Pima County Sheriff’s bureau chief talks to CNN’s John King about the missing black bag
CNN chief national correspondent and anchor John King spoke with the bureau chief of the Pima County sheriff’s department Richard Kastigar about the new developments in Saturday’s mass Arizona shooting.
Excerpt of Interview
THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, HOST: There have been some reports that on the morning of the shooting, he ran from his father, that he was having some conversation with his father and he ran away perhaps with a backpack he then brought to Safeway. Is that true?
RICHARD KASTIGAR, BUREAU CHIEF, PIMA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT: Well, here’s what transpired. And this is what the father has told us. Some time that morning, he saw his son out in the front part of the home with a — with a black bag — and some have described it as a backpack. I’m not sure. We don’t have it, so we don’t know really what it was.
The father asked him questions to the — similar to what are you doing, what is that?
And Jared mumbled something back to his dad. And his dad said he didn’t understand what was said, it was unintelligible. And then Jared left. The father followed. The father got in his vehicle and tried to locate his son and followed the direction that he went and he could not locate his son. The father thought the — the son went into the desert some place.
KING: Was there any cooperation issues the parents or are they fully cooperating?
KASTIGAR: To my knowledge, none whatsoever. You know, this is a tragedy for them, as well. And although most of us really, really, really sink our sympathy and our heart and soul and thoughts to those that were killed, those families of the victims themselves, but, in my opinion, I think the — the family of the suspect really are victims of this, as well. And it’s really — you know, bad situations, bad things happen to good people. And there’s nothing to indicate to us that these were bad folks.
KING: You — he was stopped — not by your department, but he was stopped the morning of the shooting for running a red light. Anything other — anything incidental about that?
KASTIGAR: Not — it’s not really related to the case. And I would have to defer those specifics to the parks and recs department, that — that made that stop.
KING: OK, nothing that should have caused an alarm or…
KASTIGAR: Not to my knowledge, no.
KING: All right. Do you have any doubt at this point in the investigation that he acted alone, just him?
KASTIGAR: We are — we are positive he acted alone. As you know, early on in our investigation, we had reason to believe there may have been another individual that was interacting with him. And it’s based on a photo that many people saw. That individual identified himself to us and said I was a taxi driver and here’s what happened.
I dropped him off. He didn’t have change. He went inside, got — all of that is explainable in the — in the — in the pics that we have. And there’s nothing to believe, beyond the suspect himself, that anybody else had a hand in this.
KING: You mentioned you don’t have the bag.
KASTIGAR: We do not.
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