New Details On The Gunman In The Shooting Rampage In California
CROWLEY: Two big breaking stories today, one of them is happening right there. That's Afghanistan. That's Brad Paisley. He is a country western singer, entertaining the troops at Bagram air base. The president brought him there. We are expecting the president to speak to the troops. This was a surprise visit, at least to us. So, we are following that and will, in fact, be carrying the president's remarks. But right now, I want to turn to our other big story, that is California. A tragedy in the wee hours of Saturday morning when a gunman who was also armed with a knife, went on a killing rampage, basically, killing six people, sending more than a dozen to the hospital. I want to bring in our correspondent, Pam Brown. Because Pam, I know that you have some sources talking to you about the family of the young man who went on a rampage, who then apparently killed himself, shot himself is in the head after a car crash. What can you tell us about them?</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Candy. I have been speaking with a close family friend by the name of Simon Astaire. And he gave us unique insight into Elliott Rodger and the moments right before the rampage. And in fact, he told us, Candy, that as Elliot Rodger was carrying out the shootings spree, his parents were frantically trying to find him after having just received that chilling manifesto. Apparently, Rodger had sent that manifesto, the 140 pages, to around a couple dozen people. And laid out his frustrations with his height, with his parents' divorce and hinted that he was seeking retribution. And apparently, his mother received that manifesto at 9:17 p.m., Pacific Time, and went to his You Tube page and that's where she saw that retribution video, where he talked about going to the sorority house and slaughtering the women there. Apparently, according to this family friend, the mom called the father, alerted him to the manifesto, alerted him to that You Tube video and the mother called 911. And we have learned, Candy, from this friend, that they immediately tried to get a-hold of Elliott, tried to find him. They were on their way to Santa Barbara from L.A., a couple hours awake as they were on their way there they heard there was a shooting and later to find out their worst nightmare came true, that the person behind that shooting was their 22-year-old son -- Candy.</s>CROWLEY: You know, that is a special and I think probably really lonely kind of heartbreak for a parent, to find out that your child has done so much damage. We do know that someone was concerned enough about this man to call police in late April, I believe, and the police went out and did what they call a welfare check like, you know, can you just go see what is going on with this person? What do we know about that?</s>BROWN: Yes, that's right. These welfare checks are fairly common. What happened, according to this family friend is that the mother was concerned, she hadn't heard from Elliott in a few days, couldn't reach him. She went -- she looked up his name on Google and went to You Tube and found these videos that he had posted on there. And she grew increasingly concern sod she called the therapist, apparently his therapist. The therapist called this mental health hotline in Santa Barbara. And that person, the person who answered the hotline, called police and said you need to check on this young man. So apparently, police, around six or seven officers showed up at Elliott's house and the sheriff said there was nothing alarming, that he seemed shy and timid and that he talked about issues with his social life, but there was nothing to indicate that he was a danger to himself or others. And so, they didn't take him in for the involuntary mental health check. But we learned, Candy, in that manifesto that at that point, he was planning the rampage and that he was worried the officers knew about his plan and they are going to foil it. He called it a close call. So disturbing. And obviously as you pointed out, as his parents who is going through a very difficult right now understanding what their son did.</s>CROWLEY: Pamela Brown out there in California for us, just an awful story, everywhere you look. When we come back, we will talk about President Obama's surprise trip to Afghanistan with a former U.S. ambassador to that country.