♪ hello. i'm boris sanchez in washington, d.c. john berman is live in lewiston, maine, the scene of mass shootings at two separate locations. officials today updating the death toll to 18. they say eight of those killed have been identified. another 13 were injured. several of them in critical condition. john. >> yeah, boris, the gunman is still on the loose. in fact, we just got an updated public safety alert that crossed all of our phones up here that said a shelter in place order in androscoggin county which is where i am, and the northern county nearby has been extended. please make sure your homes and vehicles are secured. that warn just came out seconds ago. people in multiple locations now being told to shelter in place. this huge manhunt is intensifying for the suspect, robert card, you can see him there on your screen, 40 years old. his family is urging him to surrender. police have released several images of card, including surveillance photos. you can see him pointing an ar-15 style rifle during an attack. we know he serves in the national guard. has extensive rifle training is said to be an outstanding marksman on the run. i want to catch up with shimon prokupecz who has been actually trying to follow where the manhunt is going. shimon, you're on the side of the road somewhere. tell me what you're seeing. >> reporter: well, what happened was, we got word they were doing a search where we were before. in the last hour, they had some dogs out, bloodhounds, and perhaps they may have gotten a hit and they went and started doing some searches. and they did the searches and now the law enforcement officials are back here at the school. this is where this is sort of a command post, john. where they've been setting up. when they go up, they line up here. and then there's like heavily armed vehicles, an ambulance and a couple of teams and they go all out. and there's an atv, presumably, to search through the woods. but this has been a staging area here all day. so, if they do go out and search, if they get a tip or call or something, they will leave from here and go do the searches. that's what we saw earlier. it looks like they were just coming back from doing one of those searches. some of the roads, john, i want to show you, remain closed. what they've done, they've put the barriers along the roads here to try to prevent cars from coming here. this is a police car that just goes by. and people have been honoring it. i mean, this location, this town, there's only 17 police officers in this department. so, there's a lot of area to cover. so they can't cover every intersection. we have seen police cars at some of the intersections blocking vehicles. but it looks like there is some activity here. i think that's the most important thing. they are going out, there are searches. but they're not happening in any kind of intense level. it looks like they're more organized and setting up. and they're going into certain areas and that's where they're doing the searches, john. >> just to be clear, where shimon is, in lisbon, maine, is about ten minute, ten miles from where i am in lewiston, maine. police bo lisbon is where the subaru was found by a boat launch, by the androscoggin river. behind me is the bar where many people were killed in the mass shootings, the suspected shooter, robert card, they say went to the bowling alley first, ten minutes behind me. and then presumably dropped off the car on the banks of the andrie androscoggin river, on the boat launch and now on the run. shimon, as it's staged from lisbon where he's last known to have been, the last known location, any details about how they're going about the search? >> reporter: so, sometimes, it's just tips. a lot of 911 calls. people certainly are on edge. you know, there's that shelter in place. people are not leaving their homes. there are some folks out here now getting gas for their cars and they're just going home. what's been happening is, the police telling us, they're getting 911 calls. people see something, they hear something, i'm just trying to see, there's a car coming through here from one of the law enforcement officials. i wanted to see if they were coming out, john. this is what we're seeing, the tractors that we've been seeing go out and they're going in a convoy. clearly that's not happening now. that's what we've been seeing here when they go out for the searches. but most of it, john, as i was saying, it's mostly tips. they're getting calls from folks. i don't know if there's other information coming in. the police chief in lisbon earlier today when we spoke to him, he said they have intelligence, they're gathering information. and some of their searches could be based on that. but it seems right now, they're just going off the area where is they think he was at, based off of maybe a scent from a dog. where could he be so many hours later. and it just seems like a guessing game at this point. maybe, look, clearly, they know more than they're telling us. >> one of the things i do want to ask, shimon, you mention that tractor which sometimes was being taken in convoy, that presumably because there's so much, i believe, wooded areas and parks? >> reporter: yeah, that's what it is. heavily wooded area. yeah, there it is again. now, i way. there's some officers there on the street. but, yeah, it's heavily wooded. so part of that, so they can go through one of the wooded area, so for the first time today, i really saw the heavily armed sort of in these bearcats, the armored vehicles, driving through the town here with staging here since early this morning. and then they waited in the sun came up. and then they've been coming out. but, yeah. and the tractors have been out. now, we're just waiting to see what happens. and presumably, as it gets late, as the sun goes down, we're not going to see as much activity like we saw when we first got here around 5:30 this morning. >> yeah, again, the shelter in place alert that we just got on our phones, warn people to have their homes and cars secured. >> the first string of shootings that took place, brian, what are you learning? >> reporter: right, john, this is near the bowling alley where the first shootings took place, the just in time recreation center, you can't see it from our location, we're at road block here. it's a looping road. that's where the bowl alley is. we do have information from the brother of one of the victims killed in the shooting. brother's name is d.j. johnson, his sister trisha ashland, 53 years ago old. d.j. spoke not on camera said his sister trisha worked part time at this bowling alley, but was actually there bowling when the gunman came in and opened fire. this is a quote from d.j. johnson, what i'm told when it started to happen, she ran up to the counter and called 911. she was shot. quote, that was just her, she wasn't going to run, she was going to try to help. his other sister was at the bowling alley and d.j. johnson was on a flight to maine to be with his family. one of the victims transferred from one medical center to another has been discharged so good news for that particular victim. again, you and i were talking last hour about the volume of patients. the central maine medical center. the head doctor there told us he had 14 patients within a span of 45 minutes coming into his emergency room. kind of just the sheer volume of patient there is just astounding. this -- you know, another interesting thing about the time line there, what we got from officials earlier. this scene of the shooting. the first 911 called happened 6:56 p.m. eastern time from this location. then it was only 12 minutes later that the 911 calls from where you're located, john, at the schemengees bar & grille, that's only about a ten-minute drive ware. so it does appear that the shooter acted with some purpose, or at least moved fast between the two locations. what we do not know, john, was his motive. did he target this place and the place where you are, purposely, was he targeting specific people. they did not address that at the news conference. of course, we're going to be digging on that. >> yeah, where brian is right now, about a ten-minute drive from where i am, 6:56, the first shooting took place at the just in time recreation, the bowling alley. the second shooting at schemengees bar behind me. brian, thank you for reporting. just to reiterate, trisha ashland, 53 years old, she worked part time at the bowling alley, she was just there for fun last night. apparently killed when she was trying to get help and call 911. may her memory be a blessing. with me now kathryn swite, author of "stop the killing." thank you for being with me. obviously, what's different here is different than many of the mass shootings that we're seeing which is that the killer, at least for a time got away. at least for now. how does that change the situation? >> you're right, it's very unusual to have our shooters take off in a mass shooting in this active shooter situation, where they're doing the shooting. that's what we call an active shooter and then they take off. in 70% of the incidents, the whole incident lends in five minutes or less. generally, we find that the shooters are often trying to commit suicide by cop or suicide by themselves, 30%, 40% of the time. when the shooter takes off like this, it's clear that he planned this like all targeted events are, then you have to say, how do we go after him, it's like we're looking for a bank robber, like we're looking for a bomber or any other criminal. you have to be very methodical about it. daylight is a good thing. and nighttime is not your friend and it's a very methodical process. it's a challenge, no matter what the underlying crime was. >> you say it's clear that he planned this just like they all do. talk more about that for a second. >> people who commit this kind of targeted violence, what we refer to as active shooters, they move on kind of a planned and projected targeted intent to violence. i'm not saying it right. but what i'm saying they move on this pathway to violence there that starts with an idea. they have a grievance, whether it's real or perceived. and then they want to take that grievance and then they want to execute violence because of it. they begin to gather together. they plan and they prepare, and they gather together, their instruments. in this case, he's skilled with weapons. he owns multiple weapons. he knows how to buy a bunch of magazines. fill it with high velocity ammunition. so in this case, he's making the plan way ahead of time, he may have been planning two weeks or three days, but he may have been planning for two months or three years. fbi research shows that the planning is often weeks and months, and sometimes years. >> what's the right way to think about the connection between mental health and mass killings? and particularly this mass killing. we have learned one of the pieces of reporting, robert card right here, a military reservist, he was treated as an inpatient for mental health issues. he reported hearing voices over the summer. and apparently talked about, you know, shooting people that they was training with. or at a base. >> i think it's certainly fair to say now that mental health is the scapegoat answer for everybody who wants to say it's not this, it's not guns, it's not that individual. it's just the mental health. mental is a factor, there's no question about it, fbi behavorial experts who studied our shooters found that mental health was a factor. but mental health overall, mental wellness overall, a very small number of people who have a mental health issue ever commit violence and certainly ever commit a targeted violent act. so, when we say somebody has mental health problems, they're generally, like this gentleman, reporting is that he was on medication. and he stopped taking it. that's the problem. it's not getting the mental health care. the problem is not taking the mental health care. and when we look at mental health as one of the many factors it isn't just that maybe just drove him to it. drove him to whatever he chose to do. he did all of the planning and preparation. so, we have to say, who around us is struggling? and it doesn't have to be somebody who is a paranoid schizophrenic. it doesn't have to be somebody who has some other diagnosed mental health care. it would be somebody who is suffering from depression, anxiety. and they're say more brittle person. and they begin on this pathway to violence. it's up to us, because we know from research, it's those of us in the community, this happened in maine, but across the country, across the world, people should be thinking, who around them has access to guns. and is in a troubled spot right now, from the mental health standpoint, from a mental wellness standpoint. that's kind of where they come together, troubled people with guns. >> katherine, i have to let you go, very quickly, this man killed ten minutes away from here at a bowling alley right behind me, at a bar, on the run right now. is there any way of knowing if you think there is more killing in his plans? or do you think he's more focused on just running? >> i think that -- if i was predicting, the future, if he does fpull a trigger again, it' going to be against his own head or if he's boxed into a corner some place and if he feels that he can continue to run. we've seen someone shoot people in a car so they can take their car. that's why they want the areas to be locked down. don't put yourself in a position where you open a door to somebody in circumstances or you're in a car and you drive by and he needs a car. >> katherine schweit, thank you for your help here. the shelter in place warnings, to be clear are specific for people's homes and cars, please protect them say authorities. and be safe. we appreciate it. this manhunt under way after 18 people killed here in lewistonon, maine. much morore on the breaking g n afafter a quicick break. we're turning now to our top story. a man who served alongside the suspected mass shooter in the army reserves said that robert card was one of the best marksman in his unit. card is now facing at least eight counts of murder for allegedly going on a shooting rampage in lewiston, maine last night. joining us now is john miller, he's a cnn law enforcement and intelligence analyst. john, you have learned significant details about the suspect's mental state, leading up to the shooting. >> that's right, boris. this summer in 2023, he was at the new york national guard training operation at camp smith, here peakskill, new york, where he sought counseling because he told superior officers that he was hearing voices. that he was having thoughts about hurting other soldiers. there were conversations about doing harm to people at the military base where he was assigned in maine, saucow. he got a command referral, which is a referral by choice where he was sent to a psychiatrist hospital where he was put under psychiatric evaluation for two weeks. where they can able to monitor him and likely after those two weeks released him for further care he returned to maine. that is where we kind of start to lose the trail from what was a mental health episode he was going through, to where we ended up last night. he does live there. he has a very large piece of property, hundreds and hundreds of acres. and they are now looking for where he is. and where he's going, since they haven't recovered the weapon he used. and they still can't find him. >> yeah. our colleague pamela brown is reporting that card's family has been urging him to surrender. what does it tell you that he -- he hasn't turned himself in yet? >> well, here's a person who may have regressed to a mental state where he is hearing other things. he may be in a paranoid state. it's probably a good thing that they are working with the family to get their voices into this. it's obviously a less threatening appearance than being hunted by law enforcement. but, again, it's hard to put yourself in the mind of an individual who would kill that many people in the town where he lived. and worked. and knew people. and then try to attach rational thinking to it. >> absolutely. it does strike me, john, that he had this episode, as you described, that he was held for observation for several weeks, and that he still had access to very powerful weapons. how do investigators now go about tracing that angle of this? >> well, maine is a state where if you're 18 years old, you can buy a rifle. if you're 18 years old, you can buy a handgun, but you have to go through a background check and some safety training. so there would have been nothing at the time of these purchases, which was presumably before his ac episode in the summer that would have prohibited him from owning those. interestingly, though, boris, if he had a mental episode in the military and he was returned to the place where he was serving in the reserves in maine, was that information passed to the army reserves in maine? did the police get to fill out that form six that they use in maine to record somebody who may be having a mental crisis for the awareness of police, in case they need to respond in the case that that person needs help, or someone else needs help, all of that is going to be in the after-action, which they will peel through every angle of this when this is over. but the beginning of when this starts with when he is captured and that is the main focus. >> it's fascinating, cnn speaking with somebody who served with him in the army described him as a person who led through respect. a different picture from a person hearing voices that was telling him to harm other people. john miller, thank you for walking us through that. >> thanks, boris. shifting gears, israel's military conducted a targeted raid overnight in northern gaza. it's preparing for the next stage of its ground operations. we have a live report from the region when we come back. ♪ israel is bracing for what it calls the next phase of its attack on hamas, despite the rising civilian death toll and a rapidly deteriorating e humanitn situation, israel has vowed for the bombardment of the besiege overnight. in the raid in northern gaza, the video published by the israeli defense forces shows tanks, armored vehicles including a bulldozer moving on a road near a fence and tanks fired artillery before leaving the area. cnn's international editor joins us from sderot. nic, update us what's happened in the multiprong operation? >> reporter: yeah, this is an operation in the late hours last night. we could actually see it happening but we didn't know that's what was going on. behind me on this shoulder here, we could see the tank rounds being fired from tanks in area where that operation took place. we've been in that area before on the israeli side of the gaza strip. and we could see the tanks, the armored personnel carriers, the bulldozers there lined up in fields. now, we're being told this is large scale, but limited in scope. the scope to target a hamas cell that was planning an operation against israel. it's not quite clear what operation they were planning, how it was disrupted. but what we hearing, last night, during the time when we saw that tank fire, when we were hearing heavy machine gun fire coming from that area, we were also hearing detonation, not the artillery we heard, not the big missiles from the planes that we're used to hearing here. but something different that sounded like it was penetrating deep in the ground before detonating. we do understand that israel has been using recently some new munitions that are intended to go deep, bust concrete, penetrate tunnels and such like that are underneath gaza. now, i think the other piece of the equation that we're learning about this operation last night is it sounds as if it's not stand alone. we're not seeing anything right now, so far tonight. maybe it's a little early. but the way that the idf described it. they described it as part of the ongoing operations, and an indication that there could be follow-on incursions, possibly of a bigger scale. this, certainly, though, does seem to be the biggest one that we've heard about so far. no information about any casualties on the israeli side or the number of casualties either on the other side, boris. >> nic robertson, thanks so much for the update. israel says there's still more than 200 hostages believed to be held in gaza. hamas has freed only a handful but sources tell cnn that talks to secure the release of a large number of them are ongoing. the negotiations involve not just israel and hamas, but the united states, qatar and egypt as well. joining us to discuss is former hostage negotiator gershon baskin. he's also the middle east ambassador for the middle east association. thank you for being with us. you've worked directly on freeing hostages being held by hamas. walk us through what that process is like? >> well, i'll remind the audience that we're talking primarily about the israeli soldier who was abducted in june of 2006 and it took five years four months to return him through a negotiated agreement with hamas. it involved the release of 1,200 prisons from a prison including palestinians who had murdered israelis. it's a long drawn-out process. i conducted talks one week after shlit was abducted. it took another five years to convince hamas to use the secret direct channel that i developed with dr. hamed who at that time was a hamas spokesperson. it was very long, very tedious, very difficult. one thing, throughout the process, hamas pretty much stuck to their demands of what they wanted. six months after he was abducted, the egyptians put down a proposal for 1,000 prisoners for sha lip. we're talking 220 israelis most of them civilians, women, children, elderly, sick, wounded. and we're talking about a reality that this cannot drag on a long time. there's a small window for a negotiated agreement. the hamas wants a cease-fire and apparently other things like fuel to give them generators for air in the tunnel for which they will attack israel. at the same time, there's enormous bombing going on in gaza, more than 1 million people have lost their homes and casualties over the next days. this is a humanitarian catastrophic happening in gaza. the people in gaza are paying the price for what hamas did to israel. and a cease-fire is warranted at this time to give a breathing space to bring in humanitarian aid, and for hamas to return the civilian hostages. >> would you say that a larger ground incursion by the idf would complicate the process of freeing the hostages? >> i think it certainly would. even if israel has a large amount of intelligence information that i suspect that they do, the hostages are probably kept in this web of tunnels underneath gaza, hundreds of kilometers of tunnels. and it will be very difficult to get to them. they're certainly not all being kept together. one of the big challenges we have in the negotiations right now, we're not sure that hamas is in control and holding all of the other hostages. because other groups in gaza took hostages as well, islamic jihad, even individuals are suspected of taking hostages. it's not sure what the qatari government is talking to the hamas leadership in gaza, that the hamas leadership in gaza has control. or when the egyptians are talking to the hamas leadership in gaza are they talking to the military wing that are holding the hostages and controlling all of them. this is a very complex negotiation. and it's very difficult to know that we're talking to the right people. >> it doesn't seem likely that israel is going to hold off on striking gaza. it doesn't seem likely, that at this point, they're going to give hamas the fuel that it needs in order to essentially enable it to launch further attacks. does it strike you that israel might have to make a choice between protecting those hostages and its mission of eradicating hamas? >> yes. it's a very big dilemma. and it's an enormous decision for the government to make. i want to say one thing that's very important for the american audience to hear in particular, and your audiences, qatar is a state that supports terrorism. it has funded hamas with more than $1 billion. the hamas political leadership is living in five-star conditions and red carpets projected by the qatari government. it's time to pull out the big sticks, vis-a-vis the qatari government. and tell the qatar government if they don't pressure hamas to release the hostages, then hamas will be told to leave qatar. this is what we need to do, this is what the leadership needs. qatar airlines, qatar is buying up companies in nasdaq and silicon valley. qatar is a state that supports terrorism, and if it doesn't comply with american demands to put real pressure on hamas, then qatar should be labeled as a state that supports terrorism. and let them see how well their jets can land all over the world. and how they can buy up companies on nasdaq or the swift international banking system. it's time to put the real pressure on, because time is running out. >> really important point, i've not heard made before, gershon baskin, i very much appreciate your perspective, thanks. >> thank you. >> of course. we're still tracking the latest developments here in the united states, a manhunt continues for a suspected killer of at least 18 people in two locations in maine. the latest on a desperate search, when we come back. this is cnn breaking news. all right. welcome back, this is cnn's special live coverage from lewiston, maine, where 18 people were killed in two separate shootings, one of whic these locations. and one of the theorys that being pursued by investigators, sourcing. this is s the new cnn primime t week n nights stararting at 7:7. at least 27 people are dead in acapulco, and four others are missing after hurricane otis picked up force extremely quickly slamming mexico's pacific coast, in just 12 hours, 12 hours it went from a tropical storm to an extremely dangerous category 5 hurricane. one of the most powerful ever to hit that area. cnn is in acapulco for a first hand look at the devastation. >> reporter: getting to acapulco is not easy because the highways are blocked by trees, debris, landslides, but once you get into the tourist area of acapulco, you see images like that one behind me. those two buildings that tell the story of what a category 5 hurricane can do. that building is completely destroyed. save for the cinder block columns. and we were trying to debate, prior to recording this, whether this was a building in construction, or somebody was living there. there's no sign on some of those floors that anybody lived there. but as you see, about the third floor up, there's some furniture there that tells that somebody was actually living there. and as you can see, everything got wiped out. that building gave the one behind a little bit of protection. but that is something that we're seeing. and this is just one corner. because it's very hard to navigate this area. people are trying to evacuate. people are trying to find shelter. if the hotels are damaged, they're telling us, the residential areas, especially in the rural parts of the state, or the city, there's some areas not far from here that are completely disconnected because of the debris on the roads. or because they have no communication there. they're also complaining there's no money from the atms and the stores are being looted. we got that report from some army members earlier today that told us. but let me give you another example of the resort here. this is one of the areas, this is the newer more expensive part of acapulco. you can see at a distance, we're counting, one, two, three, maybe four buildings that is completely damaged. these are hotel rooms that are literally facing the ocean, the brunt of the storm, over there. we can see another building completely destroyed, to the right. all of the siding is gone. we have seen countless people dragging their luggage, trying to find a place that allows them to get back into an area where they can get food, water or just try to get back to their cities. many of them are tourists. whose vacation were completely, obviously, destroyed. we found a bus, 51 people who told me that they were on their way to their hotel when the hurricane otis hit. they couldn't make it to the hotel. they had to park the bus under a bridge and they spent the whole time there, waiting for otis to go by. they stayed there for over 24 hours. and now they are on their way with a big story to tell. gustavo valdes, cnn, acapulco. >> gustavo, thank you so much. we're continuing to follow the mass shooting in maine and the manhunt. we'll take you live to the scene. stay with cnn.