Observing this fact. You dont need any special training to do this. This is something you can do very easily. Some isis supporters celebrating online right now in social media. Were going to stay on top of this story. Im wolf blitzer in the situation room. Our breaking News Coverage continues right now with erin burnett out front. This is cnn breaking news. Good evening. Im erin burnett. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. We are following breaking news out of france. An attack that has left at least 60 dead. Those numbers are climbing by the moment here. 60 dead. At the latest, we understand, at least 100 more injured according to sources. A french official tonight calling this a major attack. A box truck plowing into a crowd of people in the resort city of nice on the french riviera. Panic in the street, the crowd was celebrating the french holiday of bastille day. A witness telling cnn the driver accelerated as he hit the crowd. After the crowd was hit the man got out of the truck and then opened fire on the pedestrians with a gun. A photographer captured a terrible scene. I want to warn you the image were about to show you is extremely disturbing. It shows you the extent of the horror that is happening in france right now. Those are bodies strewn across the street of some of the people that this man killed and murdered in this heinous attack. Authorities right now warning residents to stay in their homes. Officials say the driver of that truck was shot and killed at this time and that is the latest that we know. That an extremely developing story at this moment. President obama has been briefed about the ongoing situation. The president of france has return to the paris. Nice is located in the south of france about 250 miles south of the capital. Becky anderson is live there. Becky, what are officials saying right now about this heinous attack . Well, there were thousands of
people in the promenade des anglais, to our viewers who have been to the south of france they will know that is the main drag along the beach in what is a very busy city in the south of france, celebrating bastille day, this being the 14th of july, celebrating more than 230odd years since the revolution. Many people on the streets and this carnage happening, its remarkable really that were even reporting on this. Affiliates now suggesting as you point out as many as 60 dead and more than a hundred injured. The french president and the french Prime Minister are on their way back to paris for a crisis meeting at the interior ministry and as you rightly pointed out, erin, this is the result of a lorry. A lorry driving some 100, 150 meter along the promenade des anglais plowing as one witness suggested, through the crowd and striking those in its midst and the driver of that lorry then opening fire with an assault rifle. We do understand from our sources that driver of the truck was shot and killed. It is still unclear whether there is anybody else involved in what they are calling an attack, and i have to say that early reports suggested that Police Sources here describing this as appearing to be a terror attack, but lately in the past, what . 30 minutes or so, this being described as an attack. Not necessarily using the words of terror, but it is certainly
being described as an attack and if one considers that this is now, what . An hour into a very, very chaotic and tragic situation, its very unclear from authorities exactly what came to pass and who the assailant was who was involved in this, but we do know, as our affiliates are reporting that more than 60 dead at this point and a more than 100 injured on the promenade des anglais in a very busy part, a very busy city in the south of france, this the 14th of july. Erin . Thank you very much, becky. As the story is developing, i want to go to someone who was there. Eric tretell, an American Lawyer visiting nice with his wife. Eric, i am so sorry you were there. I know your wife was injured as people were trying to run. What did you see . We were having dinner at a restaurant which is about three meters below the promenade, at beach level of the promenade fireworks. And we were you know, were losing go ahead. All of a sudden we heard, pop, pop, pop i dont know how many and incredibly, my wife recognized it as gun fire. We are having a little bit of interruption on that line and well try to getteric back. As you can imagine given the chaotic situation on the ground in nice it is incredibly difficult to get the cell phone connections because of the emergency crews trying to deal with this situation. As we said, the death toll climb doing 60 and it has been going up and at least 100 others injured and jim sciutto has been covering the story from the beginning and jim had a chance
to talk to a witness who was only 15 feet away when this truck driver came in in this horrible attack and what were you able to learn . Reporter thats right. I spoke to an american pilot who was in the midst of the crowd, he was 15 feet away as this truck plowed into the crowd and sadly, he described how intentional this was. He told me that the truck driver was mowing bodies over and accelerating as he was sitting hitting these people in the streets. I spoke to another witness that said these streets were blocked off. There were no vehicles meant to be there. These were pedestrian avenues at the peak of the fireworks for what is in effect frances celebration, bastille day. He intentionally broke through the cordons and intentionally accelerated as he was driving through the crowd and again, accelerating as he hit people, clearly intentional. I spoke to other witnesses who then heard gun fire after that those initial crashes
through the crowd, but what was not clear from their perspective was the gun fire coming from the truck and police. We now know that police fired on and killed this driver in the cab of that truck after this horrible thing happened, and speaking to the witnesses, as well, they just described the sound as the truck was going through there and the panic and just a sad day for the people who were there and a sad day for france. Jim, we now understand the numbers, as i said, tragically have been going higher. 73 now dead in this in this terror attack. Obviously, were not using the word terror yet and it was terror by any definition of what the term means and in terms of the motive i know we do not yet know at this point authorities are clearly using that word attack. What more are they able to figure out, jim, from what happened in terms of the motive. Theyre not concluding anything yet, but lets look at precedent here, erin. First of all, a car is a deadly
weapon and a truck is a Deadly Weapon and we know these groups have been encouraging using the trucks as Deadly Weapons and weve heard al adnani saying run them over. Weve seen them in canada, weve seen them in israel and france before, several times before, but not to this degree. Not with this level of carnage. Obviously, this is a bigger vehicle, a truck and nearly a tractor trailer size, immense crowds packed together there making it an even more Deadly Weapon than it would be. Whether this is islamist or terrorist, it appears very much to be intentional so an act of mass murder at a minimum. All right. Jims going to stay with us, and i do want everyone to understand here the death toll going up to 73. 32 people were massacred in brussels and 130 in paris and this is 73 people in this attack. At least 100 injured. 73 dead now formally according to french television. Tony molina is an american from
san diego and he saw what happened and he joins me on the phone. Tony, we are glad that you are all right and you are here and able to talk about this. Can you tell me what you saw . Sure. Basically, we had a large Fireworks Show tonight. We overlook an area of the beach where there was a lot of people sitting to watch the show. We are watching it ourselves and when it ended, the streets were just flooded, basically. There is a large boardwalk in front of us here thats that was just filled with people and basically about five minutes after the show we had stepped inside and we just started hearing what sounded like thumps and people yelling and screaming. So my son and i ran out to the balcony to see what was going on, this was, unfortunately, right when this white panel truck was going right across the area in front of us, and it was
zigzagging. Id say it was going about 25 to 30 miles an hour as it did so and just plummeting through. It looked like it was hitting several people. I can tell you right now even as i look out in front of our area i still see about ten covered bodies that they havent even begun processing yet. I mean, its just horrible. You now even can see that there are bodies they have been able to cover, but they havent been able to move them or take them to the morgue or anything, tony. Yeah. It was it was i think it was a shock for everybody down there. In fact, all day long weve seen several Law Enforcement, military all through this whole area of the promenade des anglais, but at this particular time i think they had either cleared to other locations or were doing some other sort of Traffic Enforcement or something because there was only a couple out here in this area in front
of our place and everyone was just in shock because the bodies that were hit they were just laying there and everyone was kind of running off in different direction, and i think i saw i cant tell if it was an officer or not, depending based on the uniform that i saw from this distance, he just looked confused, as well. I can only imagine what he was going through at the time. So, tony, when you were watching this and you say what you describe as a white panel truck and you say it was zigzagging, was it could you tell, was it accelerating . Theyre using the word attack and its clear this was purposeful, but what did you see from the way it was moving and the way it was aiming . What did you see . My first thought was my gosh, this must be a drunk driver. I didnt think it was an act of terror initially. I just came out and saw people yelling and this Truck Driving kind of erratically, but as we watched it unfold it was
never it never, you know, came to a stop or anything. It just kept kind of zigzagg g zigzagging. I wouldnt say it was accelerating, per se, but it kept a fairly continuous speed as it kind of went through this crowd here. And and you were you are there right now with your 14yearold son, right . Both were together during this . Yeah. Yeah, well, my me, my wife and my son are here. We had all stepped inside after the fireworks, and i think my wife had walked back to the bedroom so my son and i were sitting here in the room thats right next to the patio and thats when we heard the noises and both my son and i just walked out. I wish he hadnt have seen it, but basically we both came out and we saw this truck basically go through people. And did you see the shooting . Were trying to understand at this point who was chuting at whom. One eyewitness said the driver was shooting and someone else
said maybe not the driver. The driver was shot out. Were you able to see anything to indicate that, tony . No. We could hear the shooting, but just to give you an idea of where were at, one of the famous landmarks here is the negrasco hotel and we are west of that, closer in the direction of the airport here so we are just west of that, probably about 70 yards from that hotel and the panel truck had continued on. So the area when it went in front of us was actually on the boardwalk. So the sidewalk area where everyone should feel safe to walk, and it just continued on that until it got to the front of the negresco where there is a pergola and it turned from there and went on to the street at that point, but the streets at that time were still flooded with people, with pedestrians. So it continued on past the
negresco hotel and we lost sight of it due to the trees that are lined in the middle of the roadway and then we just heard gunshots several seconds later so i couldnt tell you from where im at where that even ended up. And tony, before you go, and i know its exhausting for you to have to relive what youre watching and youre still looking down there at people who have died who are still not taken to where they need to go, how long did this happen . When you started to see that Truck Driving, the white panel truck, how long did it drive before this stopped . How far did it go . I would say from where were at it probably continued another maybe half a mile and it had to have come from at least a half mile from the other direction, at least. Well, tony, i very much appreciate your time. Thank you so much for calling calling in and speaking to us. Tony, american from san diego visiting nice with his family. I want to go to our justice correspondent evan perez and you heard from what he said from this perspective as a witness, it seems it drove from where we could see and it started hitting people half a mile zigzagging going 25 to 30 miles an hour and as we hear about this horror and chaos, hes saying there are at least ten people that he can see from his room right now, they are covered and people who were murdered in this horrible attack. What are you learning . Well, erin, one of the thing u. S. Officials are doing is theyre keeping an eye on social media especially of these extremists online who are celebrating what happened in nice. Weve already seen some of those tweets and other postings on social media. Its not clear whether or not this is an isis attack or some other group, but certainly isis is the first suspect, the first group that comes to mind certainly for u. S. Officials as they watch this and obviously
france has a tremendous problem. We know obviously with the terrorist attack in paris and also the chacharlie hebdo att and just last week was the completion of the monthlong euro 2016 soccer tournament during which time there was this very heightened concern about a terrorist attack in france. They managed to get through without any major incident, but certainly bastille day, a very symbolic day, was a day of big concern, and if you hear from some of the witnesses they talked to they say they saw very heavily armed police there. This was a promenade that was cordoned off so this truck would have had to go through some kind of barricade to be able to get into this promenade and mow down these people. The death toll is very high right now. U. S. Officials are working to see if theres any information they can collect and there are communications especially in that region that the u. S. Intelligence agencies are now
going through, erin, just in case there might be any clues as to what might have been coming and perhaps someone might have said something that they were about to carry out an attack and these are the types of things that the u. S. Analysts are doing and theyll spend the night doing tonight. Erin, thank you very much. Stay on the phone with us and hell be back with us momentarily. I want to bring in our intel jen security an late bob baer and former assistant director with the u. S. Marshals mark roderick. Bastille day, this is the july fourth of france and we now know 73 people have been slaughtered in this attack. Is there any doubt in your mind this was a terror attack . Oh, i think almost definitely. Its rare these personal attacks occur in paris and considering it was the 14th of july, a machine gun was used, mass slaughter, france was on high alert and the head of the bataclan attack is loose, you
know . So many things that suggest the Islamic State. Were going to find out later from the french, but right now if i had to make a guess it would be the Islamic State. And art, i want to show everyone what we have just gotten in here. Were going to show you. It is graphic and it is disturbing, but we were just hearing a witness talk about this who saw this. This was the truck actually plowing through the crowd and you can see how many people are there and you can see how crowded and densely packed those streets are and that truck going through and tony molina, that truck going 25, 30 miles an hour and it makes you choke up how fast it seems to be going through the people. What is your sense of what happened here . I agree with bob. I know the french government hasnt officially come out and called it a terror attack, but it seems like all of the earmarks are there. The thing that struck me when i first heard about it is that this particular attack doesnt seem to be that very sophisticated as we saw with
charlie hebdo and as we saw with the paris attacks and as we saw with the belgium attacks and what i mean by that is there wasnt multiple people involved that we know of right now. We have one driver of a vehicle that was neutralized, but we do have an automatic weapon, it appear, but we dont have other conspirators that were with him in the vehicle. Theres no explosives. This could have been either inspired or directed. Im thinking more along the lines of a lone wolftype incident who just had a target of opportunity here and when you see that van moving through there, thats like a small tank and we saw the photos of the bullet holes in the front of it and what it took to stop that vehicle before the individual got out and engaged with police. Paul cruickshank is also with me, our terror analyst. Paul, you and i have obviously been together in paris and brussels. When you hear how art drives this as a small tank driving through that crowd that it took
so many bullets for them to stop it. As you see this truck moving here, this shows someone with clear intent. There is no question here that this is a drunk driver or anything like that. That at this point seems to be a ridiculous proposition. Clear intent, mowing people down and plowing through them with this truck and according to some reports and two kilometers according to this along this boardwalk. The French Police responding by killing the truck driver clearly believing that this was not just a runaway truck, but an actual attack that was taking place and one of the leaders of isis, Abu Muhammad Al adnani has called on followers in the west and also in france to run people over with their car. He first made that call in september 2014 and just a few weeks later there was an attack in canada, in quebec where an
extremist who was inspired by isis rammed his car into a canadian soldier killing one in a terrible attack in canada, but this on a much larger scale. The symbolism of the day, and the fact that this is the French National day, july 14, bastille day, makes one think this could well be terrorism as well as all of the details were hearing from eyewitnesses pouring in this evening. All right. All of you, please stay with me as wer