Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin 20180215

Counts of firstdegree murder and the contents of the sworn affidavit by detectives, citing the actions of the defendant in going to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School on february 14th, 2018, with a premeditated design in that he went loaded with an ar15 rifle. He had additional ammunition with him and shot 17 individuals who later died as a result of the gun shot wounds. And then he fled the scene. So the state is seeking a no bond hold on the defendant. Defense . Your honor, the defense has no arguments at this time. Well defer until further court proceedings. His right to remain silent and that noisks relates to any Law Enforcement agencies involved in this case, both at a state and federal level. Okay. I have reviewed the probable cause affidavit. Mr. Cruz, filed in your case. I find probable cause and the proof of guilt to be evident or the presumption great. Therefore, mr. Cruz, youll be held without bond until further order of the court. This order is without prejudice for you to file a motion to set bond with your signed Division Judge and request a hearing under state v. Arthur. Has he been assigned a judge yet . Yes, your honor, judge sh aechlt rs. Sir, youll be held no bond. All right. Lets go back to we have to wait for them to bring him back. There you have it. Mere seconds of taking a look at the man who has been charged, facing 17 counts of premeditated murder about the School Shooting that we were talking about 24 hours ago today. Im Brooke Baldwin here, live in parkland, florida. Lets just start with what we just saw paul callan as one of our cnn legal analysts. Paul, that was mighty quick in front of the magistrate, being held without bond. Walk us through what we just saw. No surprises here. This is the first appearance in a murder case. And in a murder case, you appear first before this kind of a local magistrate, who really focuses only on the issue of whether bail should be granted. She analyzed really two things in looking at the case, whether there was probable cause that he committed the crime, and the prosecutor indicated theres a very strong showing of probable cause since they have witnesses he shot 17 people and that it was premeditated because of his use of the ar15. Shot and killed 17 people. Shot many more people. I just want to be exact. Yes. Thats an interesting observation, brooke. I was surprised that the prosecutor only referred to the murder counts, which were 17. Yes, there are lots of other victims in this shooting. She indicated that because its a charge of premeditated murder with a strong presumption of guilt that no bond would be allowed. So, thats it. And under florida law he will appear in front of another judge, whom she mentioned at the end at a later date and there will be a determination where there will be a preliminary hearing and well see more evidence or whether this will be a grand jury presentation. Paul callan, thank you so much for that. And if you are just joining us, appreciate you. If you are just joining us, since the nation lost victims as young as 6 in sandy hook elem t Elementary School i stand today at Marjorie Stoneman douglas high. 17 people were murdered here, 14 others wounded and four still in critical condition. There is pain, there is grief. Just as palpable is the frustration that this uniquely american torment mass murder by a single shooter has happened again. Earlier today, we heard from President Trump who tried to console the nation, speaking directly to young people in this country, saying he is seeking solutions but with no mention of gun laws. Later this month, i will be meeting with the nations governors and attorney generals. Were making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority. It is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. We must actually make that difference. This is the gunman we saw in front of the magistrate. He did send out red flags but not just one, two, multiple, unequivocal signs of trouble online. The fbi knew about two alleged threats from this particular suspect, former student who by the way, had been expeled from Douglas High School. 2017 youtube post where he wrote, apparently, and just quoting him, im going to be a professional school shooter. And you see the post list his name, which i am not standing here today repeating or saying out loud but i will say a short time ago the fbi said this. No other information was included with that comment, which would indicate a time, location or true identity of the person who made the comment. The fbi conducted database reviews, checks, but was unable to further identify the person who actually made the comment. As we learn more about what exactly happened here, the high School Remains closed. Its students are coming to grips or starting to try to come to grips with exactly what and who has been lost. Listen to this freshman talk about this slain teacher she believes actually saved her life. He still will forever be my hero. I wont forget the actions he took for me and fellow students in the classroom. If his family is watching this, please know that your son or your brother was an amazing person and i am alive today because of him. As i mentioned, the suspected shooter was in court today. Cnns brian todd is outside the Broward County courthouse in ft. Lauderdale. You have, brian, new details about the suspects ties to extremism. What have you learned . Brooke, the Antidefamation League says a spokesperson for a florida based white supremacist group, a group called the republic of florida a spokesperson for that group says the suspect has ties to that group. The spokesperson for that group, republic of florida telling the Antidefamation League that the suspect conducted training exercises, took part in training exercises with that group but the spokesperson saying that the group did not expect or ask or order him to commit any kind of a crime like the one we saw yesterday. So, thats kind of another piece of the background were learning about this suspect in this case, the Antidefamation League, talking about his ties, his possible ties to a florida white supremacist group. Again, brooke, talking about his appearance here in court today, we knew it was going to be very brief. We knew that the judge would talk to him about the charges against him. This was not going to be an arraignment. It wont come for some weeks, were told, and that the judge we spoke to a local very prominent, local defense attorney, mark omeara. He said that he expected this is before the hearing. He expected the judge to either limit or not allow the suspect to speak at all. And that seems to be what came to pass. He said that the judge may or may not have asked him how he intended to plead in this case but that the judge may not ask him that because the judge really wanted to limit him to either saying something very few words or no words at all. And the judge elected to not have him say any words at all. We were expecting the judge to appoint an interim defense attorney for him, possibly a public defender. There was an attorney standing next to him as he stood there in an orange jump suit and shackles in the courtroom, a very brief Court Appearance. He is being held without bond until further notice. Brooke . All right. Brian, thank you so much. If you get more, let us know. Meantime, did you know that parkland, florida, right here, was actually ranked the number one safest city in all of florida for 2017 . The number one ranking, coming from a prominent trade group specializing in home safety. Now students at Marjorie Stoneman douglas high are dealing with trauma. A junior at the school joins me now, connor dietrich. I am so sorry. That doesnt begin to cover it. How are you holding up . Its really hard. People i see every day, i cant see them anymore. My team captain from my swim and dive team didnt make it. You lost friends . Many friends. His brother is in the hospital. Every single day of my life people i see im never going to see again. Do you want to talk about them at all . Nick, my swim team captain, was there for you, cheering you on, he was making sure you had everything you need at your meet. He just cared so much about everyone on our team. Its awful that this happened to him. He didnt deserve it. Do you think its hit you fully . No. I spent a lot of time in the classroom. I was sitting there in shock. In the hallway i was in chicago. I got out of the school yesterday and broke down, i didnt feel like i even had to cry. It just happened. Of course. I found my mom and dad and i had never been so happy to hug them in my entire life. Im sure they felt the exact same. Lets go back a second. You were in a classroom. At first i wasnt in a classroom. When he pulled the fire alarm, i went running around, trying to find out where i was supposed to be and got lock ed out of my classroom with a couple of other kids. We were all stuck in the hallway running. We didnt know where he was. How did you know there was a he . You heard shots . Yeah. Did you think instantly oh, my god those are gun shots or did you think those were balloons popping . How would you even know what it would sound like . I thought it was a drill. They told us that Police Officers would be firing blanks to get us trained for this. No one took it seriously until i heard screaming, the worst screaming youll ever hear. Thats when you knew . Yeah. We finally got a teacher to let us into a room. What did you do, hunker down . We sat in the corner with all the lights off, kids were crying, calling their parents. We had to tell a couple of kids to get loud. We were trying to figure out whats going on. It was awful. You were having to quiet peoples cries because you were worried that the shooter would hear . Yeah. Your parents, you mentioned you were thrilled to give them hugs. You were in a very unique position because, connor, your parents are Police Officers. Yeah. Not only were they, of course, hearing about the shooting at Douglas High School, but theyre thinking of you. How are they doing . Well, they actually drove all the way over here from ft. Lauderdale really fast they got here fast. I texted them. They were on their way as soon as they got word from me. My dad was the one who went up with the s. W. A. T. Team and got me out of my classroom, walked me over to my mom. She was standing there full uniform with all her protection and everything. Its overwhelming to see that many cops but i grew up around all those people. Everyone else might have been a little scared by them. I was so excited to see them because i knew they were there to help. It was home for you. Yeah. Tell me about that hug. Tell me about seeing your parents. I never hugged my mom so hard, for so long in my entire life. We were both in tears. I was so excited to see her. I was saying my goodbyes over text message to everyone i loved because i was in the hallway. No, you were not. Yeah. You were telling people goodbye . I love you and whatever happens i appreciate everything you did and making sure they knew that i love this had emwith all my heart. Connor you thought you were going to not walk out of that school . Yeah. I was in that hallway. It wasnt even more than five minutes but the gunshots stopped and my building was right next to where he was. All he had to do was walk up the stairs and would have found all of us. You eventually got out because s. W. A. T. Came and got you . Yes. Wow one of my producers told me that you actually did you know of the shooter or you knew his exgirlfriend, who had expressed worries . When i was a freshman. I dont remember the girls name. I just remember being in a situation, sitting in class and talking about this guy who would not leave her alone and was threatening her and it was nick, the kid who did it. I didnt think anything of it at the time. I didnt know him or anything. But i kept hearing more and more of how he was sketchy and he shouldnt you know, a danger to a lot of people. Apparently he was posting things that a lot of students see. We were all really blindsided by this. He doesnt go here no anymore. He was last person they expected to do it. He was expeled . Yeah. Was he fighting or why was he expelled . From what i heard he was fighting his exgirlfriends new boyfriend. How old are you . 17. Youre 17. You should not be standing here with me having this conversation about losing friends at 17 years of age. No one in this country should. When i listen to the president earlier today, i dont know if you a chance to listen to the president s message to the country. He spoke directly to young people like you and said we need to secure our schools and keep young people safe. He talked in a tweet about Mental Illness of the shooter. But not once mentioned guns, gun laws. Do you have anything to say . I mean, i dont think the gun itself killed everyone. I think he pulled the trigger. I dont think he should have ever had the ability to get the guns he had. There should have been much more background checks. He passed it. He passed the background check, from what i understand it. I dont know what they could have done to prevent this. I just feel like they need to go further in depth. Who is the they, congress . Yeah. Congress. Everyone needs to make sure this doesnt happen again, everything we can. Connor dietrich, thank you so much. Im glad youre okay. Thank you, thank you. Moments from now, we are expecting a News Conference with the Broward County sheriffs office, by the way. Perhaps a little more on the timeline as the sheriff alluded to this morning. Also more on the mini red flags surrounding the shooting suspect, including the trail he left on social media. Im Brooke Baldwin. Youre watching cnn special coverage live from parkland, florida. With more than 150 ethnic regions to connect to. Its the perfect time to find out where your greatness comes from. Save 30 at ancestrydna. Com. Today, a focus on innovation in the Southern Tier is helping build the new new york. Starting with advanced manufacturing that brings big ideas to life. And cuttingedge Transportation Development to connect those ideas to the world. Along with urban redevelopment projects worthy of the worlds top talent. 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Get medical help right away if you have trouble breathing, fast heartbeat, extreme drowsiness, swelling of your face, tongue, or throat, dizziness or confusion. Ask your Health Care Provider if youre tresiba® ready. Covered by most insurance and medicare plans. Tresiba® ready welcome back. Youre watching cnn. Im Brooke Baldwin here in parkland, florida. Authorities believe a suspect accused of the mass shooting here at this high school pulled the fire alarm, forcing students out of the classroom and then, they say, that is when he moved in. I want to play some video for you. Just a warning, what youre about to hear and see is disturbing. Holy [ muted ]. [ gunshots fired ] oh, my god the Broward County sheriff says the man behind that terror you just heard was expelled from the high school here in parkland. He was adopted. His it adoptive father died more than ten years ago and his adoptive mother passed away just three months ago, apparently due to complications from the flu. The 19yearold man bought his ar15 style weapon legally, passed his background check. He not only had multiple rounds but reportedly he had a gas mask as well as smoke grenades on him when they caught him. With me now, parkland mayor and analyst charles ramsey, who used to lead the Police Forces in washington and with us carrie cordero. Apparently they were warned not just once, but twice, the fbi. We keep talking about this Youtube Video where the shooter posted a comment saying i want to be a professional school shooter. Hearing the fbi today, they said they followed up with the person who posted the Youtube Video, talked to that person but couldnt quite get an accurate i. D. On this individual as he posted this comment and then just how does that work when youre Law Enforcement, when people are doing all the right things and they let it go . Thats something that certainly is going to have to be looked into, to find exactly what information did they have and what did they do with the information . Did they even pass it on to local authorities . Perhaps they didnt have, you know time. The local Law Enforcement is saying it was not passed along. Well, thats a question. I mean, it should be. It should be passed on. Thats not uncommon, to get information from the fbi. Usually its through your joint Terrorism Task force where you get that kind of information to follow up on. Why that wasnt done, i have absolutely no idea. Carrie, same question to you. Again, you know, fbi, how can you not get an accurate i. D. Someone when hes posting, using his own name . It brings a lot of questions. Obviously there will be an after action report. No one wants to criticize Law Enforcement when theyre in the moment of responding to a major event like this. Of course not. But there are legitimate questions about what they knew about the individual and whether they took all the steps that were available to them. The fbi can conduct whats called a threat assessment. There are legitimate questions about whether they took all the investigative steps that are available to them under a threat assessment to do everything that they could to identify someone like this. And if they didnt, then that information needs to be brought to light and there needs to be further on training to make sure everyone in the Law Enforcement chain understands what information they can gather and what information they are allowed to share. But, like i said, at least the fbi followed up with the individual who posted the youtube to which the shooter commented. Not only rang this person but went and found this person face to face and had a conversation. Again, the comment on this youtube post was, i want to become a professional school shooter. At what point when Law Enforcement, in general, runs into brick walls do they just say, well, cant find him . So there is it would be a lead. Theres some specific questions that need to be asked about this. Did the office, the field office that took the original tip, did they pass that to the appropriate field office in south florida . What did the office in south florida do with it . They can do public records checks. They can go out and do interviews. What steps did they take to try to interview the individual, according to the posting thats been shared on cnn of what the social media post was. It used his true name, the assailant. Did they interview him, do any of the database checks available to them under their guidelines that are appropriate to do . These are all questions that need to be asked and should be asked. Okay. Mayor, forgive my frustration. Im sick of talking about these School Shootings. Its a matter of, it seems, that people rung the right alarm bells. These kids went through the proper drills and still this happened. I want to focus, though, on those who lost their lives and those still sitting in the hospital. You spent a bit of your, what, evening, morning talking to parents and folks in this community. Can you tell me a couple of stories . Yeah. Its very devastating. The worst fear as a parent is for something to happen to your child. And its just been heartwrenching to see the parents dealing with this right now. And something theyre dealing with something that if you look around at our city its something you would never expect in our city. Were a very closeknit city, very family oriented. Lots of volunteering going on in our city. This is not the city you would expect this to happen in. Without naming names, could you tell me an anec krchlanecdo someone you talked to, a parent, a student . Whats stuck with you today . How long it took for them to be notified. They being parents . The parents, yeah. It was a long process. At 1 30, 2 00 a. M. , they were still waiting to be notified. And my heart broke for them. As if this wasnt difficult enough to go through. I dont know how they even held it together, to be honest. And i will never forget that waiting. I think of First Responders, people who saw things theyll never be able to unsee. You know how that goes. On this shooter. Im not saying his name. He is talking to investigators. Yeah. Is that a good sign . Does that mean hes cooperating or not necessarily . Its a good sign, obviously, but you still have to verify everything he tells you. One of the things youre going to want to know is if anybody else knew of his plans. Did he have any assistance at all . You have to verify everything to make sure hes not trying to cover for somebody, everything hes saying is 100 accurate. That may be the case. I dont know at this point in time. These are skilled interrogators. Theyll be able to get to the bottom of it to find out whether he was telling the truth or not. Charles ramsey, madam mayor, thank you very much. Carrie cordero as well. Well talk to the mother who joined me on the phone yesterday afternoon as this was all unfolding live. Remember, she was talking about her daughter who was in that classroom and waiting for her to walk through that back door. Well talk to that mom coming up next. And, any moment now, speaking of First Responders, they will be holding a News Conference. We, of course, will take it live. Youre watching cnn. Well be right back. Hang on a second. Im being told they may begin momentarily on the News Conference of the First Responders. Were going to stay on this. Chief ramsey, as we look at these pictures here, lets talk a little bit. I remember being instantly think of pulse nightclub where i talked to the fire chief there, who described what his guys and gals saw, went through. No amount of years ever prepares you for what youre about to see and do. Right. There are a lot of people who are traumatized when you have an incident like that, and that includes the First Responders. I was a policeman for 47 years and went to a lot of homicide scenes. Going to the scene of a school, 17 dead, children, teachers. Thats going to get to you. Forgive me. They are beginning. Spelling of my name is michael. Last name hardman. Coral creek neighboring city next to park land. To give you insight as to what happened at my day, i was at Police Department in Coconut Creek when the call came out. I decided to come over and help in any way that i could. When i arrived to the area, there was a heavy presence of officers, Emergency Personnel and i decided to expand my search for this individual that was still on the loose. We had been given information via the radio as to what he had been wearing. This information was provided to the radio dispatch. I decided to travel in some of the residential areas located near the school and as i traveled down one of the back roads, heavily residential area, i happened to come across just myself. There was not a lot of people out. Couple of people walking their dogs in the area. As i continued down this roadway, i discovered an individual walking on the sidewalk that was wearing the clothing description that had been given over the radio. He looked like a Typical High School student and for a quick moment, i thought could this be the person . Is this who i need to stop . Training kicked in. I pulled my vehicle over immediately, engaged the susp t suspect. He complied with my commands and was taken into custody without any issues. Did he have the weapon with him . I cant comment on that. The investigation is ongoing. I would like to take this time to express my gratitude for my brothers and sisters in Law Enforcement, Emergency Services that have put all their heart and soul into this. This is what we train for. We hope this never happens. But i just want to thank them. I want to thank them for all their services and everything that they do. My condolences to the families that have loved ones that have been lost. Thank you for your time. Hi. My name is frank babinec. Im the fire chief for the Coral Springs parkland fire department. Before i start off with how this went for us yesterday, i would like to tell all the residents of parkland and Coral Springs that from all the men and women of our department that we are very sorry for what theyre going through. Our firefighters share in their grief. They feel for them. They feel with them. We are part of the community and we are here to protect them during the event and we will be here to protect them after the event. Yesterday just before 2 30 p. M. , we received a call for a possible active Shooter Event at Stoneman Douglas high school. As we started our response, we really werent sure if this was a real event or not. We get calls like this once in a while and they turn out to be nonreal calls, which is a good thing. As we began to respond, we got more and more information that made this more and more real for us. Myself, along with several other chief officers and fire personnel were responding to the scene. As we got to the scene, we had to set up an appropriate command post and triage area to deal with the amount of possible patients that we were going to have. As we approached the scene and got set up, we got information that there may be patients on the west side of the building. I went around to investigate that, where we did locate one victim and removed him from that area. And i returned to the command post. I can tell you that all the First Responders train for events like this. We hope we never have to use it. We hope we never have to use that training. This is a horrible event. But im very, very proud of all of the firefighter paramedics, all the First Responders, the e. R. Folks, everybody that treated these patients did it with such a high level of professionalism and readiness that i cannot say enough about. I want to thank you guys for allowing this opportunity and our firefighters can never our First Responders can never unsee what they say yesterday. We will work with them to make sure they get the resources they need to get through this as part of the community. Thank you. Can you tell us about the victim you encountered . Thank you. We are going to come out of that in exactly the point we were just making. None of these First Responders, firefighters, Police Officers, no matter how many years they have under their belts i have talked to them through my years in journalism. Nothing will prepare them. I want to bring in someone really special, lissette rozenblatt, who i was on the phone with this time yesterday. The nation was hanging on your every word, as was i. Yeah. About your daughter. Yes. How are you . How is she . Thankfully, were fine. We were blessed. She came home. I have never been so happy to see her. It was a horrifying i think when i was on the last interview at that point, i didnt know where she was. It was 20, 30 minutes that i had lost contact with her. Her last text at about 2 48, at exactly 2 48 she told me that she was terrified, that she was hiding and that to please call 911. She told me that there was somebody hurt. She kept hearing somebody crying out. She said it was a spanishspeaking student and she heard them crying and praying. So she knew someone had gotten shot on her floor. Its terrifying. You never think this is going to happen in your town, in a good school. Number one most safe city in all of florida. Exactly. Im grateful. Our family is absolutely blessed but our hearts are broken for all those victims. Its so hard. The hardest part is going to be how do you get them back to school . My youngest, who is in Elementary School, he didnt want to go to school today. Lissette, how do you explain to an any kid in this country but an Elementary School aged kid, whose older sisters went to this high school. Go to this high school. Right. How did you explain that . You dont. Unfortunately, you dont. You hug them and you tell them that you love them and, unfortunately, this is the kind of world were living in today. If we dont do something now to take action, this is going to keep happening, whether its Mental Health, terrorism, whatever. There are guns out there that are automatic weapons that should not be in the hands of civilians. Thats what it boils down to. Greed, money, nra, politicians taking money from the nra. As parents, the ultimate goal is to keep our children safe and sending them to school should not be like sending them to a war zone. It shouldnt be like that. Im more nervous about having to send my kids back to school on monday. So theyre going back monday . Thats my plan. It may not be the academic, correct thing to do. But definitely my daughter obviously, the school is closed. Shes not going back. My son who is in Elementary School, hes petrified. He was so worried. He saw my name, saw me on an interview. Thats how he found out. We were on an interview. You were live on cnn and i kept saying to you, get off the phone with me when she walks in your back door. She took almost three hours to get home. I sent him to my neighbors house. So grateful for them. He literally, after a while, saw the interview and my name scrolling and heard what happened. He came running home just crying, so scared for his sister. I was like, i promise you, shes okay. Shes okay. Can you tell me the phone dropped and i was hoping that meant that she came home. Can you tell me about that moment . It was amazing. My inclination as i studied broadcasting as well, was to just film it and but i didnt. I watch mied kids. Her older sister was there, younger son was there. And i hugged all of them at the same time. It was just such a relief. She was just drained. She was just drained. How do you explain to people ive covered a few of these. You hear the parents say i never, ever, ever thought this would happen in my school or my community and then it does. And then it does again. How do you explain to people who have never gone through this kind of grief and worry every minute . Its unreal. Not knowing. What did that feel like . There are no words. I pride myself in trying to be pretty emotionally composed and those 20, 30 minutes, i lost it. I was hysterical. There are no words. Theres nothing you can say. And im blessed. Those parents who are not as lucky i woke up this morning with an empty feeling. As a parent how could thats the thing. How can politicians not feel like the parents . Theyve got to know what this feels like. Some of them do. Absolutely. There are those who absolutely do. But we all have to work together. Politicians, the community, everybody. And we need to take action. Were, what, the 18th shooting . Whats the action . The community, those of us that are actually horrified should do something. Maybe we need to go to tallahassee. Maybe we need to hold rallies. My oldest daughter said we should hold a rally here locally. I think thats a great idea. Once the youth it hits home and they start taking action. If we just post on facebook and not do anything, nothing is going to happen. Also voting is a huge deal. If we dont vote, nothing happens. My heart goes out to all the families and im blessed. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. So glad shes okay. I appreciate you. With that, lets go live to gary tuchman standing by, not too far from me at a student vigil being held, of course, in honor of these 17 young lives 17 lives including, of course, an athletic director, assistant football coach. Gary, what are these young people telling you . Well, brooke, hello to you. In this beautiful park just two miles away from the high school we have hundreds of students from the high school. This is not an official vigil. Theyll have an official vigil here tonight at 6 00. This is just an organic gathering of these students, their parents and other people in the community seeking solace with each other. People are breaking into tears, laughing at times about their friends who have passed away. The fun things they did with them, funny things they did with them. Were purposely not talking to anyone who is here. We want them to have their time together. We want to show this amazing support of freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors who went to school with 3,000 people. And were at school on valentines day, a day where they should be having fun. It only gets harder each time because nothing is ever done. It keeps happening. Right next door to us, this building, there are official counseling sessions going on. Theres experts with therapy dogs, psychologists, police, any student who wants to go inside there, any parent who wants to go inside there right now is undergoing private therapy. Then to the other side over here, youll see this building. This is an amphitheater. Thats where the official vigil will be happening at 6 00 tonight. As you can see, this is a vigil of sorts. People, friends getting together after the most horrible day of their lives. Brooke . It is, indeed. You never get it never gets easier, covering stories like these. I know you know. So do i, gary tuchman i love that youre respecting those young people and letting them grieve. Moments ago, the attorney for the parkland shooting suspect stoke out after his first Court Appearance. Well play you those comments next on cnn. Any chance of an upgrade . Any chance of an upgrade . Upgrade . Pretty please . Look into my eyes. Could be twins. Have you thought about being a model . Dont upgrade your seat. Upgrade your airline. 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Were live here in park land, florida, another unspeakable massacre at the school. The public defender is speaking out after this young mans Court Appearance here in which he was denied bond. Kyung lah was there. What did the public defender say . Reporter truly an extraordinary moment after appearances, very first appearance that the defendant had. We heard from the top public defender here. He became so emotional he had to step away from the camera a couple of different times, as he described the young man that his office will be defending. He said that this defendant is on suicide watch, that this is a daeply troubled young man, that throughout his entire life he has suffered from, this is a quote, significant Mental Illness, that while they are in the process of gathering all his Mental Health history, they say that he suffers from Brain Development and he suffers from depression and that all of this came to a head, that one of the moments that really came to a head was the loss of his mother in november last year. A deeply troubled young man, suffering from all this Mental Illness then suffered an extraordinary trauma. His mother became sick. She had the flu. The public defender saying that the young man had encouraged his mother to go to the doctor but then she died. So he says that since the moments that he has been their client, that they have been in conversation with him, that this young man recognizes the loss that the community has now suffered. He describes him as deeply sad, dealing with shock and that he was able to express that he was saddened by this is a quote, saddened by the loss of these children. Another public defender, the blond woman who was standing next to the defendant, melissa mcneil, she described him as, quote, a broken child. She says that, you know, her children go to public school. That she had a conversation about safety in school and then she had to sit down from a man she described as a broken child, that his brain was not developed. He had trouble with impulse control. She described him as sad, mournful, remorseful, the overwhelming feeling out of this, brooke, is that this is a community suffering on all sides. These are parents. These are students and these are now lawyers in a legal system trying to figure out what to do next. Brooke . Kyung, thank you. Paul callan, whats your take on all of that . Im frankly shocked that the legal aid attorneys took such a forceful position so early on in this case. I mean, i know what theyre doing. What theyre trying to do and theyre looking down the road, theyre thinking about the Death Penalty being sought in this case and theyre trying to set up a defense that because of his Mental Illness, because of the family problems, the death of his mother, that there are mitigating circumstances that might reduce this from a Death Penalty case to a life in prison case. However, even given all of that, with the high emotion and the suffering that parkland parents are going through now, with all those other children who were shot, who remain, some in serious condition, in the hospital, i dont think this is the time to be saying, hey, lets be sad for the guy who whooelded the rifle and inflicted all this damage. Its a foolish move. I understand why they do it, what the tactic is. Do you know something . Its a dumb tactic at this point in the case. Save it for later. Carry, what about you . I do tend to agree that its unusual to make these big, Public Comments about him so quickly after their appearance. Theyll have time to put on their defense and that process will play out. So i think theyll have time to do that and theyll have time to plead whatever is appropriate to his circumstances. Obviously, there is a lot of tragedy thats going to be recognized all around. But, brooke, also, in a variety of your interviews, i hear you asking the bigger questions about what is the country going to do to prevent these types of incidents from happening again . There are several things that really need to be taken on. And the first is that we need to look at physical security of schools. Obviously, a number of steps these schools did drill but people do need to take physical security of schools, Perimeter Security seriously. Its an issue for state and locals that they can step up. This is an odd moment in our history where schools are vulnerable and we need to be devoting whatever we can to those. Second, assault weapon ban. We used to have a federal assault weapon ban. This individual, even given the mental issues that were just described by his public defenders, we need to have Congress Take on the assault weapon ban. Very conservative court, Fourth Circuit court of appeals recently took on this issue with respect to assault weapon ban in the state of maryland and the court held it was a weapon of war. Yeah. Ive talked to so many, you know, gun control folks who say were not trying to take away your weapons, but the idea of having a gun that is used in war used here by civilians i know some folks, many folks say it just doesnt make sense. I want to thank both of you for weighing in. Were getting some new sound. This is from the suspects former manager. He was always very nice, shy. Head usually down. Little straggling hair but never posed any problem to people, had any complaints from customers. He was a shy individual. I remember him telling me this and i didnt put anything together until i saw him picture. I remember him telling me he got expelled from a school and he went with his mom and his mom passed away. To know someone who actually did the thing is even crazier. To say i worked with him, he was still working there, as i know, last week. My grandmother was checked out by him three days ago. Yesterday i was informing quite a few people, hey, someone we used to work with did some horrible things. One of my current employees used to work with him. She has a son a freshman, and she had to worry about her son in danger from someone she used to work with. In ninth grade my freshman football coach, coach feis, is the one i got shot. Everyone knows everyone around here. Its really sad. Incredibly sad. More on the heroes involved in this tragedy. Among them, assistant football coach who, when you talk to witnesses, they will say he put his life on the line to shield others, so that other Young Students could live. Well talk to someone who knew him very closely. Im Brooke Baldwin. Well be right back. We all want to know about the new thing. You know, the new, new thing. With xfinitys retail stores, you can now see the latest. Want to test drive the latest devices . Be our guest. Want to save on mobile . Just ask. Want to demo the latest innovations and technology . Do it here. Come see how were making things simple, easy, and awesome. Plus come in today and ask about xfinity mobile, a new kind of network designed to save you money. Visit your local xfinity store today. A number of students who survived this mass shooting here in parkland, florida, are telling stories of this assistant football coach who died, trying to shield them, saving so many lives. They talk of bullets flying in classrooms and hallways and coach aaron feis throwing himself in front of them. A School Official says coach feis died a hero. Former athlete and student of coach feis joins me now. I cannot begin to appreciate the emotions youre going through. Can you just tell me about this coach . You described him as your savior in high school. Tell me why. Yes, maam. I began my life with a bunch of difficulties. I was in and out of foster care, in between shelter homes, foster homes, 22 foster homes and four shelters and whenever i just felt unsafe or i felt the need to do Something Better with my life, which means playing football and also just getting treatment and just a bunch of Different Things he did in my life, getting me out of negative situations and taking me to church on his regular day basis after practice, on sunday mornings, after saturday night football, letting me be the ball boy. A bunch of different activities, he included me in and my lifestyle just enjoyed and i got to experience many different opportunities in my life. Thats awesome. He sounds like just a total, awesome guy. Incredible coach who went so above and beyond. Can you, chad, humor me . Can you tell me a story . Tell me one story about your coac coach. He told me youre going to slack off to the point where youre not going to be in class anymore and these kids are going to be gone. And all of a sudden i was like maybe youre right or maybe ill pass the class. I passed the class and he said you proved me wrong. I said yes, sir, coach. Always try to be great. Eagles fly. Love it. When you heard, chad, about how he courageously lost his life, what did you think . It was a shock for me. It was unbelievable because of the amount of thought into him actually just passing away would be it was a complete shock to me. I couldnt even imagine i didnt want to believe it was real. He was such a great human being, going to church, caring for his family. His family is amazing caregivers. And its just unbelievable. I cant even i can cry, but its just too much tears have gone by. Can you imagine your coach jumping in front of you . Jumping in front of students, knowing that there was a man with a gun and trying to save lives, knowing full well what could happen to him . Can you imagine that. I definitely could. He was that type of person who always put himself before others. He was never a selfish person. He would never down talk anybody. He was always a joking guy. He was a loving, caring guy. And words cant express the sympathy he had for children in general. I can know and i know why he did it, because of his intelligence and his caring for the kids was just remarkable. And, chad, i understand you had leukemia. Yeah. And he helped you with that also . Yeah. He sent me a few text messages. I stayed 30 days in the hospital while i was doing leukemia treatments at Broward Health north. He guided me through them. He would send me prayers. He would send me bible scripts and just stuff to cheer up my day. Funny memes. He was an amazing person to be led on and taught by. Im thankful enough to even be in his presence, just going through high school. Last quick question, what will