Juvenile Arrested in Execution- Style Killings in N.J.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush there speaking at his new podium that we had heard about a little bit earlier today, new and improved, apparently, speaking on several different topics, beginning interestingly enough with the bridge collapse and infrastructure concerns in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On to the economy, taxes, Iraq, Pakistan, even a question concerning Ed Henry's question concerning the death of Pat Tillman, so many different topics to talk about. But Ed Henry is joining us now. Ed, I think one of the interesting things here is this current trip that the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki is on in Iran, some of the meetings he has had with the Iranian president. Let's go ahead and listen in to some sound regarding Iran -- pardon me, we do not have the sound. We did hear the president talk a little bit about the Iranian people and not settling for being isolated by their government. Is there concern on the president's part that you were able to notice about a possible relationship between the Iraqi prime minister and the Iranian president?</s>ED HENRY, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: One thing we learned for sure is the president has a boxing stance. He put up his dukes, it was sort of a light moment but he was trying to make a serious point. Because you're right. There was a question he was pressed on, these photos out today showing the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seeming to be in a warm meeting with Iran's president, concern within the U.S., around the world as to whether Nouri al-Maliki is too close to the regime in Tehran that the president has been going after so much. The president insisted he believes that Prime Minister Maliki is joined with him in believing that Iran is a destabilizing force in Iraq and also the president had some new threats for Iran, vowing that in his words, when the U.S. catches you playing a destabilizing, role, "There will be consequences." The president only mostly spoke about sanctions, tough economic sanctions about Iran, but left unsaid but always on the table is the potential for military action against Iran. I thought it was also significant on the issue of Iraq at the end there; the president got a question about Al Gonzalez and accountability. Turned it into a question about Iraq and flourish sort of foreshadowing the big debate he is going to have with this democratic congress in September about the direction of U.S. policy in Iraq, the president saying the fundamental question, is it worth it. Obviously you know he believes it is, he sad it again and again, made a new case for it again there at the end. He knows he's in for a major battle with this democratic congress in September which wants to change the direction of this war, Heidi.</s>COLLINS: Also we heard some of the reports coming out of that meeting between al-Maliki and Ahmadinejad; one of the things al-Maliki said you know is today, Iran, Iraq and all countries of the region must fight against terrorism. So of course we will continue to watch that trip that the prime minister of Iraq is making to Iran. Ed Henry, thank you.</s>HENRY: Thank you.</s>TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The president, public opinion and the polls, senior political analyst Bill Schneider live from Los Angeles with a look at some of the new numbers. Bill, good to see you.</s>BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to be here.</s>HARRIS: So we get an opportunity, the president just wrapping up that news conference; we get an opportunity to look at the most recent polling from a CNN opinion research. The latest polling date is August 6th through the 8th. Let's work through these numbers a bit for everyone. How is Mr. Bush handling his job as president, the basic job approval number here, approval, 36 percent, disapproval 61 percent. Bill, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the numbers for the president recently, but this doesn't seem to represent much of a move in one way or the other recently.</s>SCHNEIDER: It is, in fact, a slight improvement over where he is was in June. In June he was at 32 percent, so he didn't go below freezing. He jumped a bit above freezing. In June it was 32 percent. He's back to where he was in the spring of this year. It's a slight improvement over where he was a couple months ago. I should add the USA Today Gallup Poll and another poll showed the same thing, a slight up tick in the president's job rate.</s>HARRIS: Any idea why, it looks like it's slight but any idea of what may be moving the president's numbers, at least in the right direction?</s>SCHNEIDER: Republicans. The improvement that we're showing in our poll comes entirely from his fellow republicans where he gained 16 points since his rating among republicans in June. No improvement whatever among democrats where his approval rating remains dismal, just eight percent of democrats now and in June supported this president, only 29 percent of independents now and in June supported this president, but a big improvement a Monday republican republicans. Why? My guess is it has something to do with the campaign that's 15 months early this time, before the election but we are seeing something that usually happens a few months before an election, that is both sides rallying behind their party and their party leaders, democrats criticizing this president, republicans recoiling and defending the president in the face of that criticism. The campaign is on and the voters are responding to that.</s>HARRIS: There he is, CNN political analyst, Bill Schneider from Los Angeles for us. We appreciate it. Thank you.</s>SCHNEIDER: Sure.</s>COLLINS: Now I want to take a moment to get to Capitol Hill and Jessica Yellin who is there for us this morning. It was interesting, forgive me, you're at the D.C. Bureau this morning. Good morning, Jessica.</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.</s>COLLINS: It was interesting how the president began with some comments about the Minneapolis bridge collapse and then overall this country's infrastructure and the funding. Tell us a little bit more about that because he made it very clear that if Congress sets priorities, there will be enough money to both repair infrastructure and fight the war in Iraq.</s>YELLIN: Well, Heidi, when Congress comes back from recess in September you can expect members to be tripping over themselves to file bills on the bridges. Already, house transportation committee chair Jim Oberstar has proposed a temporary five cent increase in the gas tax to pay for a trust fund for repairs. Senator Reid in the past has supported an American style Marshall Plan. Different members are basically calling this a wake-up calling and time to take action on this. You can definitely expect a mad scramble on this when they return. One issue that democrats and republicans can agree upon when they come back from recess. The only differences might be in how they should pay for it and the exact style of the plan.</s>COLLINS: Any other plans out there besides a gas tax increase?</s>YELLIN: Well, they are talking about -- they're going to be looking at a whole bevy of appropriations bills when they come back and it's a make or fight with the White House. They have to take up 12 appropriations bills, the White House has promised to veto or threatened to veto nine of them. There will be a lot of playing with the money and the figures and trying to determine exactly how to fund all these different interests.</s>COLLINS: Trying to determine how much repair work or improvements really need to be made, it seems like that might be the very first question to begin with. Jessica Yellin we appreciate it today. I guess we are going too cheap on chatting with you; we want to keep hearing more about this. I really did find it interesting that this was the first area today when we knew there would be all kinds of comments made specifically about the economy as we've been watching the Dow Jones industrial leverages go down a bit today. It really seems like everybody is talking about this simply because we all travel the roads, we all travel bridges, it's becoming much more of an issue, not just in Minneapolis, Minnesota.</s>YELLIN: Absolutely. This is an issue that hits home obviously for so many Americans because it talks not just about your own daily lives but really thinking about how much are we investing in America, is our focus right? And it really goes to one of the big issues that are -- that's dividing democrats and republicans right now, which is this question of priorities and spending. You heard the president talk today about this item that's come out in "The Washington Post" this morning, the idea of new tax cuts for corporations. And all of this goes to the sort of spending war with the democrats. They calling the democrats tax and spend, the democrats are accusing the Bush White House of not having the right priorities and they say bridges is a perfect example.</s>COLLINS: All right. Jessica Yellin on top of all of it for us directly from our D.C. Bureau. Thanks so much, Jessica. Nice to see you.</s>HARRIS: And Heidi, we've been standing by for this news conference that is just now getting under way in Newark, New Jersey, as we continue to follow the story of last Saturday's execution-style killings of three college students and the wounding of a fourth person. The developments are that a teenage has been arrested. Let's take you now to Newark. Here on my left we have various members of the city council men, councilman at large Donald Payne, council woman from the central ward, Dana Rona, the councilman from the westward where the incident happened, Ronald Rice, Councilman of the northward, councilman at large, and Councilman Donald Payne. Am I mentioned a council person? Councilman Carlos Gonzalez and Council President Mildred Crump. On my right, we have police director Garry McCarthy, on my left obviously we have Essex county prosecutor Paula Dowd. I want to thank you all for coming today. We have some very significant developments in the case. The first thing is I want to confirm that in the last day, at approximately 11:00 p.m. last night, we arrested one individual involved in this case. The prosecutor will momentarily discuss charges. That individual is a 15-year-old, a male, who as a result of the person's age; we are not releasing the name at all. We also want to let you know that we have a murder warrant for the arrest of one individual who is a 31-year-old male, Latino, Jose Coranza. He has an alias, or a.k.a., Jose Lachira. We're going to be posting -- do you want to post that now? A picture of this individual. A few other things I want to state about this before the police director fills in more information. Number one, much of this information was gathered that led to the arrest of this one individual, and the searching for Jose Coranza was obtained from ballistic evidence at the scene of the crime, including fingerprint evidence removed from a bottle, a container. In addition to that, though, it should be noted of the incredible courage of Natasha Aerial, who, from her hospital bed, has been cooperating with authorities and making identifications on those who are involved. We believe, though, have not yet fully confirmed but we believe that there are others involved in this case. Who we are looking for as well. We are asking now that this name of the individual has been made public that the public cooperate us in continuing -- in this continuing investigation. The specific ways, we again, reiterate is one the reward for this individual, at this point is approximately $150,000. That reward money has come from various grass roots organizations, as well as law enforcement groups. We are asking for anybody who wants to contribute to that reward money to please come forward, but we are also obviously looking for any tips that can lead to the arrest and indictment of this individual, any tips or help whatsoever, again, there's $150,000 reward. We are still looking for support for the families who are obviously dealing with a grievous tragedy in their lives. We are asking -- we have set up funds in the family's name. We are asking for support for those families. In addition to this, again, I want to reiterate, it is an ongoing investigation so we are looking for any information possible, not only about the apprehension of Jose Coranza or a.k.a. Jose Lachira but we are also looking for information about the incident as a whole and the others that we believe might be involved. Again, I want to thank all those who are involved in this. We've had a very good, cooperative investigative atmosphere, with various law enforcement officials working together throughout the last few days, especially all through last night, where they apprehended the 15-year-old young person, as well as a continuing the hunt for the principal suspect in this case. I would like to bring forward the police director to give some more information.</s>GARRY MCCARTHY, DIR., NEWARK POLICE: I want to first start by acknowledging the incredible teamwork and hard work that's been going on by all our investigators in conjunction with, in particular, the Essex County prosecutor. And I want to publicly tell you that some of the published reports are absolutely false, and the teamwork has been incredible at this point. So, I want to tell you a few things about the investigation. At this point, it's going in a number of different directions. What's happening is information is coming in very quickly. When a case like this starts to break, it happens very quickly. Last night we obtained the murder warrant and went out looking for our suspect. As a result of going to various locations, some hard work and, a little bit of fortuitous -- some fortuitous events put us in a position where we were able to interview some people, develop some more leads, develop some information which led to the apprehension of this particular juvenile. There is forensic evidence. There was a fingerprint recovered from the crime scene, which led us to the identification and the murder warrant, which was developed late last night. And as a result of chasing down those leads, some hard work, we've been able to put ourselves in a position now where we are out looking for a number of individuals at this point, on a number of different levels. We're not going to get into all the specifics of that. And, again, this is developing very, very quickly. Indeed, in the last few minutes there have been a couple of developments. So we will keep you posted as we can without interrupting the flow of the investigation and jeopardizing the prosecution and apprehension of these particular individuals. Thank you.</s>PAULA DOW, ESSEX COUNTY PROSECUTOR: As has been mentioning, the -- has been mentioned, the investigation is ongoing. Last night, early in the evening, a superior court judge issued an arrest warrant on the defendant identified as Jose Carranza. He has been charged in the arrest warrant with three counts of murder, four counts of first- degree robbery, one count of attempted murder, two counts of various weapons offenses, and one count of conspiracy to commit the crime of robbery. The picture that has been released today of the individual known as Jose Carranza was taken a number of years ago. That is how he appeared at that time. The picture may be three to four years old, but we know that at that time that's how he appeared. Also charged on paper earlier today was a 15-year-old male Hispanic juvenile. And he has been charged with the same counts as Jose Carranza. We are continuing this investigation. We believe that others were involved in this heinous crime. We're looking for them. We ask the support and continuing cooperation of all the community out there. It's through their cooperation and continuing efforts to help us that we'll bring this matter fully to justice. Thank you.</s>BOOKER: Just a few other details about the suspect, Jose Carranza. He has three previous arrests, and he has one pending trial as we speak, which we're gathering, obviously, the background information on him to give the fullest picture possible of this individual. We'll be passing out this information, not only to you here at the press, but within the community. In order to apprehend this individual in order others involved, we know we're going to need the farthest and fullest community support in giving us tips and leads or specific information about the whereabouts of these individuals. At this point, we will now take questions. Brian Thompson in the back.</s>MCCARTHY: Brian, last night we had approximately 30 investigators out looking for Mr. Carranza. We went to a number of locations based upon previous arrests -- he has an arrest history -- and some other information we were able to develop. At this point, we've been through the -- I'll call it our first wave of locations that we're looking for him. From those locations, we're developing more information. So, you know, you take one step, it leads to three more, and that's exactly where we are. We have been on the street looking for him since last night.</s>DOW: If I might add in connection with that, we know that he was in the area some time yesterday. And that leads us to believe that he is still within the state, within the area, and on hopefully we'll turn himself in.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Question down front.</s>MCCARTHY: At this point, all of that information is still not clear. He is a Newark resident, and at this point, that's really all that we're going to give you.</s>QUESTION: Do you know at this point who is your belief was the triggerman in all this? Is it Mr. Carranza, the 15-year-old or another suspect?</s>MCCARTHY: I don't think we want to talk about that.</s>DOW: That's right, the investigation is still unfolding.</s>MCCARTHY: Could anyone explain how you go from getting the warrant on Carranza to searching for him and instead picking up the juvenile? Were there things that you picked up along the way in looking for Carranza that led you to the juvenile? Did you know who the juvenile was beforehand?</s>MCCARTHY: When we looked into Mr. Carranza's past, looked into his previous arrest locations, previous addresses and any information that we could develop on him, it led us to go to specific locations. During that particular pursuit, we came across a juvenile, and through the investigation we were able to determine his involvement is what it comes down to.</s>QUESTION: Do we know whether or not</s>MCCARTHY: At this point, there is still no indication -- I repeat, there is still no indication of a gang angle in this particular endeavor. And at this point, I'm not sure we want to comment on motive either.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.</s>QUESTION: Reporter: Can you tell us, Miss Aeriel, you said, was helping in the investigation. Did she identify Mr. Carranza and the 15-year-old as being there on the Saturday night from a picture lineup?</s>DOW: She has been helping with the identification, and we're not going to go into the details of who she identified at this time. She has helped.</s>QUESTION: Whose fingerprint was it?</s>DOWN: We're not going into that information.</s>QUESTION: Who was part of the team that arrested him?</s>MCCARTHY: We don't want to give specific information on that.</s>QUESTION: Reporter: Who made the arrest.</s>MCCARTHY: It was a joint task force before the prosecutor's office and the Newark Police Department.</s>DOW: We have taken -- we have had significant leads from fingerprint evidence, and we've had a number of fingerprints, some from beer bottles and elsewhere.</s>QUESTION: Can you talk about ballistic tests a little bit? I know that you were looking to see whether the guns had been used in crimes in the area. Did you find that -- did that help you lead to these people? Have you recovered the weapons?</s>MCCARTHY: Well, I need to explain the process by which we make that identification. Generally, that's been shell casings, which we have not recovered at the scene when we compare it to other crimes. So at this point, we have ballistics evidence. We don't want to comment on it because it's not going to help us.</s>QUESTION: Yesterday, director, you talked about...</s>MCCARTHY: I'm sorry, it's not going to help us to comment on your question, not that the ballistics evidence won't help us.</s>QUESTION: Yesterday, director, you talked about possibly...</s>HARRIS: OK, as we've been reporting, CNN's Alan Chernoff, an arrest has been made in those gruesome execution=style killings of three college students, the wounding of a fourth. That fourth person, Natasha, has done a wonderful job of helping the investigators identify a suspect that has led to at least one arrest, a 15-year-old suspect under arrest right now -- 15 years old. Police have issued an arrest warrant for 31-year-old Jose Carranza. He also goes by the name of Jose Lachira. Police are looking for him right now. A lot of evidence apparently collected at the scene of the shooting. That playground behind that elementary school in Newark, ballistics, fingerprint evidence. Again, Natasha Aeriel providing a lot of information, recovering from her wounds, but providing a lot of information to help investigators and, again, a 15-year-old suspect under arrest. And the search, the manhunt right now for 31-year-old Jose Carranza. We will keep you posted on this developing story in Newark, New Jersey.</s>COLLINS: Want to take you to some information we are getting out of Vancouver. Fredricka Whitfield has been working on this story. Awful looking shooting at a restaurant -- Fred.</s>FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, taking place in the early hours, this taking place at a late-night restaurant, late- night Chinese restaurant there in east Vancouver. What police are confirming is that two people died on the scene. Six people have been injured. Our affiliates there in the British Columbia Vancouver area are reporting that one gunman may have walked into the rear of the restaurant, another gunman entering the front end of the restaurant, then the shooting took place, leaving two people who died on the scene. Police are saying that the shooting does appear to have been a targeted one, but it's unclear exactly what the motive might have been. Right now, the investigation is still in the early stages, even though this took place in the early hours of the morning. You are looking at new video we are just now receiving from our affiliate CTV there of the crime scene, and the people -- those injured, who are being taken to nearby hospitals -- Heidi.</s>COLLINS: Wow. Pretty frightening pictures coming in out of Vancouver, certainly. Two people dead, eight people have been shot. All right. Fredricka Whitfield, thanks so much. The story around the Vancouver restaurant shooting. Thank you.