But he knew he was in the bathroom and he was able to get out of the building, again, because these exit doors were working well. I cant tell you how thankful i am just to do that one task Homeland Security told us to do. Because in the past you couldnt push through the exit doors . They werent easily opened. They had safeties on them so they couldnt open either way. But now he was able to get out. I mean, he could be alive because of this. Where were you when you found out this had occurred . I was heading up to the service. Im there every i was there last night for service. I go up there around 10 00 and in the morning and one of the Vice President s that i work with on facilities now that i stepped down, he called. He worked for city emergency management. And he said he just got word theres an active shooter at
tree of life. Go up there and see if this is true. I tried to get up. I only live a block away from the synagogue. I tried to get up shady avenue and was police cars everywhere. Guns drawn, rifles, i was surreal. We first thought it was a training, a drill, whenever it came over the police scanner. We thought we couldnt even believe it. Have you heard about any victims inside, their positions . If you knew of them . No. Im sure i know everyone there. I know everybody in the building. I know that this i almost dont want to know but i have to know the tragedy that occurred inside. What have you been talking with with the other people that are past president s or, you know, in a position of power within the Jewish Community here in Squirrel Hill . What has everyone been saying to you . Well, i mean, all we had up until now, we had a i tried to call the i couldnt reach,
but the other past president s, i spoke to the current president. But were all either not in the area or we were en route and we just couldnt get in there. I mean, i was talking like i said, i was walking up shady and all of a sudden the shouts from the Police Officers, just get out of here. You knew it was not a drill. Have you had issues in the past with people coming in, people that were suspicious in anyway or did anything that caused you to be concerned . No, weve never had any threats. I will tell you ive always had a very watchful eye because of Whats Going On in the current climate, you know, you see these bombs being mailed across the country. And our security was really just that nobodys ever tried, you know, it was just the fact that nobody ever tried to do anything. Because, you know, like most religious institutions, we have an open door. I asked the ceo of the Jewish Federation ill ask you. Can you describe for people that
are watching that arent from pittsburgh that tonight know Squirrel Hill what this means that they would be targeted in this manner . Just means that moving forward, this is a real occurrence and that we need to learn from this. You want to be proactive and do things in light of this happening, it will be needed for security im sure. Because this is reality. Youre glad, if you hadnt done that one thing, which many would think is a simple security measure, who knows how many people used those exit doors to get out. Right. It was something that i was listening to the walkthrough, i was listening to the Homeland Security experts. A lot of this comes down to ability to afford security. But to free up a door many times
is free. Just use it. And it doesnt cost anything. And we did it. And a guy that we love in the c cong congragation, you know, augie could be alive because of it. And he was not in the basement. Are there ways to get out of the basement . There are, yes. Yes, their are. New life congregation, their sanctuary is in the lower floor, they know the route to get out. Whats next for you . Next for me is going to be more training, saying this its not that when i would get up as president in front of leadership saying this could happen, now its like this did happen. We have to put forth efforts to secure our building and the other leaderships across Squirrel Hill and across the country are going to have to do the same. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you. All right. Were going to send it back. This is cnn Breaking News. Hello, again, everyone. Thank you for being with us. This Breaking News were going to begin with, a gunman opens fire in a synagogue in pittsburgh. Officials report 12 casualties and at least four dead. Cnns Nick Valencia is tracking the story for us. What are you learning . So disturbing. How many times have we reported on similar situations, a Mass Shooting in an american city, this time in pittsburgh, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, a high concentration of Jewish Community there in that neighborhood. Heres what we know. According to the website for Tree Of Life Synagogue, their saturday service, their Shabbat Service which is the busiest day for any synagogue, started at 9 45 a. M. The fir reports we got here at cnn, reports of an active shooter, came in just after 10 20 this morning. Heres what we know at this time. According to our correspondent shimon prokupecz, at least 12
people were shot. What we can confirm is least four people died. At least three Police Officers injured in gunfire. The extent of their injuries has not been made clear. The shooter we can report is in custody, and according to kdka, that alleged gunman has been described as a white male, a bearded heavy set white male. He is in custody and is currently, at last report, being transported to a hospital with unspecified injuries. This is still a live scene. Youre looking at images there on your screen. If its still an active, chaotic scene there in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of pittsburgh. We can only assume that police are continuing to sweep the area for other potential threats, perhaps even devices in that general vicinity. The president has tweeted about the incident. The Vice President and the
governor of pennsylvania, we understand, is en route. We just heard from the past president of the Tree Of Life Synagogue saying there are three competing services happening on saturday around 9 45 and upwards or nearly 100 people could have been in the building at the time of the shooting. Again, this is all still a very fluid situation here. A very chaotic scene. Another scary day here in america, fredricka. All right, thank you so much. Well check back with you. Lets talk more about all this. I want to bring in retired fbi supervisory Special Agent. Former u. S. Art marshal, art rodd rodderic. And former Secret Service a gent and department of Homeland Security official charles marino. Glad all you could be with me. We just heard, you know, information coming from our sources. 12 shot. 4 confirmed dead. Among the injured are three Police Officers. And so, james, does this tell you that there was an exchange perhaps of gunfire between this gunman who Authorities Say is now in custody and these at least three officers injured . Absolutely. We have somebody who has committed murder, Attempted Murder and assaulted Police Officers and responding Law Enforcement. People have been texting and saying, you know, who has purview here. Would fbi have oversight for Something Like this. As we were watching the feed there, i can tell you, i saw robert jones whos the fbi Special Agent in charge of the Pittsburgh Division on scene. Hes the former Assistant Director of the branch at headquarters. The fbi will assist in this case until theres a determination which were probably moving that direction that this could possibly be a hate crime. These are murders. Obviously these are state charges. The police, its their scene right now. The fbi will offer whatever type of response capabilities, investigative capabilities, for processing any type of evidence going forward. Theyre going to be working a collaborative effort right now until we determine what type of charges are going to be leveled against this gunman. You have multiple things going on. You have the investigation of the who, the what happened, the eagainst of events and of course anything that may have preceded what took place today. All at the same time. But what we heard from the former president of the Tree Of Life Synagogue who says just in recent years did they take action to have more exits, at the same time open doors, its a place of worship. They want to welcome everyone to come in. Only on special, you know, high religious holidays would they have security at the door. So today may have been a very porous day where everyone is
welcome. How will investigators approach that, knowing theres so many ways of entry and exit . Many religions have open door policies which means they welcome people to worship, particularly during the saturday morning service. I think local Law Enforcement and various communities around the country work with the fbi and Work Together to try to ascertain specific threats against specific synagogues. As i mentioned earlier, the percentage of antisemitic attacks have gone up significantly. In 2017, we had 12 antisemitic attacks in the state of new york alone. Every synagogue has a Security Team regularly assessing what that Threat Environment looks like. Interacting with local Law Enforcement in their community to ascertain what the threat level looks like who, i would imagine, james, are in touch with the fbi to track hate crime threat reporting. And evy, you know, while we heard from the former president who said, you know or evy, whether, while we heard from the former president earlier who said he worked with Homeland Security on advice on how to protect this place of worship, yet at the same time, you know, honor The Open Door Policy allowing people in. How will investigators go about trying to see whether theres any correlation between what happened today and the shooters acts today, whether there were any threats ahead of what happened today. If theres any history with the suspected gunman or gunmen, plural . Theyre going to look at that, but i think the most important thing to really look at here is that sometimes you dont need a threat. Sometimes there is no warning. He had actually worked with security. I think thats important. So reaching out to local authorities. Saying hey, you know what, were calling from a church or synagogue or school, wherever you are, and asking them, inviting them over, will you come over and speak to us about this and will you speak to our staff about this. This way, everybody is trained. Something as simple as making sure your Emergency Doors work can save lives. Its not just one door. Know where multiple doors are. Walk those doors. Teaching them whats cover, whats concealment. That way, when youre an environment and something does happen, you can respond. You dont have the time to stop and think what do i do. Because those seconds count. Those seconds matter. Its super important for these communities. Invite them, create relationships with them. Also, they can train them what to look for. Anything odd or any suspicious behavior or anything that might
seem, you know, concerning. When you create this relationship, everybody can work collaboratively together. Because i think what weve been doing historically is putting the onus on Law Enforcement. Law enforcement can solve this problem. Law enforcement can figure this out. And we cant do that because Law Enforcement is most situations a reactive part of this. The problem happens, they try to get there as quickly as possible. We need to shift as were seeing more Mass Shootings historically happen, we need to shift that perspective and say what can we do collectively to be proactive and try to mitigate or prevent them. And, art, while police say this is an active Shooter Scene, even though they have one suspected gunman in custody, whats the level of questioning, what kind of access what kind of information potentially can they get out of this suspect before they leave the scene, before they say all clear . Yes, theyre in the phase now of making sure that the scene is
safe so theres a couple Different Things going on. Not only are they clearing the facility, the synagogue, but also the parking lot surrounding it, and any neighboring houses to make sure everybodys accounted for and this individual was acting alone. Theyre also questioning him, as jim mentioned earlier, you know, weve been talking about this Public Safety issue. As we did with the mail bomber. But, you know, they want to make sure this individual acted alone. That there was no other people helping him out. And that, you know, the area is safe. And one other comment on the top of the hour, evy was talking about the same thing, about the Security Surveys. Both with my time with the department of security and the Department Of Justice as a u. S. Marshal, we did these Security Surveys all the time for places of worship. And that is key. Because these surveys will talk about issues of exit doors, surveillance cameras, actual
security at these facilities. Its incumbent upon these places of worship and schools to reach out to local Law Enforcement or to federal Law Enforcement when you get the surveys done. Charles, what about resources . This happens when already the country, Law Enforcement, so many divisions, on heightened alert as a result of the 13, you know, pipe bombs that have been mailed across the country to a variety of people including, you know, former president s. So now youve got according to james information a little bit earlier, youve got new york authorities who have now descended on protecting a number of synagogues throughout the city as a result of this shooting taking place in pittsburgh. Talk to me about how resources are being fanned out, how multitasking, you know, is the real challenge today. Good morning. Thank you for the question and, you know, my thoughts and prayers go out to everybody affected by this event. And thanks to Law Enforcement for doing an excellent job. Resores certainly are an important issue for local Law Enforcement. I think in the mail bombing case, you saw a perfect example of a prioritization where they needed to find this individual. You saw the joint Terrorism Task force with all of its resources. The investigation goes upon which is requiring resources. Those resources will be brought to bear to see this through to a final resolution. In this case here, evy brought up a good point about coordination with local authorities. Local authorities are very well trained regarding what types of resources to respond with dependent on the situation. Here, it cannot be stated enough that the training and preparation and early engagement by many jewish organizations with the department of Homeland Security, many, many years ago, being aware of this very real threat that they face at their
synagogues and other places of worship, were prepared with how to survive this type of event. At the end of this, its going to be very interesting to find out how many lives were saved because of their preparation and practice for this type of event. But Law Enforcement is certainly there with the numbers that are necessary to stop the threat. Josh campbell, cnn Law Enforcement analyst and former fbi supervisory Special Agent, has also joined the table here. You know, josh this is an immediate priority, simultaneous to the immediate priority of all these packages that have been mailed out which investigators continue to look at, as they have a suspect. We just heard from the fbi director wray who said yesterday dont be surprised if there might be other packages out there. So how simultaneously are these investigators happening separately . At the same time, perhaps there may even be, you know, a
crossing of resources. The fbi has 56 Field Offices around the country. Some 400 satellite offices. Theyre called residential agencies. These are the offices and communities around the country with the agents who work with state officials. Theyre used to working in their do main. What would happen here is authorities in pittsburgh in the field office will be working with their counterparts locally. That information is shared to Larger Networks aroun