Colorado Shooting Suspect's Apartment Rigged with Explosives
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Everybody, welcome. Our "Starting Point" this morning are some new details coming to us about what was inside the apartment of the Aurora, Colorado, shooting suspect James Holmes as he awaits formal charges after his pretty bizarre appearance in court yesterday. CNN has new information, a law enforcement official who viewed videotape taken inside the apartment says this -- "mess of wires looked like spaghetti" and it was rigged to, quote, "right," meaning if police hadn't dismantled the explosives the entire floor of the complex could have been consumed by flames before even the first fire truck arrive. Over the weekend the Aurora police discovered more than 30 improvised explosive devices rigged to a control box surrounded by glass containers of gasoline. Investigators say the gasoline was meant to enhance the effects of the blast. All of that brings us right to CNN's Jim Spellman in Aurora, Colorado this morning. He's standing right outside the theater. We can see the neon sign behind you, Jim. Let's talk first about this video. I know it's black and white. What more can you tell us?</s>JIM SPELLMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, police describe this whole apartment as being designed to kill, all rigged up to a trip wire at the front door. It took them almost two days before they could figure out how to dismantle this safely, ultimately using water to render inoperable this control box. Fortunately there wasn't a timer to it because they needed that much time to sort out how to do it. When they were finally able to render all these things safe, they took them to the country and detonated them. The fireball in the middle of the field was huge, devastating to ponder the impact should a first responder or police officer gone through that door.</s>O'BRIEN: About the investigation, Jim, what's the latest? I thought seeing the suspect in court yesterday and seeing all of his facial -- I guess I would call them ticks or just -- he looked weird and he also was acting very strange.</s>SPELLMAN: To me, when I was in the courtroom and when I sat there looking at him, to me he looked small and weak and lost. He won't really officially be charged in Monday, we anticipate 70 counts. The defense will get their access to the movie theater and apartment as they start to build their case. An important thing will happen in the case soon will be a competency hearing to see whether the suspect is competent to go ahead with the trial or not.</s>O'BRIEN: We're watching this case very closely, especially when the charges are put forward. Jim Spellman for us this morning, thank you. We'll have more on this topic with retired FBI agent Ray Lopez in just a moment. First a look at the day's top stories. Christine Romans has that for us. Hey, Christine, good morning.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Mounting concern in the U.S. and Israel about chemical weapons possibly entering the fray in Syria. Fierce fighting continuing overnight in city of Aleppo, the Assad regime clinging to power this morning. Here's the development that's getting attention, a spokesman for Syria's foreign ministry publicly threatening to deploy chemical weapons against any foreign intervention. It's a threat Senator John McCain is taking seriously.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: There is a danger of chemical weapons that are presently under Bashar al Assad's control from flowing to Hezbollah, presenting a grave threat to the security of Israel.</s>ROMANS: President Obama warning the Assad regime it would be a tragic mistake to use chemical weapons, promising Syria will be held accountable if it does. A new era for Penn State's football program after a massive punish from the NCAA over the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. The NCAA leveled a $60 million fine, imposed a four-year ban on post- season activity and stripped the school of scholarships and football victories for the last 14 seasons. Penn State says it won't fight the stiff sanctions. Just ahead we'll hear from ESPN radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning. Charges will be brought against several key figures arrested in the "News of the World" phone hacking scandal. Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks will be charged. Coulson was former aid to David Cameron and close confidant of Rupert Murdoch, Brooks the former chief executive of Murdoch's News International. A total of 24 people, including 15 current and formal journalists, have been arrested since the investigation was launched a year and a half ago. She didn't just break the glass ceiling, she blasted it into space. Sally Ride, the first American woman to orbit the earth died after battling pancreatic cancer. She rode into history on the shuttle Challenger in 1983, made a second trip aboard the same shuttle a year later. President Obama called her a national hero and inspiration to countless women. Sally Ride was 61, and Soledad, I'm sure it was the same for you. You grew up hearing about her and her amazing achievement, really taught girls and women an awful lot about what they can do in science technology.</s>O'BRIEN: Yes. I don't necessarily think her amazement achievement was the first thing, going up in space. It was all of that commitment to try to get young women to follow in her footsteps, she was awesome. We'll miss her. Back to our top story this morning, new details about all of these explosives that were found inside the apartment of the Aurora shooting suspect. We want to get to Ray Lopez, a retired FBI agent and former team leader of the bureau's hazardous device response unit. Nice to see you. Thanks for talking to us. What we know is that all of these IEDs, I am pro advised explosive devices were rigged to a control box and glass containers because they would accelerate any kind of explosion. Have you ever seen domestically any kind of setup like this?</s>RAY LOPEZ, RETIRED FBI AGENT: No, Soledad, good morning. This would be one of the first times I think we've ever seen what we can describe as a house bomb in the United States. Some of these things do exist overseas, we've seen them in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Also in Colombia, south America, but this is the first one I can actually recall reading or seeing about in the United States where it was actually set to destroy the home.</s>O'BRIEN: The source for CNN talking to our reporter Poppy Harlow it looked like massive spaghetti and wires all connected. Would this something incredibly complicated and the suspect would need quite a fair amount of expertise to be able to do this?</s>LOPEZ: No, you know, the expertise is out there. I think he's -- you look at his pedigree that I was a graduate student working towards his Ph.D. I think he had the education and knowledge, it is on the internet. With a little bit of common sense and he has quite a bit of that. He's very intelligent. He just put it all together and had something ready to go for the apartment.</s>O'BRIEN: That's awful. Poppy Harlow was talking to a source who said this, "The flame would have consumed the entire third floor of the apartment complex. By the time a fire truck would have arrived to the building, completely consumed in flames." The damage potential seems massive and at the same time, what we know about the suspect he tipped off police when they were able to apprehend him. Those two things seem almost contradictory to me.</s>LOPEZ: Yes, again, I think eventually we're going to find out through investigation that I think he was leading the police on to try to get to that apartment and either, worst case scenario, kill the police officers going to the apartment and destroy the evidence that existed in the apartment.</s>O'BRIEN: We were told the way they were able to disable the control box was to do something call water shock. Is that typical to disarm a rigged explosive device? What exactly is water shock?</s>LOPEZ: It's just driving water using explosives as the medium. You're using water to actually cut through or, if you will, or disrupt the electric circuitry of the explosive</s>IED. O'BRIEN: Let me ask a question about his mental state, because I think that is a big question, everybody seeing him in court yesterday. Would someone be able to compile something so deadly as you point out, being able to be me tick house plotting and planting and does that contradict with a his defense attorneys will say, this is a person who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, maybe the insanity defense?</s>LOPEZ: Right. I think if law enforcement perspective, you think you have to let the professionals do their job in mental health to determine the status of this individual, and it's -- I think it's a complicated situation. But I think from the law enforcement point of view, both state, local, and federal, we move ahead and the prosecution phase gathering the evidence, doing the interviews, collecting all of the scientific report and data, and getting ready to go to court as if this guy were competent to stand trial. Personally I think this took a lot of planning. This was not something that he thought about overnight. The weapons were purchased using his driver's license. He did it as far as we know legally. He got these explosives together and actually studied this. This was not something done haphazardly. We'll leave it to the mental health officials to determine at what point someone is not all there but can actually think through these things. It is quite complicated to put this attack together.</s>O'BRIEN: I would think the focus would be -- the critical point would be do you know the difference between right and wrong, if you're booby-trapping your apartment, that would sound to me that you might, might be the challenge. That is a question for lawyers and mental health professionals to discuss and maybe not us today. Ray Lopez, nice to see you, thanks for talking with us, we appreciate it.</s>LOPEZ: Thank you.</s>O'BRIEN: We're going to talk about the NCAA. Did they go too far penalizing Penn State football? Mike and Mike join me and whether it will change the culture of the university. Plus, our "Get Real" this morning, a bid to bedazzle the state capitol. A 22-year-old diva is shaking up an election in Brooklyn. My playlist believes with Marvin Sapp "Rain on Me." What a great way to start, a little gospel.