Machete Wielding Man Attacks Ohio Restaurant
KEILAR: Four people are injured and a suspect is dead following a terrifying machete attack in an Ohio deli. Investigators haven't confirmed a motive for the attack but they also haven't ruled out terrorism and they say it's possible that the attacker was a so- called lone wolf. CNN national correspondent Deb Feyerick has been following this story. What's the latest here, Deb?</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We can tell you, Brianna, that one of the reasons the Columbus Police Department reached out so quickly to the FBI is because there were certain red flags that were raised that caused significant concern. First of all, this was a lone individual, a machete was used, and it seemed to be a random attack in a public place.</s>FEYERICK (voice-over): The attack happened at the Nazareth Middle Eastern restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some guy pulled out a machete and started stabbing people. I ran out with my kids.</s>FEYERICK: A man with a machete attacked and injured four people, one of them critically.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: it was the table right in front of me. He just started attacking people.</s>KAREN BASS, WITNESS: I thought it was a personal thing and then he just started down the row hitting everybody with something. I don't know, there was -- people were bleeding.</s>FEYERICK: Officials say the attacker is 30-year-old Mohamed Barry. He's of Somali origin and has a drug-related criminal record. The FBI is looking into Barry's recent travel and any potential links to jihad. The restaurant is owned by an Israeli Arab Christian. Hany Baransi tells the "Columbus Dispatch" the attacker was apparently inside the restaurant asking an employee about him.</s>HANY BARANSI, OWNER: I understood that he left, came back 30 minutes later and attacked a person and then start slicing up people down the booths.</s>FEYERICK: People inside the restaurant fought back, some of them throwing chairs. Another confronting the suspect.</s>SGT. RICHARD WEINER, COLUMBUS POLICE: Nobody inside from the people that we've spoken to, whether it be some of the patrons or the employees, nobody said that they knew him.</s>FEYERICK: The suspect fled, driving off with multiple police cruisers chasing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trying to get out of the vehicle. He's getting ready to go again. He's moving in.</s>FEYERICK: Police say they got the suspect to stop. He tried escaping out of the passenger door with his weapons.</s>WEINER: He had a machete and another knife in his hand and he lunged across the hood at the officers. Another officer in a cruiser fired a couple of shots at him and put him down.</s>FEYERICK: One person initially critical was rushed into surgery and is now listed in stable condition.</s>FEYERICK: And the FBI is investigating this as a possible act of terrorism, but they haven't ruled out the possibility that it could also be a hate crime -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: All right, Deb Feyerick, thank you for that report. I do want to dig deeper on this now. Very disturbing story. We have our law enforcement experts here to discuss this. We're joined by CNN justice reporter Evan Perez and we have CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, he is a former FBI assistant director. Do we know anything else, Evan? Are investigators learning anything more about the motivation behind this?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the more interesting things about this is the fact that about 30 minutes before this attack, Brianna, the attacker, Barry, went into the restaurant and apparently asked about the owner. Apparently the restaurant is decorated with the Israeli flags. The owner is Israeli, but he is an Arab Christian, and so one of the possibilities that investigators are pursuing is that the attacker thought that he was attacking a Jewish- owned business, an Israeli Jewish-owned business. It turns out it was an Arab Christian business that he was attacking and it may have just been a case of mistaken identity. So that's one of the avenues and one of the reasons why they're looking at this as possible terrorism.</s>KEILAR: So where does that leave investigators, Tom, between looking at this as a hate crime or as a lone wolf terrorist act?</s>TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, in the beginning, Brianna, they're not going to have a theory to go on. I mean, they don't want to be, you know, tainted in any direction so they're going to obtain the Internet records, the phone records, talk to friends, neighbors, work colleagues of his and try and find out if there's any indication of what the true motive was. So for now they're just investigating trying to see what it is. As Evan said, it could be -- that could qualify as a terrorist act, it could qualify as a hate crime or it might be a garden variety psychopath and we have plenty of those running around.</s>KEILAR: Yes, certainly we've seen that. All right, Tom, Evan, thank you guys so much. And coming up, investigators are digging into a chilling new video that shows a sophisticated laptop bomb moments before it was planted on an airliner. How did the explosive get through airport security?