Injured TSA Officer Speaks for First Time
BURNETT: Welcome back to the second half of OUTFRONT. Chants of "death to America" in Iran. Today, thousands taking to the streets, swarming the former American embassy in Tehran, in one of the biggest shows of defiance against new President Hassan Rouhani's overtures to the United States over Iran's nuclear programs. Again, these pictures, as you can see, are from today. This comes on the 34th anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the embassy. Now, protesters burned American flags, held up anti-American posters, defacing President Obama and the Statue of Liberty. Well, a mea culpa from Rob Ford, the embattled Toronto mayor who's been accused of smoking crack. But the whole thing allegedly caught on tape. On a radio show today, Ford apologized for making mistakes, admitted to doing a lot of stupid things. And as for the actual crack smoking on that video?</s>MAYOR ROB FORD, TORONTO: I want the Police Chief Bill Blair to release this video for every single person in the city to see. That is the right thing to do, and, Chief, I'm asking you to release this video now.</s>BURNETT: So standing by his side of things, the Toronto police tell OUTFRONT they are not releasing the video because it is evidence in a current court case. Well, our fifth story OUTFRONT -- our breaking news at this half hour -- just moments, one of the injured TSA officers in the Los Angeles International Airport shooting spoke out for the first time, talking about his encounter with the gunman after helping an elderly man to a safe area.</s>TONY GRIGSBY, TSA SHOOTING VICTIM: I turned around and there was a gunman who shot me twice. I was shot in the foot. After I was shot, I got to the area where the planes were at. And people were coming towards me and asking me, you know, were you shot, what's going on. I was like, and I</s>BURNETT: That comes on the heels of new information that police visited the alleged gunman's apartment the day of the shooting. They got a tip. But it turns out they missed him. And the chance to save a live by just minutes. Stephanie Elam is OUTFRONT.</s>STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not long before the deadly shooting at Los Angeles International Airport, Paul Ciancia sent his family in New Jersey rambling and alarming text messages, some suggesting that he would commit suicide. The family alerted authorities who then asked LADP to do a welfare check. They responded within six minutes of getting that call, but it was still too late.</s>CMDR. ANDREW SMITH, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: Remember, this was after the incident occurred, and it's dozens of miles away from where LAX is. It's probably 40 miles from LAX to this house. So, our officers didn't make the connection at all. No one had made the connection at that point.</s>ELAM: But Ciancia was already gone. His roommate gave him a ride to the airport. CNN's Miguel Marquez spoke exclusively to a woman who knows Ciancia and his roommates.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the moment that they're seeing this on the TV, their third roommate comes back and says I just dropped Paul at LAX. He had to go home. And they just knew. I think that you just dropped off Paul to a shooting.</s>ELAM: Police say Cianci reportedly entered LAX's terminal 3 armed with an assault rifle and five magazines of ammunition. The FBI says they recovered a handwritten note on Ciancia that made it clear he was out to kill TSA officers. Authorities say he shot TSA officer Geraldo Hernandez at point blank range. Investigators say then Cianci went up an escalator. But after apparently spotting Hernandez still moving on the floor, he doubled back to shoot him again, killing Hernandez.</s>SCOTT GREENE, WITNESSED SHOOTING: There was a pause. So I looked down the escalator, and I saw the gunman. He had his gun trained on the guy on the wall there, and he shot him twice.</s>ELAM: In the end, two more TSA officers and a traveler were hit. LAX police shot Ciancia several times in the face and neck. He's alive but remains unresponsive. The woman who knows Ciancia and his roommates also said he was socially awkward and that he had expressed strong feelings about the U.S. government.</s>UNIDNETIFIED FEMALE: All the NSA findings that came out, you know, to hear that he was very upset about it and he also thought that TSA abused their power.</s>ELAM: As for Paul Ciancia, his family expressed sorry for his actions.</s>JOHN JORDAN, ATTORNEY FOR CIANCIA FAMILY: Paul is our son and brother. We will continue to love him and care for him. We will support him during the difficult times ahead. While we do not mean to minimize the grief and distress experienced by many other families, we hope that the public will understand that this is a very difficult time for our family, too.</s>ELAM: And in light of the shooting, Erin, a union that represents the TSA officers is now calling for another group of TSA officers who are armed and able to arrest travelers. They were saying that they would need extra training. But they're saying, in light of all the kinds of people that these people encounter in their jobs that they need that extra security -- Erin.</s>BURNETT: Stephanie, thank you very much. And, of course, everyone, let us know what you think. Should the TSA -- should they have more security, have the right to have guns? Would that solve any of this? And our sixth story OUTFRONT is the LAX shooter's motive for murder. We are learning more about the alleged gunman, Paul Ciancia and why he may have been targeting TSA officers specifically. So, according to the latest that we have from the FBI, investigators found a note from Ciancia that made it clear he wanted to kill TSA officers. And, quote, "Instill fear into their traitorous minds." Now, Ciancia said he acted alone, but the question is, was he part of an anti-government group that is rising in popularity across the United States? As in, could this happen again? OUTFRONT tonight, Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Michael Medved, a conservative syndicated radio show host. Great to have both of you with us. Mark, you spend your entire life tracking these sort of things. You say, according to Cianci's writings, he appears to be aligned with the conspiracy minded, anti-government patriot movement, very important word there, "patriot", which believes about the federal, that the federal government wants to destroy American freedoms, force United States into a socialistic world government, impose martial law, and take away non-law enforcement weapons." Are you convinced that Ciancia was part of this movement?</s>MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: No, I think "convinced" would be a little strong. We learned over the weekend that there were some other references in his one page, handwritten note. He talked about the new world order. He talked about fiat currency and he talked about the Federal Reserve. In the world of the patriot groups or what we used to call the militia groups, those things all relate to a single conspiracy theory. The idea that American freedom -- well, really that there's a plot on the part of the government to create a one-world government, a socialistic, totalitarian regime to be called the new world order. Many people in the patriot world trace that conspiracy, that alleged conspiracy to the formation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the subsequent abolition of gold-backed money, in other words, the adoption of fiat money mean paper money that is not backed by gold. So, we don't have any evidence that Ciancia was a part of the group. We have nothing like that. We don't know where he may have been in the years leading up to now. It's simply that kind of language in the note that he left. He also, we learned, had some very personal attacks on Janet Napolitano, the former DHS secretary.</s>BURNETT: Right. And I want to ask about that. But, Michael, first, let me ask you. When people watching who aren't following these radical groups hear words like the Federal Reserve and gold, whether U.S. currency should be backed by gold, they tend to think of more mainstream groups, perhaps Tea Partiers, libertarians whose also often use those terms as well. Now, what does that make --</s>MICHAEL MEDVED, SYNDICATED RADIO SHOW HOST: Right.</s>I -- BURNETT: So respond to that has to whether those more mainstream but still a little bit on the, right wing groups are in a sense encouraging these more radicals.</s>MEDVED: Right, I think it's completely unfair. And one of the things -- Mark has been a guest on my radio show, and we've debated this at the time. I don't think it's fair to conflate the so-called militia groups with groups that describe themselves as patriots. Patriot is not a bad word. There's a very mainstream group that has millions of members called the Tea Party Patriots, that has nothing to do with -- we have no evidence at all that Paul Ciancia was in any way involved with them. They have never encouraged violence. And I think that's the important thing here. The important thing is to draw a line between people who are fringe groups who believe for instance that everything bad that happens in America is part of a massive conspiracy, including September 11th was an inside job and people were obsessed about the Kennedy assassination, but not everyone who was interested in those kinds of theories is somebody who is likely to engage in this sort of violence. And I think what you find here is the key element is mental illness. This is a guy who was clearly mentally ill, and that's what we need to pay attention to.</s>BURNETT: And his parents, of course, have tried to reach out and tried to get help on that and were refused. So, I mean, that's a fair point. But, Mark, you know, according to your research, the patriot movement has surged since President Obama took office, 149 groups linked to that when he started. More than 1,300 last year.</s>POTOK: That is true.</s>BURNETT: Do you think this is rooted in racism against the president?</s>POTOK: Well, first of all, let me respond something Michael said. I'm not at all alleging that this man is connected to the Tea Party Patriots or any Tea Party group at all. The militia movement commonly does refer to itself as the patriot movement or sometimes the Christian patriot movement. So I'm merely using the language of much more extreme groups than the Tea Party world. So, I want to be clear about that. Yes. This attack --</s>MEDVED: I'm not willing to give up the word patriot to those people.</s>POTOK: -- the context of very rapidly growing number, so-called patriot groups of militia groups. I mean, the growth has been just astounding. And it really did begin in the fall of 2008, the beginning of 2009, in other words, precisely when our first black president is coming to power. So I think that one of the big drivers of this movement is not only the person of Obama, black man in the White House, but the demographic change in our country that he represents, the idea that the white majority in this country will be lost in about 30 years.</s>MEDVED: I think what you're doing is very dangerous and very conspiratorial because one of the things that you're suggesting is, you're talking about this horrible shooting, unforgivable. And we've had a whole series of them. We've had the Washington Navy Yard. We had Newtown. We had Aurora, Colorado. Virtually none of them are politically involved. And to all of a sudden use the word "patriot" which is a precious and valuable word -- in the Boston bombings, they were celebrating being Patriot's Day. I am not willing to give up the use of the word "patriot" to characterize very, very fringe groups, of which you say there is no evidence is involved here. And try to tar people with this right after a terrible shooting like this when the clear problem is mental illness I think is irresponsible with all due respect, Mark.</s>BURNETT: All right. Well, thanks very much to both of you. And, please, to all of you, weigh on Twitter. Up next, the NSA leaker Edward Snowden writes a manifesto and says he has proof that he did nothing wrong, talk about whether someone's a patriot or not. That's the question. And later, a true American hero -- Iron Man comes to life in the Pentagon right now. And a shout-out tonight: breaking record. Singer Rihanna has done something no woman has ever done before. She's managed to notch the number 1 single in the U.K. single's chart every year for the past seven years. Her current number one is "The Monster", a collaboration with rapper Eminem. Only two other artists have accomplished that feat, the Beatles and Elvis, which is pretty impressive. So, a shout- out goes to Rihanna for her seven years of success.