.

COSTELLO: OK.

LOTT: Can I correct you on the law? Because the law -- what the schools have done to get around that law is to put it in the faculty and student handbooks, that they -- even though somebody who's unrelated to the school may be able to carry around there. Any student or faculty who carries a water pistol, a BB gun or any firearm on school property at that community college would get either expelled or fired.

COSTELLO: You're right about that, there is a -- there is a rule on campus that no student is to take a gun on campus. According to Pew, about one out of every three Americans say they or someone in their house owns a gun, and yet one child is killed every three hours. Don't those numbers demonstrate that having more guns out there aren't necessarily the answer? There are a lot of guns out there in America and there are a lot of gun deaths.

LOTT: Well, first of all -- yes. First of all, the Pew poll is very low. Most of the polls show about 45 percent or so of Americans own guns. But beyond, you know, when you talk about children dying, the numbers you're talking about include 18, 19, 20-year-olds, primarily involving gang fights over drug turf.

[10:15:04] Those are horrible things. But the types of laws that normally get talked about have nothing to do with stopping gang fights that are going to be going on.

Look, and the other numbers that you were saying, the vast majority of those deaths are suicides. And suicides are horrible. But to go and think that some type of gun control regulations that are being talked about is going to stop somebody from committing suicide when there are so many other ways for people to commit suicide.

Here's a simple fact. Every place in the world that's banned guns, not just Washington, D.C. and Chicago when we had our bans, but every place, has banned guns, has seen murder rates go up. Every single place.

COSTELLO: But -- but you can't ban them in one place --

LOTT: You would think out of randomness you get --

COSTELLO: But there are bans in those cities, and you are right about that, but there are so many guns in this country, and you can get a gun so easily, the bans aren't effective because people bring in guns -- they buy guns illegally. They steal guns from gun shops, right? That's the problem. LOTT: No, I'm saying --

COSTELLO: So what do you do about that?

LOTT: I'm saying every country, even island nations that have banned guns, whether it be Jamaica or Ireland or the UK, after they've banned guns have seen big increases in murder rates. And, you're right, it's very difficult to stop them. One problem you have is the amount of violence related to drug gangs.

You can't stop them from getting drugs. How do you think you're going to stop them from getting the weapons that they use to go and protect those drugs? This country --

COSTELLO: The FBI would say --

LOTT: They have had no more --

COSTELLO: There should be less guns out there and that would probably prevent gun crimes. In fact, the FBI says, if we define gun violence as using a gun to end human life, the FBI is telling us that less than 10 percent of those fatalities would be eliminated if we got rid of all violent crimes. The FBI data clearly indicates the reason for gun violence is that there are too many guns.

Is the FBI wrong?

LOTT: I don't know. Well, I don't -- first of all, I don't think the FBI goes and says that there are too many guns. There are lots of studies that have been used during FBI data. I've done that. Most of the academic work out there finds that increases in concealed handgun permits, increases in gun ownership generally is associated with reduced crime.

Look, there's a reason why, if you look across countries in the world or if you just take the simple case that I said, why is it, then, that every time, in every country that's tried to ban guns you see an increase in murder rates?

COSTELLO: I don't know that that's true, sir.

LOTT: Not --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: But I will just -- I will just -- I will just -- I want to end this interview by asking you, what is your solution?

LOTT: My solution for these mass shootings is to look at the fact that every single time there's been -- these attacks occur where guns are banned. Every single time. In these schools. Every single thing the president --

COSTELLO: So your solution is to arm the students? Is that --

LOTT: No, not necessarily the students. COSTELLO: I'm just asking you if that's a solution.

LOTT: I'm saying make it possible so that people who have concealed carry permits are able to go and use guns to protect themselves. Just as they do off-campus. Why not on campus?

COSTELLO: OK. I have to leave it there.

John Lott, thanks for being here.

LOTT: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Hurricane Joaquin is absolutely hammering the Bahamas. What should those along the U.S. East Coast expect over the next few days?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:22:51] COSTELLO: Hurricane Joaquin strengthening overnight as dangerous flooding now threatens some 58 million people in the United States. The category 4 monster is slamming the Bahamas with winds topping 130 miles per hour. The East Coast scrambling to clear drains, and although a direct hit is not likely, another system is set to dump record amounts of rain. States of emergency declared in South Carolina, in Virginia and in New Jersey.

Chad Myers is here with more. Hi, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Carol. Yes. Two separate systems. One upper low over the southeast and one hurricane with just a moisture feed from the Caribbean will get together and push all of this rainfall all the way from New England, all the way back into the Carolinas.

My focus here really is on the Carolinas where we'll see significant rainfall coming in as moisture comes up, gets dragged up by the jet stream. A big dip in the jet stream here then a big rise in the jet stream here. And this backwards, see how this kind going back toward the west, this was always the factor in whether the hurricane here would get dragged back up into the U.S. That was always why some of the models believe that.

Right now most of them do not. They believe the hurricane will just head out to the ocean and it will be gone. I've completely covered up my buttons. Can you get rid of them?

So we will see rainfall from this system, significant rainfall, up to 15 inches of rain as the storms progress over the next two to three days. But that rain truly won't be from the eye of the hurricane itself. Just a tropical moisture feed. And I can walk out here in Atlanta right now and it feels like I'm standing in the Caribbean. There's just so much humidity in the air.

Now some of the models still get very close to the U.S., so I don't believe the chance of a landfall for U.S. is zero, but it might be, like, 1 percent or 2 percent. Not zero, but not very much. We're still watch it for you. The big impact will be significant flooding. All that water having to run down the rivers -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Chad Myers. Thanks.

I want you to take a look at the Dow right now, down just about, what, 194 points. This comes after a weak jobs report that just came out this morning. U.S. employers added only 142,000 jobs in the month of September, with the unemployment rate remaining at 5.1 percent. So get ready for a rocky ride on Wall Street again today. We'll keep you posted.

[10:25:04] Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the father of a journalist shot to death on live television has strong words for one of the most powerful men in Washington. Why he says the congressman has blood on his hands.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY PARKER, FATHER OF ALISON PARKER: And I find it also ironic that the FBI has 1,000 people on their no-fly list and McCaul was one of the congressmen and legislators who helped the NRA block legislation to keep these people from obtaining weapons. So this man has blood on his hands. He's complicit and, you know, frankly, listening to him tap dance around the interview this morning made me want to throw up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: That's Andy Parker, the father of slain journalist Alison Parker, slashing out at Homeland Security chairman, Representative Michael McCaul after McCaul said on CNN that this country had a mental illness problem and not a gun problem.