Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

Person Of Interest In Brown Univ. Shooting Released From Custody; The Reiners' Son Nick Is Taken Into Custody On Unknown Felony Charge After His Parents' Deaths; Death Toll Climbs To 15 After Attack On Australia's Jewish Community. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired December 15, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:35]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news. The search is on to find the suspect in the deadly mass shooting at Brown University. After police released a person of interest, we are live on the campus with the latest in the investigation.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And Australia in mourning right now. A terrorist attack targets a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach. Australia now faces scrutiny for its handling of anti-Semitism.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

And we begin this hour with new details on two deadly mass shootings. This morning near Sydney, Australia, crowds gathered to honor the 15 people killed at Bondi Beach. Police say a father and son opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration.

BROWN: And in Providence, Rhode Island, a search for the gunman who killed two students at Brown University has to begin anew. Late last night, police released their person of interest in the attack. Well, this nearby surveillance video, you see it right here. It was just after the shooting, may now be the best lead in finding a suspect.

So let's go live now to see John Berman right there on the campus of Brown University. What more are you learning this morning, John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A very different day here this morning, Pam and Wolf. We just did speak to the mayor of Providence who was telling us that video that you just saw right there is the clearest view they have of the people they believe was connected to the shooting, the person they believe was connected to the shooting.

But they do have other evidence they're looking at right now, even though this video, which, frankly, isn't that clear maybe to our eyes, they say is the clearest picture that they have. The mayor also told us that he doesn't believe there is a current threat to the community. He noted that he's been out this morning meeting with people headed to school.

Of course, public schools here are open of all ages and telling them that they are safe, even though there is a manhunt for a killer on the loose. Some of the local colleges, though, University of Rhode Island, the biggest college in the state, has canceled final exams for today. We're just learning.

They say there is no immediate or specific threat to any of their campuses, but they're merely taking it as a precaution. Other schools were hearing, giving students the option of moving those tests or exams if they have them online. The news that the person of interest that they believe that they had in custody yesterday, that they turned out not to have evidence or the right evidence connecting to this case and releasing him, it has been something of a setback in this community.

The mayor told us more of a moral setback because they felt like they crossed a barrier leading to the end of the investigation, and now everyone back on guard again. The mayor did emphasize, though, that they are continuing to follow other leads and chase the evidence wherever it does lead them. I've spoken to several students this morning here, ones who are still at Brown.

They were told they could go home yesterday. Exams canceled, classes canceled, and some did start leaving yesterday. I will say, with the revelation overnight that the person of interest they believe they had, that they released them and the manhunt is still very much on, it really has changed the tone here.

And those students who maybe were planning to take one day or two days to get out, they're getting out today. Students telling me they simply don't feel safe here. And we have picked up some frustration in parents that we've reached out to.

They say had they known that the person of interest in custody wasn't the person who would ultimately become a suspect, they would have tried to get their kids out much sooner, and now there is a sense they are scrambling just to do so. I'm standing right on Hope Street. You can see behind me, that is the engineering building where the shooting did take place behind that police tape.

Two students dead, nine injured. And this morning for the first time, we are learning the identity of one of the students who was killed. Her name is Ella Cook from Alabama. She was vice president of the College Republicans. The local church where she comes from put out a release saying they are mourning her loss this morning. That is the first name that has become public of someone who was directly impacted by this.

Authorities said yesterday they were having some trouble tracking down all the family members and they were not going to release names until they reached everyone involved. This became public through the church that Ella Cook was connected with down in Alabama. So that state, that community, as well as the community here at Brown and Providence now mourning her loss.

[11:05:15]

Obviously, we have much more to learn on the victims, but Wolf, Pamela, it's really now the investigation that has taken this new, urgent turn and they have to go back and start sifting through the evidence they all have to try to figure out where to go next. Pam, Wolf?

BLITZER: And our deepest condolences to Ella Cook's family. May she rest in peace and may her memory be a blessing. John Berman, thank you very, very much.

Let's continue this conversation right now. Joining us, our senior law enforcement analyst, the former deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe. Andy, thanks for joining us. How big of a frustration is it to investigators that they have now released this person who was called a person of interest?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Wolf, you know, I'd probably describe it more as a disappointment. I mean, every -- every investigator involved in this -- in this incredibly important effort was probably really looking forward to getting across that hump as well, getting -- getting -- having someone who they could then start thinking about as a defendant in a prosecution. That's obviously not the case.

Now, it's, you know, it's not unheard of to have an investigation go in a completely different direction and have to start over from scratch as the investigators. We actually saw a version of this two weeks ago in the D.C. bombing case. We know that that case got, you know, the leads got a little bit cold after a while and they brought in a new team to relook at the evidence.

So it's almost a moment like that for these investigators. They have to start rethinking how they're going to collect evidence to ultimately identify the person who committed this shooting. There's a lot of different ways they can do that. The question is how much of that work kind of got sidelined or maybe deprioritized when they thought they had the right person in custody.

BROWN: All right, Andrew McCabe, thank you so much. We actually have to get to some breaking news, so that's why we're cutting this short. This news is out of Los Angeles and the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner. I want to get back to Stephanie Elam. What are you learning, Stephanie?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, we have a big development here now. We can tell you that Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of Rob and Michele Reiner, has been booked into a Los Angeles jail. That happened on Monday, happened today after his parents were found dead. Now, what is worth noting here is that it doesn't exactly say what he's charged with, but we do know that his bail has been set at $4 million, according to these jail records that we are seeing here, but still not clear on what has happened here.

Family members are continuing to be interviewed as this investigation continues, but obviously this is a very large development here, that there has been an arrest booking into jail for this case, for the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner, and now learning that the person who has been booked into jail is their 32-year-old son.

BLITZER: Yes, it's an amazing development indeed. I want to bring in our chief media analyst, Brian Stelter, who's joining us right now. Huge development. I must say, Rob Reiner was such a major presence in Hollywood all of these years, but give us your reaction to what the -- the breaking news is.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: That's right, and Rob and Michele Reiner had three children, two sons and one daughter. They were most recently photographed together, all as a family on the red carpet for the family's newest movie. Rob and Michele had both worked on, Rob had directed a sequel to "This Is Spinal Tap." So they were out there being photographed in September all together as a family. But it's going to obviously come up right away that Nick Reiner struggled for many years with -- with drug abuse.

He was homeless for a time, and that's something that Rob Reiner spoke about and was public about and was transparent about. In fact, the two men worked on a film together about 10 years ago. The film was titled "Being Charlie," and it was loosely based on his son Nick's experiences earlier in life. Nick Reiner did not end up getting other screenwriting credits later, but they did come together for that collaboration about a decade ago, and Rob Reiner spoke very eloquently about learning about his son, about learning about Nick's struggles through that filmmaking process.

Quoting from "The Los Angeles Times," back then, Reiner and his wife struggled as their son, Nick, was addicted to hard drugs, rotating in and out of rehab facilities like they were shopping malls. The couple wondered if there was an end in sight. So that -- that's a decade ago. That is in the past. But it is relevant context about Nick Reiner, 32 years old, as people are going to be wondering now why he has been taken into custody and why he's been booked on this felony charge.

[11:10:01]

And now, Wolf, we're going to wait for answers from authorities there in Los Angeles.

BROWN: Yes, we are waiting for answers, and Stephanie on that point, what happens next for Nick Reiner, do we know? And also, can you tell us any -- anything more about him? We learned from Brian, but I know you can expand.

ELAM: Yes, I think what's also worth noting, right, we learned about this happening, that it happened in the late afternoon local time here in California yesterday. Looking at the jail booking document, you can see that Nick Reiner was arrested yesterday. That's a new development that we've seen in there, and he was booked into jail today.

We did hear from the Los Angeles Police Department that they had to get a search warrant to further their investigation before they could even go farther with saying who they thought may be the suspect in the case and what may have been a motive. We were standing out here very early this morning when they took away the police tape, opened up the street, and now shortly thereafter we're getting this booking information from the jail.

So just giving a bit of context --

BROWN: All right.

BLITZER: I think we're losing our connection with Stephanie Elam, but we'll get back to her for sure. Brian Stelter, you're still with us. Talk a little bit more about Rob Reiner's impact on Hollywood. As all of us who grew up watching Rob Reiner, we know he was huge.

STELTER: And in so many different ways. That's one of the reasons why Rob Reiner was a special figure. It's why some people today are likening him to a mayor, an unofficial mayor of Hollywood. It's because he was not just a writer and actor. He was not just a director and a producer. He was not just a role model to younger filmmakers. He was all of the above. You know, that's why we -- we saw other legends like Larry David hurrying to his home in Brentwood yesterday, wanting to try to be there, wanting to try to be close to the scene. Reiner was larger than life in that way, partly because he worked for so many different decades.

You know, getting his start at a playhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and then on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS in the late 60s. Those writing credits then turned into acting credits, most famously with all in the "Family." And, you know, you think about even the name of that sitcom. You think about him playing Archie Bunker's son-in-law. "Family" and that connection of family was really important through his decades. I mentioned that he had three children with Michele. That was a love story in and of itself that spanned almost 40 years and helped inspire the ending of "When Harry Met Sally," something we've been talking about here on the air this morning.

So that's just going to intensify the curiosity and the concern about why one of his sons, Nick, has been booked on this felony charge, this unknown felony charge. Unfortunately, we're in a little bit of an information vacuum right now, but we do know a family member was interviewed by police last night, and now we know one of the sons is in custody.

BROWN: Yes, and tell us more about the reaction to Reiner's death and his wife's death. And I, you know, just to mention, you personally spoke with Rob Reiner in the past. I mean, you -- you had a connection to him that a lot of people didn't.

STELTER: Yes, I was thinking about -- well, I was thinking about what it was like to sit down with him because, you know, sometimes you never know what you're going to expect when you're talking to one of these A-listers who's been around forever, who's been out there in -- in the moviemaking industry, who could -- who could be doing anything, talking to anybody.

Sometimes they might be dismissive, but in the case of Rob Reiner, he made everybody feel at ease immediately. He was cracking jokes with the folks there on the set that day, having everybody in stitches. You could tell that he was a natural-born entertainer, and that came, of course, in part from his father, Carl, who was a comedy icon as well.

Reiner was married once in the 70s to the late Penny Marshall. Then he met Michele while working on "When Harry Met Sally," and that's why the end of the film changed the way it did, because Rob Reiner was newly in love. And then they had a really great working relationship for decades.

I mentioned that film "Being Charlie" that was loosely based on his son Nick's struggles with homelessness and addiction. But there were films that Michele and Rob worked on together, including most recently that sequel to "This Spinal Tap" that just came out in September. I was inspired by an interview Reiner did with NPR earlier this year, saying that he wanted to keep telling stories, that even in this A.I. world, this corporate Hollywood world, that people are always going to want to connect to great storytelling.

And that's what Reiner was able to do, whether through his own production company, through supporting actor roles on sitcoms and movies, or working with his wife on any number of film productions.

BLITZER: You know, and we also know a little bit more now about Nick Reiner, the son of the Reiners, and some of his past struggles, as you correctly point out, with addiction, which in part inspired the movie "Being Charlie," which Nick and his father worked on together. Right, Brian?

STELTER: Yes, I was struck by this sentence in "The L.A. Times" story, as we all pieced this together and understand more of the background. It said Nick Reiner did, quote, survive his descent into heroin and homelessness, getting clean. And he and his most famous father decided to deal with their family's troubled past, in a most unlikely way, by making a movie about it. Rob Reiner talked in interviews, again, this was in 2015, a decade ago, about how he was able to better understand what his son went through.

[11:15:21]

And his son was in his early 20s at the time, Nick Reiner now 32. I mentioned they were photographed together on a red carpet. They were also photographed last year together, at an event, at a restaurant opening. So there was a sense of togetherness. We know this family was fully together at some points. There are other photos, though, where you don't see Nick Reiner in the picture, where you see the other son and the daughter with their father.

So there's a lot we still don't know yet about the history here, about Nick Reiner in recent years. A lot of people with questions right now, most specifically about why he has been brought into custody.

BLITZER: You know, it's interesting, Rob Reiner was not only a Hollywood director, but he was also heavily involved in politics. He donated to many Democratic political groups and candidates. And I had a chance, and I remember this vividly, of interviewing him back in 2004, just ahead of the third debate between President George W. Bush and John Kerry. Here's some of what he told me at that time. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB REINER. FILM DIRECTOR: The fact that we've, you know, 3.8 million people have lost their health insurance, almost a million people have lost their jobs, and over 6,000 people are dead or wounded in Iraq. These are grave mistakes, and we have a president who's unwilling to admit to any mistakes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: He also advocated for a number of causes, including marriage equality, early childhood education, and fighting big tobacco. Brian, tell us a little bit more about the politics of Rob Reiner.

STELTER: Yes, and unfortunately, President Trump is out this morning with a pretty crude, pretty crass post about Reiner, suggesting that maybe somehow he died because of his hatred for all things Trump. Hopefully that's not going to get too much attention today as it really muddies and pollutes the discourse. We're talking, unfortunately, about a Hollywood murder mystery, right? We have police on the scene investigating what is an apparent homicide. You know, unless it, you know, somehow there was some accident at the home, and there's no indication this was an accident, we're talking about a situation where someone seemed to want Rob and Michele Reiner dead.

And there's a lot of questions I'm sure the authorities are trying to answer and will then answer in the public in due course. One of the most gripping parts of the reporting overnight was about the fact that a relative went over to the home and was there and was -- and was the person who originally see -- was able to see these bodies. Your heart goes out to whatever relative that was, whatever film member that was, who stumbled onto this crime scene.

And, you know, I think as more reporting comes out, we'll find out who that was and what that moment was like. But it may speak to the -- the close-knit nature of this family coming over on a Sunday afternoon, whether that was on an ordinary Sunday or because they were concerned, in this case, about the mother and father of the family.

BROWN: Yes.

STELTER: And, again, a lot we don't know on that front so far, Wolf.

[11:18:05]

BLITZER: I assume we'll be learning a lot more. And once again, Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of the Reiners, now facing felony charges. He's in jail, and his bail is set at $4 million. We'll stay on top of this story. Much more on the breaking news right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Happening now, scores of people paying their respects today after 15 people were killed and dozens injured in what's become the worst mass shooting in Australia's history. Australians also lined up today at a blood donation center in Sydney as hospitals continue to treat dozens wounded in the shooting. Police say a father and son opened fire on families who were gathered at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach. One witness describes what they saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know what I saw. I saw him shoot the gun, and it just all hell broke loose. There's just people everywhere, kids everywhere, kids screaming. People screaming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Australia's prime minister calling the anti-Semitic attack an act of pure evil. Let's go live right now to CNN anchor Lynda Kinkade. Linda, what more, first of all, are we learning about the suspects in the shooting?

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this investigation is led by the terrorism police in Australia, and they have named the suspects as a father-son duo. The father's name is Sajid Akram, and his 24-year-old son is Naveed. Now, we know the father immigrated to Australia back in 1998 on a student visa.

He got a gun license about 10 years ago, and we know that he legally owned six guns and also had a license for recreational hunting. Now, his son, Naveed, was also born in Australia. He was under investigation by ASIO, which was the Australian Domestic Intelligence Agency, back in 2019 for links with two people that were in jail that were considered radicalized.

Now, the police at the time didn't consider him an imminent threat. Now, the father is deceased. He was shot by police. The son is currently in hospital with gunshot wounds. He's in a stable condition. He is expected to be charged once he's medically fit to face those charges.

[11:24:58]

We are also learning about the victims, Wolf. We now know this is an international tragedy. There are victims from all over the world, including Israel, Ukraine, France. We know about a 10-year-old girl in Australia. Her name's Matilda. Her parents had immigrated from Russia. She's now deceased.

We have also heard about Peter Meagher, who was a former police officer, a well-known rugby volunteer and manager. We heard a statement from his Randwick Rugby Club, who described him as an absolute legend. He served as a manager, a referee, a volunteer. And, of course, we heard about Dan Elkayam, a 27-year-old French citizen who was originally from Paris. He'd been in Australia just a year.

BLITZER: And we also know that an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor was among those killed in Australia as well. It's so heartbreaking, everything that's going on. Australia, as you well know better than I do, has very strict gun control laws already. But now they're talking about even tightening those gun control laws, aren't they?

KINKADE: Yes, exactly. The big question is how this could happen, given Australia has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. They're looking into what more can be done. As I've discussed with you, Wolf, 30 years ago, Australia's modern-day gun laws were introduced after the last major massacre, the Port Arthur Massacre, which left 35 people dead. Back then, they decided to introduce a national registration licensing system, and they also banned semi- automatic weapons.

Now, in this case, we know the suspects legally owned six guns. So the prime minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, is calling on his cabinet to investigate whether they need to reassess the licensing system and have a renewal system in place so that you don't have a license forever. You have to actually go and seek and renew it each time. They're also looking at the number of guns that can be owned by -- by a single person. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Lynda Kinkade with the latest developments, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: And, Wolf, the world is hailing a hero from this weekend's attack in Australia. Video shows a bystander, you see it right here, who risked his life when he charged in and wrestled the gun away from one of the shooters after he started firing. He's been identified as Ahmed Al-Ahmed, a father of two whose parents just arrived to Australia from Syria. Ahmed is currently in the hospital now recovering from gunshot wounds that he received there at the scene as he tried to intervene.

BLITZER: A real hero indeed.

BROWN: Yes, so brave.

BLITZER: And we thank him for what he did. Just ahead, we're talking with the head of the American Jewish Committee as the Bondi Beach attack raising new fears about a global rise in anti-Semitism.

[11:27:43]

BROWN: And we are standing by for a press conference from the FBI in Los Angeles after a foiled bomb plot planned for New Year's Eve. We'll bring that to you live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)