‘Extremely frightening’: Wolf Blitzer sees gunman open fire a few feet away

[0:00] Wolf Blitzer, we see you as well. We know that you witnessed this gunman in action, and you have [0:06] stated that the gunman was firing as they were brought to the ground, but you were unclear [0:12] in the direction to which the gunman was firing. Could you describe the clothing or the weapon [0:20] that you saw from the gunman from your vantage point? Is that a question for me? It's Wolf. Yes, [0:27] Wolf. I just saw a big gun. I don't know what kind of weapon it was, and I heard the loud, [0:34] the loud bangs that were going off. It was extremely frightening. I was only a few feet away. [0:39] It was a total coincidence. I was walking back to the ballroom. We were on one floor above the [0:45] ballroom. You had to go downstairs to go back into the ballroom, but the gunman was clearly on the [0:50] secure side of the metal detectors. I don't know how he got through, if he got through, [0:55] if he had been there earlier, but he was armed. He was firing, and police were there, and they [1:01] were on top of him within a minute or so, and then they were on top of me to protect me as if [1:07] I could have been shot, too. So it was just a very frightening moment, and I'm not surprised at [1:14] all that they've called off the whole evening out of an abundance of caution, knowing that at least [1:19] one individual armed with a weapon had managed to get a few feet away from the door to the ballroom. [1:27] He was not in the ballroom. He was outside the ballroom, one floor up, a few stairs up, but it was [1:35] clearly a very dangerous situation. In a situation like that, you don't take any chances because you [1:40] don't know if he was acting alone, if there were others involved with him, and what was going on. So I'm now in [1:47] the lobby of the Washington Hilton Hotel, and all the people who were inside are slowly but surely [1:52] taking the escalator up, and they're getting ready to leave and see if they could get a ride home [1:57] one way or another. The security going into the event tonight was incredible. I had never seen [2:03] security around the Washington Hilton Hotel for a White House Correspondents Association dinner or for [2:09] any other major dinner as tight as it was tonight, and I've been to about 30 of these White House [2:14] Correspondents Association dinners over the years that I've been with CNN, and it was just [2:20] very, very, very intense, and I have no idea if there were any indications that something like [2:27] this could happen, but I know that security was beefing up potentially for something, and something [2:33] happened. But the shots were fired just outside the door to the ballroom. The shooter did not get into [2:41] the ballroom, was shooting one floor up, the stairs leading to the ballroom, and it was just [2:49] enormously loud, difficult to comprehend what was going on, and I'm sure we'll be learning a whole lot [2:57] more about the suspect, what was going on, if there was a motive or whatever. But when the cops saw me [3:04] only a few feet away from the shooter, they threw me to the ground and got on top of me to protect me, [3:11] and then after a few minutes, they picked me up and took me away to a secure room, the men's room, [3:17] which was not very far away, and there were about 15 other men already inside who were just trying to [3:22] stay secure in the face of the gunshots that were going off. And I think I heard at least three, [3:28] maybe six gunshots. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it was just enormously loud. I had no idea what was [3:35] going on. And for, you know, initially, when the cop pushed me down, I said to myself, I wonder if, you [3:43] know, I was a target or whatever. And I, thank God I wasn't, because I was not shot. I was just thrown to the [3:50] ground and protected to make sure that there were no gunshots aimed at me. So it was just a coincidence [3:58] that I happened to have been there walking back to the ballroom when all of this took place. And it [4:05] was just a frightening moment indeed. And people are still here at the hotel. They're trying to get [4:10] out of here. They want to go home. I don't blame them. And it's just, you know, a scary, scary [4:17] situation. You can watch as it's unfolding right now. You're going to see from the left part of [4:21] your screen in a moment. Yeah, this is the first time that we are seeing this on the big monitor [4:24] and the first time we are playing this at CNN. Okay. You can see how quickly and you see the area [4:31] that they appear to be near. We were told earlier in the presence of a magnetometer, look at the [4:36] number of agents with weapons drawn who are running and pursuing this person. And again, note the very [4:42] quick pace from which this person has moved. And again, we do not see the shooting of a Secret [4:48] Service member. We do have a picture of the suspect on the ground. If we can show that as well in the [4:57] screen that shows the suspect without clothing on, which seems to be, which frankly is a normal course [5:04] of business to remove to see if there's any threat under their clothing and beyond. But let's, [5:08] let's bring in John Miller to talk more about this. John Miller. Again, we're seeing the photo of [5:12] that suspect on the ground. We don't know if the suspect was shot because we're getting conflicting [5:16] reports on that. It was hard to tell that photo if he was wounded. You have some new reporting. [5:21] Why don't you give that to us first? And then I do want to ask you to analyze the video. So first, [5:25] your new reporting. Sure. I mean, we've been looking into this individual since early on in this. And [5:34] you know, the picture that emerges of the man who's in custody is a 31 year old man from Torrance, [5:40] California. He is a graduate of California State University from Dominguez Hills. He seems to go on [5:48] from there to Caltech. He does a volunteer program at the Jet Propulsion Lab, looking at his social [5:56] media, looking at his posts, what he what he plays as as a nerd, techie, doesn't scream assassin, [6:07] can't find controversial posts. He likes some other people's posts complaining about layoffs in [6:15] Washington of federal employees and things like that. But he doesn't, his social media doesn't tell [6:22] us much about him. So the picture that emerges is not what you might expect from your typical [6:29] assassin. But then again, look back at the other people who've been involved in these things. And [6:35] there if you've met one one attempted assassin, you've met one attempted assassin. [6:41] And John, the president did say he has no reason to believe this individual was motivated by Iran. [6:47] That's the one bit of information he gave us. And he was quite dismissive about that. He's I don't [6:51] think so. I don't think there's any reason to think that what he was motivated by is still to be [6:55] determined. We will learn. Now, John, I don't know if you've had a chance to see the video the president [7:00] put out. We played it. We'll play it again here of this individual running past the security. Just [7:07] tell us what you see with your trained eye here. So he's running at breakneck speed. And you see the [7:15] first agent who he is running towards literally spins out of the way while drawing his gun at the [7:22] same time and then shots are fired. This happens in less than seconds. These are milliseconds in [7:29] terms of the reaction time. And you can see by the way they move forward and are now reholstering their [7:36] weapons that he is down, which means either he was shot and wounded by that gunfire or other secret [7:44] service agents ahead of them out of frame tackled him. But either way, he was taken down fairly [7:52] immediately after he ran by at that high speed. And I'm Jeff Carroll, Interim Chief of Police for [7:57] the Metropolitan Police Department. This afternoon, this evening, members of the United States Secret [8:02] Service and the Metropolitan Police Department were here at the Washington Hotel for a site detail for [8:08] the Correspondence Center. As the mayor mentioned, at approximately 836 tonight, an individual charged a [8:15] US Secret Service checkpoint here in the lobby area of the hotel. He was armed with a shotgun, a handgun [8:22] and multiple knives. As he ran through that checkpoint, members of law enforcement from the United States [8:28] Secret Service intercepted that individual. This is a very preliminary investigation at this point. [8:33] We do know that law enforcement exchanged gunfire with the individual. We do know that a US Secret [8:39] Service Unicorn Division officer was struck in his vest. He was transported to a local hospital for [8:45] treatment. He seems to be in good spirits at this time. The suspect in this case, he was not struck [8:51] by gunfire. However, he was transported to a local hospital to be evaluated. Again, we're very early in [8:58] the investigation. We have members of the United States Secret Service, the Metropolitan Police Department [9:03] and the FBI here to continue to investigate this matter. But at this point, it does appear he is a lone [9:09] actor, a lone gunman that does not appear to be any sort of danger to the public at this time. However, [9:14] we are continuing to investigate this matter. At this point, I will turn it over to I believe the FBI. [9:21] Hi, good evening. I'm Darren Cox, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field [9:30] office. The American public should be proud of the quick response and heroic actions from law [9:36] enforcement officers tonight to keep the American public safe. Their actions are absolutely heroic. [9:43] The public should also rest assured that there will be no stone unturned during this investigation. [9:50] The FBI currently has our Joint Terrorism Task Force here on scene along with our criminal division, [9:57] our crisis response team and agents from across the country are working on any leads that may come in [10:05] in this investigation. Anyone with tips in this investigation should call 1-800-CALL-FBI. Thank you. [10:13] Director, Director Kern. Thank you. My name is Sean Kern, the director of the Secret Service. Tonight, [10:23] we saw exactly what our brave men and women do each and every day to protect our protectees. It's not easy. [10:30] And I will tell you that they performed admirably. We got to see what they do. And that individual, [10:36] when he charged a checkpoint, was apprehended. It shows that our multi-layered protection works. [10:43] And I'm grateful to our partners that help assist us with building these sites and protecting these [10:48] sites. Very fortunate that this officer is alive, is being observed. And I'm grateful that the president [10:58] reached out to this officer and spoke with him earlier. I ask everybody to pray for him and all of [11:03] our officers and agents that were involved. And I will tell you, we will continue with the mission. [11:08] Thank you. Judge Pirro. I'm Jeanine Pirro. I'm the United States Attorney. Right now, [11:19] the defendant is being charged with two counts, 924C, using a firearm during a crime of violence, [11:28] and a second crime under 111, which is assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon. Now, [11:36] as you all know, there was an individual, a uniformed Secret Service officer, who was shot. [11:42] Unfortunately, he is doing all right and he will be fine. But it is clear, based upon what we know [11:49] so far, that this individual was intent on doing as much harm and as much damage as he could. [11:56] And thankfully, because of the checkpoint right outside the ballroom, where thousands of people [12:02] were situated to hear the President of the United States, because that checkpoint worked, [12:08] there was no one who was injured when it was clear where this defendant was going. Now, I want to make [12:15] one comment. As a participant, someone who was in the ballroom, who came this evening to be part of a [12:23] very lovely event at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, I, for the first time, was in a situation [12:31] where there were shots fired, shots heard, and a whole room went silent. When I lifted my head, [12:40] and when I looked up, every law enforcement officer was out there, as we all had our heads down, [12:48] thousands of them. These are the men and women every day who do what they do silently, [12:55] and they do it with courage and with dignity. Thank God for our partners. The FBI, the Secret [13:03] Service, the Metropolitan Police, all of them tonight acted so quickly that they prevented what could have [13:12] been a horrific event where we were all sitting there in one room. The defendant will be arraigned on [13:21] Monday in Federal District Court. But make no mistake, there will be many more charges based upon the [13:28] information that we are learning in this very fluid situation. Thank you.