CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript - Colorado Shooting

Interview

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CROWLEY: Joining me now from outside Arapahoe High School is Colorado governor John Hickenlooper. Governor, thank you for joining us. You had this situation Friday in a school where young gunman entered a high school, shot and critically wounded a young female student and went on to shoot himself. And all in a very short period of time. Can you first start with anything you know about the condition of the high schooler?

GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER, COLORADO: Well, Claire Davis was a wonderful, wonderful young woman. I went to the hospital, I visited her parents. They're obviously very distraught. She's in critical condition. You know, it's unspeakable.

CROWLEY: It is, governor. And too often you and I have spoken about things like this. Watching this unfold and the information that we've gotten, there are a couple questions that arise. First is, this is a young man who walked into a high school, got into a high school with a machete, a pump shotgun, the ammo strapped to a band across him as well as some Molotov cocktails. He was visibly armed we are told. So correct me if I'm wrong. How does that happen? It seems to me that at the entrances of schools, someone that is visibly armed should not be able to get in.

HICKENLOOPER: Well, this is a large high school. Like many of the large high schools, there are kids coming in and out all the time. They did have a deputy sheriff on the premise. I mean, the moment there was trouble, he was running to the scene. But you know there's a balance. And school administrators and school boards are trying to make a school not be a fortress. They want to be a place for education. I'm sure that's one of the decisions that we're going to be looking at again going down the road with another shooting like this.

CROWLEY: Looking at all the doors, perhaps locking them, obviously more expensive to have people at them all the time. But you're right, many of these big high schools have multiple doors that folks can get into. Let me ask you what more you might know about the motivation of this young man.

HICKENLOOPER: Well, we don't know. There have been reports that maybe he was bullied. I mean, this is really kind of inexplicable that he would for seems like not that big a deal, would come after with the intent to kill the teacher that had demoted, the librarian. I can't even fathom it. But, you know, after last year at our legislative session, we put in place over $20 million just to dramatically spend mental health, 24 hours, seven day a week call-in centers and mobile crisis centers to train people like they do in CPR (INAUDIBLE) how to recognize mental illness when you see it. Get to it quickly. But this kid, by all accounts, wasn't -- didn't exhibit the warning signs of mental illness. Obviously, it's hard to fathom why he would have done this without being somewhat crazy. But bullying does seem to be -- a number of these kids were bullied at some point. We have programs now throughout the state, anti-bullying, trying to get kids to deal with that in a more constructive way.

CROWLEY: And let me ask you finally, governor. Any thought that this took place because or in some way was motivated by the one-year anniversary of the shootings in Connecticut?

HICKENLOOPER: Well, you know, our sheriff here, Grayson Robinson, who ironically announced he was going to retire the end of January, had a career of almost 42 years. He's pretty convinced that there's no relationship to it. Again, they've got to do an investigation. They've got to really look into it. But we don't see any connection at this point.

CROWLEY: OK. Governor John Hickenlooper in Colorado, let's meet again in happier times. I appreciate your time.

HICKENLOOPER: Thanks, Candy.

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