Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Bombing Suspect Captured After Shootout with Police. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired September 19, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:07] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.

You're watching CNN breaking news. A rapidly moving investigation. Lots of pieces sort of beginning to come together here in multiple bomb attacks, or would-be attacks, planned bombings, both here in New York and in New Jersey.

First, let me show you some video. This is the suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, as you can see, captured alive after a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey. Now, this man being wheeled on this - being wheeled into this ambulance, bloodied but conscious, saw his eyes blinking, eyes open, hands cuffed behind his back. That arrest coming just hours after the FBI launched the manhunt to find him and issued a cell phone alert to millions of people across the state.

You also have this surveillance picture believed to be Rahami in New York moments before an explosion detonated. This was the one Saturday night, Chelsea neighborhood, this is downtown Manhattan, 29 people were hurt in the blast. You see just glass, you know, windows, cars, businesses, shattered.

Just a couple of blocks away, there was another pressure cooker sort of device that was found. That never went off. Rahami is also being questioned over possible ties to other improvised bombs. A blast that happened at the start of a charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey, on Saturday, which, by the way, didn't begin on time, thank goodness, because of issues with registration. Then you have these five pipe bombs that were found near a train station overnight. One of those devices inadvertently detonated by a bomb squad robot. Now police want to know if Rahami built these bombs himself, and perhaps most urgently if, in fact, he acted alone or if he had help.

Let's begin our coverage this hour. Jean Casarez is at the scene of the capture there in Linden.

Jean, I know there was a fingerprint that led to the I.D. of this man and then the BOLO, the be on the lookout. But tell me about the man who saw this guy asleep at a bar because he'd been watching CNN.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're finding is that it's a tip. It's a tip that actually led them to this area. And it's a very residential area here in Linden, New Jersey. I spoke with some neighbors just a minute ago and it said that this morning there were shots and there were so many shots. And as we heard New York law enforcement officials just said that it's very excellent that he was taken alive and he was taken down right here in this sleepy little neighborhood that's filled with families, with children. But very close, while this was happening this morning, and we will tell you that four officers were injured along with Rahami, and they've been transported to two different hospitals. But out three miles away is where Rahami and his family lived, at the First American Chicken Restaurant. And they own it. The mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey, told me that the family lived on the upper floor. And this morning, while this was happening here, the FBI was executing a search warrant at their home. At least one box of evidence, two cars were towed away. They stayed there for hours executing that search warrant. Very important to them.

And then I will tell you that one mile away from the chicken restaurant is where the bombs were discovered this morning in a backpack. It was actually 9:30 last night that two homeless men, I am told by the mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey, were walking. They found the backpack in the trash can. They took it out. They took it under the railroad tracks. They opened it up and there they saw a pipe and wires. And these two men, I was told, literally ran to the police department and told them, this is something serious. And that is what got the bomb squad out. That is how they detonated at least one, secured the five bombs that were in there, so no one was injured in all of that. And they are now packaged securely and will be on their way as possibly evidence in a criminal trial against this man that they just captured this morning. No charges yet, however. But law enforcement just said that federal charges may be coming.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Jean Casarez in Linden. Thank you, Jean.

Now, this bombing suspect was injured in that shootout with police. Four other officers were also hurt and all were rushed to hospitals for treatment. So let's go to CNN's Brynn Gingras joining us live from a Newark, New Jersey, hospital where the suspect was taken.

Brynn, what do you know?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, what we're seeing right now, just outside of the hospital, is a heavy police presence, which we've seen all over the place. But officers standing here, making sure every car that goes inside the driveway at the hospital is checked and made sure that they are allowed to be in there. And that is, of course, likely because Rahami is here being treated for those injuries.

[14:05:00] And you showed that video to your viewers. We know that he did sustain some sort of injury to his shoulder and he was alert and somewhat talking when he was loaded into that ambulance and then brought here to the hospital. So we don't know exactly his condition at this point. And we don't know if he's even talking to authorities at this point. But, undoubtedly, FBI officials are here as part of the investigation, now leads them to the hospital where he's being treated.

We also know at this point that one of the officers that was injured in that takedown, as Jean just talked about in nearby Linden, one of those officers is also being treated here at the hospital, nonlife- threatening injuries. That is good news. We know the injuries sustained, one officer hit in a bulletproof vest. Another officer shot in the hand. So we don't know which officer is here, but we know this is one of the hospitals that he is at, as well as, rather, another hospital in this area, Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Brynn, thank you so much, in Newark.

And now we're learning a little bit more about this suspect, about his family, about potential lawsuit. I've got Evan Perez here with me here in New York, our justice correspondent.

But can we just first pause for a moment just to reflect on everything that's happened over the past 24 to 48 hours. This race that, thank goodness, didn't go off -

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BALDWIN: With the Marine Corps race, raising money Saturday morning. The fact that this, you know, one bomb that did go off in Chelsea, in downtown Manhattan, ended up under a dumpster, or else this would have been so much worse.

PEREZ: A lot worse. It was incredible series of lucky breaks, frankly.

BALDWIN: Yes.

PEREZ: The fact that that race started late meant that people weren't standing near that garbage can witnessing, waiting for the runners to go by, and nobody got hurt when that blast went off. And, you know, there were three bombs in that garbage can. Only one of them detonated. That was another stroke of luck.

And then you have Saturday night in Chelsea, what - the bomb that did explode on 23rd Street, it happened to be underneath - partially underneath a metal dumpster. So the dumpster took a lot of the hit. People who were injured, 29 people were injured, but luckily not any serious injuries simply because the force of the blast, even though it shattered windows, damaged cars, there was a lot of damage done there, nobody died.

And then, of course, the one on 27th Street, according to the press conference there, the information that was given by the FBI and the NYPD at that press conference just at the top of the hour, they said that someone apparently disturbed the device. It was inside a duffel bag. That's a duffel bag that Rahami was seen pulling on 23rd Street, as well as 27th Street in surveillance video. They appear to have taken the device out of the bag, and that might have disturbed it and caused it to not go off s, Brooke. That's a remarkable stroke of luck again. BALDWIN: And then there was somebody who owned a bar in Linden, New Jersey, this morning, who found this guy asleep in the entryway into this bar -

PEREZ: Right.

BALDWIN: Because he had been watching CNN on his laptop, calls police, dot, dot, dot, the guy ends up getting -

PEREZ: Right.

BALDWIN: Getting caught in this shootout. As far as his background, record -

PEREZ: Right.

BALDWIN: Family, what do we know?

PEREZ: Well, he's of Afghan background. They're an emigrant family. As Jean Casarez was talking about, they lived above this chicken restaurant there in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And apparently it's been the cause of some legal dispute with the town. In 2011 they filed a lawsuit because they said that the town and the police officers were harassing them with code violations. It appears that the lawsuit went nowhere. But that's really about the extent of the kind of trouble that we've seen with this family or with the suspect.

We do know that there were a couple minor background - minor criminal issues in his background. The police talked about that at the press conference at the top of the hour again, but nothing major. No sign of him at all on the FBI radar for radicalization. We know that he has traveled back to Afghanistan. Whenever he came back into the country, he would be interviewed. Again, nothing - nothing at all that came up.

BALDWIN: The question, one of the primary questions, did he act alone? What are police saying?

PEREZ: Well, at this point they do believe that he acted alone. There was some question, we reported earlier certainly from talking to officials, that because of those people who were seen on that video handling the device that didn't go off, there was some - there was some fear that maybe others were involved. They now believe that those people had nothing to do with it. They still haven't found them. They haven't talked to them. They want to talk to those people. But they, right now, believe that this man acted alone.

BALDWIN: OK. Evan Perez, thank you so much. We will talk again.

A witness to the shootout this morning is putting on a microphone right now. He will join me live to tell me what he saw there in Linden today.

Also ahead, New York on high alert as world leaders, including the president of the United States, are in New York at the U.N. General Assembly. We will take you there and talk security.

And Hillary Clinton holding a news conference, responding to questions about whether terrorists did this to influence the election.

[14:10:01] Do not move. It is a busy Monday. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: We're back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Back to the breaking news here, the arrest of a suspect in the weekend bombings in both New York and New Jersey that left 29 people wounded. He has been captured alive as investigators are trying to determine if he acted alone.

Joining me now, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank, Julie Myers Wood, used to serve as assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security and is currently CEO of Guidepost Solutions, and Anthony May is with us, retired explosives investigator for the ATF.

So, welcome to all of you.

And, Paul Cruickshank, the last time I laid eyes on you was in Nice, France, when we were talking about that horrendous, horrendous attack. I don't know if the motivation was similar in terms of maximizing casualties. We've made the point this could have been a lot worse. But you're most curious about this man's multiple trips back home to Afghanistan. Why?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Yes, we're hearing - we're hearing about those multiple trips. We don't quite yet know which years yet he was going back. But that certainly is going to be very interesting to investigators as they look to see whether he was perhaps connected to any overseas terror groups. Fine perhaps here in the United States he was acting alone, but that still leaves the possibility that he might have had connections overseas, might have met people while he was in Afghanistan. Obviously, Afghanistan is a place where a number of terrorist groups have been operating in recent years, notably al Qaeda. The Pakistani Taliban were the group that directed Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square attempted attacker in May of 2010. That car bomb didn't go off.

[14:15:29] So they'll be looking at that travel pattern, seeing if whether when he came back he was, perhaps, showing signs of radicalization. Did that Afghanistan travel have an impact? Where did he learn how to make these devices as well? We - so far they appear to be quite rudimentary. We don't have full clarity about the chemicals inside the pressure cookers yet, though. I think we need more information on that to fully decide like how simplistic these bombs were.

BALDWIN: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: But could he have got some training overseas or did he just learn to make it all off the Internet? As we find out more about the devices, I think we'll be able to come to that determination. BALDWIN: Anthony May, since we're talking devices, let me just pivot

to you. Everything you've heard about some of them, you know, filled with the ball bearings, the BBs, which was one tie, I know, among some of these devices. How would you rate the sophistication level?

ANTHONY MAY, RETIRED ATF EXPLOSIVES INVESTIGATOR: Well, the sophistication level of the pressure cooker devices is somewhat higher than what we saw in - in the Seaside pipe bombs. The - now there is some reports coming out that wrappers of Tannerite, which is - Tannerite's a - a product name for an exploding manufactured product, a target product, which would explain some of the - some of the issues going on here with the - with the damage that we're seeing. But as far as sophistication, you know, these aren't your highly sophisticated devices. They're very - they're very - they - they level. They go on a degree of level from crude to somewhat, you know, sophisticated.

BALDWIN: OK. And on the Tannerite note, that's - we, at CNN, do not have that confirmed. But I appreciate you including that, if that's what you heard.

Julie, to you. I mean the fact that this man is alive, they caught him alive, how do investigators get him to talk?

JULIE MYERS WOOD, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, investigators are going to use all their tricks to get him to talk, to try to induce him to cooperate by, you know, offering him a cup of coffee, you know, trying to discuss things with him. It could take a lot of time. They, obviously, also could use higher pressure tactics.

But I also want to get back to the recent travel that he took. I think it's very important to look at his travel patterns and compare it to the time of his naturalization. I think a big question to ask the immigration service is, did they know of his travel, was it to Afghanistan, was it to other places, and did they take that into account when he became naturalized? Are there things that they could have focused on similar to social media and San Bernardino that they didn't do here?

BALDWIN: OK. As far as whether or not he acted alone, Paul, or, you know, with a group or was inspired online or perhaps there were connections back in Afghanistan from his trips, how do they determine all of that and how quickly can we know?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, they'll be interviewing him, first of all, trying to get information from him as quickly as possible. They'll be interviewing many associates, everybody they can - they can find. They'll be looking at his computers, his cell phones, his social media history. They'll be involving foreign partner, intelligent services in Afghanistan. Perhaps he traveled through Pakistan as well on the way in there.

BALDWIN: He's on no list for anything of that nature. That's what I understand.

CRUICKSHANK: No, none at all. They - he was not on the radar screen. They were very firm on that, that he was not known for either radicalization or somebody that was under investigation in any way, shape or form. And that's a nightmare scenario for intelligence services here in the United States, so-called clean skins. Very difficult to sort of see this kind of attack coming if they are not on the radar screen. You really sort of have to depend on either somebody close to an individual like this tipping off police, or to see something worrying on their social media. Otherwise, if he's just acting alone, pretty much impossible to intercept a plot like this.

BALDWIN: Julie, what's your take? I mean, at this stage, how do investigators determine if there is an actual cell, as opposed to someone who is just communicating with accomplices?

WOOD: Well, they're going to use these other resources. They're going to look at foreign intelligence. They're going to look at the individuals arrested in the car and they're going to try to get information from him. You know my understanding is he was identified in part based on a fingerprint left on one of these bombs, so he wasn't very careful. So perhaps there are other things, you know, above American - the American Chicken shack that would lead us to his accomplices, to folks that he worked with.

BALDWIN: Yes, it was a fingerprint. We don't know if it was on the device or on the cell phones -

WOOD: Right.

[14:20:02] BALDWIN: But that is what ultimately led to them I.D.ing in the BOLO.

Anthony, as far as the cell phones, how - how often do we see how a cell phone is used in tandem with detonating a bomb or a device like this?

MAY: We're starting to see that more frequently than we used to. We saw that a lot in the Afghanistan and Iraq theater of operation. Cell phones were used to actually initiate and detonate devices. The - here - you know, a cell phone has a variety of capabilities. You can use it - the internal clock or the timing mechanism, or alarm on a cell phone to initiate the device or you can use the cell phone itself, the receiver, as a remote command detonating type system. So a cell phone is very versatile. It provides the bomber a lot of opportunities there.

BALDWIN: What about, Julie, just the timing of these bombs or would-be bombs and the locations. I mean I've been in contact with someone within NYPD and that's sort of the million dollar question as far as the significance. What do you make of it?

WOOD: You know, it's really hard to tell at this point. Certainly this is an important time, you know, given the U.N. General Assembly, the president coming to town. You know, I think the locations do show one thing, though, is that soft targets are the new norm. You know, there have been so much increases to security around critical infrastructure, and so, you know, this individual was able to focus on areas that were softer targets. And I really think that's got to be a warning to those that operate businesses or malls, you know, what sort of things do you have in place? And I think the technology that abled us to identify him, the cameras, the fingerprints, you know, all of those pieces have become, I think, more and more important.

As to why he did this on a Saturday night and then -

BALDWIN: Yes.

WOOD: You know, bombs later on, I think that is the million dollar question. You would think that he might want to do it at a time when there was more activity, unless he was trying to do a dry run. But as you can see, dry run doesn't work very well when you have the FBI and NYPD on it.

BALDWIN: I mean, can we just pause for a moment. It is extraordinary how quickly NYPD, FBI, you know, Joint Terrorism Task Force jumped on this and found him. I mean, I don't -

WOOD: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: It was - it was like that.

WOOD: It's amazing. It's amazing. And technology played a big part, right? The cameras, the fingerprints. But also individuals in that Elizabeth, New Jersey, train station.

BALDWIN: Yes.

WOOD: Who maybe, you know, saw a backpack that looked interesting, what was in there, and then they knew, you know, they have to say something, to call police. And so I think all of those acts really prevented what could have been a terrible loss of life in the last few days.

BALDWIN: Thank goodness.

WOOD: Yes, absolutely.

BALDWIN: Paul Cruickshank, I'm turning back to you. You just got some news. What do you know?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, just a little bit more detail from a reporting team on Shimon Prokupecz and others on this sort of multiple trips to Afghanistan. That he also traveled quite a lot to other countries overseas. So they're looking at all these overseas trips and trying to see whether possibly he met with any sort of radicals, terrorist groups and so on and so forth. They didn't know anything about this guy's sort of past radical history before just a few hours ago, so they're having to kind of find out a lot very, very quickly.

BALDWIN: Do we know what those other countries are or how recent the trips were?

CRUICKSHANK: They're not being very specific yet on those other countries. We're hearing some of those other countries not in the Middle East, so they're kind of looking at that travel pattern to see if it has any significance. And so we're trying to gather more information on that.

BALDWIN: OK. I'll let you do that. Paul Cruickshank, as always, thank you so much. Julia Myers Wood and Anthony May, thanks to all three of you.

Coming up, a witness to the shootout this morning in New Jersey coming forward. He will tell us what he witnessed in those chaotic moments. He will join me live next. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:23] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Back to the breaking news here. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Here's what we know. The suspect in the New York and the New Jersey bomb incidents captured alive just hours ago. My next guest was just a few yards away from where police took down this suspect in Linden, New Jersey. He actually caught this video of paramedics loading him into an ambulance. He is Abel Andrew Campos.

Andrew, thank you so much for joining me.

What a morning. Can you just begin with - I understand you work at the auto parts store right around the corner. What did you see?

ABEL ANDREW CAMPOS, WITNESSED SUSPECT'S CAPTURE: Yes, I work a couple of feet - a couple of feet away from where it actually happened. What happened was, when I - I parked my car, I was just on the phone with my boss and he told me, Abel, be careful, shots were fired. So as soon as I literally get to the front of the warehouse, I park my car. And he told me - you know, he said, if you actually just look, you're going to see this gentleman laying down on the floor. And when we actually took - you know, just took a peek around the corner, we saw someone laying on the floor. So all of us just walked over there and we saw the gentleman on his back laid - you know, laid out and it looks like he was shot a couple of times and he was dazed out. And he was just, you know, he was trying to get up but he couldn't. And then he just looked to his left, he looked to his right. And then, you know, once we got close enough, we actually identified the suspect that was on the picture that I believe we all received or probably think the whole town received.

BALDWIN: Was this just in the middle of a street there in Linden where he was down on the ground?

CAMPOS: He was actually laid out on the sidewalk on his back.

[14:30:00] BALDWIN: Was he saying anything, shouting anything? Was he even able to speak?

CAMPOS: No, no, not -not that we were able to see, or not that we were able to hear anything. It looks like he was pretty quit. He was just dazed out. He was kind of stunned and he was just laid out trying to - like I said, he was...