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Multiple People Injured in Philadelphia Shooting; FAA Investigating Whistleblower Claims About Boeing Dreamliner; NTSB: Ship's Power System and Circuit Breakers Focus of Probe in Baltimore Bridge Collapse; Severe Storms Battering the South. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 10, 2024 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We're following breaking news here, a shooting in Philadelphia and right now as we've understood at least one officer fired shots at a gunman, according to a law enforcement official. There were two victims who were rushed by police to a hospital there in Philly with gunshot wounds. One is actually considered a possible suspect.

This happened near a celebration marking the end of Ramadan Eid. However, police currently do not believe that it was connected to that celebration.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Let's bring in CNN chief law enforcement analyst John Miller. John, when you hear that there's a shooting near a celebration like this, given the political climate, given some of the Islamophobic attacks that we've witnessed across the country, your mind goes a certain place, but you are hearing from officials that this was more akin to a separate group of people that had a confrontation and ultimately open fired and that impacted the crowd.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, that's right.

[15:35:00]

And the shots broke out at 2:26 p.m. at 47th and Gerard, just about a block out from Clara Mohammed Square, where the mosque is. This is the place where you've got 10,000 people in the streets. The celebration at the end of Ramadan at Eid.

They do this every year in the square. It's a popular event in the neighborhood, but also particularly with Philadelphia's Muslim community in that neighborhood.

When the shots broke out, police were already on the scene because of managing the crowds in the event. At least one police officer reportedly discharged his firearm at one of the shooters. This is possibly two groups of individuals on the street shooting at each other when this started. Of course, that started the crowd running.

The staging area was set up a block away while they tried to sort through what they have. So far, what they have is one individual who was wounded who is in custody at the hospital, another individual that was transported by police from the scene, and then the hospital, Penn Presbyterian Hospital, reports to police that three other individuals walked in with gunshot wounds, apparently self-transported to the hospital by private conveyance.

So it appears, and we've got to underline, we're still very early in this. The information is preliminary. We'll be hearing more from police shortly. But it appears that there was a gun battle between two groups of people, possibly, that five people are wounded, that police fired at least one officer fired back at the shooter, and that they are now in the midst of trying to sort out who these people were, what the shooting was about.

But I think it's important to underline what we don't think right now. Based on my conversations with law enforcement officials in Philadelphia, with federal officials who are tracking this, it does not appear to be an act of terrorism. It appears to be criminal activity in the neighborhood.

It does not appear to be connected with the mosque or particularly to the Ramadan event, just part of some dispute between two groups in a neighborhood that has struggled with crime and guns.

KEILAR: Yes. And yet here it is, shattering this celebration of so many people. This popular gathering, as you said, John, what should be an occasion to mark. And can you just put this incident into context of the kind of gun violence and incidents that you have seen in Philadelphia and the region?

MILLER: Well, Philadelphia is a city like many American cities, but one that is in a particular struggle with gun violence. It is a police department that is making gun arrests and doing stops on a regular basis. There is the controversy of a district attorney who has been very progressive and has shown a hesitancy to go forward with criminal charges at the rate that police would probably like them to. So it's in a city that is in a struggle with violent crime.

In this case, when the shots were fired in the midst of a crowd and the police put in three separate calls for backup and assistance, and then other people on the scene using their phones called in reports of shots fired, this was translated into an active shooter event, you know, by the Philadelphia police's response. Rescue task force was sent by the fire department with bulletproof vests to render aid.

They alerted the rapid response team and the emergency response team, ERT and RIT, to respond with all their units to the area. And it was a while before they were able to get kind of a lasso around this information to determine it wasn't an active shooter, probably not an act of terrorism, more likely connected to criminal activity between possible gang members or rival groups.

SANCHEZ: John Miller, please keep us posted on what you are hearing from law enforcement. Thank you so much for the update.

Let's bring in CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe. Andy, thanks so much for being with us. Your general response initially to what we're hearing from John in the reporting about what unfolded in Philadelphia.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, Boris, I think tragically, this is the kind of -- these are the sort of situations that we can expect to experience and hear about probably more often as carrying weapons becomes more and more ubiquitous in this country. You know, we struggle under a massive deluge of firearms.

We have one 120 firearms for every 100 people in this country. So this is a large outdoor events where you have crowds that essentially walk up to the event.

[15:40:00]

There aren't -- there isn't a controlled entrance where people are subjected to magnetometers and things of that nature. You are going to run the risk of having individuals in that crowd who are carrying firearms. And when disputes and frustrations or arguments or fights break out between some of those people who are carrying guns, we now have a significant risk that those moments of frustration and anger turn to gunfire.

So it's really a very logical progression as we go down this path of becoming more and more heavily armed. This is something we saw back in the summers of 2015 and 2016 with, you know, extremely elevated violent crime rates in places like Chicago and other major cities around the country. A lot of what we were seeing were interactions between opposing groups, gangs, you know, any sort of criminal groups that in the years past would have culminated with in fistfights and things like that now really all finish with exchanging gunfire.

So this is something that police and city officials need to think about as they schedule and plan for these large outdoor events. But honestly, from what we heard from John Miller just now, it doesn't sound like the police could have done anything differently. They were already on the scene working crowd control at this preplanned celebration of the end of Ramadan. And it's just another instance of one of these things turning violent very suddenly.

KEILAR: Yes, you can see there in the square blankets that people have just left as they may have fled this celebration. And if you can stand by for us, we did just get sound in from one of the witnesses to this. Let's listen to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were just having a celebration for the Eid, something we do every year. We fast for 30 days and then at the end we have a celebration. We were enjoying ourselves.

The kids were around, everyone was eating. And at about 2:30, we just heard shots and everyone just start running and scattering around. And you hear babies crying, people crying, people on the ground.

And it's crazy. It was crazy. And then about a couple of seconds later, it was like another round of shots going off and we were just running and running. And one of my family members got shot in the stomach. That's why we're here to figure out what's going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So from what she's saying, maybe not related to the celebration, but certainly very much affecting the people who were there celebrating the end of Ramadan.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it sounds like one of her family members was apparently shot in the stomach. At least two victims rushed to the hospital with gunshot wounds, one of them potentially a suspect, as we heard from John Miller, his reporting indicating that several others voluntarily and at their own apparent convenience, took themselves to get help.

We're going to stay on top of this story in Philadelphia and bring you the very latest as we get it. Multiple people injured there in a shooting. Stay with CNN. We're back in just moments.

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: A new whistleblower is coming forward after his repeated internal complaints at Boeing, he says, were apparently ignored. Now the engineer is going public with details of a complaint he submitted to the FAA in January.

His concerns about the manufacturing of Boeing widebody jets, the Dreamliner and the 777. And he accuses Boeing of making shortcuts that he fears may lead to catastrophic results years from now. CNN correspondent Gabe Cohen has the details for us. Gabe, this engineer says that Boeing retaliated against him for making complaints.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boris, that's right. He claims he was ignored. He was moved to different teams. He was kept out of meetings at times and even threatened with physical violence at one point. All of that for raising these concerns about these shortcuts that you mentioned that he believed Boeing was taking in its assembly of two planes, the 787 Dreamliner and the 777.

There's a lot in this complaint, but part of it is that he is alleging that the workers building those planes have been forcing together misaligned parts of the fuselage, the main body of the aircraft, basically jamming those parts into place. And he says the process to fill all of those tiny gaps in between the different pieces of the plane has not been done properly, which could, he argues, and his lawyers argue, add a lot of stress on those parts and on the plane and potentially cause those parts to come apart and cause a catastrophic accident in the air. Here's a bit of what he told us on a call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM SALEHPOUR, BOEING ENGINEER WHISTLEBLOWER: Boeing did not follow its own engineering requirements. Instead, Boeing hid the problem by pushing the pieces together with force to make, to make it appear like that the gap didn't exist instead of solving the problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now, Boeing is vehemently denying these claims, saying that they are inaccurate and that the issues raised here, as they put it, have been subject to rigorous engineering examination under FAA oversight.

[15:50:00]

Keep in mind, Boris, some of these allegations we have heard before back in 2021, the FAA actually halted deliveries of the Dreamliner because of similar issues with those gaps that are between the parts of the plane. Back then, Boeing said it fixed the problem. The FAA signed off on it. But the allegation here is that they never really fixed it.

SANCHEZ: Gabe, we want to pivot now because you've been following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and today the NTSB gave new details about the focus of the investigation. Bring us up to speed on that.

COHEN: It's a significant update, Boris. Federal investigators say they are now focusing in on the engine room equipment that's on board the Dali, that container ship that you can see that actually hit and collapse the Key Bridge after experiencing some sort of power failure, a total blackout, as it was described in the days after, as it was approaching the bridge.

Now, employees from Hyundai, the company that built that system, according to the NTSB, have arrived at the ship. They are downloading data from the electrical power system and they're taking a look at the circuit breakers on board. So we're hoping to get a better sense of what actually caused that power issue and that outage. But we just don't know at this point.

And we are also getting in new 3D sonar images of what this wreckage looks like beneath the surface. You can see it there. It paints the clearest picture of the heavy lift, both literally and figuratively for the crews that are still struggling to clear all of that wreckage out as they're still mapping the scene.

You can see in that picture, especially on the left side, all of that pancake debris, not just the big chunks of the bridge, but all of the concrete and small pieces that are stuck at the bottom of the channel, 50 feet down in the water. All of that in the coming weeks is going to have to be cleared out because they want to make sure ships in the future don't scrape the bottom, potentially not just causing damage, but maybe even another disaster.

Plus, they have to do this, Boris, very delicately, because three of those six construction workers who died in the collapse are still missing somewhere in the river. And the governor of Maryland has vowed that they will recover those men.

SANCHEZ: Gabe Cohen, thank you so much for the update, Gabe.

Still ahead, storms have marched across the southeast. We've got tornadoes, strong winds, a lot of rain, all possible. This is the damage we've seen already in Texas. We're live on the ground with an update in just moments.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: This just in, one storm related death confirmed in Mississippi as severe weather slams, large swaths of the South. New tornado watches were just issued for portions of Alabama, Georgia and Florida. And that's on top of several reports of tornado damage and rescues today in Louisiana and Texas. The National Weather Service confirming that a twister did touch down in the Houston suburb of Katy.

CNN's Rosa Flores is there for us. Rosa, we can see the damage behind you. What else are you seeing?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, people here counting their blessings because this EF1 tornado hit in this area, which is a parking lot.

Thank goodness because there's a residential area right behind us. But I want to show you the path of this tornado. According to the National Weather Service, it probably came down at about the middle of the street that you're looking at.

And then it moved towards this parking lot. You can see that there's a flip trailer. There's a collapsed building and debris all over the place.

Some of the cleanup has started already. But this tornado moved through this parking lot and then stopped, according to the National Weather Service. It didn't move beyond this area. And that is why people here are counting their blessings. There's a residential area just beyond the shopping center that you're looking at right now.

But I want to take you through the area of this severe storm and the millions of people who have been impacted. And I want to start in Kirbyville, Texas, where there have been multiple high water rescues there. Eight to eight, 8 to 12 inches of rain were reported in that area. At one point, all major roads going through Kirbyville were shut down.

And now to New Orleans, where iconic streets like Canal Street were completely flooded earlier today. Officials there at last check had residents parking in the neutral ground. That's just higher ground. And that's to help individuals that are in that area so that their vehicles weren't damaged.

And then on to Slidell, which is northeast of New Orleans, just north of Lake Pontchartrain. Police there believe that a tornado hit and there are reports there of people hiding in their closet with their children. The police officer there describing the intense moments when he said that his vehicle was shaking.

And on to Mississippi, where they believe that at this point, one death has occurred. And we don't know the details of that death. But it's not over, Brianna, because as you mentioned earlier, there's a tornado watch that has been issued already for Alabama, Georgia and portions of Florida as well. Back to you.

KEILAR: All right. We'll keep an eye on that. Rosa, thank you so much for the report from Katy, Texas.

SANCHEZ: We're also going to continue to follow our breaking news on CNN out of Philadelphia, where multiple people are injured following a shooting near an event celebrating the end of Ramadan.

[16:00:00]

Police do not believe the shooting is connected to that event or to a nearby mosque. Instead they believe that there was an exchange of gunfire between two separate groups.

KEILAR: Police say that there were two victims who were rushed to the hospital. One of them is believed to be a suspect. And according to the hospital, three more people showed up with gunshot wounds after they transported themselves to the hospital. Obviously a lot of police response that we saw in that area and a very serious situation.

"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

END