[Robyn Curnow, Cnn Anchor:] I am Robyn Curnow and the top stories this hour. Officials in Florida are set to speak any moment now in the school shooting that killed 17 people on Wednesday. U.S. president is also set to weigh in over the next hour. We'll they are live to both events. In a tweet, the president said he suggested that more could have been done to warn authorities about the suspect. And Cyril Ramaphosa has just been sworn in as the president of South Africa succeeding Jacob Zuma who resigned yesterday. We understand that Cyril Ramaphosa will tackle corruption as one of his first orders of business. One teacher hid 19 students in a closet while a coach lost his life shielding kids from a hail of bullets a day after one of the deadliest school shootings in modern U.S. history. We are learning more about how survivors managed to escape and we are learning more about the victims who did not make it home that day. Our Rosa Flores is at the scene in Parkland, Florida. Rosa, just give us a sense of what people are saying. I mean, in many ways, we don't want to know what happened in that school but people are talking and it's importance that the stories are heard.
[Rosa Flores, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, we are hearing a lot of story that you mentioned of those heroes that were trying to say that's many lives as possible. One of them is the assistant football coach, Aaron Feis. He used his body as a shield to protect students and of course, he is one of the victims and we are learning very slowly about some of the others who perhaps risked their lives to save others. But as you mentioned, authorities are also having to dig little evidence. The school is behind me, you can see flashing lights, you can see police cars driving by, just processing the scene, Robyn, right, as we speak. And this is a very difficult and high due process for crime scene investigators because they are human beings, even though they are trained to go inch by inch to make sure that every piece of evidence is listed. This is difficult for them to scour through the bloody scene. They also collect the not only remains but also, the belongings of the people who were inside. And we're learning more about that suspect as well. He is in a jail. So right now, he is expected to face a judge in a bond hearing in about 1:30 this afternoon and we're learning about the AR-15 style weapon that he purchased about a year ago. He passed the background and we are also learning that he was expelled from this school for disciplinary measures. And so, as the police and authorities of law enforcement start to paint this picture, there is a lot of questions, Robyn, as you might imagine that surface about the motive, why this individual do what he did and what he's accused of. Authorities scouring through his social media trying to look for clues, I ask the sheriff yesterday, where are their clues, and were clues perhaps missed and of course, they always say, if you see something, say something. Now we're hearing about cases of perhaps an individual with the name Nikolas Cruz. It's unclear if it's the same Cruz but someone...
[Curnow:] Somebody know that he did, Rosa. I mean, in many ways, you know, his motive is one thing, but the fact that he was able to execute 17 people with one gun, because he had access to the gun. But he also, I understand, have access to gas mask. Just tell us what he did. How did he gain access to the school because he was a former student I understand?
[Flores:] Yes, you're absolutely right. So this is from the sheriff here in Broward County. He explained that this crime scene actually starts outside of the school. They found one person dead by the street and as investigators progressed and moved closer towards the school, they found two people dead outside of the building, then investigators kept progressing, 12 people were dead inside. And as you mentioned and this is according to Senator Nelson here from Florida, he mentioned he was the one that brief that this individual had access to a gas mask, that he had smoke bombs, and that he used them. Other law-enforcement sources have told us that he activated the fire alarm because in his mind, this was going to help increase the carnage. We've also heard from law enforcement that he had many magazines, which means, he had a lot of ammunition and could have done more harm. But as we've also mentioned, a lot of the teachers acted very quickly, they locked their doors, student hid under desk, and under some teachers' desks, they started text messaging, and calling their parents that even though that they were alive. So we are getting a lot of tidbits of information and of course, law enforcement trying to piece the entire puzzle piece all together.
[Curnow:] OK, thanks. And you are there in the scene in Parkland, and we know that there is going to be a press conference where the police are going to give more details. So, Rosa, we will come back you. We are also going live to that press conference as soon as it start, that appears to be the location of that. So we will bring that live. But for a moment, I just want to go back to our Tom Fuentes. He is a senior law enforcement analyst, he joins us now from Washington. Tom, my go to schools where they practiced lockdown drills, there are bulletproof doors at the entrance, there are policemen roaming around, you know, at the parking lot. But the fact remains that kids in American schools are more vulnerable than kids in school anywhere else in the world. Why does this keep happening?
[Tom Fuentes, Cnn Senior Law Enforcement Analyst:] Well, Robyn, there isn't enough desire on the part of lawmakers or the public to push lawmakers to make changes and this does keep happening. I was on the air five years ago with Wolf Blitzer during the Sandy Hook shooting and here we had dozens of little and thaw was yes, 4-year- olds and 5-year-olds, dozens of them plus the school principal. And you know at that time, the discussions came out of we're going to make changes. We're going to do something. We've got to address the situation. Kid walks in with an assault rifle and begins shooting little children. And not real changes since then. You've had multiple shootings. As we mentioned earlier, 18 this year alone in school, so we just have so many weapons on the streets of America with so little control. We have such a poor mental health control system or treatment system that that contributes to it. We have increasingly less discipline in our schools here which leads to having to hire these schools security officers safety officers. And then we don't let them be armed as if anybody in the building should have a gun that should be the people that do that and we say, no you don't need it. We are not going to let you carry one. We have rules of, you know, where guns are not allowed by off-duty police officers attending college classes.
[Curnow:] I mean, more guns is not going to help stop this in many ways in because there are mass guns in America already. I mean the staff is Americans of 44.4 percent of the world's population. And this country has 42 percent of the world's guns. So a few extra, I don't think if you know...
[Fuentes:] Not at all. I am not talking about extra in the hands of public. I'm talking about, if you put a law enforcement officer in the school to protect the students, that person should be armed. The police officers on the streets of the U.S. during our daily patrol duties are armed. Those are the people and we hear this rhetoric of reducing these guns. We are not taking away nobody is doing anything to diminish the over 300 millions guns in the hands of the general public. What I am saying is knowing that we already knowing that we already have that many guns out there, now what do we do with our schools? You can't lock them down completely. You can't put enough magnetometers, they can't afford it. You can't put enough security guards, they can't afford that. So we are really kind of in a stuck situation where and then the mental health treatment, even with the referrals where the authorities. I mean, I was a police office on the streets for six years before my 30 in the FBI, and years ago, when I was a patrol officer, there were much more options for a police officer who encountered somebody or had a referral from the public of this is an insane person in my front yard, there were much more opportunities for the police officer to have that person get treatment than today. So...
[Curnow:] But I mean in many ways, I mean people have mental health problems all over the world, every country deals with people who, you know, they question their stability, but the difference is the rest of the world, those people and even other citizens don't have access to the kinds of guns that Americans do, no matter what your mental state is. I mean, even Florida for example, you don't need a permit or a license to buy a gun Florida. And you don't actually have to register your gun. I mean, there is a list of you can buy as many guns as you want at one time. It does not regulate assault weapons, large capacity ammunition magazines. This is a very American problem and the rest of the world looks at America and says, why why would Americans allow these kinds of weapons to be on the streets in such numbers.
[Fuentes:] Exactly. Very good question and that is what law enforcement is really in a bind because they can't solve this problem by themselves. They can't take the guns away, they can't arrest people and force them to either seek mental health treatment or be incarcerated because they think bad thought or do postings on social media that says they are thinking about school shootings or whatever. The FBI goes and talks to them just like they talk to people that post that they want to join ISIS or some other domestic terrorist group but there is only so far they can go with that. Here in this country, it is not just thinking bad thoughts, it's you have to act on them. So, if you say I want to join ISIS and you have already bought the airline tickets to go to Turkey and Syria, then that is that gives you the extra step. But in this case, you can say all of these things but you a lawful right, unless you are convicted of a crime, and even arresting somebody or interviewing them is not enough, or a judge mentally judges you insane or mentally ill. And then, go into a database to prevent you from buying a gun, those two things don't happen.
[Curnow:] So there is no so there is no political rule. In many ways, the president's latest tweet, he is going to speak in a little while and we also just make an op-ed while we are waiting for a press conference on the ground outside of the school for more details but the president suggested that people around this gunman should have perhaps paid more attention his social media posts. This is kind of insinuating that the blame is laid at friends and neighbors, because they did not tell authorities that he was making these threatening posts on social media. What do you think of that?
[Fuentes:] Well in this se, we have reports that we have one report of someone forwarding the YouTube message that Cruz posted to the FBI. The FBI sent two agent from its nearest office to interview that person, to see if that person knew more about the individual doing the postings or if he had anymore details about it. Now, we don't know yet, but it's pretty clear that if the FBI took the trouble to send two agents to the person making the complaint, they probably did the same thing to the person that the complaint was about. But then again, like they do in these cases where someone says they are going to join ISIS or a neighbor says that I know this person. He is talking about traveling to the Middle East to join a terror group, in those cases, the FBI file is up, but they can only just expressing these bad thoughts. That is as far as they can really take it.
[Curnow:] And you talk about terrorism, and in many ways, this president in particular has scared people with the swift of terrorism, and the need for America to defend itself from outside terrorist or terrorist within, but in many ways, the real scourge facing ordinary citizens in America, a 19-year- old with big guns.
[Fuentes:] Well, the fact is, it is both. So when the president talks about international terrorism and the threat it could pose. What's radicalizing people in your country to take action drive over people with cars and do any number of methods of killing people, that is a legitimate threat and we are still facing it because the ideology in the postings are still out there. But what you're saying is true also. This is a threat also of mentally deranged individuals.
[Curnow:] And there is no political will to deal with that.
[Fuentes:] But the fact is, we could you know, you can do a count all of all of the terror acts that have been thwarted by the FBI and other federal and state...
[Curnow:] Exactly.
[Fuentes:] ... and local agencies, so we don't know what the body count would be.
[Curnow:] I am not minimizing the threat but I'm just saying, there seems to be, you know, some sort of disconnect between the perception of what is dangerous, because solutions are not being offered to fix these mass shootings. And I think that is the question that is still confuses many in the rest of the world. Tom Fuentes, we are watching the people walk towards what will be microphones at a press. Let's just talk and I might have to interrupt you if they take to the podium or the microphones.
[Fuentes:] OK.
[Curnow:] What happens next? Thoughts and prayers and we will wait for the next one.
[Fuentes:] Exactly. Thoughts and prayers we can't talk about the gun issues now. We have to wait until the period of mourning is over. We will talk about it later. And then of course later never comes because the next one, we have another shooting. Well, we can't talk about it during that shooting, we got to wait and talk about it later. So we keep, you know, putting off, even having this discussion, even having maybe the assembly of a blue ribbon commission...
[Curnow:] Tom, I'm just going to interrupt you and let's listen in on this press conference now.
[Sheriff Scott Israel, Broward County, Florida:] All of the victims' families have been notified. We will be releasing the names of those who lost their lives today. We will released throughout PIO in a very short period of time, but all of the families have been notified. Our detectives worked through the night on this very daunting and challenging task, but it had to be done. It was the right thing to do, and they work tirelessly. This community is hurting right now. There's going to be a lot of conversations over the nest couple of days and weeks and I'm going to be very animated about what I think this country can do to possibly prevent these tragedies in the future. Today is a day of healing. Today is a day of mourning. The suspect is in custody. He will be appearing before the first magistrate today at 2:00 p.m. at Broward County court house. This morning, we he begun working with the FBI, and you will be hearing for a special agent in-charge of the FBI, Rob Lasky in a few minutes. We are also working with the Florida department of law enforcement under the direction of Troy Walker. We will interview every single student or every person in that school that possibly knew something or might not know they knew something, and they will be thoroughly brief and we will make sure that we are able to prosecute this case, and the suspect has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. And law enforcement, we will do everything was can, the FBI, ourselves, to make sure that this person is convicted of all charges and that justice is served. Sadly, there have been copycat threats made today at other schools. We will respond to every threat. Every threat that we receive, we will not classify it as a copycat or a prank call. We will in full and investigate it. Any call that is made fictitiously, any fake call, any call that is made to take out resources at a time like this and place them in places where we don't need to be, we will do it the full power of the sheriff's office. We will investigate this and charge anyone accordingly with the maximum charge if we possibly could for doing something so horrific, so pathetic. Governor Scott is into come and speak, and then you're going to hear from Special Agent Lasky of the FBI. I will return to the microphone and answer some question. I think it is noteworthy that our next press conference, I will be releasing a timeline based on investigation and video that have captured as to what happened yesterday, and I'd like to take you through it on chronological order. We are now ready to do that at this time, bit when we are, we will be back here and we will release that. And now I would like to introduce Florida's governor, Rick Scott.
[Gov. Rick Scott , Florida:] Thank you, sheriff. Thank you for inviting the sheriff's department for all their hard work to make sure that one, this individual is, we have justice. And two, to make sure this never happens again. So I think everybody up here is going to say the same thing. We our hearts and prayers are with these families, and the families that early lost the loved ones, and that families that have loved ones still in the hospital. And [Inaudible], and then also, we want to make sure that this never happens again. Next week in Tallahassee, I'm going to sit down with state leaders, and we're going to have a real conversation about two things. How do we make sure when a parent is ready to send their child to school and in Florida, that parent knows that child is going to be safe. Number two, do we make sure this individual with mental illness do not touch a gun. We need to have a real conversation, so we have public safety for schools in the state. I have spoken with the Speaker Richard Corcoran and President Joe Negron, they're ready to provide the resources and have a real conversation about how do we maker sure that we have public safety. I want to make sure that my children and my grandchildren, yours, everybody in the state can wake up and be safe. I'm going to stay here and do everything I can, I know all the state resources are going to do a hearing. I know the attorney general, everyone is going to work heard and with the sheriff's department and school district to do everything we can to go forward, and violence has to stop losing another child in this country due violence in the school. There is the many families grieving right now. We've got to grieve with them, mourn with them but give them their space. There will be a time that someone want to want and tell their story but right now, it you talk to individuals and we went through this with the post attack, they want their own time grieve. So I want to thank everybody in the sheriff's department, [Inaudible], they are doing to keep people safe. I want to thank the attorney general for the victim advocates that are coming down here to be helpful.
[Robert Lasky, Fbi Special Agent In-charge:] Good morning, my name is Rob Lasky, special agent in-charge of the division at the FBI. First of all, I want to express the [Inaudible] to the victims, the families, friends, the entire community. We suffer the senseless and horrible act. The FBI continues to stand by throughout country sheriff's office to support them and give every [Inaudible] they need to investigate this heinous crime. In 2017, the FBI received information about a comment made in a YouTube channel. That comment simply said, I'm going to be a profession school shooter. No other information was included with the comment which will indicate a time, location or the true identity of the person who made the comment. The FBI conducted, data reviews, check, who enable to further identify the person who actually made the comment. Again, as native Floridian, my heart goes out to the victims of the families and friends of the entire community. Thank you.
[Israel:] I would like to bring up our superintended in schools, Ron Runcie.
[Ron Runcie, Broward County School Superintendent:] Again, we can't say this enough. Every minute of the day is focusing on how we can support our families, our students and our staff as we work through this horrific situation. We are providing grief counselors at several locations for our students, two in Parkland, two in Coral Springs and you know, we are doing everything that we can to make sure that we are supporting our students. We are also providing counselors on-site for students and staff [Inaudible] middle school which is near here, throughout the district, we are providing guidance to all of our schools on how to have conversations with our students on this particular event. I will tell you that students have been reaching out to me, reaching out to staff, every board members and others to say that now now is the time for this country to have a real conversation on sensible gun control laws in this country. So I still need to ask for that conversation. And I hope we can get it done in this general but if we don't, they will. The second I would say that the governor alluded to it, something that we can do now [Inaudible] in this legislative session is some real funding for mental health support for our youth and organizations in our community, so we can properly provide the kind of interventions. We should not have disconnected youth wandering around in our communities and we know that they need additional support. I get on the phone with members of the legislator, they are going to work with the leaders there and the governor to substantially increase the amount that are being put on the table right now for mental health services, so we can have more counselors, more psychologist, more family council, state workers in our schools are absolutely needed. The last thing I would say is that there have been a lot of inquiries as to where individuals to provide support. I want to thank everyone in the Broward community and around this country for your continued thoughts and prayers, acts of kindness that we see minute by minute. There is a GoFundMe account that has been set up as we talked about yesterday there have been a lot of fraudulent type of activities set up put there. So we worked to establish something that's credible so go find the account, [Inaudible]. Again, that's GoFundMe, that was fund with folks that made contributions, again, please keep our babies, our families and this entire community in your prayers as we go through this healing process. It's going to take quite a while for us to be able to do deal with this. But we are going to do everything we can, every day, the greatest amount of responsibility we can to make sure that we are supporting out families. Again I want to take out law enforcement agency, Sherriff Israel, the FBI, the first responders, they have been incredible. And I want to acknowledge some heroes that have been in our schools. We have an athletic director, campus monitor who responded immediately when there were signs of trouble in the school. Unfortunately, those two heroes gave their lives for our kids and help prevent this from being the worst tragedy than it is today. So we need to acknowledge the heroes that are in our school every single day, who are not only insuring that our kids are learning and [Inaudible], they need to have a bright future. They love them and treat them as if they are their own children. They out the put their lives on the line every single day and that's another thing that we need to do, so figure out how we can better compensate and reward teachers in this country, and just give service to the quality of work that they provide. Thank you.
[Israel:] As I said yesterday when our Attorney General Pam Bondi found out about this tragedy, having dealt with the Pulse nightclub and having a lot of expertise from this are. Unfortunately, she got on the plane and she was down here within hours, and help out going to help a lot of our families out. I would like bring her up here, so can tell you about some of the great things they are doing to try and help out families in Parkland.
[Pamela Bondi, Florida Attorney General:] Thank you, sheriff. Thank you, governor. And thank you, special agent. Last night, there were scenes going on. One at the actual crime scene and Broward Sheriff sources and the FBI, [Inaudible]. They were unbelievable, what they did send. That crime scene from a prosecution point of view was meticulously detailed process and it took as long as needed to take to make sure it was thoroughly process and accurately processed. The other scene was at the hotel where we were with the family members. Having to tell me that the FBI advocates that a child, some 14-years-old that it is one of the hardest things you have to do in your career. These parents, tremendous families are grieving. And again please respect their privacy. We were there until about 3:30 in the morning with these families. And many of them have siblings who are in the school and survived, and then a brother or a sister did not, that was extremely tragic. But we are praying for these families, we are going to continue to pray for these families and that justice is done for the one that brutally, brutally murdered, all of these students. My job now will continue to be, to help the victims and the families. We have gotten to all of the victims who have lost loved ones, to be sure that we can help pay for their funeral expenses. If you are in the hospital with your family, we will be coming to you today to help you to make sure we help with your hospital bill. So you have nothing to worry about. They are we also will be on scene with the FBI and the superintendent who have done a great job. Our advocates will be there to provide counseling. END