Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Police Release Individual Detained in Brown University Shooting; Rob Reiner and Wife Dead, Police Investigating Apparent Homicides; Death Toll Climbs to 15 After Australia's Bondi Beach Shooting. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 15, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: A lot going on this morning and a lot of breaking news. Breaking news from Brown University, where the manhunt is back on after police released the person of interest they had in custody late last night. Is this investigation now back at square one?

Also breaking overnight, Hollywood legend Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, found dead in their Los Angeles home, an apparent homicide, according to police. Huge questions are swirling around this today.

And we're also tracking wild weather wreaking havoc out west. Floodwaters moving so fast, they're ripping apart. Bridges like this one we're looking at in Montana. Tracking here, we are tracking the storm threat for you.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. Sara is out today. This is CNN News Central.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And the breaking news this morning, just a stunning development here on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Police released the man who had been detained as a person of interest in the deadly shooting here that happened right in that building behind me with those white squares. That's the engineering building where two people were killed and nine injured. Rhode Island's attorney general says that the evidence now points in a different direction.

Speaking overnight, the mayor of Providence acknowledged that authorities have no way of knowing if the shooter is still in the area or has left the state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BRETT SMILEY, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND: We know that this is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community, and we want to reiterate what we said earlier, which remains true, which is ever since the initial call now a day and a half ago, we have not received any credible or specific threats to the Providence community.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: All right, two students were killed at least nine others injured in the attack, which happened Saturday afternoon and the principles of economics review session. Surveillance footage shows someone who the police believe is the gunman wearing dark clothing, leaving the university building where it has happened. Again, that's the street that we're standing on right now, Hope Street.

CNN's Brian Todd is here with me with this breaking news that just so radically changes the situation here at Brown this morning. Brian, what are you learning?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is extraordinary, John. This turn of events where this person of interest, by the way, regarding whom they had gathered a lot of evidence, we were there all day yesterday at that hotel in Coventry when they were processing evidence for that person now is released.

You know, the decision as to why they released it, the police chief, Oscar Perez, did speak about that. Here is some of what the police chief said about basically how they came to this decision last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OSCAR PEREZ, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND POLICE CHIEF: This was a very complex investigation and it's still -- it's -- so, in a sense, we followed on a lead and we followed on a specific lead. But we were able to examine every single evidence that led us to this individual. And at that point, that's how investigations work. Investigations will tell us whether something is valid or not, whether something needs to be ruled out. It is not a mistake. It's just how investigations work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And a couple of extraordinary things here, John. Number one, the mayor, Brett Smiley, saying last night, they have no way of knowing whether the gunman is in the community or even in the state, and yet they're saying that there is no credible or no immediate threat to the community, and there's no need for a lockdown or no need for a shelter in place.

Those two things may seem kind of incongruous here as this investigation continues. So, we have to dig on this, you know, is there any indication of where this gunman may be? It's extraordinary that they're saying they have no way of knowing whether this person is in the state or not.

I think another question that we have to kind of dig on here that they're not giving a lot of answers to is the surveillance footage. Is there any more than that one piece of footage of the guy going around the corner? They did say there was very little or no footage from inside the building from that moment. So, we have to kind of figure out or, hopefully, the authorities will give us some clues as to whether there's more surveillance footage.

BERMAN: Yes. We just don't know what they have at this point or where they even begin. One thing that we should make clear, they never publicly stated the name of this person of interest.

[07:05:03]

This was something that was developed by CNN and other outlets via sources from inside there, but they were careful throughout the day about releasing information, but it turned out they just don't feel like they had the right guy.

TODD: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Brian Todd, great reporting on this, obviously a lot more to do. Thank you very much.

With us now, CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Jonathan Wackrow. Jonathan, great to see you this morning.

Let's start with where we are and where we're going. So, what now? I mean, after you have a person of interest in custody, you develop all this kind of evidence on that person, but it turns out you now believe he's not connected. What do you do?

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes. Well, John, listen to that sigh of relief that authorities had announced when they stated that they had a person of interest in custody, has really been replaced by this sobering reset in the entire investigation. And the reality is it brings investigators back to square one. They have no suspect in custody. And, really, they're not even intimating that they, you know, have somebody that they're even looking at. And the challenge is that, as time goes on, this investigation gets significantly harder.

So, this is a really hard reset going back to almost square one, where they have to go back and reassess every single lead that they had you know, right in the aftermath of the shooting, going back to reassessing all of the ballistic evidence, all of the digital leads to the point that, you know, Brian Todd was making just a moment ago, they have to go back through that surveillance video and dig deeper. They have to dig deeper into the neighborhood, into the community and anything that will give us a better image of who this suspect potentially is and where they're going.

So, again, there is a monumental task ahead with a lot of challenges around time, distance, and resources that are up against law enforcement investigators this morning.

BERMAN: And there is this reality, Jonathan. There's a killer on the run, on the loose right now. They have no one in custody. A lot of, I think, the atmosphere on campus yesterday was this sigh of relief that they had someone, people felt safer. You know, I'm standing right on the street, that is the crime scene right behind me. No police cars within view. Some police tape there though right now. How safe is this city?

WACKROW: Well, listen, this is the challenge for public safety officials right now and university officials. What they must do is they must act on facts, not fear, while trying to keep the city functioning as they move this investigation forward. We said early on that there were a lot of indications that this attacker and this incident was a targeted attack against someone or the university in and itself.

With that as the context, you know, laid out by a lot of the attack dynamics, the fact that the students aren't there reduces that target profile. So, are officials worried with real time intelligence that there will be a secondary attack to that location or the city at large? Right now, they're not even indicating that, you know, they have any of that information. But the reality is that they need to act with, you know, precision in terms of, you know, what they're going to do with this investigation, not paralysis around what are the -- you know, how do they just lock everything down. Time has gone by now, we haven't seen any indication of a secondary threat or, you know, a targeted group that's working together.

So with that in mind, investigators really have to move quickly through all of the evidence that they do have to ensure that they identify a suspect and bring that suspect into custody quickly.

BERMAN: The authorities said they had no idea if the person was in the city or even in the state. At this point, you know, 36 hours after the incident, how far afield could this suspect be?

WACKROW: Again, you know, immediately, the shooter created that time and distance by evading police in the moments after the attack. And so the challenge for law enforcement is they allowed for, you know, potentially physical evidence to degrade. You look at digital signals will also, you know, go cold.

And as they go back to re-interview witnesses who, many of which have now gone home for the holidays, the memories start fading those details that are really important in the aftermath of an incident around, you know, maybe a particular gate that the person walked in, or, you know, the way that they comported themselves as they were walking through a hallway or out on the street, they start losing that fidelity. So, it puts, you know, investigators up to a significant challenge on, you know, how are they going to, you know, reset this investigation.

And, you know, final point here, John, is in the immediate aftermath, we saw this surge of federal, state, and local resources all converging on Brown University, right where you're standing. Look around, they're not there anymore. So, the challenge is with this monumental task of resetting the investigation, their resources are, you know, limited right now.

[07:10:03]

And they have to rebuild those resources to, you know, lead this investigation forward.

BERMAN: All right. Jonathan Wackrow, great to have you on helping us understand this, frankly, stunning twist in this investigation. We appreciate your help here. Kate, I do have to say there aren't people out yet this morning because it's so early, but I have to believe it will be a radically, radically different feeling we get here at Brown, even as so many people have already emptied out. This all really enters a new phase. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Absolutely, John. John is on the scene, has been since really this started playing out. We're going to get right back to you J.B., a lot to come from Rhode Island.

And we also have breaking news out of Los Angeles. Police are investigating an apparent homicide after famed director Rob Reiner and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home. There are huge questions swirling around this. We'll get the very latest.

And 15 people are now dead, dozens wounded after that anti-Semitic terror attack in Australia. There are new details coming in just this morning about the suspects. We're also learning more about the hero bystander who wrestled the gun away from one of the attackers.

And a JetBlue plane flying near Venezuela narrowly avoiding what the pilot said could have been a mid-air collision with a U.S. Air Force aircraft. There's new audio coming in from the cockpit as this close call laid out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

BOLDUAN: So, breaking overnight, police are investigating now the shocking deaths of legendary director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, found dead in their Los Angeles home yesterday. The couple was killed in what authorities are calling apparent homicides.

In a late night press conference, the LAPD though said they are not currently searching for anyone as a suspect, saying at that point they were still seeking a search warrant to carry out a full crime scene investigation there.

CNN's Stephanie Elam has the very latest. She is near the home in Los Angeles and joins us now. Stephanie, what are you hearing?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kate, obviously, we are looking for so many more answers to so many questions that people have here, and obviously we're not getting them as quickly as people would like. We can see back here behind me, we've got police lights and down there. We can see the investigation where those. Clear lights are down there in the distance, those white lights, all of this happening here in this tight-knit community of Brentwood, and just a seismic loss, not just for Hollywood, but also for a lot of people outside of this industry as well when you look at how much the Reiners have contributed to what has produced here in California and in the country. So, lots of questions on what has happened here.

What we do know, as we heard from the LAPD Deputy Chief, Alan Hamilton, is that there are still more steps before we get more answers. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Chief, why are you not exactly looking for a suspect? Are you confident, you know who did this?

DEPUTY CHIEF ALAN HAMILTON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: We have not identified a suspect at this time.

REPORTER: Well, then shouldn't you be looking for one so, these neighbors aren't worried about their own lives and their own safety?

HAMILTON: Yes. So, at this time, after we determine -- so I need everyone to understand something, in order to comply with the legal process, before we do anything here, we have to get a search warrant, because there are issues regarding standing at this residence. So, as long as those legal requirements are met, we can continue the investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: And then keep in mind that it is just after 4:00 in the morning here in Los Angeles, so it's still going to take some time since we were in the overnight. But we do know that the first call came in the afternoon local time yesterday about this loss. And we are seeing more and more people come out and speaking about this. But, obviously, this entire community and the industry as whole are shaken today by this news. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Yes. And just talk about that reaction that has been coming in. I mean, just shocking is often an overused word, and this is absolutely a shock.

ELAM: Yes. Titan of industry is often an overused term, but it really does apply here. I mean, you're talking about a man who shot to fame because of being an actor on All in the Family, who went on thinking he was going to be single, and then ended up meeting Michele Singer, and they got married and were together for over 30 years, both of them working together and having their own projects.

And so many of Rob Reiner's movies are quotable. You know, you think of Princess Bride, you can think of lines from that. You can think of all in the men. You can think of the way people remember his movies and you're seeing that play out in who we've heard from today. I mean, we've heard from the governor of California, Governor Gavin Newsom, saying he's heartbroken. That's the same word that we heard Barack Obama used as well. We've heard from Kamala Harris and others who are reaching out now to let people know just how huge of a loss this is. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. All right, much more to learn hopefully in the coming hours. As Stephanie notes it's, you know, the wee hours in L.A. Hopefully much more to come this morning. Thank you so much, Steph.

So, there are also a lot of new details though coming in about what is now the worst terror attack in Australia's history, what's now known about the suspects who carried out this anti-Semitic attack on Bondi Beach, the death toll now at 15 people killed.

[07:20:00]

And jury deliberations are set to resume very soon in the trial of Brian Walshe, the man who pleaded guilty to disposing of his wife's body, but says he did not kill her. The jury -- it is now in the hands of the jury. We're going to take you there.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: We are learning new details this morning about the horrific anti-Semitic attack in Sydney. On the first night of Hanukkah, 15 people were killed and dozens injured. And what's become the worst terror attack in mass shooting -- worst terror attack in Australia's history. Police say a father son duo opened fire on families who were gathered for a Hanukkah celebration on the famed Bondi Beach. Australia's prime minister calls this attack an act of pure evil.

[07:25:01]

We're also learning new details though about the hero bystander who single handedly disarmed one of the shooters. Video shows Ahmed Al Ahmed from behind a vehicle -- jumped from behind a vehicle and you can see how it played out, just remarkable and caught on camera. The 43-year-old is currently recovering from gunshot wounds that he suffered during the incident.

CNN's Angus Watson joins us now from Sydney for more on the investigation. Where do things stand right now, Angus?

ANGUS WATSON, CNN PRODUCER: Kate, the investigation is obviously focusing on the two suspected gunmen here, one who died at the scene, law enforcement officers shooting him dead, the other in hospital now with critical but stable in injuries. The police this morning have raided two homes in Sydney, one where it's believed that this father, son duo, the two gunmen, stayed the night before the attack, another, their family home.

While the police do that, while the police comb the crime scene for evidence, the Jewish community here in Bondi is grieving, trying to make some of this shocking anti-Semitic attack. Here right where I am, there's been a vigil on the second night of Hanukkah meant to be a celebration. Instead, it's a memorial to those lost, 15 people killed, the youngest being a ten-year-old girl, Matilda, who died of her injuries in hospital overnight. The oldest, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor named Alex, who came from Ukraine to Australia for want of a more peaceful life. After the horrors of the Second World War, he died on Sunday in a terrorist attack trying to shield his wife from violent anti-Semites with guns. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And this investigation now continues. There's so much to be learned. Australia, though, the government talking very quickly about taking action to try to make sure this never happens again.

Angus Watson in Sydney for us, thank you so much.

We're continuing to follow other breaking news this morning. And we have learned much more about legendary Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, found dead inside their home. Police are calling in an apparent homicide. Lots of questions swirling still, we're going to get the very latest.

Plus, this video out of Montana, raging floodwaters causing a bridge to collapse as the Pacific Northwest is about to get hammered with another round of serious rain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]