Coverage Of Shooting in Isla Vista, California; Six People, Plus Gunman Dead in Mass Shooting
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>FEYERICK: Thanks so much, Fredricka. Well, you are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Deborah Feyerick in for Don Lemon. The news this weekend dominated again by senseless acts of violence, a man with the gun and sadly a number of people have died. West Coast near Santa Barbara, California police, still trying to condemn the timeline and details of last night's mass shooting. Witnesses a man opened fire from behind the wheel of a moving car. Six people are dead. The gunman also dead. At least seven other people are hurt. CNN's Kyung Lah and Sara Sidner, both in Isla Vista, California right now. Kyung, you first. First of all, what have you found since we saw you last? You've been at the crime scene, piecing everything together.</s>KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What you're seeing the second of multiple crime scenes. Police officers still gathering all the ballistics evidence. Trying to figure out exactly how all of this went down. The timeline as well as who the suspect is.</s>LAH (voice-over): The eve of the Memorial Day holiday weekend turns deadly after multiple drive-by shootings in the small college town of Isla Vista, just minutes from the University of California Santa Barbara campus.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He shot and I just felt the wind like pass right by my face. So I started running the opposite way, and then I heard it again, like two times. And I was just sprinting.</s>LAH: In all, authorities say seven people were killed, including the gunman. Seven others injured. Those hurt sent to a local hospital for gunshot or traumatic injuries.</s>SHERIFF BILL BROWN, SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: We've identified nine separate crime scenes within the area. And multiple victims.</s>LAH: 19-year-old Summer Young says she was almost run over by the black BMW and witnessed the shooting.</s>SUMMER YOUNG, EYEWITNESS: I saw the car run down here and he was just firing off shots. Then we just ran inside the nearest restaurant and waited until some stuff calmed down. It was really hectic.</s>LAH: Federal and local authorities continued to dig on the gunman's past, who was found dead with an apparent gunshot wound. Investigators are now trying to trace the handgun used and where the suspect obtained it. Authorities say they are now analyzing both written and video evidence that suggests this was a premeditated mass murder.</s>BROWN: The problem with an incident like this is it's obviously the work of a madman, and you are - you know, it's just unfortunate that these kinds of circumstances occur, but there are very, very limited ways in which they can be prevented.</s>LAH: Shock and disbelief today in this small college town, with many questions including the big one, why.</s>LAH: We are standing at the beginning part of where all of this happened. The BMW is actually just several blocks away, and you can see that it has a shattered window. But you also found a really compelling element of how all of this went down. You spoke with someone who saw a shooting victim.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This young man is a first-year student at Santa Barbara City college. He's 19 years old, came from Hawaii. Said he was in his room. He could hear shots going off, and suddenly he went downstairs, he heard one barrage of shots and then he heard another. Then he went down to the scene, and could not believe his eyes.</s>SIDNER (on camera): Can you tell me, what did you see?</s>KYLE SULLIVAN, STUDENT AT SANTA BARBARA CITY COLLEGE: Well, I was leaving the fraternity right there, and I heard the gunshots and I recognized the sound of a gun. I've shot a gun before. So I waited and then I heard more gunshots and then after about like 30 seconds, I came around the corner right here.</s>SIDNER: So you're there at the fraternity.</s>SULLIVAN: Yes.</s>SIDNER: You're just down the street.</s>SULLIVAN: Yes.</s>SIDNER: And you come around the corner after hearing gunshots, what did you see?</s>SULLIVAN: OK. So I came up and basically, there was a young girl laying right here. And she was - I could just tell immediately that she was gone. I saw a gunshot wound to her abdomen and like on her side, and also one to her head. So you could tell that she wasn't bleeding anymore, that she was gone. There was another girl right here.</s>SIDNER: My god, there were more than one?</s>SULLIVAN: There was three girls, yes</s>SIDNER: Three girls.</s>SULLIVAN: There was a girl right here. She was really, really struggling. You could tell she was just barely able to move her eyes. And just moving her arms slightly. And then there was another girl right here. And she was kind of laying down crouched. She was still conscious. She was talking. She immediately got on the phone with her mother. And was telling her mother about how much she loved her and she wasn't sure that she was going to make it. And then it probably took about a minute or two and the one right here passed away.</s>SIDNER: What were you doing right here this whole time as you were looking at this terribly grizzly scene?</s>SULLIVAN: I was in complete shock. I walked up and about three other people came from this angle. I didn't realize that this was real life at all.</s>SIDNER: Were you trying to talk to them? Did they say anything to you? Did you hear?</s>SULLIVAN: Yes, I was talking to the one on the phone because I could tell she said that she got shot in the kidney. And I could see that she had shots to her arm. So I could tell that she was probably going to make it. So i was telling her that she was going to be OK. I spoke to her mother real quick. I told her mother that she was probably going to make it. We saw a police officer right down there by free birds, so we brought him over here immediately and he held her and was holding her wounds to stop the bleeding. And then I asked the police officer if we were safe staying here. Just because of, you know - that there was a person driving around shooting people, and he said that we should - yes, that we were OK, and literally like 20 seconds after that, we heard the next shots at the market over there. And that's when he basically yelled at everyone and told them to run indoors and I ran back to the fraternity, and I, like, ran down the street and told everyone to go indoors, and people were just locking themselves in.</s>SIDNER: I noticed that your voice is still shaking. You're still trying to process all this.</s>SULLIVAN: Yes, it was a huge shock last night. I really wasn't able to sleep at all. It was heartbreaking. That something would happen in our community like this.</s>SIDNER: That 19-year-old city college student, I mean, he was completely shaken up. He said he stayed up all night long trying to get more details as to what happened, but imagine, he's there and he did what he could. He tried to help. The one victim that he said was still alive. But he also witnessed two victims die.</s>FEYERICK: And Sara, Kyung, a question here. Authorities seemed to know who may be responsible for this. Like they have the person who was driving the car. The alleged gunman. He is dead. Why have they been slow in identifying the person responsible for these shootings?</s>LAH: Well, they want to make sure - what we've heard from authorities is they want to make sure that everyone who's involved gets in touch with their families. Remember who we're talking about here. The victims who are in the hospital, even the perpetrator, these are younger people. This is a college town. What we're hearing again and again from the number of students who keep coming up to us is that they're still trying to reach their parents. A lot of their parents are very concerned just like that young man that you spoke with. They've gone through an intense amount of trauma. So the authorities are being very cautious in naming anyone who's connected to this, Deb.</s>SIDNER: Yes. I want to quickly add that they're being cautious, but already it's all over the internet. People are making assumptions as to who this was, and this gentleman actually told us that he stayed up all night watching videos, looking at Twitter, trying to figure out who this person was and that is what has made him so shaky in looking through some of what some people are saying is the suspect's words.</s>FEYERICK: Yes, absolutely. We're not going to name the suspect until we do get that official confirmation, although there's an idea out there and a lot of these young people who are there have been following this on social media and putting the pieces together. Kyung Lah, Sara Sidner, thank you so much. We'll be checking back in with you in just a little while. We appreciate it. And now officials in Washington are also keeping a closing eye on what's going on in Southern California. CNN's Justice reporter Evan Perez standing by for us in DC. And Evan, again, I asked Kyung and also Sara why officials are hesitating right now to release the name, because clearly there's some video, they're looking at various tapes that are giving them insights into the possible gunman. What are you hearing from your sources about the individual who may have done this?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Right, Deb. I think one of the things that happens, especially in these types of situations, is they want to be absolutely sure. Now, we do know that obviously they've identified the BMW, the black BMW that was at the scene there and where the gunman was pulled out of. We also know that obviously they've retrieved his driver's license and that is just part of the process that they're going through. Now, U.S. law enforcement, federal law enforcement is now on the scene. The ATF is there to help the Santa Barbara sheriff's office do the gun trace. We know that they're heading to the gun shop perhaps where they believe he bought this firearm, so these are things that they're going to have to work through over the next few hours before they can make any public announcement. We know that in the next few hours, the Santa Barbara sheriff's office is going to do another press conference, and from the part of federal law enforcement, they want to give the local police the chance to be able to do this. They're in charge of the scene. They're the ones that are going to be leading the investigation. And the federal law enforcement is just there to help. Obviously there's been a number of these types of shootings all over the country in the last few months, and so unfortunately they have a lot of experience with these things, and so they're just trying to help out with the Santa Barbara sheriffs as much as they can, Deb.</s>FEYERICK: And clearly, obviously, when we find out exactly how this person got the gun and clearly from what he - what was done was not in a right state of mind. That's going to lead to a whole other host of questions. All right. Evan Perez, any word on how the Justice Department - are they going to look into this, or right now is this really just a local matter with federal supporting them in whatever way possible? It seems like that's what you said effectively.</s>PEREZ: Right, right, that's exactly right. I think right now the suspect is believed to be dead. They believe that there was nobody else who was involved. Obviously in the next few days, they're going to double check to make sure that there was nobody involved and perhaps knew about this or had any inkling about what might have been going down. But at this point, if the suspect is indeed dead and everything is finished, then there's really nothing more for the federal government to help on here. We do know that the sheriff's office is relying on the California Department of Justice crime lab to help them do some of the analysis work that they're going to be doing over the next few days. Deb.</s>FEYERICK: OK. We're going to be getting a lot more information and there is going to be a press conference coming up later today. That's going to be at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. Much more on this story. After a very quick break, we will talk live with another witness to last night's tragedy, and later this hour, saluting our veterans on Memorial Day. We're joined live by actor and huge military supporter Gary Sinise to talk about how he's helping remember our men and women in uniform. Stay with us.