Search Area Expands for Missing Plane; Gunman Kills Three People Near Kansas City; Black Box Search
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: All right. breaking news, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. We're tracking three huge stories right now. In one hour, the U.N. Security Council is holding an urgent previously unscheduled meeting at Russia's request to discuss rising violence in Ukraine. Ukraine's acting president says he won't stand for another Crimea in his fragile nation. Plus this tragedy strikes on the eve of Passover. Gunfire erupted at two Jewish facilities near Kansas City. Three people are dead, the suspect, bearded man in his 70s. Plus the hunt for Malaysia Flight 370 may be on the verge of a new chapter, search planes are back in the skies near Australia. You'll hear how the search may shift gears very soon. Breaking news right now in the suburbs of Kansas City a man with a gun started shooting at a Jewish community center in Overland Park, Kansas. He killed two people there one of them a teenager. And according to police the man then drove to a Jewish retirement home where he killed one more person, an older woman. The police chief talked to reporters just a short time ago.</s>CHIEF JOHN DOUGLASS, OVERLAND PARK, KANSAS POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have the suspect and this gentleman is in his 70s. He is a white male, he has a beard. The suspect in the back of the car made several statements, we are sifting through and vetting those for accuracy, number one; and number two, we're looking at them from their evidentiary value. It's too early to tell you what he may or may not have said. But we're trying to determine what that was at this time.</s>LEMON: CNN's Nick Valencia gathering the details for us on this breaking news. Nick more about the suspect in a second. But tell us about these two places where he opened fire today.</s>NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes three and a half hours into this investigation, Don very little information as the police chief alluded to there. But we do know is that the first shooting scene was a Jewish community center there in Overland Park, Kansas, a town of about 173,000 people and we know that the shooting happened outside -- in the parking lot, where you mentioned two victims there, two fatalities outside. We do know that inside, a dance competition was going on. A dance -- a dance competition performances, as well as perhaps a performance of a play "To Kill the Mockingbird" so a lot of children, a lot of younger folks inside that community center, a very, very scary situation for them. Now the shooter moved on about a mile away to Village Shalom and that's a retirement center, an assisted living facility and earlier I spoke to somebody there. I called that facility and a woman answered said that everyone inside was ok and that they would be preparing a statement for the media in the coming hours. But that's what we do know about those two facilities. Both affiliated in some way to the Jewish community and as you mentioned you know on the eve of Passover, just very scary situation for those involved there -- Don.</s>LEMON: Can we talk a bit more about the suspect? I mean they said he's a bearded man in his 70s. They don't think he knew the victims or he staked out the places where he opened fire, today right?</s>VALENCIA: That's right. They know very little about this man. In fact some of the reporters at this press conference asked if they were -- if he was known to police before this incident. They said they had -- they had no idea that he had planned to do this, there was no indication, that this was very surprising to everyone that's investigating. We do know that he's in his 70s. And there is a picture of him released by our local affiliates in Kansas City. And just a few minutes ago I spoke to the PIO, the Press Information Officer of Overland Park and he said he could not corroborate what local officials -- local affiliates are saying was this image of this man but he's in his 70s, he had a beard, he's not from Kansas. But we don't know anything else about the suspect -- Don.</s>LEMON: And Nick let's talk about the timing here, you know.</s>VALENCIA: Yes.</s>LEMON: The religion of the victims, the start of Passover tomorrow. These reported statements made by the suspect, you know, saying apparently "Heil Hitler" or asking people if they were -- if they were Jewish before he shot them. What's the hate crime angle here, if any?</s>VALENCIA: Well it's a hate crime investigation. And the police made that very clear that they haven't ruled anything out. But that's the line that they're going down. Now very interestingly, a KCTV there the Kansas affiliate of CNN and a reporter Bonyen Lee (ph) said that during the suspect being taken into custody that she heard him say "Heil Hitler". Police chief was asked about that at the press conference, he says they're looking into the statements that the suspect made while in police custody but did not go so far as to say he said those comments specifically. We did, I should mention, have a rabbi on earlier last hour that you interviewed who said that the suspect was shouting hate -- hate crime- type statements, that it sounded like a hate crime but we just don't know exactly the extent of why he did this, Don and what the motive was behind these shootings. But a day before Passover a very chilling scene for everyone there in the Jewish community center, you know a very sad situation there in Overland Park.</s>LEMON: Yes and that gentleman just happened to be was -- he is -- he works with the police department, he is a chaplain for the police department.</s>VALENCIA: That's right.</s>LEMON: Who happen to be a rabbi but also they said yes, they are investigating it as a hate crime. They also said that we are also investigating it just as a criminal act. And we're also investigating it as terrorism. And as you said they said they are not ruling anything out.</s>VALENCIA: Anything yes.</s>LEMON: At this point all cards are on the table. Nick Valencia thank you we appreciate your reporting.</s>VALENCIA: You bet.</s>LEMON: You know in less than an hour, the U.N. Security Council will hold emergency meetings -- an emergency meeting on the crisis in Ukraine at Russia's request. The unscheduled meeting comes after a sudden spike in bloodshed in the fragile nation. Pro-Russian demonstrators now occupying government buildings in several cities in the east and crowds are protesting near occupied buildings. Ukraine's leader set a harsh deadline for pro-Russia separatist, "back down by Monday or else". Our senior United Nations correspondent I should say is Mr. Richard Roth and he is there at the United Nations. Richard what are your sources telling you about this urgent meeting from the council about to happen?</s>RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR UNITED NATIONS CORRESPONDENT: Well we now know that the meeting will be a public session and likely speeches by Russia and Ukraine. And if it's like some of the other meetings, there will be responses to the previous remarks made by an ambassador, it could be a very long, interesting, Sunday night. There have been several weeks have passed since we've had a session like this. But as you mentioned, as that ultimatum deadline to act against separatists supporting Russia move near Russia requested a meeting. Now the Russia wanted it private behind closed doors. Other countries, I think likely the U.S., too, wanted it public. So we will definitely have this airing of grievances. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power earlier on Sunday on "ABC this Week" said violence and the building takeovers and towns well though the handiwork of Russian authorities is all over it, according to her.</s>SAMANTHA POWER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: It has all the tell-tale signs of what we saw in Crimea. It's professional. It's coordinated. There's nothing grassroots seeming about it. I think we've seen that the sanctions can bite and if actions like the kind that we've seen over the last few days continue you're going to see a ramping up of those sanctions.</s>ROTH: Russia says these people want to be with Russia and they are fighting for their own democracy to be connected with Moscow. Russia has hundreds of tanks, planes and other military armaments on the border it insists it's just doing military exercises Don. We've heard warnings for days now from senior U.S. authorities and others concerned and there's concern here at U.N. about what might happen along the border and now we have this ultimatum regarding supporters of Russia, coming up in about five or six hours.</s>LEMON: So Richard, you know I spoke with the Congressman, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff and he talked about stronger sanctions. But none of that's likely to come out of the emergency, if you want to call that, meeting tonight this unplanned meeting.</s>ROTH: Right. As we've seen with other crises, the U.N. could not agree on something like sanctions. In this case, Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, has a veto. What you see is individual countries such as the U.S. putting their own sanctions on Russia or the European Union as a group. The U.S. says there is a lot of sanctions still left to go, but will any of them really bite? That is unclear.</s>LEMON: Richard Roth at the U.N. Thank you. I appreciate you. Now to the case of Flight 370: the battery deadline is likely passed. The black box pings, completely silent now. Haven't heard from them in days -- haven't heard them in days. The families are living in limbo of course but no one is ready to throw in the towel. Top Malaysian officials reaffirming today that we must find the black boxes if the mystery of the missing airliner is to be solved. Planes are taking to the sky again as dawn breaks over Perth. And the search shifts from listening to looking. My panel of experts are back with me now: CNN aviation analyst and pilot, Les Abend; CNN's safety analyst and author David Soucie; also Mission 31 Expedition leader and ocean explorer, Fabian Cousteau; CNN aviation analyst and pilot, Miles O'Brien and Alan Diehl a former NTSB and FAA accident investigator the author of "Air Safety Investigators: Using Science to Save Lives". Ok Fabian, how do they calculate the search area? And what factors are they taking into account especially now they were learning that they are expanding the area?</s>FABIAN COUSTEAU, MISSION 31 EXPEDITION LEADER: Well they're expanding the area on the surface because of obvious factors such as weather, currents, and the fact that if there is a debris field on the surface, the things that are floating are probably dispersing and therefore, you have to expand that search area.</s>LEMON: All right. Alan Diehl, are we being too hard on Malaysia? What kind of job do you think they're doing in the investigation?</s>ALAN DIEHL, FORMER NTSB ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR: Well certainly they've made some very bad missteps early on and we don't have to regale everybody with what they've done wrong. They've done two things right that I see. First, they've got the INMARSAT satellite people involved. They are very bright people, they essentially located where the black boxes may be. And they turned the search over to the Australians. So we could be hard on them. I wish they had done what President Mubarak did in 1989 and then that is, ask for an NTSB go team to take over the investigation. He lost a Boeing 767 in the Atlantic and it worked out very well with NTSB doing the investigation.</s>LEMON: It sounds good to many people, but Miles O'Brien, how likely is that to happen?</s>O'BRIEN: Well it's a little late for that I think. But I do agree with that. I think it's important that countries, frankly, recognize where their expertise lies in and does not. And it's clear the Malaysians do not have the depth of expertise to do these kinds of things. I mean really very few nations do. Very few nations have had the depth of experience and the NTSB is preeminent in all of this. And so it would be -- I've all -- I would say that if you're going to buy a Boeing 777 and fly it in your flag airliner, your flag carrier, you should be able to demonstrate you have the capability to conduct one of these investigations or you should sign a way in advance with a memorandum of understanding who you're going to go to in these circumstances so there's no decision when you're in the midst of this horrible tragedy.</s>LEMON: David, you know, failure is not an option here. But if -- if the black boxes are never recovered, I mean can this investigation ever be complete? And I think I'm getting ahead of myself. What's the likelihood now that those pingers are gone? That's the better question.</s>DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well I think it's -- it's very likely that the batteries have died. But I do feel confident they're going to find those black boxes. That signal that they got was very distinctive, it's not confused with the fishing boat signal or any other signal like we've heard before.</s>LEMON: No but they heard it but you just can't -- it's not just like that where you can go find them.</s>SOUCIE: No but remember we're talking about just about 560 miles if you went from end to end.</s>LEMON: Right.</s>SOUCIE: But that's probably not what they'll do. Because they'll recognize those far pings as artifacts that are going through the trans-thermal layer. But -- so if you focus on that two-mile stretch it only gives a couple of options as to where those boxes are. If you draw a circle around one option, you've got two miles intersect, if you've got a circle around the other you've got that. So there's only a couple of places that they need to start the search and look from there out.</s>LEMON: You said something I thought was very interesting earlier today. You said you know just because they're hearing these pingers or what they believe are two different signals from far away, it doesn't mean that because I think it's what -- is it two miles, or three miles.</s>SOUCIE: Yes.</s>LEMON: But that's the minimum range?</s>SOUCIE: Correct that's what the FAA does is set the minimum standards. We don't set the maximum standards in the</s>FAA. LEMON: But how does that -- does that make it harder because if you're hearing them you're thinking oh they're within two or three miles.</s>SOUCIE: Right.</s>LEMON: No.</s>SOUCIE: No it makes it much harder. Now remember this 160 decibels which is about as loud as a gunshot, it's just that it's a gunshot at the frequency of a dog whistle.</s>LEMON: Ok.</s>SOUCIE: So humans can't hear it. But that's how loud it is under water. So if you think about being in the mountains and you hear a gunshot go up and then try to trace down where that gunshot went, not an easy thing to do.</s>LEMON: Les Abend, where do you think most of the assets should be devoted, to air or sea at this point?</s>LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: I think they should continue assets in both directions both on the sea and -- or in the sea and on the air because -- on the water because I think those fragments debris fragments are important to -- to locate just by beginning, you'll agree with me, I think David, the first part of the investigation process and then of course that we know how important the black boxes are.</s>LEMON: Who was it and was it Miles that said I think Miles you said in another show, that they should -- they're not going to hear pingers anymore and they should just -- they should start putting those submersibles in the water now.</s>O'BRIEN: Yes I mean you know this is way on the outside of this investigation, but my gut tells me those batteries are done. You know they're going to -- they're going to probably give it a couple of more days because it is so much more efficient to be listening for pings and if you can find one more spot that would just give you narrow it down, narrow down that box ever more because the submersible vehicle is so much slower, it's six or seven times slower covering any particular piece of ocean compared to the towed pinger locator, so --</s>LEMON: Yes.</s>O'BRIEN: -- so it's probably worth a couple more days.</s>LEMON: Real quickly, I had to get to break though but Alan, do you agree it's time to forget about the pingers and start putting assets in the water?</s>DIEHL: I think so. And also, get --very quickly get the British ship Echo which is a submarine rescue and locator, ok basically it can start mapping that bottom before they put the Bluefin in.</s>LEMON: All right thank you everyone. Stick around lots more to talk about. We're going to bring you the latest on Flight 370 of course and our breaking news out of Kansas, throughout this hour. But first, violence is spiraling in Ukraine. Now the country's acting president issues an ultimatum to pro-Russian protesters. We're going to take you there next.